I have spent my life trying to hide my relationships with women and make sense of who I am. Who would not think ill of me if they read the truth of my heart? By all means, they may know of my endeavours and travels, but of my heart? What would a reader think to my exclamations of love? My marriage ceremony with Mariana all those years ago? Would they malign me as a miscreant and judge me as they do men who prefer their own sex? Would the dark shame I have lived in fear of fall over my life, my home, my family and tarnish the Lister name? Will my story be erased because of my heart’s will to love only women? This fear is what created my code; it protects me and those I have loved from the ill-will of those who could never understand.

My obsession continues, and I cannot sleep until at least my pocketbook is full of the day’s account, and after too many days I feel anxious if I have not written up into my permanent record, which seems to verify my very existence. For if I have not recorded what happened, did it happen at all? If I do not find time one day to edit the volumes myself, whose hands may they fall into?

I showed Miss Walker my diaries and she was in awe. She asked if I’d written about her and I told her I write about everything. I reassured her that it was written in a code that only I know, and that our secrets are safe.

Miss Walker

I recognise the handwriting before I open it. I almost daren’t, but I must deal with this now or I will not be able to concentrate for the rest of the day. What does she want now? Some friends always want something. Never just to enquire, or send love and warm wishes.

Miss Whitaker wants to travel. Again. She’s always asking. She must be frightfully bored. I imagine that if she is asking me then she has asked everyone else that she knows and been declined. Travelling with her would be a nightmare. Hours, days on end in a carriage with her!