by Bee Rowlatt
He’s interrupted by some gargling noises coming from Will. Perched in his baby chair, he’s stuffed too much bread into his mouth. We jump up and fuss over him. He emits a stream of sodden chunks and then smiles. I mention the young Swedish couple who gave him sweets on the bus, and how surprising it was that they were economic migrants. There is unmistakable glee at this. Tina says: “They always looked down on us, the Danish and the Swedish. In particular the Swedish. When I was young, I went Inter-railing, and in Sweden they’d say: ‘Ha ha, you are Norwegian, you smell of fish.’”
There’s a pause. “Perhaps you did,” says Knut.
They laugh. Tina turns and sings a song to Will. He laughs; she chuckles and squeaks at him; he claps his hands. He does his unhinged smile, so big that you can see every one of his teeth. Everyone stops to watch him, and I’m suddenly bathed in motherly pride. He is so eye-achingly perfect that I have to feign some modesty. I roll my eyes and tell him off: “What are you doing, fiendish tyke?” But secretly I want to burst with love.
“But there’s another side,” Knut tries again “when you get rich in a hurry, that influences your thinking as a nation—”
Will heaves the coffee jug over into a basket of bread, from where the hot black flood spreads into Tina’s lap. My smugness evaporates as Tina leaps up to get changed and we dab at the coffee with tea towels. I realize very much later that we never did find out what happens to nations that get rich in a hurry. Norway is indeed the happy owner of a whopping oil fortune, but by the time we’ve stemmed the coffee tide, we’re back onto Wollstonecraft’s journey again, and an even more unrecognized heroine.
“Wollstonecraft travelled by ship at this time, as a woman with a baby, on the North Sea, because she wanted to prove something: women could do anything men could do. And she also had a tough maid. Here is a question. Where is the history of the maid? She is just as impressive, perhaps. The maid had a tough time.” Knut pauses. “You see, there is the history of the known people, but what about the history of the people who are keeping the known people getting known? Marguerite is this person.”
Hours later, still recovering from the epic breakfast, I think about Marguerite and those unknown people who keep the known people known. Was Wollstonecraft good to Marguerite? She defends vulnerable women, but does this play out in her treatment of her and Frances’s faithful companion? Marguerite’s appearances in Letters from Norway are fleeting – there’s not that much of an impression. Which is odd, because Wollstonecraft goes off all the time about how Swedish women treat their servants.
Marguerite started working for Wollstonecraft back in Paris. She gets debilitating seasickness every time they travel in a boat. She is scared of steep roads and cautious of strangers. “Poor Marguerite!” says Wollstonecraft breezily (she never gets seasick and is never cautious). Marguerite is also a first-hand witness to Wollstonecraft’s agonies with Imlay. It is she who is sent, again and again and again, to strange post offices in the hope of collecting a letter from him. There must have been many occasions to think, “Mon Dieu, I didn’t sign up for this.”
Towards the end, when they’re homeward-bound, Wollstone-craft, Frances and Marguerite are travelling from Denmark to Germany. They’ve been on the road for some time. When Marguerite and baby Frances both fall asleep, Wollstonecraft is relieved – they have so little in common. Marguerite’s excitable chattering about the strange foreign fashions begins to grate. But she poignantly adds that Marguerite’s “happy thoughtlessness” and “gaité du cœur” are “worth all my philosophy”. If only she, like Marguerite, could simply be happy…
Even if Wollstonecraft sounds high-handed, it’s unlikely that she was unkind to her chirpy companion. At least, I don’t want her to be, so I plough around for evidence. Her Original Stories, an early kids’ book of excruciating primness, has a worthy chapter on ‘Behaviour to Servants – True Dignity of Character’. And although Wollstonecraft certainly gave her peers the haranguing of their lives, her future husband Godwin writes: “To her servants there was never a mistress more considerate or kind.”
She herself describes with the usual indignation how
…ladies of the most exquisite sensibility, who were continually exclaiming against the cruelty of the vulgar to the brute creation, have in my presence forgot that their attendants had human feelings, as well as forms. I do not know of a more agreeable sight than to see servants part of a family.
