The Lost Diaries of Susanna Moodie

by Cecily Ross

  Kate and I paid a visit to the Shairps this afternoon. Their farm is picturesquely situated on a point of land jutting into the lake. From the front veranda of the house, one can see as far as Young’s Point, where Katchewanooka empties into Clear Lake. Lieutenant Shairp has returned from wherever he was, and the couple received us with a deliberate cordiality that made me think we had arrived in the middle of some kind of marital drama. Mrs. Shairp (Emilia) showed us into their parlour, which unlike my sister’s is separated from the kitchen and servants’ quarters by a full wall. The house reminds me very much of our Hamilton Township house, with its covered veranda, ample windows and enclosed stairway to the second-floor bedrooms.

  The lieutenant is very handsome—tall, broad-shouldered and clean-shaven except for a brief and precise moustache. He does not look like any farmer I have ever met, and even dressed as he was in loose trousers and a canvas shirt, he had the unmistakable bearing of an officer. A look passed between them as we entered, then Emilia, her nervousness betrayed by the faintest flutter to her smile, introduced me to her husband. There was an edge of defiance in her voice, as though our appearing at that very moment was proof of some argument or difference between them.

  Kate and I positioned ourselves on the settee while Emilia saw to preparing the tea. Lieutenant Shairp (like many former officers here, he has not reverted to a civilian form of address) stood by the Franklin stove, not speaking, lighting his pipe with uninhibited concentration. At last, he exhaled a plume of smoke into the air and regarded my sister and me with amusement.

  “You have a lovely home, sir,” I said to break the silence. He lowered his eyes and allowed a smile, almost insolent, to play on his lips.

  “My wife must take all the credit, I’m afraid. I have no talent for interior decorating.” He caught my eye in a way that seemed to hold a question, though what that might have been, I had rather not speculate. I have seen the look before, a boy’s look, brazen with the belief it can have whatever it wants.

  Kate, I could tell, was completely taken with his air of authority and his sly charm.

  “Lieutenant, you are too modest, I’m sure,” she said.

  “Oh no,” said Shairp. “I have had no say in any of it. Indeed, if not for the generosity of my wife’s parents, we would surely be living in a teepee like savages.” He smiled.

  A stillness came over the room. Emilia returned with a tray.

  “Isn’t that right, my dear?” he asked.

  Emilia said nothing, setting the tea things on a low table. Her cheeks were burning.

  “Emilia?” His voice was low, threatening.

  She looked up, serious, her eyes meeting her husband’s above our heads. A warning in them.

  “It’s true, yes. We have been most fortunate . . .” Her voice trailed off and her lips tightened as though she knew what would come next.

  To my astonishment, Shairp raised his arm and brought the flat of his hand hard against the wall, causing the pictures hanging there to rattle and threaten to fall. Without saying a word, he nodded curtly and left the house.

  “Oh dear,” said Kate. “I am so sorry. We have come at the wrong time.” She stood, but Emilia motioned her to sit down.

  “No, please. Don’t go.” Emilia was trying hard to cover her embarrassment. She began pouring the tea. “They are like children sometimes, don’t you find?” she said, passing me a cup. Her voice was high. Her hands shaking.

  “I apologize for my husband’s bad manners. What he said is true. Without my parents’ help, we could not have built this house, or cleared the land. Not on a naval pension. Everyone knows it.” Emilia’s sigh was rueful. “But pride is so unproductive, don’t you think? Such a waste of energy. What are we against all of this?” She spread her arms as if to encompass the universe. “Surely, we need all the help we can get.” She lifted her cup to her lips, then stopped mid-thought. “I understand how hard it must be for someone like him to accept financial assistance, to adjust to the life here too. I do. I came to Canada ten years ago, when I was a child. This is home to me. I hardly remember England. But my husband . . .” She exhaled audibly through her fine nostrils.

  “How did you meet?” I asked.

  “We are cousins. After the war, Mr. Shairp planned to leave Scotland to claim his free land here, but he was in need of a wife. A relative put us in touch. For months, we wrote to one another, and then a year ago, he arrived on my doorstep. He was so handsome. A hero. He fought under the Duke of Wellington at Salamanca. I fell in love instantly and we were married within a month.”

