by Cecily Ross
He too is beguiled by the rhythms of rural life, and we spend our days reading aloud to one another and walking along the shingle, listening to the mutter of waves upon the shore. In the evenings, I knit small things for our babe with a clumsy and uncharacteristic determination. Moodie plays the flute and makes me laugh. I long to share these peaceful days with dear Katie, whose letters contain a forced cheerfulness that I know masks the beating of a broken heart. But for her sadness, my persistent nausea and our continuing penury, I should be perfectly happy.
JULY 17, 1831
I knew it would happen eventually. My dear husband’s unquenchable thirst for adventure has been rekindled, this time by the appearance of one Robert Reid. He is my little brother Sam’s Canadian father-in-law, the widowed Sam having married again to Mr. Reid’s daughter Mary last year. Mr. Reid has recently returned to England from Canada, where, to hear him tell it, he and his family of ten children live like wealthy English squires, spending their days tending orchards and planting flower gardens. I exaggerate, but only slightly.
Moodie had the “good fortune” to run into Mr. Reid at the Crown Tavern in Southwold, where my husband spends many afternoons (mornings, he is at his desk) gathering “news” and sharing opinions with the local grandees, while I lie abed with only a basin and a wet cloth for company, thankful, really, to have our little place to myself in my present state. Have I ever endured such misery? (I am certain Agnes suspects my condition but is too delicate to mention it.)
In any case, the two of them (Moodie and Reid) returned in the full flush of good “spirits” just in time for the supper I had not prepared. Nevertheless, we made do with yesterday’s soup and some stale bread and beer.
Mr. Reid was full of enthusiasm for the wonders of the New World. “Why, with a little hard work, a man will soon find independence and even wealth on the other side of the water,” he said, his mutton chops quivering with excitement. “What future is there for you here, my good man?” He pounded the table with a weathered fist while Moodie’s red face shone like the moon over the North Sea. “This country is doomed,” Reid said. “The price of wheat is lower than a groom’s britches on his wedding night.” (At this, he paused to nod at me and apologize for his colourful language. “Beg pardon, ma’am. I’ve been too long in the backwoods and my manners are a touch rough.”)
“Look around you,” he went on. “Tenant farmers can’t make their rent; they’re being tossed out of their cottages. The poorhouses are bursting at the seams.” He raised his voice. “It’s a revolution, an industrial revolution. I hear tell that in the coal mines, children as young as ten or eleven work eighteen-hour days pulling loads of coal that would break a horse’s back. Demon coal is robbing millions of their livelihood, fuelling machines that do the work once done by honest men and women. Why, anyone with the necessary means and a modicum of good sense is leaving.” He sank back in his chair as though the very idea exhausted him, and then, most inappropriately, winked a bleary eye in my direction.
“And then there’s Canada,” he almost whispered, “with its congenial climate, its fertile soil . . . Why, my land north of Peterborough—where your own brother, Mrs. Moodie, young Sam, has settled—why, that land yields forty bushels to the acre in a good year. Yes, Canada. It’s close to mighty waterways and only a short voyage from these verdant shores . . . and best of all”—here, he leapt to his feet, the whisper escalating to a roar—“there is no bloody taxation!”
After he left, Moodie took up the emigration banner, waving it high. His blue eyes flashed like sunlight on a wild sea and the hair on his head fairly stood on end as he paced about our small parlour, waving his arms like a demented preacher.
“Nothing. There is nothing for us here,” he exclaimed. “What, my dearest,” he said, bending down until his nose was only inches from my face, “what is to become of us? And what of our child?” He reached out to place a hand on my belly. “How will we feed another mouth? There is no hope for us here.” His face was ruddy with drink, and I knew that to argue would only pour oil on the flames.
I looked around our little cottage, at the fire burning in the hearth, at the pictures on the walls and at the modest but comfortable furnishings. I thought of the blowing broads spreading away to the shore and the path winding from our door all the way to my childhood home. I pressed my lips together and went back to my needlework. I said nothing, but I would rather live upon brown bread and milk in this English cottage than occupy a palace on the other side of the sea.
