7 Bootham Bar, York, showing Petergate, where Mariana Belcombe and Isabella Norcliffe lived. York Minster is in the background, copperplate by W. H. Bartlett.
The two of them, one twenty-one and the other twenty-two years old, probably entered into a sexual relationship in December 1812 when they spent two weeks together in York without Isabella. Over the course of 1813 they wrote each other sixty letters and Anne received eighty-seven letters from Mariana in 1814, one every fourth day on average. Like the diaries that Anne wrote from 1813 to 1815, they were later burned.5
Anne continued her relationship with the unsuspecting Isabella, especially as the Norcliffes had significantly more to offer than the doctor’s daughter, Mariana, who lived in similarly modest circumstances to Anne herself. After returning from the south, Anne first visited the Duffins at Red House in Nunmonkton and hoped to be able to spend some time in York to see Mariana again. At this point, Anne received the unexpected news that her brother Samuel had died in an accident. Poor fellow! He was drowned abt 3 o’clock in the afternoon [...] while bathing in the river Blackwater,6 Anne wrote at the bottom of his last letter to her. The last of the Listers’ four sons was no more, and Anne had lost the only person she liked in her family. Against her original plans, she immediately returned to Halifax, accompanied by Isabella.
The death of her favourite brother was to turn into a blessing for Anne. Over the subsequent months, the wider Lister family discussed inheritance issues. The law gave Uncle James free choice of what to bestow on whom. Customarily, after his death the family estate would fall first to his oldest living brother, the childless Uncle Joseph of Northgate House, and after Joseph’s death to Anne’s father Jeremy. However, James had no intention of leaving anything to Jeremy, who was foolish with money and had already ruined his own small Skelfler House. So Uncle James was inclined to leave Shibden Hall to the Welsh branch of the family, the Listers of Swansea. Young and without financial support, Anne was opposed to this idea; she wanted to be the beneficiary of the family assets. However, marriage law at the time was a marvellous opportunity for fortune hunters, meaning families were reluctant to pass on property to daughters: poor Jane Boulton (née Raine) had meanwhile been put into a London mental asylum. So Anne tried to persuade Uncle James that she was the last remaining hope and stay of an old, but lately drooping family.7 It was inconceivable for her to fall for a man only interested in her money, or indeed ever to be tied to a man, and pass Shibden Hall on to anyone else. I love, & only love, the fairer sex & thus, beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any other love but theirs.8
The inheritance issues were not yet resolved but the family decided to risk an experiment. Anne moved to Shibden Hall as her uncle’s possible heir to learn about running the estate, which had interested her even as a child. For her, the land – ancient acres – epitomised her venerable descent. Anne herself never doubted for a second that she would be a capable successor to her uncle. At first, however, the greatest advantage to the arrangement for Anne was that Jeremy, Rebecca and Marian moved back to Skelfler House in Market Weighton in May 1815.
These changes did not make her any better off financially; Anne still had no income and relied on irregular sums of money given by her father, her godmother and her two uncles. She made sure to keep each sum to herself. I take good care to let nobody know I have so much.9 Yet still her funds were barely sufficient to maintain a respectable façade. She found being dependent far more difficult than living frugally. As an unmarried woman from the landed gentry, she could take on no work other than as a teacher or governess without ruining her own and her family’s reputation, but she dreamed of stealing away for a few months and rambling, begging, and eventually gambling10 200 or 300 pounds.
