How to Create the Perfect Wife (39 page)

The proposal, written in verse, came from a surgeon apothecary, named Jarvis Wardley, who had served an apprenticeship in Newport before setting up business on his own in nearby Market Drayton. Traditionally apothecaries ground powders and mixed potions prescribed by physicians, but by the late 1700s they were becoming recognized as medical men in
their own right—the future general practitioners. Wardley was highly regarded by Erasmus Darwin judging from the considerate reply Darwin sent to a letter from Wardley seeking advice on a patient. It was perhaps through Darwin that Wardley had met Sabrina. Charmed by the amiable young woman, Wardley, a year her senior, sent his marriage proposal in the form of an acrostic poem—a verse in which the first letter of each line spells out a message or name.

Wardley was a professional man with a secure income and romantic leanings, and so his proposal was not one to reject lightly; there were far worse fates than becoming an apothecary’s wife. But Day was unequivocal in telling Sabrina to reject him—perhaps from a snobbish view that Wardley’s vocation was too lowly for his erstwhile pupil; perhaps through reluctance to let her go. Applying his poetic talents to the task, Day composed a return acrostic spelling out Jarvis Wardley’s name, with plentiful barbed allusions to the apothecary’s profession, which he advised Sabrina to send with a stern rebuff. Day wrote, in part: “In ev’ry art you shine the first of men, / So well you wield the pestle and the pen! / When e’er with skilful hand, the lint you spread, / And smooth a plaister for a broken head; / Rollers & bandages confess your skill; / Doctors themselves resign the murd’ring pill.” Day even drafted her rejection letter: “Miss Sydney hopes, that the above will appear a sufficient Recompense, to Mr. Wardley, for his elegant Acrostic, which she will by no means rob him of, as it may serve again with very little alteration.” Further letters from Wardley would be returned unopened, Day wrote, since “such correspondencies are highly improper for young
women of any Character.”

Spurned by Sabrina, Wardley soon found another bride. Sabrina, however, continued unmarried and unattached into her mid-twenties. Living in a boardinghouse at Five Ways, a hamlet of fine villas where five roads met a mile south of Birmingham, Sabrina grew close to a young woman who moved into the same house in early 1783. Born in Geneva, Françoise-Antoinette de Luc—known as Fanny to her friends—was the daughter of Jean André de Luc, a geologist who had become friendly with the Lunar Society. Fanny, aged twenty-eight, soon became a popular guest with her father’s Lunar friends—not least for her entertaining stories about the oddest member of their circle.

Finding a friend in Fanny in their shared lodgings, Sabrina confided the bizarre ordeals she had suffered during her training with Day. And Fanny in turn repeated the shocking stories when she visited the home of Samuel Galton, one of the Lunar club’s newest members, who lived in Hagley Row near Five Ways. Galton’s eldest daughter, Mary Anne, was less than six at the time, but she would remember into her seventies Fanny de Luc’s tales of Sabrina’s torture by sealing wax and pistols. “We were very much interested in anecdotes she told us of Sabrina Sidney, the
élève
of Mr. Day, who was boarding at the same house as her,” she wrote, although the revelations did not diminish her admiration for her favorite book,
Sandford and Merton.

Living on the fringes of Birmingham as she turned twenty-six in spring 1783, Sabrina was in danger of being left on the edge of society. Her experimental education was the subject of tea table gossip and giggles. Her financial security was under the control of her reluctant benefactor. And her past connections with Day placed her reputation precariously in the balance. The expanding city that she could see from the windows of her lodgings provided a stark symbol of her ambiguous position. The tree-lined squares and tea gardens still offered a desirable location for Birmingham’s well-heeled residents, but the cramped terraced houses and smoky workshops fast encroaching on every available space suggested an alternative future. Since Day had now married the woman he still hoped to mold into his perfect wife, Sabrina had probably given up hope that she would ever marry. Living at the junction of five roads, she had no idea in which direction her life would lead. And then a long forgotten visitor arrived on her doorstep. It was John Bicknell.

Years of carousing with his friends at Middle Temple had taken its toll on Bicknell. Like Day, he had always preferred to spend his time stirring up radical politics and producing literary works to reading law books and legal briefs. Unlike Day, Bicknell had no independent fortune to bankroll his leisure pursuits. His family’s long predominance in the law had given him a helpful shove up the legal ladder. His positions as a barrister in the court of King’s Bench and as a commissioner of bankrupts brought substantial
fees. According to Edgeworth, Bicknell was a “man of shining talents” with “great wit and acuteness.” But Bicknell had squandered his talents and good fortune through laziness, high living and licentiousness.

Instead of studying briefs for court cases, Bicknell studied his cards in gambling clubs and spent his winnings in Covent Garden brothels or forgot his losses in Fleet Street taverns. He was particularly fond of the game
chemin de fer
, which was popular with the aristocratic fast set, a variation of baccarat so named because the cards were dealt from an iron box. At one point he won a “considerable fortune,” but as quickly as his winnings accrued they trickled through his fingers again. Before long the attorneys who referred clients to barristers like Bicknell were sending their business elsewhere. “He is said to have kept briefs an unconscionable time in his pocket, or on his table, unnoticed,” wrote Edgeworth. “Attorneys complained, but still he consoled himself with wit, literature and pleasure, till health as well as attorneys began to fail.” By the time he reached his thirties, Bicknell was suffering from “absolute palsies”—probably a stroke—and wrote to Day for advice. Day suggested his stock remedies of fresh air, plain food and exercise—sage words in Bicknell’s case.

But if Day’s prescription came too late to alleviate Bicknell’s ailments, the connection with his old school friend suggested another idea to revive his ailing fortunes. With both his health and his finances in dire straits, Bicknell faced up to his future. It was not looking rosy. Having remained resolutely single so far, at thirty-six Bicknell resolved to settle down and get married. He wanted a companion, perhaps even children, to comfort and care for him in his remaining years. Casting around for possible candidates, he suddenly remembered the pretty twelve-year-old orphan that he had plucked from the line of girls at the Shrewsbury Foundling Hospital fourteen years earlier.

In the intervening years Bicknell had taken scant interest in Sabrina. Despite the fact that he had first selected her as Day’s prospective wife, he later expressed surprise that Day was so smitten with her. He told Edgeworth “he could not, for his part, see any thing extraordinary about the girl, one way or other.” When Edgeworth praised her melodious voice and gentle manner, Bicknell had “only shrugged his shoulders.” When
Day rejected Sabrina and married Esther, Bicknell’s indifference had turned to pity but nothing more. And since then Sabrina had apparently slipped completely from his mind.

Now Bicknell made discreet inquiries about her circumstances, probably through Edgeworth since he was careful not to alert Day to his interest. Having established that she was still single, he wanted to know whether she retained a taintless reputation. By Georgian double standards it was quite acceptable for Bicknell to sow his seeds but reprehensible for his potential wife. Satisfied to learn that Sabrina was alive and well, single and saintly, Bicknell obtained her address and set off hotfoot to find her. When he tracked her down to her lodgings at Five Ways, he was delighted to discover that the adolescent girl he remembered had matured into a beautiful and poised young woman.

According to Edgeworth, Bicknell now “saw her with different eyes from those, with which he had looked upon her formerly” and “fell desperately in love.” Equally it may have been Sabrina’s promised £500 dowry that Bicknell viewed with different eyes. Confident that he had found “a companion for middle life, and a friend, perhaps a nurse, for his declining years,” Bicknell asked her to marry him. Sabrina, he was certain, would be perfect for his needs.

Sabrina weighed up the offer. She had rejected a young surgeon apothecary with a promising future and a literary flair. Now she was confronted by a middle-aged, down-at-the-heels lawyer in declining health. But she was alone, single, living in rented rooms and financially dependent on Day with no guarantees for her future. Bicknell was clever, charming, persuasive and belonged to a respectable family with immaculate connections. It was probably rational considerations, or “prudential” reasons in Seward’s words, that prompted Sabrina to say yes. Later, Sabrina would let it be known that Bicknell was “the man of her dreams,” and perhaps that was true. She had, of course, once told Edgeworth, “I love Mr. Day best in the world, Mr. Bicknell next, and you next.” But before she could go ahead with the wedding, Sabrina insisted on consulting Edgeworth and Day.

Edgeworth responded with characteristic generosity and optimism. He confessed himself a trifle surprised to hear that Bicknell was suddenly in love with someone he had previously considered with indifference and
more than a little concerned that Bicknell’s poor health and poorer work ethic might leave Sabrina in financial straits. But ever the incurable romantic, he reasoned that “no motive could be stronger or more likely to make a man exert himself, than the desire of providing for a woman he loved,” and he duly sent his approval with good wishes for their future happiness. Day’s response was rather different.

If Sabrina had been surprised by Bicknell’s proposal, she was far more astonished when he revealed the full ghastly truth of her relationship with Day. Until now Sabrina had accepted without question Day’s story that he had taken her from the Foundling Hospital as an apprentice maid and educated and supported her out of sheer benevolence. Likewise she had believed that his desire to marry her had evolved over time by chance. But Bicknell now divulged that Day had specifically chosen her—and Lucre-tia—as his prospective future wife from the outset, and throughout her teenage years he had persevered—albeit sporadically—to train her for that purpose. All Day’s acts of supposed kindness and paternalistic protection had been self-centered moves to train her as his bride. He had never legally been her guardian; she had never been his apprentice after all.

Sabrina was horrified. Not only had she been the unwitting subject of Day’s bizarre experiment, but most of his circle, the friends she had come to know and love in Lichfield and beyond, had been fully aware of his grand plan all along. Furious and humiliated, she wrote to Day announcing her plans to marry Bicknell and demanding a full, candid and speedy explanation of all his past conduct.

Day’s reply, on May 4, 1783, was a masterpiece of self-righteous indignation in which he attempted to justify his past relations with Sabrina while grudgingly giving his approval for her marriage. “My dear Miss Sidney,” he began, “The subject you write to me upon, is of sufficient importance to engage me to give you as you desire an immediate answer.” Day promised not only to give “my opinions upon the connections you are now forming” but also to explain “that more extraordinary one which has hitherto subsisted between you & me.” At last he confessed his motives in selecting her at the Foundling Hospital and his plans to educate her as his wife. But protesting vehemently that he had no need to justify his past actions, Day proceeded to do just that.

“I need not mention what you were about fourteen years past,” Day wrote—Sabrina’s origins in the Foundling Hospital were still too shameful to put into writing—“when I first selected you as the object of my very extraordinary scheme.” He now admitted: “I may now plainly acknowledge I took you, with a view of educating you according to my own opinions, & if you turned out agreeably to my wishes, to make you my wife, when I had attained a sufficient confidence in your character.” He made no attempt to apologize for his conduct. “Whether those intentions were wild, chimerical, & extravagant, or rational & prudent it is not now necessary to inquire; that object relates to myself alone,” he wrote, “& you are the last person in the world to whom I owe any apologies upon that head.” He had embarked on his plan, he now confessed, in order “to obtain a wife that should be free from the common prejudices & extravagances in which women are now educated.” He had felt fully entitled to attempt this experiment, he explained, since whatever Sabrina’s fate she would still be better off than if she had remained in the orphanage. “In rescuing you from this situation, it appeared to me, that whether I married you or not, you would at least be a gainer provided I placed you in a more decent situation of life, & enabled you to live by an easy exertion of your own industry.”

Day stuck rigidly to the fiction that Sabrina had originally been apprenticed to him—although she could easily have disproved this by asking Edgeworth—and he insisted that he had always behaved toward her with due decorum. While this was probably true in the sense that he had not debauched her, it failed to answer his cavalier attitude to her reputation. Day went on to confirm how he had tried to train her at Stowe House—though he neglected to mention his sadistic physical tests—then sent her away to school in Sutton Coldfield and later to her apprenticeship with the Parkinsons before finally embarking on the last decisive trial. He listed a catalog of her repeated failings—her inability to bend to domestic chores, her negligence in her behavior toward him, her indolence with the Parkinsons—culminating in her violation of his “particular injunctions,” which had ultimately ended their relationship. Despite all her flaws, however, he had “supported you, educated you, & protected you to the best of my abilities through a period of thirteen years; during which space I call
god to witness that I have always considered your own good, as an object of more importance than any gratification to myself.”