by Clara Barley
Miss Walker
Marian Lister and I kept up our correspondence and I visit more regularly since my return from Scotland. I decided to pursue my friendship with her as she seems a good match; she is nearer my age than most of my family and acquaintances and is single too. We get along well and have decided we will travel to York for a short stay soon. I enquired last week if she’d heard from her sister on her travels and she told me that their aunt was taken ill a month ago, and as she had sworn to her sister that she would tell her if she needed to return, she’d written to her. She had then sent a second letter two days later to say that the worst had passed and she need not return, but she had had nothing in reply to either letter. I asked her if she was worried at not having heard from her and she replied that when she was in France, they did not hear from her for weeks or months at a time. Did she never wish to join her, I ask, and she confides in me that she has been seeing someone, so does not want to leave. She makes me swear not to tell anyone.
Today it is my turn to visit Marian and I decide to walk over to Shibden rather than take the carriage. I’m feeling stronger and despite the cold chill, I encourage myself to accomplish the hour’s walk. I am sure to be offered a lift home in the Lister carriage.
Then I see her. Plain as day. Miss Lister.
Chapter Fifteen
Spring, 1834: A marriage and a new addition to the Lister clan
Miss Lister
We shall henceforth call each other by our Christian names; it’s a shame we have the same one! The only difference is that her name does not have an ‘e’ like my Anne. I’m rather accustomed to thinking of her as Miss Walker but I shall endeavour to call her Ann.
She should really be Mrs Anne Lister. I should be Mr Lister. I could even be Mr Lister-Walker to give myself some additional airs and graces. Only in private, of course.
I am wed. Again.
Clearly, Miss Walker, or rather Ann, need never know she is technically not my first wife. How awful of me to have married before! I wonder if I need some sort of official annulment – but then it is all a fiction in truth. A good fiction that makes us feel bound and committed and hopefully blessed by God in our union. It is a wonderful secret that is ours alone. She is my wife!
We chose Ann’s favourite little church in York, Holy Trinity. We exchanged vows in our rooms and then went to church to take the sacrament together.
Now secured as my wife, she has agreed to move in permanently to Shibden and my family all approve, though hers do not, but never mind them – she will be away from them now.
When I saw her again after all those months apart, I knew what her answer should be. She was surprised to see me too, out on the point where our lands touch, and as we embraced, I felt at home. I can only imagine she felt the same as she cried, we both did in fact, and in hurried words we agreed to be together. It was silly to be separate when we were both single and alone. It seemed our months apart had done the trick to convince her and there was no hesitation in her answer. We walked back to Shibden together to tell the others that Miss Walker wished to move in with us.
My aunt, the only one aware of how tumultuous our relationship had been, replied that if we were both happy, then she was happy too.
My sister beamed with delight; it seems the two have become better acquainted in my absence, and Father welcomed her wholeheartedly and commented that he has put up with three single women in the house for years, so why not four?
Ann officially takes the room next to mine, which is connected by a servant’s passageway at the back so no one need ever suspect we share our new bed each night, arm in arm in my little bedroom on the warm side of the Hall. It is nothing compared to the salubrious quarters she is used to, but she tells me she feels at home here and would not change it for the world.
She visits Crow Nest each week and still meets visitors there. I simply call in. It is easier to make it seem as though she still lives there. Her letters still go there and nothing else seems to change, other than the feeling in my heart that I am complete once more, with someone in my arms each morning and night who loves me and says she will be by my side forever.
How could I ever have imagined that contentment would be found just a few miles from my home, or that it would take so long to achieve it? Yet here we are; what is easily won could never feel as rewarding as this.
Miss Walker
I cannot imagine gaining pleasure with anyone but a woman now. There are no expectations of entering you, pushing you open; the pleasure is on the surface until you allow it to course through you. You are not thrust about. It is about all of your body, each part of it aroused in turn until you are hot and your down-there throbs for satisfaction. She is slightly larger than me, stronger, but her form does not threaten me. She may hold me down but she will let go at the asking, she may scratch me but never too hard, she may push herself against me but I do the same to her, I throw myself upon her, allow all my weight to press her down, I squeeze her close to me, wrap her in my arms.
