by Clara Barley
I do not know how she manages it when my entire body shakes with tears and I cannot stop their flow. I can see them watching me, judging me, for who am I to sit with the Lister family? Both times I should have gone to my own pew and sat with my own aunt and the Priestleys, but when I say this to Anne she simply says, sit wherever you want to sit. I choose her. Once in the pew she holds my hand tight the whole time. Anne understands. My grief for her father and aunt is genuine, but she knows that my grief is not just over the death of these two; it is grief for all of them gone before which overflows. My tears may seem excessive to some, but Anne knows why they fall so readily. She told me later she could not help but think of her brother Samuel too, and in these long cold winter nights we hold each other and cry freely, away from the public show, away even from Marian as Anne does not wish her to see her upset. She tells me that in other countries they mourn more openly; they throw themselves on the coffin and wail and shout and scream and cry. What a release, she said, to be able to let it out. Whilst we English are expected to keep it inside and so carry it with us for the rest of our days. I agree, but think that I cry all the time and it never seems to lessen. I do not tell her this, and ponder what would be a release for me? I think perhaps if we could receive something like a medal for each loss, to wear with pride, and show others what we have suffered, lived through, endured. Let them see our sorrow borne upon our breast and give us pity and understanding.
I think of my parents, my brother, friends, aunts, uncles, the fiancé I knew so fleetingly, all snatched from us, and fall to mourning for all that has passed and all that cannot be. The questions rise up in me: where are they now, are they looking down on us, do they see me here in her arms, do they judge me, is that why I must lose them all, is this punishment for what I have chosen to feel and chosen to love?
The spiral begins again, and I hold Anne tight in the hope that she will not let me fall far. This time, though, she has her own grief and I cannot allow myself to fall into mine when she needs me. We need each other now more than ever.
Miss Lister
There is space in the Lister corner of the church for me. Me and Marian. Are we the last two? The space will be full then. The end of the Listers, as if the place assigned for our coffins knew before we did, that we would be the end of the line. There are some cousins in Wales and America, but what would they care of little Shibden? Although much improved by my additions, there is so much work still to be done. But I have the rest of my life for that. Right now, while I am still healthy and have a companion to take with me, the world awaits.
I look around at the weekly congregation and no longer see the faces of friends. They are just people whose lives once crossed with my own. Do any of them care for Miss Lister, Miss Walker and Shibden? Would any of them wonder where we went if we were to disappear? Would any of them anticipate our return? Perhaps it is my own fault for not being as great a philanthropist as others in the region. I never felt I had spare income for that, but perhaps that is what would have made the faces kinder to me. Shutting myself away at Shibden, remaining within the same narrow circle of friends may have kept me from my people. I delved into Halifax politics and the Literary and Philosophical society but never felt welcome in either.
I like to think I have cared for my friends and tenants and helped where I could, but I never felt as though I was from Halifax, just from Shibden. I am Anne Lister of Shibden Hall. It is its own small island in Yorkshire of which I am now solely in charge. From when I first moved in with my aunt and uncle, it was Shibden I loved. Although I would leave it, I would always call it home, miss it, return to it and seek to improve it.
The thought keeps coming to me that there is nothing here for me now. Marian threatens to leave us and go back to Market Weighton, but she does not, she is tied to Ann. Even the changes to the Hall have little interest for me now. It feels empty. Ann finds no pleasures here. I wonder why we stay. Perhaps the time is now to leave this place, these people who have vexed us, and once more venture out into the world, but this time I travel safe in the knowledge of what awaits me on my return; my home. My new library will be waiting for me, and with Ann’s money and mine we can ever improve it and live in peace, the two of us; but peace is far from my mind at the moment. In another five or ten years perhaps, but now the world awaits.
It’s just a shame that my beloved has the enthusiasm of a snail. Never mind, I shall drag her with me and rest assured when she sees the oceans, the mountains, she will fall in love with the world as I have, and we will both want to see and walk over as much of it as we can, while we can.
Although I do not like to admit it, if I do travel, this journey may well be the last. When I return to the completed Shibden, my tower library waiting for me, this time I may not be lured away again, but reside the rest of my days at the Hall, writing up my travels to share with others, overseeing the final building works. I suppose I could then share some of the Lister income with those less fortunate than I. But they’ll have to wait. I must enjoy myself first.
Whilst I am deeply saddened to lose Aunt, Ann and Marian mope about together, feeding off each other’s grief. Marian declares that if we are leaving her to travel then she does not wish to be left here at Shibden alone. Then come with us, I say, and she refuses. I have never been able to fathom what goes on in her mind.
Miss Walker
As Anne and Marian’s voices rise ever higher to best each other and be heard, though we are all in close proximity, Marian tells me I could stay here with her instead, and let Anne go off travelling by herself, and for the briefest of moments I rather like the idea. Perhaps Anne reads it on my face, as she is suddenly struck with a jealousy I have never seen before, and instead of leaving me behind with Marian, she decides to rid us both of her, our sister and dear friend, by declaring loud enough for the whole of Halifax to hear:
She’s my WIFE! She will come with ME!
