The Moss House

by Clara Barley

  Then there were the other men, the ones already married who still believed they could win over another woman. There have been a number of them. We should perhaps not let them into the house at all. Women only, like the men do in their clubs. They have their ‘men only’ places but we are not permitted any. Any man can stride into our houses, our rooms even, and make themselves at home. Say crude things and even lay their hands on us, as if in innocence, but in truth they are guilty. It’s the married ones you must watch, especially when you see a plain wife with an attractive man. He’s married her for money, and therefore she will never satisfy him. I suppose the same is true for attractive women with ugly husbands. I see their eyes and hands wander, to gently touch what has been forbidden to them; an attractive partner. Or perhaps everyone is having affairs and committing adultery in the plain sight of God and no one speaks of it? Perhaps I am so separate from this world and so naive that I have no real idea of what goes on at all. We can only go by our own experiences and what we hear. If all the gossip I hear is true, and that’s only what has been found out, then all people are wicked.

  Miss Lister

  Father paid for a woman to visit me when I was still young and not yet aware of my own body. Father had no money to give me an allowance like my uncle did, but he did pay for this woman to come to my room.

  She was of average beauty but of fine body. She said that she was mine for the evening and she asked me what I wanted to do with her. I had no idea. It was like putting a piano before someone who cannot play. I liked how she looked but had no idea how to make the keys sing. Luckily, she was kind and took her time with me. She kissed me first, long and hard. I’d kissed Eliza before, but this was something forbidden and so was even more enticing. It wasn’t the soft, gentle, uncertain kisses of girls but a woman who had kissed many others. She held my arms and then my neck and back and her tongue made its way into my mouth, a first for me, but ravishing. I resisted at first; it felt too intimate, an invasion of my space, but after a while I opened wider to let her in. She carried on, kissing and kissing, wide mouthed, tongue searching, teeth clashing occasionally, but she never pulled back. All my world narrowed. Drawing back for air and pressing in again with lips and tongues, hands grasping at arms, shoulders, waist, neck and up into her hair, pulling her to me, as if I had been let loose and never wanted her to be apart from me.

  She held my lip gently between her teeth and I searched for hers, holding it then releasing, then sucking, then more deep, powerful kisses as our mouths moved together, unsure where mine ended and hers began. Then she moved away from my mouth’s reach and kissed my neck and shoulders, pushing down my dress and she was at my ear lobe, sucking gently and tickling with her tongue and then back to my neck, nipping and kissing, soft then hard. She pulled me to the bed, sat behind me and undid my dress and corset, all the while teasing my neck with her lips, as my heart raced. My dress fell to the floor and she pulled me back onto her lap and kissed me again on the mouth as she pulled out my curls. I felt vulnerable and would have preferred for it to have been the other way around, but I hadn’t known how to do what she was doing. I was learning, I was her pupil. This would be what I would desire to do to others.

  Her hands reached for my breasts which had never been truly touched before, not by determined hands like these. She pushed me down and kissed my naked breasts, my sides, my stomach, and squeezed my thighs. I felt so alive and yet afraid that it would end. I lay still, allowing her to touch me all over with her hands, her lips, her tongue, my body growing hot and out of control as she moved down the bed and before I could move or protest she leaned in and her mouth found my queer and she kissed it and licked it gently and then began to lick harder and seemed to suck on me, focusing all my pleasure into that one spot, which I had discovered myself before, but had never known could be so alive. As I lay there at this woman’s mercy, learning what pleasures my body could give me, and what I could do to elicit this pleasure from others, I wondered what else there could be in the world as satisfying as giving oneself to another… but then I could think no more as she worked me to a state that people never speak of: consumed by pleasure and so alive and then in a wave of pleasure emanating out to my toes and fingertips, I knew that this was what I wanted. Not with an unfamiliar woman paid for by Father, but from a woman who loved me, whom I would love and care for and give pleasure to. I knew I wanted to make women’s bodies sing. I committed to learning to read the music and play the notes.

  In the way that I am, after all that pleasure, I sat back in bed with my new tutor and got out my pocketbook and pen. I asked questions and she showed me with her hands how to elicit pleasure with fingers and circles, and pinches and tickles and squeezes and how women’s bodies, unlike men’s she told me, can be aroused from anywhere. Even just kissing an earlobe can drive a woman to pleasure. I made notes, which somewhat surprised her, and tried a few things on her. I liked to draw pleasure and to be on top looking down, clutching her wrists in my hands as I pressed my mouth to her breasts and neck and down to her queer. A discovery itself of a fascinating space, which looks unwelcoming but is easily opened and explored and swells with passion which you can see rising in a flush across her chest and neck and face as she loses herself to you. Women’s bodies have fascinated me ever since; so different from each other, each one a new discovery.

  I think I was her best pupil.

