How to Create the Perfect Wife Read online

  HOW TO CREATE

  THE PERFECT WIFE

  HOW TO

  CREATE

  THE PERFECT

  WIFE

  BRITAIN’S MOST

  Ineligible BACHELOR

  AND HIS

  Enlightened Quest

  TO TRAIN THE

  Ideal Mate

  WENDY MOORE

  BASIC BOOKS

  A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP

  New York

  Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Moore

  Published by Basic Books,

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.

  Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810–4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

  Designed by Timm Bryson

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Moore, Wendy, 1952-

  How to create the perfect wife : Britain’s most ineligible bachelor and his enlightened quest to train the ideal mate / Wendy Moore.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-465-06573-8 (e-book)

  1. Day, Thomas, 1748-1789.

  2. Authors, English—18th century. 3. Marriage—Great Britain—History—18th century. I. Title.

  PR3398.D3M66 2013

  823'.6—dc23

  2012048149

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Peter, my perfect other half

  CONTENTS

  ONE MARGARET

  TWO LAURA

  THREE SOPHIE

  FOUR ANN AND DORCAS

  FIVE SABRINA AND LUCRETIA

  SIX ANNA AND HONORA

  SEVEN ELIZABETH

  EIGHT SABRINA

  NINE ESTHER

  TEN VIRGINIA, BELINDA AND MARY

  ELEVEN GALATEA

  Finding My Foundling

  Acknowledgments

  Illustration Credits

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  ONE

  MARGARET

  London, spring 1769

  Spring sunshine warmed the ancient brick walls of the courtyards and chambers in London’s legal quarter. The jet of water that leapt up thirty feet from the fountain in Fountain Court sparkled in the light before splashing noisily into its basin. The seasonal warmth coaxed the blossoms to burst out on the trees and the young law students to burst out of their rooms and saunter in the gardens beside the river. But for one law student the arrival of spring brought gloom, not cheer.

  Thomas Day read the letter from his fiancée in Ireland with incredulity. He had said goodbye to Margaret Edgeworth the previous autumn with every expectation they would be married this coming summer. All through the winter, Day had bent dutifully over his law books in earnest anticipation of his approaching wedding. Now Margaret had written to tell him that she wanted to break off the engagement and Day was mortified. Reeling in a mixture of horror and humiliation, he sank into a deep depression.

  In truth the news should hardly have been surprising, for the romance had been shaky from the start. Although he was yet only twenty years old, Day had been romantically disappointed on at least one previous occasion and had been understandably wary of forming a new attachment. So when he first met Margaret, the younger sister of his ebullient Irish friend Richard Lovell Edgeworth, a year earlier there had been no immediate attraction. At loose ends after leaving Oxford University the previous year, Day had jumped at the chance to travel to Ireland for the summer with Edgeworth and Edgeworth’s young son, Dick. On arrival at the Edgeworth ancestral home amid the flat fields and black bogs of County Longford, Day had greeted Margaret with initial disdain, and she had likewise shown scant interest in her brother’s young friend. It seemed, indeed, that the two were opposites in every conceivable way.

  At twenty-two, Margaret was considered one of the most attractive, intelligent and sophisticated women in the county. Brought up with a keen awareness of her long ancestry within one of Ireland’s powerful Anglo-Irish families, Margaret had been introduced into the drawing rooms of landed society at an early age. Confident and refined, she had a gift for witty conversation and a reputation for impeccable style. One acquaintance would later say that if Margaret appeared on his doorstep dressed in rags and holding a begging bowl he would still have felt impelled to address her as “Madam.”

  Two years her junior, Thomas Day was not the most obviously eligible of bachelors. Although he was certainly clever, undoubtedly well educated and shortly due to inherit a considerable fortune, Day’s personal attractions were decidedly marred by his comical appearance and unconventional manners. Tall and well built with curling black hair and large hazel eyes, he might have been considered handsome were it not for his stooped shoulders, the severe marks of smallpox that pitted his face and his general dishevelment. Scornful of the contemporary custom for cropped hair covered with a neatly curled wig, Day left his long hair lank and tangled. Eschewing fashionable dress, he wore plain, drab clothes that were invariably crumpled and askew. Even his close friend Edgeworth had to admit: “Mr. Day’s exterior was not at that time prepossessing, he seldom combed his raven locks, though he was remarkably fond of washing in the stream.” And as his unorthodox approach to personal hygiene might suggest, Day showed no regard for accepted etiquette.

  At the dinner table Day’s manners were considered so vulgar that they appalled Edgeworth’s father. Whether Day merely slurped his soup or went so far as to rest his muddy boots on the table was left unsaid, but certainly Edgeworth senior took “a violent prejudice” against Day “in consequence of something in the manner of his eating and sitting at table, which appeared unsuitable to his rank in life.” Over tea in the parlor Day made no attempt at small talk, preferring either to sit sulkily silent or to stand and declaim his dogmatic views loudly and at length.

