by Anne Choma
Anne’s writing about her sexual life offers a different truth to the one that has become dominant amongst some modern commentators, where strategically selected and sensationalist soundbites extracted from her diary have been used to cast her into the predictable predatory lesbian stereotype. Anne had eleven women-to-women sexual relationships in her lifetime (of varying intensity and genital intimacy), but many of her thoughts and sexual desires were fantasy, designed to be seen only by herself, concealed in her journal by her crypt hand. She stayed friends with almost all of her former lovers, a number of them forming petty jealousies amongst themselves when vying for her attention. Attempting to view her as a predatory stereotype diminishes her legacy and ignores the complexity of an identity that was formed at a time when there was no script for her to follow, no language to articulate what her place in the world might be.
Anne’s social circle consisted of a diverse group of women. All of her friends were well bred, educated, and in the main, financially privileged. They paid visits to each other, often staying with each other for weeks at a time. They would talk, gossip, socialise, ruminate, argue, fall out, make up, progress and grow their relationships, be it platonic or sexual. Within this group, a healthy and fluid attitude towards sexuality allowed Anne’s sexual relationships to flourish – with women like Isabella Norcliffe (known as ‘Tib’) from Langton Hall in North Yorkshire; Mariana Lawton (nee Belcombe), the daughter of a doctor from York; the widow and single mother Maria Barlow from the island of Jersey and the aristocratic Sibella Maclean from Coll in the Scottish Highlands. Fleeting affairs, though still intense, included Harriet Milne and Anne Belcombe and a Mary Vallance who Anne met at a house party in 1818.
Her ideal woman was pretty, rich and aristocratic. More than often, her successes were a combination of these ideals, falling short of the full package, forcing a compromise. Isabella Norcliffe, who Anne met in 1810 when she was nineteen, was a butch, hunting-and-shooting, snuff-taking, larger-than-life extrovert character. Anne described her as ‘shockingly brazen’. In the autumn months she would often keep Anne in a regular supply of partridges from the Langton estate. Polar opposite to Anne in terms of temperament, the relationship was not to last. Tib’s liking for the wine bottle, for partying and for staying in bed till late in the afternoon was anathema to Anne. It meant that the relationship was only ever going to last until someone else materialised – someone prettier and more feminine. Throughout her life Anne continued to make many long and happy visits to the Norcliffes at Langton, forming a special bond with elderly Mrs Norcliffe, who, like Tib, was to remain a life-long and treasured friend.
Mariana Belcombe was the most passionate of all of Anne’s relationships. They met in 1813 when Anne was twenty-three years old and Mariana was twenty-four. She was sister to Eliza, Louisa, Anne, Harriet and Dr Stephen. This was the woman who Anne Lister had loved and had wanted to marry. And she was the woman who, in 1816, broke Anne’s heart when she married the wealthy Cheshire landowner Charles Lawton of Lawton Hall (the ‘blackguard’, as Anne called him). Many years later, Anne referred to the marriage as ‘the day of doom that sealed so many fates’ (2ND MARCH 1832).
In 1824, Anne went to Paris and began a relationship with a woman called Maria Barlow, a widow and mother to a teenage daughter called Jane. Maria was intrigued and instantly attracted to Anne, and at the hotel Place Vendome where they were both staying flirtation soon began. Maria was besotted, passionate and sexually forward, but when she learned that Anne’s real affections were still tied up with Mariana back home their relationship crumbled and she was left devastated. Anne felt guilty knowing that what Maria craved could never be given, but she decided to remain friends with her. They continued to meet and travel with each other and experienced many adventures together.
Even after her marriage, Mariana Lawton continued to play a pivotal role in Anne’s life. Visits between the two of them did become less frequent, but the recriminations and vestiges of old love remained a dominant theme in much of their correspondence. Anne realised the futility of their situation, but she stayed positive, believing that someone else would appear who she could spend her life with – ‘I always look on the bright side,’ she said. ‘My conviction is daily strengthened that all things work together for the good.’ By 1830, her feelings had changed irrevocably towards Mariana. She had started to cultivate new and more exciting relationships, crucially with women of higher rank. Mariana had only the prospect of an unsatisfactory, financially unstable future to look forward to with her husband. She had it all to play for to try and win back her friend’s affections.
