Alias Grace

She said she had once truly loved him, but did so no longer; and she threw the five dollars on the floor, and cried passionately for an hour; but I noticed her putting the money carefully away, under the loose board, afterwards.

The next Sunday she said she would not go to church, but for a walk by herself; and when she came back, she said she’d gone down to the harbour with the idea of throwing herself into the lake, and putting an end to her life. And I begged her with tears not to do such a wicked thing. Two days later she said she’d been over to Lombard Street, and had heard there of a doctor who could help her; he was the doctor that the whores went to, when they needed it. I asked her in what way he might help, and she said I shouldn’t ask; and I did not know what she meant, having never heard of such doctors. And she asked if I would lend her my savings, which amounted at that time to three dollars, which I’d been intending for a new summer dress. And I said I would lend it to her with all my heart. She then brought out a piece of writing paper, which she’d obtained from the library downstairs, and a pen and ink, and she wrote: If die, my things are to go to Grace Marks. And she signed it with her name. And then she said, Soon I may be dead. But you will still be alive. And she gave me a cold and resentful look, such as I’d seen her give to others behind their backs, but never to me. I was much alarmed at this, and clutched her hand, and begged her not to go to this doctor, whoever he might be; but she said she must, and I was not to carry on, but I must put the pen and ink back secretly on the writing desk in the library, and go about my duties; and tomorrow she would steal away after the midday meal, and I was to say if asked that she’d just gone out to the privy, or that she was up in the drying room, or any excuse that came into my head; and then I was to slip away and join her, as she might be in difficulties coming home.

Neither one of us slept well that night; and the next day she did as she said she would, and managed to leave the house without detection, with the money knotted up in her handkerchief; and I followed soon after, and joined her. The doctor lived in a large-enough house, in a good neighbourhood. We went in by the servants’ entrance; and the doctor himself met us. The first thing he did was to count the money. He was a big man in a black coat, and looked at us very severely; and he told me to wait in the scullery, and then said that if I told anything about it, he would deny ever having seen me. Then he took off his frock coat and hung it on a hook, and began rolling up his shirtsleeves, as if for a fight. He looked very similar, Sir, to the head-measuring doctor that frightened me into a fit, just before you came here.

Mary went with him out of the room, her face as white as a sheet; and then I heard screams, and crying, and after a time the doctor pushed her in through the scullery door. Her dress was all damp, and clinging to her like a wet bandage, and she could scarcely walk; and I put my arms around her, and assisted her away from that place as best I could.

When we reached the house she was bent nearly double and holding her hands to her stomach; and said would I help her upstairs. Which I did, and she seemed very weak. I put her into her nightdress and into the bed, and she kept her petticoat on, crumpled up between her legs. And I asked her what had happened, and she said the doctor took a knife to her, and cut something inside; and he said there would be pain and bleeding, and it would last some hours, but that after this she would be all right again. And she’d given a false name.

It began to dawn on me that what the doctor had cut out of her was the baby, which I thought a most wicked thing; but I also thought it was either one corpse that way or two the other, because if not, she would certainly have drowned herself; so I could not find it within my heart to reproach her. She was in great pain, and in the evening I warmed a brick and carried it upstairs; but she would not let me fetch anyone. And I said I would sleep on the floor, as she would be more comfortable that way; and she said I was the best friend she ever had, and that whatever happened she would never forget me. I rolled myself up in my shawl, with my apron for a pillow, and lay down on the floor, which was very hard; and what with that, and with Mary’s groans of agony, I could not sleep at first. But after a time it grew quieter, and I fell asleep, and did not wake up until daybreak. And when I did, there was Mary, dead in the bed, with her eyes wide open and staring.

I touched her, but she was cold. I stood stock-still with fear; but then I roused myself, and went along the hall, and woke Agnes the chambermaid, and fell into her arms weeping; and she said, Whatever is the matter? I could not speak, but took her by the hand, and led her into our room, to where Mary was. Agnes laid hold of her, and shook her by the shoulder; and then she said, Good heavens, she is dead. And I said, Oh Agnes, what shall I do? I did not know she was going to die, and now they will blame me, for not telling sooner that she was taken ill; but she made me promise not to. And I was sobbing, and wringing my hands.

Agnes lifted the bedcovers and looked beneath. The nightdress and petticoat were soaked through with blood, and the sheet was all red with it, and brown where it had dried. She said, This is a bad business, and she told me to stay there, and she went at once to fetch Mrs. Honey. I heard her footsteps going away, and it seemed to me she was gone a long time.

I sat on the chair in our room and looked at Mary’s face; her eyes were open, and I could feel her looking back at me out of the corners of her eyes. I thought I saw her move, and I said, Mary, are you pretending? For she sometimes pretended she was dead, behind the sheets in the drying room, to frighten me. But she was not pretending.

Then I heard two sets of footsteps hurrying along the passage, and I was filled with dread. But I stood up. And Mrs. Honey came into the room; she did not look sad, she looked angry, and also disgusted, as if she could smell a bad smell. And there was indeed a smell in the room; it was the smell of wet straw, from the mattress, and also the salty smell of blood; you can smell something very similar in a butcher’s shop.

And Mrs. Honey said, This is an outrage and a disgrace, I must go and tell Mrs. Parkinson. And we waited, and Mrs. Alderman Parkinson came, and said, Under my own roof, what a deceitful girl. And she looked straight at me, although she was talking about Mary. Then she said, Why did you not inform me of this, Grace? And I said, Please Ma’am, Mary told me not to. She said she would be better in the morning. And I started to cry, and I said, I did not know she was going to die!

Agnes, who was very pious as I have told you, said The wages of sin is death. Mrs. Alderman Parkinson said, That was wicked of you, Grace, and Agnes said, She is only a child, she is very obedient, she was just doing as she was told.

I thought Mrs. Alderman Parkinson would scold her for interfering, but she did not. She took hold of my arm gently, and looked into my eyes, and said, Who was the man? The scoundrel should be exposed, and made to pay for his crime. I suppose it was some sailor, down at the harbour, they have no more conscience than a flea. Do you know, Grace?

I said, Mary did not know any sailors. She was seeing a gentleman, and they were engaged. Only he broke his promise, and would not marry her.

And Mrs. Alderman Parkinson said sharply, What gentleman?

I said, Please Ma’am, I don’t know. Only she said you would not like it at all, if you found out who it was.

Mary had not said this, but I had my own suspicions.

At that Mrs. Alderman Parkinson looked thoughtful, and paced to and for the length of the room; and then she said, Agnes and Grace, we will not discuss this further, as it will only lead to unhappiness and added misery, and there is no sense in crying over spilt milk; and out of respect to the dead we will not say what Mary died of. We will say it was a low fever. That will be best for all. And she looked at both of us very hard, and we curtsied. And all the time Mary was there on the bed, listening to us, and hearing about our plans to tell these lies about her; and I thought, She will not be easy in her mind about it.

I didn’t say anything about the doctor, and they did not ask. Perhaps they didn’t even consider such a thing. They must have thought it was only a lost baby, as women frequently have; and that Mary had died of it, as women frequently did. And you are the first person I have told about the doctor, Sir; but it is my true belief that it was the doctor that killed her with his knife; him and the gentleman between them. For it is not always the one that strikes the blow, that is the actual murderer; and Mary was done to death by that unknown gentleman, as surely as if he’d taken the knife and plunged it into her body himself. Mrs. Alderman Parkinson left the room, and after a while Mrs. Honey came, and said we were to take the sheet from the bed, and her nightdress and petticoat, and wash the blood out of them; and wash the body, and take the mattress to be burnt, and see to it ourselves; and there was another mattress cover beside where the quilts were stored, and we could stuff that with straw; and we were to fetch a clean sheet. She asked if there was another nightdress for Mary to be dressed in, and I said there was, because Mary had two; but the other one was in the wash. Then I said I would give her one of mine. She said we were not to tell anyone of Mary’s death until we’d got her looking presentable, with the quilt pulled up over her and her eyes closed, and her hair combed down and tidy. Then she went out of the room, and Agnes and myself did as she said; and Mary was light to lift, but heavy to arrange. Then Agnes said, There is more to this than meets the eye, and I wonder who the man was. And she looked at me. And I said, Whoever he is, he is still alive and well, and most likely enjoying his breakfast at this very moment, and not having any thoughts in his head about poor Mary, no more than if she was a carcass hung up at the butcher’s.

Agnes said, It is the curse of Eve which we must all bear, and I knew Mary would have laughed at that. And then I heard her voice, as clear as anything, right in my ear, saying Let me in. I was quite startled, and looked hard at Mary, who by that time was lying on the floor, as we were making up the bed. But she gave no sign of having said anything; and her eyes were still open, and staring up at the ceiling. Then I thought with a rush of fear, But I did not open the window. And I ran across the room and opened it, because I must have heard wrong and she was saying Let me out. Agnes said, What are you doing, it’s cold as an icicle out there, and I said The smell is making me sick. And she agreed that the room should be aired. I was hoping Mary’s soul would fly out the window now, and not stay inside, whispering things into my ear. But I wondered whether I was too late. Finally we had all done, and I bundled the sheet and the nightdress together and took them down to the laundry, and pumped a tub full of cold water, because it’s the cold water you need to get out the blood, as the hot will set it. By good fortune the laundress was not in the laundry but in the main kitchen, heating the irons for the ironing, and gossiping with Cook. And I scrubbed, and much of the blood came out, making the water all red; and I ran that down the drain and pumped another tubful, and left the things to soak, with some vinegar poured in to help with the smell. Whether from the cold or the shock, my teeth by now were chattering; and as I ran back up the stairs I felt quite dizzy. Agnes had been waiting in the room with Mary, all nicely laid out now with her eyes closed as if sleeping, and her hands crossed on her breast. I told Agnes what I’d done, and she sent me to tell Mrs. Alderman Parkinson that all was ready. And I did, and went back upstairs, and pretty soon here came the servants to see, crying some of them, and sad-faced, as was fitting; but still there is always a strange excitement around a death, and I could see that the blood was flowing more strongly through their veins than on ordinary days.

Agnes did the talking, and said it was a sudden fever, and for a woman as pious as she was, she lied very well; and I stood by Mary’s feet, keeping silent. And one said, Poor Grace, to wake up in the morning and find her cold and stark in the bed beside you, with no warning at all. And another said, It makes your flesh creep to think of it, my own nerves would never stand it.

Then it was as if that had really happened; I could picture it, the waking up with Mary in the bed right beside me, and touching her, and finding she would not speak to me, and the horror and distress I would feel; and at that moment I fell to the floor in a dead faint.

