Alias Grace (32 page)

Did he say so? I said. He is a man of sense then. It’s not a thing that should be meddled with.

A man of sense, that is so cold, she said; and sighed. A man of sense makes him sound like a banker.

Then she said, Grace, he talks with you more than any of us put together. What sort of man is he really?

A gentleman, I said.

Well, I knew that much, she said shortly. But what is he like?

An American, I said, which was another thing she knew. Then I relented, and said, He seems like a proper enough young man.

Oh I would not want him to be too proper, she said. Reverend Verringer is too proper.

Privately I agreed that this was so, but as Reverend Verringer is trying to get a pardon for me, I said, Reverend Verringer is a man of religion, and it is required of them to be proper.

I think Dr. Jordan is very sarcastic, said Miss Lydia. Is he very sarcastic with you as well, Grace?

I don’t suppose I would know it if he was, Miss, I said.

She sighed again, and said, He is going to address one of Mama’s Tuesdays. I do not usually attend them as it is so tedious, although Mama says I should take more interest in serious matters concerning the welfare of society, and Reverend Verringer says the same; but this time I will go, as I’m sure it will be thrilling to hear Dr. Jordan talk about asylums. Though I would prefer him to invite me to tea in his chambers. With Mama, and Marianne, of course, as I must have a chaperone.

It is always advisable, I said, for a young girl.

Grace, sometimes you are an old stick, she said. And I am no longer a young girl really, I am nineteen. I suppose it’s nothing to you, you’ve done all sorts of things, but I have never been to tea in a man’s chambers before.

Just because you’ve never done a thing before, Miss, I said, is no good reason to do it. But if your mother would be going, I am sure it would be respectable enough.

She stood up, and trailed her hand along the top of the sewing table. Yes, she said. It would be respectable enough. She appeared discouraged by this thought. Then she said, Will you help me with my new dress? For the Tuesday circle; as I would like to make an impression with it.

I said I would help her gladly; and she said I was a treasure, and she hoped they would never let me out of prison, as she would like me always to be there, to help her with her dresses. Which I suppose was a compliment of a sort.

But I did not like the drifting look in her eyes, or the falling note in her voice; and I thought, there will be trouble ahead; as is always the case, when one loves, and the other does not.

Chapter 28

On the next day, Dr. Jordan brings me the promised radish. It is washed, with the leaves cut off, and quite fresh and crisp, not rubbery the way they go when left to sit about. He’s forgotten the salt, but I do not mention this, as it is not right to look a gift horse in the mouth. I eat the radish quickly — I’ve learnt the habit of bolting my food in prison, as it must be eaten before it is snatched away — and I relish the sharpness of it, which is like the peppery smell of a nasturtium. I ask him how he came by it; and he says it is from the market; although he has it in mind to make a small kitchen garden himself at the house where he lodges, as there is the place for it, and he has already begun the digging. Now that is a thing I envy.

Then I say, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Sir, this radish was like the nectar of the Gods. He looks surprised to hear me use such an expression; but that’s only because he doesn’t remember that I have read the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.

Because he was so thoughtful as to bring me this radish, I set to work willingly to tell my story, and to make it as interesting as I can, and rich in incident, as a sort of return gift to him; for I have always believed that one good turn deserves another.

When I left off last time, Sir, I believe Mr. Kinnear had rode away to Toronto, and then Jamie Walsh came over and played his flute, and there was a lovely sunset, and then I went off to sleep with Nancy, as she was afraid of robbers with no man in the house. She did not count McDermott, as he did not sleep in the house itself; or perhaps she did not account him a man; or perhaps she thought he was more likely to side with the robbers, and not against them. She did not say.

So there we were, going up the staircase with our candles. Nancy‘s bedchamber, as I have said, was at the back of the house, and was much larger and finer than mine, although she had no separate dressing room like Mr. Kinnear’s. But she had a commodious bedstead, with a fine quilt on it, a summer one in light pinks and blues on a white ground; it was a Broken Staircase. She had a wardrobe, with her dresses in it, and I wondered how she could have saved up enough money to buy so many; but she said Mr.

