by Cecily Ross
“Walk out onto the terrace with me,” he said without preamble. “It is such a glorious day, it seems a shame to remain indoors.”
We let ourselves out and stood holding the railing in silence while a warm breeze tousled the peonies in the garden below and street hawkers called out to passersby. Standing closer than was necessary or even acceptable, Mr. Moodie spoke quietly and urgently.
“Miss Strickland, forgive my forwardness, but I am a man of action, and I must declare without hesitation that finding you here, a guest in the home of my great friend Mr. Pringle, seems to have more to do with fate than mere accident. I beg you to indulge my forthrightness, but I should like to see you again soon. Tomorrow, if it can be arranged.”
I, who am seldom at a loss for words, found myself as tongue-tied as a two-year-old. When I had recovered my composure, I replied, “Mr. Moodie, I should like that very much.” And so we arranged to take a stroll on Hampstead Heath this very afternoon.
And now the aftermath. Oh, what a tempest of confusion, joy and ecstasy courses through my veins as I contemplate my excursion with dearest Moodie. (Dare I, dare I call him that so soon? Is this madness?) And yet in the centre of my being, there burns a hot flame which hours of prayer and two glasses of wine have done nothing to extinguish.
The situation is almost laughable: a man I met only yesterday declaring his undying love for me. Me! The world-weary woman of letters, whose purpose is set upon a life of ideas and virtue and good works, is ready all at once to throw everything away and vanish into the wilderness of the heart. Laughable! And laugh we did. Indeed, we did. Strolling up the Sandy Road toward Parliament Hill, the gorse and hawthorn in glorious full bloom, with Moodie taking my hand and I, unresisting, trotting by his side like an adoring puppy, he prattled non-stop about his farm in the Cape Colony. A miserable, barren outpost if there ever was one, though my Moodie described the isolation and the hard-scrabble existence with such enthusiasm and good humour at his own expense that whatever trials he has encountered seem as nothing to him now.
“But oh, Susanna, when you see the sun rise over the veldt on a winter morning, the sky as wide as the universe, pulsating rose and orange above the banyan trees, it makes a few blisters and a diet of millet and sorghum seem as manna from heaven.” And with that, he ran ahead of me, leaving the path to collapse in a heap in the long grass, feigning the attitude of an exhausted farmer overcome with fatigue and exertion.
“Mr. Moodie, are you all right?” I exclaimed, whereupon he exploded in laughter and pulled me to the ground beside him, reaching out to pluck a handful of forget-me-nots and cowslips, which he placed in my hands with such charming mock ceremony that I fell into a fit of giggling. Before us, in the distance, we could see the dome of St. Paul’s, and all around us, the Heath buzzed with the inevitability of summer and the promise of love. Sitting up and leaning on one arm, Moodie pulled me to him and kissed me on the mouth, and I responded with an ardour such as I had no idea I possessed. I tremble just thinking about it. So powerful was the current running through me that I jumped to my feet at once.
“Oh, Susanna,” Moodie groaned as he stood too, and I fell into his arms once more.
On the walk back to the Pringles’, we were as familiar as though we had known one another for years, not mere hours. Moodie regaled me with hair-raising tales of running away to join the army at sixteen, of engaging Boney’s troops in Holland, of the foggy magic of his boyhood on the island of Hoy in the Orkneys. For an entire afternoon, I thought nothing of myself and the constraints of my pinched existence, aware only of his voice and the rhythm of my beating heart.
Ye are wither’d, sweet buds! But love’s hand can portray,
On memory’s tablets, each delicate hue,
And recall to my bosom the long happy day,
When he gathered ye, fresh sprinkled over with dew.
Ah, never did garland so lovely appear,
For his warm lip had breath’d on each beautiful flower,
And the pearl on each leaf was less bright than the tear,
That gleamed in his eyes, in that rapturous hour.
I have called it “Lines on a Bunch of Withered Flowers Gathered on Hampstead Heath.”