  Yet for all his slovenly appearance and boorish manners, there was evidently something about the youth that appealed to some men—Edgeworth for one—and occasionally some women. Day’s commitment to enhancing human rights had struck a chord with fellow radicals, while his determination to help those worse off than himself had earned him many admirers. University friends at Oxford and fellow law students in London treated Day as something of an absentminded philosopher or a romantic rebel. He seemed not quite of his time. His espousal of chivalric virtues and classical heroes harked back to a past age; his opposition to class-ridden systems and traditional hierarchies seemed to anticipate a distant future. Certainly his ideas were out of pace with the consumer-driven, celebrity-obsessed, fashion-mad culture that was predominant in Georgian Britain.

  At first, therefore, Day and Margaret appeared to have nothing in common. Repulsed by her brother’s loutish friend and his daring ideas, Margaret kept out of his way as much as politeness allowed. Equally contemptuous of his friend’s elegant sister and her polished manners, Day gave Margaret a wide berth. To Day, Margaret represented “a sort of being for which he had a feeling of something like horror,” according to her brother Richard. And so for the first few weeks in the large country house the pair had maintained “an awful distance.” But as they had spent more and more time together du
ring uncomfortable meals and awkward social occasions over the early summer of 1768, they had gradually discovered some mutual interests.

  Margaret found herself intrigued by the eccentric Englishman. She too had been disappointed in love—by a dashing but unsuitable English army officer—and Day offered a refreshing contrast to the fawning beaux who usually competed for her attentions. Managing to overlook his lack of grooming and poor social skills, she was moved by the powerful monologues Day delivered on improving the lot of humanity and had to admire his philanthropic plans. Drawing Day into conversation, Margaret’s “easy manners, and agreeable conversation” had managed to “unbend” Day’s aloof conduct, said Edgeworth.

  At the same time, Day became entranced by his clever and attractive hostess. He discovered a shared interest in literature and nature as well as finding a few differences of opinion over the importance of etiquette and “aristocratic habits.” According to Edgeworth, watching wryly from the sidelines, his smart little sister could always run rings around Day when arguing her point; it was only when he was alone with Day that Edgeworth found “Mr. Day’s eloquence prevailed.” As in the best of romantic comedies, the cut and thrust of verbal sparring led to heated passions.

  At the beginning of August, Day cautiously proposed to Margaret and she tentatively accepted. When the pair announced their intentions to the assembled family, Margaret’s brother had been as surprised as her father was horrified. Edgeworth senior refused point-blank to give the marriage plan his blessing, having taken resolutely against the scruffy English youth “from Prejudices too ridiculous to mention,” in Day’s words. But Margaret determined that she would go ahead regardless, and so the pair agreed that they would marry as soon as Day reached twenty-one the following summer. Postponing his return to London so that he and his future spouse could get to know each other a little better, Day stayed on in the Edgeworth country home as the summer faded. In retrospect this had not been such a good idea. For as Day outlined his vision of marital bliss, Margaret’s ardor began visibly to cool.

  Inspired by an admiration for the Stoics, the ancient Greek school of philosophy devoted to noble virtue and self-sacrifice, Day intended to live a frugal existence in a secluded rural retreat devoid of all comforts or diversions with only his future spouse for company. Impassioned by the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Geneva-born philosopher who urged a return to nature, Day believed that with the right partner they would both find joy and fulfillment in this austere isolation. And to gild his picture of happy married life, Day patiently explained to his fiancée that the “childish Passion call’d love” was only a figment of the imagination that no rational being should indulge. As Day told a friend at the time: “Love I am firmly convinc’d is the Effect of Prejudice & Imagination; a rational Mind is incapable of it, at least in any great Degree.” Day believed that the woman he married should want to spend her life with him out of a strictly logical attachment—or an “Idea of Preference for me.” Initially, through August, Margaret had been swayed by this image of a simple life in a rose-covered cottage with a saintly helpmeet. By September, as the days shortened and the autumn chill set in, she had got cold feet.

  Confessing finally that her feelings had changed, and she now felt “perfectly indifferent” as to whether they married or not, Margaret volunteered—rashly or gallantly—to marry him still if neither of them found a more suitable partner within the next twelve months. Although he was naturally peeved at this sudden turnaround, Day grudgingly consented to the pact in the confident belief that Margaret would “scarcely find another Character she can coolly & deliberately think comparable to mine”—a statement that was probably true.

  But just as Day was about to sail back to England in October, Margaret professed a rekindled warmth for him. “She is concern’d I am going to leave her, she acknowledges it, & that she loves me better than she herself thought,” Day announced jubilantly to a friend. She would marry him after all, Margaret declared—so long as Day made a few efforts to smarten up his appearance—and the wedding plans were back on track. Leaving Margaret with a stack of books on metaphysics for her enlightenment through the winter, Day had returned to London to resume his law studies and looked forward to his June wedding with confidence.