Kinnear was a generous master when the mood took him. Also she had a dressing table with an embroidered runner on it, roses and lilies with the buds of each, and a sandalwood box with her earrings and a brooch, and also her pots of creams and potions were kept there; for before going to bed she greased the skin of her face like a boot. She had a bottle of rose-water too, and let me try some, which smelled most delicious; for on this evening she was all sociability; and a saucerful of hair pomade, of which she rubbed in a little, and said it gave the hair a shine; and she asked me to brush out her hair for her, just like a lady’s maid, which I did with pleasure. She had lovely long hair, a dark brown, and wavy.

Oh Grace, she said, that feels most luxurious, you have a good touch; and I was flattered. But I remembered Mary Whitney, and how she used to brush out my own hair; for indeed I had never forgotten her for long.

There we are, snug as two peas in a pod, she said, very friendly, when we were once in bed. But as she blew out the candle she sighed, and it was not the sigh of a happy woman, but of one who is trying to make the best of things.

Mr. Kinnear came back on the morning of the Saturday. He’d meant to return on the Friday, but had been delayed by business in Toronto, or so he said; and had stopped part of the way back, at an inn which was not far north of the first toll gate; and Nancy was none too pleased to hear that, as the place had a bad reputation and was said to countenance loose women, or so she told me in the kitchen.

I replied that a gentleman can stay at such places without any risk to his reputation, as I was trying to calm her. She was very agitated, because Mr. Kinnear had met with two of his acquaintances on the way home, Colonel Bridgeford and Captain Boyd, and had invited them to dine; and it was Jefferson the butcher’s day to come, but he had not yet done so, and there was no fresh meat in the house.

Oh Grace, said Nancy, we will have to kill a chicken, just step out and request McDermott to do it. I said that surely we would need two chickens, as there would be six to dine, with the ladies; but she was annoyed, and said there would be no ladies, as the wives of these gentlemen never condescended to darken the door of the house, and she herself would not be taking dinner with them in the dining room, as all they would do was drink and smoke and tell stories about what fine deeds they’d done in the Rebellion, and they would stay too long and play cards after, and it was bad for Mr. Kinnear’s health, and he would catch a cough, as was always the case when these men came to visit. She allowed him a poor constitution when it suited her.

When I went out to look for James McDermott, he was nowhere to be found. I called, and I even went so far as to go up the ladder into the loft over the stables where he slept. He was not there; but he had not run
off,
as his things were still in the loft, such as he had; and I didn’t think he would go away without the pay that was owed him. As I came down the steps there was Jamie Walsh, and he looked at me curiously, thinking I suppose that I’d been visiting McDermott; but when I asked where McDermott could have gone, as he was needed, Jamie Walsh smiled at me again, and was friendly, and said he did not know, but that he might have gone across the road to Harvey’s, who was a coarse fellow who lived in a log house, more like a shack, with a woman not his wife — I knew her by sight, her name was Hannah Upton, and she had a rough look to her and was generally avoided. But Harvey was an acquaintance of McDermott’s — I won’t say friend — and the two of them were in the habit of drinking together; and Jamie then said was there any errands to be run.

I went back into the kitchen and said McDermott could not be found, and Nancy said she’d had enough of his lazy ways, he was always going off when required and leaving her in the lurch, and I would have to kill the chicken myself. I said, Oh no, I could not do that, I’ve never done it before and don’t know how; as I had an aversion to shedding the blood of any living thing, although I could pluck a bird well enough once killed; and she said not to be a silly goose, it was easy enough, just take the axe and knock it on the head, and then give it a strong whack right through the neck.

But I could not bear the thought of it, and began to cry; and I am sorry to say — for it is wrong to speak ill of the dead — that she gave me a shake and a slap, and pushed me out the kitchen door into the courtyard, and told me not to come back without a dead bird, and in a hurry too, as we did not have much time to prepare, and Mr. Kinnear liked his meals on time.

