Helen’s feeling of being cast adrift was heightened by realising that she had no idea where she was going, now. She could go back to her mother’s house, and begin to look for a job all over again. Or if Darcy wanted her at Mere, she would go with him. That was what her promise meant and she had chosen to keep it. But in the times that she spent with Darcy, they were painstakingly gentle with each other, and almost formal. Neither of them mentioned it.

Downstairs Chloe was packing too. She would be coming back to Oxford after the summer, but not to Follies House. Too much had happened there.

‘I’ve got my London flat,’ she told Helen. ‘Come and stay with me until you get your bearings again. I’d love you to be there.’ Chloe was going back to do a freelance job, but London seemed to belong to a forgotten part of her life now. Helen’s company would be a precious link with reality.

Helen thanked her, but she hadn’t said that she would come. She was clinging to Oxford because she knew that Tom was still there.

The day of the funeral came.

In the morning Pansy materialised again. She came with Hobbs who parked Masefield’s white Rolls up on the bridge.

When Chloe and Helen found her, she was stuffing belongings into her bags. Hobbs was ferrying suitcases out of the diminishing chaos in her room.

Pansy straightened up from her task and smiled at them. Her plain grey dress showed that she was thinner, and her lovely face looked a little older. The maturity suited her. They hugged each other in turn, wordlessly acknowledging the sadness of their reunion.

‘The funeral’s today,’ they told her.

‘Yes. That’s why I’m here. May I come with you? I could get Hobbs to take me, but …’ She gestured out to the ostentatious car with a flash of the old, merry, irreverent Pansy.

‘We’ll all go together,’ Chloe said quietly. Instinctively they turned the talk, if not their thoughts, away from the black tribute of the afternoon.

‘Where have you been?’ Chloe asked her.