Alias Grace (37 page)

Nancy told him gaily to be quiet and behave himself, or she would have to punish him and stop reading, she would play the piano instead; and Mr. Kinnear laughed and said he could endure any form of torture but that. There was the sound of a little slap, and a rustling of cloth, and I decided she must be sitting on his knee. For a time there was quiet, until Mr. Kinnear asked Nancy if the cat had got her tongue, and why was she so pensive.

I leant forward, as I thought she must be about to inform him of her condition, and then I would know which way things were going to fall; but she did not. Instead she told him that she was worried about the servants.

Which of the servants, Mr. Kinnear wanted to know; and Nancy said both of them, and Mr. Kinnear laughed and said of course there were three servants in the house, not two, as she was a servant herself; and Nancy said it was kind of him to remind her of that; and she must now leave him, as she had her duties in the kitchen to attend to, and there was another sound of rustling, and of struggling too, as if she was trying to get up. Mr. Kinnear laughed some more and said she should stay where she was, it was her master’s command, and Nancy said bitterly that she supposed that was what she was paid for; and then he soothed her, and asked her what was worrying her about the servants. Was the work getting done, was the main thing, he said, and he did not much care who cleaned his boots as long as they were clean, as he paid good wages and expected to get value for his money.

Yes, Nancy said, the work was getting done, but in the case of McDermott, only because she stood over him with a whip; and when she scolded him for being lazy, he was insolent with her, and she had given him his notice. Mr. Kinnear said he was a surly black-browed rascal, and he’d never liked him. And then he said, What about Grace. And I strained my ears, the better to hear what Nancy said.

She said that I was tidy and quick about my work, but that I had lately become very quarrelsome, and she was thinking of giving me my notice; and when I heard that, my face went hot all over. Then she said there was something about me that made her quite uneasy, and she wondered whether I was quite right, as she’d several times heard me talking out loud to myself.

Mr. Kinnear laughed, and said that was nothing — he often talked to himself, as he was the best conversationalist he knew; and I was certainly a handsome girl, as I had a naturally refined air and a very pure Grecian profile, and that if he put me in the right clothes and told me to hold my head high and keep my mouth shut, he could pass me off for a lady any day.

Nancy said she certainly hoped he would never say such flattering things to me, as it would turn my head, and give me ideas above my station, which would be no favour to me. Then she said he never had such agreeable opinions of her; and he said something I couldn’t hear, and there was more silence and rustling.

And then Mr. Kinnear said that it was time for bed. So I made my way quickly back to the kitchen, and sat down at the table; for it would not have done for Nancy to catch me listening.

But I did listen afterwards, once they’d gone up; and I heard Mr. Kinnear saying, I know you’re hiding, come out right now, you dirty girl, do as I say, or I will have to catch you, and when I do…

And then a laugh from Nancy, and then a little scream.

The thunder was coming closer. I’ve never liked a thunderstorm, and did not then. When I went to bed, I secured my shutters so none of the thunder could get in, and pulled the covers up over my head, although it was so hot; and I thought I would never get to sleep. But I did; and was awakened in the pitch darkness by a tremendous crashing, as if the end of the world had come. A violent storm was raging, with a sound of drums and roaring, and I was beside myself with terror, and cowered in my bed praying for it to be over, shutting my eyes against the flashes of light that came in through the cracks in the shutters. The rain was pouring down like ten thousand, and the house working in the wind like grinding teeth; and I was sure that every next minute we would split in two like a ship at sea, and sink down into the earth. And then, right next to my ear, I heard a voice whispering:
It cannot be.
I must have been frightened into a fit, because after that I lost consciousness altogether.

Then I had a very strange dream. I dreamt that all was quiet again, and that I got out of bed in my nightdress, and unlatched my chamber door, and walked across the floor of the winter kitchen in my bare feet, and out into the courtyard. The clouds had been swept away, and the moon was shining brightly, and the leaves of the trees looked like feathers of silver; and the air was cooler, with a touch to it like velvet; and there were crickets chirping. I could smell the wet garden smell, and the sharp tang of the henhouse; and also I could hear Charley whinnying softly from the stable, which meant he knew there was someone close by. I stood there in the yard beside the pump, with the moonlight falling over me like water; and it was as if I could not move.

Then two arms stole around me from the back, and began caressing me. They were a man’s arms; and I could feel the mouth of this same man on my neck and cheek, kissing me ardently, and his body pressed up against my back; but it was like the game of blind man’s buff, that children play, as I could not tell who it was, nor could I turn and look. I caught a scent of road dust and leather, and thought it might be Jeremiah the peddler; then it changed to a smell of horse dung, so I thought it was McDermott. But I could not rouse myself to push him away. Then it changed again, and was the odour of tobacco, and of Mr. Kinnear’s fine shaving soap, and I was not surprised, as I had been half expecting something of the sort from him; and all the while the mouth of the unknown man was on my neck, and I could feel his breath stirring my hair. And then I felt it was not any of these three, but another man, someone I knew well and had long been familiar with, even as long ago as my childhood, but had since forgotten; nor was this the first time I’d found myself in this situation with him. I felt a warmth and a drowsy languor stealing over me, and urging me to yield, and surrender myself; as to do so would be far easier than to resist.

But then I heard the neighing of a horse; and it came to me that this was not Charley, nor the colt in the barn, but a different horse altogether. A great fear came over me, and my body went entirely cold, and I stood as if paralyzed with fear; for I knew that the horse was no earthly horse, but the pale horse that will be sent at the Day of Reckoning, and the rider of it is Death; and it was Death himself who stood behind me, with his arms wrapped around me as tight as iron bands, and his lipless mouth kissing my neck as if in love. But as well as the horror, I also felt a strange longing.

At this the sun came up, not little by little as it does when we are awake, Sir, but all at once, with a great blare of light. If it had been a sound, it would have been the blowing of many trumpets; and the arms that were holding me melted away. I was dazzled by the brightness; but as I looked up, I saw that in the trees by the house, and also in the trees of the orchard, there were a number of birds perching, enormous birds as white as ice. This was an ominous and baleful sight, as they appeared crouched as if ready to spring and destroy; and in that way they were like a gathering of crows, only white. But as my sight cleared, I saw that they were not birds at all. They had a human form, and they were the angels whose white robes were washed in blood, as it says at the end of the Bible; and they were sitting in silent judgment upon Mr.

Kinnear’s house, and on all within it. And then I saw that they had no heads.

In the dream, I then lost consciousness, from sheer terror; and when I came to myself, I was in my own bed, in my small chamber, with the quilt drawn up to my ears. But after I rose — for it was already dawn

— I found that the hem of my nightdress was wet, and my feet had the marks of earth and grass on them; and I thought I must have been walking around outside without knowing I was doing so, as had happened to me once before, on the day that Mary Whitney died; and my heart sank within me.

I proceeded to dress as usual, vowing to keep my dream to myself, because who was there I could trust with it, in that house? If I told it as a warning, I would only be laughed at. But when I went outside to pump the first pail of water, there was all the laundry I had done the day before, blown into the trees by the tempest during the night. I’d forgotten to bring it in; it was very unlike me to forget a thing like that, especially a white laundry, which I’d worked so hard at, getting out the spots; and this was another cause of foreboding to me. And the nightdresses and shirts which were stuck in the trees did indeed look like angels without heads; and it was as if our own clothing was sitting in judgment upon us.

I could not shake the feeling that there was a doom on the house, and that some within were fated to die.

If I’d been given the chance right then, I would have taken the risk, and gone off with Jeremiah the peddler; and indeed I wanted to run after him, and better for me if I had; but I didn’t know where he had gone.

Dr. Jordan is writing eagerly, as if his hand can scarcely keep up, and I have never seen him so animated before. It does my heart good to feel I can bring a little pleasure into a fellow-being’s life; and I think to myself, I wonder what he will make of all that.

