by Clara Barley
How can I shape this in my mind to understand it and be at one with it? Do I need to just be her companion and set aside all our intimacy? She tells me she would not speak to me if I were to marry another. She could not tolerate it. I suppose I could not either.
Miss Lister
A week later and it’s a stormy day. We are in the Moss House with the fire blazing and the wind outside blowing through the trees and rattling the panes, and I find myself wondering if I love her. I can only compare her to Mariana and how she made me feel. Should I accept that this will be a different sort of love? With Mariana we were equals, though of course I was the husband. Equals in intellect, interests, desires, loves. We could talk about anything, freely.
With Miss Walker I feel superior. It is not her fault, but the relationship is different, like that of a teacher and her pupil, not just about intimate relations but in all things. She asks my advice as if she has no clue herself. It is not a discussion; she just accepts what I say. I could tell her all sorts of mistruths and she would believe me.
Can I think myself into being in love with her? She is not as pretty as Mariana, but she is pretty enough. Prettier than me. Is she my only option now?
It will serve Mariana right once she hears that I have moved on and she has no chance any longer. I may be happier with Miss Walker than previous women. Being the husband in this relationship may be more rewarding, to see her blossom and grow in confidence. This way we will argue less, and I can make all the decisions. Is that really what I want? I may have to find my intellectual equal elsewhere or I may grow bored by her quickly.
A few weeks more and the dark nights have crept in. She now seems to think I will only like her until the novelty wears off. I convince her I have never felt like this about anyone else before. I can tell she does not quite believe me, and I wish I’d never tried to lie. The lamp goes out and we continue to kiss, and I feel for her breasts and then down to her queer. She does not resist, and I whisper to her that it would break my heart if she left me. It is a mistake. She sits up, pushing me away. She recounts to me that she is still undecided and she has not committed to me yet. I must give her time, she insists, and she flies from the Moss House and out into the dark as if I had struck her.
I do not go after her.
Miss Walker
If I see her, I must be in her arms, touch her. This is not how friends should be. We do as much as men and women do, and gain pleasure from it. Now she tells me her heart can be broken while all along I believed it would be mine that would break. I believed that she would leave me and I would be devastated. That I could accept. For her to say that I could break her heart means that the decision of our lives is down to me. She loves me; I have her heart in my hands and it is too much for me to decide, too much responsibility to have another’s life under my control. I love her, yes, but I am well prepared to be heartbroken. If she will not break my heart, then this is it. We are in love. Mutually and forever. How has this happened? This, what can I call it, this affair, has become something more; a relationship that has a standing. The two of us are in love. How can this be? How shall it end? For happiness eludes me, and I will steal it from her too. She loves a cursed and unworthy being, who will drain her of her happiness. I cannot bring that upon her. I wish she did not love me. I wish she would leave me, let me wallow in my melancholy. I cannot cope with this feeling that I am loved, I who am unworthy. How unwisely she has chosen!
She fears rightly that I will break her heart. I flee from her as I had hoped she would flee from me. I run out into the night, away from the Moss House, away from Miss Lister. Go and travel, see the world, leave this region to me alone. Leave me here in my safe place and I shall erase my memory of you. Travel far and do not return until after my death. Do not mourn me. You deserve to be loved by someone who can give you everything.
Do not love me. Do not let me break your heart.
Chapter Seven
Winter, 1832: A cold winter’s walk and
the expectation of an answer
Miss Lister
I walk the estate grounds every day, despite the frequent rains and colder weather. I have watched the trees change from summer to autumn and now walk amongst their fallen leaves as true winter sets in. It is not the same as the streets of Paris, but it has its own charm. As a child I would walk here often, but now it is mine. Well, a third of it at least. One day, I hope it will all belong to me. To stand on ground that one owns is remarkable. I feel fortunate; so few have this feeling in their lives. I could lie down right here and no one could make me move or take it away from me. I do not of course; I would look half mad.
As I walk, I examine where I would expand the beck at the bottom of the hill into a lake and where I would build a driveway to a gatehouse adjoining the main road from Halifax. I imagine it already complete.
I’ve planted more trees, creating a woodland which will outlive me. I have plans for a waterfall and ponds. Wherever I walk, it always leads me to my beloved Moss House. Even alone I can spend hours there in peace, undisturbed.
The fresh air does me good. Being indoors for too long makes me anxious; walking frees my mind. I will venture out each day despite the weather, even just for an hour. I quite enjoy the rain on my face and the cold wind that creeps in at my cuffs and collar.
How could she not enjoy this? The glorious summers and bleak winters of Yorkshire – extremes of temperature to make you appreciate the other, and all that’s in between. Grateful for a temperate day where you do not need gloves or to hold onto your hat. Grateful for a day of sunshine, so rare they are blessed.
