Alias Grace

Stole a pig and away he run,

And all the tune that he could play

Was over the hills and far away.

I knew I’d remembered it wrong, and the real song said the pig was eat and Tom was beat, and then went howling down the street; but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t make it come out in a better way; and as long as I told no one of what was in my mind, there was no one to hold me to account, or correct me, just as there was no one to say that the real sunrise was nothing like the one I’d invented for myself, but was instead only a soiled yellowish white, like a dead fish floating in the harbour. At least in the Lunatic Asylum you could see out better. When you were not muffled up in a darkened room.

Before breakfast there was a whipping, out in the courtyard; they do it before breakfast, as if those being whipped have eaten first, they are likely to spew up their food, and that makes a mess, as well as being a waste of good nourishment; and the keepers and guards say they like the exercise at that time of day, as it gives them an appetite. It was only a routine whipping, and nothing unusual, so we were not summoned to watch it; two or three only, and all of them men; the women do not get whipped so frequently. The first was young, by the tenor of his screaming; I can tell these things, having had a good deal of practice. I tried not to listen, and thought instead about the pig that was stolen by Tom the thief, and how it got eaten; but the song did not say who ate it, whether it was Tom himself or those who caught him. Set a thief to catch a thief, as Mary Whitney used to say. I wondered, was it a dead pig to begin with? Most likely not; most likely it had a rope around its neck or a ring through its nose, and was forced to run away with Tom. That would make the most sense, as it would save the carrying of it. In the whole song, the poor pig was the only one who did no wrong, but it was also the only one who died. Many songs, I have noticed, are unfair in this way.

At breakfast, all was silent except for the munching of bread and the slurping of tea, and the shuffling of feet and the snuffling of noses, and the drone of the Bible being read out, which today was Jacob and Esau and the mess of pottage, and the lies that were told and the blessing and birthright that was sold, and the deceptions and disguises that were practised, which God did not mind at all but the contrary. Just as old Isaac was feeling his hairy son, which was not his son at all but a skinned goat, Annie Little gave me a hard pinch on the thigh, under the table where it could not be seen. I knew what she was about, she wanted to make me scream so I would be punished or else thought to be having another attack of insanity, but I was ready for her, as I was expecting something of the sort. In the washhouse yesterday, as we stood at the sink, she leant over and whispered to me, Doctor’s pet, spoiled whore; because the word has gone round, and all know about the visits of Dr. Jordan, and some think I am having too much attention paid to me, and have grown proud with it. If they think that here, they will take you down a peg or two; and it would not be the first time, as they resent my service in the Governor’s house as well; but they’re afraid to act too openly, thinking I might have the ear of some in power. There is no place like a prison for small jealousies, and I’ve seen some come to blows, and even close to murder, over nothing more than a piece of cheese.

But I knew better than to complain of her to the matrons. Not only do they view such tale-tellers with disgust, preferring a quiet life for themselves; but also they might not believe me, or might say they did not, as the Warden says a convict’s word is not sufficient evidence; and then too, Annie Little would be sure to be revenged on me in some other way. One ought to bear all patiently, as part of the correction we are subject to; unless a way can be found, of tripping up your enemy without detection. Hair pulling is not advisable, as the racket brings the keepers, and then both sides are punished for creating a disturbance. Dirt slipped into the food by means of the sleeve, as with magicians, may be accomplished without much fuss, and may bring some satisfaction. But Annie Little was in the Asylum with me, her crime being manslaughter, having struck and killed a stableboy with a log of wood; and she was said to suffer from nervous excitement, and was sent back here at the same time as me; but should not have been, as I do not think she is right in the head; so I resolved to forgive her this time, unless she did worse. And the pinch appeared to have relieved her feelings.

Then it was time for the keepers, and our walk out through the gate, Ah Grace, out for your promenade with your two beaus, ain’t you the lucky one. Oh no, we’re the lucky ones, we’re the lucky boys ourselves, with such a morsel on our arms, says the one. What do you say Grace, says the other, let’s just nip up a side alley, into a back stable, down on the hay, it won’t take long if you lie still, and quicker yet if you wriggle about. Or why lie down at all, says the one, back her up against the wall and heave-ho and hoist the petticoats, it’s a quick jump standing up, as long as your knees don’t give out on you; come Grace, just give us the word and we’re your lads, one as good as the other and why settle for one when there’s two standing ready? Standing ready all the time, here, give us a hand and you can test the truth of it. Nor we won’t charge you a penny neither, says the other, what’s a good time between old friends?

You’re no friends of mine, I say, with your filthy talk, you were born in the gutter and you’ll die in it too. Oh ho, says the one, that’s what I like, a little high spirits in a woman, a little fire, they say it comes with the redness of the hair. But is it red where it most counts, says the other, a fire in a treetop is no use at all, it must be in a fireplace to cast enough heat, in a little cookstove, you know why God made women with skirts, it’s so they can be pulled up over their heads and tied at the top, that way you don’t get so much noise out of them, I hate a screeching slut, women should be born without mouths on them, the only thing of use in them is below the waist.

Shame on you, says I, as we walk around a puddle and across the street, to talk that way, your own mother was a woman or at least I suppose she was. And bad cess to her, says the one, the whoring old witch, the only part of me she ever liked to see was my bare bum covered with stripes, she’s burning in Hell this moment and I’m only sorry it wasn’t me put her there, but a drunken sailor whose pocket she tried to pick, and who knocked her on the head with a bottle. Well, says the other, my own mother was an angel to be sure, a saint on earth according to her own reckoning, and would never let me forget it; and I don’t know which is the worse.

I’m a philosopher, says the one, it’s moderation for me, not too thin and not too fat, and best not to waste God’s gifts to us, speaking of which Grace, you’re ripe enough to be picked, why stay on the tree untasted, you’ll just fall off and rot at the foot of it in any case. True enough, says the other, why let the milk go sour in the bowl, a sweet nut should be cracked while there’s still some goodness in it, as there’s nothing worse than a fusty old nut. Come, you’re making my mouth water for you already, you’re enough to turn an honest man into a cannibal, I’d like to get a strong grip on you with my teeth, just what you might call a nibble, a small bite out of the ham end, you’d not miss it, you’ve enough on you and to spare. Right you are, says the one, look, she’s got a waist like a willow but she’s taking on fat below, it’s all the fine cooking they do at the prison, cream-fed she is, would you just take a feel of it, that’s a haunch fit for the Pope’s own table. And he took to kneading and prodding, with the one hand that was hidden by the folds of my gown.

I’ll thank you not to take liberties, I say, pulling away. I’m all for liberties myself, says the one, being a republican at heart, having no use for the Queen of England except what Nature intended, and though she’s got a fine pair of bosoms on her and I’d pay her the compliment of giving them a squeeze at any time she might request it, she’s got no chin to her at all, no more than a duck; and what I say is, no man is better than the next, and it’s share and share alike and none preferred; and once you’ve given it out to one of us, why then, the others must all take their turns like true democrats, and why should that little runt McDermott be allowed to enjoy what is denied to his betters?

Yes, said the other, you gave him liberties enough, a fine time you had of it I’ve no doubt, with him sweating away at it all night in the tavern in Lewiston with barely a pause to refresh himself, for they say he was a prime athlete, and a dab hand with the axe as well, and could climb up a rope like a monkey. Right you are, said the other, and at last the cunning fellow tried to climb into Heaven, and ended by making such a high leap into the air that he stayed up there for two hours, and could not be made to come down of his own accord, no matter how they called, but had to be fetched. And he danced while he was up there, a spry jig with the rope-maker’s daughter, as lively as a rooster with its neck fresh wrung, so it did your heart good to see it.

And stiff as a board he was afterwards too, I’m told, said the one; but that’s just what the ladies like. And here they laughed very much, and thought they’d made the finest joke in the world; but it was cruel in them, to laugh at a man simply for being dead; and bad luck also, for the dead don’t like being laughed at; and I assured myself that they had their own ways of protecting against injury, and would deal with the keepers in good time, either above the ground or beneath it.

I spent the morning mending some blonde lace of Miss Lydia’s, that she’d torn at a party; she does tend to be careless about her clothes, and ought to be told that such fine clothes as hers are do not grow on trees. It was delicate work and a strain on the eyes, but I got it done at last. Dr. Jordan came as usual in the afternoon, and seemed fatigued, and also troubled in mind. He hadn’t brought any vegetable with him, to ask me what I might think of it; and I was a little taken aback, as I had become used to this part of the afternoon, and had enjoyed wondering what he would bring next, and what it was he wanted me to say about it.

So I said, Sir, you are without any item today.

And he said, Item, Grace?

Any potato or carrot, I said. Or onion. Or beet, I added.

And he said, Yes, Grace, I have determined upon a different plan.

What is that, Sir? I said.

I have decided to ask you, what it is that you yourself would like me to bring. Well Sir, I said. That is indeed a different plan. I would have to consider it. So he said I was welcome to do that; and meanwhile, had I had any dreams? As he was looking forlorn, and as it were at a loss, and as I suspected that not all was going well with him, I did not say that I could not remember. Instead I said that I had indeed had a dream. And what was it about, said he, brightening up considerably, and fiddling with his pencil. I told him I’d dreamt about flowers; and he wrote that down busily, and asked what sort of flowers. I said that they were red flowers, and quite large, with glossy leaves like a peony. But I did not say that they were made of cloth, nor did I say when I had seen them last; nor did I say that they were not a dream.

