by Cecily Ross
FEBRUARY 20, 1839
I have not slept in three nights, the torture of my aching tooth wracking me until I finally sent Jenny to fetch Sam, who brought Dr. Hutchison’s instruments and extracted the offending molar. He was very skilled, and I suffered minimally thanks to the whisky, but his manner was brusque. I think my brother is losing patience with us, is weary of the litany of troubles that afflict us and the Traills, tired of constantly having to come to his sisters’ aid. Our continuing incompetence must be like a foreign language to him, incomprehensible. He loves us, yes, but there is a trickle of contempt running through his generosity. A few weeks ago, when little Dunbar fell headlong into the wood stove, cracking his skull so severely that I could not staunch the blood pouring from his poor scalp, I sent Katie for Sam. By the time he arrived, the danger was over, and my brother bore the inconvenience with good humour but little sympathy. Looking around the cabin at the bloodied aftermath, he said, “I know you are longing for red meat, Susanna, but must you keep this place like a slaughterhouse?”
Today, once the tooth was out and with the haze of whisky still upon me, I asked Sam to investigate the claim that we owe money to Mr. Clark of Hamilton Township, and he said he would. Will this quicksand of debt never end? I feel sure the note is paid, but a tickle of doubt remains. This on top of everything else.
MARCH 15, 1839
Emilia is here again. Since last Saturday, I have been wracked with fever and a cough that threatens to turn me inside out. The sound in my chest with each breath is like the drag of waves on a pebbled strand. I have been drifting in and out of sleep, unable to rouse myself to the simplest tasks. Yesterday, I awoke to find my dearest friend bathing my forehead with a damp cloth and saying my name softly. It was as though an angel had landed. As soon as I was able to sit up and sip the broth she spooned into my mouth, I asked for pen and paper. A feverish energy possessed me, and I was convinced that because I had not written a word since before Christmas, Mr. Lovell would think I had perished. Emilia reports that she was unable to restrain me and that I rambled on incoherently about a sketch I was writing about last summer’s logging bee and the drunken melee that followed, about our neighbour Malachi Croak, an inebriated sot who plays the bagpipes and flirts unmercifully with the ladies. My friend indulged me until my momentum was spent, then led me back to my bed.
The weather worsens: cutting winds and drifting snow. I have had no word from Moodie since January, and in my anguish, I imagine he is ill or even that he has deserted us altogether. Please, my dearest husband, a letter, or I will surely die of your neglect.
MARCH 17, 1839
I seem unable to rouse myself. Grey, grey, grey. Emilia and Jenny stand over me, phantom-like, and whisper while I feign sleep that comes only fitfully, a merciful salve to my abraded spirit. Worse, the baby has fallen ill again, his little body shuddering with every cough, his skin clammy and pale. And me too weak to even hold him.
What a damp and crowded prison this cabin has become with three women and six children (my own plus Emilia’s Henry). The snow has ceased. Instead, a cold rain falls in steady viscous sheets that cling to the trees and buildings like liquid pewter. At night, my sleep is punctuated by the monotonous intermittent plunk, plunk, plunk of water dripping into the buckets and pots set out to catch the leaks. Our roof is little better than a sieve. To make room for Emilia and her little one, I share my bed with baby Johnny and whichever of my children’s turn it is to sleep with Mama. At first, there was a good deal of conflict over this issue, until Jenny devised a method of “taking turns.” I am too tired to understand how it works, but last night, I was awakened by a sharp kick to the small of my back, followed by a cry of outrage from Addie, who then let fly with both feet in the direction of Dunnie. The melee that ensued woke the entire household. I am ashamed to say that instead of pulling the covers over my face as I should have done, I joined the fray. By the time Emilia and the other children appeared, Johnny had slipped to the floor, squalling pitifully, and I was on hands and knees like a she-lion protecting her cub, hurling murderous threats at the other two, who cowered in terror at the monster their mother has become.
If only the rain would cease.
MARCH 20, 1839
Thank God, Johnny has rallied. My fever, too, has broken, and my chest feels almost clear. But I am so weak, I can barely push my quill over the paper Jenny has left by my bedside. I overheard them this morning.