  I have never seen a man’s body unclothed, at least not alive; nor do I wish to. I’m not sure what their down-there is all about. God must have been in a hurry at that part. Sometimes I can appreciate the beauty in their faces and understand why a weaker woman may like a broad-shouldered man, but their hands are rough and ungraceful, their faces sharp with stubble, their hips narrow and bottoms flat. Their ugly Adam’s apples bob up and down as they speak, a reminder of their maleness. Their voices are gruff and they lack softness in any aspect. I better not start on their egos…

  Women are the fairer sex and although I am one of them, I believe I stand apart. I have a soft body and breasts and a queer like them, but I also know how to pleasure them more than any man. For men, I learned, can only have pleasure once, then they need to recover. We women are blessed with a never-ending capacity for pleasure, and a variety of it.

  Poor fellows. Little do they know what they are missing.

  Chapter Four

  Summer, 1832: Difficulty in finding

  private time to be alone at Shibden

  Miss Lister

  We continue with our now weekly meetings but unfortunately Marian and my aunt like Miss Walker too, so often it’s a family affair in which even my father joins, so it becomes the four of us Listers with her until I am occasionally able to steal her away just for myself. I encourage Miss Walker to read and learn as I do, but Marian shows keenness and I become a tutor to them both. Even Aunt and Father listen in as they pretend to sew and read the newspaper respectively, as I share my books and notes from the science lectures I attended in Paris.

  I am enjoying these visits and family time and do not feel in such a hurry to go travelling again as I had when I first arrived. I wonder if domesticity and family life has me in its clutches already.

  As I write up my diary for the day from the notes in my pocketbook after another visit from Miss Walker, I ponder why they all seem surprised at my desire to learn. How do they find contentment here? If only I could quieten my mind sometimes. Allow myself to just sit, as others do. Instead it needs feeding with information; it is never satisfied. Each new topic or theory leads to another and a lifetime is not long enough to read even the smallest amount of what has been written. The task seems unmanageable, so I try to focus on particular themes; mathematics, physiology, histories, languages. Then I will get taken up with music or landscape gardening or bird watching or politics. How easily I become obsessed! I was lucky that Father saw it in me when I was young and sent me to school. I was the brightest student, but it quickly became d
ull and I asked too many questions that the teachers could not answer. I grew restless and troublesome. Even now, I continue to read and better myself with knowledge but often I ask, to what end? Whilst I may be more privileged than most women of our generation, we are all still barred from franchise, the law, medicine and religion: all the foundations of our nation.

  My assertions and emotions, whilst natural to any man, in female form are deemed improper. Displaying our intelligence is threatening, our free spirit is a lost soul, our physicality is unladylike, our singleness is unholy, our loneliness and anxiety manifest as madness, and our frustrations and our anger mark us out as women to be locked away; poor victims to the female malady.

  Paris is far more free-thinking and forward-looking. My most recent sojourn there lasted for nearly two years, my aunt visiting with me for some of the time. It was always a glorious time of new friends and experiences, good food and parties, conversations that enthralled me and an opportunity not afforded to me in England: I wrote to ask for permission to attend lectures on science and to my own surprise was granted permission to attend, at least to sit at the very back where no one would see me. Not officially, but I was not forbidden.

  Anatomy was my favourite subject. The body fascinates me; each part a miracle but so fragile and susceptible to damage and disease. Perfect yet imperfect, and here were human beings trying to fix bodies that had broken, make them work again, cure them, improve them, edging in on God’s work. I was fascinated. I tell Miss Walker and Marian of the bodies I have seen and they are repulsed but enthralled.

  To see a corpse makes one feel more alive, I believe, and in some way, more detached from one’s own body. It is just a vessel. A marvellous but flawed vessel whose appearance we cannot choose. Our bodies do not reflect us, but may limit us, or set us free. They are how people see us and judge us, dictating our life’s course regardless of the soul inside. To see one cut open, the raw flesh and muscles and tissues and veins, I watched on in wonder. Had I been a man, I would have been a doctor. Probably not the most sympathetic doctor as I find many people infuriating, but I would have worked on research at the forefront of science. They believe they can re-animate a body! I should like to see that.

  Here in Yorkshire, the world closes in and I am absorbed with what women usually focus on – finding a partner – and this neighbouring heiress Miss Walker is now a viable choice. After suffering pleasantries with the family yet again, she suggests we go for a walk, and I know well what she means. More kissing in the woods or can we finally move to something more? If only we had a private place away from our houses and families. What would be the chances of finding a lover just on the border of my own estate, who has been there all along? She is in my mind ever more and I can tell I have infected hers, but my previous loves come back to haunt me and make me wary. Can I really love again, or trust another with my heart?

  After poor Eliza was taken from me and I met Isabella, I had hoped that she would be the one for me. She certainly felt the same as me about women and we did have some fun, but she was never enough for me. I feel cruel for it, but she was not clever enough. Though she pleasured me well and could be good company, I knew I needed more to spend my entire life with someone. I loved her home at Langton Hall, perfectly situated just seventeen miles from York, and we could have lived between our two homes; her sister, brother and mother were all good company too. Her brother was the same age as me and we got along well. His wife died a few years ago, but he now seems content to come and go with his son Thomas, the next to inherit, leaving a female household of three women, none of them with any inclination to marry. But I did not choose her. I chose Mariana, who was never meant to be mine.