They said I lay like that for ten hours, and no one could wake me, although they tried pinching and slapping, and cold water, and burning feathers under my nose; and that when I did wake up I did not seem to know where I was, or what had happened; and I kept asking where Grace had gone. And when they told me that I myself was Grace, I would not believe them, but cried, and tried to run out of the house, because I said that Grace was lost, and had gone into the lake, and I needed to search for her. They told me later they’d feared for my reason, which must have been unsettled by the shock of it all; and it was no wonder, considering.

Then I fell again into a deep sleep. When I woke, it was a day later, and I knew again that I was Grace, and that Mary was dead. And I remembered the night we’d thrown the apple peelings over our shoulders, and Mary’s had broken three times; and it had all come true, as she had not married anyone at all, and now never would.

But I had no memory of anything I said or did during the time I was awake, between the two long sleeps; and this worried me.

And so the happiest time of my life was over and gone.

Seven - Snake Fence

Chapter 21

Simon takes his hat and stick from the Governor’s wife’s maid, and staggers out into the sunlight. It’s too bright for him, too harsh, as if he’s been closed up in a dark room for a long time, although the sewing room is far from dark. It’s Grace’s story that is dark; he feels as if he’s just come from an abattoir. Why has this account of a death affected him so strongly? Of course he’s known that such things happen; such doctors do exist, and it isn’t as if he’s never seen a dead woman. He’s seen a great many of them; but they have been so thoroughly dead. They have been specimens. He has never caught them, as it were, in the act. This Mary Whitney, not yet — what? Seventeen? A young girl. Deplorable! He would like to wash his hands.

No doubt about it, the turn of events has caught him off guard. He’d been following her story with, he has to admit, a certain personal pleasure — he has his own happier days and the memories of them, and they too contain pictures of clean sheets and joyful holidays, and cheerful young maidservants — and then, at the centre of it, this dire surprise. She’d lost her memory, too; though only for some hours, and during a normal-enough fit of hysterics — but still, it may prove significant. It is the only memory she seems to have forgotten, so far; otherwise, every button and candle-end seems accounted for. But on second thought, he has no way of knowing that; and he has an uneasy sense that the very plenitude of her recollections may be a sort of distraction, a way of drawing the mind away from some hidden but essential fact, like the dainty flowers planted over a grave. Also, he reminds himself, the only witness who could corroborate her testimony — if this were a court of law — would be Mary Whitney herself, and she is not available.

Down the driveway to the left comes Grace herself, walking with her head lowered, flanked by two unsavoury-looking men he supposes to be prison guards. They’re leaning very close to her, as if she’s no murderess, but a precious treasure to be kept safe. He doesn’t like the way they press up against her; but of course their lives would be very difficult if she were to escape. Although he’s always known that she’s taken back every evening and locked into a narrow cell, today it strikes him as incongruous. They’ve been talking together all afternoon as if in a parlour; and now he is free as air and may do whatever he likes, while she must be bolted and barred. Caged in a dreary prison. Deliberately dreary, for if a prison were not dreary, where would be the punishment?

Even the word punishment grates on him today. He can’t get Mary Whitney out of his mind. Lying in her winding sheet of blood.

He has stayed longer than usual this afternoon. In half an hour he is due at the Reverend Verringer’s, for an early supper. He does not feel hungry in the least. He decides to walk along by the lakeshore; the breeze there will do him good, and possibly restore his appetite.

It’s just as well, he reflects, that he didn’t continue as a surgeon. The most fearsome of his instructors at Guy’s Hospital in London, the celebrated Dr. Bransby Cooper, used to say that for a good surgeon, as for a good sculptor, the ability to detach oneself from the business at hand was a prerequisite. A sculptor should not allow himself to be distracted by the transient charms of his model, but should regard her objectively, as merely the base material or clay from which his work of art was to be formed. Similarly, a surgeon was a sculptor of flesh; he should be able to slice into a human body as deliberately and delicately as if carving a cameo. A cold hand and a steady eye were what was required. Those who felt too deeply for the patient’s suffering were the ones in whose fingers the knife slipped. The afflicted did not need your compassion, but your skill.

All very well, thinks Simon; but men and women are not statues, not lifeless like marble, although they often become so in the hospital surgery, after a harrowing period of noisy and leaky distress. He’d quickly discovered at Guy’s that he was not fond of blood.

But he’d learned some worthwhile lessons nonetheless. How easily people die, for one; how frequently, for another. And how cunningly spirit and body are knit together. A slip of the knife and you create an idiot. If this is so, why not the reverse? Could you sew and snip, and patch together a genius? What mysteries remain to be revealed in the nervous system, that web of structures both material and ethereal, that network of threads that runs throughout the body, composed of a thousand Ariadne’s clues, all leading to the brain, that shadowy central den where the human bones lie scattered and the monsters lurk….

The angels also, he reminds himself. Also the angels.

In the distance he sees a woman walking. She’s dressed in black; her skirt is a soft rippling bell, her veil blows out behind her like dark smoke. She turns, looks back briefly: it’s Mrs. Humphrey, his sombre landlady. Fortunately she’s walking away from him; or she may be deliberately avoiding him. Just as well, as he is not in the mood for conversation, and especially not for gratitude. He wonders why she insists on dressing quite so much like a widow. Wishful thinking, perhaps. So far there’s been no news of the Major. Simon paces along the shore, picturing to himself what the Major must be doing — a racecourse, a bawdy-house, a tavern; one of the three.

Then he thinks, inconsequentially, about taking off his shoes and wading into the lake. He has a sudden memory of dabbling in the creek at the back of the property, as a young boy, in the company of his nursemaid — one of the young millhands turned servant, as were most of their maids then — and getting himself dirty, and being scolded by his mother, and the nursemaid too, for allowing it. What was her name? Alice? Or was that later, when he was already at school, and in long trousers, and had gone up to the attic on one of his furtive escapades, and had been caught by the girl in her room?

White-handed, as it were — he’d been fondling one of her shifts. She’d been angry with him, but couldn’t express her anger, of course, as she’d wanted to keep her position; so she’d done the womanly thing, and burst into tears. He’d put his arms around her to console her, and they’d ended by kissing. Her cap had fallen off, and her hair came tumbling down; long dark-blonde hair, voluptuous, none too clean, smelling of curdled milk. Her hands were red, as she’d been hulling strawberries; and her mouth tasted of them.

There were red smears afterwards, on his shirt, from where she’d started to undo his buttons; but it was the first time he’d ever kissed a woman, and he’d been embarrassed, and then alarmed, and hadn’t known what to do next. Probably she’d laughed at him.

What a raw boy he’d been then; what a simpleton. He smiles at the memory. It’s a picture of more innocent days, and by the time the half-hour is up he feels much better. Reverend Verringer’s housekeeper greets him with a disapproving nod. If she were to smile, her face would crack like an eggshell. There must be a school for ugliness, thinks Simon, where such women are sent to be trained. She shows him into the library, where a fire has been lit and two glasses of some unknown cordial set ready. What he would really like is a good stiff whisky, but there’s no hope of that among the teetotalling Methodists.

Reverend Verringer has been standing among his leather bindings, but moves forward to welcome Simon. They sit and sip; the brew in the glass tastes like waterweed, with an undertone of raspberry beetles. “It is purifying to the blood. My housekeeper makes it herself, from an old recipe,” says Reverend Verringer. Very old, thinks Simon; witches come to mind.

“Has there been any progress with — our mutual project?” asks Verringer. Simon has known this question would be asked; nevertheless, he stumbles a little over the answer. “I have been proceeding with the utmost caution,” he says. “Certainly there are several threads that are worth pursuing. I first needed to establish the grounds for trust, which I believe I have done. After that, I have sought to elicit a family history. Our subject appears to remember her life before arriving at Mr. Kinnear’s, with a vividness, and a mass of circumstantial detail, that indicates the problem is not with her memory in general. I have learned about her journey to this country, and also the first year of her domestic service, which was not marked by any untoward episodes, with one exception.”

“Which was?” asks Reverend Verringer, lifting his sparse eyebrows.

“Are you acquainted with a family called Parkinson, in Toronto?”

“I seem to remember them,” says Verringer, “from my youth. He was an Alderman, as I recall. But he died some years ago; and the widow, I believe, returned to her native land. She was an American, like yourself. She found the winters too cold.”

“That is unfortunate,” says Simon. “I had hoped to speak with them, in order to corroborate certain supposed facts. Grace’s first situation was with this family. She had a friend — a fellow-servant there —

called Mary Whitney; which was, you may recall, the false name she herself gave, when escaping to the United States, with her — with James McDermott; if indeed it was an escape, and not a forced emigration of sorts. In any case this young woman died, under what I must term abrupt circumstances; and while sitting in the room with the body, our subject thought she heard her dead friend speak to her. An auditory hallucination, of course.”

“It is not at all uncommon,” says Verringer. “I myself have attended a great many deathbeds, and especially among the sentimental and the superstitious, it is counted a mark of dishonour not to have heard the deceased speak. If an angel choir is also audible, so much the better.” His tone is dry, and possibly even ironic.

Simon is a little surprised: surely it is the duty of the clergy to encourage pious eyewash. “This was followed,” he continues, “by an episode of fainting, and then by hysterics, mixed with what would appear to have been somnambulism; after which there was a deep and prolonged sleep, and subsequent amnesia.”

“Ah,” says Verringer, leaning forward. “So she has a history of such lapses!”

“We must not leap to conclusions,” Simon says judiciously. “She herself is at present my only informant.”

He pauses; he does not wish to appear lacking in tact. “It would be exceedingly useful to me, in the formation of my professional opinion, if I were able to speak with those who knew Grace at the time of the — of the events in question, and who afterwards witnessed her comportment and behaviour in the Penitentiary, during the first years of her incarceration, and also in the Asylum.”

“I myself was not present upon those occasions,” says Reverend Verringer.

“I have read Mrs. Moodie’s account,” says Simon. “She has a great deal to say that interests me. According to her, Kenneth MacKenzie, the lawyer, visited Grace in the Penitentiary some six or seven years after she was imprisoned, and was told by Grace that Nancy Montgomery was haunting her —

that her two bloodshot and blazing eyes were following her around, and appearing in such locations as her lap and her soup plate. Mrs. Moodie herself saw Grace in the Asylum — the violent ward, I believe

— and portrays a gibbering madwoman, shrieking like a phantom and running about like a singed monkey. Of course, her account was written before she could know that in less than a year Grace would be discharged from the Asylum as, if not perfectly sane, then sane enough to be returned to the Penitentiary.”

“One does not have to be entirely sane for that,” says Verringer, with a short laugh like a hinge creaking.

“I have thought of paying a visit to Mrs. Moodie,” says Simon. “But I seek your advice. I am not sure how to question her, without casting aspersions on the veracity of what she has set down.”

“Veracity?” says Verringer blandly. He doesn’t sound surprised.

“There are discrepancies that are beyond dispute,” says Simon. “For instance, Mrs. Moodie is unclear about the location of Richmond Hill, she is inaccurate on the subject of names and dates, she calls several of the actors in this tragedy by names that are not their own, and she has conferred a military rank on Mr. Kinnear that he appears not to have merited.”

“A post-mortem medal, perhaps,” Verringer murmurs.

Simon smiles. “Also, she has the culprits cutting Nancy Montgomery’s body up into quarters before hiding it under the washtub, which surely was not done. The newspapers would hardly have failed to mention a detail so sensational. I am afraid the good woman did not realize how difficult it is to cut up a body, never having done so herself. It makes one wonder, in short, about other things. The motive for the murders, for example — she puts it down to wild jealousy on the part of Grace, who envied Nancy her possession of Mr. Kinnear, and lechery on the part of McDermott, who was promised a quid pro quo for his services as butcher, in the form of Grace’s favours.”

“That was the popular view at the time.”

“No doubt,” says Simon. “The public will always prefer a salacious melodrama to a bald tale of mere thievery. But you can see that one might have one’s reservations also about the bloodshot eyes.”

“Mrs. Moodie,” says Reverend Verringer, “has stated publicly that she is very fond of Charles Dickens, and in especial of Oliver Twist. I seem to recall a similar pair of eyes in that work, also belonging to a dead female called Nancy. How shall I put it? Mrs. Moodie is subject to influences. You might like to read Mrs. Moodie’s poem ”The Maniac,“ if you are an aficionado of Sir Walter Scott. Her poem contains all the requirements — a cliff, a moon, a raging sea, a betrayed maiden chanting a wild melody and clad in unhealthily damp garments, with — as I recall — her streaming hair festooned with botanical specimens. I believe she ends by leaping off the picturesque cliff so thoughtfully provided for her. Let me see —” And closing his eyes, and beating time with his right hand, he recites:

“”The wind wav’d her garments, and April’s rash showers

Hung like gems in her dark locks, enwreath’d with wild flowers;

Her bosom was bared to the cold midnight storm,

That unsparingly beat on her thin fragile form;

Her black eyes flash’d sternly whence reason had fled,

And she glanc’d on my sight like some ghost of the dead,

As she sang a loud strain to the hoarse dashing surge,

That rang on my ears like the plaint of a dirge.

“And he who had left her to madness and shame,

Who had robb’d her of honour, and blasted her fame —

Did he think in that hour of the heart he had riven,

The vows he had broken, the anguish he’d given?

And where was the infant whose birth gave the blow

To the peace of his mother, and madden’d her woe?…‘”

He opens his eyes again. “Where indeed?” he says.

“You astonish me,” says Simon. “You must have an extraordinary memory.”

“For verse of a certain type, unfortunately yes; it comes from too much hymn-singing,” says Reverend Verringer. “Though God himself chose to write a good deal of the Bible in poetry, which demonstrates his approval of the form as such, however indifferently it may be practised. Nevertheless, one cannot quibble with Mrs. Moodie’s morals. But I am sure you take my meaning. Mrs. Moodie is a literary lady, and like all such, and indeed like the sex in general, she is inclined to —”

“Embroider,” says Simon.

“Precisely,” says Reverend Verringer. “Everything I say here is strictly confidential, of course. Although Tories at the time of the Rebellion, the Moodies have since seen the error of their ways, and are now staunchly Reform; for which they have been made to suffer, by certain malicious persons who are in a position to torment them with lawsuits and the like. I would not say a word against the lady. But I would also not advise a visit. I understand, by the by, that the Spiritualists have got hold of her.”

“Indeed?” says Simon.

“So I hear. She was for a long time a sceptic, and her husband was the first convert of the two. No doubt she became tired of spending the evenings alone, while he was off listening to phantom trumpets, and conversing with the spirits of Goethe and Shakespeare.”

“I take it you do not approve.”

“Ministers of my denomination have been expelled from the Church for dabbling in these, to my mind, unholy proceedings,” says Reverend Verringer. “It is true that some members of our Committee have partaken; are devotees, in fact; but I must bear with them, until this madness has run its course and they have come to their senses. As Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne has said, the thing is a humbug, and if it is not, so much the worse for us; for the spirits who present themselves at table-turnings and the like, must be those who have failed to get into the eternal world, and are still cluttering up ours, like a kind of spiritual dust. It is unlikely that they wish us well, and the less we have to say to them the better.”

“Hawthorne?” says Simon. He is surprised to find a clergyman reading Hawthorne: the man has been accused of sensualism, and — especially after The Scarlet Letter — of a laxity in morals.

“One must keep up with one’s flock. But as to Grace Marks and her earlier behaviour, you would be better to consult Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie, who acted for her at the trial, and who, I understand, has a sound head on his shoulders. He is currently a partner in a Toronto law firm, having made a rapid professional rise. I shall address a letter of introduction to him; I am sure he will accommodate you.”

“Thank you,” says Simon.

“I am pleased to have had this chance to talk with you in private, before the advent of the ladies. But I hear them arriving now.”

“The ladies?” says Simon.

“The Governor’s wife and her daughters are favouring us with their company this evening,” says Verringer. “The Governor himself is unfortunately away on business. Did I not inform you?” Two spots of colour appear, one on each of his pale cheeks. “Let us go to welcome them, shall we?”

Only one daughter is present. Marianne, says her mother, has been kept to her bed with a cold. Simon is alerted: he is familiar with such ruses, he knows the cabals of mothers. The Governor’s wife has decided to give Lydia an unimpeded shot at him, without any distraction from Marianne. Perhaps he should reveal the smallness of his income immediately, so as to forestall her. But Lydia is a confection, and he doesn’t wish to deprive himself of such an aesthetic pleasure too soon. As long as no declarations are made, no harm will be done; and he enjoys being gazed at by eyes as luminous as hers. The season has now officially changed: Lydia has burst into spring bloom. Layers of pale floral ruffling have sprouted all over her, and wave from her shoulders like diaphanous wings. Simon eats his fish —

overdone, but no one on this continent can poach a fish properly — and admires the smooth white contours of her throat, and what can be seen of her bosom. It’s as if she is sculpted of whipped cream. She should be on the platter, instead of the fish. He’s heard stories of a famous Parisian courtesan who had herself presented at a banquet in this way; naked, of course. He occupies himself with undressing and then garnishing Lydia: she should be garlanded with flowers — ivory-coloured, shell pink — and with perhaps a border of hothouse grapes and peaches.

Her pop-eyed mother is as finely strung as ever; she fingers the jet beads at her throat, and digs almost at once into the serious business of the evening. The Tuesday circle fervently longs to have Dr. Jordan address it. Nothing too formal — an earnest discussion among friends — friends of his too, she hopes she may assume — who are interested in the same important causes. Perhaps he could say a few words on the Abolition question? It is of such concern to them all.

Simon says he’s not an expert on it — indeed, he isn’t well informed at all, having been in Europe for the past few years. In that case, suggests Reverend Verringer, perhaps Dr. Jordan would be so kind as to share with them the latest theories concerning nervous illnesses and insanity? That too would be most welcome, as one of their long-standing projects, as a group, is the reform of public asylums.

“Dr. DuPont says he would be especially interested,” says the Governor’s wife. “Dr. Jerome DuPont, whose acquaintance you have already made. He has such breadth of, he has such a wide range of…of things that interest him.”

“Oh, I would find that fascinating,” says Lydia, looking at Simon from under her long dark lashes. “I hope you will!” She hasn’t said much this evening; but then, she hasn’t had much chance, except to refuse the offers of more fish that have been pressed upon her by Reverend Verringer. “I have always wondered what it would be like, to go mad. Grace won’t tell me.”

Simon has a picture of himself in a shadowy corner with Lydia. Behind a drapery; a heavy mauve brocade. If he were to encircle her waist with his arm — gently, so as not to alarm her — would she sigh? Would she yield, or push him away? Or both.

Back in his lodgings, he pours himself a large glass of sherry, from the bottle he keeps in the armoire. He hasn’t had a drink all evening — the beverage at Verringer’s supper party was water — but somehow he’s as fuzzy-headed as if he had. Why did he agree to address the devilish Tuesday circle? What are they to him, or he to them? What can he say to them that would make any sense to them at all, considering their lack of expertise? It was Lydia, her admiration, her appeal. He feels as if he’s been ambushed by a flowering shrub.

He’s too exhausted to stay up late, and read and work as usual. He goes to bed, and sleeps at once. Then he’s dreaming; an uneasy dream. He’s in a fenced yard where laundry flaps on a line. No one else is there, which gives him a sensation of clandestine pleasure. The sheets and linens move in the wind, as if worn by invisible swelling hips; as if alive. As he watches — he must be a boy, he’s short enough to be looking upwards — a scarf or veil of white muslin is blown from the line and undulates gracefully through the air like a long bandage unrolling, or like paint in water. He runs to catch it, out of the yard, down the road — he’s in the country, then — and into a field. An orchard. The cloth has tangled in the branches of a small tree covered with green apples. He tugs it down and it falls across his face; and then he understands that it isn’t cloth at all but hair, the long fragrant hair of an unseen woman, which is twining around his neck. He struggles; he is being closely embraced; he can scarcely breathe. The sensation is painful and almost unbearably erotic, and he wakes with a jolt.

Chapter 22

Today I am in the sewing room before Dr. Jordan. There’s no sense in wondering what has delayed him, as gentlemen keep their own hours; so I continue to sew, while singing a little to myself. Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

I like this song, as it makes me think of rocks, and water, and the seashore, which are outside; and thinking of a thing is next best to being there.

I did not know you could sing so well, Grace, says Dr. Jordan, coming into the room. You have a beautiful voice. He has dark circles under his eyes, and looks as if he hasn’t slept a wink. Thank you, Sir, I say. I used to have more occasion for it than I do now. He sits down, and takes out his notebook and pencil, and also a parsnip, which he places on the table. It is not one I would have selected, having an orange tint, which means they are old. Oh, a parsnip, I say.

Does it bring anything to mind? he asks.

Well, there is Fine words butter no parsnips, I say. Also they are very hard to peel. They are kept in cellars, I believe, he says.

Oh no, Sir, I reply. Outside, in a hole in the ground with straw, as they are much improved by being frozen.

He looks at me in a tired fashion, and I wonder what has been causing his loss of sleep. Perhaps it is some young lady which is on his mind, and not returning his affection; or else he has not been eating regular meals.

Shall we continue with your story where we left off? he says.

I’ve forgotten just where that was, I say. This is not quite true, but I wish to see if he has really been listening to me, or just pretending to.

With Mary’s death, he says. Your poor friend Mary Whitney.

Ah yes, I say. With Mary.

Well, Sir, the way in which Mary died was hushed up as much as possible. That she had died of a fever may or may not have been believed, but nobody said no to it out loud. Nor did anyone deny that she’d left her things to me, in view of what she had written down; though there were some raised eyebrows at her writing it, as if she’d known ahead of time that she was going to die. But I said rich people made their wills beforehand, so why not Mary; and then they said no more. Nor was anything said about the writing paper, and how she had got hold of it.

I sold her box, which was good quality, and also her best dress, to Jeremiah the peddler, who came around again just after her death; and I also sold him the gold ring which she kept hidden under the floor. I told him it was to pay for a decent burial, and he gave me a fair price and more. He said he’d seen death in Mary’s face, but then, hindsight is always accurate. He also said he was sorry for her death, and would say a prayer for her, although what sort of a prayer I could not imagine, as he was a heathenish sort of man, with all his tricks and fortune-telling. But surely the form of a prayer does not matter, and the only distinction God makes is between good will and ill; or so I have come to believe. It was Agnes who helped me with the burial. We put flowers from Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s garden into the coffin, having asked permission; and it being June, there were long-stemmed roses and peonies; and we chose only the white ones. I scattered the petals of them over her as well, and I slipped in the needle-case I’d made for her, but out of sight, as it might look wrong otherwise, being red; and I cut a piece off the back of her hair to remember her by, and tied it together with a thread. She was buried in her best nightdress, and she didn’t look dead in the least, but only asleep and very pale; and laid out all in white like that, she was just like a bride. The coffin was pine boards and very plain, as I wanted a stone grave marker too for the money; but I had only enough for her name. I would have liked a poem, such as From Earth’s dark shadows though you flee, When in Heaven, remember me, but it was greatly beyond my means. She was put with the Methodists on Adelaide Street, off in a corner right next to the paupers, but still within the churchyard, so I felt I had done all for her that I could. Agnes and two of the other servants were the only ones present, as a suspicion must have gone around that Mary had died under a shadow; and when they shovelled the dirt in on top of the coffin and the young minister said Dust to dust, I cried as if my heart would break. I was thinking of my poor mother as well, who’d had no proper burial with dirt on top the way it should be, but was just tossed into the sea.

It was very hard for me to believe that Mary was truly dead. I kept expecting her to come into the room, and when I lay in bed at night I sometimes thought I could hear her breathing; or she would be laughing just outside the door. Every Sunday I would lay flowers on her grave, not from Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s garden, as that was just the one special occasion, but wildflowers that I would pick in waste lots or beside the lakeshore or wherever I could find them growing.

Soon after Mary’s death I left Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s. I didn’t like to stay, as ever since Mary had died, Mrs. Alderman Parkinson and Mrs. Honey were not friendly towards me. They must have thought I’d helped Mary in her relations with the gentleman, whose name they believed I knew; and although I had not, it is hard to put an end to suspicion once it has begun. When I said I wished to leave my situation, Mrs. Alderman Parkinson did not protest, but instead had me into the library and asked very earnestly once more if I knew the man; and when I said I did not, she asked me to swear on the Bible that even if I did, I would never divulge it, and she would write me a good reference. I did not like being mistrusted in this manner, but I did as required, and Mrs. Alderman Parkinson wrote the reference, and said kindly that she never had any fault to find with my work, and gave me a present of two dollars upon leaving, which was generous, and found me another situation, with Mr. Dixon, who was also an Alderman.

At Dixon‘s I was paid more, as I was now trained and with a reference. Dependable servants were scarce, as many had left for the States after the Rebellion, and although there were new immigrants arriving all the time, the deficiency was not yet made up, and help was much in demand; and because of this, I knew that I did not have to stay in any place if I did not like it. I found I did not like it at Mr. Dixon’s, as I felt they knew too much of the story, and treated me strangely; so after half a year I gave notice, and went to Mr. McManus’s; but I was not well suited there, as I was only one of two servants, the other being a hired man who talked a great deal about the end of the world, and the tribulation and the gnashing of teeth, and was not much company at meals. I stayed only three months, and was hired away by Mr. Coates, and stayed until some months after my fifteenth birthday; but there was another servant who was jealous of me, as I was more careful in my work than she was; so when I heard of the opportunity I went to Mr. Haraghy, at the same wages as at Coates’s. That went on well enough for a time, but I began to be uneasy, as Mr. Haraghy attempted liberties in the back passage while I was carrying out the dishes from the dining room; and although I remembered Mary’s advice about kicking between the legs, I thought it would not be right to kick my employer, and might also lead to dismissal without a reference. But then one night I heard him outside the door of my attic chamber; I recognized his wheezy cough. He was fumbling with the latch of the door. I always locked myself in at night, but I knew that lock or no lock, sooner or later he would find a way of getting in, with a ladder if nothing else, and I couldn’t sleep easy for thinking of it; and I needed my sleep, as I was very tired from the day’s work; and once you are found with a man in your room you are the guilty one, no matter how they get in. As Mary used to say, there are some of the masters who think you owe them service twenty-four hours a day, and should do the main work flat on your back. I believe Mrs. Haraghy suspected something of the sort. She was from a good family fallen upon hard times, and she’d had to take pot luck in the way of a husband; and Mr. Haraghy had made his fortune in hog butchering. I doubt it was the first time Mr. Haraghy had behaved in this way, because when I gave notice, Mrs. Haraghy did not even ask me why, but sighed, and said I was a good girl, and wrote me a reference right away on her best writing paper.

I went to Mr. Watson’s. I could have done better if I’d had the time to look about me, but I’d felt speed was necessary, as Mr. Haraghy had come wheezing and panting into the scullery while I was scouring the pots, with my hands all covered with grease and smuts, and had attempted to seize hold of me despite it, and that was the sign of a desperate man. Mr. Watson was a shoemaker and in great need of help, with a wife and three children and a fourth on the way, and he had only one servant who was not up to all the washing, although a good plain cook; and so he was willing to pay me two dollars and fifty cents a month and a pair of shoes into the bargain. I needed shoes, as the ones I had from Mary’s things did not fit properly and my own were almost worn through, and new shoes were very expensive. I was there only a short time before I made the acquaintance of Nancy Montgomery, who came to visit, having grown up in the country with Mrs. Watson’s cook Sally. Nancy was in Toronto to make some purchases at a dry-goods auction down at Clarkson’s stores; she showed us some very pretty crimson silk which she’d bought for a winter dress, and I wondered what a housekeeper would be wanting with a dress like that; and some fine gloves, and an Irish linen tablecloth on behalf of her employer. She said it was better to buy at auction than from a store, as the prices were cheaper, and her master liked to stretch a penny. She had not taken the coach into town, but had been driven in by her master, which she said was much more comfortable, as you did not have to be jostled by strangers. Nancy Montgomery was very handsome, dark-haired, and of about twenty-four years of age; she had beautiful brown eyes, and she laughed and joked much as Mary Whitney had done, and seemed very good-natured. She sat in the kitchen and took a cup of tea, and she and Sally talked over old times. They’d gone to school together north of the city, it being the first school in the district and conducted by the local minister on Saturday mornings, when the children could be spared from their work. It was held in a log house, more like a stable, said Nancy; and they had to walk to it through the forest, and were always afraid of bears, which were more numerous then; and one day they did see a bear, and Nancy ran away screaming, and climbed a tree. Sally said the bear was more frightened than Nancy was, and Nancy said it was probably a gentleman bear and it was running away from something dangerous that it had never seen before, but might have caught a glimpse of as she climbed the tree; and they laughed very much. They told about how the boys pushed over the privy at the back of the school while one of the girls was in it, and they hadn’t warned the girl, but watched along with all of the others, and then they felt wrong about it afterwards. Sally said it was always the shy ones like that who got picked on, and Nancy said yes but you had to learn to stand up for yourself in this life; and I thought that was true. While gathering her shawl and things together — she had a lovely parasol, pink in colour, although in need of cleaning — Nancy told me she was housekeeper to Mr. Thomas Kinnear, Esq., who lived in Richmond Hill, up Yonge Street past Gallow’s Hill and Hogg’s Hollow. She said she was in want of another servant to help her with the work, the house being large and the girl who was there before having left to get married. Mr. Kinnear was a gentleman of a fine Scottish family, and easygoing in his habits, and was not married; so there was less work, and no mistress of the household to carp and criticize, and would I be interested in the position?

She claimed to be lonely for some female company, as Mr. Kinnear’s farm was a distance from the town; also she didn’t like being there all by herself, a single woman alone with a gentlemen, as people would talk; and I thought this showed a right feeling. She said that Mr. Kinnear was a liberal master, and showed it when he was pleased; and that if I accepted, I’d be making a good bargain and taking a step up in the world. Then she asked what my wages were at present, and said she would pay three dollars a month; and I found this more than fair.

Nancy said she had business in the city in a week’s time, and could wait until then to hear my decision; and I spent the week turning the matter over in my mind, I did worry about being out in the country, rather than in town, as I was now used to Toronto life — there was so much to see while walking out on errands, and sometimes there were shows and fairs, although you had to watch for thieves there; and outdoor preachers, and always a boy or a woman singing on the street for pennies. I’d seen a man eat fire, and another that could throw his voice, and a pig that could count, and a dancing bear with a muzzle on, only it was more like lurching, and the ragamuffins poked it with sticks. Also it would be muddier in the country, without the fine raised sidewalks; and no gas lighting at night, nor grand shops, and so many church spires, and smart carriages, and new brick banks, with pillars. But I reflected that if I did not like it in the country I could always come back.

When I asked Sally’s opinion, she said she didn’t know if it was a suitable position for a young girl like me; and when I asked her why not, she said Nancy had always been kind to her, and she didn’t like to talk, and a person had to take her own chances, and least said soonest mended, and as she did not know anything for certain it would not be right for her to say any more; but she felt she’d done her duty by me in saying as much as she had, because I had no mother to advise me. And I didn’t have the least idea of what she was talking about.

I asked her if she’d heard any harm spoken of Mr. Kinnear, and she said, Nothing that the world at large would call harm.

It was like a puzzle I could not guess; and it would have been better for all if she had spoken out more plainly. But the pay was higher than what I ever had before, which weighed heavily with me; and what weighed even more heavily was Nancy Montgomery herself. She resembled Mary Whitney, or so I then thought; and I’d been depressed in spirits ever since Mary’s death. And so I decided to go.

Chapter 23

Nancy had given me the fare, and so on the day agreed I took the early coach. It was a long journey, as Richmond Hill was sixteen miles up Yonge Street. Directly north of the city the road was not too bad, although there was more than one steep hill where we had to get out and walk, otherwise the horses could not pull us up. Beside the ditches there were many flowers growing, daisies and such, with butterflies flying about, and these parts of the road were very pretty. I thought of picking a bouquet, but then, it would be sure to wilt along the way.

After a time the road was worse, with deep ruts and stones, and jolting and bumping enough to unhinge your bones, and dust fit to choke you on the tops of the hills, and mud in the low places, and logs laid crossways over the bogs. They said that when it rained the road was no better than a swamp, and in March, during the spring runoff, you could barely travel at all. The best time was the winter, when all was frozen hard and a sleigh could make good headway; but then there was the risk of blizzards, and of freezing to death if the sleigh overturned, and sometimes there were snowdrifts as high as a house, and your only chance was a little prayer and a great deal of whisky. All of this and more was told me by the man who sat squeezed beside me, who said he was a dealer in farm implements and seed grains, and claimed to know the road well.

Some of the houses we passed along the way were large and fine, but others were just log houses, low and poor-looking. The fences around the fields were of different kinds, snake fences of split rails, and others made of the tree roots pulled out of the ground, which looked like giant hanks of wooden hair. Every now and then there was a crossroads with a few houses close together and an inn, where the horses could be rested or changed and a glass of whisky taken. Some of the men hanging about had taken a good many more than one glass, and were shabbily dressed and impertinent, and came up to the coach where I sat, and tried to look under the rim of my bonnet. When we stopped at midday, the dealer in farm implements said would I care to go inside and take a glass with him and some refreshments, but I said no, as a respectable woman should not go into such places with a stranger. I had bread and cheese with me and could get a drink of water from the well in the courtyard, and that was enough for me. For the journey I had put on my good summer things. I had a straw bonnet, trimmed with a blue ribbon bow from Mary’s box, and my cap under it; and a cotton print dress with the drop-shouldered sleeves which were going out of style then, but I’d had no time to make it over; it was once red dots, but had washed to pink, and I had it as part wages from Coates’s. Two petticoats, one torn but neatly mended, the other now too short, but who was there to see it? A cotton chemise and a pair of stays, used, from Jeremiah the peddler, and white cotton stockings, mended but still with good wear in them. The pair of shoes from Mr. Watson the shoemaker, which were not the best quality and did not fit, as the best shoes came from England. A summer shawl of green muslin, and a kerchief left to me by Mary, which had been her mother’s — a white ground printed with small blue flowers, love-in-a-mist, folded into a triangle and worn around the neck to keep the sun off and prevent freckles. It was comforting to have such a remembrance of her. But I had no gloves. No one had ever given me any, and they were too dear for me to buy.

My winter things, my red flannel petticoat and my heavy dress, my wool stockings and my flannel nightdress, as well as two cotton for summer, and my summer working dress and clogs and two caps and an apron, and my other shift, were tied in a bundle with my mother’s shawl and carried on top of the coach. It was well strapped down but I was anxious about it the entire journey, as I was worried that it would fall off and be lost in the road, and I kept looking behind.

Never look behind you, said the dealer in farm implements. Why not, said I. I knew you were not supposed to talk with strange men, but it was hard to avoid as we were crammed in so close together. Because the past is the past, he said, and regret is vain, let bygones be bygones. You know what became of Lot‘s wife, he went on. Turned to a pillar of salt she was, a waste of a good woman, not that they aren’t all the better for a touch of salt, and he laughed. I was not sure what he meant but suspected it was nothing good, and thought I would not talk with him any further.

The mosquitoes were very bad, especially in the marshy places and at the edges of the forests, because although some of the land next the road had been cleared, there were still big stands of trees, and very tall and dark. The air in the forest had a different smell to it; it was cool and damp, and smelled of moss and of earth and old leaves. I did not trust the forest, as it was full of wild animals such as bears and wolves; and I remembered Nancy‘s story about the bear.

The dealer in farm implements said, Would you be afraid to go into the forest, Miss, and I said No I would not be afraid, but I would not go in there unless I had to. And he said Just as well, young women should not go into the forest by themselves, you never know what may happen to them; there was one found recently with her clothes torn off and her head at some distance from her body, and I said, Oh, was it the bears, and he said, The bears or the Red Indians, you know these woods are full of them, they could swoop out at any minute and have your bonnet off you in a trice and then your scalp, you know they like to cut off ladies’ hair, they can sell it for a good price in the States. And then he said, I expect you have a good head of hair on you, underneath your cap; and all this time he was pressing up against me in a way I was finding offensive.

I knew he was lying, if not about the bears, then surely about the Indians, and he was only trying to horrify me. So I said, quite pert, I’d trust my head to the Red Indians sooner than I’d trust it to you, and he laughed; but I was in earnest. I’d seen Red Indians in Toronto, as they would sometimes go there to collect their treaty money; and others would come to the back door at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s with baskets to sell, and fish. They kept their faces still and you could not tell what they were thinking, but they went away when told to. Still I was glad when we would come out of the forest again, and see the fences and houses and the washing hanging out, and smell the smoke from the cooking fires, and the trees being burnt for their ashes.

After a time we passed the remains of a building, just the foundations all blackened, and the dealer pointed it out, and told me it was the celebrated Montgomery‘s Tavern, which was where Mackenzie and his band of ragtags held their seditious meetings, and set out to march down Yonge Street, during the Rebellion. A man was shot in front of it, going to warn the Government troops, and it was burnt down afterwards. They hanged some of those traitors but not enough, said the dealer, and that cowardly rascal Mackenzie should be dragged back from the States, which was where he ran off to, leaving his friends to swing at the rope’s end for him. The dealer had a flask in his pocket and by this time a strong dose of bottle courage, as I could tell by the smell of his breath, and when they are in that state it is just as well not to provoke them; and so I said nothing.

We reached Richmond Hill in the late afternoon. It did not look like much of a town; it was more like a village, with the houses strung out in a line along Yonge Street. I descended at the coaching inn there, which was the place agreed on with Nancy, and the coachman lifted my bundle down for me. The dealer in farm implements got down too, and asked where I was staying, and I said what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. At that he took hold of my arm, and said I must come into the inn with him, and have a drink or two of whisky for old times’ sake, as we had become so well acquainted in the coach; and I tried to pull my arm away, but he would not let go, and was becoming familiar, and was trying to encircle my waist; and several idle men were cheering him on. I looked around for Nancy, but she was nowhere to be seen. What a bad impression it would make, I thought, to be found struggling with a drunken man at an inn.

The door to the inn was standing open, and out of it at that moment came Jeremiah the peddler, with his pack on his back and his long walking-stick in his hand. I was very glad to see him, and called out his name; and he looked over in a puzzled way, and then hurried over.

Why, it is Grace Marks, he said. I did not expect to see you here.

Nor I you, I said, and I smiled; but was somewhat flustered because of the dealer in farm implements, who was still hanging onto my arm.

Is this man a friend of yours? said Jeremiah.

No he is not, I said.

The lady does not desire your company, said Jeremiah, in his pretend voice of an elegant gentleman; and the dealer in farm implements said I was no lady, and added some things which were not compliments, and also some hard words about Jeremiah’s mother.

Jeremiah took his stick, and brought it down on the man’s arm, and he let go of me; and then Jeremiah pushed him, and he staggered backwards against the wall of the inn, and sat down in a pat of horse dung; at which the others now jeered at him, as that sort will always jeer at those who are getting the worst of it.

Do you have a situation in the neighbourhood? asked Jeremiah, when I’d thanked him. I said I did, and he said he would come round and see what he could sell me; and just then a third man came up. Would your name be Grace Marks? he said, or something of the sort; I cannot remember his exact words. I said it was, and he said he was Mr. Thomas Kinnear, my new employer, and he’d come to fetch me. He had a light wagon with one horse — I found out later that his name was Charley, for Charley Horse; he was a bay gelding and very handsome, with such a beautiful mane and tail and large brown eyes, and I loved him dearly at first sight.

Mr. Kinnear had the ostler put my bundle in the back of the wagon — there were some packages in it already — and he said, Well you have not been in town five minutes and you have managed to attract two gentleman admirers; and I said they were not, and he said, Not gentlemen, or not admirers? And I was confused, and did not know what he wanted me to say.

Then he said, Up you go, Grace, and I said, Oh do you mean me to sit at the front, and he said, Well we can hardly have you in the back like a piece of luggage, and he handed me up to sit beside him. I was quite embarrassed, as I was not used to sitting beside a gentleman like him, and especially one who was my employer, but he didn’t seem to give it a second thought, and got up on the other side and clicked to the horse, and there we were, driving up Yonge Street just as if I was a fine lady, and I thought that any of those looking out of their windows at us would have had something to gossip about. But as I later found, Mr. Kinnear was never a man to pay any attention to gossip, as he didn’t care a pin what other people said about him. He had his own money and was not running for political office, and could afford to ignore such things.

What did Mr. Kinnear look like? asks Dr. Jordan.

He had a gentlemanly bearing, Sir, I say, and a moustache.

Is that all? says Dr. Jordan. You did not observe him very particularly!

I did not wish to gape at him, I say, and once in the wagon of course I did not look at him. I would have needed to turn my whole head, because of my bonnet. I suppose you have never worn a bonnet, have you Sir?

No I have not, says Dr. Jordan. He is smiling with his lopsided smile. I expect it is confining, he says. It is that, Sir, I say. I did see his gloves though, on his hands holding the reins, pale-yellow gloves they were, soft leather and so well made they fit with scarcely a wrinkle, you’d think they were his own skin. I was all the more sorry that I did not have any gloves myself, and kept my hands tucked well in under the folds of my shawl.

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?

I look at him. He is wearing a yellow cravat with small white squares. He is not making a joke. He really does not know. Men such as him do not have to clean up the messes they make, but we have to clean up our own messes, and theirs into the bargain. In that way they are like children, they do not have to think ahead, or worry about the consequences of what they do. But it is not their fault, it is only how they are brought up.

Chapter 25

The next morning I woke at dawn. My little bedchamber was close and hot, as the summer weather had begun; and it was dim also, as the shutters were kept closed at night in case of intruders. The windows were closed too, because of the mosquitoes and flies; and I thought that I must get a piece of muslin to put over the window, or else over my bed, and would speak to Nancy about it. I slept only in my shift, because of the heat.

I got out of bed and opened the window and the shutters to get some light, and turned back the bedclothes to air them, and then I put on my work dress and apron, and pinned up my hair, and set my cap in place. I intended to do a better job with my hair later, when I could use the mirror over the kitchen sink, there being no mirror in my room. I turned up my sleeves, slipped on my clogs, and unlatched the bedroom door. I always kept it locked, for if anyone was to break into the house, my bedchamber would be the first they would arrive at.