But what Wollstonecraft doesn’t do is reflect on her own privilege in the current scenario: the fact that she is being enabled in her quest, as Knut points out, by another woman’s hard work. And what irony that, until now, neither do I. Searching back and forth for Marguerite references in Wollstonecraft’s book while capering around on a fabulous adventure. And far away back home, my own nanny, Nori, steps up whenever Justin’s sent on another foreign trip.
Remember how I resented Wollstonecraft that early morning in Kragerø – oh well, it’s fine for her, she’s got a maid – remember that? It’s also true of me, and why it’s possible for me to do this. If it wasn’t for Nori… The thought trails out and leaves me uncomfortable. We’ve all heard the breezy career mum describing her nanny as “like my wife!” This complex relationship between women, of co-dependency and hierarchy, is an untapped source.
Elephant taps on door: hello, just popping round to come and sit in the middle of your room. Middle-class women are the direct beneficiaries of this inequality: it’s a source of both freedom and guilt. So far I have avoided looking the elephant in the eye. Something tells me this may not last much longer.
Wollstonecraft has done both sides. She was once a governess. She’s almost certainly suffering from depression, and it’s not her finest hour. The letters she sends to her sisters reveal something of a nightmare employee, and at least three of Wollstonecraft’s biographers feel sympathy with her boss, Lady Kingsborough. In episodes that have a flavour of modern kiss-and-tell, Wollstonecraft spills the nanny beans on the lisping, decadent mother who prefers to lie around in satins with her lap dogs rather than care for her children.
When Lady K tries to include her governess socially at fancy parties, Wollstonecraft sees the invitations as patronizing and enraging, and uses them to satirize her boss. (Despite her vast wealth, Lady Kingsborough was married off aged fifteen for “breeding”. She bore twelve children and had no significant education. Maybe, just maybe, her rights needed vindicating too?) The lady tries to give the governess a cheap cotton dress. Wollstonecraft not only rejects it, but storms off and sulks in her room until Lady K has to come and apologize to her.
Wollstonecraft boasts that the children like her more than their mother. Even if this is true, she relishes it too much: “At the sight of their mother they tremble and run to me for protection” and the “sweet little boy … calls himself my son”. And while sulking in her room, Wollstonecraft is also writing a book, Mary: A Fiction, in which the eponymous heroine’s rouge-cheeked mother packs her children off to be cared for by nurses, while she lies on cushions playing with her dogs. Beware the revenge of the nanny.
There’s something unsettling in the stand-off between a chippy young Wollstonecraft and her aristocratic new environment. Wollstonecraft picks incessantly on Lady K’s looks and beauty regime, but his Lordship rarely takes any flack. Surely he gave as much cause for anger? But he gets off lightly. It’s the yawnsome old spectacle of the catfight. It’s easier to slag women off for having childcare than to address the bigger picture. I’ve done it myself. My heart sinks a little that Wollstonecraft did it too.
If anything, Wollstonecraft’s own governess memories should make her more supportive of the loyal and cheerful Marguerite. I think again about my nanny, Nori. Like Marguerite, she is impressive. She finished her degree in a second language alongside working with us. She works part-time, and if it’s been a few days since her last shift I physically droop with relief when she walks in the door. She’s seen us through house moves, nit infestations, miscarr
iages, pregnancy and newborn madness. She puts up with chaos, shouty arguments and unpredictability; in exchange she provides stability and calm. In short, she delivers sanity. How do you thank someone for that?
Gratitude doesn’t come easily where childcare is involved. I’d like to blame this thought on someone else, but secretly I’ve thought it myself: childcare should be good and lovable, but not too good and lovable. Do mothers resent success in a carer? Of course! It’s hard enough to love your own kids all day long. How much harder must it be if they’re someone else’s, poking your bum and asking about muffin tops? I think for a while about how to be more appreciative. Then sigh with satisfaction about my benevolent intentions. It’s easy to be a good person at long distance.
