Sisters in the Wilderness - Charlotte Gray [115]
In the spring, Catharine could wander down to the new stone wharves, and watch steamers and double-masted schooners jostle for a mooring. If she felt so inclined, she could even join her brother-in-law and sister at one of the evening parties that had lately become so fashionable. As Belleville’s population doubled and its wealth grew, the local bourgeoisie moved beyond the humdrum six o’clock supper of meat and potatoes that had been the custom when the Moodies first arrived there in 1840. By 1852, manners and habits aspired to the standards set in the drawing rooms of Edinburgh or London. “Evening parties [today] always include dancing and music, while cards are provided for those gentlemen who prefer whist to the society of ladies,” Susanna had explained in Life in the Clearings. “The evening generally closes with a splendid supper….The ladies are always served first, the gentlemen waiting upon them at supper; and they never sit down to the table, when the company is large, until after the ladies have returned to the drawing-room.”
What Catharine most enjoyed, however, were the times during summer visits when she and Susanna, and as many friends and relatives as possible, set off for a picnic. Along the Bay of Quinte there were several pretty spots, only an hour’s carriage ride from Belleville, where a convivial crowd could settle on the grass and admire the magnificent scenery. As the high blue sky of a Canadian summer’s day arched above the picnickers, they could watch sailboats skim across the sparkling bay and look out at Prince Edward County, across the water. The hampers of food must have taken poor Catharine’s breath away: “hams, fowls, meat pies, cold joints of meat, and abundance of tarts and cakes, while the luxury of ice is conveyed in a blanket at the bottom of one of the boats,” according to Susanna. The women would stroll about, picking flowers and fruits, while the gentlemen fished. Children would play tag along the shoreline; young men would set up the stumps for an informal game of cricket. Susanna and Catharine would sit together, as comfortable with each other as they had been twenty years earlier as pioneers in the bush.
Belleville’s Victoria Park was a favourite picnic spot, from which families could watch sailing races or take the ferry to Prince Edward County.
The two stout matrons, both in their fifties, must have made an intriguing pair. They were unmistakably sisters: the broad Strickland brow and deep-set eyes were emphasized by the way each woman had scraped her hair back under a lace bonnet. Their accents were as crisply English as the day they’d left Suffolk, although their speech was peppered with the Scottish expressions and pronunciations picked up from their husbands. Their dress must often have occasioned comment, since each still had a few of Agnes’s cast-off collars, shawls, sashes and parasols to liven up her outfit. Both were as alert to all the life around them as ever: Catharine rhapsodized about the blossoms of the “dear little Linnae Borealis” at the edge of the wood, while Susanna kept an amused eye on which of the young people were “sparking” or flirting.
A topic of conversation to which the sisters regularly returned was their children. As young mothers