Yet when they came out into the unwelcome sunlight, they saw a big black car with a black-suited driver waiting on the bridge. Gerry was half leaning against it. As they reached him, they saw that he was practically sober. His black suit was too tight for him, and cut in the style of ten years ago, but it was clean and pressed. He nodded to each of them as they stepped past, and they realised that he was in tears. ‘Oliver would be pleased that you are going to say goodbye,’ he mumbled, with the drinker’s sentimentality.

When they were past, Pansy murmured through tight lips, ‘I think Oliver would simply laugh at the whole thing.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Helen answered wearily. The sadness of the day was choking.

What did Tom feel? she wondered. Why was she being such a fool as not to be with him? His face flushed in front of her with the vividness of a hallucination.

Because of her loyalty to Darcy.

And Darcy didn’t need her after all.

The familiar drive to Mere took them through the luxuriant, high-summer splendour of the countryside. The broad fields were golden yellow or lush green, fringed with the heavy-leaved shade of oaks and elms. Cows moved through the pastureland, up to their bellies in the rich grass. Through the opened windows Helen caught the scent of cow-parsley, and the dog-roses that rambled over the hedges. She turned her eyes away and looked down at the black hem of her skirt. The beauty of the day and the tranquil thought of the seasons’ slow succession was too painful to contemplate, because it was over for Oliver.

They drove slowly through Mere village, and Helen saw that the curtains in many of the cottage windows were drawn. At the Mortimore Arms, a black pall was hanging over the swinging sign board that bore the family coat of arms. At the end of the village was the square tower of the little Saxon church. Beyond it was the low grey line of Mere House, enclosed by its yew hedges against the sunny hillside.

No-one spoke as they walked from the car to the lych-gate. The road was lined with silent villagers, many of them farm-labourers with ruddy faces and pale foreheads left startlingly bare by the removal of their caps. From the church tower a single bell tolled, the reverberations dying on the still, scented air and then gathering again.

As the cool shadow of the lych-gate passed over her face, Helen looked to the south door of the church and saw Darcy standing in the porch. He had a brief word for each of the dark figures that came slowly past him. She walked heavily on up the path, past the ancient yew tree at the gate and the mossed headstones of long-forgotten Mortimore tenants.