JULY 30, 1831
The terrible heat of the last few days oppresses my spirit almost as much as it enlivens Moodie’s. The sea heaves soundlessly, not a ripple mars its surface, and a brackish odour hangs in the air. If only Moodie would cease trying to cheer me up and leave me to my misery, leave me to wallow in the torpor that afflicts me like a bloated whale.
Foolishly, I had thought the matter forgotten. But no. This very morning, Moodie rose from his breakfast and announced he must hurry to meet Tom Wales (a black-eyed rascal if I ever knew one) to attend a public meeting in Norwich. When pressed, he admitted its subject was that land of milk and honey, Canada. Later, as I was reading in the front room by the open door to catch the full benefits of the sea breeze, Mrs. Kitson, our landlady, sailed into the room, billowing black satin and lace. Her seafaring husband followed in her wake.
“So,” she said with no preamble whatever, “you will soon be leaving us for the colonies.” She delivered this news not as a question but as a reliable statement of fact.
“Whatever are you talking about?” I replied.
“Oh, come now, Mrs. Moodie,” said Mrs. Kitson, her gaze falling on Hannah, whose generous backside was visible through the scullery doorway as she laboured over a sink full of linens. “The walls, as they say, have ears.”
“Hannah,” I called out, “if you don’t soon get that wash on the line, the sun will be well on its way to China.”
After the girl had left the cottage, I turned to the captain and Mrs. Kitson. “I’m afraid, Mrs. Kitson, that you have been misinformed. We have no intention of going anywhere.”
At this, the captain banged his cane on the wooden floor and removed his pipe from his mouth while his wife looked on, arms folded across her chest and head held high.
“My dear, we happen to know that good Mr. Moodie and that young hothead Tom Wales are this very hour in the thrall of some lying land-shark preaching about the wonders of colonial life.”
Although I owed the meddlesome couple no explanation, I held my anger and calmly assured them that while the matter has come up between us, we have no plans to emigrate.
“And a good thing,” roared Captain Kitson, “for I have come to tell you I know from experience that the wilds of Canada are no place for the likes of you and Mr. Moodie. I don’t mean to insult you when I say that a fine settler’s wife you would make, you who is always taking to your bed with one complaint or another, and when you’re up, spending all your time reading and writing. I have visited the colonies many times during the American War, and I assure you that sort of business won’t wash in a rough country like Canada. Think of the bairn.” (I hadn’t begun to show and yet they knew about even this.) “Better stay here, where you’ve a nice cottage furnished by your own hand, lovely views of the sea from these front windows, an oven, a pump and a coal bin all under one roof . . .”
I was on the verge of reminding him that the oven smoked badly and, anyway, the matter was none of their business, but instead I thanked them politely and showed them the door.
Sure enough, Moodie returned from his outing determined once again to break down my resistance. I am not sure if I have married a gullible fool or a relentless goad. Both, it seems. All day long, it was Cattermole this and Cattermole that. William Cattermole, a land agent with the same Canada Company that my brother Sam worked for when he first arrived in the colonies, lives in Bungay, and it was he who delivered the lecture in Norwich extolling the Edenic pleasures awa
iting one in the New World.
Moodie spent the morning fairly pleading with me to “see common sense,” and the afternoon demolishing my objections one by one. “My dearest sweet girl, your fears are without foundation. The land is blessed, the climate fair; think how your own brother has prospered while we languish here, destined to be paupers, our children doomed to certain penury. What are you afraid of? There are no snakes, no lions or elephants in Canada, just wide-open spaces, free land, ours for the taking. And if civilization beckons, there is York, a brief carriage ride from our backwoods estate. Mr. Cattermole says it is equal to any provincial town in Britain. Where is your spirit of adventure, Susanna?”
Adventure. Is he mad? How can he be taken in like this? I finally turned on him as he followed me along the path to Reydon Hall, where I was going to meet Agnes. “Moodie, can you not see through Mr. Cattermole’s fine talk? He receives a commission for every fool he ensnares with his promises of heaven on earth. Do you really want to count yourself among them?”