The sunlight here intensifies in the late afternoon. It’ll be light for many more hours, but this light is special. The sea, the sky and even the shadows are a brilliant demented blue. We wander along the harbour to the Risør Fiskemottak, where fishing boats unload their catch. Will discovers Norwegian fishcakes, wiping them in his hair to the delight of the people at the next table, and I drink black coffee.
What is the magic of being near water? Risør sits in a natural harbour facing a sprinkle of skerries: small uninhabited rocky islands, where families in boats potter around, fishing and paddling. The lure of these tiny islands is strong: there is magic in the notion of a miniature world, of setting foot on a child-sized kingdom. Watery adventures from childhood books spring to mind: The Wind in the Willows and Swallows and Amazons. I long and long for my other kids. Being in kid-heaven makes their absence sharper.
I didn’t expect to find so much happiness in Wollstonecraft’s erratic footsteps, and I’m grateful that they brought us to Risør. I will never forget being in this place, with scattering blue light and baby Will attacking the fishcakes. I’m plagued, however, by how dramatically our reactions have diverged. Wollstonecraft came here and everything went wrong. From Risør it only gets darker and bleaker. She starts quoting Hamlet – never a good sign. Even the usually beloved pine trees make her want to die:
The pine and fir woods, left entirely to nature, display an endless variety; and the paths in the wood are not entangled with fallen leaves, which are only interesting whilst they are fluttering between life and death. The grey cobweb-like appearance of the aged pines is a much finer image of decay; the fibres whitening as they lose their moisture, imprisoned life seems to be stealing away. I cannot tell why – but death, under every form, appears to me like something getting free – to expand in I know not what element; nay, I feel that this conscious being must be as unfettered, have the wings of thought, before it can be happy.
Wollstonecraft has hit a new low. The mission has collapsed scarcely halfway through the book. She’s left Risør and is heading back to collect her much-missed baby, to travel onwards with her and Marguerite. They still have Denmark and Germany to get through. There are repeated references to death and suicide, and I’m afraid for her. She has failed.
To find out how she failed I need to see Gunnar Molden again. Because there’s no one alive who knows more about this part of the journey. He has invited me to come and see his archives, in the town of Arendal. Arendal is further west than Wollstonecraft came, and was the family home of Captain Peder Ellefsen.
Gunnar’s office is inside Arendal’s original town hall. Despite all our high jinx and cinnamon buns on the ocean wave, Gunnar is still shy. He tenses up when I switch on my recording equipment. At first his answers are halting and short. I ask how long he’s been working on Wollstonecraft. “Only part-time, in my spare time. I started twenty years ago. It all began with Letters from Norway, the Richard Holmes edition—”
“Me too,” I shout, the enthusiast overcoming the journalist in me. He pauses politely. I apologize and indicate silently for him to go on.
“The main story is of course what happened to the silver. We still haven’t found it. It’s very probable that Peder Ellefsen stole the silver, but he was not alone: he had some associates, and it’s possible that they forced him. When Wollstonecraft met him in Risør, she tried to get an out-of-court settlement. It is possible that he wanted to do it, but couldn’t because of their influence on him. Publicly he denied having ever received any silver. And Wollstonecraft couldn’t prove it. Ellefsen just completely denied it, which ended up being a successful defence.”
Some of the details of Wollstonecraft’s battle have only emerged in recent years. She went right to the top, roping in the Prime Minister of Denmark, then the ruling colonial power in Norway. And it was Gunnar, researching in his own time, living far away from national archives, who threw light on this. I ask Gunnar about his 2003 discovery of the Wollstonecraft letter, and he laughs nervously:
“It’s one of the finest experiences I’ve had. I was in Copenhagen and I’d spent nearly a week going through documents. I saw all kinds of other information about the case. I only had one week and I was running out of time. I found a file in a box marked Madame Imlay’s Case.” He pauses. “It was then that I understood I’d found one of the most important things.”
He avoids eye contact. I pry further: “Come on, what did it feel like?”
He lets out a giggle, “It felt… almost like proof that God exists!” He pauses again, an even longer pause, then heaves down several more boxes, rummages in them and passes me some large sheets of paper. I’m holding the photocopied pages of Mary Wollstonecraft’s letter. Here she is. I get a surge of affection seeing her determined, slightly loopy handwriting.
“It’s in perfect condition,” Gunnar says quietly. We look at the pages. I get a churchy kind of feeling and scarcely dare breathe on them.
“Her handwriting is not modern, but I’m used to reading Gothic script, and these are Latin letters, so it’s not hard to read. Of course I feel closer to her as a person, reading this. It’s important as found information – as a historian it’s important. But on a personal level it’s… it’s…”
I nod and smile, willing him on.
“…it’s… Well. I really enjoyed it.”
This is as effusive as he’s going to get. But instead of wishing I could get a better soundbite out of him, I’m struck with admiration. I’d mistaken his quietness for an absence, a lack of something: I was wrong. Gunnar spent his free time searching through years of false starts, misspellings and boxes of old paper, and he didn’t do it for glory. His thoughtfulness and precision make me feel cartoony and frivolous in comparison. Certain qualities are likely to advance humanity, such as curiosity and perseverance. And this man has them in spades.
The letter itself is a summary of the case against Ellefsen, and a plea for the Prime Minister to intervene on her behalf. The original is now in the Rigsarkivet, the National Archives of Denmark. Gunnar tells how she describes the meeting with Ellefsen in Risør, how he is “humble” and regretful. She persuades him to bring compensation from his wealthy family. He returns later the same day, but in a very different mood. He’s spoken to his lawyers and is suddenly all a-swagger. Whatever advice he’s been given, it’s clear that she will now get neither compensation nor silver.
Will feels the need to put in an appearance at this stage. He rapidly builds up to a thrashing wail in his buggy, and to cheer him up we head out for a wander around Arendal. We stop in the Strand Kafé, Gunnar’s favourite, and I find a baby chair for Will. We order a monke, a small sweet dumpling, and some black coffee. Will drinks his milk thoughtfully, and I pass him little pieces of monke to chew.
Leaving the café, we climb up the hill and sit on a bench, overlooking some old cannons facing out to sea. At last I bring up the relationship between him and Wollstonecraft. The one that had seemed so unlikely when we first met. Why her, of all the women in all the books in all the world? Why does Wollstonecraft walk into Gunnar’s gin joint?
He breaks into a smile.
“I’ve always been interested in the connections between my local region and the world, and this is a perfect examp
le. Personally, Wollstonecraft’s text makes it so easy to engage with her, she’s very subjective – and I like that. Ja. Why? Well. Maybe I’m a romantic person myself…”
But then we’re drawn back again, into the misery. It’s no longer just Ellefsen and the missing silver, there’s another massive body blow to come. All this time Wollstonecraft has been expecting a reunion with Imlay – their romantic holiday together. But he’s gone cold. He is gradually withdrawing from his promise to join her. And so her letters become more bitter: she guilt-trips him about their baby, once more she’s struggling to keep going.
I tell Gunnar that I find some of the post-Risør letters difficult to read. There’s a growing sense of disgust, of pointlessness. A “black melancholy hovers round my footsteps”, she writes, describing “a sensibility wounded almost to madness”. It’s eating away at her. Yet on she goes, carrying onwards to Copenhagen and Hamburg and whatever secret unfinished business it is that Imlay’s putting her up to.
Here Gunnar has even more fuel for despair. He has his own theory about what that business might be:
“Imlay was a small player, but with important and influential contacts. I’m speculating here, but it’s possible that she has discovered that he’s dealing arms to France. Another possibility is gunpowder. Imlay’s plan was to use the silver to buy ‘provisions’ to bring back to France. The question is: were these provisions food or weapons? There’s a big difference. And the British said you weren’t even allowed to let food in – that was the blockade against France.”
Weapons-dealing! Such goings-on might explain the references to “vile trade” and “mushroom fortunes”. Also why she goes back from Scandinavia via Hamburg; the business centre for these important contacts of Imlay’s. Wollstonecraft’s penultimate letter seems to support Gunnar’s theory. “These men,” she writes, with energetic fury, “like the owners of negro ships, never smell on their money the blood by which it has been gained.” In the middle of one of her diatribes against “sordid accumulators” she suddenly zooms in: