by Cecily Ross
Mrs. Shelley, Mary, arrived at the appointed hour, stepping down from the cab, her small feet visible for an instant under the skirts she held lightly, and then she seemed to float across the garden to the back-door entry to my small rooms. I watched her approach, through the quartered windowpanes, which had the odd effect of reproducing her image so it appeared that four slender widows were making their way over the wet stones. And I wondered then, as I do now, whether her immense (to me at least) presence was by this illusion quartered or quadrupled.
I showed her in and she seemed flushed, her usual composure perforated by a new animation. We sat in two chairs placed close to the small burner and talked of mundane things: her son and his struggles with his studies, the beauty of the night, the difficulty of living a writer’s life. At times, her eyes met and held mine with such intensity that I had to look away or I feared I might burst into flames. The air felt electric, shot through with unseen energy, as though she were sending me an unspoken message. (And I too dense to decipher it.)
We ate the pie by candlelight, which cast shadows on her face, deepening her already deep-set eyes and highlighting the angular bones of her cheeks. She seemed spectral and mysterious in a way I had not previously noticed. Perhaps it was the wine, but I felt mesmerized by her voice and the warmth of the room, by the slow pulsing of my own heart. So hypnotized was I that now I struggle to recall what was said between us. I just remember her taking my hand between her small palms as I reached for the decanter to refill her glass. Her hands were strangely cold, and though the gesture surprised me, I did not flinch.
“I know how impulsive this will seem, but I have a proposition.” She turned my hand so that it lay lightly upon her upturned palm, and with a forefinger, she traced the blue veins on the back of my hand slowly and softly. The sensation made me feel faint, and a flood of heat poured through me. If I had been standing, my knees surely would have buckled. But I did not pull away. “What if we two were to join forces?” she said, not looking up. “I have the house; my son will be going away in a few weeks. You could have his room for less, I’m sure, than you pay here.”
She risked a glance to gauge my reaction. I could hardly breathe. I was speechless, both flattered and frightened.
“I have read your poems,” she continued, now squeezing my hand with surprising vigour. “They are full of passion. I could help you harness that emotion, teach you to shape and control it.” Her tone was earnest, pleading. “You have the most luminous eyes, Susanna.” Embarrassed, I withdrew my hand. “Never mind. I am making you uncomfortable. I don’t mean to. It’s just that I find myself unexpectedly drawn to you . . . No, it’s all right. Please let me finish. I long for the comfort of a close friendship such as I know is developing between us. I promise I would never push you beyond an intimacy you do not desire. But I feel in my heart that there is something possible between us, something durable and fine.”
These last sentences came out in a torrent, and I fear I sat there stunned, not meeting her eyes, my hands now clasped tightly in my lap, the full import of what she was suggesting slowly dawning on me. And I cannot explain it, but something came over me, an ice-cold breeze, and the spreading warmth in my abdomen turned to nausea.
“I think you had better go,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I am not what you think,” I added weakly, and with that, I stood, shaking. Mrs. Shelley found her shawl and bonnet and left without a word.
I have resolved to banish Tuesday’s events from my mind. Already, it is as if I dreamed the entire encounter—the flickering candles, the shadows, the night sounds, and Mrs. Shelley, her hazel eyes shining, the hushed timbre of her voice, the pressure of her fingers . . . Enough. It is over. She is right. I am a country girl, a good Anglican girl, bound by convention. Her proposition is something I could never condone.
Moodie has written to say he is coming up to London tomorrow, that he must see me. I will hear what he has to say.
MARCH 5, 1831
He sat in the very chair she sat in beside the fire while sleeting rain tapped an irregular yet persistent rhythm on the windowpane. I could just glimpse, over his shoulder, the hansom cabs in a line under the bare chestnut trees surrounding the square, the horses’ heads down, their rumps turned into the weather. His hair was damp and tousled, his face mottled red, and his breath issued in quick gasps as though he had sprinted here through the blackened streets. But his voice was strong and urgent. At the sight of him, I felt a mighty surge, like the tide rushing in, coming home, as though my mind, which has rejected him, and my body, which longs for his touch, were in complete opposition to one another. How can this be? He reached for me and, without intending to, I fell into his embrace.