And where were they growing, said he.

Here, I said.

Here, in this room? said he, looking very alert.

No, I said, outside in the yard, where we take our walks for exercise. And he wrote that down as well. Or I suppose he wrote it down. I cannot be certain, because I never see what he writes down; and sometimes I imagine that whatever he is writing down, it cannot possibly be anything that has come out of my mouth, as he does not understand much of what I say, although I try to put things as clearly as I can. It’s as if he is deaf, and has not yet learnt to read lips. But at other times he appears to understand quite well, although like most gentlemen he often wants a thing to mean more than it does. When he’d finished writing I said, I have thought of what I would like you to bring next time, Sir. And what is that, Grace, said he.

A radish, I said.

A radish, he replied. A red radish? And why have you chosen a radish? And he frowned, as if it was a matter for weighty thought.

Well Sir, said I, the other things you have brought have not been for eating, or so it seemed; because most of them would need to be cooked first; and you took them away again with you, except for the apple you brought the first day, and very nice it was too. But I thought that if you brought a radish, it could be eaten with no preparation; and they are now in season; and it is very seldom we get anything fresh in the Penitentiary, and even when I eat in the kitchen of this house, I do not get such garden stuff, as it is reserved for the family. So it would be a rare treat; and I would take it very kindly in you, if you would bring a little salt as well.

He gave a sort of sigh, and then he said, Did they have radishes at Mr. Kinnear’s?

Oh yes, Sir, I said, they did; but by the time I reached that place they were past their prime; as a radish is best early in the season, for when the hot weather comes they will go soft and maggoty, and go to seed. He did not write this down.

As he was preparing to leave, he said, Thank you for telling me your dream, Grace. Perhaps you will tell me another one soon. And I said, Perhaps I will, Sir. And then I said, I will try hard to remember them, if it will help you, Sir, with the trouble you are in; for I was feeling pity towards him, he looked so out of sorts. And he said, What makes you think I am in trouble, Grace? And I said, Those who have been in trouble themselves are alert to it in others, Sir.

He said it was a kind thought in me; then he hesitated a moment, as if to tell me more; but he thought better of it, and nodded goodbye. He always gives the same small nod when he goes out. I had not finished my quilting block for the day, as he had not been in the room with me as long as usual; and so I remained seated, and continued to sew. After a short while Miss Lydia came in. Dr. Jordan has left? she said. I said that he had. She was wearing a new dress which I helped sew, of a violet ground, with a white design of small birds and flowers, very becoming to her, and a skirt on it like a half a pumpkin; and I thought she had most likely meant to have more of an audience for it than just myself.

She sat down in the chair opposite me, where Dr. Jordan had been sitting, and began to sort through the sewing basket. I cannot find my thimble, I believe I put it in here, she said. Then, Oh, he has forgotten about the scissors; I thought he was not supposed to leave them within your reach. We do not bother much about that, I said. He knows I would not hurt him. She sat for a little with the sewing basket in her lap. Did you know you have an admirer, Grace? she said. Oh, who is that, I said, thinking it would be a stableboy or some such young lad, who might have heard my story and found it romantic.

Dr. Jerome DuPont, she said. He is staying at present with Mrs. Quennell. He says you have lived a remarkable life, and he finds you of considerable interest.

I do not know any such gentleman. I expect he reads the newspapers, and is on a tour, and views me as a sight that must be seen, I said a little sharply, for I suspected her of making fun of me. She is of a fun-loving nature, and sometimes goes too far with it.

He is a man of serious pursuits, said she. He is studying Neuro-hypnotism. What is that? I said.

Oh, it is like Mesmerism, but much more scientific, said she, it is all to do with the nerves. But he must know you, or at least he has seen you, as he says you are still quite handsome. Perhaps he passed you in the street, as you are on your way here in the mornings.

Perhaps, I said; thinking what a spectacle I made, with a smirking ruffian to either side. He has such dark eyes, she said, they burn right into you, as if he could see inside. But I’m not sure I like him. Of course he’s old. He’s like Mama and the rest of them, I suppose he goes to their table-rappings and’séances. I don’t believe in it, and neither does Dr. Jordan.

Did he say so? I said. He is a man of sense then. It’s not a thing that should be meddled with. A man of sense, that is so cold, she said; and sighed. A man of sense makes him sound like a banker. Then she said, Grace, he talks with you more than any of us put together. What sort of man is he really?

A gentleman, I said.

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

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

Oh I would not want him to be too proper, she said. Reverend Verringer is too proper. Privately I agreed that this was so, but as Reverend Verringer is trying to get a pardon for me, I said, Reverend Verringer is a man of religion, and it is required of them to be proper. I think Dr. Jordan is very sarcastic, said Miss Lydia. Is he very sarcastic with you as well, Grace?

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

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

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

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

She stood up, and trailed her hand along the top of the sewing table. Yes, she said. It would be respectable enough. She appeared discouraged by this thought. Then she said, Will you help me with my new dress? For the Tuesday circle; as I would like to make an impression with it. I said I would help her gladly; and she said I was a treasure, and she hoped they would never let me out of prison, as she would like me always to be there, to help her with her dresses. Which I suppose was a compliment of a sort.

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

Chapter 28

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

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

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

So there we were, going up the staircase with our candles. Nancy‘s bedchamber, as I have said, was at the back of the house, and was much larger and finer than mine, although she had no separate dressing room like Mr. Kinnear’s. But she had a commodious bedstead, with a fine quilt on it, a summer one in light pinks and blues on a white ground; it was a Broken Staircase. She had a wardrobe, with her dresses in it, and I wondered how she could have saved up enough money to buy so many; but she said Mr. Kinnear was a generous master when the mood took him. Also she had a dressing table with an embroidered runner on it, roses and lilies with the buds of each, and a sandalwood box with her earrings and a brooch, and also her pots of creams and potions were kept there; for before going to bed she greased the skin of her face like a boot. She had a bottle of rose-water too, and let me try some, which smelled most delicious; for on this evening she was all sociability; and a saucerful of hair pomade, of which she rubbed in a little, and said it gave the hair a shine; and she asked me to brush out her hair for her, just like a lady’s maid, which I did with pleasure. She had lovely long hair, a dark brown, and wavy. Oh Grace, she said, that feels most luxurious, you have a good touch; and I was flattered. But I remembered Mary Whitney, and how she used to brush out my own hair; for indeed I had never forgotten her for long.

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

Mr. Kinnear came back on the morning of the Saturday. He’d meant to return on the Friday, but had been delayed by business in Toronto, or so he said; and had stopped part of the way back, at an inn which was not far north of the first toll gate; and Nancy was none too pleased to hear that, as the place had a bad reputation and was said to countenance loose women, or so she told me in the kitchen. I replied that a gentleman can stay at such places without any risk to his reputation, as I was trying to calm her. She was very agitated, because Mr. Kinnear had met with two of his acquaintances on the way home, Colonel Bridgeford and Captain Boyd, and had invited them to dine; and it was Jefferson the butcher’s day to come, but he had not yet done so, and there was no fresh meat in the house. Oh Grace, said Nancy, we will have to kill a chicken, just step out and request McDermott to do it. I said that surely we would need two chickens, as there would be six to dine, with the ladies; but she was annoyed, and said there would be no ladies, as the wives of these gentlemen never condescended to darken the door of the house, and she herself would not be taking dinner with them in the dining room, as all they would do was drink and smoke and tell stories about what fine deeds they’d done in the Rebellion, and they would stay too long and play cards after, and it was bad for Mr. Kinnear’s health, and he would catch a cough, as was always the case when these men came to visit. She allowed him a poor constitution when it suited her.

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

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

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

I went into the henyard and caught a plump young fowl, a white one, crying all the time, and tucked it securely under my arm, and went towards the woodpile and the chopping block, wiping my tears with my apron; for I did not see how I could bring myself to do such a thing. But Jamie Walsh followed me, and asked kindly what was the matter; and I said could he please just kill the chicken for me; and he said there was nothing easier, and he would be glad to do so as I was so squeamish and tender-hearted. So he took the bird from me and neatly chopped off its head, and it ran about with only a neck for a moment, and then lay kicking in the dirt; and I thought it was very pathetic. And then we plucked it together, sitting side by side on a rail of the fence, and making the feathers fly; and then I thanked him sincerely for his help, and said I did not have anything to give him for it, but would remember it for the future. And he grinned awkwardly and said he would help me willingly at any other time I might need it. Nancy had come out at the last part of this, and was standing at the kitchen door with her hand up to shade her eyes, waiting impatiently for the bird to be readied for cooking; so I cleaned it as fast as I could, holding my breath against the smell and keeping the giblets in case wanted for gravy, and rinsed it under the pump, and brought it in. And she said in the kitchen, as we were stuffing it, Well I see you have made a conquest, and I said what did she mean, and she said, Jamie Walsh, he has a bad case of puppy love, it is written all over his face, he used to be my admirer but now I see he is yours. And I saw she was trying to be friends with me again, after having lost her temper; so I laughed, and said he was not much of a catch for me, as he was only a boy, and with red hair like a carrot and freckled as an egg too, although tall for his age. And she said, Well, a worm will always turn; which I thought mysterious; but did not ask her what she meant, in case she should think me ignorant.

