Gentleman Jack

by Katy Derbyshire

  She began the new year flirting with Vere Hobart and had a dalliance with VH on 8 January, but the very next day Capt. Cameron calls on VH. This captain proved to be the most serious of Vere’s admirers. AL rather cross with VH (16 January), AL regrets her stay at Hastings with VH, AL takes umbrage at VH (17 January). Refuses to come downstairs for VH’s caller (19 January), re VH – AL in pathetic state of psych. confusion abt. her. AL offended, VH tries to cajole her. Still sulking a bit. For February too, Ramsden notes a great deal of scene and reconciliation – peacemaking, another scene etc. (boring & repet.). Anne felt both repelled and attracted by Vere, but was still talking to VH. abt possible travelling arrangements. March sees long encrypted passages day after day, comments on VH, which Phyllis Ramsden summarises with the words: AL unhappy – cannot accept that she has failed to captivate VH. In mid-March, Anne allowed herself more histrionics with VH – VH quite unmoved.

  Still, Anne did persuade Vere to think about the material aspect of a lasting relationship with her: asking questions abt AL’s income, etc. and joking talk abt their money.48 Vere Hobart believed Anne Lister had an income of £5,000 a year, an assumption the mistress of Shibden Hall chose neither to confirm nor deny. Then jokes with Miss H. that our match would be off on account of pecuniary matters and we both laughed and called each other mercenary. On the morning of 15 April, Anne summed up their ‘marriage negotiations’ before they went to church together: Well if it was not for the petticoats the thing would be clear enough. Yes that it would be said she. Perhaps said I laughingly it is pretty much the same thing in spite of them. It was not; how little dream what so few hours would bring forth.49

  For Captain Cameron came calling again that day and Vere asked him to dinner – the murder is out – we talked it over – she will not say ‘no’ – so it is done. Donald Cameron hinted to Vere even before the meal that he wanted to propose. Twenty minutes with Miss H–, laughing and joking, but found the tears starting as I kissed her forehead and ran away. ‘What, are you going?’ said she – but I was off, saying, ‘Oh, I dare not look behind me.’ In the privacy of her room, Anne cried her eyes out. For five months she had done nothing but court Vere, all in vain. She pulled herself together for dinner. On going down, saw them on the sofa together & both looking so satisfied, I suspected how it was. The moment we left the dining room about eight, he staying behind quarterhour, she told me it was all over – he made his offer in a very flattering manner to her, done it very well & she had accepted him. Anne brought herself to say I was very glad of it. She gave me her two cheeks to kiss. I kissed both, first one then the other, but said nothing – she moralized a little – said how a moment changed our whole lives, but she thought she should not repent. Anne drank a polite cup of tea with them both & soon came upstairs – a little before nine – & left them to their happiness. What a sudden change for us all – for me too. She will go to Italy, but not with me.50 Cried & sobbed bitterly for an hour last night, then began to be more composed, but could not sleep till three – awoke about six – up at seven – to the pot – long very thick piece with some difficulty.

  Her pride returned that morning. I neither want her pity nor her ridicule, both of which I might count upon, did she know my folly. Well, one word has made greater separation between us than thousands of miles could have done. She is no longer anything to me. My eyes are swelled up – I am not fit to be seen. Perhaps washing will do good. But I shall get over it.51 It was not easy. Phyllis Ramsden notes on the next few days: AL v. upset – scenes, reconciliations – do – more sparring – still arguing – ditto.52 Vere remarked that we now clashed more than ever. However, it came out when I said Donald was a lucky man, that she thought [...] I thought she was making a mésalliance & I might give that impression to others. [...] She is more in love with the novelty & nice-ness of being married than with Donald himself & she is shockingly touchy. [...] She has a damned bad temper – suspicious, jealous, incredulous – I am far better without her.53

  Vere’s engagement meant all Anne’s plans for the future were obsolete. They gave up the house only a week later. Although cholera had spread to France and England, Anne still wanted to travel. I am taught to think cholera an epidemic respecter of fearless, temperate, flannelbelted persons, and shall not therefore let it disturb my plans at all.54 She ordered three 380-page diaries from her bookseller Whitley in Halifax, plus a dozen 50-page notebooks; she wanted to stay away a long time and see, experience and write down a great deal.