“The writing usually gets her up and doing,” Jenny said to Emilia in the low tones that have become background music to my idleness. “She’ll be wanting to write the master, I’m sure.”
But I don’t. I cannot bring myself to commit my self-pity, my resentments, to paper; it will only deepen my distress. His letters have resumed, filled with lively news about regimental this and regimental that, with expressions of affection for me, for the little ones. Chatty missives full of plans for the grand appointments he anticipates, the lakeside farms with their spreading orchards and splendid stables, the stone houses, the gentle, welcoming future I no longer believe in. I cannot bridge it: the distance between his vision and mine. I feel limp, hollowed out. This old bed, these patched walls, this dismal rabbit warren sinking under an apathy born of hunger and hopelessness. This is my world. The children do not enter my room. Not since Addie was born have I been so low, and this time, I do not know that I will be able to pull myself out of it.
“Nervous agitation,” I heard Emilia tell them. “Your mother must rest.” But I cannot quell my turbulent heart.
MARCH 22, 1839
The Traills came to say goodbye. It is done. Mr. Traill has sold Westove to the new minister, Reverend Wolseley, for two hundred dollars.
“He wanted to turn it down,” my sister told me, speaking as though “he” were not standing right beside her. “But I told him he must accept. I know it’s a paltry sum after all we have put into the place, not just money but the labour. My gardens . . .”
Mr. Traill said nothing. He leaned on his walking stick and let his vacant eyes travel up and over the ceiling as though searching for something loftier there. Kate placed a maternal hand on her husband’s arm and continued.
“We had no choice. He cannot endure another winter here. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that our farming venture has failed and we must seek other means of providing for ourselves. We are moving to Ashburnham, where Mr. Traill can enjoy the company of educated gentlemen such as himself.” Traill nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose, still not speaking.
“And what will you do?” I asked Kate.
“I would like to start a school for the local children. Heaven knows one is needed. We have found modest lodging in the village, and once we are settled, I am sure Mr. Traill will be able to secure a government job. I have high hopes.”
I can hardly bear it. My sister is to be delivered from this place while I languish here, too ill to even wish her well, my only thoughts for myself. She would leave me now? Like this? I could barely speak.
“But when?” The words came out thick and bitter.
“Soon,” she said. “Tomorrow. We have come to say goodbye, Susanna. Reverend Wolseley is eager to make alterations to the cabin before the spring planting season.” And then, taking it all in, the reality of it, me bedridden, my shoulders drawn up under a ragged shawl, the outline of my body like a corpse through the rough covers, she softened a little. “It is only eleven miles, Susie. When you are well and the roads are dry”—she hesitated—“and Mr. Moodie has returned, you will all come to visit. The children . . .” She looked over at the clutch of solemn faces crowding the entrance to my room. Kate, Addie, Dunbar, Donald, little Johnny asleep in Jenny’s arms. “You will all come to tea, and we will have strawberries and cream,” she continued in a strained falsetto. “And James and our Kate, and little Harry and Annie, will be so happy to see you. We will make dolls and chase pirates . . .”
Addie, who has travelled the well-trodden path to her Aunt Kate’s house m
ore than any of us in her short life, broke ranks and ran to bury her face in my sister’s skirts. She is closer to her aunt than she is to me, I thought, allowing a brief shaft of bitterness to mar our goodbyes. Kate, leaving me now. If I had not been so forlorn, I would have laughed out loud. We have been getting on so well these past few months.
While Kate consoled Addie, Mr. Traill leaned down and placed one of his callused, elegant hands on mine. “You are a brave and capable woman, my dear. I have written your husband to tell him so, that you are a treasure of which he can be very proud.”
Ah, then the tears flowed in earnest. After they left, while Jenny and Katie did their best to stifle Addie’s heartbroken wails, Emilia sat on the side of my bed and held me til I slept. I am doubly lonely now.
MARCH 23, 1839
One last visit from Mr. Traill early this morning to leave us the wood stove from Westove. A blessing, as our own is in such pitiful condition.
