It has long been suggested that the relationship between the girls was far more passionate than a simple friendship. It has even been suggested that the two were lovers, which as late as the 1960s was still considered by some in the psychiatric community to be a mental illness.
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| Hilda Hulme |
There is little question the girls' growing attachment to one another troubled their parents. It was not simply that these two girls were from such different classes; it was that they were so deeply engrossed in each other. Their families tolerated the closeness at first. The Hulmes particularly Hilda seem to have embraced Pauline for a time, leading her to believe that there might come a time when she could abandon her own family and become part of Juliet's. But as time passed, both sets of parents became suspicious and uncomfortable about their daughters' relationship. They soon set about trying to separate them.
It must be noted that there is no incontrovertible evidence that the Hulme and Parker ever became lovers. In an interview with the newspaper The Press in 1994, Hulme, who had since become a Mormon and re-christened herself Anne Perry, denied that there was ever any overtly sexual component of their relationship.
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| Anne Perry |
"Pauline was a really good friend," Perry told the newspaper. "We had all sorts of romantic dreams. I like women very much as friends but for romance give me men."
In the end, though it may seem titillating, it is ultimately irrelevant whether the girls had sexual relations with each other. The truth is, there Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker would share a bond that went far deeper than mere struggling adolescent sexuality.
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