How to Create the Perfect Wife (35 page)

They met sporadically for conversations on literature and philosophy over tea in chaperoned drawing rooms. In between these brief encounters they exchanged poems. At one point Esther sent Day some verses she had written on female seduction—a theme always guaranteed to command his attention—inspired by a reportedly true story of a woman who died “of a broken heart” after being debauched by a libertine. In response, Day wrote a poem to Esther addressed “To the Authoress of ‘Verses to be Inscribed on Delia’s Tomb,’” which began “Sweet Poetess” and went on to bewail “ruined innocence” and laud “virtuous love.” In one verse Day
earnestly inquired, “Lives there a virgin in the secret shade, / Not yet to shame by perjur’d man betray’d?” to which Esther must have silently screamed yes, yes, there is! But stubbornly skeptical that Esther could meet his high standards, Day refused to make any further commitment.

Remaining selflessly devoted, Esther counted out the years in teaspoons while Day kept his options open. He still sent paternalistic letters and annual payments to Sabrina, secreted in her Birmingham boardinghouse. In the meantime he scanned the horizon for other potential partners. At some point in 1775 he wrote another of his many poems on unrequited love addressed to a woman he called “Hannah,” whom he was destined to “love in vain.” Keeping Esther on a long rein, therefore, Day continued his law studies and threw himself into politics with renewed gusto.

Mixing with American firebrands at Middle Temple, Day staunchly maintained his antislavery stance. The third edition of
The Dying Negro,
published in 1775, reiterated Day’s dedication to Rousseau with its excoriating attack on American slave owners. But caught up in the revolutionary zeal as American students celebrated their homeland’s first military victories in the second half of 1775, Day abruptly changed sides and backed independence. Just as George III sent a huge invasion force to quell the uprising at the end of 1775, Day declared his unequivocal support for the American cause. The campaign against slavery would have to wait.

Day greeted the dawn of 1776 by publishing a fiercely pro-American poem,
Ode for the New Year,
which depicted Britain as an unnatural mother who had turned on her offspring and “drinks her Children’s gore!” He followed with an even more combative poem,
The Devoted Legions,
in support of the colonists. But timing was never Day’s strong point. Unfortunately, his spirited defense of the American cause in his two new poems and his blistering attack on the revolutionaries who owned slaves in the dedication in
The Dying Negro
were now circulating at the very same time.

As the British fleet anchored off New York and Americans stiffened their resolve by issuing the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, Day sauntered along to a meeting of the Club of Thirteen. Although the club’s original number had dwindled since Franklin had fled back to America the previous year, a solid core still gathered on Sunday evenings at Thomas
Bentley’s house in Chelsea. On this particular evening Bentley was bubbling with excitement. When the group was duly assembled, Bentley announced that he was planning a trip to Paris where he hoped to meet his hero Rousseau. Bentley wanted to present the liturgy that David Williams had written for his multidenominational services in the Margaret Street chapel, which had recently opened. But knowing that Rousseau was notoriously reclusive, Bentley was worried he might be turned away. Day came up with a brilliant solution. He gave Bentley a copy of
The Dying Negro
with its passionate dedication to Rousseau as a sure passport into the writer’s refuge.

A few weeks later Bentley climbed the stairs to Rousseau’s garret with his precious cargo of books and pamphlets. When the door was opened by Thérèse Levasseur, Bentley was turned away, just as he had expected, but was allowed to leave his parcel. Two days later Bentley returned and was overjoyed when he was welcomed in to meet the venerated philosopher. But his delight quickly turned to horror as Rousseau launched into a tirade over one of the publications that Bentley had left. It was not Williams’s controversial liturgy that had stoked the writer’s ire but Day’s antislavery poem with its eight-page dedication to Rousseau.

Rousseau was livid that Day had taken the “improper liberty” of writing the dedication to him without his permission and even more incensed that the homage attacked the American fight for independence, which Rousseau fully espoused. A flustered Bentley defended Day by arguing that the poet had written the tribute before he had realized the justice of the American cause but was now an enthusiastic supporter of the rebels. Rousseau replied crisply: “He should not write upon subjects that he does not understand then.” When Bentley left, Rousseau sent his
“most respectful
compliments” to Williams and added pointedly “and my compliments to Mr Day.”

Back in London, Williams heard of the encounter in a letter read by Mrs. Bentley and begged her not to tell Day. Williams was convinced, he explained, that if Day heard Rousseau’s derogatory comments it would end their friendship because “my poetical friend will not bear the apparent preference.” At the next meeting of the Club of Thirteen, Williams arrived to see Bentley already deep in conversation with Day. One look from Day
told Williams the worst. Day shunned his company and never spoke to Williams again. Furious and humiliated, Day was mortified that Rousseau, the inspiration for his controversial educational experiment and the fount of all his political ideas, had scorned his adoring words. But if Day had been spurned by Rousseau, he was ready now to turn his mind once more to his matrimonial destiny.

There was still time for one more diversion. Leaving Esther to wait in vain in Wakefield and Sabrina to languish in solitude in Birmingham, Day continued to play the field. On one of his visits to the Midlands, Day encountered Darwin’s niece Elizabeth Hall, who was the daughter of the physician’s eldest sister, Elizabeth, and her late husband, the Reverend Thomas Hall. Elizabeth, who turned twenty-two in 1776, lived in West-borough, Lincolnshire, where her father had been rector until his death in 1775 at which point her brother, also Thomas, had taken over the rectorship. Day may have met Elizabeth while she was visiting her Uncle Erasmus some time after her father’s death. A silver paper tray, which Day ordered from Boulton’s factory to be sent to the doctor’s house in Lichfield for “Miss Darwin” in December 1776, was perhaps intended for Elizabeth—even though her surname was Hall. Enamored by the vicar’s daughter, Day proposed to Elizabeth before the end of summer 1777. Once again, however, his petty restrictions on female conduct scuppered his romantic chances.

The story of Day’s fourth engagement (not counting Sabrina) would only be revealed more than a century later in a letter from Erasmus Darwin’s granddaughter, Emma Galton, to her cousin, the naturalist, Charles Darwin. “Mr. Day was at one time engaged to our cousin Miss Hall,” Emma confided to Charles, who was then writing a biography of their grandfather. But Day objected to Elizabeth wearing a pair of diamond earrings that had been a gift from her grandmother, Emma explained. Although Elizabeth was particularly fond of the earrings because of their sentimental attachment she faithfully promised she would never wear them again. This, however, was not good enough for Day. “No wife must ever have earrings in their possession,” Day sternly commanded his fiancée to which she indignantly replied: “Then our intended marriage must never take place.”

The sudden breach bounced Elizabeth into making a hasty marriage with Roger Vaughton, a landowner living at Ashfurlong House near Sutton Coldfield, who was sixteen years her senior. The couple married on September 17, 1777. According to Emma Galton, Elizabeth accepted Vaughton “in a hurry,” which might be taken to imply that she was actually pregnant by Day; her first child was baptized ten months after the wedding although baptisms could easily be delayed to hide inconvenient details. But it is more likely that the haste was necessary to protect Elizabeth’s reputation after being betrothed to Day. It was “not a brilliant marriage,” Emma Galton claimed, although it was certainly a fruitful one; the Vaughtons had thirteen children.

The actual date when Elizabeth broke off her engagement to Day is hard to pinpoint. It must have been shortly before September 1777, when she made her hurried marriage. Day was pressing Matthew Boulton to pay the interest on the loans he had made—perhaps to finance his anticipated wedding—in early 1777. He later complained of feeling ill—his usual response to being rejected—during most of that summer. Day told Boulton that sciatica “added to an old sprain” had been “near crippling me all the summer” in a letter in December 1777 by which time he was “perhaps nearly recovering.”

Reeling from yet another rejection, Day surfaced in the new year of 1778 to give serious consideration to his future. He was not getting any younger—he would turn thirty that summer and his assorted ailments were a reminder of mortality—so if he wanted to marry and father an heir there was little time to lose. At last it occurred to him that after all his years of searching for the perfect companion, perhaps after all she was waiting patiently for him in Yorkshire. When next he met Esther—by chance, according to Keir—Day finally asked her whether she would be willing to renounce all her comforts and company to live with him in isolated penury devoting her life to doing good works.

Esther, of course, ecstatically agreed. She had waited four years for him to appreciate her virtues. Yet even now, Day being Day, he hesitated. After all his disappointments Day was determined that there would be no going back and no rejections this time. He therefore subjected Esther to the
most rigorous examination and detailed inquisition in long interviews and lengthy letters to test her mettle for her future position.

