In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard Page B

government.”
    “It’s very . . .”
    “Chic?”
    Then we laughed and, suddenly, he was whirling me in his arms. Suddenly it was true: he’d come back for me.
     
    44

R O B E R T G O D D A R D
    We didn’t head for Meongate. Instead we walked slowly, by the field path, towards Droxford, hand in hand in the midday heat. It should have been idyllic, but my anxiety, so long submerged, had re-surfaced and my torn mood did not escape him.
    “Does your promise of last year still hold good?” he said.
    “You know it does.”
    “Then why so pensive?”
    “Because I warned you then that there are many things you don’t know about me. Now you’ll have to know them. They may change your mind.”
    “What things?”
    “For one thing, the Captain Hallows whose name you noticed in the churchyard was not my real father. It was somebody else—I don’t know who.”
    “You did read my letters, didn’t you?”
    “Of course I did.”
    “Then how can you believe such a thing would affect me? I love you, Leonora.”
    I stopped and hung my head. Illegitimacy, after all, was only a pale rehearsal for what I had to tell him. “There’s more. A man called Payne—”
    “I know about him.” He smiled. “My first night in the White Horse, one of the local wiseacres gave me the gen on friend Payne.
    It’s really of no consequence.”
    “You don’t understand.”
    “I intend to marry you, Leonora. Invite a whole cupboardful of skeletons to the ceremony if you like. It won’t make any difference.”
    “My grandmother—”
    “A dragon—I know. But you’re over twenty-one. We don’t need her consent.”
    “It isn’t that.”
    Suddenly, he grasped me by both shoulders. “Listen. I’ll go up there now and tell her: I’m marrying you whatever she says or does.”
    “But—”
    “No! My mind’s made up. You go on and wait for me in the White Horse. I shan’t be long.”
    Before I could speak, he’d set off back across the field. “Tony!
    Wait!” I shouted after him. But he didn’t stop.
     

I N P A L E B A T T A L I O N S
    45
    I stood where I was for some minutes after he’d disappeared from view. I could have gone after him, of course, could have forced him to listen to my account of events, but I didn’t. I had planned for a year how to put it to him and now I’d let the opportunity slip. I’d surrendered the stage to Olivia.
    At length, I trailed into the village and went to the White Horse as he’d told me to. I bought a ginger beer and sat by the window, sipping my drink and gazing out at the street. This is the worst waiting of all, I remember thinking. Our love survived a year apart, but can it survive Olivia’s few, well-chosen words?
    I must have fallen into a reverie. Suddenly, sooner than I’d expected, he was standing beside me. He must have come in the back way, because he’d already bought a drink and was holding it up in front of him, as if proposing a toast. He was smiling broadly.
    “What did she say?” I heard my voice break with the words.
    “The question is: what do you say? I picked up a special licence in London. We could be married there tomorrow. My sister would be delighted to put you up. She’s looking forward to meeting you.”
    “But . . . what about Olivia?”
    “I don’t think she’ll want to attend.” He sat down and chinked his glass against mine. “What do you say?”
    “What did she tell you—about Payne?”
    “Nothing. I told her I intended to marry you and she said, ‘Do as you please.’ I wouldn’t call it a blessing, but it was good enough for me.”
    “She said nothing?”
    “Other than that, not a word. So, is it on for tomorrow?”
    My thoughts could not seem to grasp what he had said. Olivia had told him nothing, absolutely nothing. I had given her the chance to ruin me—and she had stayed her hand. It made no sense and yet, with Tony’s smiling face before me, it seemed to make all the sense in the world.
    “Leonora?”
    “Tomorrow? Oh, yes,