JUNE 10, 1830
Indeed, yes, John Dunbar Moodie is courting me. Courting me with such enthusiasm that I wonder if in his romantic delirium, he is making me up, conjuring a goddess when it is only me, the same skinny, thin-lipped, dark-haired spinster who looks back at me from the glass each day, the once proud authoress, now reduced to a blushing, stammering idiot in the face of my suitor’s fine words. A note arrived this morning in his assured, unhesitating hand: “My whole soul is absorbed in one sweet dream of you—you must be mine . . .” and “let me press you to my heart and I will live upon those dear lips . . .” Dear Lord, my hand shakes and my face burns. It is laughable. Me! And yet he has awakened in me a longing over which reason has no sway.
I cannot wait for Kate to meet him. I wonder what she will think.
JUNE 12, 1830
We dined this evening at the Pringles’, and I cannot remember a time that Papa and Margaret’s dining room reverberated with such gaiety and energy. Moodie’s vivid tales of hunting elephants and leopards and snakes had all of us so rapt that the roast beef grew cold on our plates and the trifle was forgotten. How brave he is, how drawn to the thrill of danger. Listening to his stories there in a cocoon of candlelight and conviviality, I shivered at the thought of what I know in truth must have been more ordeal than adventure. Moodie has spoken to me in quieter moments of the loneliness of his African years, when his nearest English neighbour was more than twenty-five miles distant and, he said, “I lived without human contact, and my very ideas became confused for want of intellectual companionship.”
Still—excited by his memories, perhaps—he talked tonight of returning someday and held my eyes with his across the table in a manner so filled with portent that I looked away in confusion.
After supper, Moodie played Scottish airs on his flute and I struggled to accompany him at the pianoforte, while Papa and the girls executed admirably credible renditions of Highland dances. We were still flushed with happy exertion when our guest got up to leave. While Moodie went to retrieve my wrap, Papa took me aside and, placing a fatherly hand on the small of my back, leaned down to kiss my cheek. “You are a woman of no small talent, Susanna,” he whispered. “Do not let yourself be distracted by vanity and convention.”
His face was grave and kindly, but his words took me by surprise. I was about to ask what he meant when Moodie returned, laughing and exuberant. He wrapped my shawl about my shoulders and shook hands with our host before we tripped out into the lamp-lit streets so that we could say goodbye properly before I returned and went to bed.
JUNE 22, 1830
John Moodie has asked me to marry him and, throwing caution and prudence to the four winds, I have accepted. Next week, we will travel to Reydon so he can ask Mama for permission—a touching formality, I’m sure. I can hardly imagine her delight and surprise when she learns her youngest daughter will be the first to wed. The only cloud, and it is a small one, a passing shadow, was Kate’s muted reaction to the news. When my sisters Eliza, Agnes and Kate met my intended last week at a luncheon arranged by cousin Rebecca, I could tell they were charmed, as everyone is, by his energy and affability, especially Agnes. Moodie paid her particular attention, knowing as he does of our previous antagonisms. She told me later he reminds her of our dear father, “a man of purpose, good humour and genuine principles. And a committed Presbyterian, Susanna, which is important, don’t you think?”
But Kate—the sister my beloved knows is dearest to my heart—was not as easily won over. I can only assume she sees Moodie as a rival to my affection for her. She shook his hand and then, rather pointedly, I thought, and without preamble, began asking about his writing: What was the book he was working on? Who was his publisher? Did he think there is much interest in Africa? Her cross-exami
nation went beyond mere interest and contained a vein of wariness that was unlike my usually trusting sister. To his credit, Moodie took her questions at face value, and in the end, Kate too was disarmed by his candour and seriousness, the latter a side of him I admit I have not often seen. Afterwards, she said she found him to be “courteous and well-intentioned. He will make a fine husband, Susie.”
Perhaps it was too much to expect her joy would match my own, but as I saw Kate struggling to put on a brave face, I knew that my good fortune had compounded her own growing disappointment.
“Katie, I know how this must make you feel. I wish, at least . . . I think Francis . . .” I struggled not to sound condescending.
“Don’t, Susanna. Your gain is not my loss. But sometimes it is hard to be around such happiness. I am trying.”
