How to Create the Perfect Wife (56 page)

200
   
Esther addressed flattering odes to her best friends:
Some of Esther’s poems, hymns and juvenile letters are reproduced in TD and Esther Day (1805).

200
   
Writing to one friend, who was about to travel to India:
EM to Caroline Purling, September 2, 1767, Essex RO, D/DBa C14; and EM to Frances Sewell, November 11, 1769, Essex RO, D/DBa C15. After persuading her family to let her marry Matthew Lewis in 1772, Frances later ran off with a music teacher.

201
   
Exhorting one friend to avoid the “giddy, fantastick whirl of amusements”:
EM to Caroline Purling, c. 1768, in TD and Esther Day (1805), pp. 139–44.

201
   
In a juvenile essay, on “Politeness,” Esther scorned:
TD and Esther Day (1805), pp. 151–52.

201
   
Esther sent Robert a tender poem:
EM, “To Miss M.’s brother in law Mr. L,” in TD and Esther Day (1805), pp. 47–48.

202
   
Esther’s Aunt Ann urged her to tell Robert:
Ann Wilkinson to EM, March 6, April 8 and October 25 (1769), Essex RO, D/DBa C16. Ann Wilkinson was married to Richard Wilkinson of Chesterfield, a cousin of Esther’s father Richard Milnes. The Wilkinsons acted as guardians to EM.

202
   
Aunt Esther admitted it was “a very difficult question”:
Esther Milnes (EM’s aunt) to Esther Milnes, February 3, 1773, Essex RO, D/DBa C18.

202
   
promising a bequest for a young girl, a foundling:
EM’s incomplete will, 1777, leaving
£5
annuity to a foundling called Tabitha Parker, who lived with her aunt, also named Esther Milnes, Essex RO, D/DBa F65.

203
   
Esther had first met Day in 1774:
Edgeworth says EM was 22 or 23 when she met TD. He describes the conversation between TD and Small. The meeting must have taken place before Small’s gradual decline from the end of 1774. It was obviously, therefore, before Day took up with Sabrina for the second time. Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 336. RLE describes the romance with EM. Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 335–38.

203
   
She sometimes stayed with relatives in Temple Row:
Fanny Sewell to EM (at Joseph Wilkinson’s, Temple Row, Birmingham), November 5, 1772, ERO, D/DBa C15.

203
   
According to Edgeworth, the doctor waited:
Edgeworth wrote that Day met Esther before Small’s death, but Day plainly stated that he took up with Sabrina a second time soon after Small died. Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 336–37; TD to SS, May 4, 1783, ERO, D/DBa C13.

203
   
Day demanded to know whether the talented Miss Milnes possessed:
Day’s inquisition regarding Esther’s virtues is described by Edgeworth. Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 335–38.

204
   
“My affection for you was the spontaneous effusion”:
Esther Day to TD, n.d. (c. 1782), Essex RO, D/DBa C12.

205
   
“no more than esteem & friendship,” she would later say:
Esther Day to TD, n.d. (c. 1782), Essex RO, D/DBa C12.

205
   
At one point Esther sent Day some verses:
TD and Esther Day (1805), pp. 1–5. There are preceding pages that are unnumbered.

206
   
he wrote another of his many poems on unrequited love:
TD, “Verses Addressed to a Young Lady, 1775,” in TD and Esther Day (1805), p. 25.

206
   
a fiercely pro-American poem,
Ode for the New Year: TD,
Ode for the New Year 1776
(J. Almon, London, 1776); Day,
The Devoted Legions
(J. Ridley, London, 1776). Day published a further poem,
The Desolation of America,
which reprised his attack on the British government’s war with America, in 1777.

206
   
Day sauntered along to a meeting of the Club of Thirteen:
Williams, pp. 20–22; Bentley, pp. 59–66. Bentley describes the trip to visit Rousseau and Williams describes its consequences.

208
   
A silver paper tray, which Day ordered:
MB to TD, December 18, 1776, Letter book G, p. 780, Soho archives: Boulton Papers, MS 3782/1/10. The story of Day’s engagement to Elizabeth Hall is described in a letter, Emma Sophie Galton to Charles Darwin, November 12, 1879, Cambridge University Library, DAR 210.14.34, quoted by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. I am indebted to Desmond King-Hele for directing me to this reference to Elizabeth Hall. King-Hele suggests that the tray was meant for Darwin’s sister Susannah, his housekeeper, who was 48 in 1777, which is also plausible.

209
   
hasty marriage with Roger Vaughton:
Smith, E., “Vaughton family history” (1995), transcript at SOG, p. 18. Desmond King-Hele has suggested that the hurry over the marriage could have been due to Elizabeth being already pregnant by Day. Her first child, Elizabeth Anne, was baptized on July 8, 1778, ten months after the wedding although of course the baptism could have been delayed to guard her mother’s reputation. King-Hele, personal communication.