  Emilia sipped her tea.

  “What a lovely story,” Kate said.

  “Yes, lovely,” mused our hostess. “Except that we—this new country and I—have not met his expectations, I’m afraid. The wilderness does not suit him. I have disappointed him.”

  “Oh now, you must give him time,” Kate clucked. “I’m sure he will come around. Once you have little ones, it will be different. Why, just look at what you’ve accomplished thus far. Your farm will thrive and you with it. I can tell.”

  Emilia’s laughter was like church bells. “Thank you, Catharine. Your optimism is infectious; you almost make me believe you are right.” She jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around each of us in turn. “What good friends we are going to be.”

  I had not said a word, but I returned Emilia’s embrace with genuine affection, grateful to be included in the circle of my sister’s friendship. I thought of how lonely I have been, of how much I have longed for the comfort of female companionship. Emilia’s eyes met mine, and I thought again of Anna Laura, of her dying promise to return in some form. Right then, her spirit seemed very close.

  The lightness did not last. On the walk back to Westove, Kate expressed surprise at Emilia’s candour. “Is nothing sacred between a man and his wife?”

  “Kate, how can you say such a thing? She deserves our sympathy.”

  “I think some things are better left unsaid, Susanna. You mustn’t meddle.”

  “Surely it is not meddling to show tenderness toward a friend in need. We must support one another however we can.”

  “You have Mr. Moodie for support. Emilia has her lieutenant, and I”—she hesitated—“I have Mr. Traill.”

  The path narrowed as it curved away from the lake and into the trees. I fell back and let my sister take the lead.

  “You like Mrs. Shairp, Susanna?” It came out as a question. She did not look back.

  “Yes, I find her . . . I sense a spirit similar to my own.”

  “Do you? Sometimes, Susie, I wonder about your sensibilities.”

  My sister’s sharpness baffled me. Could she really be jealous, afraid I would come between her and her friend? I don’t know Emilia very well, but I must say I find her candour a refreshing change from Kate’s mouldy certitudes.

  The log cabin is nearly finished. Moodie says it will be ready for us in another week, as soon as the interior walls are built. Kate and I will walk over tomorrow to inspect the new roof and chimney.

  JUNE 10, 1834

  I have just learned that Moodie has obtained title to 350 acres adjoining our original sixty-six-acre allotment. Kate told me this morning. Apparently, my husband has been bragging about it to anyone who will listen—anyone but his pregnant wife, of course. Kate could see the rage spreading over me like a rash in the tropics.

  “Susanna,” her voice was stiff with caution, “he is your husband . . .”

  I knew he had been contemplating such an acquisition, but I assumed it was just talk. I should have known. Kate reached out and gripped my shoulder, but I shrugged her off and marched out the door, across the clearing and into the woods, on my way to confront him.

  She caught up with me halfway there. “Susanna. Wait.”

  I slowed. “How could he, Kate? Do I have no say in our future? I cannot stand it.”

  “Trust him. It will be all right.”

  “You always say that. But it isn’t. None of this
is all right.”

  I stopped to catch my breath, leaned my ungainliness against the rough comfort of a cedar tree. I breathed deeply. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “Let’s go. He said he would show me the cabin.”

  As we came out of the shadows of the forest and entered the clearing, I saw Moodie standing on the roof of our new home, a ragged messiah addressing his followers. It was a blustery day; fitful gusts lifted the thin soil into twisted apparitions and dropped them abruptly. The trees swayed above us, and the wind whipped the words from Moodie’s mouth. He did not see us standing there.

  “King of the wilderness. That’s what they’ll call me,” he said, spreading his arms wide and throwing his head back until I feared he might fall. “All of this, as far as you can see, it’s mine now.”

  “Hear, hear,” cried Sam, shouldering his axe and raising a clenched fist. (Does my brother have a part to play in this folly?)

  Mr. Traill, aware suddenly of our presence, turned and caught my eye. He shrugged.