Jenny picked over the root cellar today and removed sixty bushels of frost-rotten potatoes. We shall not have enough for seed.
Moodie, Moodie: this weary longing after you makes my life pass away like a dream.
MARCH 25, 1839
Mary Hague came calling today. Embarrassed that one of the finer ladies of Douro should see me in my haggard condition, I arose and tried to make myself as presentable as possible under the circumstances. I could not, at first, understand what this respectable and prosperous young woman was doing in my ghastly living room, but over a rudimentary tea of chamomile and dried apples, Mrs. Hague’s intentions soon revealed themselves. Throughout our somewhat stiff conversation, she lavished a noticeable amount of attention on Addie, who, unlike my other children, has no fear of strangers. Indeed, her precocity in the presence of adults, particularly women, is a tendency I have tried without success to curb.
Addie began by surreptitiously fingering the hem of Mrs. Hague’s overskirt and looking up at our guest, trying without words to divert her attention from the teacup she was holding on her lap. Mrs. Hague smiled and stroked Addie’s tangled curls. “You must be Agnes,” she said. “I hear you are an accomplished dancer.”
“Oh, yes,” bubbled the little girl. “And I can curtsey too. Papa taught me.”
“Addie, I’m sure Mrs. Hague . . .”
“No, please,” said our guest gently, leaning forward in her chair. “I should love to see you curtsey, Addie.” The child held her little apron out with her thumb and forefingers and, crossing one leg over the other, executed a deep bow. Mrs. Hague clapped her hands and laughed, which prompted Addie to pirouette around the room, a precocious little princess, landing, finally, face forward, giggling, in her mentor’s lap. I suppose if I had not been so ill, I might have shared in the general hilarity that my daughter’s impromptu display elicited, but the minor spectacle only filled me with irritated fatigue.
Then Emilia poured me a second cup of tea and, placing a cool hand on my fevered brow, asked me in the gentlest of voices: “Susanna, how would you feel about Agnes going to stay with Mary for a little while?”
I am ashamed to say that the tears that fell from my eyes on hearing this were of relief, though Emilia and Mary Hague both assumed them to be a sign of my resistance to the idea. They began pleading in low, earnest voices: “You have been so ill . . .” “With Mr. Moodie away, how can you expect . . .” “It will only be for a short while . . .” “. . . time to get your strength back.”
I silenced them with a mute nod, and placing a hand on Addie’s cheek by way of farewell, I got up and returned to my bed. What sort of mother am I?
APRIL 4, 1839
Emilia has gone back to her parents’ in Peterborough. I turned my face from her as she leaned down to kiss me goodbye. She cannot stay forever; I know that, but in this fog I inhabit, her departure has left me unmoored, an empty canoe turning in the current. We have talked, she and I, of our bond, of love and marriage, of duty, of friendship. We have sat together night after night in the unending cold and laughed until the squalor and the darkness receded just a little. Her lightness, and her clarity, have kept me sane.
How I detest the self-pitying hag I have become. I often think of my old friend Mrs. Shelley’s declaration that a woman’s necessary vocation is the nurturance and preservation of marriage and family, that we cannot help but give ourselves up to those demands. But my children are drifting away, rousing nothing more in my maternal breast than an uneasy guilt. My husband is living the life of an unencumbered soldier. He has yet to send any money and our debts continue to mount. Anger is all I feel. Vocation, choice? Indeed.
When I try to picture his face, I cannot.
Yesterday, after a gap of two weeks, a letter and a parcel arrived. Today is our wedding anniversary. Eight years ago on this day, in the tiny chapel at St. Pancras, we began this adventure.
A woollen shawl in softest heather. Shoes for me and the children—those who remain, at least. Hannah Caddy came yesterday and took four-year-old Dunbar away with her.
“Just for a few weeks,” she said in her gruff, busybody way. “Until you’re feeling more yourself.”
“Poor thing,” I heard her whisper to Jenny before she led my boy into the woods. I did not lift a finger to stop them.
Jenny tells me Addie has taken to her new life like a dancer to the stage. “She struts around in her new shoes and dresses like a proper princess, ma’am. And Missus Hague is giving her lessons. Reading and writing. A quick little whippet she is, I’m told.”
Mary Hague does not know the damage she does.
A fine woollen shawl. Six dollars. He had to tell me that. Six dollars that might have gone to pay the servant. To buy real coffee. It is only six dollars, I tell myself, so little while our debts are so large. And the shoes—I did not have the heart to tell him they are too small.
“You guessed the size of my foot exactly” is what I wrote.
Sometimes at night when I cannot sleep, I rise and light a candle and sit down and compose long, anguished missives to this man I married. I tell him of my extinguished hopes, my brittle heart, my swelling fears. I write about the hunger I used to feel, the need to write, the longing for something, something more than this. Where did it go? And then when I have emptied myself onto this scrap of paper, I take the criss-crossed tangle of scribbles between a thumb and forefinger and hold it over the flickering flame until it darkens and curls and falls into an ashy heap.
One night, I dreamed that Moodie came home at last, and when I threw my arms about him in joyous welcome, he pushed me away, saying he had taken a vow of celibacy. My shock was so great, I was startled from my sleep, and lying there in the dark, I began to laugh like a Salem witch. I rose immediately and wrote him a brief, chiding letter, saying that if dreams come true, then surely all my troubles will be over now.
I seem to be cursed with a double vision, doomed to see both the tragedy and the comedy of our situation at the same time. It’s like being in two places at once. At least it spares me the dead end of a single perspective. And besides, I take a sustaining satisfaction, a bitter delight, in the perversity of fate, as though God were playing a cruel joke. And I am in on it.
I have sold the musket to Colonel Caddy for eight pounds. I do not think Mr. Clark will return. Sam reports that the scoundrel has been passing himself off as a bailiff in order to collect imaginary debts throughout the territory. There is a price on his head.
MAY 15, 1839
Another season looms and I do not know where I will find the strength to begin the hard work of ploughing and planting. My cough is gone at last, and Johnny, thank heaven, is thriving again, but I am plagued with a terrible weakness, like heavy chains dragging me down in body and spirit. Old Jenny, too, is bothered by feet so swollen, she says every step she takes is like the agony of Christ.
Moodie has written to say his militia duties will likely keep him a few weeks longer. His temporary position as paymaster is officially terminated at the end of this month, but he is determ
ined not to depart without completing an audit, leaving the militia’s records in exemplary order. Only then will he be paid in full and have confidence that his superior, Baron de Rottenburg, will exert his influence on our behalf with Sir George Arthur.
In the meantime, Jenny has made an arrangement to lend our oxen to a new neighbour, Mr. Smith, to put in his crops. In return, he has promised to plant for us about eight acres of peas, corn and oats.
MAY 18, 1839
To be rejected by one’s own child is surely worse than losing her altogether. Mary Hague visited today with Addie. They stopped first at Ashburnham to see the Traills, and by all accounts, my daughter flew into Kate’s arms like an arrow shot from Cupid’s bow. Afterwards, Sam ferried them the rest of the way here by ox cart. But when they arrived, Addie refused to climb down to where I was waiting with open arms. Instead, she buried her face in Mary Hague’s bosom while her benefactor smiled sheepishly at me.
“Addie,” she chided, “say hello to your mother. Remember what we’ve learned about good manners.” She peeled the girl away from her and helped her out of the wagon.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Addie said in a small voice, her eyes fixed on the beaded reticule she held in front of her.
“Our lessons this week have been on the subject of etiquette,” said Mrs. Hague. She nudged my daughter lightly with the handle of her parasol. “There now, Addie, give your mother a kiss.”
I shaded my eyes with both hands, not to keep out the sun but to hide my tears. “Never mind.” I placed a hand on the top of her head and pushed her gently toward three of her siblings, who were sitting in a ragged knot on the doorstep of the cabin, suddenly shy in the presence of the sister they hardly recognized. Katie was the first to speak, reaching out a timid hand to touch Addie’s shining brown ringlets, which bobbed like tulips in a summer breeze.