Bizarre though it may seem today, her single decisive act proceeded directly out of the skein of her desperation, and it’s possible that her intercession wasn’t all that remarkable in the context of her time.
The situation couldn’t have been worse. John Moodie, Susanna’s husband had botched it as a farmer; not his fault perhaps, for the sort of gentlemanly farming he had envisioned was simply not possible in the Canadian bush. But he had gone down with a deplorable lack of style, and comes across as a limping, whining man, a poor loser, dogged by misfortune, the sort of misfortune which is almost invited. He sold his only possession, a military commission, and squandered the money on worthless steamboat stock. Although Susanna tried gamely to lighten his portrait here and there by referring to his flute playing, his literary discourse, his attempts at writing, he is ever sour and irritable and heavy-footed, not a man to grow old and mellow with.
By 1837 he admitted that he had failed as a backwoodsman; he was in debt; his wife was expecting her fifth child, and winter was coming. Their condition was deteriorating rapidly when they received word that a rebellion had broken out in Toronto. Almost all the ablebodied men in the neighborhood, including John Moodie, were called away to fight, and the prospect of regular pay was greeted with joy. Moodie sent home some of his money to Susanna who used it to pay off debts. Alone all winter with her children and a hired girl, she had a chance to reflect on the family prospects. She too admitted the farm had been a mistake. Worse still, Moodie wrote that the rebellion was over and the regiment was about to be disbanded; he would soon be without pay again.
Driven nearly to madness, Susanna sat down and wrote a long confessional and impassioned letter to Sir George Arthur who was the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, outlining the series of disasters that had befallen the family and begging him to keep her husband on in the militia. Her efforts were rewarded, for Moodie was soon made Paymaster to the Militia and later appointed Sheriff of the District of Victoria.
The letter is astonishing enough; but even more extraordinary is the fact that John Moodie never knew about it. He speculated that he was probably awarded the paymaster position because of his exemplary sobriety while in the militia. And the office of sheriff because of his honest performance as paymaster.
It seems almost beyond belief that the story of the letter never leaked out, that Susanna herself never once in all those years let slip to her husband the true cause of his sudden elevation in society. Or was John Moodie bluffing? It is a possibility; to save face he may have neglected to mention the enormous step his wife took to save him. But it is just as possible, even probable, that she kept her secret, kept it all her life, either to spare his pride or to avoid seeming too much the schemer.
They were a married couple, shared a bed, faced each other over a supper table well into old age – all this with a secret between them. Secrets. I never did tell Martin that I had read John Spalding’s manuscripts. He would not have liked it; he would have looked at me with less than love; it might even have damaged the balance between us. And he, for perhaps the same reason, put off telling me about the woolen tapestries. He must have guessed how I would react. Secrets are possible. And between people who love each other, maybe even necessary.
One night I woke at one o’clock. I had been asleep for two hours; the house was deathly quiet, and beside me, Martin was breathing deeply. I sat up and wondered what had wakened me so suddenly and so completely. A loud noise? a branch breaking? an icicle falling? a burglar? I listened. There was nothing but a faint gnawing of wind. I got out of bed and went over to the window. There everything was serene; the curving road was touched with ice-blue shadows. The street light poured a steady milk-white light on the snow, beautiful.
Then I realized what it was that had wakened me: I was well. I was restored to health. In the complicated subknowledge of my body chemistry, health had been reannounced. A click like an electric switch marked the end of illness. I stretched with health, with a feeling almost of being reborn. Strength, joy.
I had been sick almost a whole month, enclosed in the wide, white parentheses of weakness, part of a tableau of trays and orange juice and aspirin tablets. I had inhabited a loop of time, been assaulted by an uneasy coalition of suffering and perception, and now I was to be released.
Outside the window, possibility sparkled on every bush and tree. My household was asleep; in dark caves my husband and children dreamed. Heat puffed up from the basement furnace and entered every corner of the house. In the kitchen marvelous things lay on shelves, delicate and tempting. The refrigerator held the unspeakable pleasures of bacon and eggs. I was starved.