  Moodie laughed and hurled his hat into the air, and then, catching sight of Kate and me, he slipped to his knees, grabbed the edge of the eaves, swung to the ground and leaped the few yards to meet us. His face was creased with good spirits, but his grin disappeared like the sun passing behind a cloud when he saw my face. The men resumed their chopping and banging. Apparently, nothing can dampen a boisterous work party faster than the presence of a pregnant woman. I forced a smile.

  “It looks . . . positively . . . palatial,” I said. There it was, the raw log cabin, set in the naked clearing like a newly hatched chick. And though it pales in comparison with the comfortable home we left behind in Hamilton Township, it is, by backwoods standards, commodious enough. (I hate to make these kinds of comparisons, but I could not help noticing, it is somewhat larger than the Traills’.)

  “Come, come, come,” Moodie cried, taking Kate and me by the arms and pushing us through the front doorway into the dimness. When my eyes adjusted, I found myself standing in a small parlour with a brand-new Franklin stove at one end. A partial wall separates the sitting room from a rather spacious kitchen with a deep stone fireplace and hewn log mantel. The ceiling above is open, supported by crossbeams, and a ladder leads to a loft above the parlour. Beyond the kitchen are two small bedrooms. Through the single window at the back of the kitchen, I could just glimpse a silver sliver of the lake through the trees.

  “Oh my, Susanna,” said Kate. “How beautiful it is. Mr. Moodie, you have outdone yourself. This is, indeed, a manor fit for a king!” My sister’s allusion to my husband’s previous outburst created a brief silence and brought a flash of colour to her cheeks.

  “Well,” she said a little too loudly, “we must find a sunny corner for your kitchen garden, Susanna. It’s not too late to plant a few peas and some lettuce. And potatoes, lots of potatoes.”

  With that, she slipped out through the low doorway, leaving Moodie and me alone in our new home. He placed a tentative arm around my non-existent waist.

  “So, my darling girl, what do you think?”

  I looked around once more, at the dirt floors and the chinked walls. We have endured far worse than this, I reminded myself.

  “It’s going to be fine,” I said.

  Moodie’s sigh of relief was so poignant that it was like water on the flame of my earlier anger, and I could not bring myself just then to raise the matter of our land holdings. I waited until we were alone, walking back to Westove along the now well-worn path through the woods. Moodie chattered away about the work yet to be done.

  “I have hired three men this week to begin clearing. If we really apply ourselves, I estimate we will have about ten acres cleared by fall—enough to plant a good crop of wheat.” It was obvious that he relished the idea of the work that lies ahead.

  “How will you pay them?” I asked.

  I tripped then on an exposed rock in what amounts to a sea of exposed rocks and would have fallen if not for the steadiness of my husband’s arm. I am not a farmer, but I can see that even with the undergrowth removed, there is precious little soil on this land. A crow scolded us from the top of an oak tree. Tiny blackflies swarmed, alighting on my face, in my hair. I pulled the brim of my bonnet down.

  “Piecework,” Moodie replied. “Eleven or twelve dollars each for every acre of hardwood they chop, log and fence. Fourteen for pine and spruce. Luckily, the site we have chosen—”

  “But where will the money come from?” I persisted, though I knew full well.

  He cleared his throat and gave an impatient little snort. “Your Uncle Charles’s legacy, Susanna. You know that. It will be money well spent. By next year’s harvest, we are certain to be self-sufficient. We cannot reap what we do not sow.”

  I decided to ignore this simplistic homily.

  “And did you dip into Uncle Charles’s legacy to purchase the land you were speaking of back there?” I know what’s mine is his, but my husband’s failure to at least discuss the matter with me first is more than unjust; it is dishonest. I bit down firmly on my tongue lest it take control.

  He hesitated. Emboldened. “I did. And to buy tools and seed as well.”

  “But Moodie, 350 acres of rocky swampland and dense forest?”

  His sigh of exasperation sent waves of indignation through me; I reined in my anger.

  “Susanna, trust me,” Moodie said. “In a few years, I will sell the land for a fortune. Immigration is exploding. Soon, these woods will be crawling with settlers. Consider this an investment in our future.”

  “Like the Cobourg?” I said. His silence was as stony as the path under our feet. “Has there been any word from Mr. Clark?” I kept my tone light, like a June breeze.

