Gentleman Jack

by Katy Derbyshire

  ‘Frank’

  1823

  Over the next few months in Halifax, Anne made a new friend: I never met with such a woman before.1 They met in February 1823 at a lecture series on scientific subjects. Miss Francis Pickford had read Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy to prepare for the course and ended up in stimulating conversation with Anne. The two had first encountered one another in Bath in 1813; whenever Francis Pickford visited her sister in Halifax, the town gossips – from whom Elizabeth ‘Kallista’ Browne had once heard me compared with Miss Pickford 2 – expressed surprise that Anne and Francis were not closer friends. The well-read Francis Pickford considered Anne congenial with herself, but her attempts to get to know her better had always been rebuffed by Anne’s aristocratic pride. Now, Anne established that Miss Pickford seems sensible & in my present dearth of people to speak with I should well enough like to know more of her. I talk a little to her just before & after the lecture &, if she were young & pretty, should certainly scrape acquaintance – as she had with Elizabeth Browne at an earlier lecture series. How I can still run after the ladies!3

  Two days later, Anne drove Miss Pickford to her sister’s house in her gig after a lecture. The speaker had used the pronoun ‘she’ to refer to the air, which gave Anne an opportunity for all manner of double entendre. Miss Pickford picked up the thread and spoke of the moon being made masculine by some nations, for instance, by the Germans. I smiled & said the moon had tried both sexes, like old Tiresias, but that one could not make such an observation to every one. Of course she remembered the story? She said yes, but did not remark that Tiresias had felt nine times more lust as a woman than as a man. We parted very good friends.

  Unlike with Miss Browne four or five years previously, Anne and Miss Pickford were soon calling on each other. I talked very unreservedly & we seemed to suit & like each other very well.4 Among other things, they talked about whether and how educated women had to hide their knowledge. Miss Pickford thought gentlemen, in general, pleasanter than ladies. I said my feelings with the one & the other were quite different. I felt it more incumbent to talk sense & felt more independent with gentlemen, but there was a peculiar tenderness in my intercourse with ladies & if I was going to take a walk, I should infinitely prefer a pleasant girl to any gentleman. This was an important message about Anne to her new friend; if she has much nous on the subject, might let her into my real character towards ladies.5 Miss Pickford admitted in return that she had a close female friend, a Miss Threlfall.

  To Anne’s disappointment, ‘Frank’ Pickford, as she was called, was more of a gentleman. I wish she would care a little more about dress. At least not wear such an old-fashioned, short-waisted, fright of a brown habit – like Sarah Ponsonby, meaning a men’s jacket – with yellow metal buttons.6 Miss Pickford thought as to not noticing dress, etc., she supposes me like herself. How she is mistaken! 7 When it came to others, Anne had a great sense of fashions, with a tendency for noticing these matters so narrowly. A lady’s dress always strikes me, if good or bad.8 The sweet, interesting creatures that made Anne weak at the knees all dressed well in a ladylike style; Frank Pickford was not one of them. She is a regular oddity and was too similar to Anne herself. She is better informed than some ladies & a godsend of a companion in my present scarcity, but I am not an admirer of learned ladies,9 wrote the equally learned Anne. I would rather have a pretty girl to flirt with. She is clever for a lady, but her style of manner & character do not naturally suit me. She is not lovable.10

  Francis Pickford seems to have felt differently. She contrived to meet Anne on walks on the lonely moors, finally admitting one evening at Shibden Hall to growing a little romantic now & then. Surprised me by hinting that Miss Threlfall would, perhaps, be jealous of me &, altogether, it absolutely occurred to me that, if I chose it, I could even make a fool of Miss Pickford. My aunt observes she looks at me as if she was very fond of me. She certainly softens down a little with me & flatters me both in word & action in every way she can.11 But Anne did not like to be seduced. She is too masculine & if she runs after me too much, I shall tire.12

