Despite the dangers she knew they would face, Mary began hatching plans for Eliza’s escape, reassuring herself that they would rescue the baby as soon as Eliza was safe. Unlike Ned, she could not allow her sister to decline into madness, and she believed that if Eliza stayed with her husband, she would never fully recover. The universal principles of justice and morality decreed action, Mary felt. Locke had given her the theoretical premise she needed to justify her position: Bishop had abrogated his rights as a husband by infringing on Eliza’s natural liberty. Indeed, Eliza’s “situation” had ceased being only about Eliza. Freeing her from Bishop, whatever his “crimes” had been, was about freedom in all its forms: personal, sexual, financial, spiritual, legal, and political. Here at last was Mary’s chance to redress the injustice she had railed against all her life. “Those who would save Bess [Eliza] must act and not talk,” she wrote to Everina. The only questions left, as far as she was concerned, were where to go and when.
The proficiency with which Mary laid out her strategy made it seem as though she had been preparing for this emergency all her life. And in many ways, she had. Having failed at protecting their mother, Mary was determined to keep her sister from living life as a victim. She reserved a room in a lodging house in Hackney, a village about five miles north of central London, stashed supplies with Everina, who was still living in Ned’s house on the other side of the river, and gathered up what little cash she could. When she whispered the plan to Eliza, her sister welcomed the idea, though she wept about not being able to take the baby.
On an overcast January day, they were ready. When Bishop left the house after lunch, Mary rushed to hail a coach, but just as Eliza was about to shut the front door, she frightened her sister by hesitating. She could not bring herself to separate from her child and refused to climb into the coach. Finally, Mary pulled her aboard. At first, it was a relief to drive away from the house, but on a busy afternoon it was impossible to avoid traffic, and with each stop, Eliza grew increasingly agitated. To Mary’s horror, she got a wild look in her eyes and began gnawing her wedding ring. Mary tried to calm her, but Eliza would not stop until she had bitten the ring into pieces.
They changed coaches to throw Bishop off the trail, and after more than an hour of tense travel, they arrived at their quiet Hackney lodging house, where they registered using the somewhat unimaginative aliases “the Misses Johnson.” Luckily, the proprietress, Mrs. Dodd, did not challenge their right to be there. “I hope Bishop will not discover us,” Mary wrote to Everina when they were safely in their room, confessing that she “could sooner face a Lion” and that “my heart beats time with every carriage that rolls by and a knocking at the door almost throws me into a fit.” Eliza, meanwhile, had become quite calm, sleeping peacefully while Mary kept anxious watch.
To Mary’s relief, Bishop did not follow them. Instead, he sent a message through Ned that if Eliza would return he would “endeavor to make Mrs. B. happy.” But Eliza, supported by Mary, refused to soften. Living with Bishop was out of the question, she told Ned, who, despite his initial refusal, had become the mediator between his sister and her husband. Bishop, furious at being rejected, refused to let Eliza see her daughter and cut her off without a penny.
Punishing errant wives by separating them from their children was almost as common as interring them in asylums, and was often more effective. After all, wives might hate their husbands, but they loved their babies. And no woman was immune from this treatment. The famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, put up with her husband’s affairs, even accommodating his mistress in their home and raising his illegitimate children, because he had threatened to take her own daughters away if she did not submit to his wishes.
Even when there was evidence of cruel treatment, sympathy for a runaway wife was hard to come by. Mary heard rumors, probably spread by Bishop, that she was to blame for being “the shameful incendiary in this shocking affair” and for acting “contrary to all rules of conduct.” Fortunately for the Wollstonecrafts, their close friends remained loyal. Mrs. Clare, the clergyman’s wife, traveled up to Hackney with food and wine and offered to lend them money. The Bloods invited them to stay in their home. However, despite this support, the Wollstonecraft name had been sullied. Remarriage for Eliza was out of the question without a divorce, and, given the scandal, it was unlikely that Everina would attract any suitors. To survive, the sisters would have to find jobs, but that was a possibility only if prospective employers had not heard about Eliza’s flight.
Mary’s solution was something she had been dreaming of for a few years: they would start a school. Her friend Jane Arden had founded one with her sister a few years earlier, and in an enthusiastic letter, Mary had declared her support: “Let not some small difficulties intimidate you, I beseech you;—struggle with any obstacles rather than go into a state of dependence—I speak feelingly.—I have felt the weight, and would have you by all means avoid it.”
Before Eliza’s crisis, she had drummed up a few interested students. Now she turned her attention back to the many problems she faced. She needed funding and she needed students. But daunting though these were, she took heart from her success in freeing her sister from Bishop. After years of trying to save her mother from her father, she had rescued her sister from harm. Newly galvanized, she was confident that she could overcome the challenges that lay ahead.
She had also come to a new conclusion. After her immersion in the Bishop household, she realized Eliza’s weakness was as much a problem as Bishop’s anger and insensitivity. Frightened wives would never be able to stand up to their husbands, and cowering only made matters worse. If Eliza had been able to advocate for herself, she and Bishop might still be living together, and little Mary would be raised by a strong, self-respecting mother.
