Gentleman Jack (Movie Tie-In)

by Anne Choma

  5TH JANUARY 1834

  It seemed that Miss Walker now spoke of wanting to commit to Anne, to try again, as if there was a degree of certainty in her thinking that they could now be together. Anne Lister was less sure, and commented how, ‘Miss W talked as if she would be glad to take me, then, if I say anything decisive, she hesitates.’

  Anne was on her guard, and she wondered whether the real reason Miss Walker had arrived back in Halifax so suddenly was purely based on her need ‘to get away from the Sutherlands’. Was Anne only the second reason for her return? This was why Anne now saw Miss Walker now feeling ‘the want’ of her.

  Anne had neither the energy nor the inclination to fall back into the circuitous pattern of their old relationship. If there was to be hope of a romantic future, she needed Ann Walker to finally commit to her. To exchange rings and take the sacrament with her before God. To become her wife. ‘I am older in these matters than I was twenty years ago,’ wrote Anne. ‘’Tis well my care for her will not kill me, whether she says eventually, yes or no’ (6TH JANUARY 1834).

  There remained a question mark over Ann Walker’s ability to undertake a life-changing decision. She had not received medical attention in Scotland, and Anne Lister was keen that she should be reassessed by Dr Belcombe in York. ‘She seemed lowish,’ Anne wrote on 8th January. ‘Getting a little into the old way, despairing of being quite well . . . felt so oddly afraid of not caring for anybody.’

  Soon, the arrangements had been made. On 23rd January, Anne settled Ann Walker into a discreet facility at Heworth Grange on the outskirts of York, where she could recover under the care of Dr Belcombe, within visiting distance of Shibden.

  It was during a return to Lidgate in the middle of February – which Ann Walker made ostensibly for the reason of visiting an ailing aunt, Mrs Atkinson – that their union was finally agreed. Calling there on 9th February, Anne Lister noted that Ann was ‘looking and being considerably better than when I saw her last’. There was talk of a trip to Paris, which could be carried off in tantalising style thanks to Miss Walker’s wealth. ‘She will pay all and I will make all answer as well as I can, however things may be’ Anne wrote, ever-honest about the draw of Miss Walker’s financial circumstances.

  Though Anne remained determined to resist Ann’s desire for her to be fully naked during their lovemaking without her commitment – ‘She has often said she wished to be near myself’ (12TH FEBRUARY 1834) – their physical connection appeared stronger than ever:

  She was, at first, tired and sleepy but by and by roused up and during a long grubbling, said often we had never done it so well before. I was hot to washing tub wetness and tired before it was half over. We talked and never slept till 5.

  10TH FEBRUARY 1834

  The same day, Anne Lister stated her case for their union a final time:

  Better make up her mind at once or what could I do? She agreed and it was understood she was to consider herself as nobody to please and being under no authority but mine. To make her will right directly and on returning from France and on my aunt’s death, then to add a codicil leaving me a life estate in all she could and I would do the same to her. Well then, is it really settled or not?

  10TH FEBRUARY 1834

  Two days later, the decision appeared final. She and Ann Walker were to pledge themselves to each other in a lifetime of commitment. The coded line in her diary on 12th February 1834 is small, understated and momentous: ‘She is to give me a ring and I her one in token of our union, as confirmed on Monday.’

  ‘You have made up your mind – you therefore have, or ought to have, courage to avow it’

  Anne Lister was wary of counting her blessings too soon. Her diary entries display a level of caution as she began to prepare the ground for the life she hoped to live with Miss Walker. She confided the plan in her aunt:

  Talked to my aunt tonight as if the thing was nearly done but I should know better in York, tacitly meaning that I should then make her give me a ring and bind herself by a decided promise.

  17TH FEBRUARY 1834

  Her reflections on a letter to Ann Walker demonstrated a similar instinct for self-preservation until the union had taken place:

  She seems to have been pleased with my affectionate letter, ‘do come quickly for I am getting dull and I want you in a thousand ways.’ I see she will be fond of me by and by. If she will bind herself so that I can have confidence, I hope and think we shall get on together happily.