  Miss Pickford did not interest Anne as a woman; but she did want to find out more from her, especially as Frank had once told her about putting on regimentals & flirting with a lady under the assumed name of Captain Cowper. It did not seem that the lady ever found it out but thought the captain the most agreeable of men.13 In my mind thought of her using a phallus to her friend.14 She spent two weeks working on her. Went on & on. Talked of the classics, the scope of her reading, etc. & what I suspected, apologizing & wrapping up my surmise very neatly till at last she owned the fact, adding, ‘You may change your mind if you please,’ meaning give up her acquaintance or change my opinion of her if I felt inclined to do so after the acknowledgement she made. ‘Ah,’ said I, ‘That is very unlike me. I am too philosophical. We were sent on this world to be happy. I do not see why we should not make ourselves as much so as we can in our own way.’ Perhaps I am more liberal or lax than she expected & she merely replied, ‘My way cannot be that of many other people’s.’ Soon after this we parted. I mused on the result of our walk, wondering she let me go so far, & still more that she should confide the secret to me so readily. This was not all that surprising, considering the way Francis felt towards Anne. Like her, Anne had to reveal herself at some point to every woman she wanted to seduce. I think she suspects me but I fought off, perhaps successfully, declaring I was, on some subjects, quite cold-blooded, quite a frog. She denied this but I persisted in that sort of way that perhaps she believed it. I shall always pursue this plan. I would not trust her as she does me for a great deal.15

  They continued their conversation the next day. Miss Pickford hoped Anne would make a similar confession. I said I knew she could not have made the confession if she had not supposed I understood the thing thoroughly. She answered ‘No, certainly.’ I dilated on my knowing it from reading & speculating but nothing further. She was mistaken. ‘No, no,’ said she, ‘It is not all theory.’ I told her her inference was natural enough but not correct. Asked if she had heard any reports about me. I said I had only two very particular friends. Miss Norcliffe was out of the question from her manners, habit, etc., & the other, M–, was married which, of course, contradicted the thing altogether. Asked her which of them it could be of whom the report could be circulated. At last she said it was M–. I said I knew the report & should not have cared about it had it not annoyed M–. For my own part I denied it, tho’ Miss Pickford might not believe me. Yet, in fact, I had no objection to her doubting me for, had I had the inclination for such a thing, I should have pleased myself by trying &, could I have succeeded, I should have thought myself very clever & ingenious & that I must be very agreeable, but I must say, really, Miss Pickford, it seemed, could make herself more agreeable than I could. I wished I had her secret. I dwelt a good deal on having had no opportunity, & the frogishness of my blood. She told me I said a great many things she did not at all believe. Whether she credits my denial to all practical knowledge, I cannot yet make out. However, I told her I admired the conduct of her confession & liked her ten thousand times more for having told me. She was the character I had long wished to meet with, to clear up my doubts whether such a one really existed nowadays.16

  Anne kept up her act until Miss Pickford’s departure. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘the difference between you & me is, mine is theory, yours practice. I am taught by books, you by nature. I am very warm in friendship, perhaps few or none more so. My manners might mislead you but I don’t, in reality, go beyond the utmost verge of friendship. Here my feelings stop. If they did not, you see from my whole manner & sentiments, I should not care to own it. Now do you believe me?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I do.’ Alas, thought I to myself, you are at last deceived completely. My conscience almost smote me but I thought of M–. It is for her sake that I first thought of being, & that I am, so deceitful to poor Pic, who trusts me so implicitly.17

&
nbsp; Presumably, Francis Pickford did not believe Anne at all, understanding that she was lying. ‘Is this,’ said she, ‘your philosophy? Does your conscience never smite you?’ 18 She took a noble step back without exposing Anne. This clever woman could have become a genuine friend; they might have lent each other mutual support as two women who loved women. But Anne Lister did not seek friendship between equals. I am now let into her secret & she forever barred from mine. Are there more Miss Pickfords in the world than I have ever before thought of? 19 When Francis left Halifax at the beginning of September, I stood watching her so long the people might stare at me.20 From then on, their letters concerned only chemical gases and Armenian grammar.