Uncle James and Aunt Anne – the other aunts had all passed away – were not rich either. James kept only one horse for riding and no coach, so the ladies of the house had to walk to town. Shibden Hall was uncomfortable, a damp and draughty stately home. The three reception rooms on the ground floor had low ceilings, dark oak panelling and old-fashioned furniture: benches, carved chests and heavy chairs. The leaded windows, painted with crests, plants and mythical creatures, let in scant light to what was called the housebody, the main room of the building. Uncle James had set up his study next to the kitchen, where food was still prepared over an open fire. As the head of the household, he had the master bedroom, located on the left-hand side of the top floor and referred to as the Red Room, while Aunt Anne slept in the next room along. On the right-hand side of the floor, Anne made herself a kind of apartment; her privacy was the greatest luxury she enjoyed at Shibden Hall. Anne’s realm consisted of a wide corridor, which she gradually furnished as a library and study, from which three uneven steps led up to her bedroom, now called the Edwardian Room. On entering and leaving, she had to be careful not to hit her head on the low lintel. Anne combatted the draughts by hanging colourful drapes on the ceiling and walls. When Isabella Norcliffe or Mariana Belcombe came to visit, this Oriental-like tent insulated the sounds of their whispers, giggles and, as Goethe put it, the rock-a-bye bed’s rhythmic, melodious creak.11
Anne spent carefree hours there with Mariana. Two good kisses at once last night & three this morning, after eight.12 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ‘kiss’ was a common euphemism for sex in English-, French- and German-speaking areas. It was the only term that could hint at physical love in poetry. The ‘X’s with which Anne recorded her masturbation in her diaries clearly echo the abbreviation for ‘kiss’. She also used the word to mean an orgasm with a partner. We drew close together, made love & had one of the most delightfully long, tender kisses we have ever had.13 Mariana had a good share in their lust together. Two last night. M– spoke in the very act. ‘Ah,’ said she, ‘Can you ever love anyone else?’ She knows how to heighten the pleasure of our intercourse. She often murmurs, ‘Oh, how delicious,’ just at the very moment. All her kisses are good ones.14 Later, Anne was to note: No one had ever given me kisses like hers. Mariana satisfied Anne far beyond sexual desire, because she did not see her Fred or Freddy15 too much as a woman.16 She ignored Anne’s menstruation, which Anne described as an undesirable visit from my ‘cousin’,17 and avoided anything that reminded me of my petticoats.18 Mariana let Anne be the gentleman she felt herself to be.
After the first heady rush of love, Anne and Mariana ended up arguing. I cannot forget Mariana’s conduct in the autumn of 1814,19 Anne wrote in retrospect. She certainly behaved very ill and very inconsistently. It seems a strange mixture of selfishness and weakness.20 Mariana shocked Anne with the news that a rich widower was wooing her – and she was not disinclined to accept his proposal. Charles Lawton owned Lawton Hall in Cheshire and a large amount of land from which he earned a considerable income. The Belcombes were delighted by his interest, seeing he was the most favourable prospect for any of their four unmarried daughters. No one minded that his conversation was shockingly gross and he was quite silly when at school.21 Mariana’s imaginings hit Anne hard. To sink January, 1815, in oblivion!22 she sighed even years later; never was so wretched in my life.23 Beginning of 1815: whatever might be her regard for me it is very plain it bore but a very subservient portion to her regard for the good things of this world. I was in love or surely I could not have been so blinded and acted with such doting folly. Oh that I then could have given her up without a struggle.24
In fact, Anne provoked a major row with Mariana. She insisted her lover would never marry, and that the thing was going on decidedly to all I wished [...]. All was settled to my satisfaction. She came and staid with me a long while and I staid with her.25 Mariana spent the spring and summer of 1815 at Shibden Hall, where Uncle James and Aunt Anne also succumbed to her charm. She played cards with them in the evenings and brought life into the house, otherwise such a quiet place. Perhaps Anne was never happier than in these months of a threat thought overcome. Surely no one ever doted on another as I did then on her. I fondly thought my love
& happiness would last for ever.26
In the autumn of 1815, Anne and Mariana left Shibden Hall to stay with the Belcombes in York. There, Mariana persuaded Anne to visit her parents and sister in Market Weighton. I cannot forget the trick she once played.27 When she returned to York ten days later, it came upon her like a thunderbolt: Mariana was to marry. She had heard from, and written to, Charles. He was coming over at Christmas and it was then November and the match would be soon.[...] I had scarce uttered on first hearing this but on reflection had determined to make no objection.28 Charles Lawton offered Mariana a respectable, comfortable life in his own country home, complete with servants, horses and coaches. Anne Lister, in contrast, had barely a penny, lived on the hope of perhaps inheriting a modest house one day, and could only dream of offering a woman a home – and it was uncertain whether that would be viewed as respectable in the eyes of society. Deeply hurt, she had to recognise that Mariana had weighed up her love and passion against Charles’ material offer and found it wanting. I could never understand [it]. If she married for love, she could not love me, & why engage me? If not for love, it was too worldly – not romantic enough for me.29 In fact, Mariana wanted both: the material security of marriage to Charles and the romantic affair with Anne. She flattered her lover with all kinds of promises: as a wealthy married woman she would be able to meet Anne much more often and also travel with her. How, spite of love, it burst the spell that bound my very reason. Suppliant at her feet, I loathed consent but loathed the asking more. I would have given the ‘Yes’ she sought tho’ it had rent my heart into a hundred thousand shivers. It was enough to ask.30
Anne knew as well as Mariana that the marriage proposal could not be turned down. Mariana was almost twenty-six; if she rejected Charles Lawton her parents would have to go on supporting her. Mrs Belcombe begged Anne not to persuade Mariana against this advantageous marriage, as she had before. Mariana was to marry Charles without caring a straw for him.31 Anne consoled herself with Mariana’s promise for the future. Charles Lawton was forty-four. Considering their nineteen-year age difference, Mariana hoped to be widowed not too far along the line. Then she would move in with Anne at Shibden Hall with a pretty inheritance. The remaining time, of perhaps ten years, Mariana and Anne intended to regard as a trial of their great love. Anne accepted Mariana’s suggestion. As a sign of their union, she put on the ring Charles had given Mariana; on her lover’s finger she put a copy of the original.
