I look back through my old diaries and re-visit my younger self. It was always Mariana for me. From the moment we met in York everything about her excited me, and for a long time I believed the same was true for her. All those years ago, an exchange of vows, our futures were settled together and then she received a proposal from an old fool of a man with a large amount of land in Cheshire.

He will die soon, she would tell me, and we will be set for life. I was left waiting in the wings for my time to perform, which never came. Waiting, awfully, for him to die. But the old fool has too much life left and instead seems to drain it from Mariana. She is no longer the woman I loved, would have given anything for, spent my every living day with. She took a gamble on him, his life, and lost. It was a gamble I never wanted her to take. In the end we both lost.

After Mariana married, I spent more and more time abroad or visiting other friends, not wanting to return to the family at Shibden alone. Then it was Maria whom I met in Paris who took my heart and we formed an idea of a future together, but she too was unable to satisfy me. I grew cold towards her and by the time I left her in Paris, just before my uncle passed away and I received some inheritance, I was done with her and have never been in contact again. Foolishly, as I see now, I was still confident in my early thirties that the perfect woman for me would arrive. But here I am past forty, alone again.

Miss Walker

She tells me she has dissected a head! I have so many questions I daren’t ask her in front of her family; was it horrible, were you afraid it would come alive, do you think God thinks that’s a proper thing to do? In the two years she most recently resided in Paris, I sat at home. Sewing. Possibly doing a few sketches. I may have read one or two novels. Oh, how different our lives are. I am jealous, of course, though I would never be one for dissection. Her world is much wider than mine. Though my family have more wealth (better to never say that aloud to her!), she seems to have had more privilege. Her father sent her away to school, encouraged her to travel, paid for tutors. Confidence emanates from her. How could she ever be satisfied by me?

I must think on my own accomplishments.