  21ST FEBRUARY 1834

  On 27th February 1834, Anne and Ann exchanged rings. As they travelled together towards a call at the Norcliffe’s estate, the pact was quietly made:

  I asked her to cut the gold wedding ring I wore and leant her sixpence to pay me for it. She would not give it me immediately but wore it till we entered the village of Langton and then put it on my left 3rd finger in token of our union, which is now understood to be confirmed forever though little or nothing was said.

  27TH FEBRUARY 1834

  Ann was to wear the onyx ring that Anne had purchased for her in York. Though it would be another month before the two women took the sacrament together at Goodramgate church, the symbolic exchange of rings appeared to be enough for Anne Lister to have complete confidence in their bond. That day, she allowed herself to be ‘near’ to Ann:

  No drawers on last night. First time and first attempt to get really near her. Did not succeed very well but she seemed tolerably satisfied.

  27TH FEBRUARY 1834

  Though Ann had agreed to move into Shibden Hall in principle, she remained reticent about going public with (a sanitised version of) her decision to live as Anne Lister’s companion. She was wary that she and Anne should not be too explicit in their letters to one another, for fear of attracting the attention of the notoriously nosy local postmistress and, by extension, the interest of the community:

  Said that as I wrote for the eye of Mrs Bagnold more than ordinary caution was required. Miss W had begged me not to write anything particular – not to get ourselves laughed at. I believe she is fond of me and however unreserved and on the amoroso at night in bed no allusion to these matters ever escapes her in the day. In fact she is then r[e]ally modest and nicely particular enough.

  4TH MARCH 1834

  Anne responded sensitively but firmly to Ann’s reluctance to brave the judgment of her extended family. As Anne had always been true to her nature, she now wanted Ann Walker to find the same kind of inner strength to respect her own desires. Guilt and grief had dogged Ann’s adult life; here she had a chance to live it as she wanted to. It would be a difficult task, but Anne hoped to convince Ann that together, they could be happy:

  A proper respect for public opinion is due from all, but it is best shown by paying a proper respect to ourselves, and that is always difficult under circumstances which seem equivocal. You have made up your mind – you therefore have, or ought to have, courage to avow it.

  12TH MARCH 1834

  Anne was able to be so confident about their shared future partly because she had the full support of her family. Her relationship with her sister seemed to have taken a positive turn since 11th January, when she had had a ‘long talk with Marian about her always crying when I say anything to her’. In fact, Marian now revealed her delight with Miss Walker as a match for Anne:

  Stood talking to Marian near an hour till after 7 in the hall. Laughed and asked which would suit me best – M, or Miss W – ? She thought the latter would be more convenient, and then agreed with me that she would suit me in every respect the best – I said I would rather take her connections than Mariana’s – ‘Yes,’ said Marian, ‘And so would I. They say in York Mrs Henry Belcombe’s father was a tea dealer and her first husband a spirit merchant’. (Said I did not know.) Both my father and Marian seem pleased about Miss W. Said I thought I should be happier with her than I
should now be with Mrs Lawton, to which Marian seemed to agree without the least surprise.

  7TH MARCH 1834

  Four days later, Anne was able to offer Marian support in her own love life, rebutting the unwanted attentions of a local George Brearley on her little sister’s behalf:

  ‘Sir, my sister has just received your letter, which she has very properly put into my hands, as also a copy of her answer of the third January to your previous letter, which answer ought to have prevented your giving her any further trouble. I hope you will deem this communication from me sufficiently explicit, and that you will see the necessity of forbearing either to write again, or to call at Shibden Hall on any plea whatsoever. I am, Sir, etc. etc. AL.’ Marian much pleased and obliged and being just going to Halifax put it into the post herself.