Anne attended the wedding on 9 March 1816 and accompanied the newlyweds to Cheshire. Mariana’s older sister Nantz went along as well, as was common at the time, to help the bride settle into her new life. They set off for Lawton Hall the same day, spending the wedding night at the Bridgewater Arms Hotel in Manchester. Anne tried to arrange the time of getting off to bed the first night, intervening as long as she could. Then she had nothing more to say.
Once at Lawton Hall, Anne presumably realised Mariana had made a wise financial move – and so would one day come to Shibden Hall a wealthy woman. Mariana’s impressive new home was a magnificently refurbished mansion offering space for a large family, guests and plentiful servants (now converted into separate residential units). The stables and coaches were all anyone could have wished for. Previously a middle-class doctor’s daughter, Mariana suddenly presided over a rich aristocratic estate dating back to the thirteenth century, which made Shibden Hall look like a rustic barn. We have no record of how Mariana’s life at Lawton Hall began. Years later, Anne read to Mariana from her diary of the time, of her conduct to me, her marriage, etc., and, not looking for a moment or two, found she had dropt at my feet, half-fainting. She had asked me to burn these papers, saying she should never feel secure till I did.32 Anne did as she wished.
The next surviving journal dates from August 1816, after a gap of six years. Instead of loose sheets, Anne now used thin exercise books with blue covers. The first surviving book is labelled Volume 2 and begins with the last days the two ‘marriage helpers’ spent with the Lawtons. Six months after the wedding, all of them travelled together to Buxton at the foot of the Peak District, then trying to establish itself as the ‘Bath of the North’. Anne, who had already seen the original Bath, thanks to Isabella and the Norcliffes, could conceive no place more stupid. The baths were dark low places, the paths led through still sparse gardens, and their semi-circular hotel – a copy of the Royal Crescent in Bath – had no view, a hill rising directly in front of it. Anne and Nantz had small rooms far away from the Lawtons, up I know not how many stairs.
This seclusion gave Anne ideas. Mariana was sleeping with her husband and Anne felt entitled to compensation. Mariana’s sister Nantz, with whom she had been living for half a year now, was thirty-one years old, unmarried and curious. On the first night at the Crescent, she came to Anne’s room and lay on her bed until three in the morning. I teasing & behaving rather amorously to her.33 The next day, the group began a regimented sightseeing programme; they viewed first Castleton, then a cave and a mine, and finally drove to the spectacular pass at Mam Tor. It rained cats and dogs from noon on. Soon after returning to the Crescent, they each retired to their rooms. That second night, Nantz lay on Anne’s bed again until two, while Anne told her about the feeling to which she gave rise. Lamented my fate. Said I should never marry. Could not like men. Ought not to like women. At the same time apologizing for my inclination that way. By diverse arguments made out a pitiful story altogether & roused poor Anne’s [Nantz’s] sympathy to tears. The following night, the last before their departure, Anne took back everything she had said about herself and asked Nantz how she could be such a gull as to believe it.34 Nantz did not know what to think of Anne now – but she wanted to find out. On their way back to York the two of them came closer, and Nantz arrived for a visit to Shibden Hall two months later.