  Mariana and Isabella

  1823–1824

  There is one thing that I wish for. There is one thing without which my happiness in this world seems impossible. I was not born to live alone. I must have the object with me & in loving & being loved, I could be happy.1 A deep longing for a life partner was just as much part of Anne’s existence as her steadfast dialogue with herself in her journals. Despite her renewed engagement to Mariana in July of 1821, however, she thought of her less and less. Were I to meet with anyone who thoroughly suited me, I believe I should regret being at all tied.2 Mariana, she thought, has not that fineness, that romantic elegance of feeling that I admire & that she scarcely understands me well enough to make me so happy as perhaps I once too fondly thought. Perhaps I require too much. It must be an elegant mind joint with a heart distilling tenderness at every pore that can alone make me happy.3

  Nonetheless, Anne was immediately willing to go along with Mariana’s suggestion for a reunion. When Mariana passed through Halifax in the mail coach, Anne was to get on and go along with her. On the morning of 19 August 1823, the suspense and anxiety of waiting made her restless and she decided to walk towards the coach. She left Shibden Hall without breakfast at about half past seven, in drizzling rain, and marched ten and a half miles up into the moor to Blackstone Edge, a dramatic escarpment, meeting the coach there three hours and ten minutes after setting out. Unconscious of any sensation but the pleasure at the sight of M–, a windswept and sweaty Anne held up her hand to halt the coachman, proudly and breathlessly announced that she had walked from Halifax, opened the door, stumbled up the three steps and collapsed onto the seat next to Mariana and her sister Lou. M– horror-struck. Why did I say I had walked from Shibden? Never saw John’s eyes [Mariana’s servant] so round with astonishment; the postboys, too; & how fast I talked! Thought to have met me at Halifax. Why did I come so far? Why walk? Why not come in the gig? Anne gave hasty explanations and tried to laugh off Mariana’s reaction, until she realised it was her boisterous joy at seeing Mariana that repelled her friend, who was appalled that she had taken the three steps into the coach in one go, most unladylike. The poisoned arrow had struck my heart and M–’s word of meeting welcome had fallen like some huge iceberg on my breast. Instead of embracing or holding hands in front of Lou, they ended up arguing. Anne’s emotions were in tumult. She fell silent for five minutes to gather her wits. ‘I meant to have gone with you’ to Scarborough, said Mariana, ‘but now perhaps ...’ Anne was about to reply, but ‘Now,’ said she, ‘you are going to vex me. Hold your tongue.’

  They appeared to have made up by the time they arrived in Leeds, but Anne felt miserable. She brought up the late breakfast she had eaten on the way. M– blamed the milk. It was not that. I laughed & said it was the shock of ‘the three steps’.4 At the Belcombes’ house in York, Anne and Mariana attempted to talk it over that night. She had a feeling she could not describe. Mariana was afraid of being caught out and would make any sacrifice rather than have our connection be known. Anne reassured her she need not fear my conduct letting out our secret. I could deceive anyone. Then told her how completely I had deceived Miss Pickford.5 They had a sexual reconciliation, but at home in Halifax, the episode caught up on Anne again. The ‘3 steps’ business haunts me like a spectre. I cannot throw it off my mind; it is my 1st thought in a morning & last at night. Mariana’s concern over losing her reputation seemed to her like the paltry selfishness of coward fear.6 She felt Mariana had never loved her as much as Anne loved her, due to Mariana’s propensity for material matters – and so it was Mariana’s fault that Anne had to cheat on her. How I could have adored her had she been more of that angelic being my fancy formed her. No thought, no word, no look had wandered then.7 But mine are not affections to be returned in this world. In the light of Mariana’s chronic venereal disease, Anne feared knowing her had perhaps been the ruin of my health & happiness.8

  Mariana tried to explain herself in a letter. She assured my Fred of her unaltered love, tho’ the tongue may sometimes, at unawares, speak unpalatable truths. Mariana regretted her behaviour at Blackstone Edge but insisted absolutely I feel jealous for you of everyone’s good opinion & I would not have you excite wonder, even in a post-boy.9 These words horrified Anne so much that she quoted them three times over in her diary. M– has not the way, I see, to lull me into sweet forgetfulness.10