In November 1830, Anne received the news that former lover Sibbella Maclean had died. Sibbella, a sophisticated, elegant woman of the minor aristocracy, and the daughter of a Scottish landowner, was a woman of breeding who Anne had found irresistible. Their relationship became sexual in 1824, but had failed to develop long-term because of Sibbella’s prolonged bouts of ill-health. Before Sibbella’s death, Anne had become acquainted with members of her family – most notably with elderly Lady Stuart, Charles Stuart her son, his wife Lady Stuart de Rothesay and their two children Louisa and Charlotte. Vere Hobart, a young woman in her twenties and Sibbella’s niece, had been introduced to Anne the year prior to Sibbella’s passing, when it had been suggested that Anne accompany her to Paris.
Anne was instantly attracted to the Hobart and Stuart family, not only because of what they could offer her in terms of improved social status, but also because they had important foreign connections that might be of use to her when travelling. Within this social circle, Anne was also introduced to a Lady Caroline Duff-Gordon, a widower, mother and great socialite. Lady Caroline, two years older than Anne and the daughter of former politician Sir George Cornewall, offered Anne the exciting possibility of becoming her next new travelling companion.
Anne’s relationship with Sibbella Maclean had sown a lasting seed of hope for her that a life of opportunity lay beyond people that she now described as ‘medium’ or second-rate. As she approached her fortieth birthday, Anne became more serious about finding a woman of rank to settle down with – someone perhaps like Sibbella’s niece, Vere Hobart. Between 1829 and 1832, she set about trying to realise this ambition in earnest – first on a stay in Paris with both Vere and the Stuart de Rothesays, and then afterwards on a lengthier stay in Hastings just with Vere. During this period, Anne got to learn much about how to conduct herself in society, but she often felt gauche and ill-equipped to deal with the demands made of her at social events. Lack of money remained an issue, as her inheritance at Shibden had still not been fully realised. With no carriage of her own and with nothing decent to wear to events she had little to impress her friends with – apart from her engaging company.
In 1832, when our story begins, we see Anne returning to Shibden from Hastings after having spent many months away from her family. Uncharacteristically she is disillusioned about what the future holds for her, and is at one of the lowest ebbs in her life. Whilst processing past events with Vere in Hastings, she describes herself as having narrowly escaped the same fate as Icarus, the mythical character of Greek legend, who dies having flown too close to the sun. Typically, she soon rallies herself into a more positive frame of mind.
Anne returns to a household at Shibden consisting of: Aunt Anne, aged sixty-six and suffering with debilitating rheumatism; father Jeremy, aged seventy-nine and a weakening man suffering from deafness, and sister Marian, aged thirty-four, who, in Anne’s absence, had been busy playing mistress to Shibden servants Elizabeth Cordingley, Rachel Hemingway and John Booth. Anne quickly re-asserts her dominant position within the Shibden household and throws herself back into the management of the estate, determined to improve the look of the hall and the land around it.
Then, following a chance visit to Shibden by a neighbouring woman called Ann Walker, Anne’s life takes a new and unexpected turn, opening up another chapter in her event-filled li
fe. Using her own words, we follow the twists and turns of a complex and unlikely love affair, where we witness Anne being pushed to the brink of emotional ruin as she tries to understand and care for this troubled woman who, she said, ‘had everything to be wished for but the power of enjoying it’ (19TH DECEMBER 1832).
Anne Lister said that she owed a good deal to her journal. She rejoiced in the power of language to help her at times of personal uncertainty and through heartbreak. She stood proud in a hostile world that could be cruel and unforgiving in its treatment of her. The future never really looked bleak for the woman known locally as ‘Gentleman Jack’ of Halifax, and who had to face many challenges in her life – Non si male nunc et olim sic erit, she said poignantly, quoting from her beloved Horace, or, ‘If it is ill now, it will not also be so hereafter.’
