One day I’ll commission portraits of myself and Ann. I’m not sure if I’d like to have myself looking down from the walls just yet, as if I have already died. I worry that they’ll never capture my likeness.

Miss Walker

The concern that we should do more for others plays on my mind. Sitting with Anne looking at our accounts, the two of us combined have monies to spare but she is intent on sacrificing more land to her ‘landscaping’ and building a lake which will serve no purpose but to add to her own grandeur. I tell her she has no one to impress as she has already won herself a wife, but she ignores me, and I know she’ll go ahead with her plans regardless.

We argue over philanthropy. I want to contribute to the children’s homes, but she would rather invest in a new museum of relics. She asks what the point in saving children’s lives is if there is no heritage or culture to educate or interest them? Let them all suffer and die then, I say, as long as you have some art works for the elite to look at, then never you mind.

I always knew we would quarrel on some points.

Anne does not seem to have the same compassion that I do. She does not seem to notice the poor in the streets. As she strides along to buy fabrics and books, she does not even glance at the woman with a baby that cries with hunger, whilst I pass her a few small coins and feel my eyes burn with tears. I suppose she does not have the guilt that I bear: the Walker success came from industry, from the blood and sweat of others. Being primarily funded by rents, the Listers give people work and income and their tenants live well. Anne is kind to them. Even when they do not use their vote for her party, the Tories, she visits with cheese and honey and always tries to help if illness befalls them and they can no longer manage their stead. She threatens to cast them out if they do not agree with her politics or fall behind on rent, but she never does. She compromises privately, but in public maintains her fearsomeness; I imagine it is to make sure they do not take liberties and so she retains their respect, and a bit of fear for good measure. I admire how she does that, but cannot match it myself. However, now that I am aligned to Miss Lister, the men who work for the Walkers do seem to pay more respect to me. When I appear at the collieries with her by my side, I see how they eye us, fear us and wonder at us. I feel braver now than I have ever done, but we do argue.