The next Sunday we all go to church in the carriage together. My father, my aunt, my sister and my wife. I let Father assert his protectiveness over the Lister clan as he escorts us into the church, leading his Lister women and our adopted Ann into his pew. He stands taller than I have ever seen him and looks quite fearsome as the folks around us stare on at the Captain who served his country. He is the Lister lion and we are his pride, following behind him, protected. Let them see the redness and bruising they have caused me.

Hidden from view behind the wooden pew, he squeezes my hand and whispers that he is proud of me. I have to hide my face in the hymn book, as it’s all too much to be required to be so brave all the time, for all of them, and for Ann, when one has been reminded so brutally that it is all just an act; that anyone bigger than me can dash away at me with a stick.

I wonder if the culprit is sitting in the church, watching. I wonder if he’ll be sent again to finish the job. I wonder about all the things he could have done to me.

I remember a time when the name didn’t hurt me and I wanted to claim it as my own, but now it saddens me to my core. I do not wish to be Gentleman Jack. I hate the sound of it and all it encompasses. They have won. I will have nothing more to do with politics.

Miss Walker

Winter is upon us and whoever it was that had set against our quiet peaceful family with no malice towards anyone, will not let it end. Not even with the shedding of Anne’s blood.

Not content with burning our effigies, insulting us in the newspaper, anonymous letters, even striking Anne, we are called out one night by the groom and race after him to see the flames tearing apart our Moss House. We stand helpless, the family, the servants, for what else can we do but watch it burn? There is no reason for it to burn other than malice. We all know, but do not speak it; this was no accident.

Our joyous little sanctuary goes up in smoke into the night sky. Everything we had created, enjoyed and loved, our little heaven, our haven, our home, becomes reduced to ashes. We had been in there only that morning.

The heat of the blaze warms us against the cold winter air that surrounds us as we stand there; a line of Listers silhouetted against the bright flames in the dark night.