As was common practice among female friends, she stayed in Anne’s room and shared her bed. There, Anne explained until four in the morning my penchant for the ladies. Expatiated on the nature of my feelings towards her & hers towards me. Told her that she ought not deceive herself as to the nature of my sentiments & the strictness of my intentions towards her. Anne told her openly that she felt attracted in the same way, purely sexually, by at least two other women, including another of the Belcombe sisters, Eli. Anne then asked Nantz if she liked me the less for my candour etc., etc. She said no, kissed me & proved by her manner she did not.35 We went to great lengths as we had often done before such as feeling her all over pushing my finger up her etc. but still did not get to the last extremity.36 Two days later, Anne lost patience. She spent a whole morning telling Nantz she was acting very unfairly and that she ought either to make up her mind to let me have a kiss at once or change her manners altogether. Another two days later, Anne finally noted down her mission accomplished. Had a very good kiss last night. Anne gave it me with pleasure, not thinking it necessary to refuse me any longer.37
Yet Nantz still could not relax. Having overcome her physical inhibitions, she was now feeling moral scruples. She asked if I thought the thing was wrong – if it was forbidden in the bible. Anne was prepared for such objections and dexterously parried all these points. She told her it was infamous to be connected with both sexes – but that there were beings who were so unfortunate as to be not quite so perfect &, supposing they kept to one side [of] the question, was there no excuse for them. It would be hard to deny them a gratification of this kind. I urged in my own defence the strength of natural feeling & instinct, for so I might call it.38 Throughout her life, Anne emphasised how natural and thus necessary her desire was. When we leave nature we leave our only steady guide, and, from that moment, become inconsistent with ourselves.39 Nantz seems to have been satisfied with this explanation, and to have enjoyed her visit from then on; after three weeks, Anne had to tell her that her aunt wanted a little more peace and quiet in the house. Or had Anne herself had enough? I do not admire her but rather feel a sort of disgust for her she is not nice & her breath is disagreeab
le however her manners made me feel desire.40 As a parting gesture, Anne lent or gave Nantz one or two pounds of her own scarce funds. I ought not to complain. Superior charms might not be so easily come-at-able on such easy terms.41
8 Anne Lister, miniature portrait painted in her youth by an unknown artist, Calderdale Leisure Services, Shibden Hall, Halifax.
Alone again, Anne turned to her books. During that autumn of 1816, she did a lot of reading on recent history, including biographies of Napoleon and Blücher and descriptions of the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 and the Congress of Vienna a year later. Three years after the Battle of Waterloo, where the Britons and Prussians had united to defeat France, Anne Lister felt sympathies for the former ally, bought a German grammar and began to teach herself the language of Kant, whose works had been described to her as the most significant contribution to recent philosophy. The only novel she read in 1816 was The Balance of Comfort, or: The Old Maid and Married Woman, in which the author, a Mrs Ross, recommended that women remain unmarried. When Anne was not reading she was helping Uncle James. She accompanied him in all weathers to supervise repair work, to negotiate with tenants and to schedule the sowing and harvest season. When the cook heard noises in the henhouse one night, she did not rouse elderly James but woke Anne instead, who fearlessly chased off the thief with a pistol.
These days of quiet reading and hard work were interrupted, to everyone’s delight, on 29 January 1817, shortly before five, by the arrival of Mariana, whom Anne had not seen for five months. She was on the way to visit her parents in York, had left her luggage at the White Lion in Halifax and come up to Shibden Hall deliberately unannounced, so as not to have to inform her husband of her plans. She stayed for dinner and we spent the evening most happily. A hack came a little after ten, and I went back to sleep with M– at the inn. Not wanting to part the next morning, they travelled a little way together. Nestled close, they sat in Anne’s favourite spot next to the coachman, although that draughty seat on top of the coach was not befitting for ladies. In Bradford, Mariana promised to spend a few days at Shibden Hall on her return journey, Anne took the stagecoach back and got back to dinner, at Northgate. Got home to Shibden to tea.42 Such romantic interruptions to her everyday routine were very much to Anne’s taste. She had not mentioned her affair with Mariana’s sister.
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