And there you have it. I suppose it had to come out eventually.
We watch poor Marian’s face as she realises the full extent of our relationship and does not know where to look.
She packs her bags and returns to Market Weighton once and for all, leaving us both.
Chapter Eighteen
1837 – 1838: Two orphans in black
Miss Lister
As I survey the home that will pass through our family and see the world change when we are all dead and buried, I realise that the lion carved on the staircase is Father holding our shield that bears the Lister crest. We have our initials engraved in the ceiling by the stairs, A. L. to represent all the Annes of Shibden, and there he is at the entrance to the stairs, keeping watch, proudly standing under our Lister motto.
I commission a large stone version of the same lion to stand next to the Hall, six feet tall, to greet guests or warn them off. It is a vicious lion, anthropomorphic in its form but a lion nonetheless, like the one I saw all those years ago in York at the mercy of the tamer, but this one is free, he chooses to stand there. The Lister lion is Father – or is it perhaps me, as I pick up the Lister shield and try to defend us?
Now so withdrawn from local life, I try to focus on our immediate surroundings, the landscaping completed with the waterfall and ponds, the apple trees planted and new kitchen gardens in use. The gatehouse nears completion and the lake is almost full.
Is it all just folly, I wonder? Do I spend our money just to amuse myself, give myself some control, some achievements? Or is it a reward for my work, for my loss? Is it a vent for my frustration at all I could have been if allowed: a scholar at the forefront of science, a collector, a Justice of the Peace or a Member of Parliament? I practise speeches I could give in my head, but when I speak out loud my voice reminds me of what I am.
I continue to study and make notes and lists of questions that will never be answered; there is so much more to discover and the world moves on without any influence from little me. Hidde
n away here in my half-formed castle, what impact can I make? No one calls upon us now. We are forgotten.
My diary pages still fill. I cannot give it up; even on my darkest days I still must write. It is my addiction, but what will come of it? What will become of the volumes all neatly lined up on my shelves behind the panelling? What will become of us?
Ann will not come with me into Halifax to hear the proclamation, which serves also as the first carriage drive down our newly built road and past the nearly finished gatehouse. She sulks and remains inside as she has for much of the last year since Marian left. I fear to leave her alone with just servants for company, but I cannot miss this.
I tell her it would mean a lot to me and she can stay in the carriage, but she worries there will be large crowds. I give up, storm off by myself and take the maids with me instead who are excited by the prospect and quickly don their best bonnets and shawls.
We travel down my new road and past the gatehouse, to be completed any day now, and we turn left onto the main road towards Halifax to join the flow of traffic into town. An air of celebration greets us as the traffic slows to a halt and families get out and walk, leaving their carriages behind. I see the Priestleys and they beckon me and my maids over as if we are old friends, and we walk with them into the town centre. The throng of the crowds excites me. Once caught up in the noise, the bodies pressed close together, I am just one of many; no one looks at me, I am lost in amongst the hundreds, thousands even that have gathered. I feel alive again as we hear the announcement: Queen Victoria has been crowned as our new sovereign. The crowd cheers and chants God Save the Queen over and over, and strangers shake hands and pat each other on the back as if we have all jointly achieved something, and for those few hours, I am a part of society again. I do not want to go back to Shibden, at least not for a while.
I give the groom and the maids a coin each and the rest of the day off. I travel back with the Priestleys and spend the afternoon with them, like old times, with no mention of why we have not spoken but for pleasantries for three years. It is as if Mrs Priestley and I are agreeing to forget, and of course Mr Priestley knows nothing. I can tell.
We talk about our female sovereign and what changes she may make. I wonder what this may mean for the rest of us women, to be led by a woman again after more than a century; will she raise us up too, or does she not really have any power either? Perhaps she does not care. I do not speak of this with the Priestleys, who would not entertain such nonsense as discussing women’s futures.
That night, with Ann asleep in my arms, I silently pray to the new Queen to realise that if she can rule the country as a woman, she could also allow others at least some chance of education, a chance to be listened to, a chance to vote without judgement.
I ask Ann to join me on a trip into Halifax again. She refuses, but I’ll not miss the laying of the foundation stone on my own bloody building. I shall not roll over and die just yet. Northgate House, which had sat idly by for years, has finally been renovated into a hotel, and now we will start works on an adjoining building with a spacious saloon for dancing and parties: a casino. Our new joint Lister-Walker venture. I want to leave my mark on Halifax, and if nothing else it has been a project to occupy me. I’ll make it a success, then I’ll rent the thing out and never have to venture into town again, with or without her.
To my surprise, Ann eventually agrees to come and even offers to say some words herself at the ceremony. She wants us to appear as partners in the endeavour, to show all her cousins, who will no doubt be in attendance, that she is not some meek companion but is making her own decision to invest. I admire her for suggesting this and encourage her.
