5th October 1886

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I am on the brink of life as I write: I can feel the future running up and down my spine like tiny mice. My eyes have been opened and they are wide with excitement and shock. I must write of what I have seen, though I will certainly destroy it forthwith. 

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Sapphists! I have heard talk of such things, but never considered they might be so intimate with each other. I should be shocked, shouldn’t I? Am I really so naïve?  I am recollecting the pastor’s admonitions and it all fits into place. 

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To tell the truth I am more than anything intrigued to discover a whole world I have never before encountered: would never have seen (for it hides behind closed shutters and locked doors), had I not been invited. I’m not sure why she trusted me really. Lilian Cooper: a square, confident creature, with the kind of air that only the experience of having had a bank account as full as your mother’s breast all your life can give to a woman. I suspect she has never yet questioned that the world will do her bidding and, when summoned, relinquish itself in heaving, stammering surrender to her lap. 

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Mother would be horrified. I shall write to her tomorrow in my best script and reassure her that I am taking my cod liver oil. Of course I will be seeing her on Sunday for Mass, followed by lunch and the usual stroll on the Heath. But we have never before been separated, she and I. She will be missing me and praying hard for my deliverance from sin. 

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Have I sinned in my complicity with what I have seen? Have I sinned because I have not yet prayed for the souls of my new friends? Because I did not make the sign of the cross and walk straight out of that room: that glorious house? I am glad to have friends in this city – even ones who act in clear mind against His plan for us – and I cannot right now bear to think of their eternal torment in Hell. The world is full of beautiful people and I am glowing in their light. I may only ask of Him that one day I too will shine like a candle reflected in polished copper. 

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I am still a caterpillar: slow, and covered in bristles. I shall cocoon myself this winter, in these lodgings with my blankets and books, and perhaps in spring this body will be made anew. I shall wriggle free of my corset and run like I did in the happy days of my childhood, when father would take us for twenty-mile walks on the Downs; when I was still His Little One.

 

Well, I should now tell you what has passed, for I have written enough in my own contemplation of it. Lilian found my eyes in the crowded hallway and held them in a most questioning gaze, and I felt I was being assessed! Indeed I was, for my suitability as an invitee. I must have smiled reassuringly, or perhaps she concluded that I was meek and unlikely to break rank. Perhaps it was the dress, which I had selected carefully for our first week. It was practical: sensible – because I was not sure if there would be blood straight away and I wanted to appear to our tutors a serious student of human anatomy. I think I look trustworthy in it, if not one for glamorous parties. Perhaps she saw my innocence and fancied she might remake me in her own image! Is this what I am secretly hoping? I might imagine she saw through my plain exterior to the fire in my breast, but perhaps I am getting carried away with myself. I read too many books. It was a simple gesture of kindness and I’m sure she thought no more of it. Anyway, she invited me.

 

When I arrived the shutters were closed across the tall front windows, but the low tumbling of conversation, punctuated by the shrill laughter of women, gave the party away. A hesitant pianist was picking out the refrain from Sevillana: an orchestral piece by Edward Elgar. I only know of it because I went with Father to the concert at Crystal Palace in the spring of 1884, and it was so different from the hymns I am used to! After I heard it I spent many hours trying to master its Castilian rhythms. It was so exotic I could almost smell the citrus groves. I am for now as the bells of St Clements in October fog: one day I will squander my farthings on the sweet sting of oranges and lemons; feel the heat of the Mediterranean sun on my skin. But alas I am of insufficient musical talent! I could not conjure the piece or the place as my imagination would have it. Edward is not more than a few years older than myself I am sure (and he was already sporting a very sophisticated moustache), but he is a gifted musician. He pursues a greatness larger than his origins would suggest the world will be likely to avail him of. I recognise in him the same driving ambition that gnarls in my own belly and cannot be ignored, though my talents are minor in comparison. 

 

It seemed I passed an age on that doorstep, waiting to cross into the new realm of which I have spoken. A flickering gas lamp illuminated a circle of grey flagstones that glistened in a cool mist that curled around my ankles and under the hem of my petticoat.

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The electric candles along the Embankment have not yet reached Russell Square. Although more and more are appearing in the city all the time, it is not at all safe for young women to walk out alone after dark. I know this, and yet I did so, and I have to remark that there was something vaguely thrilling about it: the quiet streets and the sound of my footsteps syncopating with a passing carriage; the freedom and in truth, also the risk. It was not a great distance but I concede I was filled with foolishness. I can hear mother’s admonitions ringing in my ears. It is simply not done by young ladies of good breeding and social standing: walking out after dark without a chaperone, to attend a party of women.

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And not the ladies from our church who bake cakes and organise fêtes either: these were women who shun temperance and the meek disposition of our sex. They have ideas of their own and that room buzzed and thrummed with aspiration. Or was it passion? Desire: not only for the physical freedoms and pleasures that are the usual preserve of the male sex, but moreover for a life of the mind: for the better life and different future that intelligent thought may bring. And that is something I thirst for constantly: the intellectual camaraderie of women who say what they believe and care what I have to say too.