How to Create the Perfect Wife (10 page)

Only a few weeks before Day’s arrival, the London office had ordered staff at Shrewsbury to send off 100 boys by wagon to apprenticeships in Yorkshire. With nimble boys in constant demand by the woolen manufacturers, girls now outnumbered boys in Shrewsbury by six to one. Acknowledging that the “girls will be harder to be placed out properly” the London office reminded the Shrewsbury governors of “the Care which
should
be taken in the having proper Characters of the Persons to whom Children are placed out.”

Drawn from the local gentry and town dignitaries, and all of them volunteers, the Shrewsbury governors took immense pride in the children they had nurtured since they were babies and their various achievements as they grew up. Ordinarily, therefore, they paid meticulous attention to scrutinizing prospective employers before signing over their charges to apprenticeships and maintained a close watch on their welfare after they left the orphanage. Earlier in 1769, the governors had prosecuted an employer who had tied a boy by his neck to a bedpost and beat him so badly
that a piece of his ear was torn off. Occasionally there were even instances of sexual abuse, and the governors tackled these just as severely. But given the relentless pressure from London to dispatch the orphans quickly and the voracious demand of the mill owners during the course of 1769, it was scarcely surprising if they were sometimes a little lax in their oversight of their wards.

First impressions spoke volumes in Georgian society. And so when two well-spoken and self-assured young lawyers turned up at the orphanage doors in late June they were warmly welcomed inside. When the men explained that they wanted to take a young girl to be apprenticed as a maid for a friend, the Shrewsbury officials readily agreed. Amid the chaos of packing 100 boys off to Yorkshire, they were naturally eager to find a place for one of their surplus girls. Without hesitation the two men were invited to inspect a lineup of likely candidates.

As he walked up and down the parade of girls standing silently side by side in their identical brown woolen dresses, white cotton aprons and white linen caps, Day was bewildered by the choice. Which of these pre-pubescent girls could be molded under his careful touch to make a perfect wife? And so it was Bicknell who pointed out the slim and pretty girl with the auburn ringlets and brown eyes. Later acquaintances would describe her as “beautiful” with “chestnut tresses” and dark eyes “expressive of sweetness” fringed with long lashes. Happy to defer to his friend’s superior knowledge of the female sex, Day concurred with the choice. Her name was Ann Kingston, and she was twelve.

Abandoned at the gates of the London Foundling Hospital soon after her birth, most probably because of illegitimacy and almost certainly in poverty, Ann had been brought up to accept the disgrace of her past and thank God for her salvation. Like most of the orphans raised on their frugal diet, she had grown up small and slender. But since she had survived a barrage of childhood diseases that had sent weaker individuals to their graves, she was tough and hardy too. Trained in expectation of a life of domestic servitude, she was adept at sewing, cleaning and other household chores and thanks to lessons in the classroom she had learned to read if not to write. Schooled in humility, unsullied by society, she was the perfect subject for Day’s experiment.

Satisfied with his choice, Day provided the necessary details to complete the transaction. He informed the orphanage secretary, Samuel Magee, that he wanted to take the girl as a maid to work in the country house of a married friend near London. This last factor was significant since Foundling Hospital regulations stipulated that girls should only be apprenticed into the household of a married man. It was, of course, a lie. Although Magee had no cause to doubt Day’s word, it was nevertheless highly irregular to sanction an apprenticeship to an unknown man, particularly one who lived so many miles distant. If a tailor or blacksmith from a nearby village had put forward such a request his credentials would have been thoroughly checked. But faced with two prospective lawyers from London, Magee had no qualms about forgoing the usual vetting process. Without further ado, he agreed to bind the twelve-year-old to a married man he had never met for the next nine years of her life. Naturally she had no say in the matter. Leaving the clerks to finalize the paperwork, Day and Bicknell sped back to London, where Day made preparations for his young pupil’s arrival.

A few days later, on June 30, Ann Kingston’s apprenticeship was approved, along with that of sixteen others, at a meeting of governors in a Shrewsbury coffeehouse. All the other apprenticeships agreed to that day were for typical local trades—weaver, thatcher, shoemaker, tailor—all within a few miles of Shrewsbury. All bar one included the customary payment—£4 with the girls and £3 with the boys—which was given as incentive to their new masters. And yet without a quibble or a query, the Shrewsbury governors confirmed that Ann Kingston should be apprenticed without a fee until the age of twenty-one or until she married—whichever might come sooner—to Richard Lovell Edgeworth Esq. of Kiln Green, Berkshire.

Printed on parchment and sealed with red wax, the indenture contract—which still survives—pledged that Ann “faithfully shall serve in all lawful Businesses according to her Power, Wit, and Ability; and honestly, orderly, and obediently in all Things demean and behave herself towards her said Master.” For his part the absent and unknowing Edgeworth was bound to provide his new apprentice with “meet, competent, and sufficient Meat, Drink, and Apparel, Lodging, Washing, and all other Things
necessary and fit for an Apprentice.” There was nothing in the document to specify how Edgeworth, and more importantly his two representatives, should “demean and behave” themselves.