As Day dallied, his friends were confounded. “With Mr. Day there were a thousand small preliminaries to be adjusted,” wrote Edgeworth—back in England now with Honora and his young family—“there was no subject of opinion or speculation, which he did not, previously to his marriage, discuss with his intended bride.” Any other man, said Edgeworth, would have concluded the courtship in a few months. “In fact, I believe, that few lovers ever conversed or corresponded more than did my friend and Miss Milnes,” he wrote. According to Keir, Day was “very explicit on the subject of his future mode of life” during “frequent opportunities of conversation.” It was a grueling interrogation designed to test Esther’s resolve to the limits.

As Day stubbornly laid down his demands and outlined his plans for the future Esther seemed desperate to please him. During their courtship she wrote: “what made you so dejected last night. . . . Was I all all [sic] concerned? Why was I not wth you to raise yr drooping spirits? Is there upon Earth a power so delightful as that of soothing the eases & alleviating the sorrows of those who are dearer than ourselves?” Her own spirits had also “been rather in a low key,” she confessed.

Esther proposed a secret tryst away from the usually vigilant eyes of her guardians, the Wilkinsons. “I think, I cd like to have yr Company tomorrow to myself on several accounts,” she wrote while also suggesting a rather more conventional meeting for tea with her guardians “above stairs” at a later date. In case Day should have any doubt about her meaning she added a postscript: “I do not know whether I have expressed it quite clearly that you are to drink tea wth me below.” Most likely Esther simply wanted a private parlor conversation to persuade Day of her genuine commitment and perhaps encourage him to make a formal proposal. Or she may have had rather more intimate ideas in mind; the term “below stairs” was a well-known sexual euphemism. The letter was signed “yr most affectionate and faithful Friend.” And in reply to that or a similar note, Day wrote: “It is utterly impossible you should be troublesome, or that I should think you so—In either case I was ready to wait upon you, but it will be more convenient
to do it at the hour you have now fixed between six & seven.” His response was signed “eternally & unchangeably yours.”

Finally Day was ready to make a formal proposal via Esther’s guardians. Although she was now twenty-five it was still common practice to ask a parent’s or guardian’s permission before marriage. Writing to the Wilkinsons in the first half of 1778, Day sought approval to marry Esther with the intention of “making her happiness the great business of my life.” Well aware that the Wilkinsons had probably heard stories of his unorthodox conduct—and in particular his prior plans to marry a foundling—Day assured them that “in what you have hitherto known of me, there is no part of my past conduct, which is capable of giving you just apprehensions for the future.”

It can be no coincidence that Sabrina turned twenty-one in May 1778 and could therefore no longer be considered his moral responsibility, although he would continue to support her financially. There only remained the persistent problem of Esther’s fortune. Insisting that he had no interest in it, and had even “rejected the idea of marrying any woman of fortune,” Day proposed a marriage settlement—a prenuptial agreement—which assured Esther’s fortune remained in her own hands. At a time when the law dictated that a woman’s property was automatically transferred to her husband upon marriage, this was a highly unusual suggestion. Even if the Wilkinsons had reservations about their ward’s eccentric suitor and unconventional past, they could hardly object to his terms.

In early summer of 1778, Day moved to Bath to seek some relief for his continuing ailments from the celebrated spa waters. The most popular spa resort in Britain, particularly in the busy “season” through spring and summer, Bath was renowned as the Georgian capital of fashionable excess and scandalous dissipation. Members of the gentry and nobility migrated to Bath each summer to stroll along the Grand Parade, drive around the Royal Crescent, cavort at crowded balls and gossip over tea about whom they had seen and with whom; taking the waters for real or imagined complaints was an optional extra.

The novelist Tobias Smollett described the mixed bathing, with women clothed demurely from head to toe in long linen costumes and frilled
bonnets and the men almost as completely covered, in his novel
Humphrey Clinker,
published in 1771. Gingerly stepping into one of the four baths, Smollett’s country squire Matthew Bramble bridles at sharing the murky water with patients covered in sores and ulcers from scurvy or syphilis and then wonders whether the guests imbibing the glasses of cloudy water in the Pump Room are swallowing “the scourings of the bathers.” Smollett, however, personally commended the healing powers of the waters. Day did too.