  11TH MARCH 1834

  As the spring progressed, Anne Lister shared her confidence in the future with those outside her family circle. To Mrs Norcliffe, to whom she had introduced Ann Walker directly after their exchange of rings, Anne wrote a letter full of heartfelt thanks:

  Come what may I never do and never shall forget all your kindness. I always think with gratitude and pleasure that you at least have done me the justice to believe I had some sincerity, some steadiness of heart, some deeper and better feeling than many have given me credit for. I have been annoyed and hurt by those from whom I least deserve and least expected it. But you have never changed in kindness, nor I in gratitude in 4 and 20 years. Believe me Mrs Norcliffe, always very affectionately yours, AL.

  16TH MARCH 1834

  Mariana Lawton had been made aware of the events that had followed Miss Walker’s return from Scotland. Her emotionally charged letters to Anne spoke of her regret that things must now be at a firm end between them:

  Freddy, since you have been in York, my thoughts have been perpetually full of you. I do love you dearly and fondly. Come what may, my heart is not unfaithful, and still as formerly and for ever my joys by yours are known.

  11TH MARCH 1834

  On 30th March 1834, Anne Lister and Ann Walker performed the second act of their symbolic union. At 10.35am, the two women, in the escort of servant Thomas Beech, stepped into the tiny church of the Holy Trinity just off Goodramgate in York, and took communion together:

  Miss W and I and Thomas stayed the sacrament. Almost all the congregation stayed, and though the church too small to hold many, the service took 40 minutes. The first time I ever joined Miss W in my prayers. I had prayed that our union might be happy.

  30TH MARCH 1834

  To Anne Lister, their commitment had been solemnised. They had been joined together in the eyes of God. The afternoon of an historic day passed quietly and mundanely, with a routine of social calls. The next day, the couple made a trip to town to pay for a number of silver forks at Barber and Cattle’s and to enquire about a new manservant. Thomas Beech, fittingly, was leaving Shibden to marry his sweetheart.

  It was September 1834 before Ann Walker moved into Shibden Hall. While the Listers welcomed her, her own extended family were less enthusiastic. Interpreting the move as an abandonment of her elderly aunt at Cliff Hill, they cast Anne Lister as a coercive force who had stolen away their relative for her own mercenary purposes. Making their feelings clear over the coming years, Miss Walker’s family were known to call unannounced at Shibden to see Ann, pointedly refusing to acknowledge or shake hands with Anne Lister.

  The two women stood firm and, as Shibden was renovated around them, remained companions until the end of Anne’s life. Though their relationship was never free of the strain of Ann Walker’s anxiety, and was frequently the site of financial disagreement, they honoured their early promise that it should be as lasting and ‘as good as a marriage’. Anne Lister had found the domestic security she had craved all her life. In celebration of their first anniversary, on 10th February 1835, she wrote, ‘Ann and I had excellent plumb pudding today in commemoration of the first anniversary of being together so comfortably and so happily – may we live to enjoy many more.’

  Jeremy Lister and the elder Anne died within a few months of each other in 1836. Anne was heartbroken to lose her aunt, saying, ‘She was always good and kind to me – none will ever think so highly of me – none was more interested in my interest – none’ (10TH OCTOBER 1836). She lamented the passing of a generation that had given her much, emotionally and financially, but Shibden was now under her sole ownership.

  Marian Lister moved to Market Weighton the same year. Their parting was surprisingly tender, with Anne commenting how Marian, ‘Stood talking as if she had not resolution to leave me – poor Marian! My heart aches for her and for myself too’ (1ST MAY 1836). Anne commissioned a bespoke writing box for her as a leaving present.

  Mariana Lawton eventually became reconciled to Anne’s new life with Ann Walker. Agreeing to spend a week together at Shibden in the November of 1836, the three women seemed to find a respectful and contented way of being in each other’s company. Anne remarked how, ‘M really likes Ann – and the liking is mutual’ (7TH NOVEMBER 1836). At first Mariana was shocked at just how settled Anne and Ann were as a couple. Occasionally she tried to tempt Anne with an ‘open-lipped’ kiss but Anne resisted, refusing all intimacy. ‘The fact is,’ said Anne, when Mariana left to return to Lawton Hall, ‘I am not sorry she is gone’ (12TH NOVEMBER 1836).