  One thing Anne still needed, though, was a travelling companion – for company, respectability and not least to cut costs. Only one day after Vere Hobart accepted Donald Cameron’s proposal, Anne wrote to the always good humoured55 Lady Caroline Duff Gordon, with whom she had undertaken her successful trip along the Rhine in 1829. Lady Gordon had made several travel suggestions since. Besides tho’ married to each other, we could be a fashionable pair and be as independent as we chose and each go her own way. What do you think? Anne had not taken up the idea, although she should have hastened to accept the most amiable offer of Marriage that surely ever was made.56 The reason at the time – Vere Hobart – was no longer a hindrance. Anne accompanied Vere back to London on 25 April 1832 and went straight to Lady Gordon in Cheltenham. The lady’s ironic understanding of marriage, however, was so modern that it included separate accounts, even when travelling. That was exactly what Anne did not want. I have difficulty enough as to the usages of high society. [...] But I have ten times more on account of money. Anne had wasted a small fortune over the past few months on the south coast, first on a trip to kill time and then with Vere in Hastings. My high society plans fail – unknown & without connections, money should abound. I have had my whim – tried the thing – & pretty much it has cost me. I shall in future perhaps do more wisely & within my compass.57 That same night, she wrote to Aunt Anne to announce her imminent arrival at Shibden Hall; all things considered, it seems for the best to look after business concerns without further loss of time.58

  Ann

  1832–1840

  NEIGHBOURS

  Anne Lister returned to Shibden Hall on 7 May 1832, not having spent more than a few weeks there since 1826. Marian, Anne complained, crowed over the household like the cock of the dung-hill.1 She had had enough of her sister, even on the day of her arrival; we shall never agree – the less we see of each other the better – I like her less & less.2 Jeremy Lister did not speak a word to his prodigal daughter. Marian informed Anne of his opinion of her. My father does not like my walk etc.3 Anne avoided joint mealtimes and only spent an hour or so with her family in the evenings for her aunt’s sake; my aunt the best, but with all her goodness to me, sadly tiresome as a companion – the rest insufferable in point of vulgarity.4 I must get away somewhere – the money is the thing – I must invent something or other very shortly – but off I must go.5

  Two weeks after her return, Anne escaped to her usual exile at Langton Hall with Isabella Norcliffe, where Mariana Lawton also put in an appearance. Anne explained to her oldest friends and lovers that she dreamed of a dame de compagnie [...] who is sensible, & comfortably well-mannered, who would be prepared to go where I like. She should do no work but help me to dress, to take care of my things, & make others do the rest. [...] I don’t mean to sit at a table with the woman who does my dirty work. Isabella and Mariana could no doubt imagine what else Anne expected of such a woman, laughing and quizzing me.6 Her grinning friend informed Anne on that occasion of the appellation Isabella says people give me – of tuft-hunter. Did people know about Anne Lister’s pubic hair collection? Anne would have had to pay her dame de compagnie, which gave the whole matter something too anomalous, rather sleazy, & I should [...] give it up,7 just as the idea of a peasant ‘wife’,8 which she had nurtured over the past years of involuntary celibacy. In her mind she went through possible candidates of her acquaintance, the MacKenzies, Lady Elizabeth Thackray & Miss Hall – to try first for Miss MacK–. Thought of Miss Freeman & Miss Walker o
f Lidgate as people here. Louisa Belcombe & Miss Price in York, besides Miss Salmon. Surely I shall get some companion by-and-by.9

