Hoxton meant to end me. No more of John Arden’s lectures, no school, no walks on Westwood Common. Living in a village of lunatics. At least I had saved my brother, but I had no way to save myself. My gloom was excessive, and grew worse by the day. My head ached all the time, I had unexplained fevers, bit my nails to the quick. I barely ate, or washed my hair. For what? I thought. Why bother? Even the young men of the Hoxton Academy, in their drab frock coats, buffeted me when I took my turn around the square each afternoon. They were thick with ideas and each other, and couldn’t see me. I didn’t blame them; I envied them. I had wanted to be in the world, as they were, but the world shut its door in my face.

Then, one afternoon, our neighbor invited me for tea. I knew little of Mrs. Clare except rumors that her husband had worn the same pair of shoes for twenty years, and didn’t go outside. Having never set eyes on him myself, I assumed he was one of those lunatics better kept at home. But their parlor was surprisingly cheery, with its woodland chorus wallpaper and rose-colored sofa, same color as Mrs. Clare’s cheeks. She was easy to talk to and asked good questions that brought me out. When the Reverend Clare walked in, by contrast, he looked severe in his minister’s clothing and wig, a dried-out reed of a man who hadn’t seen the sun in far too long. She must have seen my eyes go wide and fly to the shoes on his feet.

“It’s fourteen years, Miss Wollstonecraft, not twenty. And he’s really quite proud of it, aren’t you, dear?”

The reverend snorted an answer and sat down with his nose in a book. Nervous, I made a solicitous comment about the weather.

“Weather comes and goes,” he said, waving my words away. “I do not care for it. But if you want to tell me where you stand on John Locke, that’s another thing.”

“Now, Reverend,” said Mrs. Clare. “Leave the poor girl alone.”

He took off his glasses and studied my face, my hair tied back simply, no curls, my plain dress.

“I do not know John Locke,” I confessed. “I’m afraid my education has been somewhat suspended.”

“Suspended how?”

“I went to school in Beverley, where we learned frivolous things—”

“What frivolous things?”

“Well, I can manage a minuet, and ask for tea in French. Little else. I don’t go to school here. I’m not learning anything at all.” I looked down at his shoes again. “It’s left a sort of gaping hole.”

“Ah,” he said, “an horror vacui!”

I looked up to see his eyes flicker to life, an instantaneous glee.

“Yes, exactly!” I said. “Nature abhors a vacuum!” (Thank you, John Arden.)