Moodie’s lust for adventure has taken possession of his good sense. Is he to be fair game for every huckster who crosses his path?
AUGUST 5, 1831
Oh dear, I had hoped Agnes would prove an ally in the stalemate that has arisen between my husband and me. But no, when I unburdened myself, asking her to intervene on my behalf, she refused.
“Susanna, I cannot come between a man and his wife. You must settle this yourselves; that is what the good Lord intended when he blessed your union. He will give you the strength and wisdom to sort out all things. Now go home and . . .”
And so on and so on and so forth until I thought I might leap upon her and scratch her pious eyes out. Instead, I stamped my foot like the petulant child I am so often reduced to in her presence and demanded to know her opinion on the matter of emigration.
On this she had a great deal to impart, not much of it to my liking. She reiterated Moodie’s argument that we have no hope of social advancement here. When I pointed out that surely she herself is in a similar situation, she countered that on the contrary, her writing has provided her with an entree into court society that is (“no disrespect intended”) surely beyond my expectations (my “undeniable talents notwithstanding”) now that I am to be burdened with the responsibilities of domesticity. She went on to enumerate Moodie’s admirable qualities, including a “natural joie de vivre” which would surely sour and atrophy without the challenges and adventures a new world would most certainly provide.
“Do you want the strangulation of a vibrant spirit such as your husband’s on your conscience? It is your wifely duty to follow where he leads, to support him in all his endeavours, to be his helpmeet and closest companion.”
When did my independent-minded sister turn into such a mouthpiece for dull convention? But now that my anger is cooling, I can’t deny the common sense of much of what she had to say. Moodie, as a half-pay officer, is eligible for a land grant in Upper Canada, surely an opportunity not to be wasted, as Agnes observed. She told me her favourite brother-in-law once complained to her he was in danger of “Suffolkating” here in the Southwold countryside that is so dear to my heart.
Then she informed me we are about to become the beneficiaries of a small (after being divided between eight of us) legacy from our father’s sister Jane, whose passing, I’m sorry to say, I knew nothing of.
“It is not much,” said Agnes, “but enough to pay for your passage and perhaps sustain you until you find your footing in the New World. Look how Sam has prospered. I urge you to spend it wisely, Susanna. Don’t squander it on a way of life you cannot afford.”
Such condescension. “Wifely duty” indeed. What of my “vibrant spirit”? I had hoped for her support, but now I think she would like to be rid of me, and the competition for literary distinction I surely represent. I have written Kate, whose good judgment and concern for my well-being I know I can count on.
OCTOBER 11, 1831
“All right, I will think about it.” That was all I said, but those seven little words set in motion a series of events that has acquired the momentum of a team of horses heading for the stable. I capitulated only because Kate too has counselled me to follow Moodie’s wishes. She says I am the “most fortunate of us all” to be bathed in the radiance of love and marriage. “Of course, Agnes is jealous,” she wrote. “I think she is half in love with Mr. Moodie. And why not? He is a fine man, and I do believe you two stand as good a chance for domestic happiness as any two persons I know.”
She went on to say that I must not be ruled by my natural tendency to anticipate demons and doom lurking around every corner, chiding me for my familiar pessimism. “It cannot be as bad as all that in Canada,” she offered. “Thousands are embarking for those shores every day. Are they all dupes and fools? And judging by Sam’s accounts, it is a land of opportunity. Trust your good husband’s judgment, Susanna. Though I hate the thought of losing you, I hate even more the danger to your future happiness if you persist in this line of thinking.”