The clean lines of her form, all pink flesh except the fine soft hair on her legs and special place and tucked underneath her arms; all mine for touching, kissing, caressing. I cannot believe I resisted her for so long. I think back on all those months when all I let her do was grope around and play with her fingers and tongue on me when there is so much more.
Our marriage helps and the privacy of our Moss House. She can own me now. I have given every inch of myself to her and want her to take it. I own her too; the shape of her is all mine to trace with my fingers, admire, adore. I learn from her how she touches me, squeezes my shoulders and arms, sucks my fingers and toes, gently unpins my hair and pulls out my curls until it all is free and wild and falls down my back and she slowly wraps it around her hand and pulls me close to her and kisses me, holding me against her. I explore her down-there and discover the taste of it and how to tease her, build her up, then finish her and make her call out in pleasure. Then we lie there, our arms entwined, our bodies touching as much as they can and were it not for my paler skin it would be hard to know where her body ends and mine begins.
Miss Lister
I lie staring at her golden hair and pale skin, with just enough freckles to accentuate her beautiful face. Her arms and legs are less firm than my own which have been strengthened by so much walking over the years, but hers are beautiful nonetheless, and they are all mine to touch and hold as I please.
She can be soft and passionate, and now as my wife, she allows me all of herself, and I to her; my body is hers. Since her liberation, she has become a surprisingly accomplished lover who takes her time over me and builds me up slowly, working on each part of me, kissing and caressing, kissing and caressing, then she gives me pleasure but keeps me waiting, as she returns to kissing, then caressing my breasts and squeezing my thighs and then she returns to my down-there and with her powerful mouth draws from me an orgasm which makes me call out her name, and then it is her turn for pleasure and we alternate until we are exhausted or gently fall into a slumber in each other’s arms in the sanctuary of our private place, nestled in the woods, with high windows that no one can see into and a large wooden door, locked against the world as summer approaches.
Miss Walker
For all this pleasure my punishment is the Clap. She tells me it is manageable but I’m angry she did not warn me of this sooner. My down-there had become another of my worries these last few months and now I learn it is not my fault at all. Anne educates me and diminishes the magic of our pleasures somewhat by showing me a book of anatomy with diagrams that I’d rather not have seen. I shall accept it as a punishment for wanting her, desiring her.
It is still more that I could have imagined, this love we have, this freedom to just be. I have no barriers to her now. I strip down before her and allow her to claim all of me and I have a trust in her that I have never felt for anyone; I am safe, I am aroused. Her soft kiss
es all over me, that even when firm do not scare me but arouse me further. Each time our lovemaking is different; she focusses on a different place, keeping me guessing where she will caress me next. It is different kissing to a man’s, which is always intent on the same end. All their words, hand holding, flattery, kisses, wandering hands, all of it on target for one thing: to penetrate you, to claim you for their own pleasure, as if accomplishing you, with no cares for your desires. To pierce you with their wildness and leave their seed inside you, to claim your body and your soul as theirs. I think of all the women throughout the world submitting, believing that it is God’s choice for them – but He also gave us our own pleasure. Never written down by man, but passed on by women; a secret, never uttered or recorded, that we do not need men for true pleasure.
As I spend more time at Shibden, I am encompassed into the Lister fold. I had been so nervous that they would resent my presence, but they are a generous folk, so different from how Anne described, or rather bemoaned them to me. From all she had told me, I had grown to dread their reception – but I imagine we are all guilty of retelling the worst aspects of a person as they have riled us, forgetting the rest of the time when they are perfectly pleasant human beings.
