Alias Grace (27 page)

I suppose you are very tired, Grace, he said, and I said Yes Sir, and he said, The weather is very warm, and I said Yes Sir, and so we went along, and to tell you the truth it was harder than riding in the bumping coach beside the farm implements dealer; I can’t say why, as Mr. Kinnear was much more kind. But Richmond Hill was not a very big place and we were soon through it. He lived past the edge of the village, more than a mile to the north of it.

At last we were going past his orchard and up his driveway, which was curved and about a hundred yards long, and ran between two lines of maple trees of medium size. There was the house at the end of the drive, with a verandah along the front of it and white pillars, a big house but not as big as Mrs.

Alderman Parkinson’s.

From the back of the house came the sound of chopping. There was a boy sitting on the fence — he was perhaps fourteen years old — and when we drove up he jumped down and came to hold the horse; he had red hair, raggedly cut, and the freckles to go with it. Mr. Kinnear said to him, Hello Jamie here is Grace Marks come all the way from Toronto, I found her at the inn, and the boy looked up at me and grinned, as if he thought there was something funny about me; but he was only shy and awkward.

There were flowers planted in front of the verandah, white peonies and pink roses, and a gracefully dressed lady with a triple flounce was cutting them; she had a flat basket over her arm to put them in.

When she heard our wheels and the horse’s hooves on the gravel, she straightened up and shaded her eyes with her hand, and I saw she was wearing gloves; and then I recognized that this woman was Nancy Montgomery. She was wearing a bonnet the same pale colour as her dress, it was as if she’d put on her best clothes to go out front and cut the flowers. She waved a hand daintily in my direction, but she made no move to come over to me; and something squeezed tight about my heart.

Getting up into the wagon was one thing but getting down was another, because Mr. Kinnear did not help me down, he swung out by himself and hurried up the walk towards the front of the house and bent his head down towards Nancy’s bonnet, leaving me to sit in the wagon like a sack of potatoes, or else scramble down unaided, which is what I did. A man had come out from the back; he was holding an axe, so it must have been him doing the chopping. He had a thick-woven jacket over one shoulder and his shirt had the sleeves rolled up and was open at the neck with a red bandanna tied around, and he had loose trousers tucked into his boot-tops. He was dark-haired and slender and not very tall, and did not appear to be more than one-and-twenty. He said nothing, but stared at me, suspicious and frowning a little, almost as if I was an enemy of his; yet he did not seem to be looking at me at all, but at someone else right behind me.

The boy Jamie said to him, This is Grace Marks, but he still didn’t say anything; and then Nancy called, McDermott, take the horse in, won’t you, and Grace’s things, take them to her room and you can show her where it is. At that he flushed up as if in anger, and jerked his head curtly for me to come with him.

I stood there for an instant with the late sunlight in my eyes, looking at Nancy and Mr. Kinnear beside the peonies; they were surrounded by a golden haze, as if gold dust had fallen down out of the sky all over them, and I heard her laughing. I was hot and tired and hungry, and covered with dust from the road, and she had not given me one word of greeting.

Then I followed the horse and wagon towards the back of the house. The boy Jamie walked along beside me, and he said shyly, Is it big, Toronto, is it very grand, I have never been there, but I only said Grand enough. I could not find it in me to answer him about Toronto, because right then I was bitterly sorry I had ever left it.

When I close my eyes I can remember every detail of that house as clear as a picture — the verandah with the flowers, the windows and the white pillars, in the bright sunlight — and I could walk every room of it blindfolded, though at that moment I had no particular feeling about it and only wanted a drink of water. It is strange to reflect that of all the people in that house, I was the only one of them left alive in six months’ time.

Except for Jamie Walsh, of course; but he was not living there.

Chapter 24

McDermott showed me to the room that was to be mine, which was off the winter kitchen. He was not very civil about it, all he said was You’re to sleep in here. While I was untying my bundle Nancy came in, and now she was all smiles. She said I am very glad to see you Grace, I am glad you have come. She sat me down at the table in the winter kitchen, which was cooler than the summer kitchen as the stove was not lit, and she showed me where I could wash my face and hands at the sink, and then she gave me a glass of small beer and some cold beef from the larder, and said You must be tired after your journey, it is very fatiguing, and sat with me while I ate, as gracious as could be.

