by Cecily Ross
Kate has sold her Sketchbook of a Young Naturalist for the tidy sum of twelve pounds! Meanwhile, she has said nothing to me, but I have the feeling her romance with Francis Harral may be cooling.
JUNE 17, 1828 (CLAREMONT SQUARE, FINSBURY, LONDON)
June in London! Was there ever such wanton beauty in the midst of all the noise and confusion? Everywhere is a profusion of pale pinks and deep purples. Peonies bow extravagantly before the breezes; carpets of forget-me-nots spread out under the cherry trees; hydrangeas bloom with all the fury of a snowstorm. I have spent the past week with Papa and Mrs. Pringle at their house in Finsbury. It has been an unparalleled privilege to associate there with such literary and artistic lions as are too numerous to mention. These men of letters are effusive in their admiration of my modest literary efforts (a few poems and sketches here and there), so much so that I am tempted to doubt their sincerity. But like Papa Pringle, they offer only praise and encouragement. It is difficult not to swell with pride at such attentions, to feel the twin creatures, hubris and ambition, rising inside me, burgeoning monsters that care for nothing but personal glory and the approval of others. At such times, I am ashamed of my vanity, of my insatiable thirst for recognition, a force that gives no thought to the well-being of my fellow man, but is only an aggrandizement of my selfish desire for attention. I have sworn henceforth to withdraw myself from all attempts at notoriety and to employ my God-given gifts, such as they are, in the service of Him and those whose unfortunate circumstances do not allow them to speak for themselves.
Fame is a dream! The praise of man as brief
As morning dew upon the folded leaf;
The summer sun exhales the sparkling tear,
And leaves no trace of its existence here—
That world I once admired I now would flee,
And to win heaven would court obscurity.
Much to the consternation of my family, I have taken to calling myself a “nonconformist.” Agnes says I am like “a madwoman and a fanatic.” She said she believes I am acting out of sheer perversity and that my “spiritual crisis” is an insincere attempt to make myself the centre of attention and to create a scandal for its own sake. I do not care what she thinks.
My historical romance, “Voyage of the Sirens,” is to appear in The Keepsake. These anthologies are expensive entertainments but not exactly high art. Still, I am ashamed to say a frisson of excitement, as automatic as a dog slavering at the sight of food, ran through me at the news. And then there is the money. How am I to reconcile the necessity of earning a living with my desire to do good? Oh, “Frailty, thy name is woman.”
JULY 16, 1828
I spend my days as though in a dream, or more accurately, a nightmare, from which I cannot awaken. And though the terrors are not visited upon my own person, still I feel I am living through them. Each afternoon, I sit in Papa Pringle’s commodious drawing room, listening to Mary Prince tell her story so that I may record it for posterity. It is a tale of unimaginable savagery. In a quiet, uninflected voice devoid of self-pity or acrimony, Black Mary relates for me and Margaret Pringle the horror of her life as a slave on the island of Antigua. Her dignified and restrained manner belies the cruelties she has endured in her four decades on this earth.
In silence, I take down her words without flourish or romance. I am merely the conduit for her simple, oppressive story. And as I write, the rain gathers on the windowpanes and runs down in rivulets that are like the combined tears of all the victims of this brutal and inhuman institution.
Mary is a gentle, unassuming creature, and I have become quite attached to her in the short time we have been together, perhaps due to the extraordinary intensity and intimacy of this literary venture. This afternoon, after describing the floggings that were a routine occurrence on the sugar plantation where she toiled, she slowly turned her back to us and, unbuttoning her chemise, let it drop to her waist. Margaret could not contain her emotion on beholding the tangle of raised welts woven onto Mary’s black skin like a nest of vipers. The three of us embraced, Margaret and I weeping, not just for Mary Prince, but for the damned souls of those who would inflict such cruelty. Mary’s eyes were dry. “I have no more tears,” she said, retying her bodice.
SEPTEMBER 12, 1828 (REYDON HALL)
I have received a proposal of marriage. Against all odds, I know, but there it is. His name is Fitzwilliam Asker, second son of Sir William Asker of Norwich, and he was recently appointed vicar of Ipswich and St. Edmundsbury.
We have known one another since childhood, he and his family occupying the pew immediately behind ours at St. Margaret’s every Sunday. Can it be that the habit of gazing at the back of my head week after week so permeated his boyish imagination that when the time came to take a wife, his thoughts turned automatically to me? I had hoped there was more to it than that, but I cannot imagine why else Fitzwilliam Asker has singled me out as marriage material, since there has never been the slightest spark of recognition between us. I remember a shy boy leaning against the churchyard wall while my sisters and I held hands and danced around the bronze angel in the cemetery. If we asked him to join us, he would bury his face in his hands and run away. Since then, nothing, until he began calling on me this past July, every Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. sharp.