My presence gives them an excuse to recount old stories, long told and heard over, but fresh to my ears. I hear of the tomboy Anne and how Marian would follow her around. Her father speaks of Samuel, her brother lost like mine, whom she had only mentioned in passing to me, but I hear that they were close. Marian tells me how jealous she was when Anne and Samuel would disappear for hours on end on their horses; she was never invited. Anne brushes it off, saying that Marian was not as strong on a horse, but I can tell that it was because Anne wanted her brother to herself, as I did mine.
Her father tells me of the letters he would receive from Anne’s schools asking him to come and remove her, but he would reply that if they were incapable of teaching an intelligent young woman then they should not call themselves teachers and should quit the profession altogether, and we all laugh.
Her aunt tells me in private how Anne has given her life such joy. She describes her as peculiar but enchanting, and I like this summary. Her aunt never wanted to marry either and her brother had always promised that he would look after her and she need never settle for anyone unless she loved them – and she never loved anyone other than her family. She was bold at courting and parties and social gatherings but never met her match in a man and in time slipped into the easy and secluded daily life of Shibden. She tells me that she and Anne’s uncle were already quite old when Anne moved in with them, so Anne never saw her in her prime. It had taken some convincing for young Anne to take her aunt to Paris with her but they both recount it as a joyous time.
I now see her aunt as another young Anne; the Lister women full of energy and intellect and a desire to travel, excepting Marian perhaps who seems denied these traits. Perhaps Anne stole her share? Her uncle never involved her aunt in the estate, though I’m sure she would have been perfectly capable. He did allow Anne involvement though, and her aunt tells me that was her doing in order to keep young Anne occupied. She needed a vocation and as most of them were barred to her because of her sex, why not allow her to be a landowner, the one thing not denied to her? By the time her uncle died, Anne knew what she was doing and could take over seamlessly. It sounds as if she has proven herself more capable than most of the male Listers before her, but I will not tell her that. It will go to her head.
Marian and I continue to grow closer and share more. She has become my substitute sister and I tell her about Elizabeth and her situation. I realise it sounds as if I am warning Marian away from marriage; I had quite forgotten her own courting! I assure her I only want to share as it’s a burden on me, selfish really. I say that I’m sure her chap will be of a good sort, but the way Marian looks at me suggests she is not sure herself.
Marian’s suitor comes over for supper with us and their father interviews him as he would a potential new Army recruit. The suitor stands his ground well at first, surrounded by our eclectic mix of four women and an ex-Captain, but begins to falter when asked what money he has and his political leanings. Unfortunately, he shows some sympathy for the Whigs and all of the present company other than myself sigh in unison and the room falls silent. Poor fellow. So close, but he should have done his homework. I thought everyone knew the Lister’s Tory politics. Obviously, Marian had failed to prepare him with answers beforehand, or did she know that this may be his undoing and allow him to walk straight into the trap? I cannot tell. Marian’s face never gives much away. Other than Aunt Anne, the Listers have a knack of hiding their thoughts well with new people – a skill I should probably try to learn more of – and so I am left unsure of what they could possibly be thinking. Nevertheless, Marian does not mention him again and I have already forgotten his name.
Miss Lister
I’m thinking that this could be perfect. Our lives fall together, and it turns out she does have some business acumen. The more she learns from my running of Shibden, the more she takes stock of her own estates and incomes. She visits her collieries now too, and we are seen about town. She joins us in the Lister pew with my sister, aunt and father. Let others stare if they will, for what are we but four single women in each other’s company? Surely, they must all see that it makes sense, all of us probably too old to marry and happy to remain spinsters. Why should we suffer loneliness because of it?
The world around us changes quickly and Halifax seems to prosper. The Walkers and their kin cannot help but be ever more successful. Ann struggles to spend her money, so I gladly oblige to help her. We shop together and treat ourselves, replacing all the curtains and bedding; we order the new dinner service we wanted from York and she agrees to all my plans for Shibden. The work is set in motion; a small piece at a time so as not to annoy my aunt or father with too many workmen at once.