Nine - Hearts and Gizzards

Chapter 32

The heat of summer has come without warning. One day it was still cold spring, with gusting showers and chilly white clouds remote above the glacial blue of the lake; then suddenly the daffodils withered, the tulips burst open and turned inside out as if yawning, then dropped their petals. Cesspool vapours rise from back yards and gutters, and a mist of mosquitoes condenses around every pedestrian’s head. At noon the air shimmers like the space above a heated griddle, and the lake glares, its margin stinking faintly of dead fish and frog spawn. At night Simon’s lamp is besieged by moths, which flutter around him, the soft touch of their wings like the brushing of silken lips.

He is dazed by the change. Living through the more gradual seasons of Europe, he’d forgotten these brutal transitions. His clothing is heavy as fur, his skin seems always damp. He’s under the impression that he smells like bacon fat and soured milk; or perhaps it’s his bedchamber that smells this way. It hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned for far too long, nor the sheets changed: no suitable maid-of-all-work has yet been located, though Mrs. Humphrey details her efforts along these lines to him every morning.

According to her, the departed Dora has been spreading stories around the town — among all the potential servant-girls, at least — about how Mrs. Humphrey has not paid her, and is about to be turned out bag and baggage, on account of having no money; and also about how the Major has run off, which is even more disgraceful. So of course, she tells Simon, it stands to reason that no servants wish to take their chances in such a household. And she smiles a rueful smile.

She herself has been cooking the breakfasts, which they continue to share at her table — her suggestion, to which he’s agreed, as it would be humiliating for her to have to carry a tray up. Today Simon listens to her with fretful inattention, toying with his humid toast, and with his egg that he now takes fried. At least with a fried egg there are no surprises.

Breakfast is all she can manage; she is subject to fits of nervous prostration and headache, brought on by the reaction to shock — or so he assumes, and has told her — and by afternoon is invariably stretched out on her bed, with a wet cloth pressed to her forehead, giving off a strong smell of camphor. He can’t let her starve herself to death, so although for the most part he eats his meals at the wretched inn, from time to time he attempts to feed her.

Yesterday he bought a chicken from a rancorous crone in the market, but not until he got it home did he discover that although it had been plucked, it had not been cleaned. He could not face the task — he’d never cleaned a chicken before in his life — and thought of disposing of the avian corpse. A walk by the lakeshore, a swift fling of the arm…But then he recalled that it was only a dissection, after all, and he’d dissected worse than chickens; and once he had his scalpel in hand — he’s kept the tools of his former trade with him, in their leather satchel — he was all right again, and managed a neat incision. After that, things got worse, but he’d come through it all right by holding his breath. He cooked the chicken by cutting it into pieces and frying it. Mrs. Humphrey came to the table, saying she felt a little better, and ate a good deal of it for one so fragile; but when the washing up had to be done she suffered a relapse, and Simon was left to do it himself.

The kitchen is even greasier than it was when he first entered it. Dust rolls have gathered under the stove, spiders in the corners, breadcrumbs beside the sink; a family of beetles has moved into the pantry. It is alarming how quickly one descends into squalor. Something must be done soon, some slave or lackey acquired. In addition to the dirt, there is the question of appearances. He cannot continue to live alone in this house with his landlady: especially not such a tremulous landlady, and one deserted by her husband.

If it becomes generally known and people begin to talk — no matter how groundless such talk would be

— then his reputation and professional standing may suffer. Reverend Verringer has made it plain that the enemies of the Reformers will use any means, however base, to discredit their opponents, and in case of a scandal he’d be given his discharge in short order.

He could at least do something about the state of the house, if he could summon the will for it. In a pinch he could sweep the floors and stairway, and dust the furniture in his own rooms; but there would still be no hiding the odour of muted disaster, of slow and dispirited decay, that breathes from the limp curtains and accumulates in the cushions and woodwork. The advent of the summer heat has made it worse. He remembers with nostalgia the clatter of Dora’s dustpan; he has gained a new respect for the Doras of this world, but although he longs for such household problems to resolve themselves, he has no idea how this may be accomplished. Once or twice he’s thought of asking Grace Marks for advice — how a maid should properly be hired, how a chicken should properly be cleaned — but he has thought better of it.