We take the walk into Halifax together and visit Whitley’s, the local book seller and stationer where I order more books for my diaries; hardbound with good quality unlined paper. My order has arrived of Rosamund Best’s publication of her paintings of all twenty-four churches in York. It’s a surprise gift for Ann and she opens the package and turns straight to the page of Holy Trinity before we’ve even left the shop. We smile at each other at our secret union and walk home arm in arm.

Whilst some aspects of Halifax are on the rise, the town centre reveals the changes are not all for the better. The extravagant cloth hall, once a hub of activity on the Saturday of trading, is now beginning to decline. It will no doubt become just another common place for a market and fall to ruin. The wealthy pass in their ornate carriages whilst we cannot help but see the poor and starving all around us. I cannot bear to look at them and keep my gaze fixed on our purpose, but Ann suffers on behalf of each and every one she sees and sometimes I wonder if I should leave her at home to protect her from all this – but isn’t this life itself? We cannot live in the delusion that everyone is as happy and content as our little family is at Shibden, with want of nothing but warmer weather.

Ann still seems in awe of my hobby to write my diary and watches me of an evening. I read aloud sections to her. She likes to select an old volume at random and let it fall open on a page. Luckily, she cannot read my handwriting well, or the coded sections, so I can freely read her a sometimes-edited version. In truth, there is little left of me she does not know, I just spare her the details. We are almost caught up with each other on our histories and I settle into the security that there will be no more revelations to surprise me or unhinge this tranquillity of knowing each other so well and sharing almost everything.

We have settled in well to our lives here but there is something I want to share with her still. Paris.

Miss Walker