Then to poor Marian goes an annual amount, but my uncle must have assumed that she would marry, or that I would be responsible for her. Of course, I’d never cast her out, but she could go back to our mother’s house in Market Weighton if she wished. She seems intent on staying here with us though, even though she moans about us all, and about Shibden. I wonder if she is lonely? I expect every time we come to blows, even over the most trivial thing, that she will pack her bags and return to her friends back home. But she does not. She is attached to my aunt, as we all are, and perhaps she thinks she has more chance of a suitor in Halifax.

Miss Walker

There are no suitors in Halifax. They have all been suggested and paraded before my sister and me, and we before them. Not one of them turned our eye. They all had a back story of debt or misdemeanours. Not one of them ever asked about us and what we wanted from life; they merely gushed over what they could offer us, as if they were the ones sitting on a fortune.

Then Sutherland strode in and my sister’s knees went weak. I could see why, but I could also see through it. I never trusted him but couldn’t put my finger on the reason why, at least not until it was too late. She was smitten by the Captain who swaggered and pomped and probably could have done better than my sister for his looks but would have only managed a clergyman’s daughter for his lack of money and standing. He’d achieved his Captaincy but that was all. He was penniless but good with words, full of charm and dashing. My sister didn’t stand a chance.