Downstairs I switched on a light, blinded at first by the brightness. I found a frying pan and butter, lots of butter, and humming I prepared my feast. And ate it all, believing that nothing had ever tasted so good before.
Thoughts stormed through my head, plans, what I would do tomorrow, the next day, the next. I paced. There was no point in going back to bed in this state. I poked in the family room for old magazines, something, anything to read.
Graven Images lay upside down on the arm of the green chair where Meredith had left it. Furlong glinted at me from the back cover. I picked it up thinking, why not see what it’s about. This was the perfect time.
I slung myself on the sofa, my feet dragging over one end, my dressing gown pulled around me, for I was beginning to feel chilly. And the grayness of fatigue was making my head ache. But I opened the book and began to read.
I went through the first chapter quickly, irritated by the familiar Eberhardt style. But I went on to the second chapter anyway, proceeding through waves of boredom into shock, incredulity, anger. I finished the last chapter at dawn, at seven o’clock, a thin nervous time, my whole body chilled with disbelief and dull accumulated rage. How could you, Furlong!
My heart was beating wildly; I could feel it through the heavy quilting of my dressing gown. Anger almost choked me, but in spite of it (or maybe even because of it), I fell instantly asleep where I was, cramped on the sofa with Graven Images upside down on my chest.
FEBRUARY
“These severe cases of flu are almost always followed by depression,” Dr. Barraclough warned me. “Watch out not to get too tired or emotionally overwrought. Just sit back, Judith. No running around. And above all,” he warned, “no worrying.”
But the minute I was on my feet, the solicitude around me evaporated. Meredith’s morning trays came to a halt and Richard took back his record player. Martin woke me at seven-thirty sharp to make breakfast. If it hadn’t been for Frieda who came once a week to clean the house, we would have fallen apart completely. For I was tired. I was depressed; the world did indeed seem full of obscure threatening dangers, treacheries, mean cuts and thrusts, insults briskly traded, conniving jealousies, nursed grudges, selfish hang-ups, greed, opportunism, ego, desperation and stupidity; in addition, I felt too weary to cope with the overpowering, wounding and private betrayal of Graven Images.
I dragged through the first week of February alternating between rage and depression, sore to the bone and overwhelmed by exhaustion. Furlong Eberhardt and his casual treason plucked at me hourly. I could not forget it for a minute. I had been used. Used by a friend. Taken advantage of. Furlong who had been trusted (although not always loved) had stolen something from me, and that act made him both thief and enemy.
So simply, so transparently, and so unapologetically had he stolen the plot for Graven Images – stolen it from me who had in turn stolen it from John Spalding who – it occurred to me for the first time – might have stolen it from someone else. The chain of indictment might stretch back infinitely, crime within crime within crime.
But the fact remained that it was Furlong who had actually gone through with it. A nefarious, barefaced theft. I had at least resisted temptation; and although it had not been the thought of plagiarism which had deterred me, but rather the inability to reconcile the real with the unreal – “that willing susp
ension of disbelief” when the moment required – still I had resisted, and that resistance bestowed on me a species of innocence. I was no more than a neutral party, a mere agent of transfer. On the other hand, was corruption transferable by simple infection?
I preferred not to think about it; large abstract problems of sin have never been my specialty. It is the casual treason between individuals, the miniature murders of sensibility which chew away at me, and what Furlong had done was to help himself to something that had been mine. That it hadn’t been mine in the first place was immaterial, for as far as he knew the plot had been my idea, my conception, my child.
Would it have mattered, I asked myself, if he had told me, or if he had asked permission; if he had perhaps suggested that, since I wasn’t interested in developing the idea myself, would I mind terribly if he more or less appropriated it? Would I have smiled, gracious at such a request? Would I have said, of course, help yourself, someone might as well have the use of it, as though it were a pound of hamburger he was borrowing or the use of my typewriter?
