The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister

[Mrs Priestley has introduced Anne to Charles Lawton, an elderly, obese widower. Anne and Mariana are not impressed with him]

Mariana Belcombe:
[ironically] Such a fine figure of a gentleman, Mr Lawton.

Anne Lister:
I wonder where Mrs Priestley dug him up?

Mariana Belcombe:
He's an old friend of my father's. Apparently he has six thousand a year.

Anne Lister:
Ah. So it's you and your sisters who are being paraded. And do we know *how* his wife died?

Mariana Belcombe:
Perhaps he squashed her to death.

Mariana Belcombe, Anne Lister:
[giggle]

Anne Lister:
If I once give way to idleness, I shall be wretched.

Anne Lister:
[opening lines in voice-over] There is one thing that I wish for. There is one thing without which my happiness in this world seems impossible. I was not born to live alone. I must have someone with me. And in loving and being loved, I could be happy.

Mariana Belcombe:
[voice over for letter to Anne Lister] I realize any obligation you had to me was canceled by my marriage. But if you can find your way to Manchester on the 18th of November, I shall be there unaccompanied at the Albion Hotel en route from York.

Anne Lister:
Stop it. Stop it, I said! I promised Mariana.

Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe:
Promised Mariana? And what has she promised you while she wears herself out in the service of her husband every night?

Anne Lister:
I have never disguised the fact that my heart is hers.

Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe:
But what has she promised? To live with you? That'll never happen.

Anne Lister:
When Charles dies, she will be my companion here at Shibden.

Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe:
That could be twenty years yet. Has she not galled you enough?

Anne Lister:
I will not have another word said against Mariana. You're jealous!

Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe:
And you're misguided!

Mariana Belcombe:
You cannot live without me.

Anne Lister:
Oh, but I do. And I cannot bear it any longer.