I am torn between settling here at my home of Shibden once and for all and embracing all I can do with the estate and local life, or setting off around the world, never to return. I remember Paris and my younger self’s ambitions. I studied anatomy…

I could disguise myself as a man and go somewhere where no one knows me. I could be a scholar, a doctor even. Use the income from Shibden to rent a place of my own, alone. Create a new identity. A new life as a man. I could be Doctor Lister – a John, Samuel or Jeremy.

Could I truly live in disguise, with the constant fear of discovery? Would any woman want me if I dressed as a man? They’d have to know my secret at some point. Am I more attractive to them as a woman? I believe I have avoided attracting attention to my relationships because as two women we are seen as merely close friends. But as a man, I would have to court just one woman and marry her before we could so much as touch each other’s skin under our clothes. With women, well, I can undress them and take them and it’s as if no harm is done. Their reputation is unsullied. The only damage is that I get hurt. Each time I imagine that this one will be the one, that this woman will love me as much as I love her, that this woman will not succumb to marriage, that this woman will be content with me and we will live our lives together – but each one, in turn, torments herself with her feelings for me and turns back to what is expected of her. Except poor Isabella, who loved me and would be here now beside me – but she is the only one I couldn’t love. Fate is cruel sometimes. I believe she feels for me as I feel for Mariana: a love that rises in your chest when you see them, hear their voice, receive a letter. A love that occupies your mind. A face that fills your vision when you close your eyes and is there every time you touch yourself, and every time you take pleasure, no matter whom you are with. Oh, Mariana. That Heaven should practice stratagems against so soft a subject as myself.