“I beg you, my dearest, my only Susanna. Please, please tell me what has altered your heart. I cannot contemplate a life without you. What have I done? What has happened to pull you back from the brink?”
It was an apt allusion, because, indeed, the idea of marriage has made me feel as though I were standing on a precipice, lured irresistibly, inevitably into a life of companionship, yes, love, perhaps, but also the drudgery of domesticity, the deadening necessities of marriage and motherhood.
“It isn’t you, nothing you’ve done,” I said. I could not look into his face, could not bear to see his eyes bright and burning as I knew they were. Bright and burning with love for me. “I was afraid,” I stammered and covered my face with my hands.
“Of what? Dear, dear Susie. Afraid? Oh no, no. I would never put you in harm’s way. I would give my life to keep you safe. I want nothing more than to look after you.”
I stepped away from him and reached for the poker, stirring the coals, urging a little more heat from the hearth. How could I tell him the truth? That I rejected him so that I might keep myself? That for a brief, exhilarating time, I chose Susanna Strickland. Right then, I could feel her slipping away again as I was drawn inexorably back into the circle of his love—pulled, yes, by the magnet of my own desire, dormant all these long, lonely months and now like a fire rekindled. And so I told him I was afraid of Africa. I told him of my need to write. But I did not tell him how unnerved I was by my brush with unconvention, how filled I am with self-doubt. And he, tears bathing his ruddy face, promised, “I only wish to love you, to keep you near me forever.” And so I relented and allowed Mr. Moodie to take me in his arms again, to reassure me with promises of tenderness and safety. As the fire came to life in the grate, I whispered, “Yes, yes, I will be your wife.”
MARCH 7, 1831
I have reiterated to Moodie my terror of South Africa and its wildlife, of the prowling lions and stampeding elephants. Now that we are firmly reunited, he has reverted to his usual bonhomie. He was openly amused and teased me mercilessly about what he assures me are groundless fears, the stuff of childhood stories, of bogeymen and demons. So tickled is he by such timidity in his betrothed that whenever the opportunity arises, he conceals himself in doorways or behind trees on our daily walks on the Heath and leaps out to surprise me, roaring like the lord of the jungle himself. I can feel my natural irritation rising on these occasions, but Moodie’s high-spiritedness is impossible to resist and I am growing accustomed to his silliness. He makes me laugh despite myself and allows me to see things in a brighter light than that cast by my tendency toward brooding pessimism.
I did, however, extract a promise from him that he abandon forever his plans for our return to his African farm. He agreed at first with his usual playfulness, going down on one knee and taking my hand in a demonstration of subservience. “I swear, my own true love, never again to utter the words ‘veldt’ or ‘kaffir’ in your presence. No more tales of derring-do or purple sunsets on the savannah,” he insisted. “Africa is as dead to me as you are alive.”
I brushed him off with the hauteur of a Zulu princess, but later, as he walked me home after supper at cousin Rebecca’s and his mood turned serious for a moment, I pushed my case once more, reminding him of our mutual abhorrence
of slavery.
“How can you contemplate living in a place that not only condones but fosters an evil we are pledged to eradicate?” I pleaded. “You know of my work with Mary Prince. But perhaps in your heart you aspire to own a few Negroes . . .”
This was cruel of me, and Moodie immediately protested. But he also swore he would never raise the matter again.
“And I intend to continue writing after we are married,” I said.
“Of course, Susanna. I would not have it any other way. We will be a pair of writers. I have my stories of Africa and the war, and if these do not provide for us, there will be your amusing sketches and rhymes.”
I let it go at that, reassured I have made the right decision. We are a good match: His cheerful temperament acts as an antidote to my darker moods; my natural skepticism has an ameliorating effect on his somewhat excessive spirits. (Optimism cannot always be justified.) We share a love of reading and music, and a strong sense of our place in society, as well as compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves. As well, I have only to consider the situations of my sisters—Eliza in her cramped London room, toiling without respite as editoress of The Court Journal; Agnes, who struggles to keep up appearances she cannot afford since her elevation to the status of society poetess; and poor Jane, earning what she can with her stories, trapped at crumbling Reydon Hall with Sarah and the increasingly irascible Mama—to realize that marriage to a good man is a far better fate than what awaits all of them. To think that a short time ago, I aspired to “glorious” independence that I now see as a consequence of spinsterhood. My sisters are all, I fear, too old to be saved by marriage. (Except Sarah. With her gentleness and beauty, there is still hope.) But I fear most for my dearest Katie, whose marital prospects continue to dwindle. We dined together at cousin Rebecca’s last week after she came to London to meet again with her fiancé.