She had on a very handsome pair of earrings, which I could tell were real gold, and I wondered how she could afford them, on the salary of a housekeeper.

After I’d finished refreshing myself she showed me over the house and outbuildings. The summer kitchen was entirely separate from the main house, so as not to heat it up, a sensible arrangement which ought to be adopted by all. Each of the kitchens had a flagged floor and a good-sized iron stove with a flat apron in the front for keeping things warm, which was the latest model then; and each kitchen had its own sink with a pipe running out to the cesspool, and its own scullery and larder. The pump for the water was in the courtyard between the two kitchens; I was pleased it was not an open well, as such wells are more dangerous, things can fall down into them and they often harbour rats.

Behind the summer kitchen was the stable, adjoining the carriage house, where the wagon was kept.

There was enough room in the carriage house for two carriages but Mr. Kinnear had only the one light wagon, I suppose a real carriage would have been useless on those roads. In the stable there were four stalls, but Mr. Kinnear kept only one cow and two horses, Charley Horse and a colt who was to be a riding horse when grown. The harness room was off the winter kitchen, which was unusual, and also inconvenient.

There was a loft room over the stable, and that was where McDermott slept. Nancy told me he’d been there only a week or so, and although he was prompt enough when Mr. Kinnear was giving the orders he appeared to have a grudge against her, and was impertinent; and I said that possibly his grudge was against the world, because he had been short with me as well. Nancy said as far as she was concerned he could mend his ways or be off out of it, because there was lots more where he came from, as out-of-work soldiers were to be had for the asking.

I have always liked the smell of a stable. I patted the colt’s nose and said Good day to Charley, and I greeted the cow as well because it would be my job to milk her and I hoped we would start off on good terms. McDermott was setting out straw for the animals; he did not speak to us much more than a grunt, and he gave Nancy a scowling look and I could see there was no love lost, and when we were going out of the stable Nancy said, He is more surly than ever, well he can suit himself and welcome, it’s a smile or the open road for him, or more likely the bottom of a ditch, and then she laughed; and I hoped he had not overheard it.

After that we saw the henhouse and the henyard, which had a woven willow fence around it to keep the chickens in, although it was not much good at keeping the foxes and the weasels out, and the raccoons too, which were known to be great stealers of eggs; and the kitchen garden, which was well planted but needed hoeing; and quite far back along a path was the privy.

Mr. Kinnear had a good deal of land, a pasture field which was kept for the cow and horses, and a little orchard down by Yonge Street, and several other fields which were worked or in the midst of being cleared of trees. It was Jamie Walsh’s father who looked after that, said Nancy; they had a cottage on the grounds about a quarter of a mile away. From where we were standing we could just see the rooftop and chimney sticking up above the trees. Jamie himself was a bright and promising boy, who ran errands for Mr. Kinnear; and he could play the flute; or he called it a flute, but it was more like a fife. Nancy said he would come over some evening and play for us, as he liked to do it, and she did enjoy a little music herself, and was learning to play the piano. That surprised me, as it was not the usual thing for a housekeeper. But I said nothing.

In the courtyard between the two kitchens there were three lines strung up for the washing. There was no separate laundry room, but the things for the washing, the coppers and the washtub and scrubbing board, were at present in the summer kitchen beside the stove, all good quality; and I was pleased to see they did not make their own soap but used bought soap, which is far easier on the hands.

They did not keep a pig and I was just as glad, for pigs are too clever for their own good, and fond of escaping from their pens, as well as having a smell that is not at all agreeable. There were two cats which lived in the stable, to keep down the mice and rats, but no dog, Mr. Kinnear’s old dog Fancy having died. Nancy said she would feel easier with a dog about the place to bark at strangers, and Mr. Kinnear was looking for a good dog to go hunting with him; he was not a great sportsman in that way but liked to shoot a duck or two in the autumn, or else a wild goose, which were very numerous although too stringy for her taste.

