When I was young, I believed that if I wished enough, I would wake up a boy. Not because I wanted that form, but I wanted all the privilege it allowed. I would never have had any worries about my future had I been the eldest boy. My inheritance would have been set and the world would have been mine. I would have chosen a wife for love and would have been proud to have been seen with her. Instead, because of my form, not my mind or myself, I was condemned to wait on others to bequeath me money, such as the generous allowance my uncle gave me when I moved in with him and my aunt all those years ago. I finally had my own purse!

For many years, while dear Sam was alive, I believed I would still have to marry. I suppose little Marian felt the same, and still does. Now she is beholden to me as the eldest and my choices, and although she threatens to marry the first man who will have her and have a baby boy to strip me of the Lister inheritance, she seems also to be without the desire to be enamoured with a man. Perhaps she is just too shy. Or does she feel as I do? She has never suggested it. Is she perhaps just too afraid and so will remain a spinster, unsatisfied by the world yet unwilling to go out and claim some of it for herself?

Miss Walker

If we were men we would go out for a ride or shoot and have something to discuss, instead of making small talk. My back aches from the effort of maintaining my posture and my corset digs in. Now she talks with Marian and I have a moment to look back at her; her dark hair, dark clothes, her own posture which seems so much stronger than mine. Looking at her reminds me of watching my brother playing with a sword and swaggering around with his shotgun and dogs. I wanted to look like him. John was not pretty, but attractive, fun. He never had to sit with his knees together, or sew, or play the piano. I had the piano keys before me but it never sounded the way I wanted it to. I was trying to make beautiful music but all you could hear was the ‘try’. I’m not sure if I was jealous of him or the way he was treated. Probably both. But he was my friend, my confidant. He would protect us as Father did, even if he teased me and made me giggle at the table when we shouldn’t. John knew that my job was to look pretty, and his job was to one day inherit and manage the Walker estate and protect me.