I am then invited to the laying of a foundation stone for a new museum by the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society, of which I am a member. The only woman, of course. Ann refuses to come with me. Though I would like to attend and think it would be good for us to be seen together on more than one occasion, she tells me she did not enjoy the last event which rather dampens my spirits and crushes my memory of it as a pleasant occasion. We argue over it and she tells me to go alone but I do not wish to, not now that we have been seen together. We should continue in the same vein. I end up not going and stomp about the Hall.

I read in the newspaper the next week that there had been a photographer there. I should have liked to have been immortalised in a photograph. I should have liked us both to have been photographed together. It makes me think upon my own mortality. I am now forty-six years old. I must write some travel books; they will be my legacy. I wonder who will read them?

I could turn to my diaries for publication instead, but when I start to read them as an editor it all seems mundane, like a poor novel. I could publish them anonymously and edit my relationships so that they appear to be with men, transform it into a romance novel about a long-suffering heroine who simply cannot find the right man until one day she meets a neighbouring heir and they live happily ever after. No one would believe it, or care.

I conclude that I need to travel again in order to write a book to be published. Everyone has already been to Europe, so it must include somewhere that has been less written about. Russia calls me. I shall write ‘A Woman’s Journey Beyond the Continent.’

Miss Walker

She holds the atlas in front of me like a threat and makes me follow her finger as it darts across the edges of land masses and arrives on the ominous pages of Russia and other countries whose names I cannot pronounce.

With her family all gone and the Hall in progress, never expanding quickly enough for her to be satisfied, she wants to leave. Her answer is to run away. When I fear to even go a mile into Halifax, how does she think I can travel across the globe itself?

Miss Lister