by Cecily Ross
“Are they real?” she asked, looking first at her sister and then at me.
“Of course they are,” said Addie, her eyes flashing. “Aunt Mary does my hair up in rags every night before I go to bed.” She paused and smoothed the front of her dress. “I have my own room, you know. And there’s a small dog called Pug.”
“I would like to speak to my daughter alone,” I said to Mrs. Hague. She was standing by the carriage with the sun behind her in silhouette, and I could not make out her expression.
I took Addie’s hand and she followed me quite willingly past the stumps and the rows of green oats pushing up through the dark soil, until we reached the edge of the forest. The air was soft and mild and filled with birdsong. I looked down at her.
“I’ve missed you, Addie.”
She squinted up at me. “Aunt Mary says I am too much for you. But I think I am not enough.”
“Why, Addie? What makes you say that?”
“Whenever I get mad, you say, ‘That’s enough, Addie!’ But it’s not. Because there’s more. It’s not enough.”
“Do you want more? Do you want to live with Mrs. Hague?”
She nodded slowly—unsure, I think. I pray.
“Will you give me a kiss?” I asked, and quickly she pressed her face against my belly, then ran back to the waiting cart.
Perhaps I should just let her go to what is a far better future than anything I can offer here.
MAY 22, 1839
Dunnie comes home tomorrow. We will have a feast.
Mrs. Peter has brought us some wild ducks and dried cranberries. What a delight they will be to our weary potato-deadened palates. And the birds will be the first meat we have tasted in a fortnight. She would take nothing in return, insisting she was happy to share what the good earth has provided so bounteously. (I paraphrase, of course.) She was able to communicate to Jenny, who understands some of their language, her gratitude for the time two years ago when I tried, without success, to help her poor dying son.
The rain is unceasing, the ground too wet to even think about planting potatoes. I busy myself with fulfilling more orders for the hand-painted fungus that Moodie says is in great demand by Belleville’s ladies. And I have sent off two more poems to Mr. Lovell at the Literary Garland.
Oh, to hold my dear little boy again.
With Emilia gone and Moodie’s tenure in Belleville dragging on interminably, I have allowed the last vestiges of civility to desert me. Last evening, as I sat down alone with the children to a supper of bread and lard and mushroom soup with wild leeks, while Jenny retreated as usual with her bowl to a low stool by the hearth, the utter ludicrousness of such an arrangement hit me like the butt end of an overseer’s whip. Just who, I suddenly thought, is the superior individual here? Me, with my pretensions, or old Jenny, with her patience, diligence and loyalty? If not for her practical abilities, we should all have starved by now. It is only thanks to her management and fortitude that I was sitting there, able to lift a spoon to my lips. Who is master and who servant? Here, a world away from the polite drawing rooms of my youth, of what use are such distinctions? I called out to her, bidding her to come and sit across from me. I expected the old woman to demur, but no, in her plain country way, she only nodded briefly, then rose and sat at the table. The children were silent, as though understanding the fragility of the moment.
“Ma’am,” said Jenny without looking up, her spoon suspended in the air between the bowl and her mouth, “I think tomorrow I will call on Mr. Smith. Them oxen has been gone more ’n a week now. It’ll soon be too late to plant anything.”
Here in the backwoods, we are almost equals.
JUNE 1, 1839
Meanwhile, Moodie’s tenure continues with no end in sight. Instead of complaining, he sends long letters on the subject of the Durham Report. It seems that after a lengthy investigation into the causes of the rebellions here and in Montreal, Lord Durham has, among other things, recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be merged into one colony headed by a governor sent out from England.
“But here is the exciting part,” Moodie wrote. “Durham sees the governor as merely a figurehead and has urged that the legislative assembly be elected by the people! He has called Bond Head and his band ‘a petty, corrupt, insolent Tory clique’ and has urged Sir George Arthur to take steps to encourage immigration to Canada. Do you know what that would mean, Susanna? More settlers will require more land, and then surely our investments will finally pay off. In every way, our hopes lie with George Arthur and the Reformers.”