“I am doing everything I can to raise Francis’s spirits,” she said, explaining that the senior Mr. Harral faces serious financial difficulties—a consequence, Kate claims, of his wife’s extravagance. The situation has only added fuel to Mrs. Harral’s dissatisfaction with her stepson’s engagement. “I think she is determined Francis must marry someone of means if the family is to maintain its position.” Kate paused, her sad face staring down into her soup. “The poor man is torn between duty and devotion.” There were tears in her eyes.
It saddens me to think that while my prospects have taken a turn for the better, hers are bleak indeed.
APRIL 4, 1831
It is done. I am, for better or worse, Mrs. John Moodie. I love my husband with all my heart, but there was a moment during the mercifully brief (Anglican) ceremony at St. Pancras in Camden when I thought I might turn and flee. Only Papa’s strong arm leading me down the aisle and my dear Kate’s hand gripping mine as we stood at the altar gave me the will to go on. But I pronounced the fatal “obey” with every intention to keep it. Now it is over, I feel calm and determined.
Moodie looked more terrified than joyful, no doubt sensing that I was poised to bolt. Once the final vows were uttered, his complexion lost its purple hue (I fear he had been holding his breath for the duration) and he clasped me to his bosom in an embrace that, had she been there, would surely have rendered Mama speechless. It was, of course, too much to think she might travel all the way to London. I take consolation in the fact that Mary Prince, wearing a new dress for the occasion, rode with the Pringles and me to the church and took her place in a rear pew. Cousin Cheesman entertained our small party at his Newman Street rooms, raising a toast to our long life and happiness amid the usual chaos and clutter. And so . . .
I write these few words as I wait for my husband to return to our rooms with something for our wedding supper, though I can scarcely consider the prospect of food, so great is my anticipation for what must follow. These stirrings are nothing like those I felt in the presence of Mrs. Shelley, which seemed to come from a place of strangeness and shadow. My longings for John Moodie are as robust and exhilarating as the beginning of spring. Perhaps the wild Suffolk girl is a little frightened of her own passionate nature.
APRIL 16, 1831
The last fortnight has passed in a blur, but reality must of necessity insert itself into our unashamed bliss if we are to eat, let alone pay our rent. And yet whenever I raise the matter of our soon-to-be desperate circumstances, Moodie tries to distract me with affectionate teasing that inevitably results in an entire afternoon once again passing with pen and paper left untouched.
At last, this evening, as we lay in the fading light amid a tumble of linens and the remains of a hasty supper of bread and cheese, I once again reminded him of the seriousness of our situation.
“Ah, but I do believe I could live on love!” was Moodie’s response. “What more is there to life than this.” He giggled, tugging on the lacing of my camisole.
I slapped his hand away. “Please, Moodie, stop it.” These were the first harsh words between us since our marriage, and though I was only teasing, his angelic face collapsed like an underbaked cake. He looked so downcast that I relented and pulled him to me once again.
In the midst of our happiness, Kate’s world has collapsed. Mrs. Harral, in an act of unprecedented cruelty, placed a mock wedding announcement in The Spectator this week, heralding the upcoming marriage of “Mr. Frankly Harried and Miss Katydid Stickmouse [sic].” Embellished with lurid illustrations of grimacing cupids, fauns and angels wrestling with one another in a tangle of wilted flowers, the advertisement shows a tall, handsome bridegroom with his back turned to his intended bride, a stout farm girl carrying a chicken under her arm and pleading for his attention. We are all stunned at the effrontery. Surely the woman has lost her mind. Kate met with Francis for the last time yesterday and offered to release him from his bond, a gesture he accepted, she said, “with an expression of relief on his face that made me wonder why I have held on to this dream for so long.” He immediately left for Dorset to take up an apprenticeship to a pharmacist, his dreams of becoming a doctor apparently abandoned.