Bundled up with apprenticeship papers for ten other children, a copy of Ann’s indenture would be sent to London the following month. There it would be ratified on October 4 by the charity’s General Committee. Whether it was something about the nature of her selection, or the unusual distance to her place of work, or simply the fact that her supposed master was prepared to accept her without the customary £4 payment, out of the eleven apprenticeships considered by the committee that day only Ann’s raised an eyebrow. The following day, the London office wrote to ask Magee: “Pray was any thing remarkable in the Girl Ann Kingston no 4579.” Harassed by the press of business, Magee answered no.

Long before then, on August 17, Day and Bicknell retraced their steps to Shrewsbury, probably with the empty pillion saddle at the ready, to sign their names on the approved indenture and claim their prize. Clutching a parcel of new clothes, a Bible, a Book of Common Prayer and a copy of the “Instructions to Apprentices” given to all departing orphans, Ann Kingston walked out of the Shrewsbury orphanage in every expectation that she was about to begin a life of domestic servitude in faraway Berkshire. No doubt she faced the unknown world beyond the orphanage with trepidation. She had no idea how strange that world was about to become. Hoisted up onto the pillion seat behind Thomas Day, she left the orphanage forever. Passing through the orphanage gates the little party headed not for Berkshire, but for London.

FOUR

ANN AND DORCAS

  
London, August 1769
  

S
he had traveled from London to Shrewsbury ten years earlier in a wagon padded with straw, huddled together with seventeen other infants, bawling and sniffling as they jolted over the rough roads. Now she was making the return journey in style in the company of two wealthy young men. With her pretty face and buoyant curls, a twelve-year-old girl on the verge of puberty, she must have attracted some appreciative glances at the stopovers along the way. One look at the two men who were keeping her under intense scrutiny no doubt prompted a few knowing nods.

After the simple formality of institutional life in rural Shropshire, the chaotic clamor of London must have struck Ann Kingston with a resounding shock. With a population of nearly 700,000 the capital boasted more inhabitants than any other city in the world. Although most of its better-off residents would have fled the capital for their summer retreats, the streets were still congested with carriages and farm carts, and the pavements were thronged with pedestrians and vendors. Accustomed to the melodious sounds of the countryside, Ann would have been deafened by the thunder of coach wheels, the yells of men bearing sedan chairs and the bellows of livestock being driven to market. Used to the fresh country air, she must have found the stench of rubbish piled on corners and excrement rotting in the gutters at the height of summer overpowering. Yet
infinitely more surprising than the strangeness of the city unfolding before her was the curious young man who appraised her with such close attention.

Arriving in the capital toward the end of August, Day presented Ann to her supposed new master, Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Although Edgeworth was as much in ignorance about her position in his household as she was herself, he did not seem unduly worried by the sudden responsibility for a twelve-year-old orphan: “I had such well merited confidence in Mr. Day, that I felt no repugnance against his being entrusted with the care of a girl, who had been thus put incidentally under my protection.” After all, as Edgeworth would have to keep reminding himself, Day was “the most virtuous human being” he had ever known.

Yet although Ann was now legally under Edgeworth’s guardianship, she did not move into his Berkshire home to begin work as a maid nor did she remain under his supervision. Instead, Day placed her in some discreet lodgings rented from a widow in the labyrinth of courtyards off Chancery Lane, conveniently at the heart of London’s legal district and just a few minutes’walk from the rooms that he shared with Bicknell. Beyond the attentions of the widow, it seems unlikely that Ann had a chaperone. Then even though he had flouted the Foundling Hospital’s regulations, Day brazenly attended the next meeting of the charity’s general committee—its central management body—on August 30 when he made a generous donation of £50 (about £7,500 or $12,000 today) and was duly elected a governor. Whether he viewed this donation as fair payment for the orphan he had acquired or believed that becoming a governor placed him above suspicion is unknown. Having salved his conscience—or covered his tracks—Day could now begin to groom his future wife.

Lessons started immediately. Neglecting his tedious law studies, Day applied himself with enthusiasm to the far more exciting business of playing tutor to his young captive. They had grown up in completely different worlds. She had been born into poverty, marked with the stain of illegitimacy and schooled to work for her living in austere and lowly surroundings. He had been born into riches, brought up to a life of privilege and taught to expect everything that he desired. Yet he had every confidence that he could transform his illiterate and uncultured orphan into the clever
and compliant woman he would one day marry. With his well-worn copy of Rousseau’s
Émile
in hand, Day believed that he could teach her to become his equal in intelligence, to bear every physical hardship he could himself endure and to accept unquestioningly his ideological outlook. He would train her to like the same things he liked, to despise the things he despised and even to love his pitted face, straggly hair and rounded shoulders, to give birth to his children and to live with him in perfect harmony in his “secret glade.”

Thomas Day was not the first to dream of creating an ideal woman—and he would not be the last. Writers, artists and musicians have always been drawn to the fantasy of bringing to life a supreme being—usually a woman. One of the oldest and certainly the most influential such transformations was described by the Roman poet Ovid in the first decade
AD
retelling the myth of Pygmalion in his
Metamorphoses.
In Ovid’s vivid and erotic tale the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with the marble statue of a beautiful woman he has carved. Appalled, like Day, by the wicked ways of women, Pygmalion beseeches Venus to bring to life his “ivory girl.” The goddess grants his wish, and Pygmalion is overjoyed to find that the cold marble he has sculpted turns to flesh beneath his touch and the statue steps down from her pedestal into his arms. Nine months later their union produces a daughter.