Oh yes, I know . . . and then we will be rich beyond our wildest dreams. Our silent argument continues irrespective of the miles that separate us. I can almost hear him whispering in my ear the magic words I have heard so many times. But I am sick of words. I want him here so that I might have a husband to help plant the wheat and corn we need to sustain us—no, more than anything I want to leave this place. Our life here is worse than hopeless. I want to be myself again.
I wrote it all down. And this letter I have sent. I told him that another winter such as the last will bury me alive, that I am paralyzed by his long absences, that his recurring silences are sowing noxious seeds in a mind that is fertile ground for weedy resentment. I do not know what to do about the farm, and I am so dispirited that I have ceased to care. I have no money to hire labour to cut the grain even if by some miracle there is a decent crop. And as my body and my will collapse, my mind, like an open wound, festers from disuse, itches with the need to write. “I am not meant for this life, Moodie, any more than you are. Oh heaven, keep me from being left in these miserable circumstances another year. I am so tired of living alone; this must be the last winter of exile and widowhood or my heart will surely break.”
MAY 23, 1839
The pair of animals Jenny led home yesterday through the clearing bore little resemblance to the healthy creatures we so trustingly delivered to our neighbour three weeks ago. Gaunt and lame from overwork, dull-eyed with hunger, their thin hide covered in sores from ill-fitting harness, they are in no condition to undertake the hard work of planting our own fields.
Jenny was twisted with anger. Nothing gets under her tough skin like the mistreatment of helpless animals.
“I told Smith’s son, ‘No wonder ye have no livestock o’ yourn, if ye run ’em into the ground like this.’ But he only laughed and said his father would be back in a few days if I had complaints. ‘Them animals was sick when they came,’ he said. But they wasn’t,” she fumed. “They were fine and strong.”
In any case, young Smith made no mention of his father’s promise to help with our planting. The oxen will need to rest for at least a week, and by then, it will be almost too late. And without a harvest, we will surely starve come winter.
JULY 3, 1839
Nearly six weeks since I have heard from Moodie. My ultimatum goes unanswered. Has he forgotten us? At night, alone in my bed, his absence is a dark void. I whisper into it, “Is this what you want? Has it all come to this?” But there is only silence.
JULY 9, 1839
I was hanging out the wash and a small movement on the lake caught my eye. A canoe carrying a single figure rounded the point, heading toward our beach. Even before it landed, I recognized Emilia and ran down to the water to meet her. She was flushed and breathless from her paddle—into the wind at that time of the morning—but also from the news she brought.
I helped her pull the canoe through the cattails onto the shore. Two strong women, our skirts soaked to our thighs, our forearms bare and muscular. We stowed the paddles and sat in the long grass, pulling petals off daisies with methodical concentration. She told me everything. Lieutenant Shairp is going for good, back to England to seek a naval position. After being absent for two winters, he returned last month intending to claim his wife and return to his homeland to start a new life.
Emilia was subdued, resigned. Her usually mobile features sphinx-like. “He asked me to go with him and I refused.” She drew i
n a long, audible breath. “I believe he is a good man,” she said. “But I could not make him happy. Alexander Shairp is a soldier, as fearless as they come, but here in the bush, he was like a warhorse harnessed to a stone boat.” Her bright eyes, with their pale lashes, held mine. “He tried. I tried.” She looked out over the water. “But he was never cut out to be a farmer.” She laughed. “Farmer—it means something else in Canada. He expected respectable Sussex hayfields; he got this.”
I was stunned. “But what about the militia here? Could he not find a commission? Moodie would help, I’m certain . . .”
“Mr. Shairp commanding a bunch of ragtag mercenaries in the colonies? Alexander the Great? No. He has his pride and it seems that nothing here quite meets his lofty standards.”
“But little Henry . . .” I dug a thumbnail into the daisy’s soft yellow centre. I wanted to tell her how glad I was she was staying, but it didn’t seem the right response. “What will you do, then?”
She fell slowly onto her back and, rolling over, jumped quickly to her feet, pulling me with her. “You, Susanna, you are my true friend. My sister. And I have come today to ask you something. No. Don’t say a word until I have finished. I have a plan.”
She looked over my shoulder at the familiar setting: the crooked little cabin, the stumps, the bony cattle picking through the weeds.
“You cannot go on living like this. It is killing you, killing your children. It is destroying your family. And John, where is he? Will he ever return? And even if he does, what then?”
I pulled away from her, shaking my head. “No, Emilia. Please don’t say that.”
“Susanna, listen to me. Louisa Lloyd—you must have heard? Thanks to the benevolence of certain Peterborough citizens, she has moved there. She has been furnished with a large house and a small income. Her children want for nothing. Her trials are over. She is safe. You”—she held my arms and shook me as though I were a recalcitrant child—“you and I brought this about.”
Of course I knew about Louisa Lloyd. How many times as I laid out another meagre supper for my own children had I not considered her fate? And in my twisted heart, have I not marvelled at the cruel joke that I, her benefactor, am surely facing starvation unless by some miracle we are delivered from these woods before winter?
Oh, Emilia, I wanted to say, I lie awake every night and curse God for his perversity. Did you know that my own husband petitioned the officers in his militia and raised forty dollars to aid Mrs. Lloyd in her distress? Forty dollars. While his own family dined on salt pork and turnips. While his own children had no shoes. Oh, Emilia, resentment grows in me like a cancer. But I said nothing.
Two thumbprints like ripe red cherries stood out on her unlined cheeks. “I am selling the farm and moving to Peterborough, Susanna. To live with Mrs. Lloyd. We plan to start a school. Come with me. The house is fine. There is plenty of space; you and the children would have three rooms to yourselves.” She took both my hands in hers. “We will get Addie back.”
I pulled away.
“I will help you. My mother and father will too. Surely your need is as great as Mrs. Lloyd’s. So many children, debts, an absent husband . . .” When I flinched, she smiled sadly. “Papa has such regard for your stories and poems, Susanna. You are a writer. He will be your patron.”
The lump in my throat was like a fist. I swallowed tears and tried to stem the visions flooding my mind: a tree-lined street, a quiet room, a desk, real paper, pens and ink, schools . . . and absurdly, cotton sheets, tea and cakes. Time and rest. Addie.
And then the desire to write, a desire gone dormant all these many months, all at once was like a giant roused from a long sleep. I could not answer her. I bowed down and leaned my head on her shoulder. Emilia. We stood like that for a long time, until Katie came for us.
“Mama, Aunt Em. Raspberries. Dunnie and I have picked a whole bucket. Jenny says we shall have them for tea. With biscuits. Hurry. Come.”
JULY 12, 1839
Oh, how the view from here has changed since yesterday. My first reaction was no, but Emilia made me promise not to answer, to take my time and think about it. And now I can think of little else. Am I seriously considering such a possibility? Giving up on my husband? On all of this? I must decide soon. And so I turn her offer over and over in my mind, twirling it like a bright penny spinning endlessly in the sunshine. No, it is not possible. Yes, it is. As long as the coin continues around and around, I can hold on to the fantasy. And as I go about my work, my load is lightened by a blur of possibilities. In the mornings, I let myself luxuriate in the prospect of the new life my friend has laid before me. And my fantasies are bathed in white light, draped in lace and linen, all solace and sunshine. By noon, the glare begins to blind me, a flare fuelled, I know, by outrage, by my anger at Moodie, reducing him to a small dot on the horizon. I can almost forget him as he has forgotten me. Can I? I know that sooner or later, the coin must come to rest . . . on one side or the other.