  The top billing went to twenty-nine-year-old Ann Walker from the neighbouring village of Lightcliffe, twelve years Anne’s junior. The Walkers were ‘new money’ to Anne, owners of steam-powered weaving mills, and thus below the classes she chose to mix with. Ann Walker’s grandfather had built an empire as a cloth-maker, trader and landowner. The family had three properties in Lightcliffe. Ann was born in 1803, and grew up with her older sister Elizabeth, and younger brother John at the family’s main home, Crow Nest, a large Georgian manor house surrounded by spacious grounds. It was at an evening occasion at the Walkers’ home that Anne Lister had first worn black, fifteen years previously. Anne had made an impression on young Ann; four years later, Miss Ann Walker of Crownest [sic] overtook me, having run herself almost out of breath. Walked with her as far as the Lidget [sic] entrance to their own grounds & got home at 6:40. Made myself, as I fancied, very agreeable & was particularly civil & attentive in my manner. I really think the girl is flattered by it & likes me. She wished me to drink tea with them. I hoped for another walk to Giles House & the readiness she expressed shewed that my proposition was by no means unwelcome. She has certainly no aversion to my conversation & company. After parting I could not help smiling to myself & saying flirting with this girl has done me good. It is heavy work to live without women’s society & I would far rather while away an hour with this girl, who has nothing in the world to boast but good humour, than not flirt at all.10 When they took that second walk a year later, Anne did admire Ann’s pretty flaxen hair11 and also found her very civil, etc, but she is a stupid vulgar girl. [...] I have no intention of taking more walks, or letting the acquaintance go one jot further.12

  That had been ten years earlier. Since then, a series of deaths and blows of fate had put an end to Ann Walker’s sheltered life. Her parents both died within six months of each other in 1823. Her father left a complicated forty-eight-page will designed to prevent his assets from being divided for generations to come. The main heir to the family fortune was nineteen-year-old John; each of the sisters received a smaller share, from which they gained an income of about £600 a year, as Anne Lister knew. With these handsome sums in mind, John Walker had ruled that his daughters’ inheritance was for their sole and separate use, not to be transferred to any person or persons with who she may intermarry.13 John Walker might have anticipated dowry hunters but he had not reckoned with his daughters’ naivety, longing for love or susceptibility to emotional blackmail. Against the express will of her trustees, in 1828 Elizabeth married George Mackay Sutherland, a subaltern infantry officer without a sixpence14 stationed in Halifax, with whom she moved to Scotland. On his demand, Elizabeth transferred all her personal assets to him, even though her father had stipulated they were for her alone. Captain Sutherland’s lucky ticket turned into the first prize when his young brother-in-law John died out of the blue on his honeymoon in 1830. As he had not left a will, the entire inheritance was divided between Elizabeth and Ann: business shares, stocks, properties and land to the value of some £45,000. George Sutherland harassed his wife, heavily pregnant with her second child, until she signed to place the property coming to you, as one of the Coheiresses of your Brother, at the complete Disposal of Captain Sutherland.15 He even tried to get his hands on his sister-in-law’s share – if not for himself, then at least for his first-born son Sackville. The unmarried Ann Walker found it hard to resist and therefore made her young nephew her heir in 1831. From then on, the Sutherlands and Miss Walker and the Priestleys are all queer together,16 by which Anne Lister meant they were estranged.

  The arguments over the inheritance depressed Ann Walker, and during that very summer of 1832 when she ended up on Anne Lister’s list, she suffered another major loss: her secret fiancé Mr Fraser died unexpectedly. The young woman seemed thrown off track, with rumours of insanity and mental derangement circulating about her. Her mind warped on religion – she thinks she cannot live – has led a wicked life etc.17 Rich, without protection, confused and alone, Ann had never seemed more attractive to Anne Lister. She paid her a neighbourly visit lasting an hour and three-quarters on 10 August 1832. We got on very well together. Thought I, as I have several times done before of late, shall I try & make up to her? A week later, Anne called en passant on Miss Walker of Lidgate – & sat with her tête-à-tête from 10 to 1! Talked of household economy – got on very well. [...] Thought I, ‘she little dreams what is in my mind – to make up to her – she has money and this might make up for rank.’ 18 She calculated the object of my choice has perhaps three thousand a year or near it, probably two-thirds at her own disposal. No bad pis aller – even if I liked her less – a better take than Lady Gordon or perhaps Vere either.19

  Whereas the Listers had previously called on the Walkers only rarely and out of neighbourly duty (their properties being adjacent), Anne now began visiting Ann Walker every few days. Miss W– & I do certainly get on marvellously – she seems quite confidential & glad to see me.20 Ann Walker, who had literally chased after Anne Lister eleven years previously, enjoyed the undivided attention she now received from her neighbour; she always thought I had a tincture of romance about me.21 She came in her carriage for a visit to Shibden Hall, conversed with Aunt Anne for a quarter of an hour for politeness’ sake and then took Anne along to town with her to go calling and running errands. At Throp the gardener’s, I am to choose shrubs for her & she for me. Then Ann dropped Anne off again at Shibden Hall. The two had never spent a day like that together before; according to Anne Lister it lasted from 11:50 until 5:30.

