To prove to Fanny that we didn’t need Hugh Skeys—didn’t need marriage at all—I took a job as a companion to a widow in Bath, who was old and wealthy, ill-tempered and arrogant. By then I was nineteen years old and keen to earn my own way, if not enough to support our future life together. I knew Fanny would have done the same but for her weak constitution, the responsibilities of running the Blood household, caring for her mother and siblings. The money she earned from her drawings had to suffice until Skeys returned to take her hand. Mama took my leaving for Bath personally, furious that I would abandon our household, which she relied on me to manage. Father had all but disappeared, dropping by to pay the occasional bill and visit his drunken threats on us all, which it fell to me to fend off. Eliza and Everina, too, felt abandoned by me. I realized they were resentful of my freedom and ill-equipped to take on my duties. I should have taught them, but I hadn’t. I couldn’t stomach preparing them for wifely duties when I wanted them to know about the workings of gravity and the birth of human rights. They called me selfish for going away, and perhaps I was.

One year—that’s how long I had to persuade Fanny against marriage.

Bath was my first introduction to high society, but I soon realized my widow and her friends, even the young women of the town, were everything I rejected. They were frivolous and frenetic. Wore striped taffeta, tight corsets, and on their hips stiff panniers too wide for most doorways. A curtsy was almost enough to tip one of them over. Their faces were coated in white powder, with rounds of rouge on their cheeks, their frizzed hair built up in steep towers finished with feathers and ribbons, stuffed birds, and fruit. All their world felt false to me, the opposite of my life with Fanny. Out of contempt, and on principle, I made myself a monk among them, dining on grapes and bread crusts while they stuffed their mouths with pastries and succulent roasts. I wore a few simple dresses in rotation, and no makeup at all, my loops of reddish-gold hair unpowdered. I read epic poems, took long walks, finding solace in the variegated light and shade, the gorgeous palette the sun’s rays gave to the hills around town. I could almost hear my dear Fanny gently lecturing me on the relative merits of ocher and umber.