CHAPTER 1
High Society Ambition and Heartbreak in Hastings
‘’Tis well my heart should run no risk. She found it warm and open as a summer’s day. She’ll leave it closed in wintry mists, and as cold as they’
On 5th November 1831, Anne Lister began settling into a new apartment overlooking the sea at 15 Pelham Crescent in Hastings. Assisted by her ‘noodle’ of a servant, Cameron, she started by unpacking some of her extensive library of books, among them Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, de la Beches’s Geology, Dr Scudamore’s Observations on Pulmonary Consumption and Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
It was a rainy, blustery day, and Anne was pleased to discover a comforting piece of Yorkshire Parkin in her packing box. Choosing to ignore the fact that, judging by its label, the cake was intended for her manservant George Playforth, she shared it with Miss Vere Hobart, who along with her servant, Norbury, was busy unpacking her things in the bedroom across the landing. Anne’s aristocratic travelling companion was delighted by the sticky Yorkshire delicacy, describing it as ‘next to vanilla cake in goodness’.
Vere’s approval pleased Anne, who remarked in her diary that Miss Hobart ‘spoke as if with some regard for consideration for Shibden’. With the bills for the groceries, servants and the carriage being sorted amicably, Anne commented drily how Vere liked her enough to let her ‘pay for, and give her as much as I like.’
It was providence – or ‘dame destiny’, as Anne sometimes liked to call it – that brought Anne Lister and Vere Hobart to Hastings together in the winter of 1831. Anne’s original plan to travel to Spain with another friend, Lady Caroline Duff Gordon, had failed at the last minute, leaving her unsure of her next move. She didn’t like the idea of returning to Shibden, where she found living harmoniously with her younger sister Marian – the ‘cock of the dunghill’ – a challenge.
However, while it was a disappointment not to be going abroad with ‘quick, clever and agreeable’ Lady Gordon, who had already proven herself a ‘woman of the world’ and ideal travel companion on a tour of the Pyrenees with Anne in 1829, Anne herself recognised that the aborted travel plan was financially serendipitous. Still to receive her full inheritance of Shibden Hall, Anne had to watch how much she was spending. On top of that, the threat of cholera made the prospect of travelling to Europe, with anyone, less attractive. Anne noted on 20th September 1831 that ‘people were in great alarm’ over the disease. They included Lady Stuart de Rothesay, a relative of Vere Hobart, who had by now been settled upon as Anne’s travelling companion. Concerned that travel would exacerbate Vere’s persistent and debilitating cough, Lady Stuart de Rothesay warned Anne that ‘to go abroad was madness . . . even to Milan’.
Anne agreed. She was fearful of cholera too. By now, the epidemic had reached the village of Wibsey, only three miles from Shibden and, while nothing could compare to the ‘health breathing gales’ of the West Yorkshire dales, she conceded that Hastings and the healthy, bracing winds of the south coast could suit her and Vere both.
Anne Lister had been introduced to the Hobarts and Stuart de Rothesays in 1829 by Vere’s late aunt, Sibella Maclean. They were important society people; Vere’s cousin, Charles Stuart, the husband of Lady Stuart de Rothesay, was ambassador at the British Embassy in Paris, and Vere was the daughter of the Honourable George Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire. They had stylish residences dotted around London (in St James’ Park, Richmond and Marylebone), as well as the palatial Highcliffe Castle in Dorset. Theirs was a world far removed from draughty Shibden and Anne’s own family. But Anne was a skilled social networker. Always ambitious to forge links with the upper echelons of society, she charmed herself into their circle with her charismatic personality – and perhaps a slightly romanticised vision of her ancestral seat.
When Lady Stuart identified Anne as a ‘highly respectable person’ to accompany her great-niece to Hastings, Anne was more than satisfied with the arrangement. ‘Well,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘I shall have more society with Vere at Hastings, and I had better be with her there than wander about the continent thro’ cholera alone. I do the kindness and it suits me well’ (21ST SEPTEMBER 1831).
Doing ‘the kindness’ was something Anne was already practised in, having acted as a chaperone to Vere during the Stuarts’ stay in Paris two years previously. As well as a milestone in Anne’s conquest of her new aristocratic friends, it proved significant in her love life: it was during this trip of 1829–1830 that Anne determined to win Vere’s heart.