  Two days later, Anne incurred a cross thinking of Miss Walker – first time.22 To her chagrin, Ann went on holiday to the Lake District with her best friend Catherine Rawson soon afterwards. Anne used her absence to work on her new landscape garden. While there was little she could change about Shibden Hall, she wanted to make the grounds more impressive. Inspired by her travels and especially by the Llangollen Ladies’ Plâs Newydd, she transformed the gently sloping fields between the house and the Red Beck stream about five hundred yards away into a single open space. She had the hedges torn out, the fields changed to lawns, unattractive trees felled, and planted oaks, horse chestnuts and yews, roses, juniper, and, along the stream, willows, in groups or as eye-catching solitaires. Anne spent every morning commanding a small army of workers, who put into practice what she’d read the evening before in John Claudius Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Gardening, a parting gift from Ann Walker. She was fond of helping out with the work herself. Jeremy and Marian eyed the changes with suspicion, convinced I shall not have income to keep these things up. ‘I shall find it out,’ she [Marian] said, ‘by & by.’ She expects to be the richest, & that I shall be obliged to sell.23

  Anne’s highly strung sister, eccentric father and rheumatic aunt might well have been off-putting for Ann Walker. To seduce her, Anne needed a place where they could be undisturbed – and so she had a little cabin built with a view of the lily bank of the Red Beck, in the lower part of her landscape garden. Upon stone foundations, walls of young oaks were built and covered with moss. The little house had a roof of rushes, and Anne planted evergreen yews and cherry laurels to keep it out of sight of Shibden Hall. Always fond of innuendo, she also planted plenty of sycamores, known since Shakespeare’s days as ‘sick of amour’ trees. Everything was ready to receive Ann Walker.

  14 Map of Halifax and Lightcliffe, Laura Fronterré.

  The latter had always an idea that her thirtieth year would be a very important one.24 Thinking of Anne Lister every day during her stay in the Lake District, she began to connect that idea with her. She had hardly returned home on 25 September before Anne Lister paid her a call. She had been fantasising lustfully about Ann again before getting up in the morning, and took the ‘love path’ that would soon be much used in both directions. She walked through her landscape garden, past the moss hut to the s
tream, along the Red Beck to the end of the garden, climbed a steep hill to the road, walked down to the next valley and back up to Lightcliffe. After almost two miles, which she covered in just over half an hour, Anne Lister reached the smallest of the Walkers’ buildings to the left of the road, Lidgate, where Ann Walker lived alone. On the right of the road was the entrance gate to Crow Nest, the vacant family seat. A little way further along the road was the Priestleys’ New House, where Anne had once been a regular caller. Eliza Priestley was Anne’s oldest friend, and knew Anne wished for a lady for my future companion.25 Her husband was Ann Walker’s cousin and estate manager. Not far from them lived Ann Walker’s godmother of the same name, at the spacious Cliffe Hill.

  Ann Walker was so glad of the visit that Anne turned up again the next morning at the same time. She came for breakfast at eight, stayed for lunch at two and then showed Ann her new moss hut, which had a solid floor and light garden furniture; said I had built the hut on purpose for her.26 Ann Walker was delighted and sat & sat in the moss house, hardly liking to move. Of course I made myself agreeable. Anne steered the conversation round to travel and Ann seems to take all I say for gospel [...] – she consults me about her affairs and falls into my views of things admirably. At dusk, she walked Ann back to Lidgate; on parting she said she knew not when she had spent so pleasant a day – I believe her. On her walk home, a satisfied Anne thought: she is more in for it than she thinks, and envisaged the future. We shall have money enough. She will look up to me & soon feel attached & I, after all my turmoils, shall be steady. To her surprise, she noted: I really did feel rather in love with her in the hut, & as we returned. I shall pay due court for the next few months – & after all, I really think I can make her happy & myself too. [...] How strange the fate of things! If after all, my companion for life should be Miss Walker.27