I liked being early to rise; that way I could pretend for a little while that the house was my own. The first thing I did was, I emptied my chamber pot into the slop pail; and then with the pail I went out by the door of the winter kitchen, noting in my mind that the floor was in need of a good scrubbing, as Nancy had let things get behind and there was considerable mud that had been tracked in and not dealt with. The air outside in the courtyard was fresh; there was a pink glow in the east, and a pearly grey mist rising from the fields. Somewhere nearby a bird was singing — I thought it was a wren — and farther off there were crows calling. In the early dawn, it is as if everything is beginning anew. The horses must have heard the kitchen door open, because they whinnied; but it was not my duty to feed them or let them out to pasture, although I would have been glad to do it. The cow mooed as well, as her udder was no doubt full, but she would have to wait because I could not do everything at once. I went along the path, past the henyard and the kitchen garden and back through the dew-sprinkled weeds, pushing aside the gauzy spiderwebs that were woven in the night. I would never kill a spider. Mary Whitney said it would bring bad luck, and she was not the only one to say so. When I found one inside the house I would pick it up on the end of the broom and shake it off outside, but I must have killed some of them by accident, because I got the bad luck anyway.

I reached the privy and emptied the slop pail, and so forth.

And so forth, Grace? asks Dr. Jordan.

I look at him. Really if he does not know what you do in a privy there is no hope for him. What I did was, I hoisted my skirts and sat down above the buzzing flies, on the same seat everyone in the house sat on, lady or lady’s maid, they both piss and it smells the same, and not like lilacs neither, as Mary Whitney used to say. What was in there for wiping was an old copy of the Godey’s Ladies’ Book; I always looked at the pictures before using them. Most were of the latest fashions, but some were of duchesses from England and high-society ladies in New York and the like. You should never let your picture be in a magazine or newspaper if you can help it, as you never know what ends your face may be made to serve, by others, once it has got out of your control.

But I do not say any of this to Dr. Jordan. And so forth, I say firmly, because And so forth is all he is entitled to. Just because he pesters me to know everything is no reason for me to tell him. Then I carried the slop bucket to the pump in the courtyard, I say, and I primed the pump with water from the bucket that was kept there for the purpose, as with a pump you have to pour some in before you can get any out, and Mary Whitney used to say that was exactly how men viewed the flattering of a woman, when they had low ends in view. Once I had the pump going I rinsed out the slop pail, and washed my face, then cupped my hands to drink. The water from Mr. Kinnear’s well was good, with no taste of iron or sulphur. By this time the sun was coming up, and burning off the mist, and I could tell it was going to be a fair morning.

Next I went into the summer kitchen and started the fire in the stove. I cleaned out the ashes from the day before and saved them for sprinkling into the privy, or else for the kitchen garden, where they help to keep off the snails and slugs. The stove was a new one but it had its own opinions, and when first lit, it threw black smoke out at me like a witch on fire. I had to coax it, I fed it bits of old newspapers — Mr. Kinnear liked his papers, and took several — and also slivers of kindling; and it coughed, and I blew in through the grate, and finally the fire caught and began blazing away. The firewood was split in pieces too big for the stove and I had to cram them in with the poker. I would have to speak to Nancy about it later, and she would speak to McDermott, who was the one responsible.

Then I went out into the yard and pumped a bucketful of water and lugged it back to the kitchen and filled the kettle from it with the dipper, and set it on the stove to boil. Then I got two carrots from the bin in the harness room off the winter kitchen, old carrots they were, and put them in my pocket and headed out to the barn with the milking pail. The carrots were for the horses, and I gave them furtively; they were only horse carrots but I hadn’t asked permission about them. I kept an ear out for sounds of McDermott stirring his bones up above in the loft, but there wasn’t a rustle out of him, he was dead to the world or acting it.

Then I milked the cow. She was a good cow, and took to me right away. There are some cows very bad-tempered that will hook you with a horn or give you a good kick, but this was not one of them, and once I had my forehead into her flank she settled right down to the business. The barn cats came mewing around for milk, and I gave them some. Then I said goodbye to the horses, and Charley put his head down towards my apron pocket. He knew where the carrots were kept, all right. On the way out I heard a strange noise coming from up above. It was as if someone was hammering furiously with two hammers, or beating on a wooden drum. At first I could not make it out at all; but as I listened, I realized it must be McDermott, step-dancing on the bare boards of the loft. He sounded skilful enough; but why was he dancing all by himself up there, and so early in the morning? Perhaps it was from sheer joy, and the overflow of animal spirits; but somehow I did not think so. I carried the milk back to the summer kitchen and took off some fresh milk for the tea; then I covered the milk pail with a cloth because of the flies, and let it stand so the cream would rise. I wished to make butter from it later in the day if there were no thunderstorms about, as butter will not come when there’s thunder. Then I took a moment to tidy my own room.

It was not much of a room to speak of, not papered and no pictures in it nor even any curtains. I gave it a quick sweep with the broom, and rinsed out the chamber pot and slid it under the bed. There were rolls of slut’s wool under there, enough for a whole sheep, and you could see it hadn’t been swept out for a long time. I shook up the mattress and straightened the sheets and plumped the pillow, and pulled the quilt up over. It was an old threadbare quilt, though a fine one when first made, a Wild Goose Chase it was; and I thought of the quilts I would make for myself, after I’d saved up enough wages and was married, and with a house of my own.

It gave me satisfaction to have a tidied room. When I came into it later, at the end of the day, it would be neat and trim, just as if a servant had made it up for me.

Then I took the egg basket and half a pail of water and went out to the henhouse. James McDermott was in the yard, sousing his dark head under the pump, but he must have heard me behind him; and as his face came up out of the water, for a moment he had a lost look to him, wild and frantic, like a half-drowned child, and I wondered who he thought was in pursuit of him. But then he saw who it was, and gave a jaunty wave, which was at least a friendly sign and the first one he’d given me. I had both hands full, so merely nodded.

I poured out the water for the hens, into their trough, and let them out of the henhouse, and while they were drinking and fighting over who was to go first, I went in and gathered their eggs — big eggs they were, it being the time of year for it. Then I scattered grain for them and the kitchen waste from the day before. I was not that fond of hens, as I have always preferred an animal with fur to a gaggle of frowsy, cackling birds scratching in the dirt; but if you want their eggs you have to put up with their unruly ways. The rooster hacked at my ankles with his spurs, to chase me away from his wives, but I gave him a kick and almost lost the clog off my foot while doing it. One rooster a flock keeps the hens happy, they say, but one was too many as far as I was concerned. Mind your manners or I’ll wring your neck, I told him; although in fact I could never bear to do anything of the sort.

By this time McDermott was watching over the fence, with a big grin on his face. He was better looking when smiling, I had to give him that, although he was so dark and had a rogue’s twist to the mouth. But perhaps, Sir, I am imagining that in view of what came later.

Would that be me you’re addressing? said McDermott. No it would not, I said with a cool manner as I walked by him. I thought I could tell what he had in mind, and it was not original. I did not want any of that kind of trouble, and to keep a cordial distance would be best.

The kettle was boiling at last. I set the porridge pot on the stove, with the porridge in it that was already soaking; then I made the tea and left it to steep while I went out into the yard and pumped another pail of water and carried it back in, and lifted the big copper pot onto the back of the stove and filled it up, as I needed a good supply of it heated, for the dirty dishes and such.

At this time Nancy came in, wearing a cotton gingham dress and an apron, not a fancy dress as she’d worn the afternoon before. She said Good morning and I gave it in return. Is the tea made, she said, and I said it was. Oh I feel I am scarcely alive in the morning until I’ve had my cup of tea, she said, and so I poured it out for her.

Mr. Kinnear will take his tea upstairs, she said, but I already knew this as she’d laid out the tea tray the night before with a small teapot and the cup and saucer; not the silver tray with the family crest, but one of painted wood. And, she added, he will want a second cup when he comes down, before his breakfast, as that is his custom.

I put on the fresh milk in a little jug, and the sugar, and picked up the tray. I will take it up, said Nancy. I was surprised, and said that at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s, the housekeeper would never have thought of carrying a tea tray up the stairs, as it was beneath her position and a job for the maids. Nancy stared at me for a moment and was not pleased; but then she said that of course she only took the tray up when short of help and there was no one else to do it, and she’d got into the habit of it lately. So I proceeded. The door to Mr. Kinnear’s bedchamber was at the top of the stairs. There was nowhere near it where I could set down the tray, so I balanced it with one arm while knocking. Your tea, Sir, I said. There was a mumbling from inside and I went in. It was dark in the room, so I set the tray down on the round low table beside the bed and went over to the window and opened the curtains just a little. Those curtains were dark-brown brocade with a satiny feel to them and a fringe, and they were soft to the touch; but in my opinion it is better to have a white curtain, a cotton or a muslin, in summer, as white does not absorb the heat and bring it into the house as much, and also looks a good deal cooler. I could not see Mr. Kinnear, as he was in the darkest corner of the room with his face in shadow. His bed did not have a patchwork quilt but a dark bedspread that matched the curtains; it was thrown back, and he had only the sheet over him. His voice came to me as you might say from underneath it. Thank you, Grace, he said. He was always one to say please and thank you. I must say he knew how to speak. You’re welcome, Sir, I said, and he was indeed welcome from my heart. I never begrudged doing things for him, and even though he paid me for doing them, it was as if I did them freely. There’s beautiful eggs this morning, Sir, I said. Would you want one of them for your breakfast?

Yes, he says, in a hesitating way. Thank you, Grace. I’m sure it will do me good. I did not like the way he said this, as he was talking as if he was ill. But Nancy hadn’t mentioned anything about it.

When I went back downstairs I said to Nancy, Mr. Kinnear wants an egg for his breakfast. And she said, I will take one also. He will have his fried, with bacon, but I cannot eat a fried egg, mine should be boiled. We will have breakfast together, in the dining room, as he requires me to keep him company, he does not like to eat alone.

I found this a little curious, although not unheard of. Then I said, Is Mr. Kinnear ill at all?

Nancy laughed a little, and said, Sometimes he fancies he is. But it’s all just in his head. He wants to be fussed over.

I wonder why he never married, I said, a fine man like him. I was getting out the frying pan, for the eggs, and it was just an idle question, I did not mean anything by it; but she replied in an angry tone, or it sounded angry to me. Some gentlemen do not have an inclination for the married state, she said. They are very pleased with themselves the way they are, and think they can get along well enough without it. I suppose they can at that, I said.

Certainly they can, if rich enough, she said. If they want a thing, all they have to do is pay for it. It’s all one to them.

