Sisters in the Wilderness - Charlotte Gray [117]
But the sisterly and literary companionship between Catharine and Susanna faltered after the family row over Roughing It in the Bush. Catharine’s enthusiasm for visits to the Moodies was tempered by the knowledge that Susanna would try to recruit her as an ally against Agnes. Since the publication of Roughing It, Agnes no longer deigned to write to “My dear Susan” and “Dearest Brother Moodie” as she had once addressed them. So as soon as Catharine arrived in Belleville, Susanna would pump her for news from Reydon Hall. The conflict of loyalties unsettled Catharine, who continued to rely heavily on the money and annual boxes of fabric, boots, clothing and books that Agnes sent. In 1854, Agnes had given her a muslin dress with blue-edged flounces, a cashmere jacket trimmed with military braid and a woollen petticoat. Catharine never dared tell her English sister how wildly inappropriate were some of the items that lay on the top of Reydon parcels—the long white gloves, the fichus of Honiton lace, the cravats for Agnes’s Canadian nephews.
Catharine felt uncomfortable when Susanna criticized Agnes, because she herself was so eager for Agnes’s help in London publishing circles. It was Agnes, after all, who had found her a publisher for Canadian Crusoes, and on whom she depended for news of reviews and sales of further magazine pieces. But Agnes’s anger at Susanna had seeped into her relationship with Catharine, and there was a note of snippy irritation in some of her letters these days. When Catharine sent Agnes a manuscript of a children’s story that she had written several years earlier, which took the form of a conversation between its subjects, Agnes’s response was curt: “No-one attends to books in dialogue.”
Catharine already had a new project in mind that might capitalize on her success twenty years earlier with The Backwoods of Canada. She planned a how-to manual for female emigrants on “Canadian m[anage]ment and all such things, in cooking and making and baking, as are needful.” She explained: “I want to supply a book that will give instruction in every branch that may be needed by the family of a new settler. A book such as I should have been glad to have had myself when I came out.” When she first mentioned the idea to Agnes, her elder sister commented tartly, “Be sure you warn ladies not to make the worst of everything.” Agnes was even snippier when Catharine sold some chapters to a Toronto periodical: “Nothing that is first published in Canada will sell in England. So never deceive yourself again with the idea that it will.” Jane was more helpful: she sent Catharine some recipes for food and wine that Catharine could include (“I am a famous wine maker”); an English cookbook so Catharine could copy the format; and instructions on how to compile an index (“a plague to do, but easy when learned”). But Elizabeth Strickland turned down Catharine’s request for editorial help so rudely that Agnes felt obliged to try and repair the damage. “I am very sorry Eliza has written so unkindly to you; but it is her way, and you must not let it distress your mind.”
When Catharine had finished compiling her manual, she titled it “The female emigrant’s guide, and hints on Canadian house-keeping” and shipped it off to England.