To Mary, this realization gave even more urgency to the idea of starting a school. Teaching girls to cultivate their minds and bodies so they could become independent would help create a society in which wives could defend themselves and single women could exist on their own terms. In this utopia, there would be no more need to rescue women like Eliza. They would be able to rescue themselves.
But even Mary Wollstonecraft could not start a school on the strength of her own zeal. She needed money, backers, and a building, all of which seemed impossible to obtain—until she met a Mrs. Burgh, the wealthy widow of the educator and author James Burgh, a well-known activist for educational reform. None of Mary’s biographers know how the two women met, though it is possible that it was through the Clares. But all agree that Hannah Burgh offered Mary precisely what she needed at this crucial juncture in her life: funding, advice, and practical support.
Hannah Burgh’s mission in life—bestowed on her by God, she believed—was to educate young women to be good Christians and useful citizens. Girls needed to learn how to be independent women so they could contribute to society. She did not agree with her contemporaries who held that all young middle-class women needed was to acquire a little polish by learning some French, knowing the latest dance steps, and playing a few light pieces on the piano. When she clapped eyes on Mary, a young woman who radiated intelligence, conviction, and confidence, Mrs. Burgh realized she had found just the right schoolmistress. Together, they could create an environment where girls would learn to live more meaningful and more virtuous lives. With admirable efficiency, the two women came to an agreement. Mrs. Burgh would supply Mary with a house and twenty students, and Mary would be free to run the school as she wished.
Mrs. Burgh did have one requirement, however: that they build the school in her own village, Newington Green, a center for Nonconformists since the Restoration. Two miles north of London, this pleasant rural hamlet did not look like a hotbed of dissent. It had all the attributes of a staid English village: a shady green in the center of the village populated by grazing sheep, stately Georgian houses, steepled churches, and flower gardens. A pretty river, which supplied London with fresh drinking water, wound past the outskirts of the town.
Early in the spring of 1784, Mary left London to begin her new venture. She brought Everina and Eliza with her to serve as teachers. Together for the first time since their mother had died, the Wollstonecraft sisters settled into the huge empty house Mrs. Burgh had obtained for the school. Mary bought furniture, books, and needles for sewing; she hired a cook and maids with the tuition money that parents had sent in advance (half a pound each quarter). Two families decided to board their children, paying extra fees that helped cover expenses. Mary had written a series of letters to Fanny trying to persuade her to join them, and finally, to Mary’s delight, she decided to come, arriving before the summer. Her lackluster fiancé, Hugh, was still in Portugal, showing no interest in marriage, and Fanny wanted to be with her dear friend. Although she was still weak from tuberculosis, she could contribute by teaching a few classes in botany and painting. Mary’s world was now complete. She was with the woman she loved most in the world. She was living according to her most deeply held beliefs. She had achieved independence, although it was difficult to feel entirely independent when plagued by the worries of such an enterprise. How many students did she need to keep the school viable? Would parents protest if she implemented some of her revolutionary ideas? If even one of the families defaulted on tuition, she might have to close the doors.
But despite these fears, Mary resolved not to compromise. She wanted to teach her students to think for themselves. She had a few boys, but most of her students were girls, ranging from seven or eight years old to fifteen or sixteen, and she pushed them to go further than memorizing the literary truisms of the day: “I am sick of hearing of the sublimity of Milton, the elegance and harmony of Pope, and the original, untaught genius of Shakespeare,” she declared. If her students learned to value their own minds, they might be less likely to succumb to the pitfalls of the fashionable world and better able to contribute to society. She believed that each of her pupils was unique and therefore required “a different mode of treatment”—a tenet of today’s progressive schools, but an almost entirely original approach in 1784. Treat students as individuals! Require girls to use their reason! If conservatives got wind of what she was up to, she would be sharply criticized. Mary’s fellow reformers, on the other hand, found her ideas so congenial that they invited her to join their weekly discussion group.
Dr. Richard Price, their leader, was sixty-two when Mary first met him. Short and thin with thick black eyebrows, a plain black coat, and a tightly ordered white wig, he had a stern appearance that belied his gentleness. He used his pulpit to preach Enlightenment ideals, speaking so quietly that it was difficult to hear him unless one sat in the front rows. That spring, he declared that the world was progressing, pointing to the American victory over the British as evidence—the Treaty of Paris that officially ended the American Revolution had been signed just months earlier. His list of supporters was a roll call of revolutionaries—Ben Franklin, John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Mary relished Price’s optimism. Liberation from tyranny: this was his theme, and hers as well.
Like Jane’s father and the Reverend Clare before him, Dr. Price immediately recognized Mary’s originality and her eagerness to learn. But he was also interested in her passion for reform, and he shared her ambition for schooling future radicals. To Dr. Price, education was the pathway to a more perfect future. He pointed to America as an example; without an enlightened citizenry, he said, the American experiment would surely fail, which would in turn be a tragedy for all humankind. To Mary, this hit home. After all, education had changed her life. If she had not read Locke and found the words to express her feelings of injustice and rage, she might not now be fighting for freedom for herself and others. She might not have had the courage to save her sister. Starting a school was truly an elevated endeavor. It was not just a personal bid for independence but an avenue to reform. She would inspire her students to forge their own lives.