Moodie is a whirlwind of activity, making preparations for what now, despite my still-considerable reservation, seems inevitable. And now that he assumes my acquiescence, my dearest husband is happier than I have yet seen him, frantically writing letters to every notable personage either of us has ever encountered, in an effort to, as he puts it, “smooth our way into colonial society.” He is quite convinced that a word or two in the right ear will land him a sinecure of some kind—postmaster or customs officer or something of that nature, a position with a salary to supplement our farm income and his pension. It is hard not to be carried away by his enthusiasm, and I try not to give voice to my negative thoughts, but I sometimes think his optimism has taken his better judgment hostage. I remind myself we are embarking on a life in the Canadian wilderness, not a holiday in the Cotswolds.
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, we have never been happier, and as long as I muzzle my uncertainty, our days are as light-hearted as the strains of Moodie’s flute and as passionate as his ardent affection. I have written to Kate to tell her of our congealing plans, and my sister has quit cousin Rebecca’s company and is returning to Reydon so that we may spend as much time as possible together in the months to come. “I cannot believe we will soon be parting,” she wrote back, “perhaps for years and possibly for life.”
Can this really be happening?
DECEMBER 1, 1831
We fell upon one another as soon as we met, weeping like little children. How long has it been—four months? five?—since I last held my dear sister’s hand and walked beside these marshlands by this changeable sea? It is impossible to imagine a lifetime without her. I could see her trying to hold back, to smile through her tears and shore up my doubts with encouragement.
“Oh, Susie, it will be wonderful. I will miss you unbearably, yes, but I envy you too. To think, a whole new world, a whole new life. I have come to believe travel is good for the soul. Why, these last few months away with cousin Rebecca have altered me in ways I can hardly express. Exposure to new vistas transforms one, oddly making one even more one’s self. I assure you, I am a changed person since I saw you last.” Her eyes shone and I admit she looked radiant, her cheeks fatter and pinker than when she left. Time and travel have done their good work, and I believe she has shaken her attachment to Francis Harral for good.
We stopped to rest (swollen feet, swollen everything these days!) on the small bench Moodie fashioned last summer, as though he foresaw the relief it would give me now. Rough-hewn from the remains of a tall pine blown down in a spring typhoon, it faces the sea. How many warm evenings have my love and I sat on that very bench, watching the gulls careen against a cloudless sky or an approaching storm race across the bay? It takes my breath away to realize I may never again feel those consoling summer breezes against my skin. Today, as my sister and I wrapped our cloaks tightly against the cold drizzle blowing in from the sea, I told her of our plans.
“We will leave as soon after
my confinement as is possible, in May or June, we hope. Mr. Cattermole says it is best to arrive in time to build a small house and clear a few acres before winter sets in. Tom Wales—you remember him? Young and a bit wild, but Moodie says he’s a good sort. Tom sailed this fall and has promised to stake out a choice lot for us on the Otonabee River, close to Sam.” My voice deserted me then, and I prayed Katie would not notice my tears. I held her hand in both of mine and tried to laugh. “Otonabee. It sounds so strange.”
“Otonabee,” she repeated, and we sat for a moment in silence, not daring to look at one another while the rain wet our faces. There will be plenty of time for tears.
JANUARY 8, 1832
We have a house guest, one of Moodie’s fellow officers and countrymen, Thomas Traill. He will remain with us for a week before going on to London to attend to unspecified business matters. My dearest is beside himself, delighted at this reunion with someone with whom he can reminisce about their common Orkney roots and share soldierly escapades, stories that I am ashamed to say I am sick to death of hearing.
While I find Mr. Traill a dignified and well-mannered guest, it is difficult to see what besides the aforementioned he and my husband have in common. Tall, skeletal and serious, he seldom speaks except in one-word assents to Moodie’s vivacious chatter. Mostly he nods in a sage manner, or removes his pipe to allow a half smile to enliven his long face, or knits his considerable brow in sympathy with the ongoing discourse. They are like day and night. On his first evening with us, while Moodie was bedding Pegasus (yes, we have acquired a mule and cart, though I was compelled to dip into Aunt Jane’s legacy to pay for it) down for the night, Mr. Traill stood and, taking a candle from the dining table, used it to peruse our modest but steadily growing library with great interest. “Ah, Voltaire, Rousseau,” he said. “Vous êtes très au courant, n’est pas?”