209
   
Day was pressing Matthew Boulton to pay the interest:
TD to MB, various letters 1776 and 1777, for example, January 29, 1777, December 13, 1777, Soho archives: Boulton Papers MS 3782/12/81/88 and 95; TD to MB, December 21, 1777, MS 3782/12/81/97.

210
   
“With Mr. Day there were a thousand small preliminaries”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 337–38; Keir, p. 46.

210
   
During their courtship she wrote:
EM to TD, scrap of letter, n.d.; and TD to EM, n.d., ERO, D/DBa C12.

211
   
Writing to the Wilkinsons in the first half of 1778, Day:
TD to Richard Wilkinson, n.d. (1778), ERO, D/DBa CIO.

211
   
The novelist Tobias Smollett described the mixed bathing:
Smollett, Tobias,
Humphrey Clinker
(London, 1967, first published 1771), p. 75.

212
   
Day would later tell his old chum Bicknell:
TD to JB, n.d., cited in
European Magazine, 2
(1795), pp. 21–22.

212
   
Thomas Day finally married Esther Milnes:
Marriage of TD and EM, August 7, 1778, Marriage register St. James’s Church, Bath Record Office. Richard Warburton Lytton was one of the witnesses.

212
   
“I hope he will contrive to be happy”:
Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Bentley, August 24, 1778, Wedgwood, Josiah,
Letters of Josiah Wedgwood,
ed. Farrar, Katherine Euphemia, Lady (3 vols., Manchester, 1903), vol. 2, p. 443.

212
   
A month later, Keir:
JK to MB, October 20, 1778, Boulton Papers, MS 3782/12/65/24.

213
   
She pronounced Esther “extremely engaging”:
AS to Mary Powys, n.d. (1788) SJBM, 2001.76.18.

213
   
All their friends at least were in no doubt that Day and Esther:
Keir, p. 46; Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, p. 122; TD and Esther Day (1805), p. 34.

214
   
“by living in inconvenient lodgings”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 339–40. The succeeding quotes by RLE are from here.

214
   
he told Darwin’s son Erasmus Junior:
TD to Erasmus Darwin Jr., January 29, 1779, BL Add. MS 29300 f 55.

214
   
a silver coffeepot and steak dish:
MB (Boulton and Fothergill) to TD, March 13, 1779, Soho archives: Boulton Papers MS 3782/1/11/387.

215
   
“The house was indifferent and the land worse”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 342.

215
   
continued to pay them during the winter:
Keir, p. 48.

215
   
One laborer would later remember:
Edgeworth, M (1971), p. 111. This is related by ME when she visits the farm in 1818.

215
   
Edgeworth was paying his friend a visit
: Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 343.

216
   
Day proudly boasted to Bicknell:
TD to JB, n.d., cited in
European Magazine, 2
(1795), pp. 21–22.

216
   
It was probably an exaggeration when Anna Seward:
Seward (1804), pp. 34–35.

216
   
“the dearest object to me, which this world affords”; “my whole soul”:
TD to Richard Wilkinson, n.d., ERO, D/DBa C10; Esther Day to TD, n.d. (c. 1782), ERO, D/DBa C12.

217
   
a sequel to
Émile: Rousseau (1783).

217
   
she even contemplated separating from Day forever:
Esther Day to TD, n.d. (c. 1782) and same to same, March 21, 1783, ERO, D/DBa C12. The following quotes about the Days’ rows are all from these letters.

219
   
As the telltale symptoms of consumption weakened Honora’s health:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 358–69. Honora’s last letter, to unnamed recipient, n.d. (1780), Edgeworth Papers, MS 10, 166/25. The letter is also reproduced in RLE’s memoirs, vol. 1, p. 369. The poem quoted is “The Fireside” by Nathaniel Cotton, a physician who was also a poet popular at the time.

220
   
“She now lies dead beside me”:
RLE to ME, May 2, 1780, Edgeworth Papers, MS 10166/31.

220
   
He attended the funeral in a trance:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 367–68. RLE also relates the visit to the Days.

221
   
When the Edgeworths had called at the palace: AS
to Mary Sykes, June 1, 1776, SJBM, 2001.72.9.

221
   
The phantom of her idealized woman:
AS, “Lichfield, An Elegy,” in Seward (1810), vol. 1, p. 89–100.

221
   
“the specious, the false, the cruel, the murderous Edgeworth”:
AS to Thomas Sedgewick Whalley, September 3, 1791, in Whalley, vol. 2, p. 56.

221
   
Elizabeth had previously described Edgeworth:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 371–74.

222
   
Edgeworth wrote to Boulton:
MB to RLE, February 25, 1781, Soho archives, Boulton Papers, MS 3782/12/5/3.

222
   
“To my inexpressible concern my Daugr. Elizabeth”:
Edward Sneyd’s diaries, Staffordshire RO, HM37/40. Will (canceled) of Edward Sneyd of Lichfield 1780, Staffordshire RO, HM37/37.