  I look back through my old diaries and re-visit my younger self. It was always Mariana for me. From the moment we met in York everything about her excited me, and for a long time I believed the same was true for her. All those years ago, an exchange of vows, our futures were settled together and then she received a proposal from an old fool of a man with a large amount of land in Cheshire.

  He will die soon, she would tell me, and we will be set for life. I was left waiting in the wings for my time to perform, which never came. Waiting, awfully, for him to die. But the old fool has too much life left and instead seems to drain it from Mariana. She is no longer the woman I loved, would have given anything for, spent my every living day with. She took a gamble on him, his life, and lost. It was a gamble I never wanted her to take. In the end we both lost.

  After Mariana married, I spent more and more time abroad or visiting other friends, not wanting to return to the family at Shibden alone. Then it was Maria whom I met in Paris who took my heart and we formed an idea of a future together, but she too was unable to satisfy me. I grew cold towards her and by the time I left her in Paris, just before my uncle passed away and I received some inheritance, I was done with her and have never been in contact again. Foolishly, as I see now, I was still confident in my early thirties that the perfect woman for me would arrive. But here I am past forty, alone again.

  Miss Walker

  She tells me she has dissected a head! I have so many questions I daren’t ask her in front of her family; was it horrible, were you afraid it would come alive, do you think God thinks that’s a proper thing to do? In the two years she most recently resided in Paris, I sat at home. Sewing. Possibly doing a few sketches. I may have read one or two novels. Oh, how different our lives are. I am jealous, of course, though I would never be one for dissection. Her world is much wider than mine. Though my family have more wealth (better to never say that aloud to her!), she seems to have had more privilege. Her father sent her away to school, encouraged her to travel, paid for tutors. Confidence emanates from her. How could she ever be satisfied by me?

  I must think on my own accomplishments.

  Nothing comes to me. I look good in bonnets. Oh, how shallow I am. I am nothing more than a vessel for clothing and pleasantries. My sewing is half-hearted; my aunt finishes my endeavours when I grow bored with them. I do not think there’s a single handkerchief I can take full credit for.

  I am an expert at melancholy! I shall mock myself before others do.

  I look pretty. That’s sincere. I would venture to say that I am prettier than Miss Lister. Good that I am too, otherwise she’d not look twice at me. I believe she likes how ladylike I am. She praises my posture and delicate hands. She likes to see me sewing and drawing. I shall become more accomplished for her. I shall engage an artist as my tutor. Perhaps I shall take up piano lessons again and surprise her with a recital one day. I shall whisper to her before I start to play that I am not wearing any drawers! That might pique her interest in my playing even more. How saucy I am! I have never felt so base before, but I find my thoughts stray these days. It is her influence on me. My other friends have been far too sedate all these years.

  She is cleverer than me though, of that I am certain. Not just in what she has studied, but in her mind. Anyone can read a lot, but you must be clever to digest it and extrapolate meaning to discuss with others. I wonder if she minds my lack of intelligence compared to hers? Does she seek a companion who would be her equal, or just for company? If she represents an intelligent husband, is he content with a milder, but more attractive wife? Perhaps she does not want an equal in intellect, for then they might disagree and argue, always challenging each other, whilst instead I listen and ask her to explain it to me clearly, like the dutiful submissive wife. I shall stick to my novels. Her science seeks to make sense of the world but are novels not another way of doing so, even those dismissed by Miss Lister as a waste of time? I love to hear others’ stories and choices and dramas. Relate to heroes and heroines and lose myself in a world unreal. I do not want to know how the brain works, I want to see its workings in art, words, imagination. I want to enjoy the outcome of a mind, not see the components that make it work. I like the face of a clock, not the clockwork.

  Mis
s Lister

  I had to shave all the hair off the head as it was crawling with lice.

  I do not tell any of them this detail. But when I am alone again, I consult my diaries from the time and re-read my musings on how something so inanimate had once been so animated in life. What is it that causes it to live and where does that ‘life’ go upon death? Is that the soul? Why didn’t God explain it clearly? In the Bible there are few mentions of anatomy and how we work. Man is discovering it for himself. Is God willing in this? Is this God’s work, to discover for ourselves what makes us, or is He angry that we dare to question, interfere, play with bodies in the name of science? Was I interfering with someone’s soul? Could they rest peacefully with their head separate from their body? Did my actions hurt them in Heaven?

  At least she will not be itching from the lice anymore. For it was a female head.

  My mind wanders. How do we have such different forms, men and women? Surely it would have been easier for us to be the same and to be able to procreate alone. To leave it to a form that must choose another, different to itself… is that to ensure there are two guardians of a baby? Though that is not always the case. Or should babies be placed in the care of a community and the responsibility shared, with generations of a family all involved? I suppose that is the ideal. How are some babies left alone with not even one person to care for them? How are others born into wealth and ignored by their parents and family?

  I shall never have any babies myself. Though it saddens me to be the end of this branch of the Lister line, I do not feel an urge for it. They are sweet enough; I shall visit Vere, my delightful friend and her new baby soon and quite look forward to it. I marvel at how so small and pathetic a creature can grow so large and become a person, with memories and ambitions and intelligence and the capacity to love, yet also the capacity to hate. To ruin lives of those around them, or to improve them.