  By the end of the 1830s, Anne and Ann’s travels were taking them away from Shibden for long stretches at a time. Their tour of Russia was to be Anne’s final adventure. In the September of 1840, she died of a fever while travelling through what is now Georgia. She was just 49. Ann Walker returned her body to Shibden in a process that would take six months, the last act of devotion to a woman who had altered the course of her life.

  Ann Walker continued to live at Shibden. Sadly, her mental health deteriorated in the period following Anne’s death, and following concerns for her safety she was removed from the hall a few years later. Staying for a time in an institution in York, she eventually returned to live at Cliff Hill in Lightcliffe. She died in 1854.

  If Anne Lister was a figure of interest in her own lifetime, she leaves an extraordinarily rich legacy today. In 2018, a plaque was erected by the York Civic Trust to commemorate her marriage to Ann Walker, nearly two centuries after their private union at the church of the Holy Trinity in York. The wording on the plaque courted controversy as it referred to Anne as ‘gender non-conformer’ as opposed to lesbian. It has since been changed to the latter, and is indicative of the importance Anne occupies in lesbian history and consciousness today.

  Anne Lister led her life fearlessly. Let’s leave the last words to her:

  With all my faults, Heaven grant me still the virtue of sincerity; and though I walk through many a darksome shade of folly and remorse, still let there be one light, the light of truth to guide me right at last.

  Acknowledgements

  This book has been a joy and an honour to write. I am indebted to the following people who have helped me bring it to publication.

  To my friend and collaborator Sally Wainwright for her loyalty and encouragement during our wonderful Anne Lister journey together. For the unique opportunity of being able to work with her as creative partner on this project, as well as her adviser on the TV drama, I will be forever grateful.

  To Yvonne Jacob of Penguin Random House and commissioning editor for BBC Books for her embracing of my ideas for the book from the outset, and for being a wonderful source of encouragement to me throughout the writing process. To Liz Marvin and Nell Warner at Penguin for their brilliant editing and proofreading of the manuscript – and for enlightening me about dangling modifiers! Thanks also to Sam Raim, our US editor at Penguin, for his assistance and promotion of the book to our American audience, as well as Kilmeny Chernys and the rest of their team at Penguin. A special thank-you to my editor, Stella Merz, for her expertise in
shaping the manuscript and her support as a member of the Lookout Point team.

  To my agent, Hilary Delamere, for her legal expertise and patient handling of all things business-related during the contract phase – and particularly for putting up with my emails asking, ‘Is there any news yet?’! Grateful thanks also to Bethan Evans, whose initial input during the pitching of the book to BBC Books proved invaluable.

  To all of my friends at Lookout Point (Team Gentleman Jack!) – Faith Penhale, Will Johnston, Yasmina Hadded, and Laura Lankester – for their support and appreciation of my work over the last two years.

  To Suranne Jones and Sophie Rundle for so brilliantly bringing the characters of Anne Lister and Ann Walker to life, which helped me to visualise new aspects of their complex relationship as the book progressed. For use of Suranne’s iconic Anne Lister image on the front cover, I would like to extend further thanks.

  Love and thanks to Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow (O’Hooley & Tidow) for the discussions and special times we have had in travelling the Gentleman Jack journey together!

  I am grateful to the staff at West Yorkshire Archive Service in Halifax and to Angela Clare, collections manager at Shibden Hall, for assisting myself and the team at Penguin Random House with requests for archival material.

  To my wonderful family and friends for realising how important the writing of this book has been to me personally, I send heaps of love and gratitude.

  Lastly to Sarah – for her love, for being a patient listener, and for giving me the freedom to read, to think and to write.