The Telling

gamekeeper, and the lack of interest would be mutual. When he got to town, he would make arrangements and send for me, and for his books. We would be married in Lancaster, he said, that is, if I consented, since I hadn’t actually given him an answer yet.
    ‘But you haven’t actually asked.’
    ‘Didn’t I?’
    ‘No, you instructed.’
    ‘Well then, that must be remedied.’ He took my hands, looked into my face, half smiling, half serious. ‘Would you do me the honour of consenting to be my wife?’
    It was dizzying, the way things had changed, the way we’d changed towards each other. I was so conscious of my own happiness that it made me shy again.
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    He touched a hand to my cheek. I still remember the feeling of it, the cool hard dryness of his palm, as if the flesh there is somehow haunted by his touch. ‘Just to do that; to touch you –’ he shook his head.
    He said he’d a friend who had a packet boat at Glasson Dock, it would take us down to London. There, he had other friends, and we could stay with them while he found work, since there was always work in London. And it was easy to go unnoticed there. He would keep his head down, stay quiet for a time. If that did not fall out well for us, we would go to America. He knew people who had gone there, and been prosperous. They’d help him find work and establish himself. Whatever happened, we would be together, and therefore happy.
    I was so giddy with everything that if he’d just suggested emigration to the moon I wouldn’t have raised a single objection. He loved me. His happiness depended on my company. We would be together. Anything seemed possible now.
    He found paper, and folded it, and wrote a direction on it. He fixed a stamp to it.
    ‘If anything goes wrong, if something happens and you find you need me urgently, write to me. You know how this works, don’t you. All you need do is write your message, seal it, and leave it in the box, and it will be collected and brought to me at this address. If I can’t come for you myself for whatever reason, I’ll send for you.’
    I took the paper and tucked it inside my bodice. I reached up and combed my fingers through my fallen hair. I divided it into three and began to twist it into a plait.
    ‘You must be patient,’ he said. ‘It will take a while to find lodgings, to make arrangements and send for you, it might take days. But I will send for you as soon as I can.’
    ‘I know.’ I felt a new kind of calm. All would be well. The certainty must have shone from me like light from a candle flame.
    ‘Enjoy yourself,’ he said. ‘Dance yourself giddy. Behave as though nothing is out of the ordinary.’
    I lifted the plait, coiled it around with a ribbon and pinned it into place. ‘Everything is out of the ordinary.’
    He touched the nape of my neck. ‘I used to have to try so hard not to hate him, and now I haven’t even a shred of guilt regarding him. I don’t even feel sorry for him. I really must be a wicked man.’
    ‘You’re irredeemable,’ I said.
    ‘And yet uniquely blessed.’ He paused for a moment, suddenly grave. ‘You don’t mind leaving all this? You won’t miss your family, your friends?’
    I found myself thinking about this a moment longer than was comfortable. His expression clouded with concern.
    ‘Not second thoughts?’ he asked.
    ‘Not second thoughts,’ I said, fumbling for the right words. ‘The opposite, perhaps. I feel like I’ve been missing people for a long time now; that they’re already gone.’ I smiled to show it didn’t matter. His looks clouded deeper. He touched my face, kissed my lips.
    The piece of paper, that I had tucked so carefully inside my bodice; I knew it would not be needed. It would be my talisman, my charm. Nothing would stand between us, not Thomas, not my father, not the whole of Her Majesty’s Militia. To me, at that moment, it didn’t matter whether we were married in Lancaster or London or not at all. This had been my wedding, this was my wedding dress. Though I hadn’t had the chance to finish it: the hem was still held up with pins.
    *
     
    There was a smell of wood smoke, the peppery scent of fern, and sweet straw and late roses. I could hear music from up on the green, and as I got closer, laughter, and talking. It seemed as though the houses were decorated in honour of my passing, the music was playing for me, everyone was gathered on the green to wait for my arrival. I was the heart and