I doubt it. I’m too possessive, and besides I would then have had to confess my theft from John Spalding. And the thought of John Spalding was beginning to weigh on me. Furlong, after all, had done quite well with the sales of Graven Images. It was, in fact, selling better than any of his previous books for the simple reason that it was better than any of the others. And there was no doubt about the reason for that: it was the first book he had ever written which contained anything like a structure, a structure which was derived from a plot which he had stolen, which he had acquired (to use horse-breeders’ jargon) by me out of John Spalding.
Not only were his royalties promising, but he had sold the film rights for what Martin assured me must be a handsome figure. He was going to benefit enormously, while John Spalding, in contrast, sat tormented and constipated in Birmingham, lusting for recognition and trying to stretch his lecturer’s salary, month by meager month, to cover the cheapest existence he could devise: bacon dripping on his bread, I imagined, and doing his own repairs on the third-hand Morris, tripe and onion instead of Sunday joint, and smoking his Woodbines down to their frazzled ends. It was monumentally unjust.
Of course I realized I would have to confront Furlong; it was unthinkable to let this pass. But for that I needed strength. I would have to wait until I was stronger. The phrase “girding my loins” occurred to me. I would need to arm myself, for I was still weak, hardly able to cook a meal without flopping exhausted back into bed. And for reasons which Dr. Barraclough might recognize, I was continually on the verge of weeping.
Tears stood like pin pricks in the backs of my eyes. I was prepared to cry over anything. Martin called from the university to say he would be staying late to work. He didn’t say what he would be working on, but we both knew; and when I thought of him in his cork-walled solitude, selecting and blending his wools, threading his needles and weaving away, woof and warp, in and out, I wanted to sob with anguish.
Meredith encloses herself in her room. She is re-reading all of Furlong’s books, and our copy of Graven Images has been marked and underlined. Exclamation points stand in the margins, the corners of pages have been turned under to indicate her favorite passages. She listens to music and reads and reads. Her loneliness and the sort of love she is imagining tears at me, but there is nothing I can do but leave her to her disk jockeys and the comfort of printed pages.
And I bleed for Richard. There was no letter for him this week. He could hardly believe it at first. Then we read about the postal strike in Britain, and he breathed with relief. The reason, at least, was known. Circumstances were beyond his immediate control; he would have to wait.
He checks the newspapers daily for news of the strike, mentioning it offhandedly to us so we won’t suspect how much he cares or how dependent he has grown on the weekly letters from Anita Spalding. “When the strike ends, there’s going to be a real bonanza,” he says, picturing the accumulated letters pouring in all at once. The thought sustains him for a while, but then he worries because his letters aren’t getting through. Will she understand about the strike? he wonders. Of course, we assure him, how could she not understand? He hears somewhere that top priority mail is trickling through, and he feels obscurely that he deserves to be top priority, that his letters matter.
The strike drags on, and Martin and I suggest things he can do to keep busy. Martin takes him skiing, and in spite of my fatigue I help him with a school project on Tanzania. We trace maps; I type an agricultural output chart for him. He has taken to sighing heavily.
Even Susanna Moodie has let me down. I am writing now about her later life when she has moved with her husband and children to the town of Belleville. No longer destitute, she has grown cranky. She says unkind things about the neighboring women. She minimizes the efforts of the town builders; she has lost the girlish excitement and breathless gaiety which made life in the bush cabin seem an adventure; the glory of fresh raspberries and the thrill of milking a cow are forgotten pleasures. She is a matron now, and she makes hard, grudging judgments. She has lost her vision. She is condescending. The action goes too fast; she telescopes five years into a maddening paragraph. There are no details anymore.
It would help if it snowed. The ground is covered with old crusted snow and pitted with ice. The roads and sidewalks are rutted and hard to walk on, and driving is dangerous. A layer of grime covers everything. One soft and lovely fall of snow might at least keep me from this overwhelming compulsion to put my head down and cry and cry and cry.