  Although none of their friends were in the least surprised by Margaret’s last-minute change of heart the following spring, the news hit Day as a complete shock and a ghastly blow. He had suffered rejection before as a student at Oxford; then he had described the woman who spurned him as a “Bitch.” But this time was far, far worse. Against his better judgment he had allowed himself to trust in a woman’s promises again, and again he had been cruelly rejected. He had placed all his faith in obtaining the lifelong partner he had searched for to share his dream life and been rudely disappointed. He had told family and friends of his summer wedding plans and now he had to disabuse them. Disgusted by Margaret’s fluctuating feelings as much as he was furious with himself for believing in her, Day reacted with bitterness and rage. He would later describe Margaret as “a toad, which I would not injure, but cannot help beholding with abhorrence.” So as his fellow law students ambled and cavorted in the spring sunshine, Thomas Day languished in misery.

  Many men his age, including some of his friends, had suffered similar romantic setbacks. Young men and women always had and they always would. As wretched as rejection could feel, most people eventually resurfaced and acknowledged that they had just not yet met the right partner. Day, however, refused to accept this view. Utterly baffled as to why any woman should want to reject him, at the age of twenty Day came to a startling conclusion. Since he had yet not found the right woman, the right woman simply did not exist.

  Strangely, perhaps, this revelation did not put Day off the idea of marriage. His conviction that he should marry remained as strong as ever. Equally Day was just as firmly committed to his “Scheme of Life” exiled in a bleak rural hideaway with a lucky female partner. But his brief experience of romantic affairs to date now firmly convinced him that he would never find an ideal woman to share this lofty dream anywhere in contemporary society. His broken engagement confirmed his suspicions that women were universally shallow, fickle, illogical and untrustworthy. “These my Friend are the Prejudices & Caprices with which the whole Sex are infected”; he had complained to one friend during Margaret’s earlier wavering, “nothing can please but what is extravigant, irrational.” Yet he did not blame the female sex per se for these fatal shortcomings.

  Women were the weaker sex physically and intellectually—that much was clear. But perhaps that deficiency was largely the result of their different upbringing and education, Day now reasoned. While boys were trained in boarding schools and universities to become future leaders who would one day occupy key positions in the church, law, medicine, business and government, girls were taught at home, or briefly in schools if they were lucky, chiefly to ply an embroidery needle, tinkle on a harpsichord and make pretty conversation at tea parties. Excluded from universities and law schools, and therefore denied entry into medical, legal and clerical professions, women were essentially trained to run an efficient household and make a man happy.

  Yet while most people within eighteenth-century society unquestioningly accepted that women were inherently inferior to men, Day came to a boldly progressive view that women were potentially equally intelligent. “The Female Mind is doubtless susceptible of some Degree of Perfection,” he argued. It was simply the way that women were brought up and educated in the fatuous, faddish, superficial world that turned them into giggling, flouncing creatures who changed their minds as easily as they changed their gowns, he decided. The pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft would later applaud his liberal ideas on women’s education. Yet Day was no harbinger of female equality.

  Day wanted a lifelong partner who would be just as clever, well read and witty as his brilliant male friends. He craved a lover with whom he could discourse and wrangle on politics, philosophy and lit
erature as freely as he could in male company. He desired a companion who would be physically as tough and hardy as himself. In short he wanted a woman who would be more like a man. But he was only human—and male. So for all his apparently egalitarian views on education, Day wanted his future spouse happily to suppress her natural intelligence and subvert her acquired learning in deference to his views and desires. He wanted a wife who would be completely subservient to his wishes at all times. How then would he ever obtain the woman of his dreams?

  And then out of his pit of despair came a bold and daring plan. If only he could control a woman’s education from the beginning, perhaps he could make for himself an equal—a woman who would be worthy of him. It was a scheme he had been nursing quietly for some years. He had returned again to this wild notion the previous summer during the shifting relationship with Margaret. At that point he had confided to a friend: “I am now going to try whether by taking a Woman’s Mind before it is prejudic’d, it may be possible to prevent them [prejudices].” Then he had been diverted by Margaret’s revived interest and put the idea to one side. Now he determined that he would go ahead with his experiment after all.

  If the perfect wife did not exist then he would simply have to create her.

  TWO

  LAURA

  Stoke Newington, near London, c. 1753

  The crowded room hushed as the small boy, dressed in infant’s petticoats, piped up with a question for the vicar. Bright and precocious, the young lad had learned to read early but had been puzzled by a particular phrase he had come across in the Bible. When he had asked his mother for an explanation she had briskly swept the matter aside and suggested that he ask the parish vicar when he next visited the house. No doubt his mother hoped that he would soon forget his question, but there was no chance of that. Now that the vicar had finally come, an honored guest at one of his mother’s tea parties, the boy pushed his way to the middle of the room and loudly voiced his query: “Sir, I want to know who the whore of Babylon is?”