Read Online Sisters in the Wilderness by Charlotte Gray - Free Book Online

Elizabeth lived a cramped existence, between her furnished London room and the crowded editorial offices of The Court Journal. Agnes was constantly worrying about how to afford the finery she needed for her smart parties. And Jane remained cooped up at Reydon Hall, keeping house on a pittance, scrambling for fees from annuals and caring for their increasingly crabby mother.
    When Susanna’s letter breaking off their engagement finally reached John in Scotland, he was shattered by her abrupt rejection. He rushed south to win her back. Assuring her that he loved her far too much to lose her, he declared that if the wildlife of South Africa struck such terror in her, he would abandon all plans to return there. He must have arrived soon after Susanna’s resolve to be her own mistress had started to flag and his passionate wooing soon bore fruit. Susanna recognized that, as Mrs. John Dunbar Moodie, she would at least escape the old maid stigma, if not poverty. She was reminded that she and John thought alike in many ways: both were vehemently opposed to slavery, expected deference from their social inferiors, but felt that manners were at least as important as money. And the physical presence of her suitor rekindled the ardour that had flamed so brightly the previous summer. His humour and cheerful energy provided a reassuring contrast to her self-doubt and pessimism. John made her laugh at her own uncertainties. Susanna’s determination to be independent wilted in the heat of his desire, and she agreed that they should get married as soon as possible.
    In the early nineteenth century, weddings were usually modest affairs. Perhaps that is why only Catharine, of all Susanna’s sisters, arrived to celebrate this occasion. In the absence of Susanna’s family, the Pringles showed their support for their young friend. Mrs. Pringle helped Susanna assemble an outfit for the wedding and entertained the little party to breakfast before the ceremony on April 4, 1831. The gathering at their Finsbury house was a modest but joyful affair—probably without liquor, given Mr. Pringle’s low church leanings, but with no shortage of elegant speeches and good wishes. Then Thomas Pringle helped the bride into his carriage and drove with her to the splendid Greek revival parish church of St. Pancras, Woburn Place. Sitting next to the coachman was feisty Mary Prince, the former slave who had dictated her story to Susanna. “Black Mary,” Susanna remembered, “had treated herself with a complete new suit … to see her dear Missie and Biographer wed.” Catharine Strickland acted as bridesmaid. At the altar stood Moodie, nervous until the very last moment that Susanna might get cold feet again. Thomas Pringle had evidently overcome his disappointment at Susanna’s decision, and he led her up the aisle, between the Ionian columns, to the awaiting bridegroom.
    Catharine, who had watched her sister vacillate between her writing ambitions and her love for John Moodie, knew that Susanna was still uncertain about marriage. “The dear girl kept up her spirits pretty well though at times a shade of care came over her brow but she rallied as much as possible,” she told the Birds a couple of days later. “What do you now think of the vagaries of woman-kind?”
    Three days later, Susanna wrote to the same friends a letter in which she protested far too vehemently that she had no lingering doubts. “I assure you that, instead of feeling the least regret at the step I was taking, if a tear trembled in my eye, it was one of joy and I pronounced the fatal obey with the firm determination to keep it.” But she acknowledged that “the fatal obey” had already cramped her ambitions. “My blue stockings, since I became a wife, have turned so pale that I think they will soon be quite white, or at least only tinged with a hue of London smoke.”
    After their wedding, the Moodies spent a