I don’t really feel like cooking, but I feel so sorry for Roger that one night we invite him for a family dinner. He hasn’t heard from Ruthie. He doesn’t know where she’s living. He would feel better, he tells me, if he knew where she was staying.
“Are you really that worried about her?” I ask, putting a slice of meatloaf on his plate.
“No. I know she’s all right because she’s at work.”
“What then?”
“I just want to know where she’s living.”
“You’ve tried her girl friends?”
“Yes. And they don’t know.”
“What about her family?” I ask. I know she is from a small town in northern Ontario. “Couldn’t you write to them?”
“God, no. They never liked the idea that we were living together. Not married. They’re pretty rigid.”
“Why don’t you follow her home from work?” Richard asks; taking the words out of my mouth.
“Don’t be stupid,” Meredith says sternly. “This isn’t a James Bond movie. That would be just plain sneaky, following her like that.”
I say nothing. Roger shakes his head sadly. “I couldn’t. Believe me, I’ve thought about it, but it does seem to be an invasion – and, I don’t know – I just couldn’t.”
Martin interrupts us with, “Look, if she wants it this way, isn’t it better to leave her alone. You’ve got to get your mind on something else, Roger.”
“God knows I’m busy enough at work,” Roger says. “It seems I’ve just got the Christmas exams marked, and now we’re onto a new set. I don’t even have time to do enough reading to keep up.”
“What did you think of Graven Images?" I ask him suddenly.
“Great.” He barks it out. “Absolutely his best.”
“Why?” I ask, trying not to sound too sly.
“I don’t know, Judith. It’s got more – more body to it.”
“A better plot?” I suggest.
“That’s it. A real brainstorm. No wonder the films snatched it up.”
“I just loved it,” Meredith murmurs.
Martin says nothing; he still hasn’t got around to reading it.
“Tell me, Roger,” I ask, “would you say that Furlong is an original writer?”
“Damn right I would.”
“How is he original?” I ask. “Tell me, in what way is he original?”
Roger leans back, shaking his thick curls out of his eyes, and
for a moment Ruthie is forgotten, for a moment he seems happy. He is recalling phrases from his thesis. “All right, Judith, take his use of the Canadian experience. Now there’s a man who actually comprehends the national theme.”
“Which is what?” Martin asks.
“Which is shelter. Shelter from the storm of life, to use a corny phrase.”
“Corny is right,” Richard says.
“Who asked you, Richard?” Meredith tells him.
In the kitchen I serve ice-cream drizzled with maple syrup; I haven’t the energy to think of anything else. Meredith carries in the plates for me. Roger is expanding on the theme of shelter.
“I don’t, of course, mean just shelter from those natural storms which occur externally. Although he is tremendous on those. That hail sequence in Graven Images – now didn’t that grab you? Even you’d like it, Martin. It’s got a sort of Miltonic splendor. Like the hail is a symbol. He makes it stand for the general battering of everyday life.”
“So what about the shelter theme?” Martin is smiling broadly, happy tonight.
“Okay, I’m getting to that. Remember the guy out on the prairie, Judith, just standing there. And the hail starts. Golfballs. His dog is killed. Remember that?”
“Christ,” Martin says. “It sounds like Lassie Come Home."
“It sounds bad, I’ll admit. But that’s the beautiful thing about Furlong. He can carry it off when no one else can. What someone else makes into a soap opera, he makes part of the national fabric.”
“But Roger,” I plead, “getting back to originality for a moment, do you really think he comes up with original plots?”
“Well, we don’t use that word plot much anymore. Not in modern criticism. But, yes, sure I think he does. You read Graven Images. Wasn’t that a real heart-stopper?”
“What about the others though?” I ask. “Where do you think he got the ideas for those early books? Did you go into that when you wrote your thesis?”