  Still, Anne went to Scarborough on 12 September 1823 to spend a week with Mariana and her sisters Louisa and Eli; the ‘three steps’ business so in my mind, I seemed coolish, I daresay, & formal to begin with. Her robust march to Blackstone Edge had already made the rounds. Anne’s black woollen dress, worn on the beach and in the town every day, caused no less consternation; all the people stared at me. M– owned afterwards she had observed it & felt uncomfortable.11 At the sophisticated resort, Mariana saw her lover through new eyes. We touched on the subject of my figure. The people staring so on Sunday had made her then feel quite low. [...] She knew well enough that I had staid in the house to avoid her being seen with me. ‘Yet,’ said I, ‘taking me altogether, would you have me changed?’ ‘Yes,’ said she. ‘To give you a feminine figure.’ Anne’s masculine allures, which had fascinated and excited Mariana for nine years, now disturbed her. She had just before observed that I was getting mustaches [sic] & that when she first saw this it made her sick. If I had a dark complexion it would be quite shocking. I took no further notice than to say I would do anything I could that she wished.12

  When Mariana said the next day that it was lucky for us both her feelings were cooler. They tempered mine, [...] my feelings now began to overpower me. I thought of the devotion with which I had loved her, & of all I had suffered. I contrasted these with all the little deceits she has put upon me – forgetting her own. My heart was almost agonized to bursting. The tears ran down my cheeks. Anne suggested to Mariana never to be with her again till we could be together entirely, but I stopt [sic] short, tho’ not before she guessed that I meant offering to be off altogether. This seemed to affect her. After Anne had cried almost all night long, Mariana spent the next day crying. She thought I should be happier without her. She was always giving me pain. I could do better without her than she without me.13 Anne vowed to herself: I will not be much in M–s way. When I can give her éclat it will be very well. At present I cannot. She owns this sort of thing makes her feel uncomfortable. Is she ever conscious that she is at all ashamed of me?14

  The dismayed lovers returned from Scarborough to York to attend a concert festival at the minster. Anne was glad to be able to stay at the Norcliffes’ townhouse, where she shared Isabella’s room and bed. Mariana feared that closeness to her rival might be a threat to her and she visited for breakfast or dinner, not letting the two of them attend the theatre without her. I sat between M– and Isabella. On 24 September they were among the five-thousand-strong audience to hear Handel’s Messiah, performed by four hundred musicians in the choir and orchestra. The ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ transcendentally fine. Cramer, the leader, says there will never be such a thing again during the life of this generation.15 At the Belcombes’ home, Anne even met one of the soloists, Angelica Catalani, whom she had heard many years before with Eliza. The world-famous singer had been invited to dinner at six but appeared an hour early; nobody being ready, I
staid & had a little tête-à-tête with her. [...] Madame Catalani is certainly a very handsome, elegantly mannered & fascinating woman. I stammered on in French very tolerably. Saw M– merely for a moment. In comparison to the worldly artist, Mariana seemed too commonplace. Her sensibility seems rather weakness of nerve than the strength of affection. She thinks a good deal of her appearance & dress. Once again, Anne returned to the humiliations Mariana had visited upon her. She is subject to a feeling of shame about me, such as at Scarbro’. I fancy she would sometimes rather be without me ... She is not exactly the woman of all hours for me. She suits me best at night. In bed she is excellent.16

  Anne had a direct comparison, as she had now gone back to Isabella. Despite having argued terribly not long before, they continued their sexual relationship without further ado in York. When Anne spent several weeks at Langton Hall, Mariana joined them. I felt oddish when they came & did not go downstairs quite immediately. This Blackstone Edge & Scarbro’ business so clings to my memory I can’t shake it off. Instead of enjoying her two lovers’ company, I felt low & unhappy & could have cried, with pleasure, all the evening. She agreed with Mariana when she said she would give anything to efface the last three months. Alas, they have altered me.17

  Back in Halifax, she was alarmed by a message from Isabella. ‘I have been unwell since last Friday & it has turned to the fluor albus [i.e. leucorrhea or ‘the whites’] & most violent.’ Anne was immediately certain she had infected her. All this struck me like a thunderbolt. My heart sank within me as I thought of the injury I was so unsuspected of having done her. Unsuspected? Anne had been sleeping with Isabella for two years, despite her concerns. Remorse struck me deeply. Oh, M–, M–. What have you done? Anne accused her other lover, who certainly was not the one who had infected Isabella. Surely, said I, I am more sorry for poor Isabella than you were for me.18