Now here is the first falling-out that I had with Nancy. It was when I was doing up Mr. Kinnear’s room, on the first day, and I had my bed apron on, to keep the dirt and smuts from the stove away from the white sheets. Nancy was hovering about, and telling me where the things were to be put, and how to tuck in the corners of the sheets, and how to air out Mr. Kinnear’s nightshirt, and how his brushes and dressing things were to be laid out on the dressing table, and how often the silver backs of them should be polished, and which of the shelves he liked to have his folded shirts and his linens put on, ready for wearing; and she was acting as if I had never done any of these things before. And I reflected then, as I have done since, that it is harder to work for a woman who has once been a servant herself, than one who has not; because those who have been servants will have their own ways of doing things, and they will also know the shortcuts, such as the dropping of a few dead flies down behind the bedstead, or the sweeping of a little sand or dust under the carpet, which would never be noticed unless those places were closely inspected; and they will have sharper eyes, and will be more likely to find you out in such matters. Not that I was such a slattern as a rule, but we all have days when we are in a hurry.

And when I would say about a thing, that this was not the way it was done at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s, Nancy replied sharply that she did not care, as I was not at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s now. She didn’t like to be reminded that I’d once worked in such a grand house, and mixed with better than her. But I have thought since that the reason for all her fussing was that she did not wish to leave me by myself in Mr. Kinnear’s room alone, in case he should come into it. To take her mind off her fidgeting, I asked her about the picture on the wall; not the one with the peacock-feather fan, but the other one, of a young lady taking a bath, in a garden, which was an odd place for it, with her hair tied up, and a maid holding a large towel ready for her, and several old men with beards peering at her from behind the bushes. I could tell by the clothing that it was in ancient times. Nancy said it was an engraving, and that the colouring was done by hand, and it was a copy of a famous painting about Susannah and the Elders, which was a Bible subject. And she was very proud of knowing so much.

But I was annoyed with her because of all the picking and carping she had been doing, and I said that I knew my Bible backwards and forwards — which was not far from the truth — and that this was not one of the stories in it. So it could not be a Bible subject.

And she said it was; and I said it wasn’t, and I was willing to have it put to the test; and she said I was not there to argue about pictures, but to make the bed. And at that moment Mr. Kinnear came into the room. He must have been listening in the passageway, as he seemed amused. What, he said, are you discussing theology, and so early in the morning too? And he wanted to be told all about it. Nancy said it was nothing for him to be bothered about, but he still desired to know, and said, Well, Grace, I see Nancy wishes to keep it a secret from me, but you must tell me; and I was shy, but at length I asked him whether the picture was of a Biblical subject, as Nancy had said. And he laughed, and said that strictly speaking it was not, as the story was in the Apocrypha. And I was surprised, and asked what that might be; and I could tell that Nancy had never heard the word before either. But she was put out because she’d been wrong, and was frowning in a sulky manner.

Mr. Kinnear said I was very inquisitive for such a young person, and soon he would have the most learned maidservant in Richmond Hill, and he would have to put me on display, and charge money for me, like the mathematical pig in Toronto. Then he said the Apocrypha was a book where they’d put all the stories from Biblical times that they’d decided should not go into the Bible. I was most astonished to hear this, and I said, Who decided? Because I’d always thought that the Bible was written by God, as it was called the Word of God, and everyone termed it so.

And he smiled, and said that though perhaps God wrote it, it was men who wrote it down; which was a little different. But those men were said to have been inspired; which meant that God had spoken to them, and told them what to do.

So I asked did they hear voices, and he said yes. And I was glad that someone else had done so, although I said nothing about it, and in any case the voice I had heard, that one time, had not been God’s but Mary Whitney’s.

He asked if I knew the story of Susannah, and I said no; and he said she was a young lady who had been falsely accused of sinning with a young man, by some old men, because she refused to commit the very same sin with them; and she would have been executed by being stoned to death; but luckily she had a clever lawyer, who was able to prove that the old men had been lying, by inducing them to give contradictory evidence. Then he said what did I think the moral of it was? And I said the moral was, that you should not take baths outside in the garden; and he laughed, and said he thought the moral was that you needed a clever lawyer. And he said to Nancy, This girl is no simpleton after all; by which I guessed she had been telling him that I was one. And Nancy looked daggers at me. Then he said that he’d found a shirt ironed and put away with a button missing; and that it was very aggravating to put on a clean shirt, only to find you couldn’t do it up properly because of a lack of buttons; and would we please mind that it did not happen again. And he took up his gold snuffbox, which was what he’d come for, and went out of the room.

But now Nancy had been in the wrong twice, for that shirt must have been washed and ironed by her, before I was ever anywhere near; and so she gave me a list of chores as long as your arm, and went flouncing out of the room and down the stairs, and out into the yard, and began scolding McDermott for not cleaning her shoes properly that morning.

I said to myself that there was trouble ahead, and I would have to guard my tongue; because Nancy did not like being crossed, and most of all she did not like being put in the wrong by Mr. Kinnear. When she hired me away from Watson’s, I thought we would be like sisters or at least good friends, the two of us working together side by side, as I had done with Mary Whitney. Now I knew that this was not the way things were going to be.

Chapter 26

I had now been a servant for three years, and could act the part well enough by that time. But Nancy was very changeable, two-faced you might call her, and it wasn’t easy to tell what she wanted from one hour to the next. One minute she would be up on her high horse and ordering me about and finding fault, and the next minute she would be my best friend, or pretend to be, and would put her arm through mine, and say I looked tired, and should sit down with her, and have a cup of tea. It is much harder to work for such a person, as just when you are curtsying and Ma’am-ing them, they turn around and upbraid you for being so stiff and formal, and want to confide in you, and expect the same in return. You cannot ever do the correct thing with them.

The next day was a fine fair day with a breeze, and so I did the wash, and high time too as clean things were running short. It was hot work, as I had to keep the fire in the summer kitchen stove going at a brisk rate; and I’d had no chance to sort and soak the things the night before; but I could not risk waiting, as at that time of year there could be a quick change in the weather. So I scrubbed and rubbed, and got it all hung up nicely at last, with the napkins and the white pocket-handkerchiefs neatly spread out on the grass to bleach. There were snuff stains, and ink stains, and grass stains on a petticoat of Nancy’s — I wondered how she had got them, but she had most likely slipped and fallen down — and several spots of mildew, on things that had been in the dampness at the bottom of the pile; and wine stains on the tablecloth, from a supper party, which had not been covered with salt at the time, as they should have been; but by dint of a good bleaching fluid made from lye and chloride of lime, which I’d learnt from the laundress at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s, I got them out mostly, and trusted to the sunlight to do the rest. I stood for a moment admiring my handiwork; for there is a great deal of pleasure to be had in a wash all clean, and blowing in the wind, like pennants at a race, or the sails of a ship; and the sound of it is like the hands of the Heavenly Hosts applauding, though heard from far away. And they do say that cleanliness is next to Godliness; and sometimes, when I have seen the pure white clouds billowing in the sky after a rain, I used to think that it was as if the angels themselves were hanging out their washing; for I reasoned that someone must do it, as everything in Heaven must be very clean and fresh. But these were childish fancies, as children like to tell themselves stories about things that are not visible; and I was scarcely more than a child at the time, although I thought myself a grown woman, having my own money that I earned myself.

While I was standing there, Jamie Walsh came around the corner of the house, and asked if there were any errands to be run; and he said to me, quite shyly, that if he was sent into the village by Nancy or Mr. Kinnear, and if there was any little thing I should want, he would be glad to buy the same for me, and fetch it back, if I would give him the money. Although awkward, he was as polite as he knew how to be, and even removed his hat, which was an old straw one and had been his father’s most likely, as it was too big for him. I said it was thoughtful of him, but that I did not need anything at the moment. But then I remembered that there was no ox gall in the house, for setting the dyes in the wash, and I would need some to do the dark colours; for the things I had done that morning had all been white. I went with him to Nancy, and she had several other items for him to buy, and Mr. Kinnear had a message to be delivered nearby to one of his gentleman friends, and so off he went.

Nancy told him to come back in the afternoon, and bring his flute with him; and when he was gone, she said that he played so beautiful it was a pleasure to hear it. She was in a good temper again by this time, and helped me get the dinner, which was a cold one, with ham and pickles, and a salad from the kitchen garden; for there were lettuces and chives to be had. But she ate in the dining room with Mr. Kinnear, as before, and I had to make do with McDermott for my own company.

It is uncomfortable watching another person eat, and listening to them as well, especially if they have a tendency to guzzle; but McDermott did not seem inclined to conversation, having reverted to a sullen mood; so I asked him whether he enjoyed dancing.

What makes you ask that, he said suspiciously; and not wanting to let on that I’d been overhearing him at his practice, I said it was known of him that he was a good dancer.

He said maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but he seemed pleased; and so then I set to work to draw him out, and asked him about his own life, before he came to work at Mr. Kinnear’s. He said, Who would care to hear about that? I said that I would, as all such stories were of interest to me; and he soon began to tell.

He said his family was respectable enough, being from Waterford in the south of Ireland, and his father had been a steward; but he himself had been a scapegrace, and never one to lick the boots of the rich, and was always getting into mischief, which he appeared rather proud of than otherwise. I asked if he had a mother living, and he said whether he did or didn’t it was all the same to him, as she’d had a bad opinion of him, and told him he was going straight to the Devil; and she could be dead for all he knew or cared about it. But his voice was not so sturdy as his words.

He’d run away from home at a young age, and joined the army in England, claiming he was several years older than he was; but it being too hard a life to his mind, and too much discipline and hard treatment, he’d deserted, and stowed away on a ship bound for America; and when discovered, he’d worked out the rest of his passage; but had landed in Canada East rather than the United States. And then he’d got a job on the boats that plied up and down the St. Lawrence River, and then on the Lake boats, which were glad to have him, as he was very strong, with a grand lot of endurance, and could work without stopping, just like a steam engine; and that was well enough for a time. But it became too monotonous; and as he had a love of variety, he’d enlisted again for a soldier, with the Glengarry Light Infantry, which had got such a bad reputation among the farmers, as I knew from Mary Whitney, having burnt a good many farmhouses during the Rebellion, and turned women and children out into the snow, and done worse to them besides, that was never printed in the papers. So they were an unruly bunch of men, and given to dissipation, and to gaming and drink and the like; which he accounted manly virtues. But the Rebellion was over by then, and there was not much to be done; and McDermott was not a regular soldier, but acted as personal servant to Captain Alexander Macdonald. It was a soft life with decent pay, and he was sorry when that regiment was disbanded, and he was thrown on his own resources. He went to Toronto and lived idly on the money he had saved; but then his funds dwindled, and he knew he would have to look about him; and it was in search of a position that he’d gone north up Yonge Street, and had come as far as Richmond Hill. He heard in one of the taverns that Mr. Kinnear was in need of a man, and had presented himself, and it was Nancy that hired him; but he thought he would be working for the gentleman himself, and doing for him in person as he had for Captain Macdonald; but was annoyed to find that a woman was set over him instead, and one who never gave him a moment’s rest from her tongue, and found fault constantly.

