If I see her, I must be in her arms, touch her. This is not how friends should be. We do as much as men and women do, and gain pleasure from it. Now she tells me her heart can be broken while all along I believed it would be mine that would break. I believed that she would leave me and I would be devastated. That I could accept. For her to say that I could break her heart means that the decision of our lives is down to me. She loves me; I have her heart in my hands and it is too much for me to decide, too much responsibility to have another’s life under my control. I love her, yes, but I am well prepared to be heartbroken. If she will not break my heart, then this is it. We are in love. Mutually and forever. How has this happened? This, what can I call it, this affair, has become something more; a relationship that has a standing. The two of us are in love. How can this be? How shall it end? For happiness eludes me, and I will steal it from her too. She loves a cursed and unworthy being, who will drain her of her happiness. I cannot bring that upon her. I wish she did not love me. I wish she would leave me, let me wallow in my melancholy. I cannot cope with this feeling that I am loved, I who am unworthy. How unwisely she has chosen!

She fears rightly that I will break her heart. I flee from her as I had hoped she would flee from me. I run out into the night, away from the Moss House, away from Miss Lister. Go and travel, see the world, leave this region to me alone. Leave me here in my safe place and I shall erase my memory of you. Travel far and do not return until after my death. Do not mourn me. You deserve to be loved by someone who can give you everything.

Do not love me. Do not let me break your heart.

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Winter, 1832: A cold winter’s walk and
the expectation of an answer

Miss Lister