My only consolation is that my sister is not so crushed in spirit that she has been unable to rouse a vivacious fury at the authoress of her fate. “I abhor and detest her,” she sobbed as I held her slender and shuddering frame in my arms. She raised her reddened eyes to mine and they shone with a hatred I did not think she was capable of. “Malicious bitch,” she said.
MAY 2, 1831
Kate continues to mourn the rupture of her engagement to Francis Harral, but now that the initial shock has softened, she will not hear any criticism of her former fiancé, coming instantly to his defence if I dare cast aspersions on his character, and mewing meekly about her own shortcomings. Oh, how I would relish seeing fickle Francis and his stepmother tarred and feathered and run out of town. I am still in a rage! I offered to intercede with Harral senior on her behalf, but Katie will not hear of it. I do think anger is the best medicine in situations such as these. But dear Kate has spent whatever reserves she may have had and is fading before our eyes, barely able to eat, let alone write. Even Moodie, whom she has come to adore, has been unable to elicit much more than a wan smile. She remains at Bedford Square under the watchful and generous care of cousin Rebecca, who has proposed that Kate accompany her on an extended tour of Bath and Oxford and a visit to her country house in Hertfordshire. I hope a few months away from this wretched situation will ease my sister’s distress. Seeing her like this makes me appreciate my good fortune in marrying a man as constant as my Moodie.
Agnes and I continue our work on Patriotic Songs; we are nearly finished. I am still flattered, and frankly astonished, that she asked me to collaborate. My most arrogant sister has never before encouraged my work in any way; indeed, her dismissive attitude toward my verses has been a source of some resentment on my part. These days, however, she is positively effusive in her encouragement. I can only surmise that my dear husband has charmed her out of her hair shirt. She giggles and preens like a schoolgirl
whenever they meet.
Moodie is in particularly good spirits; his youthful soldier reminiscence, A Narrative of the Campaign of 1814 in Holland, is published to quiet but enthusiastic acclaim. Rather than basking in the glow of what is likely to be a short-lived and muted notoriety, he is now putting the finishing touches to an account of his adventures in South Africa, from which, if it takes anywhere as long to see publication as his first book, we are unlikely to enjoy much in the way of proceeds for decades. At the risk of seeming excessively mercenary, I do wish he would tackle shorter projects of a more lucrative nature.
My History of Mary Prince is published at last, and I am proud to report that it is to be laid before the Houses of Parliament. Of course, my name does not appear. I only hope it has some effect on the abolition in our great dominions of such gross injustice and awful criminality.
JUNE 22, 1831 (SOUTHWOLD, SUFFOLK)
How my world has changed. Instead of looking out at the tiled rooftops and blackened chimneys of Finsbury, my gaze this morning falls upon the blowing grasses and rolling grey seas of the Suffolk coast. We have let a small cottage, three rooms and a back kitchen, set in the lee of a treeless knoll, which is our only protection from the fierce breezes blowing in from the North Sea. It is owned by the Kitsons, a crusty old mariner and his wife, who live next door. Mrs. Kitson has been friendly to the point of intrusiveness, but I believe she is kind. The money we save by moving away from London has allowed me to hire a girl to help with the domestic duties that are my not-altogether-unwelcome fate. Hannah comes to our small household from Reydon Hall and is highly recommended by Mama, who claims she is “energetic and reliable.” I hope so, but I detect an air of resentment beneath her respectful silences. Moodie says I am imagining things and that Hannah is not yet accustomed to our much smaller household. Our tiny house is within walking distance of Reydon Hall, and Jane and Agnes often visit. Even Mama, who seldom leaves her room, has deigned to inspect our little mansion. I find that a strange lassitude envelops me these days, and I seem to have lost the will to write. I fear my blue stockings have turned so pale that they will soon be quite white. Oh, what has become of me? Tamed by love, I suppose. And impending motherhood. We have told no one, but by this time next year, God willing, Moodie and I will be three.