My father, aunt and sister are all finally in agreement about knocking out the ceiling in the main hall and raising it to the full height of the roof. We will only lose one room upstairs for it, and the new staircase will be grand. I show them the drawings and I do not think they even mind me adding the initials A. L. into the woodwork. I later realise that the initials are also now my wife’s and so in a way we are all three – my Aunt Anne, myself and my wife – immortalised in the woodwork with the Latin words Justus Propositi Tenax inscribed between them; our Lister motto, ‘Just and true of purpose’. I order some finely turned posts for the stairs before they can change their minds, and add wooden figures for each of the banisters, including a lion clutching a shield with the Lister family crest. I shall make this a grand house yet.
I bring out of storage some portraits of our ancestors and have them repaired and reframed, so that we can adorn the new high walls with our family heritage when they are complete. I commission a local painter to capture Aunt, which she delights in, whilst Marian and Father both refuse to sit for portraits. Instead, I commission a landscape of Shibden for Marian and I leave my father to his newspaper which he reads as if he will be tested on it later and achieve a degree for the astute reading of it. He tuts and shares with us the parts that pique his interest as if he wrote the news or caused it himself.
One day I’ll commission portraits of myself and Ann. I’m not sure if I’d like to have myself looking down from the walls just yet, as if I have already died. I worry that they’ll never capture my likeness.
Miss Walker
The concern that we should do more for others plays on my mind. Sitting with Anne looking at our accounts, the two of us combined have monies to spare but she is intent on sacrificing more land to her ‘landscaping’ and building a lake which will serve no purpose but to add to her own grandeur. I tell her she has no one to impress as she has already won herself a wife, but she ignores me, and I know she’ll go ahead with her plans regardless.
We argue over philanthropy. I want to contri
bute to the children’s homes, but she would rather invest in a new museum of relics. She asks what the point in saving children’s lives is if there is no heritage or culture to educate or interest them? Let them all suffer and die then, I say, as long as you have some art works for the elite to look at, then never you mind.
I always knew we would quarrel on some points.
Anne does not seem to have the same compassion that I do. She does not seem to notice the poor in the streets. As she strides along to buy fabrics and books, she does not even glance at the woman with a baby that cries with hunger, whilst I pass her a few small coins and feel my eyes burn with tears. I suppose she does not have the guilt that I bear: the Walker success came from industry, from the blood and sweat of others. Being primarily funded by rents, the Listers give people work and income and their tenants live well. Anne is kind to them. Even when they do not use their vote for her party, the Tories, she visits with cheese and honey and always tries to help if illness befalls them and they can no longer manage their stead. She threatens to cast them out if they do not agree with her politics or fall behind on rent, but she never does. She compromises privately, but in public maintains her fearsomeness; I imagine it is to make sure they do not take liberties and so she retains their respect, and a bit of fear for good measure. I admire how she does that, but cannot match it myself. However, now that I am aligned to Miss Lister, the men who work for the Walkers do seem to pay more respect to me. When I appear at the collieries with her by my side, I see how they eye us, fear us and wonder at us. I feel braver now than I have ever done, but we do argue.
Mr Lister, always so pleasant to me, calls me to the study one day and I quickly fill with fear that it has all been an act and now he will tell me to leave because he has realised what we get up to. I attend on him and he greets me with a smile. He tells me he has heard that there is a new orphanage to be built and takes my hand. He tells me I am a kind, sweet soul; however, the report of the orphanage clearly states thanks for a bequest from Miss Walker of Crow Nest in the newspaper. He pulls out the page, lets me read it and then casts it on the fire so that Anne will not see it. When she notices the page is missing later, he tells her an extravagant tale of a wasp in the room and him squashing it with the paper before disposing of the dirtied pages. It is too cold now for wasps, but Anne is barely listening as something else has caught her eye. He winks at me.