  “No,” he said, clearly irritated. “And I do not expect any. It has been barely six months since the venture began. We must be patient.”

  Moodie stopped in his tracks and, brushing the flies from his hair, placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. A trickle of dried blood snaked down from behind his right ear to the collar of his shirt. “Darling girl, darling girl,” he said, shaking his head and looking up into my face in a way meant to disarm me. “You must stop worrying. That is my job.” He lowered one cracked and callused hand to my belly. “This, my darling girl, is yours. Now,” he said, pushing me gently ahead of him, “let’s occupy ourselves with happier thoughts. Tell me, truly, what do you think of the house? I have decided to call it Melsetter. Melsetter Two.”

  Kate says I must defer to my husband’s judgment in matters of property and finance. She says she has absolute faith in Mr. Traill’s ability to make sound decisions regarding the management of their affairs. “Everything will unfold as the good Lord intends it to.”

  Sometimes I want to strangle her. Does she really think that pickling spruce buds and collecting wildflower seeds will keep us from starvation? I am truly beginning to prefer Emilia’s pragmatism regarding male infallibility to my sister’s blind faith in everything men do. But sadly, now that I have found in Mrs. Shairp a kindred spirit, it has been taken away. We learned this morning that the lieutenant has abandoned his farm again. I sent word offering Emilia whatever assistance we can furnish, but she has returned to stay with her parents in Peterborough for the time being. Moodie speculated that Shairp has plans to return to naval service.

  “And so the rigours of the wilderness have defeated another,” I said to Kate. If that young couple with their ample resources cannot succeed here, I wonder what hope there is for us. My sister refused to engage, cutting short my gloomy musings by announcing her discovery yesterday of a new genus of fern as yet undocumented by mankind. I feigned enthusiasm, and then, to her obvious annoyance, continued my speculations. (I do find people so much more interesting than plants.)

  JUNE 15, 1834

  Moodie is trying hard to make amends. As condescending as he is when I question his judgment as I did the other day, it is also obvious he is unsettled by my disapproval. I have been punishing
him all week with my silences, still furious at his latest ill-considered investment. Today, he returned early from work on the log cabin. And although he clearly had something on his mind, I ignored his feeble attempts to get my attention. Finally, he asked me to accompany him on a walk.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he said. I gave him a look of weary indifference. “Please, Susanna . . .” he wheedled. “I mean it. Come with me.”

  Kate offered to watch the girls. “Go, go,” she urged when I tried to plead a headache. And so, because anger takes more energy than I have these days, I relented.

  Moodie, his excitement unleashed, took me by the hand, and I lumbered down the long slope to the lake. “Now,” he said, “cover your eyes. Promise me you won’t look until I whistle.”

  As he rustled about in the cattails, I shut my eyes and listened, slapping at the mosquitoes that landed on my face and hands. He seemed to be dragging something through the weeds. I could hear splashing, a creaking sound and the banging of wood on wood. Then silence, and finally a long, low whistle. I opened my eyes and there, a few yards from where I was standing, I beheld an Indian boat, a canoe, sleek and curved like a sleigh runner on the water. It was about twelve feet long with a cedar frame and covered entirely with birchbark, a real-life replica of the tiny version I had sent home. Moodie, in his bare feet, his breeches rolled above his knees, stood in the water, holding the bow.

  “Come,” he said, holding out his hand. “Get in. I’ll take you for a paddle.” His expression was that of a small boy after he’d shinnied up the tallest tree. I climbed into the bow. Moodie handed me a paddle and, getting into the stern, manoeuvred the craft away from the shore. At first, I could only clutch the sides in terror as he paddled slowly into open water. Even the slightest movement seemed to send the canoe rolling from side to side in the most alarming manner. I dared not even turn to look behind me, certain that if I did, we should both end up drowning.

  “Relax, Susie. Relax. The stiffer you are, the worse it is. I won’t let us tip. That’s better. Now take your paddle. One hand on the butt, the other down lower, above the blade. Good. Good. Now dip it in slowly and pull back. Again. Easy, easy. Yes, that’s it. Like stirring soup. Good. Good.”