We went back into the winter kitchen, and along the passageway that led from it to the entrance hall, which was large, with a fireplace and stag’s horns over it, and a good green wallpaper, and a fine Turkey carpet. The trapdoor to the cellar was in this hall, and you had to lift up a corner of the carpet to get to it, which I thought was an odd place as the kitchen would have been more convenient; but the kitchen did not have a cellar under it. The cellar stairs were too steep for comfort, and the cellar below was divided into two parts by a half-wall, the dairy on one side, which was where they kept the butter and the cheeses, and on the other side the place where they stored the wine and beer in barrels, and the apples, and the carrots and cabbages and beets and potatoes in boxes of sand in the winter, and the empty wine barrels as well. There was a window, but Nancy said I should always take a candle or a lantern as it was quite dark below and you could trip and fall down the stairs and break your neck.

We did not go down into the cellar at that time.

Off the hall was the front parlour, with its own stove and two pictures, one a family group, I suppose they were ancestors as their faces were stiff and their dress was old-fashioned, the other a large fat bull with short legs; also the piano, which was not a pianoforte but only a straight-backed parlour piano, and the globe lamp which took the best whale oil, brought up from the States; they did not have kerosene for lamps then. Behind that was the dining room, also with a fireplace, with silver candlesticks and the good china and plate in a locked cabinet, and a picture of dead pheasants over the mantelpiece, which I did not think would be agreeable while eating. This room connected with the parlour through a set of double doors and was also reached by a single door from the passageway, for carrying in the food from the kitchen. On the other side of the passageway was Mr. Kinnear’s library, but we did not go into it at that time as he was reading in it, and behind that was a small study or office with a desk, which was where he wrote his letters and transacted any business he might have.

There was a fine staircase from the front hall, with a polished bannister; we went up it, and on the second floor there was Mr. Kinnear’s bedchamber with a large bedstead, and his dressing room adjoining, and dressing table with an oval mirror, and a carved wardrobe, and in the bedchamber, a picture of a woman without any clothes on, on a sofa, seen from the back and looking over her shoulder, with a sort of turban on her head and holding a peacock-feather fan. Peacock feathers inside the house are bad luck, as everyone knows. These were only in a picture, but I would never have allowed them in any house of mine. There was another picture, also of a naked woman taking a bath, but I did not have the chance to examine it. I was a little taken aback at Mr. Kinnear having two naked women in his bedchamber, as at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s it was mostly landscapes or flowers.

Down the hall towards the back there was Nancy‘s own bedchamber, which was not as large; and each room had a carpet. By rights these carpets should have been beaten and cleaned and stored for the summer, but Nancy had not got around to it, being short of help. I did wonder at her chamber being on the same floor as Mr. Kinnear’s, but there was no third floor to the house, nor attic, not like Mrs.

Alderman Parkinson’s house, which was much grander. There was also a chamber for guests if any. At the end of the passageway was a closet, for such things as winter clothing, and a well-stocked linen cupboard with a good many shelves; and beside Nancy’s bedchamber was a tiny room which she called her sewing room, and it had in it a table and a chair.

After we had seen the upstairs of the house, we went back downstairs and discussed my duties; and I thought to myself it was a mercy it was the summer, as otherwise I would have all those fires to lay and light, as well as the grates and stoves to clean and polish; and Nancy said of course I would not begin that very day, but the next one, and I would no doubt wish to retire early, as I must be wearied out. As this was indeed the case, and as the sun was setting, I did so.

And then everything went on very quietly for a fortnight, says Dr. Jordan. He is reading aloud from my Confession.

Yes Sir, it did, I say. More or less quietly.

What is
everything
? How did it go on?

I beg your pardon, Sir?

What did you do every day?

Oh, the usual, Sir, I say. I performed my duties.

You will forgive me, says Dr. Jordan. Of what did those duties consist?