JULY 15, 1839
When James Caddy delivered the letter, placed it in my hands, the question in his eyes mirrored my own apprehension. I took it from him without comment and walked to the lake. The pages shivered in the heat. Relief mingled with shame. I had almost given up, almost abandoned the idea of marriage for a different dream. But here it was: a letter. Even unopened, its implicit reassurance obliterated my doubts like a scythe flashing through undergrowth. And I almost wept then. But still, a thread of uncertainty held me back, and I sought to prolong the fragile possibility of my deliverance—what if, even now? I lifted my skirt and stepped onto the sun-warmed surface of the fishing rock, then leaning against the big willow, I opened it and read, and the anvil lifted at last.
My husband has written to say he has received a letter from Sir George Arthur’s secretary, promising that “a permanent office” will be offered to him at the “first possible opportunity.”
“You see, my darling girl, all will be well,” he wrote. “Oh, how I wish I were there to dance you round the clearing. How brave and patient you have been. My hard work has paid off. We are to be free at last.”
He will return home as soon as he can wrap up his duties and arrange for a horse, by September at the latest.
“I can hardly bear to be parted from you and the babies a moment longer, my dearest.” And in a postscript: “You should know that the Lieutenant-Governor wants me to understand that this promise is not only on my account, but also from the esteem and respect he entertains for you, Mrs. Moodie. You and your most eloquent pen. I am so proud. Bravo.”
I am ashamed to admit that for a moment, my joy at the prospect of our reunion was displaced by the warm rush of knowing my work is being read and appreciated in such high places by such august persons. As I write this, hours later, I am still giddy with the idea.
Rejection can be as difficult to deliver as it is to receive. She risked so much in extending to me the gift of a shared life, the risk that I might do just as I have done: taken her offering and handed it back to her, unopened, like a thing unborn.
For a little while, I had allowed myself to imagine us together in a stone house, the children, my writing, a life of friendship, carefree, understanding. Gentleness everywhere, two minds in sympathy with one another. I considered it, and the possibility gave me some comfort for a time.
A look of tenderness came over her face when I told her Moodie had written. That’s all I said, just: “He has written. He is coming home.” And she nodded. She knew.
AUGUST 12, 1839
Every day, my constitution improves, and slowly I feel my old vigour returning. My imagination, too, is imbued with a renewed energy, and I apply myself to my writing so diligently that Jenny reproves me for my efforts, saying I will surely wear myself out.
Mr. Traill paid me a visit two days ago, the first since their leaving in March. As usual, he made no effort to varnish the splintered truth of their situation.
“I would not worry you unduly,” he said, his long fac
e the colour of mud, his eyes dark and bruised, “but your sister is still not well. She has never fully recovered from Annie’s birth and has been nearly bedridden since our move. The baby, too, is sickly and weak. I do not know if it will survive.” He sighed mightily, like a bellows losing air, after delivering this sobering report. Then he continued: “I think my presence, too, is a dark cloud, but surely despondency is the only sane reaction to all this.” He raised his lugubrious face and held out both palms in a feeble salute to futility.
We were standing in the kitchen garden amid tidy rows of spinach and carrot fronds. Ruddy-cheeked pea blossoms peeked out from pale green vines. Dunnie and Donald were taking turns as circus performers, balancing one foot in front of the other along the rail fence. Katie filled her watering can at the well. The sun shone. In this brief moment of domesticity, Mr. Traill’s distemper hung like the odour of something dying. Oppressiveness enveloped him like a threadbare cloak.
“Oh well,” I managed with false heartiness, wishing he would leave. “I’m sure this fine weather will soon have you both on the mend.”
Now that Traill has gone, though, my concern for Kate is growing.
SEPTEMBER 4, 1839
Language is a blunt instrument when it comes to human expression. The words we have for sadness or love or fear cannot convey the nuances of these emotions, and so we try to express their myriad complexities by comparing them to something else. But metaphor is a feeble stand-in for truth; it merely skirts the edges of meaning, evoking a sense of what is, but never allowing us to name the thing itself.