Today, Fitzwilliam and I walked out across the lower meadow toward the river, enveloped in a weighty silence born of a mutual reluctance to broach the subject on both our minds. In the upper pasture, Ned Tilford and his family were stoking the second cut of hay, and the sounds of the boys and girls calling to one another, their scythes flashing in the cricket-filled air, reminded me of the simple virtues—hard work, piety, a joy in nature—that I so long to live by. (I resolved at that moment to visit the farmer and his family at their cottage soon so that I might become more familiar with their unassuming way of life.)
A flock of rooks surged above us like a scattering of seed, like a living cloud, blackening the air, and then they were gone. Finally, Fitzwilliam removed his hat and held it at his waist with both hands.
“Miss Strickland . . . Susanna . . . you know, I think, the purpose of my visits,” he began. I nodded but did not speak. This was the moment I had been waiting for all my life, and now that it had arrived, I could not reconcile the feeling of satisfaction that flashed behind my eyes like a shooting star with the dead weight of the stone in my belly. He went on, his voice quivering, belying his outward composure, and a rush of tenderness for the boy he once was wavered inside me, then fled.
“We have been acquainted these many years,” he said, “but it is only in recent months that I have come to admire . . .” Here he stumbled slightly. We had entered the woods by then, and the path was beset by a warren of exposed tree roots. Regaining his balance, Fitzwilliam continued: “I have come to recognize in you such qualities as would complement my situation . . .”
I was determined not to assist him in what was becoming a proposal of exceeding clumsiness. I had imagined professions of undying love, instead of what sounded like an offer of employment between strangers.
“As you know, I have obtained a sinecure at Ipswich and St. Edmundsbury and intend to divide my time between the two when I am not detained by family business in Norwich. Both parishes come with a plausible manse and are in need of a mistress . . . I do hope you will consider—”
“Mr. Asker,” I could contain myself no longer, “is this a proposal of marriage?”
He stopped and turned to face me. “Why, yes. I suppose it is,” he said, a hint of surprise in his voice, as if he had just realized his own intentions.
Right then, I was aware, despite my frequent protestations to the contrary, of how often I had dreamed of a moment something like this. We all do, don’t we? Imagine the day our prince arrives? But standing there, confronted with the possibility of fulfilling my proper destiny as a woman, I felt the stone in my stomach grow heavier. Not so much at the idea of marriage, but at the prospect of this one in particular. Altho
ugh I find his face and stature presentable, even fair, there is something in Mr. Asker’s manner, a querulousness, a limpness in bearing that would surely be insupportable over time. Not wanting, however, to immediately discard perhaps the only such offer I may ever receive, I feigned delighted surprise and promised Mr. Asker he will have my answer within a week.
His suit is, at least superficially, entirely desirable—good family, respectable occupation, satisfactory appearance. But though I am moved by his attentions, the prospect of a shared future is difficult to contemplate. And yet I fear I have been leading him on, as I have done nothing to discourage Mr. Asker, though not much to encourage him either. It is as though I am trying to keep all doors open. But that is cruel and ridiculous. Why is it so difficult to know my own heart? Anna Laura said it best in her letter: “You cannot have it both ways, Susanna. Marry him or don’t, but do not keep the poor man hanging on.”
I think my friend has grown impatient with my dithering. How I wish she and I could be together. How tedious she must find my correspondence, filled as it has been with all this verbal hand-wringing. There she is, weakened by illness again, and yet I go on and on about myself. If I could face her, share my confusion, I know my dear friend would come to understand and support me. I have been tempted to take Kate into my confidence. She, like all my sisters and Mama (though I have said nothing to any of them on the subject) is clearly delighted with the possibility of my becoming Mrs. Asker, and I have been unable to bring myself to douse their expectations. Indeed, I have been carried away on the magic carpet of their unspoken though obvious excitement. Their certainty that I will accept my “young man” and drop my misguided flirtation with religious heresy is palpable. How little they know about me.
I finally decided to confide in Kate this evening during our walk (after swearing her to secrecy), and she almost exploded with happiness. “I knew it. Imagine you, Susie, a vicar’s wife. How splendid. Have you told Mama?”
I sat down in the grass at the river’s edge and, removing my shoes, told her I did not think I would accept him.
“Susie . . . you don’t mean it. Of course you must marry.” She paused and plucked a blade of tough river grass, sliding it carefully between her fingers. “Does this have anything to do with your new ideas?”
“Perhaps. Probably. I don’t know.” I slid my bare feet into the cool, slow-moving water. Effusions of sweet pea ruffled the opposite bank. “I have often said I would never marry, but it isn’t that. Or the fact that he’s a stalwart Anglican, while I . . .” I let the sentence dwindle. The sound of cowbells came to us on the breeze. “I think it’s the awful predictability of a life with Fitzwilliam Asker. I want to be surprised. Is that too much to ask? When I meet him, the man I am to marry, if I ever do, I want to be carried away by my feelings.” I took her hand. “Like you and Francis. When it happens, I will know.”
And now I must write Mr. Asker.
JANUARY 6, 1829
My scalp is still tingling. Robert Childs, the noted phrenologist, has examined my skull and pronounced me “a creature of extremes, a child of impulse and the slave of feeling.” If he only knew. Every second Monday evening, a group of us gathers at my new friend Reverend Andrew Ritchie’s comfortable, if modest, home in Wrentham to discuss politics, literature and advances in scientific thought. This week’s meeting turned into an experimental clinic after our special guest, Mr. Childs, asked one of us to volunteer for an examination so that he could demonstrate his technique. I, of course, jumped to his side immediately. Running his fingers through my tangled curls, he probed each nob and bump on my skull with painstaking intensity, making copious notes, while the others—our hosts, and Kate and Sarah, who had agreed to accompany me only because morbid curiosity outweighed their reluctance to set foot in the house of a “dissenter”—looked on in silence. At first, I was embarrassed at the intimacy of his touch in such a public venue, but Mr. Childs’s manner was so detached, my head might as well have been a potato he was probing, and I relaxed into a kind of trance as he did his work. This new science of the brain holds much promise for the understanding of human nature.
“You are a creature of rare sensibilities, Miss Strickland,” he said before offering his diagnosis. “I foresee a life of great extremes ahead of you. But you would be well advised to rein in your vanity.” With two fingers of his right hand, he pressed firmly at a spot just behind and above my left ear. “This protrusion here—number ten—is the seat of self-esteem. It could prove your undoing.”
“Uncanny,” exclaimed Reverend Ritchie, who, now that he is my spiritual mentor, has advised me that I must cultivate patience and humility. Mr. Childs bowed slightly and rolled his protuberant eyes back into his head. He is a strange, intense fellow with tufts of black hair springing from his skull, giving him the look of a mad scientist. He offered to repeat his performance on my sister Sarah, but she turned pale at the idea and shrank into her chair.
“I’m sure the dissection of one Strickland is enough for the evening,” she demurred. Mr. Childs bowed again with exaggerated courtesy.
“How,” asked Mr. Ritchie, “did you come upon this knowledge, Robert? Where does one go to study the human skull?”
“Aha. When you are next in London, you must visit my skullery and I will show you my collection of human specimens and diagrams of my scientific research.”
He issued this invitation with a twisted grin, rubbing his hands together in a most unsettling manner. Apparently, the distinguished Professor Childs obtains his experimental material through connections he has at Bedlam and other houses of misery. The thought sent a shiver of disgust and fascination through me. Despite his obvious eccentricities, I fully intend to take advantage of his hospitality when I am next in London. (Agnes derides my enthusiasm for what she calls “the unproven fantasies of a fanatic.”)
All during our long, cold trip home from Wrentham, a feeling of wonder lingered in my brain. The rain ceased soon after we set out, and an infinity of stars embroidered the night sky, giving some guidance to poor mouse-coloured Mrs. Dushfoot as she trudged homeward with her shivering passengers. We took turns leading the ass and huddling together in the little cart, our way lit by the silvery puddles underfoot. As we lurched homeward at a pace that would have given the proverbial tortoise pause, I wrapped my cloak tighter, feeling feverish with thoughts of the evening’s entertainment, and I found myself captive to the mysterious, uncertain night. A chill, not of cold but as if from beyond the grave, went through me. And as I gazed up at the bottomless night sky, a vision unbidden penetrated my mind—a vision of my dear brother Sam out there somewhere amid the dark, impenetrable forests and the wild, rapid rivers of Canada. I distinctly felt something, some incorporeal being, tugging at my collar, causing the back of my neck to prickle. Then it was gone. So stark and real was this premonition that I gripped Kate’s arm cruelly, causing her to cry out.
“Do you believe in Sympathies?” I whispered loudly.
“Of course not.” She shrugged out of my grasp. “Don’t be a goose.”
“No, please, I mean it. Sam, our little brother Sam, is thinking of us now, out there in the vast wilderness. I can feel—”
“Susanna, stop this. I will not stand for it another minute. You are frightening me.”
“Oh, I do believe it.” I threw my arms around her and leaned my head against her breast. “I believe there is a secret intelligence that unites us through our thoughts with absent loved ones and friends. Can’t you feel it? Shhh.”
Perhaps to humour me, Kate paused for a few seconds as if to listen. Sarah, who was leading the donkey, giggled nervously, then clucked loudly, urging the animal on. I thought I would swoon, so profound was my joy at the aura enveloping me on that starry night. My sisters were not persuaded. Sarah snorted.
“Susanna, either your imagination has taken possession of your senses or you have a fever. It’s time we put you to bed with a hot toddy.
“Get on, you lazy ass!” She gave Mrs
. Dushfoot a brisk swat on the behind just as the reassuring chimneys of Reydon Hall came into view above the trees.
I passed a long night of vivid dreams and awoke this morning with a burning throat and Katie’s cool hand upon my forehead.
“Be still, Susie. You are on fire. Rest.”
But I cannot. Still in the fog of heightened perception, I have penned these lines: