Pansy spoke again. ‘I was watching him this afternoon. I think Oliver cast a long shadow. Darcy will grieve for him, but he’ll grow too.’

I hope so, Helen thought. If there were ever to be a fifth in this circle, I wish it could be Darcy.

The evening was over.

They were quiet as they watched the miles to Oxford slide past, but it was the quiet of calm, not sadness.

They came back to Follies House for the last time, down the steps with their faces turned away from the river race.

Hobbs had already taken Pansy’s vast load of luggage back to London. Chloe’s trunk of books stood corded and waiting for the carrier in the shadows of the hallway.

Helen hesitated at the foot of the stairs, looking up into the panelled heights. Each of them was aware that the moment of separation had come, and they hung back from it.

It was Pansy who broke the silence. Quickly she kissed Helen’s cheek.

‘Au revoir,’ she said, and went on up into the gallery. Her blonde head was a bright spot in the dimness and the scent of summer gardens drifted behind her. Chloe turned back and hugged them both, wordlessly.

Helen wanted to say Wait. Don’t go yet. But Tom was beside her and she knew too that, more than anything, she wanted to be alone with him again.

The year that was gone flashed through her memory, linking her for an instant to her own earlier self. Am I the same Helen? she thought, and answered herself No. The Follies year had changed her beyond recall, and it had brought her to Tom. Her fingers tightened gratefully on his.

It was time to leave Follies, and Oxford, behind her now, and she was ready for that. There was no question that she was leaving Pansy and Chloe, because they would always be with her.

Her smile broke out as she wrapped her arms around Chloe and hugged her until the breath was squeezed out of them both.

‘Don’t work too hard,’ she ordered her. ‘All work and no play, remember?’

‘Oh no,’ Chloe said with her throaty chuckle. ‘I don’t think I’ll altogether lose the knack of playing. I like it far too much. Just hope I hit the jackpot in the end, like you.’

They didn’t say goodbye. She blew a kiss down to them over the carved baluster and the silence of the house wrapped round them once again.

Helen shivered a little and said, ‘I don’t belong here any more. Tom, do I live with you now?’

He laughed at her. ‘Try and live anywhere else. Come on. I want you to myself again.’

The plush anonymity of the little rented house welcomed them. It doesn’t matter where we are, Helen realised. I live where Tom is, just like he is now, pouring tea into two striped mugs.