I believed all he said; but afterwards, when I had added up the times in my head, I felt he must be several years older than the twenty-one he gave himself; either that, or he’d been lying. And when I heard later from others in the neighbourhood, including Jamie Walsh, that McDermott had a strong reputation as a liar and braggart, I was not at all surprised.

Then I began to think I’d been wrong to show such an interest in his story; as he had mistaken this for an interest in his person. Having had several glasses of beer, he now began to make sheep’s eyes at me, and asked if I had a sweetheart, as a pretty girl like me might be expected to have one. I should have replied that my sweetheart was six feet tall and an expert at boxing; but I was too young to know any better, so instead I told the truth. I said I did not have a sweetheart, and furthermore I had no inclinations that way. He said that was a pity, but there was a first time for everything, and I only needed breaking in, like a colt, and then I would go as good as the rest of them, and he was the man for the job. I was very annoyed by this, and got up at once and began to clear the dishes with a great clattering, and said I would thank him to keep such offensive remarks to himself, as I was not a mare. Then he said he didn’t mean it, and it was all in fun, and he’d just wanted to see what sort of a girl I might be. I said that what sort of a girl I might be was not any business of his, at which he became quite sulky, as if I was the one who had insulted him, and went out into the courtyard, and began to chop the firewood. After I’d washed up the dishes, which had to be done carefully because of all the flies about, which would walk on the clean dishes if not covered up by a cloth, and leave their dirty flyspecks; and after I’d been outside to see how my laundry was drying, and had sprinkled the pocket-handkerchiefs and table napkins with water, to make them bleach out better; then it was time to skim the cream off the milk, and to make the butter.

I did this outside, in the shade cast by the house, to get some air; and as the churn was the kind that was worked by a foot pedal, I was able to sit in a chair while doing it, and attend to some of the mending at the same time. Some people have churns that are worked by a dog, which is penned up in a cage and made to run on a treadmill with a hot coal under its tail; but I consider this to be cruel. While I was sitting there waiting for the butter to come, and sewing a button onto one of Mr. Kinnear’s shirts, Mr. Kinnear himself came past me on his way to the stable. I made to get up, but he told me to remain where I was, as he would rather have good butter than a curtsy.

Always busy I see, Grace, he said. Yes Sir, I said, the Devil finds work for idle hands to do. He laughed, and said, I trust you do not mean me, as my hands are idle enough, but not nearly devilish enough for my liking; and I was confused, and said Oh no Sir, I did not mean you. And he smiled, and said it was becoming for a young woman to blush.

There was no reply to that, so I said nothing; and he went on past; and shortly he came by on Charley, and rode down the drive. Nancy had come out to see how I was getting on with the butter, and I asked where Mr. Kinnear was going. To Toronto, she said; he goes there every Thursday, and stays overnight, to do some business at the bank and also some errands; but first he will go to Colonel Bridgeford’s, whose wife is away from home, and the two daughters as well, so he can visit safely, but when she is there he is not received.

I was surprised at this, and asked why; and Nancy said that Mr. Kinnear was considered a bad influence by Mrs. Bridgeford, who thought she was the Queen of France, and that nobody else was fit to lick her shoes; and she laughed. But she did not sound very amused.

Why, what has he done? I asked. But just then I could feel the butter coming — there is a thick feel to it

— so I did not pursue it.

Nancy helped me with the butter, and we salted the most of it, covered it in cold water to store, and pressed some fresh into the moulds; two had a thistle design, and the third had the Kinnear crest, with the motto I Live In Hope. Nancy said that if Mr. Kinnear’s elder brother in Scotland was to die, who was really only a half-brother, then Mr. Kinnear would come into a big house and lands there; but she said he was not expecting it, and claimed to be happy enough as he was, or that is what he said when feeling in good health. But there was no love lost between him and the half-brother, which is usual in such cases; and I guessed that Mr. Kinnear had been packed off to the Colonies, to get him out of the way. When we had the butter done, we carried it down the cellar stairs into the dairy; but we left some of the buttermilk above, to make into biscuits later. Nancy said she didn’t much like the cellar, as it always smelled of earth, and of mice and old vegetables; and I said that perhaps it could be given a good airing-out someday, if we could get the window open. And we went back upstairs, and after I’d gathered in my washing we sat outside on the verandah, mending away together like the best friends in the world. Later I came to notice that she was always affability itself when Mr. Kinnear was not present, but jumpy as a cat when he was, and when I was in the same room with him; but I was not aware of it then. As we sat there, along came McDermott, running along the top of the snake fence, agile as a squirrel, and zigging and zagging. I was amazed, and said, What on earth is he doing, and Nancy said, Oh, he does that sometimes, he says it is for the exercise but really he just wants to be admired, you should not pay any attention. And so I pretended not to; but secretly I watched, as he was in reality very nimble; and after he had run back and forth, he jumped down, and then leapt entirely over the fence, using only one hand on it to steady himself.

So there I was, pretending not to watch, and there he was, pretending not to be watched; and you may see the very same thing, Sir, at any polite gathering of society ladies and gentlemen. There is a good deal that can be seen slantwise, especially by the ladies, who do not wish to be caught staring. They can also see through veils, and window curtains, and over the tops of fans; and it is a good thing they can see in this way, or they would never see much of anything. But those of us who do not have to be bothered with all the veils and fans manage to see a good deal more.

In a little time Jamie Walsh appeared; he’d come through the fields, and had brought his flute with him as requested. Nancy greeted him warmly, and thanked him for coming. She sent me to fetch Jamie a mug of beer; and while I was drawing it, McDermott came in, and said he would have one too. Then I could not resist, and said, I did not know you had monkey blood in you, you was leaping about like one. And he did not know whether to be pleased that I had seen him, or angry at being called a monkey. He said that when the cat was away the mice would play, and when Kinnear was in town, then Nancy always liked her little parties, and he supposed the Walsh boy would now be screeching on his tin whistle; and I said that was quite right, and I would give myself the pleasure of hearing it; and he said that to his mind it was no pleasure; and I said he could suit himself. At that he caught hold of my arm, and looked at me very earnestly, and said he hadn’t meant to offend me, before; but having been so long among rough men, whose manners were not of the best, he was inclined to forget himself, and did not know how to speak; and he hoped I would forgive him, and that we could be friends. I said I was always ready to be friends, with any who were sincere; and as for forgiveness, was it not ordained in the Bible?

And I certainly hoped that I could forgive, as I myself hoped to be forgiven in future. Which I said very calm.

After that I took the beer to the front verandah, and some bread and cheese for our supper to have with it, and I sat out there with Nancy and Jamie Walsh while the sun declined, and it became too dark to sew. It was a lovely and windless evening, and the birds were twittering, and the trees in the orchard near the road were golden in the late sunlight, and the purple milkweed flowers that grew beside the drive smelled very sweetly; and also the last few peonies beside the verandah, and the climbing roses; and the coolness came down out of the air, while Jamie sat and played on his flute, so plaintively it did your heart good. After a while McDermott came skulking around the side of the house like a tamed wolf, and leant against the side of the house, and listened also. And there we were, in a kind of harmony; and the evening was so beautiful, that it made a pain in my heart, as when you cannot tell whether you are happy or sad; and I thought that if I could have a wish, it would be that nothing would ever change, and we could stay that way forever.

But the sun cannot be stopped in its path, except by God, and he has done that only once, and will not do it again until the end of the world; and on this night it went down as usual, leaving behind it a deep-red sunset; and for a few moments the front of the house was all pink with it. Then in the dusk the fireflies came out, for it was their time of year; and they shone in the low bushes and grasses, on and then off, like stars glimpsed through cloud. Jamie Walsh caught one in a glass tumbler, and held his hand over the top, so I could see it up close; it flashed slowly, with a cool greenish fire; and I thought, if I could have two fireflies on my ears, for earrings, I would not care at all about Nancy‘s gold ones. Then the darkness deepened, and came out from behind the trees and bushes, and up through the fields, and the shadows lengthened and joined together; and I thought it looked like water, coming up through the ground, and rising slowly up like the sea; and I fell into a reverie, and was remembering back to the time I crossed the great ocean, and how at that time of day the sea and the sky were the same indigo, so you could not tell where the one left off and the other one began. And into my memory there floated an iceberg, as white as white could be; and despite the warmth of the evening I felt a chill. But then Jamie Walsh said he must be getting home, as his father would be looking for him; and I remembered I had not milked the cow or shut up the hens for the night, and hurried to do both by last light. When I came back into the kitchen, Nancy was still there, and had lighted a candle. I asked why she hadn’t gone to bed, and she said she was afraid to sleep alone when Mr. Kinnear was not at home, and would I sleep upstairs with her.

I said I would, but asked what she was afraid of. Was it robbers? Or perhaps, I said, she was afraid of James McDermott? But I meant it as a joke.

She said archly that from what she could make out from the look in his eyes, I had more cause to be afraid of him than she did, unless I was in need of a new beau. And I said I was more afraid of the old rooster in the henyard, than I was of him; and as for beaus, I had no more use for them than the man in the moon.

And so she laughed, and the two of us went up to bed in a very companionable fashion; but I made sure that all was locked up first.

Eight - Fox and Geese

Chapter 27

Today when I woke up there was a beautiful pink sunrise, with the mist lying over the fields like a white soft cloud of muslin, and the sun shining through the layers of it all blurred and rosy like a peach gently on fire.

In fact I have no idea of what kind of a sunrise there was. In prison they make the windows high up, so you cannot climb out of them I suppose, but also so you cannot see out of them either, or at least not onto the outside world. They do not want you looking out, they do not want you thinking the word out, they do not want you looking at the horizon and thinking you might someday drop below it yourself, like the sail of a ship departing or a horse and rider vanishing down a far hillside. And so this morning I saw only the usual form of light, a light without shape, coming in through the high-up and dirty grey windows, as if cast by no sun and no moon and no lamp or candle. Just a swathe of daylight the same all the way through, like lard.

I took off my prison nightdress, which was coarse-woven and of a yellowed colour; I should not say it was mine, because we own nothing here and share all in common, like the early Christians, and the nightdress you wear one week, next to your skin while you sleep, may two weeks previous have been lying close to the heart of your worst enemy, and washed and mended by others who do not wish you well.

As I dressed myself and tidied back my hair there was a tune going through my head, a little song that Jamie Walsh used to play sometimes upon his flute:

Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,