Whatever the case, Caroline proved to be an apt student. Her daughter later described her as “an immensely clever woman . . . an accomplished linguist, mathematician and scientist”.23 There is ample evidence of Caroline’s scholarship in the wide-ranging collection of letters, pamphlets, diaries and notes she eventually left behind, and when she wrote Little Joe, a children’s novelette, in 1859, even Charles Dickens was enthusiastic, saying that Caroline had “expressed herself well”.24
What is missing from the record of Caroline’s early years, though, is any reference to companions of her own age. Once she left Northampton, Caroline stayed in touch with her nearest sister, Harriet, but there was never any mention of other friendships. Clearly, Caroline learnt to be her own companion, to reject loneliness and put her faith in her own abilities to persist and succeed. The lessons of youth become the character of the adult. Time and again throughout her life, and often in times of pain and stress, with little love or support, Caroline would be thrown back on her own devices. Her internal strength may have come from her religious belief, and that certainly played its part, but undeniably her fierce determination and extraordinary self-confidence were what helped her survive.
Whilst Caroline’s education would supply the skills for her future work, it would also enable her to achieve what was then considered the prime objective of every young woman: marriage. As one contemporary commentator noted, “Marriage was the life plan of most women, and the single state a fate to be avoided like the plague.”25 By the time she reached twenty-two, Caroline had emerged as a sanguine creature ready to engage with the world. The boarding school had done its job well: her voice was musical and she spoke without the slightest provincialism.26 She was described as beautiful with slender grace and a happy character — she was certainly no Puritan, no fanatic bent on rejecting the sweets of life.27 She was passionate, inquisitive and determined to lead a useful, purposeful life. All she lacked was a soul mate to augment the adventure. As in all good romances, one was then just coming into view, though, as in the nature of such narratives, true love would not run smoothly.
CHAPTER 2
Marriage and Faith
1828–31
A chance decision by a lieutenant of the East India Company was to transform Caroline’s life. It was mid-1828 and thirty-year-old Archibald Chisholm, who served with the 30th Madras Native Infantry Regiment, was returning from the Indian subcontinent on two years’ furlough. He was making his way north to visit family in Scotland when he broke his journey in Northampton, perhaps to stay with friends. It was then that he encountered Caroline Jones. The precise date and circumstances are unknown. The town had a healthy social calendar; the two may have been introduced at a private party, but more likely at a public ball or similar event.
Archibald was the younger son of a gentleman farmer, by then deceased, who had been one of the principal cadets of the Laird, Colin of Knockfin, in Inverness-shire in the Scottish Highlands.1 The Clan Chisholm had a long and impressive history, being first mentioned in a letter from the Pope in 1252.2 The family had produced its share of rebels and radicals over the years, culminating in brother fighting brother in the ferocious battle of Culloden, which saw Bonnie Prince Charlie finally defeated as pretender to the British throne, in 1745. Clan history reports that after the bloodshed, three Chisholms aided the prince’s escape into exile.
Almost a century later, Archibald’s family was still proudly Roman Catholic; one of his half-brothers was a priest, and two of his close cousins were bishops. This impeccable Catholic lineage, though, did not translate into wealth. Archibald’s father married twice and sired six sons.3 Fortified with an excellent classical education and little else, the five younger boys were sent into the world to find their own way; three of them joined the East India Company. By 1828 one had been killed in battle, one had been promoted to captain and Archibald, after ten years’ active service, was taking a well-earned break.
An early painting of Archibald reveals his character: an attractive man, especially in uniform. We see a boyish, open face framed by a mass of well-ordered, wavy dark hair and long, curly sideburns. His clear, piercing eyes, classic Roman nose and cleft chin suggest strength and seriousness, whereas his bow-shaped mouth hints at both sensuality and a certain weakness. Dressed in his regimental red uniform with gold buttons and epaulettes, a sword sash lending a hint of danger, Archibald creates a highly favourable impression. One wonders why, in 1828, at the age of thirty, he was still single.
Portrait of Captain Archibald Chisholm (courtesy of Don Chisholm)
Caroline and Archibald soon fell in love. Who can say what sparked the flames of affection? On her side the attraction was obvious: here was a handsome man of elegant lineage who could give her the life that she had dreamt about since she was a little girl. With the lieutenant, not only would she move up in the world but she would also see the world. He was, in effect, her passport out of the myopic confines of rural England. He was also a man, she soon realised, with a kind heart, whom she believed would support her good works.
On the other hand, what was there in Caroline to excite Archibald’s admiration? She was certainly a lovely looking young woman, but, even allowing for a paucity of candidates during Archibald’s years in India, she would not have been the only eligible female to cross his path. For a mature, cultured, serious-minded man, the answer could not just be Caroline’s pretty face and lively character; there had to be something more that encouraged him to partner with a woman of inferior social status. No doubt her superior education would have helped convince him of her suitability, along with her evident compassion and, in all likelihood, her dowry also.
In 1830, marriage was offered — and rejected.
Why did Caroline rebuff such an attractive offer from a man she apparently loved? At twenty-two, she had been mistress of herself and her fortune for at least twelve months — long enough to understand and enjoy her independence. She was not about to conform to the claustrophobic expectations of nineteenth-century womanhood. As Caroline was to explain many years later in a letter to a friend, the Bishop of Birmingham, she had decided two or three years before she met Archibald that she would pursue a charitable career. She wrote: “I consulted a friend . . . who knew my mind . . . and told me that to carry out my views I must have more of public support and confidence than I could ever expect to gain, that wealth, that influence were needed.” She went on: “I did not marry until I told Captain Chisholm to what my whole mind was devoted.”4
When Archibald proposed, Caroline had still not decided which cause to champion or how to do it, but she was determined to maintain the freedom she felt she needed to achieve her goals. The autonomy she insisted upon was virtually unheard of amongst her peers. Mary Wollstonecraft would have been proud of Caroline’s resolution to break the mould; so too should have been the feminists of the 1960s.5
Having explained her intentions to Archibald, Caroline softened the blow by making a counter-proposition: she asked him to withdraw from her for one month to consider whether he would “accept a wife who would make all sacrifices to carry into effect her public duties”.6 If he was unable to accept her conditions, they would part; if, on the other hand, he would agree, she would marry him.
Such an unconventional wife could have been difficult for a man toeing the line of the East India Company and seeking promotion. Furthermore, Caroline’s negotiation ran directly counter to just about every piece of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century commentary on marriage, from either sex: “Married life is woman’s profession: and to this life her training — that of dependence — is modelled,” wrote a female author of the era, condemning women to a life of servitude and banality.7 Was Caroline gambling that Archibald could be brought to heel? Or did she already realise that his affectionate nature and softer character meant that she could, with relative impunity, have the best of both worlds? He was a clever man who, atypically for the time, apparently sought a well-educated woman for a wife. Caroline,
it seems, rated her intelligence as equal to if not greater than his. Mary Wollstonecraft could have been speaking to Caroline directly when she wrote: “Some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.”8
Archibald kept his distance from Caroline for a full month before proposing again. He agreed to her terms and this time she accepted him. From the very start of their life together, he was submissive to her rule and totally loyal. It is doubtful, indeed, whether she ever questioned that he would return to her.
The Catholic clergy were still not legally allowed to conduct or register wedding services, so the pair were married by special licence two days after Christmas in 1830, at the Anglican Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Northampton. It was the same church where Caroline had been christened and where her father lay buried.
As was the custom generally, only a small group of well-wishers witnessed the ceremony on that frosty morning. Within the splendid old church, candlelight dispelled the frigidity of winter, casting warm light on sombre tombs of stone and marble and creating an aura of sacred mystery. Outside, weak sunshine perhaps filtered through forbidding grey clouds, its rays illuminating fragile wisps of snow upon skeletal trees, and welcoming the newly married couple into a glistening world of wedded bliss. Caroline had now committed her life to a partnership with Archibald, but what did she know about the practicalities of marriage and its effects? What, one wonders, did she know about sex?
*
For their honeymoon, Archibald and Caroline chose Brighton, situated about two hundred kilometres south of Northampton on the Channel coast. The incurably flamboyant monarch George IV’s fifty-year love affair with this small seaside town had transformed it into a fashionable and glamorous holiday destination, complete with its extravagant quasi-Eastern-style Royal Pavilion. No doubt this exotic building would have piqued Caroline’s interest, but one suspects, given her practical nature, that she would have disapproved of it as a folly.
There was more to Brighton though than just that lavish palace, and as the second most important business of a honeymoon was sightseeing, there was much to investigate. The promenade along Marine Parade passed above the pebbly beach and onto Chain Pier, jutting out precariously over the water. It was probably the first time that Caroline had seen the sea, and, walking above its salty breaths, watching its rhythmic undulations, she may have started to understand the power that controlled both the sailing ships and the new steamboats that were to become so germane to her future life. Possibly she was even a little fearful as she watched, in wild, windy weather, the vessels rolling and pitching on heaving waves, and she may have wondered what it would be like to have such untamed monsters beneath her feet.
Most likely, the newlyweds visited the lending library and the stylish shops in North Lane. Maybe Caroline bought a gown or trinkets to wear to an evening concert. Perhaps Archibald, sporting a new cravat, outlaid five shillings on a box at the theatre. There was always something to do and to see.
The honeymoon gave Caroline and Archibald the opportunity to gradually develop a better understanding of each other. Victims of stringent middle-class mores, they would barely have spent any time alone together before their wedding day; now, however, each moved wholly in the other’s realm. The sudden intensity of the relationship, even allowing for the obtuse civility of the age, must have been overpowering.
To alleviate the strain, many couples separated during the day; the bride was often left indoors alone, to wait for hours whilst her husband went off exploring by himself. 9 In many ways this was a foreshadowing of everyday married life: the woman confined to domestic duties, the man at work, out in the wider world. Everything about Caroline’s character, though, suggests that she would have refused to miss out on Archibald’s explorations, however pedestrian; after all, she had already given ample warning that she would not embrace the traditional stay-at-home wifely role.
As well as learning about each other’s personality traits, there were more intimate discoveries to be made. It was assumed that a man, particularly one in his thirties like Archibald, would be experienced in lovemaking; Caroline, however, fully ensconced in the prim middle class, was not only expected to be virginal but also totally innocent of any sexual awareness. This paradox, of course, was a direct reflection of nineteenth-century hypocrisy, as well as widespread discrimination against women based on their social status and the country of their birth. Whilst middle- and upper-class maidens were treated like fragile flowers that would wilt if presented with lustful realities, it was tacitly accepted that working-class women, prostitutes and foreign females (such as Archibald would have encountered in India) could be exploited for the benefit of a man’s sexual education. In a curious caricature of the female advice books, there were numerous publications, directed at males, detailing where to find women for sex. They reveal the extraordinarily brutal attitudes of some men towards women. One such publication reported, for example, that at Madame Matileau’s establishments for young ladies in Soho and Brompton Old Road,
this Abbess . . . of the French flesh market does not keep her meat too long . . . Nothing is allowed to get stale here; you may have your meat dressed to your own liking . . . Her flock is in prime condition, and always ready for sticking; when any of them are fried [diseased], they are turned out to grass . . . Consequently the rot, bots, glanders, and other diseases incidental to cattle are not generally known here.10
The book, costing a shilling to purchase, was first printed in about 1830 and was updated and reprinted numerous times, suggesting a keen and constant demand for the information.
Whether Archibald had any sexual experiences before wedding Caroline is not known. What is certain though is that his attitude to women was unusual for his time, as would be evidenced by his total support of Caroline’s endeavours with vulnerable girls and young women on two continents. Whilst Caroline was the inspiration and driving force behind the couple’s later work, Archibald’s constant and dedicated assistance could only have been possible if he had genuine respect not only for his wife but also for the females she helped. It is not surprising that she looked for a consort to complement her ambitions; what is remarkable is that she found one so ready to acquiesce to her view of the world.
Still, there was a lot for Caroline to learn about the mysteries of marriage. The chief purpose of a nineteenth-century honeymoon, of course, was to decorously initiate the bride into her role in the matrimonial tryst. Another contemporary conduct author explained why it was expedient for a couple to go away together: “As the bride is the object of the utmost interest; it is desirable that she should be removed from the observation of her circle. Such a course is particularly acceptable to female modesty and adds fresh charms to the delights of connubial bliss.”11 This helps explain why honeymoons became so popular among the conservative middle class in the 1800s.
Even though Caroline was twenty-two years old she probably knew absolutely nothing about sex, nor was she likely to have received any clear advice at the time of her wedding. Married middle-class women who could have passed on valuable information did not discuss such matters.12 Conduct books were so euphemistically couched as to be virtually useless: “The duty of a wife is what no woman ever yet was able to render without affection,” was the confusing and inadequate description of marital sex written by author Sarah Stickney Ellis.13 As for the medical profession, if anything, it was even worse. A well-publicised text by Dr William Acton, written for men, boldly stated that “the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled by sexual feelings of any kind”, and went on to explain that if a woman was inclined to enjoy sex she would be identified as either a whore or possibly a nymphomaniac who belonged in a lunatic asylum.14
Caroline fell pregnant almost immediately, within the first week or two of marriage. Whilst there is no evidence as to Caroline’s sexual appreciation (apart from her giving birth to eight children), it is very possible that the ease with which she be
came pregnant may have helped define her views on sex, women and what she perceived as a need for single females to learn to protect themselves against predatory males.
Vulnerable women who engaged in premarital sex not only became social outcasts but also risked further ostracism and deprivation if they had illegitimate children. With little ability to claim any support from the father, these women faced the choice of struggling to bring up the child on their own (often after being thrown out of their family home), turning to prostitution to survive, or attempting an abortion, which in the early nineteenth century was something akin to a death sentence. Birth control methods such as coitus interruptus, condoms devised from sheep’s intestines and cervical caps made from hollowed out lemon halves were only used by a few members of the upper classes and some prostitutes and their clients.15 Problematic at best, contraception in any case was outlawed by most religions, making it unavailable to the vast majority. Always attentive to moral and pious concerns, Caroline would later seek to offer susceptible females an alternate pathway. What is most interesting is her attitude to the “fallen” women she dealt with. Her patience, empathy and lack of condemnation suggest that she understood not just their practical but also their carnal needs, and that she lay the blame for their plight squarely upon rapacious men who had used and then abandoned them. Such an approach argues that Caroline acknowledged female sensuality, whilst refusing to accept that working-class women were little more than shameless whores.
From Brighton, the couple may have travelled directly back to Northampton, but more likely they enjoyed a longer sojourn in Scotland. Either then or sometime in the following few months, Caroline was introduced to Archibald’s relatives. Both his parents were dead, but he still had two brothers and a bevy of cousins and in-laws in the North. Meeting them was no doubt a daunting prospect for Caroline, for not only had she emerged from an inferior social class but she had also been brought up in a very different religion. Caroline was an outsider among the staunchly Roman Catholic Chisholm clan. Three hundred years of tumult, suspicion and prejudice separated their understandings of God, in an age when religion was one of the cornerstones of identity. The Chisholm tribe would have been shocked initially by Archibald’s choice of wife; the infiltration of a southern heretic of inferior birth would not have matched their idea of what was due to them. There is no sign, however, that Caroline was intimidated by Archibald’s relatives; indeed, there is evidence of ongoing friendship and correspondence — even as late as 1869 there were visits to Archibald’s family in Scotland.16
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