However, Anne’s first impressions of Vere were not entirely favourable. On 8th July in 1829, when the two women paid a visit to the Conservatoire des Artes to look at the horology exhibition, Vere had to be persuaded to go in. At twenty-seven years of age, she lacked Anne’s natural confidence. She did not like the look of the gathering crowd outside, made up mostly of men. Anne, who had no such qualms about propriety, thought to herself that Vere was ‘a goose’. In another diary entry, she branded her a ‘noodle’. Later, when comparing her with Mariana Lawton, the on-off lover for whom she still harboured complicated feelings, Anne decided, unkindly, that Vere was simply ‘a good humoured fat girl’ (30TH JULY 1829).
But as the two women got better acquainted, and Vere became more comfortable in her company, Anne changed her mind. She became ‘decidedly attentive’ towards Vere, ‘playing the agreeable’ at every opportunity. She began, slowly, to make Vere aware of the nature of her liking for her, recording in her journal every detail of the flirtation that was developing between them. She wrote that she was allowed to unhook Vere’s gown on going to bed (but was not permitted to untie her petticoats), and that Vere played love ballads for her on the piano. When she told Vere that ‘she was pretty, had the prettiest mouth I ever saw’, she noted that Vere took the compliment very well. Having initially thought that her ‘chance would not be great with Miss Hobart’, Anne soon reassessed – ‘’tis now clear she likes me’ (Travel journal, 13TH–14TH OCTOBER 1829).
Vere would go on to describe Anne as ‘the most extraordinary person’ she had ever met. It is clear that she was increasingly cognisant of Anne’s sexuality. When Anne asked why, unlike their mutual friend, Lady Gordon, she was not allowed into Vere’s bedroom, Vere’s reply was revealing: Lady Gordon would ‘not remember what she saw, and you [Anne] would never forget it’. On a separate occasion, Vere told Anne that when Anne happened to touch her, it led to a ‘ticklish’ feeling she could not quite fathom (Travel journal, 17TH OCTOBER 1829). Buoyed by this encouragement, Anne stepped up her efforts to forge a romantic connection with Vere.
Anne told Vere that she was going to construct a special cryptic alphabet, a secret language in which they could write to each other. Sharing her crypt-hand with potential lovers was a technique Anne had used before, and her imagination started to run away with her. ‘What will she write to me?’ she wondered.
Vere waivered, worried about the attention such a pointedly private correspondence might bring to her friendship with Anne. Noting her concern, Anne reported, ‘People might think if she used it she was writing something improper – it would not l
ook well to use it.’ Anne nevertheless succeeded in talking Vere ‘off her scruples’ and into using the secret code (16TH OCTOBER 1829).
Anne enjoyed making gifts to Vere. As well as a beautiful hand-embroidered handkerchief with a ‘pretty, coloured gothic border’ and expensive bottle of eau-de-cologne, there was a bottle of ‘golden ink’:
Gave her the little bottle of golden ink. She kissed me for it of her own accord. I laughed and said the skies would fall. We all sat in her bedroom, writing journal and accounts. She showed me a line or two of nonsense and asked me to write ‘festina lente’, which I did.
TRAVEL JOURNAL, 19TH OCTOBER 1829
Vere’s request for ‘more haste, less speed’ was a significant acknowledgement of Anne’s attentions. What Vere wanted was for Anne to slow down, to moderate her occasionally over-bearing manner towards her. Anne might have anticipated this, having noted in her journal some months before:
I cannot quite make Miss H out – whether she does not like me much, whether I have overdone it with attention – or whether she likes me and does not want to show it – and rather flirts with me. Is the latter possible?
31ST JULY 1829
Throughout her stay in Paris, Anne was eager to make a good impression on Lady Stuart de Rothesay and elderly Lady Stuart. She made sure to act with what she felt was the utmost propriety, careful not to raise eyebrows with her eccentricity. It was an approach which yielded mixed results, not least because Anne found it hard to resist acting in a decidedly gentlemanly fashion.
‘We get very cozy and good friends,’ wrote Anne, after a late night in Lady Stuart de Rothesay’s company. ‘Talked about women’s characters. She very liberal. We quite agreed on this point. She talked to me exactly as she would to a married man, and surely feels quite at ease with me’ (30TH JULY 1830).