I went into the henyard and caught a plump young fowl, a white one, crying all the time, and tucked it securely under my arm, and went towards the woodpile and the chopping block, wiping my tears with my apron; for I did not see how I could bring myself to do such a thing. But Jamie Walsh followed me, and asked kindly what was the matter; and I said could he please just kill the chicken for me; and he said there was nothing easier, and he would be glad to do so as I was so squeamish and tender-hearted. So he took the bird from me and neatly chopped off its head, and it ran about with only a neck for a moment, and then lay kicking in the dirt; and I thought it was very pathetic. And then we plucked it together, sitting side by side on a rail of the fence, and making the feathers fly; and then I thanked him sincerely for his help, and said I did not have anything to give him for it, but would remember it for the future. And he grinned awkwardly and said he would help me willingly at any other time I might need it.

Nancy had come out at the last part of this, and was standing at the kitchen door with her hand up to shade her eyes, waiting impatiently for the bird to be readied for cooking; so I cleaned it as fast as I could, holding my breath against the smell and keeping the giblets in case wanted for gravy, and rinsed it under the pump, and brought it in. And she said in the kitchen, as we were stuffing it, Well I see you have made a conquest, and I said what did she mean, and she said, Jamie Walsh, he has a bad case of puppy love, it is written all over his face, he used to be my admirer but now I see he is yours. And I saw she was trying to be friends with me again, after having lost her temper; so I laughed, and said he was not much of a catch for me, as he was only a boy, and with red hair like a carrot and freckled as an egg too, although tall for his age. And she said, Well, a worm will always turn; which I thought mysterious; but did not ask her what she meant, in case she should think me ignorant.

We had to get the stove good and hot in the summer kitchen, to roast the chicken; so we did the rest of the work in the winter one. To be served with the chicken we prepared a dish of creamed onions and carrots; and for the dessert there were strawberries, with our own cream, and our own cheese after. Mr.

Kinnear kept the wine in the cellar, some in a barrel and some in bottles; and Nancy sent me down to bring up five bottles of it. She never did like going down there; she said there were too many spiders.

In the midst of all our bustling, James McDermott sauntered in, as cool as you please; and when Nancy asked him where he’d got himself off to, using a warm tone of voice, he said that since he’d finished the morning’s chores before he left, it was none of her damned business; and if she must know, he’d been on a special errand of Mr. Kinnear’s, entrusted to him before Mr. Kinnear left for Toronto; and Nancy said she would see about that, and he had no right to come and go, and to vanish off the face of the earth, just when he might be wanted most; and he said how was he to know, he could not read the future; and she said that if he could, he would see that he would not spend much more of it in this house. But as she was occupied at the moment, she would speak to him later, and just now he might look after Mr. Kinnear’s horse, which was in need of grooming after the long ride, if he didn’t consider such a thing too far beneath His Royal Highness. And he went off to the stables with a scowling face.

Colonel Bridgeford and Captain Boyd arrived as promised, and behaved as Nancy said they would; and there were loud voices from the dining room, and much laughter; and Nancy had me wait on table. She did not wish to do it herself, but sat in the kitchen, and had a glass of wine, and poured one for me as well; and I thought she was resentful of these gentlemen. She said she did not think Captain Boyd was a real Captain, as some of them had taken up such titles just for having got their two legs around a horse on the day of the Rebellion; and I asked, what about Mr. Kinnear, as some in the neighbourhood called him Captain as well; and she said she did not know about it, as he never styled himself in that manner, and his visiting card said plain Mr.; however, if he had been a Captain, it would certainly have been on the Government side. And this was another thing she appeared to resent.

She poured herself a second glass of wine, and said that Mr. Kinnear sometimes teased her about her name, and called her a fiery little Rebel, because her last name was Montgomery, which was the same as John Montgomery who’d owned the tavern where the rebels met together, and which was now a ruin; and he’d boasted that when his enemies were burning in Hell, he would be keeping a tavern again on Yonge Street; which afterwards turned out to be true, Sir, at least as to the tavern; but at that time he was still in the United States, having escaped in a daring manner from the Kingston Penitentiary. So it is a possible thing to be done.