“I only want you to love each other as I love both of you.” As I said this, I knew it was untrue. Moodie’s love is the last thing I want to share with anyone.
She gave me a look of sad exasperation. “In time, I know Mr. Moodie will be like a brother to me. But he will be your husband. You must tend to that.”
JULY 3, 1830 (REYDON HALL)
Mama has given her consent (how old-fashioned those words sound), but not without reservation, it seems—a development I had not anticipated. I was certain her relief at being divested of one of her gaggle of chicks would know no bounds. Instead, this solemn occasion was solemn indeed.
Katie and I waited in the garden after Moodie let himself into the drawing room to make his intentions known. The afternoon was grey, the air humid and still, and we sat on the stone bench under the shelter of the magnolia tree in case it should rain. But nothing as fickle as the weather could squelch my excitement.
“Oh, Katie, I so wish Papa was with us. He would have loved John Moodie. I know he would have.”
My sister smiled. She really has been trying. She slipped her arm through mine and leaned into me. “I am so happy for you, Susie. Love has made you more beautiful than ever.”
“Don’t be a silly,” I returned. “Love has made me into a simpleton. I can scarcely think a coherent thought, and other than a few overwrought love poems, I have not put pen to paper in weeks.”
She squeezed me harder and said nothing, but I could hear in the lightness of her laughter a peal of sadness.
“Where do you think you and Mr. Moodie will be wed?” she asked.
“Oh,” I said, pulling my feet up onto the bench and hugging my knees through my skirt. “Yes. That.”
It was a good question. I am embarrassed to admit that my nonconformist fervour has given way lately to passions of a different sort. After all the trouble my conversion has caused her, Kate has almost as much invested in it as I do. I can hardly contemplate my own fickleness. Moodie, though not deeply religious, is deeply, deeply connected to the church. He treats my flirtation with “the dissenters” as just that, a youthful aberration, and seems to take it for granted I will tire of it soon enough. I have not disabused him of this. Can I really be so shallow?
“We haven’t made plans,” I replied, “but I am certain it will be an Anglican ceremony. It is what he wants, as well as what the law warrants.” I kept my eyes straight ahead as I said these words, not wanting to see Katie’s expression.
But in her generous way, she merely gave me a warm hug and murmured, “Welcome back to the fold, my darling. Mama and the others will be so relieved.” She paused. “It appears you have become a convert to John Dunbar Moodie.”
Just then, Moodie burst out through the scullery door, tripping and nearly falling over a basket of freshly dug carrots. “There you are, my darling.” He pulled me to my feet and kissed me firmly on the mouth. His handsome face was flushed with excitement, and I noticed with absurd delight that his vest buttons were unaligned like a little boy’s. My fond heart lurched happily. “My dearest soon-to-be Mrs. Moodie.” He grinned at Katie and hugged her too. “Your mama would like to speak to you. Go now.” He pushed me lightly. “Go.”
Mama remained seated when I entered, her back half turned toward me, her gaze fixed on the empty hearth.
“Well, Mama?” I finally inquired into the lengthening silence.
“My dear, I am very happy for you. I am sure Mr. Moodie will make a fine husband. He is a gentleman of good family and high moral character.”
“Thank you, Mama,” I replied without fanfare for I could tell by her tone and the set of her mouth, her lips rolled in like a clamshell, that there was a caveat to her good wishes.
“You understand I would do nothing to stand in the way of your happiness,” she continued, turning to face me, “but I must ask, how on earth will you live?”
I sighed and fairly flopped into the chair opposite her. “I know, Mama, I know. He is not a wealthy man, but—”
“To put it mildly. I have questioned him closely on this matter, and Mr. Moodie may be rich in charm and character, but his military pension provides him with an income far too confined to support a wife.”
“I have my writing. Just this week, I placed another poem in La Belle Assemblée . . .”
“Susanna, really, my dear.”
“All right, I know it’s not much. But Mr. Moodie still has his farm in South Africa, and we are considering returning there as soon as he can raise the capital.” As I uttered these words, I knew they were a lie. Moodie and I have never discussed the possibility. Africa? The very idea fills me with horror.