From the moment they arrived, Mary treated the children the way she wished she had been treated as a girl: with respect and tenderness. She championed healthy eating habits and vigorous exercise to help them become strong and capable. Instead of shaming them or doling out punishments, Mary won her students over with kindness and sympathy. She could not offer them French or music lessons, but there were plenty of students whose families could not afford to pay for a fancy education but who still needed to learn the basics. Instead of assigning readings from primers, Mary encouraged the children to compose their own stories. “Let there be no disguise for the genuine emotions of the heart,” she would later write. She dismissed rote learning and encouraged her charges to think for themselves, to explore what lay off “the beaten track.” Above all, she prized integrity, creativity, and self-discipline. In an era when other schools punished trifling mistakes with beatings and economized by restricting food and heat, when a young Jane Austen almost died from neglect at the Abbey School (a few generations later, the two eldest Brontë girls actually did die of tuberculosis at Cowan Bridge School), Mary’s insistence on the physical, spiritual, and moral welfare of her students was a beacon of Enlightenment values.
Mary hoped that her sisters would follow her example and devote themselves to their teaching duties. But both Eliza and Everina disliked the long days and hard work and did their best to shirk their duties. They were supposed to teach reading, writing, and sewing. Everina also helped Fanny teach sketching. Unlike Mary, they did not want to change the world, student by recalcitrant student. They wanted a pleasant life with few demands. Eliza, who was still recovering from her harrowing escape, was fragile, and, in August, a month before her baby’s first birthday, she received the terrible news that her daughter had died. Left in the care of maids and wet nurses, the child had weakened and caught a disease. To Mary, this was further evidence of Bishop’s villainy; he had probably neglected his daughter to punish his renegade wife. Eliza never voiced regret for her decision, but she was left with a depression she could not shake. Her freedom had been purchased at the cost of her child’s life.
Nineteen-year-old Everina was also struggling. Hardly older than her charges, she was finding it difficult to hold herself and the students to Mary’s educational standards. She resented Mary’s advice about how to manage a classroom and teamed up with Eliza, both of them complaining about their eldest sister behind her back. As a result, the three Wollstonecraft women were continuously on edge; there were flare-ups and countless spats. Her sisters’ lassitude infuriated Mary. Didn’t they realize how important this project was? Not only was their independence at stake, but they had the opportunity to improve women’s lives and reform society.
But neither sister shared Mary’s idealism. Nor did they have her drive to become independent. They did not have Mary’s dreadful memories of working for the grumpy Mrs. Dawson. Instead, they expected Mary to take care of them, which was as it should be, they felt. She was their older sister; their mother had died; their father was useless; who else would look after them? They had no interest in joining Newington Green’s intellectual community. They did not like being left to mind the students when Mary went to lectures and discussion groups. They were even more annoyed when a new friend of Mary’s, the Reverend John Hewlett, an aspiring writer with literary connections, took her to meet the ailing Samuel Johnson without inviting them. Johnson was the most celebrated writer of the time; their sister was stealing the limelight, they said, while they, the drudges of the school, were overlooked and undervalued.
Mary’s closeness to Fanny made matters still more difficult. She had never shared a house with her sisters and her friend at the same time,
and the combination was disastrous. Mary herself was partially to blame; she refused to confide in her sisters or consult them on important decisions, leaving them feeling shut out, as though she discounted their opinions. They were irritated that she did not respect them as adults and treated them like the students. Fortunately, Fanny was a gentler soul than Mary and was adept at smoothing feathers. She stayed home when Mary went out and insisted on including the younger Wollstonecrafts in decisions concerning the school, despite Mary’s resistance. By keeping the tension between Mary and her sisters from turning into full-blown fights, Fanny helped keep the school alive, but it was at the cost of her own health. She suffered from coughing fits and grew gradually weaker. Toward the end of the school’s first year, just as the cold weather arrived in earnest, Fanny’s tuberculosis worsened, and by the fall of 1784, it seemed clear that if she stayed in damp, chilly England, she was going to die. Terrified, Mary urged Fanny to contact the hesitant Hugh.
After having backpedaled for years, Hugh had recently written to tell Fanny he was ready for marriage; his business in Lisbon had become successful enough to support a family. But now that it was time to make this leap, Fanny was not so sure. Hugh had humiliated her by making her wait so long. In addition, she hadn’t seen him in years. Their correspondence had been infrequent at best, as Hugh was not an inspired letter writer and the mail delivery between Portugal and England was unreliable. Above all, she would miss her beloved Mary. However, it was Mary who persuaded her to accept Hugh’s proposal; in her mind it was better to lose Fanny to marriage than to death. Perhaps in hot, dry Lisbon her friend would get better. So, in January 1785, Fanny voyaged to Portugal to marry Hugh, who, it turned out, had aged considerably. “He is much fatter, and looks at least ten years older,” Fanny wrote in February, also disclosing that she was pregnant after just one month of marriage.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley Page 8