They had created an effigy of us both and set light to it.
Our forms were hanging in the street in plain sight. On fire! And she walked away. I could barely hide my tears. Thank goodness I had Anne’s arm to cling to, else I may have fallen in a faint.

How is she so strong? She marched us all the way back to Shibden, all the while talking of other matters as if she had not seen it. When we were finally safe inside, I could not help but sob, but she just sat me down, ordered tea and told me to pull myself together. What did it matter, she said? Men will be men. They do not like that we have influence over voters and are making our own money, and as they daren’t speak to our faces they do something to provoke us. The only thing we can do is not be provoked. She spoke to me as a teacher to a small child, but still I cried. I had been shaken. No one has ever done anything as horrible as this to me before, nor aligned me so openly to Anne.

I suppose I knew this would come, that no one would allow two women to be left in peace together. Just one year on from moving permanently into Shibden and all is undone.

What rumours there were already! And now to burn effigies of us together; it unites us as one, even though surely everyone knows that Anne does all the talking when it comes to business and politics. I’m just the little wife, drawn into her husband’s trials. Why couldn’t they have burned an effigy of her alone? I imagine by including me too they are trying to hurt her even more. She’ll probably be more determined than ever in her campaign to solicit more votes now. Oh, why cannot they just give her a vote? Then she’d stop all this nonsense!

I’m not sure what upsets me the most: the effigies, the violence of the fire, the way they hung there like real bodies, or that fact that she did not react. I long to see just one tear well up in her eye – something to show that she is hurt. But she hides it well. She is the husband protecting his wife, and I will always just be the wife. I will never be equal to Anne Lister.

Miss Lister