When he saw her, he smiled his grave smile, and his lips brushed her cheek. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly, and then he turned to Pansy and Chloe. A word for each of them as they passed into the dimness of the church.

It was packed. Two vergers came forward, and Helen found to her bewilderment that she was separated from Pansy and Chloe. The old man led her down the aisle, past line after line of mourners. At the very front, it felt like a mile away, was a high, carved pew with a twisted red rope across the step up to it. The verger bent to unclasp the brass hook from its round eye, and stood aside to let her in.

The family pew.

Darcy’s fiancée in the family pew. Helen knelt down in the empty, carved box and felt the loneliness gathering around her.

When she looked up again she saw the faded rose pinks and violets of the east window, the brass crucifix glowing in the dimness, and the banks of waxy white lilies on either side. Slowly she turned her head. At the foot of the chancel steps was the bier, with white candles in tall holders at each corner. On the big dark coffin there was a single wreath of lilies.

Helen looked away again, and up at the light filtering through the medieval stained glass. None of this, the pervasive smell of lilies or the muted organ music, was anything to do with Oliver. He was nowhere here.

The organ music died away with a single, long chord. There was a moment of whispering silence and then Lady Montcalm came down the aisle supported by her husband and son. She was moving slowly, suddenly aged, and her hand on her husband’s black sleeve looked knobbed and stiff. Her face was half hidden by a black net veil. As they came into the pew Lord Montcalm looked at Helen from under his white eyebrows. Grief seemed to have rubbed out the autocratic stare. Darcy came in after his mother, half lifting her into her place. Helen bent her head, saddened to see how tragedy had diminished them. Had she once been so afraid of them?

The rector of Montcalm was at the chancel steps. He began to read the old, magnificent words of the burial service. Helen bent her head and prayed that they would comfort Oliver’s family.

After the brief service, Darcy walked out into the aisle again and stood at the head of the coffin. At once five other men joined him, bracing themselves in readiness to lift the weight on to their shoulders. Helen saw that two of them had the unmistakable Mortimore head. Cousins, perhaps. Two more were from the boisterous company of upper-class young men who had filled one part of Oliver’s life since early childhood.

The sixth was Tom. It was Darcy’s graceful gesture to include him in the tight phalanx.