The Heather and the Pine

August 13th, 185~ (early morning)

It is early to waken, scarcely after midnight I venture, but I have had a disturbed night's sleep and can find no relief from my feelings. I had best use my sleeplessness profitably, so I will go and keep watch in the young master's room and take this diary, in the hope that writing things down may help erase them from my heart. Susannah will want to be relieved from her watch in any case.

I will take the good blanket from my bed, because there is a distinct chill in the air at this hour, and I shall pull my dress on over my shift. I shall not bother with my cap, though, for no-one will see me in the dark.

~

Susannah was sleeping fitfully in the boy's room as I crept in, so I shook her awake and told her to go to bed. The fire had got very low, so I built it up – the crackling and popping of the logs made him stir and mumble, but he did not wake. When a good blaze was going again, I settled in the chair, stretched my feet towards the grate and found my thoughts wandering as I watched the flames.

My dreams have been invaded by Miss Charlotte – but also by Alice again, for the first time in some time. I fear that meeting one has stirred memories of the other, and that my feelings for my old friend are like my feelings for the new one – or perhaps the other way around. But I must not think of Miss Charlotte as a friend! We could never be friends of any sort, it would not be appropriate for a doctor's daughter to befriend a mere kitchen maid, or for the maid to expect familiarity with the doctor's daughter!

Alice sometimes talked radically about class and social order, though only to me and only to complain of it. I do not think she would ever join in any unrest. But she did feel most aggrieved sometimes at the injustice of it: simply by being born in one street she could expect only to be a maid for others, who were born nearby but in a different sort of street entirely. I once suggested that she might be able to make a reasonable marriage to help her position, and she laughed mirthlessly.

"Oh, Martha. I am not made to be married."

Something in her voice made me alert to a meaning she intended to convey, without being able to say it. Around this time I was coming to know that my own indifference to men and marriage arose not from a disinclination to romance (oh how much simpler if it had!), but from a some sort of difference in my inclinations. I looked at Alice carefully and considered my choice of words. "I fear I am not either." I studied her face and thought how fond of her I was. "Although I do find certain people much to my liking."

Alice gazed back at me, and I felt she was being careful with her thoughts and words – quite as careful I had with mine, and perhaps for the same reasons. It was terrible to feel we might be about to put into words the vague yearnings which were starting to trouble my heart: voicing them, sharing them with Alice, would make them real, make them a part of me that another could know and consider whenever she saw me – and that frightened me. But at the same time, how thrilling to think that Alice understood, perhaps even recognised such feelings herself! How thrilling to share such a thing, and to know that I am not as alone as I imagined!

She moved her hand on the table, as if to clasp mine as she sometimes did when we talked, then thought better of it. I watched her hand, then regarded her face again. Her eyes were wide and for the first time since we met, she seemed troubled. "We do not talk of our affections much, do we, Martha?" She sighed. "I too find certain people to my liking."

Her tone was significant. I dared to hope she felt similar feelings to mine. Carefully, I suggested that my inclinations seemed to lie in an abnormal direction. She sighed with relief and confessed hers did also. We agreed it was a comfort indeed to share such a secret with another, who understood the thing. In our careless physical proximity, occasioned by having found that we understood each other so completely, we shared a kiss, (oh such a lovely, fearfully intense sensation!) but the emotion of it proved too much for us both and we drew back and hastened to occupy ourselves in distractions.

We were unusually shy with each other then – until, a few days later, I could no longer resist the desire to kiss her again (Of all my troubled emotions, the curiosity to have her mouth on mine again, and feel the tumult of lovely sensations thus stirred, was far stronger than any sense of shame I have ever felt!) I tried to encourage her attentions. She responded. We kissed again that night, in our room.

Our friendship became most intense and passionate.

Alice sometimes maintained that she knew I had such a secret, ever since she met me. I do not know I believed her, but I presume such a knowledge is possible. I am not sure I should myself be able to tell such a thing. Perhaps Alice had the way of reading a girl's heart, that I must quickly cultivate for myself if I am not either to live in miserable solitude, or to disgrace myself with an ill-judged approach to a friend and lose everything. That I cannot help my feelings, and Alice said she cannot help hers, gives me hope that there are other women who also cannot – if only I could learn to recognise them.

It also suggests to me that the weight of opinion in society be wrong, for there are those of us who suffer thus daily, without choosing to do so.

I know that were I still to be stuck on the farm, I should now most probably be already promised to some lad, and I am not ignorant of what follows from that. I've observed the nature of beasts, and I have seen (and heard) enough of my fellow men and women to be well-informed on that score! As the third child of seven, I know well what the harvest of marriage is, and I am thankful that our family was too big to feed on a widower labourer's wages and I was obliged to enter into service. Not only am I now in a good position socially, but I have escaped the inevitable future facing my sisters.

As I said to Alice, I do not seek marriage. (Indeed, if I am to become a housekeeper like Mrs H, I must avoid it – and so such an aspiration seems a fine thing to me.) Yet if I were to seek companionship, I have since a young age found it always more comfortable to imagine living in close friendship with another woman. To my confusion, as I reach maturity, I find this bent in my character to be ever more acute, and my desires ever sharper and more clearly defined. I should say my brief friendship with Alice has helped confirm my feelings in this direction, as I remember it all with great fondness – and we were pleased to discover that a close friendship between two women might easily be just as passionate and intimate as between man and wife.