Oh dear, Connie said. I felt so awful, she said.

That began to annoy him again, feeling his heart subside, and his courage return. There was also the question of the knife.

You were only winded, he said.

Yes, she said. I felt awful.

He looked at her, daring her, expecting her to talk about the knife.

I’m sorry, Elyot, she said.

There’s no need to be sorry, he said.

But he got up and turned to hide his relief.

You needn’t give me the knife, she said.

Oh, he said. I didn’t mean to. You needn’t worry about that.

He went off by himself into the house. He felt ashamed. It was Connie Tiarks, and being like that to Connie Tiarks, and hating himself for being like that, it made him turn a corner in his mind. He went now to the bathroom and washed his face. He felt fresher now. Free from the face of Connie Tiarks. But looking at his own face, beneath the still damp hair on the forehead, he had the uneasy feeling of wanting to say something that he would not say.

Oh well, he said.

He consoled himself like that. He slouched a bit when he walked, as he saw the boys in the village do. He fortified himself unblushingly behind his superior age and sex.

Later in the year Connie left. She was going to join her mother in London. Because Mrs Tiarks was in reduced circumstances, Julia said.

I’ll write you letters, Eden, said Connie.

All right, said Eden. I haven’t your address.

But I’ll send you it, said Connie, undeterred.

She also said she would write to Elyot. That embarrassed him considerably. He could feel himself blushing behind the knees.

We’ll all write to each other, Connie said.

Her face glowed with gratitude for the letters she hadn’t yet received. She clung to the possibility of this. She wanted badly to be friends.

It’ll be funny when you’ve gone, Connie, said Eden.

It made Elyot look at her in surprise. But her face was pursed up seriously. He really couldn’t understand Eden.

Connie looked as if she might cry. She was wearing a pair of grey cotton gloves. The narrow piece of grey fur round her collar was fastened up tightly under her chin, cutting her head from her body; it emphasized her rather lumpy face.

Mrs Macarthy came into the hall.

Now say good-bye, Connie, she said.

So there were the good-byes, to Julia, to Eden, to Mr Macarthy. Connie kissed everybody, making it a sort of deliberate mission. So that Elyot was afraid for a moment she might be meaning to kiss him.

Good-bye, Elyot, she said.

She shook hands gravely. Remembering now her purple face as she lay among crushed mulberries, this that they still had as a secret between them, they had never told, because somehow they were both involved, he found himself regretting many things. The things you didn’t say. Or that only Mother said. Mother always knew what to say.