Now, though, sat in the carriage as we turn out onto the main road into Halifax, she quakes next to me at the thought of public speaking, but I will not let her back out of it. It will do her good, and for them to see her. The last time many folks saw us together was at Aunt’s funeral, and now here we are in triumph. Let them stare, let them judge! At least they’ll see that she’s alive and I’ve not drowned her in the lake and kept her money.
As we approach the hotel, over a hundred people have gathered and I wonder if they are here for the spectacle of the new building or the spectacle of us.
We bury some coins and an inscription placed inside a green glass bottle. We make our speeches and receive applause. For a moment, I could forget our troubles and feel somewhat part of the town and its people once more. Has enough time passed for us to make more of ourselves again? Then I remember the pistol tucked underneath the seat in the carriage and that I had asked all my men to attend, and here they stand around us like guards, as if we were royalty perhaps. I eye the crowd to see if I can discern a tall broad man carrying a stick, willing to bludgeon someone, even a woman, for a fee and the spite of another.
Miss Walker
I say a few words and thank God when it is over.
Anyone would think she owned the town. She does not notice how they look at us. She seems to have forgotten all that has been done to her, to us. Our beloved Moss House that someone burned down and for which the culprit was never found.
It takes eight men to lower the large stone down into the spot, like the lowering of a coffin into a grave and I feel rather flattened that perhaps the bottle will be crushed under the weight of it and will not survive to be found in the future. Who would ever lift this stone again anyway, I wonder? Would they care for a note and coins left by two women as if it were somehow important?
Anne then speaks about her hometown and her interest in its prosperity; she proclaims that the work on this new building should be a credit to us all. I can feel them squirm, those who have wronged us, spoken ill of us, and to ensure that she has made her point as I try to hide my blushes, she turns preacher as if she has been practising her speech, and says, may the voice of discord never be heard within the hotel’s walls, may persons of every shade and varying opinion meet together here in amity and charity. They believe she talks of politics and business rivalries and the applause grows to cheering as if all is forgotten and forgiven on both sides. For a moment I believe it too. I look to the woman I love and love her even more for her words, her bravery, her defiance, and then I see a few men peel away from the back of the crowd, shaking their heads, and despite the loud cheers that follow us as we climb back into our carriage and the waves as we depart, it is the few men I think of; for although the whole seems friendly, supportive, it is the few that I fear. It only takes a few to spread rumours, to poison wells, to injure us, to burn down our Moss House.
Miss Lister
I manage to lease the hotel quickly and so it is out of my hands, the business all done with.
I am then invited to the laying of a foundation stone for a new museum by the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society, of which I am a member. The only woman, of course. Ann refuses to come with me. Though I would like to attend and think it would be good for us to be seen together on more than one occasion, she tells me she did not enjoy the last event which rather dampens my spirits and crushes my memory of it as a pleasant occasion. We argue over it and she tells me to go alone but I do not wish to, not now that we have been seen together. We should continue in the same vein. I end up not going and stomp about the Hall.
I read in the newspaper the next week that there had been a photographer there. I should have liked to have been immortalised in a photograph. I should have liked us both to have been photographed together. It makes me think upon my own mortality. I am now forty-six years old. I must write some travel books; they will be my legacy. I wonder who will read them?
I could turn to my diaries for publication instead, but when I start to read them as an editor it all seems mundane, like a poor novel. I could publish them anonymously and edit my relationships so that they appear to be with men, transform it into a romance novel about a long-suffering heroine who simply cannot find the right man until one day she
meets a neighbouring heir and they live happily ever after. No one would believe it, or care.
I conclude that I need to travel again in order to write a book to be published. Everyone has already been to Europe, so it must include somewhere that has been less written about. Russia calls me. I shall write ‘A Woman’s Journey Beyond the Continent.’
Miss Walker
She holds the atlas in front of me like a threat and makes me follow her finger as it darts across the edges of land masses and arrives on the ominous pages of Russia and other countries whose names I cannot pronounce.
With her family all gone and the Hall in progress, never expanding quickly enough for her to be satisfied, she wants to leave. Her answer is to run away. When I fear to even go a mile into Halifax, how does she think I can travel across the globe itself?
Miss Lister
Another year of our lives has passed as my atlas now gathers dust. Ann will hear no talk of travel and I concede to her. We remain hidden away here at Shibden and still she laments for all that was and can only look back, despite our lives together and all the potential for our future lying before her. She is only thirty-five but seems so much older; she acts as if her life is done with. She believes she never deserved the happiness we once had, as if it no longer stands before her, and I am left pleading with her to open her eyes and see me.
I even write to Mariana for advice, but she has none. What a pair we make, Mariana and I, both of us wedded and both of us trapped. If only Ann were twenty years my senior, like Lawton is to Mariana… what an awful thought.
I pace around my cage of Shibden, sometimes avoiding her altogether for an entire day, busying myself in the grounds, checking on the new lake and sitting in the new gatehouse with the doors locked so that I can be alone behind the castle walls I have created. I make it quite cosy in there and no one knows as they pass by on the busy road outside that the owner of Shibden Hall cowers inside. It is my new Moss House, this time built with stone walls and only I may enter.