“Don’t be absurd, Susanna. Africa? A young woman of your background? It’s out of the question.”
“Mama—”
“And what do you mean ‘raise the capital’? How?” she asked.
“In a few weeks, Mr. Moodie intends to visit Scotland to petition his relatives. His uncle has extensive land holdings. And there is an elderly aunt of whom he is very fond; he is hopeful one of them will support our venture.”
Mama smiled a little sadly and took my hands in hers. “Then I’m sure you will find a way, Susanna. I will not oppose you. You have always been the most determined of all my children, and Moodie is a good man. But not Africa. Please. Now go and tend to your poems; you have a trousseau to save for.”
I had expected her to be proud of me, the first of her daughters to marry, but there was little sign of that, just her usual preoccupation with money and appearances. The old vagueness returned and she dismissed me as though she had already lost interest in the whole affair. But she is right: we don’t have a plan. We talk about everything, my fiancé and me—books, music, politics, ideas—but other than ill-formed literary schemes and Moodie’s faint hope of some kind of inheritance, we have no idea how we shall live. On love? I left the meeting feeling more subdued than I have since this romantic adventure began.
AUGUST 19, 1830
A letter from my soldier! To think, just days ago his ship sailed past Southwold and my dear Moodie peered into the fog and imagined me walking alone on the beach.
“Kind heaven give me only your love; I ask no more from this world to make me happy!”
My intended has left for the Highlands with high hopes that his pleas for family support will be fruitful. But I fear that as the youngest of four sons whose ancestral home was sold years ago to pay off debts, he’ll find his optimism may not be enough. Before his departure, he set about singing the praises of life on the African veldt. I knew this would come up eventually. When I immediately objected, we came close to quarrelling, and not wanting to send him away with a stain between us, I promised to consider his proposition. But in my heart, I cannot imagine leaving my beloved England for what by all accounts is a hot, dusty outpost overrun with snakes and tigers . . . and slaves. My spirit rebels at the prospect. As much as I pine for my dearie’s return, I am filled with melancholy at the thought of ever leaving the comfort of the walls and gardens, meadows and streams I have known since childhood. And yet, the life of poverty facing us on English soil—a half-pay military officer and his scribbling wife—is a comfortless alternative.
Another revolution in France! It is fifteen years since Napoleon Bonaparte went into exile and the Bourbons were reinstated. And now this. They say the streets of Paris are running with blood, King Charles has fled the country and he is hiding here in England, in a castle somewhere in Devon. The situation fills me with fears that Moodie’s regiment may be called up again.
I must try not to worry. These golden days at Reydon, with Mama tending her roses, and Agnes and Jane composing odes to imaginary heroines, are for me a welcome hiatus from the blue-stocking strivings of London and all it stands for. A life of wifely domesticity holds more appeal than I would ever have imagined. Is it possible that my true vocation lies in service, not to a stern and ascetic God, but to my lifelong and only husband? And what of my writing?
Speaking of which: I have sent prospectuses of Enthusiasm, and Other Poems to Papa Pringle to distribute among the London literati. My hopes for an enthusiastic critical reception and a craven desire that sales may yield enough income to purchase wedding clothes are at odds with the poems’ humble genesis. Am I a failed idealist or nothing more than a rank hypocrite?
SEPTEMBER 10, 1830
The Reverend Ritchie called this morning, walking all the way from Wrentham. It was such a fine late-summer day that after he took a glass of cider and some bread and butter with Sarah and me (Mama and Agnes declined to join us), I offered to accompany him partway home. I was eager to have Mr. Ritchie alone to try to explain my truancy from the Congregationalist flock (it is less than a year since my conversion and yet I have not seen him or any of my new friends in nearly two months). But before I could raise the matter, he launched into a sermon about the weakness of the flesh and the higher spiritual calling to which I had so passionately committed such a short time ago.
“Miss Strickland, you cannot imagine how much we miss you,” he concluded, his battered bowler clutched to his bosom. “Marriage is a desirable state, but there are other ways to serve the Lord.”