How does she not wish to ascend to the high points? Up Beacon Hill where they hung the bodies of criminals, but such a beautiful spot overlooking the town and the hills, the routes in and out. You can see a storm cloud from over Hebden Bridge way as it heads towards you and race it back down to the Hall and have the fire lit before it hits. How can she not be in awe of our views, and enjoy looking out over what she owns? Nothing quite compares, although being atop a summit in the Pyrenees is close. A different vista altogether, beautiful, but not home, not my own. The question I received most often after I had achieved the ascent, some five years ago now, was not ‘was it difficult?’, but ‘why?’. Why, they would ask, did I want to ascend a mountain? Why ever not? I thought. It was because I wanted to know what ten thousand feet high felt like, compared to the one thousand feet I climb here in my home region. I wanted to know if my body could carry me so high into the sky. I wanted to know if I would feel any different, being so much closer to God and the Heavens. I wanted to because no woman had done so before me. I will ascend another mountain again soon. This time I’d like to be the first person ever to climb it, male or female. Why, they ask me? Because I can.
I enter the Moss House and it feels empty without her. I may have mentioned moving into Shibden together a bit too soon. Telling her that she would break my heart if she left me must have been too much. I can be rather romantic sometimes. But to run off like a schoolgirl…!
Miss Walker
I walk to the farthest part of the gardens on the edge of the wood. The woods lure me in, but I stop. It is as if I am standing on the edge of civilization, the well-mown grass, planted flowers and gravel pathways a place of human-built structures, but if I were to take just one more step the world around me would change into the wilderness of unkempt grounds, of mud and leaf-fall and the trees rising up either side blocking out the light and stretching before me as far as I can see, as if, were I to enter them, I would be held inside the woods for eternity. I fear that if I walk too far into the woods, I shall turn around and it will have closed in behind me and I will never find my way out. So I stand on the precipice, where I can admire the trees but I cannot be lost in them. I gaze into the woods with no end for as long as I can before a chill rises in me and I turn quickly back to face the house, the safe place where it is warm, and I am surrounded b
y memories and portraits of ancestors with whom I have been familiar my whole life, though never having known them. I want to rush back, but I make myself stand on the edge for as long as I can bear it.
Loneliness is silent. Does she feel it too? The world so large, the skies above and the Earth beneath and we small beings perched on the top, held perfectly. Wherever we go we touch the Earth, unable to float up or sink down. It steadies me. The few times I have ventured farther than I have known before, I have felt there has not been enough air. The Earth seems to move differently; it is not the piece of ground I know. It is not Walker land where my ancestors stood. God can find me if I am here. How will He watch over me if I wander? Does He see me in the Moss House? Does He see me here on the edge of the woods, like a tethered horse who can only graze in a circle? Does the tether give the horse security, or does she long to run free?
With Miss Lister I can walk farther. Even though my feet become sore and my back aches, when holding her arm I feel as if I could walk around the world. I do not turn to look for home, as she becomes the point to which I am tethered and she holds me firm. She likes to walk up towards High Sunderland Hall from where she can look down on her estate. I am happy standing beside her, but if she were to leave me there, I would come undone.
When I was young, my father walked me up to Beacon Hill, overlooking the town, and he told me it was where they hung the bodies of criminals to warn others not to break the law. There had been a gang who made money by clipping the edges off gold coins to make new ones. Clever indeed; but they were caught. The coiners were hanged in York and their bodies brought back here to be displayed in chains, their arms pointing back to the scene of their execution as a warning to others.
Someone gave them up. That was all it took, my father said. One person to tell tales and others’ lives are ruined. I replied that what they were doing was wrong, and should they not be punished? He told me that not everything is simply right and wrong. Sometimes a wrong is right. Sometimes a right is wrong. But the worst thing, he said, was telling tales. I swore to him that I would never tell tales.
Everyone else, however, seems very happy to do just that. The rumours I have been told about Miss Lister could furnish a novel of a most unbelievable character. I have even had anonymous letters warning me to steer clear of her, as if she were the Devil himself! Miss Lister is most kind. I believe that people are afraid of what they do not know. How brave of her to defy society – and what a clever way to do it too. But why of all colours choose black? Of all the forms her defiance could take, why that? Perhaps a different hairstyle, following a French fashion, would be better. I hear some women have even worn trousers. But to wear black takes courage, when single women are required to wear pale, neutral colours, as if advertising our innocence. Miss Lister defies that. I believe that is why people are so concerned about my acquaintance with her. If she wears black, what else will she do? Little do they know! They are too naive and small-minded to ever know her true secret: that she can give me pleasure no man would ever manage. That she is a woman with a man’s heart, a man’s passion.
Would I prefer her to be more feminine? Wear colour? Or is it her difference, her defiance that makes her so… unique? I would never tell tales on her, even if my life depended on it. For she could tell tales on me too. Whom would they believe? Perhaps we would both be cast aside as deviants, criminals, witches, and hung in chains over Beacon Hill for all to see the warning that women of Halifax must do as they are told.
Miss Lister
I wonder if her reluctance to commit to me is because of my appearance. Is she ashamed of my looks? While we hide away in the Moss House in secret I am acceptable to her, but when she thinks of being aligned with Miss Lister as a sort of partnership – is that what makes her afraid? Is she so concerned about what others think? Can I do anything to address that? For her, would I change myself? Would I conform and wear colour? Pastels and pinks and ribbons and bows, all trussed up like a parcel to be admired and chosen and doted upon? In the face of it all I chose black. The gracefulness of it. And it does not show the dirt. Black is my colour until the day I die. For I am like no other – let them see it and judge what they will, for I shall not be deterred.
If she were to love me, she should love me for who I am. But if I love her, should I not be willing to change for her? This sounds as though it may be a ponderance of many couples over the centuries. She should take me as I am, for this is me. To wear colours, bonnets and ribbons, to leave the estate work to the men, to curb my travels and never ascend another mountain, is that what she asks of me? Then it is not me she loves.
I send her a note as I will not let this end from my own lack of trying. Let her explain herself to me if she wants to break this off. She replies I may visit and invites me to see her. She does not mention the Moss House. I wonder if this is the end. I march to Crow Nest, thinking all the while I am to be cast aside, probably with paltry excuses. I am angry. Can she not see that I care? I am happy to give her my time, my energies, my love.
I shall stand in silence to hear what she has to say first. If it is disagreeable to me, I shall bid her farewell.
As I walk up over the valley and towards the Walker lands, I wonder if this may be the last time I ever come this way. If I walk back broken-hearted, I shall never wish to see an inch of Walker estate again. I shall leave here and all the hopes that have risen in me that this could be my home and that I had found someone to share it with at last. All dashed because she is too timid to see what happiness is offered to her.
I decide to call in on her aunt first. Make her wait. I must keep up appearances that I am friends with all the Walker family, not just one of them.
I am blunt with her aunt and ask her what vexes her niece. I ask if she has ever left home before, what she can tell me of her fiancé? It is wicked of me, but if Miss Walker will not tell me herself, I shall find out. Her aunt does not give much away at first, though I construct my questions as those from a most innocent and concerned friend. What she reveals makes it sound as though she should warn me away from her niece rather than the other way around. I tell her that I did not know about her fiancé until just recently so was unaware of her grief when we first met. I gush that I would never have pursued her for such happy walks and company had I known she was so grieved. Her aunt seems to let me into her confidence and tells me of her little niece’s bouts of melancholia and a bad back which pains her all the time. I tell her, honestly, that she seems much more confident since our acquaintance and has joined me on walks, a little farther each time and, before long, the old judgemental gossip cannot but agree that I have been of benefit to her niece.
As I approach Crow Nest, I wish for a moment that I lived in one of the grand Walker properties. Such a funny name, Crow Nest, like a pirate ship; but I can see why she likes it, with its high ceilings and opulence, marble instead of wood, high carved fireplaces and servants for your every need. It makes Shibden seem less grand, despite its ancestry. This new house is angled correctly, everything so square. I am lured by its architecture into feeling more highborn than I am. Would I wish to be the owner of this house, instead of Shibden? But Shibden is hundreds of years old, its beams have seen generations!
For all my worrying, as soon as we are behind closed doors Miss Walker lays in my arms on the sofa, her bad back obviously taking a day off from the constant pain her aunt reported. I kiss her, but not as passionately as I would like. Am I falling out of love already? She begs forgiveness for running out on me and begs for more time to make her decision, as usual. As if to prove that I should wait, she takes me up to her bedroom and we kiss and press ourselves together, but that is all. I daren’t do much. I let her steer us and she seems content with our closeness. Should I never ask for more? As we lie here, I know this is not enough for me. I’ve had this before; women who want to kiss, want you to flatter them and hold them and caress them, but you never reach their skin. They do not real
ise it is a tease, a torture even. While they are satisfied and flattered and excited, it is not enough for me. It is a half-truth.
Despite the many pleasures she has received from me, she is never entirely naked. She has always resisted me fully taking off her clothes, so I must grapple to reach her beneath them. Now, as she lies before me, she may as well be in a suit of armour. We have taken a step backwards. A step back to being friends who play with kisses, like girls practising for someone else.
I leave Crow Nest and all its modern opulence feeling disheartened and stomp all the hour’s walk back to Shibden. I busy myself in the study and draw up some plans for landscaping around the Hall and a new approach road.
I suffer through supper with my family of bores and retire early to be miserable alone. I even guessed the temperature wrong this morning. I should have known it would be a bad day.
Miss Walker
It was two days after I fled the Moss House that she came to see me. She sent me a note to ask permission to visit and I replied straight away with a yes. Two long, torturous days. She forgave me and waited for me to explain, but how could I without weeping and sounding half mad? She could not understand my anguish. I wanted to prove to her I loved her too and so sat by her on the sofa and we kissed and as the words did not flow, I took her to my room and held her.
She was changed. Colder. My own fault entirely. I shall have to find a way to explain to her my mind. Then she will be more patient with me, more forgiving, and not read my fleeing as from her, but as from myself.
I shall wear more black. Show my allegiance to her. However, I do not own a single black garment, except my mourning clothes. I shall purchase a new shawl. A beautiful black lace shawl. I wonder if she will notice?