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Back The Moss House Save as PDF
Chapters (22)
  1. The Moss House
  2. Imprint
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Epilogue

Marian Lister and I kept up our correspondence and I visit more regularly since my return from Scotland. I decided to pursue my friendship with her as she seems a good match; she is nearer my age than most of my family and acquaintances and is single too. We get along well and have decided we will travel to York for a short stay soon. I enquired last week if she’d heard from her sister on her travels and she told me that their aunt was taken ill a month ago, and as she had sworn to her sister that she would tell her if she needed to return, she’d written to her. She had then sent a second letter two days later to say that the worst had passed and she need not return, but she had had nothing in reply to either letter. I asked her if she was worried at not having heard from her and she replied that when she was in France, they did not hear from her for weeks or months at a time. Did she never wish to join her, I ask, and she confides in me that she has been seeing someone, so does not want to leave. She makes me swear not to tell anyone.

Today it is my turn to visit Marian and I decide to walk over to Shibden rather than take the carriage. I’m feeling stronger and despite the cold chill, I encourage myself to accomplish the hour’s walk. I am sure to be offered a lift home in the Lister carriage.

Then I see her. Plain as day. Miss Lister.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Spring, 1834: A marriage and a new addition to the Lister clan

Miss Lister

We shall henceforth call each other by our Christian names; it’s a shame we have the same one! The only difference is that her name does not have an ‘e’ like my Anne. I’m rather accustomed to thinking of her as Miss Walker but I shall endeavour to call her Ann.

She should really be Mrs Anne Lister. I should be Mr Lister. I could even be Mr Lister-Walker to give myself some additional airs and graces. Only in private, of course.

I am wed. Again.

Clearly, Miss Walker, or rather Ann, need never know she is technically not my first wife. How awful of me to have married before! I wonder if I need some sort of official annulment – but then it is all a fiction in truth. A good fiction that makes us feel bound and committed and hopefully blessed by God in our union. It is a wonderful secret that is ours alone. She is my wife!

We chose Ann’s favourite little church in York, Holy Trinity. We exchanged vows in our rooms and then went to church to take the sacrament together.