We had to get the stove good and hot in the summer kitchen, to roast the chicken; so we did the rest of the work in the winter one. To be served with the chicken we prepared a dish of creamed onions and carrots; and for the dessert there were strawberries, with our own cream, and our own cheese after. Mr. Kinnear kept the wine in the cellar, some in a barrel and some in bottles; and Nancy sent me down to bring up five bottles of it. She never did like going down there; she said there were too many spiders. In the midst of all our bustling, James McDermott sauntered in, as cool as you please; and when Nancy asked him where he’d got himself off to, using a warm tone of voice, he said that since he’d finished the morning’s chores before he left, it was none of her damned business; and if she must know, he’d been on a special errand of Mr. Kinnear’s, entrusted to him before Mr. Kinnear left for Toronto; and Nancy said she would see about that, and he had no right to come and go, and to vanish off the face of the earth, just when he might be wanted most; and he said how was he to know, he could not read the future; and she said that if he could, he would see that he would not spend much more of it in this house. But as she was occupied at the moment, she would speak to him later, and just now he might look after Mr. Kinnear’s horse, which was in need of grooming after the long ride, if he didn’t consider such a thing too far beneath His Royal Highness. And he went off to the stables with a scowling face. Colonel Bridgeford and Captain Boyd arrived as promised, and behaved as Nancy said they would; and there were loud voices from the dining room, and much laughter; and Nancy had me wait on table. She did not wish to do it herself, but sat in the kitchen, and had a glass of wine, and poured one for me as well; and I thought she was resentful of these gentlemen. She said she did not think Captain Boyd was a real Captain, as some of them had taken up such titles just for having got their two legs around a horse on the day of the Rebellion; and I asked, what about Mr. Kinnear, as some in the neighbourhood called him Captain as well; and she said she did not know about it, as he never styled himself in that manner, and his visiting card said plain Mr.; however, if he had been a Captain, it would certainly have been on the Government side. And this was another thing she appeared to resent.

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

Nancy poured herself a third glass of wine, and said that she was getting too fat, and whatever would she do, and put her head down on her arms; but it was time for me to carry in the coffee, so I could not ask her why she had become so melancholy all of a sudden. In the dining room they were very merry, having consumed all five bottles and called for more; and Captain Boyd said where had Mr. Kinnear found me, and were there any more growing on the tree that I came from, and if so were they ripe yet; and Colonel Bridgeford said what had Tom Kinnear done with Nancy, was she locked up in a cupboard somewhere with the rest of his Turkish harem; and Captain Boyd said I should look to my fine blue eyes, or Nancy might scratch them out, if old Tom so much as winked at me sideways. It was all in fun, but still I hoped that Nancy had not heard.

On the Sunday morning, Nancy said I should go to church with her. I said that I didn’t have a good-enough dress, though this was an excuse — I did not much want to go, among strangers, where I would be sure to be stared at. But she said she would lend me a dress of hers, which she did, though she took care that it was one of her second best, and not so fine as what she herself put on. And she lent me a bonnet as well, and said I looked very proper; and also she let me wear a pair of her gloves, which did not however fit as they should, as Nancy had large hands. Also we each wore a light shawl of patterned silk.

Mr. Kinnear was nursing a headache, and said he would not go — he was never much of a church man in any case — but said McDermott could drive us in the wagon, and fetch us again later, it being understood that he would not attend the service, as he was a Catholic and the church was Presbyterian. It was the only church built there so far, and many who were not by rights members of that church attended it, as being better than nothing; and it had the only graveyard in town as well, so held a monopoly of the dead as well as of the living.

We sat up in the wagon as fine as anything, and the day was bright and fair, with the birds singing, and I felt at peace with the world, as much as I ever did, which was fitting for the day. As we walked into the church Nancy put her arm through mine, out of friendship I believed. Some heads were turned, but I thought it was because I was new to them. There were all different sorts of people there, the poorer farmers and their wives, and servants, and the tradesmen of the town, as well as those who from their dress and from their positions in the front pews thought themselves gentry, or next door to it. We sat on the benches at the back, which was the proper thing.

The minister looked like a heron, with a pointed beak of a nose and a long skinny neck, and a tuft of hair sticking up from the top of his head. The sermon was on the subject of Divine Grace, and how we could be saved by it alone, and not through any efforts on our own part, or any good works we might do. But this did not mean we should stop making efforts, or doing good works; but we could not count on them, or be certain that we had been saved, just because we were respected for our efforts and good works; because Divine Grace was a mystery, and the recipients of it were known to God alone; and although Scripture said that by their fruits you would know them, the fruits meant were spiritual fruits, and not visible to any but God alone; and although we must and should pray for Divine Grace, we should not be so puffed up with vanity as to believe that our prayers might have any effect, because man proposes but God disposes, and it was not up to our puny sinful and mortal souls to determine the course of events. The first would be last and the last would be first, and some that had been warming themselves by worldly fires for many years would soon find themselves roasting in something a good deal hotter, much to their indignation and surprise; and there were many whited sepulchres walking around in our midst, fair on the outside but filled with rot and corruption within; and we should beware of the woman sitting at the door of her house, which Proverbs 9 warns of, or of any such who might tempt us by saying that stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant; because as Scripture tells, the dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of Hell; and above all we should guard against complacency, like the Foolish Virgins, and should not let our lamps go out; because no man knew the day and the hour thereof; and we must await in fear and trembling.

He went on in this way for some time, and I found myself examining the bonnets of the ladies present, as much as I could see of them from the back; and the flowers on their shawls; and I said to myself that if you could not get Divine Grace by praying for it, or any other way, or ever know if you had it or not, then you might as well forget about the whole matter, and go about your own business, because whether you would be damned or saved was no concern of yours. There is no use crying over spilt milk if you don’t know whether the milk is spilt or not, and if God alone knew, then God alone could tidy it up if necessary. But thinking about such matters makes me drowsy, and the minister had a droning voice; and I was on the verge of nodding off, when we were all on our feet singing Abide With Me; which was not very well sung by the congregation, but at least it was music, which is always a consolation. Nancy and I were not greeted warmly by any as we went out, but rather avoided; although some of the poorer sort nodded; and there were whisperings as we went past; which I found odd, as although I was an unknown, Nancy herself must have been familiar to them; and though the gentry or those who fancied themselves such need not notice her, she did not deserve such treatment from the farmers and their wives, and from the others there who hired out as servants. Nancy held her head up high, and did not look to left or right; and I thought, These are cold and proud people, and not good neighbours. They are hypocrites, they think the church is a cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking into the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believe they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared. But God is everywhere, and cannot be caged in, as men can.

Nancy thanked me for going to church with her, and said she’d been glad of the company. But she wanted me to give the dress and bonnet back that very day, as she was concerned that they might get soiled.

Later that week, McDermott came into the kitchen for the midday dinner with a long and sullen face. Nancy had given him his notice, and he was to leave at the end of the month. He said he was just as glad, as he did not like being ordered about by a woman, and had never been thus while in the army or on the boats; but when he’d complained about it, Mr. Kinnear only said that Nancy was the mistress of the house, and was paid to arrange things, and McDermott should take his orders from her, as Mr. Kinnear could not bother himself about trifling details. So that was bad; but it was much worse, considering what type of a woman she was. And he did not care to stay any longer with such a parcel of whores. I was shocked by this, and thought it was just McDermott’s fashion, and the way he talked, and exaggerated, and lied; and I asked him indignantly what he meant by that. And he said did I not know that Nancy and Mr. Kinnear slept together, as bold as brass, and lived in secret as man and wife, though they were no more married than he was; although it was no secret, as all the neighbourhood knew of it. I was much surprised, and said so; and McDermott said I was an idiot, and despite my Mrs. Alderman Parkinson this and Mrs. Alderman Parkinson that, and my city notions, I was not so knowing as I thought myself, and could scarcely see the nose before my own face; and as for the whorishness of Nancy, anyone but a simpleton such as me would have found it out at once, as it was only the common knowledge that Nancy had a baby when she was working over at Wrights‘, by a young layabout who ran off and left her, only the baby died. But Mr. Kinnear hired her and took her in anyway, which no respectable man would have done; and it was clear from the first what he’d had in mind, because once the horse was out of the stable it was no good shutting the barn door, and a woman once on her back was like a turtle in the same plight, she could scarcely turn herself right side up again, and was fair game for all.

Although I still protested, it came to me that for once he was telling the truth; and I saw in a flash the meaning of the averted heads at church, and the whisperings, and also many other small things I had not taken much notice of; as well as the fine dresses and the gold earrings, which were the wages of sin, you might say; and even the warning of Mrs. Watson’s cook Sally, which was given to me before I had ever consented to be hired. After that I kept my eyes and ears open, and went about the house like a spy, and made sure that Nancy’s bed was never slept in, when Mr. Kinnear was at home. And I was ashamed of myself for letting myself be tricked and imposed on in this fashion, and for being so blind and foolish.

Chapter 29

I am sorry to say that after this I lost much of the respect I’d once felt for Nancy, as being older, and the mistress of the house; and I let my scorn show, and answered her back more than was wise, and there were arguments between us which came to raised voices, and on her side to a slap or two; for she had a quick temper and a flat hand. But I so far remembered my place as not to strike her back; and if I’d held my tongue, my ears would have rung less often. So I take some of the blame upon myself. Mr. Kinnear did not seem to notice the discord. If anything he became kinder to me than before, and would stop beside me when I was at my various chores, and ask me how I was getting on, and I would always tell him, Very well Sir, because there is nothing such a gentleman would wish to get rid of sooner than a discontented servant — you are paid to smile, and it does well to remember it. And he would tell me I was a good girl and a brisk worker. And once when I was lugging a bucket of water up the stairs, for Mr. Kinnear’s bath which he’d asked to be filled in his dressing room, he said why was McDermott not doing that, as it was too heavy for me. I said it was my task to do; and he wanted to take the bucket from me, and carry it up himself, and put his hand over mine on the handle. Oh no Sir, said I, I cannot allow it; and he laughed, and said it was up to him what would be allowed or not, for he was master of the house, was he not? Which I had to say yes. And as we were standing thus, close together on the stairs with his hand on mine, Nancy came into the downstairs hall, and saw us; which did nothing to improve her disposition towards me.

I have often thought that all would have gone better if there had been a separate staircase for the servants at the back of the house, as was usual; but there was none. And that meant we were all obliged to live too close together, and in one another’s pockets, which was not a desirable thing; as you could scarcely cough or laugh in that house without it being heard, especially from the downstairs hall. As for McDermott, he became more brooding and vengeful by the day; and he said that Nancy planned to turn him off before the month was up, and to withhold his wages, but that he would not stand for it; and if she treated him so, she would soon treat me the same way, and that we should join together and demand our rights. And when Mr. Kinnear was away, and Nancy was visiting with her friends the Wrights — for they were among the neighbours who were still friendly towards her — he dipped more frequently into Mr. Kinnear’s whisky, which was bought by the keg and thus in plentiful supply, and none to take account if some went missing. At these times he would say that he hated all Englishmen, and though Kinnear was a lowland Scot it was the same thing, they were all thieves and whores, and stealers of land, and ground down the poor wherever they went; and both Mr. Kinnear and Nancy deserved to be knocked on the head and thrown down into the cellar, and he was the man for the deed. But I thought this was just a way of talking, as he was always a boaster, and saying what great things he would do; and my own father when drunk had often threatened to serve my mother in this way, but had never in fact done so. The best thing at such times was just to nod and agree with him, and to take no further notice.

Dr. Jordan looks up from the notes he is making. So you did not believe him, at first? he says. Not at all, Sir, I say. Nor would you, if you yourself had been listening. I took it all for idle threats. Before he was hanged, McDermott said that you were the one who put him up to it, says Dr. Jordan. He claimed you intended to murder Nancy and Mr. Kinnear by putting poison into their porridge, and that you repeatedly urged him to help you; which he very piously refused to do. Who told you such a lie? I say.

It is written in McDermott’s Confession, says Dr. Jordan; which I knew very well, having read the selfsame thing myself, in the Governor’s wife’s scrapbook.

Just because a thing has been written down, Sir, does not mean it is God’s truth, I say. He laughs his bark of a laugh, Hah, and tells me I am quite right about that. All the same, Grace, he says, what do you say to it?

Well Sir, I say, I think it is one of the silliest things I have ever heard. Why is that, Grace? says he.

I allow myself to smile. If I wanted to put poison into a bowl of porridge, Sir, why would I have needed any help from such as him? I could have done it all by myself, and put some in his own porridge too, into the bargain. It would not take any more strength than the adding of a spoonful of sugar. You are very cool about it, Grace, says Dr. Jordan. Why do you think he said that about you, if it was false?

I suppose he wanted to shift the blame, I say slowly. He never did like being put in the wrong. And perhaps he wanted me to keep him company on the journey. The road to death is a lonely highway, and longer than it appears, even when it leads straight down from the scaffold, by way of a rope; and it’s a dark road, with never any moon shining on it, to light your way.

You seem to know a good deal about it, Grace, for one who has never been there, says he, with his uneven smile.

I have not been there, I say, except in dreams; but I have looked along it many a night. I too was condemned to be hanged, and thought I would be; and it was only by luck, and the skill of Mr. MacKenzie, who pleaded my extreme youth, that I was got off. When you believe that you yourself are soon to go the same road, you must take your bearings of it.

True enough, says he in a thoughtful voice.

Nor do I blame poor James McDermott, I say. Not for such a wish. I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely.

The next Wednesday was my birthday. As things had cooled between Nancy and myself, I did not expect her to acknowledge it, although she knew the date well enough, as I’d told her my age when hired, and when I would turn sixteen; but to my surprise, when she came into the kitchen in the morning she was very friendly, and wished me a happy birthday, and went around to the front of the house herself and picked a little bouquet of roses, from the trellises there, and put them into a glass for me to have in my room. And I was so grateful for the kindness from her, which was rare enough by that time, what with our quarrelling, that I almost cried.

Then she said I could have the afternoon free, as it was my birthday. And I thanked her very much. But I said I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, as I had no friends in the neighbourhood to visit, and there were no real shops, and nothing to see; and perhaps I should just stay at home, and sew, or clean the silver, as I’d been planning to do. And she said I could stroll into the village if I liked, or go for a pleasant walk in the countryside around; and I could borrow her straw hat.

But later I learnt that Mr. Kinnear intended to be at home all that afternoon; and I suspected that Nancy wanted me out of the way so she could spend time with him alone, without worrying about whether I would come suddenly into the room or up the stairs, or whether Mr. Kinnear would wander back into the kitchen where I was, and hang about there, asking this and that, as he had been tending to do of late. However, after I’d taken in the dinner for Mr. Kinnear and Nancy, which was cold roast beef and a salad, as the weather was hot, and had eaten my own dinner with McDermott in the winter kitchen, and had cleaned up the dishes, and washed my hands and face, I took off my apron and hung it up, and put on Nancy’s straw hat and my white and blue kerchief for keeping the sun off the neck; and McDermott, who was still sitting at the table, asked where I was going. And I said it was my birthday, and therefore Nancy had given me leave to go out for a walk. He said he would come with me, as there were many rough men and vagabonds on the roads that I needed protection from. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that the only one such I knew of was sitting right there in the kitchen with me; but as McDermott had made an effort to be civil, I bit my tongue and thanked him for his kind thoughts, but said it was not required.

He said he would come in any case, as I was young and flighty and did not know what was good for me; and I said it was not his birthday, and he had the chores to do; and he said birthday be damned, he did not give a pin for birthdays, and he saw it as no cause for celebration, as he was not overly thankful to his mother for having given birth to him; and even if it was his birthday, Nancy would never give him any time off for it. And I said he should not begrudge it to me, as I had not asked for it and wanted no special favours. And I left the kitchen as soon as I could.

I had no idea in my mind of where I should go. I did not want to walk into the main part of the village, where there was no one I knew; and it struck me at once how very solitary I was, as I had no friends here except Nancy, if she could be called a friend, being such a weathervane, a friend one day and the next quite turned against me; and perhaps Jamie Walsh, but he was a mere boy. There was Charley, but he was a horse, and although a good listener and a comfort, of not much avail when I needed advice. I did not know where my family was, which was the same as having none; not that I ever wished to see my father again, but I would have been glad of some news of the children. There was Aunt Pauline, and I could have written her a letter, if I’d been able to afford the postage; for this was before the reforms, and to send a letter far across the sea was very expensive. If you looked at things in the cold light of day, I was indeed alone in the world, with no prospects before me except the drudgery I’d been doing; and although I could always find a different situation, still it would be the same sort of work, from dawn to dusk, with always a mistress to be ordering me about.

So thinking, I walked down the driveway, keeping up a brisk enough pace while McDermott might be watching; and indeed when I turned once, there he was, leaning in the kitchen doorway. For if I loitered, he might take it as an invitation to join me. But when I reached the orchard, I thought myself out of sight, and slowed down. I usually kept a firm enough grip on my feelings, yet there is something depressing to the spirits about a birthday, especially when alone; and I turned into the orchard, and sat down with my back against one of the big old stumps that were left over from the forest when it was cleared. The birds were singing around me, but I reflected that the very birds were strangers to me, for I did not even know their names; and that seemed to me the saddest of all, and the tears began to roll down my cheeks; and I did not dry them, but indulged myself in weeping for several minutes. But then I said to myself, What can’t be cured must be endured; and I looked around at the white daisies and the Queen Anne’s lace, and at the purple globes of the milkweed flowers, which smelled so sweetly and were covered with orange butterflies; and then I looked up at the branches of the apple tree above me, where the small green apples were already forming, and at the patches of blue sky visible beyond, and attempted to cheer myself up, by reflecting that only a benevolent God, who had our good at heart, would have created so much beauty, and that whatever burdens were laid upon me were surely trials, to test my strength and faith, as with the early Christians, and Job, and the martyrs. But as I have said, thoughts about God often make me drowsy; and I fell asleep.

It is a strange thing, but however deeply asleep I may be, I can always sense when there is a person come close, or watching me. It’s as if there is a part of me that never sleeps at all, but keeps one eye a little open; and when I was younger I used to think this was my guardian angel. But perhaps it comes from my early days, when to sleep past my time for getting up, and starting the work of the house, would be the occasion for shouts on the part of my father, and harsh words, and I would find myself hauled up out of sleep by one arm, or else by the hair. In any case, I was dreaming that a bear had come out of the forest, and was looking at me. Then I woke with a start, just as if a hand had been laid on me; and there was a man standing quite near, against the sun so I couldn’t see his face. I gave a little shriek, and began to scramble up. But then I saw it was not a man, but only Jamie Walsh; and I remained where I was. Oh Jamie, I said, you startled me.

I didn’t mean to, he said. And he sat down beside me under the tree. Then he said, What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Won’t Nancy be after you? For he was a very inquisitive boy, and always asking questions.

I explained about my birthday, and said it was kind of Nancy to give me the entire afternoon to myself. And he wished me a happy birthday. Then he said, I saw you crying.

And I said, Where were you, to be spying on me like that?

He said he often came to the orchard, when Mr. Kinnear wasn’t looking; and later in the season, Mr. Kinnear sometimes stood on the verandah and used his telescope, to make sure the boys around were not robbing his orchard; but the apples and pears were still too green for that. Then he said, Why are you sad, Grace?

I felt I would cry again, and said simply, I have no friends here.

Jamie said, I am your friend. Then he paused, and said, Do you have a sweetheart, Grace? And I said I did not. And he said, I would like to be your sweetheart. And in a few years, when I’m older and have saved the money for it, we will be married.

I could not keep myself from smiling at that. I said, making a joke of it, But are you not in love with Nancy. And he said, No, though I like her well enough. Then he said, So what do you say to it?

But Jamie, I said, I am a great deal older than you; and I spoke as if teasing. For I could not believe he was in earnest.

A year and a bit, he said. A year is nothing.

Still, you are only a boy, I said.

I am taller than you, he said. Which was true. But I don’t know why it is, a girl of fifteen or sixteen is accounted a woman, but a boy of fifteen or sixteen is still a boy. I did not say this however, seeing it was a sore point with him; so I thanked him gravely for his offer, and told him I would consider it, as I did not wish to hurt his feelings.

Come, he said, as it is your birthday, I will play you a tune. And he took out his fife, and played The Soldier Boy to the Wars Has Gone, very nicely and with feeling, although a trifle shrill on the top notes. And then he played Believe Me If All These Endearing Young Charms. And I could tell that these must have been some new pieces that he was practising, and he was proud of them; so I told him how lovely it was.

After that he said he would make me a daisy crown, in honour of the day; and the two of us set to making daisy chains, and were very busy and industrious over them, just like small children; and I don’t think I’d enjoyed myself more since the times with Mary Whitney. When we were finished, he very solemnly put one chain around my hat, and another around my neck, for a necklace, and said I was the May Queen; and I said I would have to be the July Queen, as it was July, and we laughed. And he asked if he could give me a kiss on the cheek; which I said yes, but only one; and he did it. And I told him that he had made my birthday a fine occasion after all, because he’d taken my mind off all of my worries; and he smiled at that.

But the time had gone flying by, and the afternoon was now over. As I came back up the drive I saw Mr. Kinnear standing on the verandah, and looking at me with his telescope; and as I approached the back door, he walked around the side of the house, and said, Good afternoon, Grace. I returned it, and he said, Who was that man with you in the orchard? And what were you doing with him?

I could hear in his voice what sort of suspicions he was entertaining; and I said it was only young Jamie Walsh, and we were making daisy chains because it was my birthday. And he accepted that, but was none too pleased all the same. And when I went into the kitchen to begin the preparations for supper, Nancy said, What is that wilted flower doing in your hair? It looks very silly. There was one, which had got caught when I was taking off the daisy necklace. But these two things together took some of the innocence out of the day. So I set about cooking the supper; and when McDermott came in later with an armful of wood for the stove, he said in a sneering manner, So, you were rolling about in the grass, and kissing the errand boy, he should have his brains knocked out for that, and I’d do it for him myself if he wasn’t such a baby. It’s clear you prefer the boys to the men, such a fine cradle-robber you are. And I said, I was doing no such thing. But he did not believe me.

I felt as though my afternoon had not been mine at all, and not a kind and private thing, but had been spied upon by every one of them — with Mr. Kinnear included, which I did not think he would have stooped so low — exactly as if they’d all been lined up in a row at the door of my chamber, and taking turns at looking through the keyhole; which made me very sad, and also angry.

Chapter 30

Several days now passed without event. I had been at Mr. Kinnear’s almost two weeks, but it seemed a good deal longer, for time was hanging heavy on my hands, as it does tend to do, Sir, when a person is not happy. Mr. Kinnear was away on horseback, I believe he had gone over to Thornhill, and Nancy had gone visiting to her friend Mrs. Wright’s. Jamie Walsh had not been over to the house of late, and I wondered if McDermott had threatened him, and told him to keep away.

I do not know where McDermott was; I expect he was asleep in the barn. I was not on good terms with him, as he’d started in that morning on what fine eyes I had, all the better to make eyes at young lads who still had their milk teeth, and I’d told him to keep his conversation to himself as he was the only one in the room who enjoyed it, and he’d said I had a tongue in my head like a viper, and I said that if he wanted someone who wouldn’t answer back, why didn’t he go out to the barn and make love to the cow, which is the kind of thing Mary Whitney would have said, or so I told myself. I was in the kitchen garden, picking the new peas and turning the anger over in my mind — for I was still angry over the suspicions and prying I had been subject to, as well as McDermott’s bitter teasing —

when I heard a tuneful whistling, and I saw a man coming up the drive with a pack on his back and a weather-beaten hat on his head, and a long walking-stick in his hand. It was Jeremiah the peddler. I was so glad to see a face from better times that I dropped the peas out of my apron in a heap on the ground, and waved, and ran down the drive to meet him. For he was an old friend, or so I thought of him by then. In a new country, friends become old friends very quickly. Well, Grace, he said, I told you I would come.

And I am very glad to see you, Jeremiah, I said.

I walked with him to the back door of the house, and I said, What do you have with you today? For I always loved to see the contents of a peddler’s pack, even if most of the things were beyond my means. He said, Aren’t you going to invite me into the kitchen, Grace, out of the sun where it is cool? And I remembered that this was the way it was done at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s, and I did so; and once he was inside I sat him down at the kitchen table, and got him some small beer from the pantry, and a cup of cold water; and I cut him a slice of bread and cheese. I was quite the busybody, as I felt that he was a guest of a kind, and I was by way of being the hostess, and so should do the hospitable thing. And I had a glass of beer too, to keep him company.

Here’s to your good health, Grace, he said. I thanked him and returned it. And are you happy here? he said.

The house is a very beautiful one, I said, with pictures and a piano. For I did not like to speak ill of anyone, and especially not my master and mistress.

But in a quiet and removed situation, he said, regarding me with his bright and shining eyes. He had eyes like blackberries, and the air of being able to see more than most could; and I could tell he was trying to look into my mind; but in a kindly way. For I believe he always had a regard for me. It is quiet, I said. But Mr. Kinnear is a liberal gentleman.

And with a gentleman’s tastes, he said, giving me a shrewd look. They say in the neighbourhood that he has a hankering after the servant-girls, especially those close to home. I hope you will not end up like Mary Whitney.

I was startled at that, for I thought I was the only one to know the truth about that affair, and which gentleman it was, and how close to home, and I’d never told a living soul. How did you guess it? I said. He put his finger alongside his nose, to signify silence and wisdom; and said, The future lies hid in the present, for those that can read it. And since he already knew so much, I unburdened myself to him, and told him everything I have told you, Sir, even the part where I heard Mary’s voice, and fainted, and ran about the house with no recollection of it; except about the doctor, as I felt Mary would not want it known. But I believe Jeremiah guessed about it, for he was a great man for divining what was meant, even when not spoken out loud.

That is a sad story, said Jeremiah, when I had done. As for you, Grace, a stitch in time saves nine. You know that Nancy was the servant of the house, not so long ago, and did all the rough and dirty work that you do now.

This was very direct, and I looked down. I did not know that, I said. Once a man gets a habit it is hard to break, he said. It’s like a dog gone to the bad — once a sheep is killed, the dog will get a taste for it, and must kill another.

Have you been travelling very much, I said; as I did not like this talk of killing. Yes, he said, I am always on the move. I was lately down in the States, where I can buy notions cheap, and sell them up here for more; for that is how we peddlers earn our bread. We must be paid for our shoe leather.

And what is it like there? I said. Some say it is better.

In many ways it is the same as here, he said. There are rogues and scoundrels everywhere, but they use a different sort of language to excuse themselves; and there they pay a great lip service to democracy, just as here they rant on about the right order of society, and loyalty to the Queen; though the poor man is poor on every shore. But when you cross over the border, it is like passing through air, you wouldn’t know you’d done it; as the trees on both sides of it are the same. And it’s generally through the trees I go, and by night; as paying the Customs duties on my goods would be an inconvenience to me; and also the price to such good customers as you would have to go up, he said with a smile. But are you not breaking the law? said I. And what would become of you if caught?

Laws are made to be broken, he said, and these laws were not made by me or mine, but by the powers that be, and for their own profit. But I am harming no one. A man with any spirit in him likes a challenge, and to outwit others; and as to being caught, I’m an old fox, and have been at it a few too many years for that. Also I am a lucky man, as can be read inside my hand. And he showed me a cross on the palm of his right hand, and one on the left as well, both of them in the shape of an X; and he said he was protected both asleep and awake, as the left hand was the hand of dreams. And I looked into my own hands, but could not see any such crosses.

Luck can run out, I said. I hope you will be careful.

Why Grace, do you have a tender concern for my safety? said he with a smile; and I looked down at the table. Indeed, he said more seriously, I have thought about giving up this line of work, as there is now more competition than formerly, and with the improvement of the roads, many go into the towns to make their purchases, instead of staying at home and buying from me.

I was disappointed to hear he might stop the peddling, as it meant he would not be coming any more with his pack. But what would you do then? I said.

I could go about the fairs, he said, and be a fire-eater, or else a medical clairvoyant, and trade in Mesmerism and Magnetism, which is always a draw. As a younger man I was in partnership with a woman who knew the business, as the thing is generally worked in couples; I was the one who made the passes and also took in the money, and she was the one to have a muslin veil put over her, and go into a trance, and speak in a hollow voice, and tell the people what was wrong with them, for a fee of course. It is wellnigh foolproof, for as they can’t see inside their own bodies, who’s to say whether you are right or not? But the woman got tired of it, or else of me; and went off down the Mississippi on one of the boats. Or I could become a preacher, he continued. Below the border there’s a great demand for it, more so than here, in particular during the summers, when the preaching is done outdoors, or in tents; and the people there love to fall down in fits, and talk in tongues, and be saved once a summer, or more if available; for which they are willing to show their gratitude by a liberal scattering of coinage. That’s a promising line of work, and rightly carried on, it pays a good deal more than this. I did not know you were religious, I said.

Nor am I, said he; but so far as I can tell it is not required. Many of the preachers there have no more faith in God than a stone.

I said it was wicked of him to say so, but he only laughed. So long as the people get what they come for, what does it matter? he said. I would give full measure. A faithless preacher with a good manner and voice will always convert more than a limp-handed long-faced fool, no matter how Godly. Then he struck a solemn pose, and intoned, Those strong in the faith know, that in the Lord’s hands even the infirm vessel is put to right use.

I see you have made a study of it already, I said, for he did sound exactly like a preacher; and he laughed again. But then he looked more earnest, and leant across the table. I think you should come away with me, Grace, he said. I don’t like the feel of things.

Come away? I said. What do you mean?

You would be safer with me than you are here, he said.

At that I gave a shiver, for it was close to what I myself had been feeling, although I did not know it until then. But what would I do? I said.

You could travel with me, he said. You could be a medical clairvoyant; I would teach you how, and instruct you in what to say, and put you into the trances. I know by your hand that you have a talent for it; and with your hair down you would have the right look. I promise you’d earn more that way in two days than you do scrubbing the floors here in two months. You would need a different name, of course; a French one or something foreign, because the people on this side of the ocean would find it hard to believe that a woman with the plain name of Grace had mysterious powers. The unknown is always more wonderful to them than the known, and more convincing.

I said, wouldn’t that be a deception and a cheat? And Jeremiah said, no more than at the theatre. For if people wish to believe a thing, and long for it and depend on it to be true, and feel the better for it, is it cheating to help them to their own belief, by such an insubstantial thing as a name? Is it not rather a charity, and a human kindness? And when he put the thing that way, it had a better light on it. I said that a new name would pose no problem for me, as I had no great attachment to my own, it having been my father’s. And he smiled, and said, Let us shake hands on it then. I won’t conceal from you, Sir, that the idea was greatly tempting; for Jeremiah was a handsome man, with his white teeth and dark eyes, and I recalled that I was supposed to marry a man with a J to his name; and I thought also of the money I might have, and the clothes I could buy with it, and perhaps some gold earrings as well; and I would also see many other places and towns, and not always be doing the same hard and dirty chores. But then I remembered what had happened to Mary Whitney; and although Jeremiah seemed kindly, appearances can be deceptive, as she found to her cost. What if things went wrong, and I was left in the lurch by myself in a strange place?

Would we be married, then? I said.

What would be the need of that? he said. Marriage never did any good, as far as I can see; for if the two are of a mind to keep together, they will; and if not, then one of them will run off, and that’s the long and short of it.

This alarmed me. I think I had better stay here, I said. In any case I am too young to be married. Consider it, Grace, he said. For I wish you well, and am willing to help you, and care for you. And I tell you truly that you are surrounded by dangers here.

At this moment McDermott entered the room, and I wondered if he had been listening outside the door, and for how long; for he seemed very angry. He asked Jeremiah who the Devil he might be, and what the Devil he was doing in the kitchen.

I said that Jeremiah was a peddler, and well known to me from former days; and McDermott looked at the pack — which was opened by this time, for Jeremiah had opened it up as we were talking, although he had not spread out all of the things — and said that was all very well, but Mr. Kinnear would be annoyed to find out that I had been wasting good beer and cheese on a common rogue of a peddler. He said this not because he cared two straws about what Mr. Kinnear might think, but only to insult Jeremiah.

And I replied that Mr. Kinnear was generous-minded, and would not refuse an honest man a cold drink on a hot day. And at that McDermott scowled even more, for he did not like it if I praised Mr. Kinnear. Then Jeremiah, to get between and make the peace, said that he had some shirts, which although used were good ones, and a bargain; and they were just the size to fit McDermott; and although McDermott grumbled, Jeremiah brought them out, and displayed their qualities; and I knew McDermott was in need of some new shirts, having torn one of his past mending, and ruined another by letting it lie muddied and damp, so that the mildew got into it. And I saw that his attention was caught, and silently brought a mug of beer for him.

The shirts were marked H. C., and Jeremiah said they’d belonged to a soldier, a gallant fighter too; but not a dead one, for it was bad luck to wear the clothes of the dead; and he named a price, for all four. McDermott said he could only manage three at that price, and named a lower, and so they went on until Jeremiah said well, he would do it, he would give the four for the price of three, but not a penny less, although it was highway robbery and he would be bankrupt in no time if things went on this way; and McDermott was very pleased with himself to think he’d made such a tight bargain. But I could see by the twinkle in Jeremiah’s eye that he was only pretending to let McDermott get the better of him, and in fact had come out of it very well.

Now, Sir, these were the very same shirts that figured so largely at the trial; and there was much confusion over them, firstly because McDermott said he’d got them from a peddler, and then changed his tune and said, From a soldier. But in a sense both were true; and I believe he turned the story that way because he did not want Jeremiah standing in court against him, knowing he was a friend of mine, and would help me, and would testify against McDermott’s character; or so he must have thought. And secondly, because the newspapers could not get the number of shirts right. But there were four of them, not three, as they said; for two were in McDermott’s carpetbag, and one was found covered with blood behind the kitchen door; which was the one McDermott had on when he was disposing of Mr. Kinnear’s body. And the fourth was on Mr. Kinnear himself, because James McDermott put it there. So that makes four, not three.

I walked with Jeremiah partway down the drive, with McDermott looking on with a baleful scowl from the kitchen doorway; but I didn’t care what he thought, as he was not my owner. When the time came to part, Jeremiah looked very earnestly at me, and said he would come back soon for my answer, and he hoped for my sake as well as his own that it would be yes. And I thanked him for his good wishes. Just knowing I could go away if I wanted to made me feel safer, and happier as well. When I went back into the house, McDermott said it was a good riddance, and he didn’t like the man, as he had a low foreign look about him; and he supposed he’d come sniffing around after me like a dog after a bitch in heat. I did not reply to this remark, as I found it very coarse, and was surprised by the violence of his expression; and I asked him to kindly remove himself from the kitchen, as it was now time for me to busy myself with the supper.

It was only then I remembered the peas that I’d dropped in the garden, and went outside to pick them up.

Chapter 31

Several days later, the doctor paid us a visit. Dr. Reid was his name, an elderly gentleman, or so he appeared; but with doctors it is hard to tell, as they put on grave faces and carry many sorts of illnesses about with them, in their leather satchels where they keep the knives, and this makes them old before their time; and as with crows, when you see two or three of them gathered together you know there is a death in the offing, and they are discussing it. With the crows they are deciding which parts they will tear open and make off with, and so it is with the doctors.

I do not mean you, Sir, as you have no leather bag or knives.

When I saw the doctor coming up the drive in his one-horse gig, I felt my heart beat painfully, and I thought I was about to faint; but I did not do so, as I was downstairs by myself and would have to answer for anything that might be needed. Nancy would be no help; she was upstairs lying down. On the day before, I’d assisted her in fitting the new dress she was making, and so I’d spent an hour kneeling on the floor with my mouth full of pins while she turned around and viewed herself in front of the mirror. She remarked that she was getting too plump, and I said it was a good thing to have a bit of flesh, as it did not do to be all skin and bones, and that the young ladies nowadays were starving themselves because of the fashion, which was to be pale and sickly, and they laced their stays in so tight they fainted as soon as looked at. Mary Whitney used to say that no man wanted a skeleton, they liked something to take a hold of, some at the front and some at the back and the more arse the better; but I did not repeat this to Nancy. The dress she was making was a light cream-coloured American print with sprigs and buds, and a tucked bodice coming to a point below the waist, and three layers of flounced ruffles to the skirt; and I told her it was very becoming.

Nancy frowned at herself in the mirror, and said all the same her waist was getting too big, and if it kept on she would need a new pair of stays, and soon she would be a great fat fishwife. I bit my tongue, and did not say that if she would keep her thumbs out of the butter she’d stand less chance of it. Half a loaf of bread she’d gobbled before breakfast, and spread with butter thick as tar, and plum jam on top of it. And the day before I’d seen her eating a slice of pure fat trimmed off the ham in the pantry.

She’d asked me to lace her stays just a little tighter, and then fit the waist again; but as I was doing so she said she felt unwell. It was no wonder, considering what she’d been eating, though I’d set it down as well to the tightness of the lacing. But this morning she’d also had a spell of dizziness, or so she said; and this after hardly any breakfast, and no tight lacing at all. So I was beginning to wonder what was the matter, and thought that perhaps the doctor had been summoned for Nancy.

When I saw the doctor coming, I was outside in the yard, pumping another pail of water for the wash; for it was a fine morning, with the air hard and clear, and bright hot sunlight, and a good drying day. Mr. Kinnear went out to greet the doctor, who tied up his horse to the fence, and then they both went into the house by the front door. I went on with what I was doing and soon had the wash hanging up on the line, which was a white wash, consisting of shirts and nightdresses and petticoats and the like, but no bedsheets; and all the while I was wondering what business the doctor had with Mr. Kinnear. The two of them had gone into Mr. Kinnear’s little office, and shut the door; and after a moment’s consideration I went quietly into the adjoining library to dust the books; but I was unable to hear anything from inside the office except a murmuring of voices.

I was imagining all sorts of things, such as Mr. Kinnear coughing up blood and gasping his last, and I was working myself up into a state over him; so when I heard the office door handle turning I went quickly along through the dining room into the front parlour with my duster and cloth, as it is always best to know the worst. Mr. Kinnear showed Dr. Reid to the front entrance, and the doctor said that he was sure they would have the pleasure of Mr. Kinnear’s company for many years to come, and that Mr. Kinnear had been reading too many medical journals, which gave him ideas, and caused him to imagine things; and that there was nothing wrong with him that a healthy diet and regular hours would not cure; but for the sake of his liver he should limit his drink. This speech relieved me; yet I reflected that it was a thing a doctor may say to a man who is dying, to spare him the worry.

I looked cautiously out of the parlour, through the side window. Dr. Reid went over to his horse and gig, and the next thing I knew there was Nancy, with her shawl clutched around her and her hair half down, in conversation with him. She must have crept down the stairs without my hearing her, which meant she didn’t wish Mr. Kinnear to hear her either. I thought she might be trying to find out what was wrong with Mr. Kinnear, if anything; but then it came to me that she could also be consulting him about her own sudden illness.

Dr. Reid drove off, and Nancy turned towards the back of the house. I heard Mr. Kinnear calling for her from the library; but as she was still outside, and might not want it known what she’d been doing, I went in to him myself. Mr. Kinnear did not look any the worse than usual, and was reading a copy of The Lancet, from the large pile of them he kept on a shelf. I’d sometimes peered into them myself while cleaning the room, but could not make head nor tail of a great deal that was in there, except that some of it was about bodily functions that ought not to be set down in print, even with all of the fancy names. Well, Grace, said Mr. Kinnear. And where is your mistress?

I said she was not at all well, and was lying down upstairs, but if there was anything to be brought to him, I could do it myself. He said he wanted some coffee, if it was not too much trouble. I said it was not, although it might take a time, for I would have to build the fire up again; and he said when it was ready I should bring it in to him; and he thanked me, as always.

I went across the courtyard to the summer kitchen. Nancy was there, seated at the table and looking tired and sad, and quite pale. I said I hoped she was feeling better, and she said she was, and then asked me what I was doing, as I was stirring up the fire, which was nearly out. I said that Mr. Kinnear wanted me to make him some coffee, and to take it in to him.

But I always take in his coffee, said Nancy. Why did he ask you?

I said I was sure it was because she herself was not there. I was only trying to spare her the work, I said, as I knew she was ill.

I will take it in, she said. And Grace, this afternoon I would like you to scrub this floor. It is very dirty and I am tired of living in a pigpen.

I did not think the dirtiness of the floor had anything to do with it, but that I was being punished by her, for having gone into Mr. Kinnear’s office by myself; which was most unjust, as I had only been attempting to help her.

Although the day had begun so fine and clear, by noon it had become very oppressive and glowering. There was no breeze moving anywhere, and the air was damp, and the sky had covered over with clouds of a sullen yellowish grey, but bright behind them, like heated metal; and it had a blank and foreboding look to it. In such weather it is often hard to breathe. But nonetheless, in the middle of the afternoon, when if things had been as usual I would have been sitting down, outside perhaps to catch a breath of air, with some mending, to give my feet a rest as I was on the two of them the most part of every day, I was down on my knees instead, scrubbing the stone floor of the summer kitchen. It did need a cleaning but I would just as soon have done it in cooler weather, as it was hot enough to fry an egg; and the sweat was pouring off me like water off a duck, if you’ll excuse me for putting it that way, Sir. I was worried about the meat in the meat safe in the pantry, as there were more flies than was usual buzzing around it. If I was Nancy, I would never have ordered such a big slab of meat in such hot weather, as I was sure it would go off, which would be a waste and a shame; and it ought to have been put down in the cellar, for the coolness. But I knew it was no use my making any suggestions to her, as I would only get my head bitten off.

The floor was dirty as a stable, and I wondered when it had last been given a good cleaning. I’d swept it first, of course, and now I was washing it in the proper way, kneeling down with each knee on an old clout because of the hardness of the stone, and with my shoes and stockings off, because to do a good job you have to get right down to it, and my sleeves rolled up past the elbows and my skirt and petticoats pulled back between my legs and tucked behind into the sash of my apron, which is what you do, Sir, to save your stockings and clothes, as anyone knows who has ever scrubbed a floor. I had a good bristle brush for the scrubbing and an old cloth to wipe up, and I was working from the far corner, moving backwards towards the door; for you don’t want to scrub yourself into a corner, Sir, when doing a task like this.

I heard someone come into the kitchen behind me. I’d left the door open to get what air there was, and so the floor would dry faster. I thought it must be McDermott.

Don’t walk on my clean floor, you with your mucky boots, I said to him; and I kept on scrubbing. He didn’t answer, but neither did he go away. He stayed standing in the doorway, and it came to me that he was watching my bare ankles and legs, dirty as they were, and — if you’ll excuse me, Sir — my backside moving back and forth with the scrubbing, like a dog waggling its rump. Don’t you have anything better to do? I said to him. You’re not paid to stand there and gawp. I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder, and it wasn’t McDermott at all, but Mr. Kinnear himself, with a smirk on him as if he thought it a good joke. I scrambled to my feet, tugging my skirt down with one hand, with the brush in the other, and the dirty water dripping onto my dress. Oh I am sorry, Sir, I said. But I thought, why couldn’t he have the decency to say who he was?

No harm done, he said, a cat may look at a queen; and at that minute Nancy came in through the doorway, with her face as white as chalk and green around the gills, but her eyes as sharp as needles. What is it? What are you doing here? She said it to me, but she meant it for him. Scrubbing the floor, I said. Ma’am. As you ordered me to. What does it look like to her, I thought. Dancing?

You’re talking back, said Nancy, I am sick of your insolence. But I was not, I was only answering her own question.

Mr. Kinnear said, as if he was apologizing — but what had he done? — he said, All I wanted was a second cup of coffee.

I will make it, said Nancy. Grace, you may go.

Where am I to go, Ma’am? I said. With the floor only half done.

Anywhere out of here, said Nancy. She was very angry with me. And for God’s sake pin up your hair, she added. You look like a common slut.

Mr. Kinnear said, I will be in the library, and he went away.

Nancy poked at the fire in the stove as if stabbing it. Close your mouth, she said to me, you’ll catch flies. And you’ll keep it closed in future if you know what’s good for you.

I thought about throwing the scrubbing brush at her, and the bucket too for good measure, the dirty water and all. I pictured her standing there, with the hair streaming down over her face, like someone drowned.

But then all at once it came over me what was the matter with her. I’d seen it often enough before. The eating of strange foods at odd times, the sickness and the green tinge around the mouth, the way she was plumping out, like a raisin in hot water, and her quirkiness and irritation. She was in a delicate condition. She was in the family way. She was in trouble.

I stood there gaping at her, as if I’d been kicked in the stomach. Oh no, oh no, I thought. I felt my heart going hard like a hammer. It cannot be.

That evening Mr. Kinnear was at home, and he and Nancy took their supper in the dining room, and I carried it in. I scanned his face, looking for a consciousness there, of Nancy‘s condition: but he did not know. What would he do when he found out, I wondered. Boot her into the ditch. Marry her. I had no idea, and could not rest easy with either of these futures. I wished Nancy no harm, and did not want her cast out, a waif on the common highway and a prey to wandering scoundrels; but all the same it would not be fair and just that she should end up a respectable married lady with a ring on her finger, and rich into the bargain. It would not be right at all. Mary Whitney had done the same as her, and had gone to her death. Why should the one be rewarded and the other punished, for the same sin?

I cleared the things off the table as usual after they had gone into the parlour. By this time it was hot as an oven, with grey clouds blotting out the light, although it was not yet sunset; and still as the grave, with no wind, but heat lightning flickering on the horizon, and a faint growling of thunder. When the weather is like that you can hear your own heart beat; it is like hiding, and waiting for someone to come and find you, and you don’t know who that person will be. I lit a candle so I could see to eat my own supper, which I took with McDermott, cold roast beef it was, as I couldn’t bear to cook anything hot for us. We ate it in the winter kitchen, and with it we had beer, and some of the bread which was still fresh enough and very nice, with a slice or two of cheese. Then I washed up the supper things and dried them, and put them away.

McDermott was cleaning the shoes; he’d been sullen during our supper, and said why couldn’t we have proper cooked food, like the steaks with new peas the others had eaten, and I said new peas did not grow on trees, and he ought to know who would have the first choice of them, as there had only been enough for two; and in any case I was Mr. Kinnear’s servant, not his; and he said that if I was his I would not last long, as I was such a foul tempered witch, and the only cure for me was the end of a belt; and I said ill words butter no parsnips.

I could hear the sound of Nancy’s voice from the parlour, and I knew she must be reading out loud. She liked to do it, as she thought it was genteel; but she always pretended that Mr. Kinnear required it of her. They had the parlour window open, even though the moths would get in that way, and that is why I could hear her.

I lit another candle and told McDermott I was going to bed, to which he said nothing but only gave a grunt; and he took up his own candle and went out. When he was gone I opened the door to the passageway and looked along it. The light from the globe lamp was falling through the half-open parlour door, making a light patch on the passage floor, and Nancy‘s voice was coming out into the hall as well. I went quietly along the passageway, leaving my candle on the kitchen table, and stood leaning against the wall. I wanted to hear the story she was reading. It was The Lady of the Lake, which Mary Whitney and I had once read together, and it made me sad to recall it. Nancy read it well enough, though slowly, and sometimes stumbling over a word.

The poor madwoman had just been shot by mistake, and was expiring, while speaking several lines of verse; and I thought it a very melancholy part; but Mr. Kinnear did not agree, for he said it was a wonder anyone could move an inch in romantic landscapes such as those of Scotland, without being accosted by madwomen, who were always jumping in front of arrows and bullets not intended for them, which had the virtue at least of putting an end to their caterwauling and misery; or else they were constantly throwing themselves into the ocean, at such a rate that the sea soon would be so clogged with their drowned bodies, as to constitute a serious hazard to shipping. Then Nancy said he lacked a proper feeling; and Mr. Kinnear said no, he did not, but it was well known that Sir Walter Scott had put so many corpses into his books for the sake of the ladies, because the ladies must have blood, there is nothing delights them so much as a weltering corpse.

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

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

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

Yes, Nancy said, the work was getting done, but in the case of McDermott, only because she stood over him with a whip; and when she scolded him for being lazy, he was insolent with her, and she had given him his notice. Mr. Kinnear said he was a surly black-browed rascal, and he’d never liked him. And then he said, What about Grace. And I strained my ears, the better to hear what Nancy said. She said that I was tidy and quick about my work, but that I had lately become very quarrelsome, and she was thinking of giving me my notice; and when I heard that, my face went hot all over. Then she said there was something about me that made her quite uneasy, and she wondered whether I was quite right, as she’d several times heard me talking out loud to myself.

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

Nancy said she certainly hoped he would never say such flattering things to me, as it would turn my head, and give me ideas above my station, which would be no favour to me. Then she said he never had such agreeable opinions of her; and he said something I couldn’t hear, and there was more silence and rustling. And then Mr. Kinnear said that it was time for bed. So I made my way quickly back to the kitchen, and sat down at the table; for it would not have done for Nancy to catch me listening. But I did listen afterwards, once they’d gone up; and I heard Mr. Kinnear saying, I know you’re hiding, come out right now, you dirty girl, do as I say, or I will have to catch you, and when I do…

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

The thunder was coming closer. I’ve never liked a thunderstorm, and did not then. When I went to bed, I secured my shutters so none of the thunder could get in, and pulled the covers up over my head, although it was so hot; and I thought I would never get to sleep. But I did; and was awakened in the pitch darkness by a tremendous crashing, as if the end of the world had come. A violent storm was raging, with a sound of drums and roaring, and I was beside myself with terror, and cowered in my bed praying for it to be over, shutting my eyes against the flashes of light that came in through the cracks in the shutters. The rain was pouring down like ten thousand, and the house working in the wind like grinding teeth; and I was sure that every next minute we would split in two like a ship at sea, and sink down into the earth. And then, right next to my ear, I heard a voice whispering: It cannot be. I must have been frightened into a fit, because after that I lost consciousness altogether. Then I had a very strange dream. I dreamt that all was quiet again, and that I got out of bed in my nightdress, and unlatched my chamber door, and walked across the floor of the winter kitchen in my bare feet, and out into the courtyard. The clouds had been swept away, and the moon was shining brightly, and the leaves of the trees looked like feathers of silver; and the air was cooler, with a touch to it like velvet; and there were crickets chirping. I could smell the wet garden smell, and the sharp tang of the henhouse; and also I could hear Charley whinnying softly from the stable, which meant he knew there was someone close by. I stood there in the yard beside the pump, with the moonlight falling over me like water; and it was as if I could not move.

Then two arms stole around me from the back, and began caressing me. They were a man’s arms; and I could feel the mouth of this same man on my neck and cheek, kissing me ardently, and his body pressed up against my back; but it was like the game of blind man’s buff, that children play, as I could not tell who it was, nor could I turn and look. I caught a scent of road dust and leather, and thought it might be Jeremiah the peddler; then it changed to a smell of horse dung, so I thought it was McDermott. But I could not rouse myself to push him away. Then it changed again, and was the odour of tobacco, and of Mr. Kinnear’s fine shaving soap, and I was not surprised, as I had been half expecting something of the sort from him; and all the while the mouth of the unknown man was on my neck, and I could feel his breath stirring my hair. And then I felt it was not any of these three, but another man, someone I knew well and had long been familiar with, even as long ago as my childhood, but had since forgotten; nor was this the first time I’d found myself in this situation with him. I felt a warmth and a drowsy languor stealing over me, and urging me to yield, and surrender myself; as to do so would be far easier than to resist. But then I heard the neighing of a horse; and it came to me that this was not Charley, nor the colt in the barn, but a different horse altogether. A great fear came over me, and my body went entirely cold, and I stood as if paralyzed with fear; for I knew that the horse was no earthly horse, but the pale horse that will be sent at the Day of Reckoning, and the rider of it is Death; and it was Death himself who stood behind me, with his arms wrapped around me as tight as iron bands, and his lipless mouth kissing my neck as if in love. But as well as the horror, I also felt a strange longing.

At this the sun came up, not little by little as it does when we are awake, Sir, but all at once, with a great blare of light. If it had been a sound, it would have been the blowing of many trumpets; and the arms that were holding me melted away. I was dazzled by the brightness; but as I looked up, I saw that in the trees by the house, and also in the trees of the orchard, there were a number of birds perching, enormous birds as white as ice. This was an ominous and baleful sight, as they appeared crouched as if ready to spring and destroy; and in that way they were like a gathering of crows, only white. But as my sight cleared, I saw that they were not birds at all. They had a human form, and they were the angels whose white robes were washed in blood, as it says at the end of the Bible; and they were sitting in silent judgment upon Mr. Kinnear’s house, and on all within it. And then I saw that they had no heads. In the dream, I then lost consciousness, from sheer terror; and when I came to myself, I was in my own bed, in my small chamber, with the quilt drawn up to my ears. But after I rose — for it was already dawn

— I found that the hem of my nightdress was wet, and my feet had the marks of earth and grass on them; and I thought I must have been walking around outside without knowing I was doing so, as had happened to me once before, on the day that Mary Whitney died; and my heart sank within me. I proceeded to dress as usual, vowing to keep my dream to myself, because who was there I could trust with it, in that house? If I told it as a warning, I would only be laughed at. But when I went outside to pump the first pail of water, there was all the laundry I had done the day before, blown into the trees by the tempest during the night. I’d forgotten to bring it in; it was very unlike me to forget a thing like that, especially a white laundry, which I’d worked so hard at, getting out the spots; and this was another cause of foreboding to me. And the nightdresses and shirts which were stuck in the trees did indeed look like angels without heads; and it was as if our own clothing was sitting in judgment upon us. I could not shake the feeling that there was a doom on the house, and that some within were fated to die. If I’d been given the chance right then, I would have taken the risk, and gone off with Jeremiah the peddler; and indeed I wanted to run after him, and better for me if I had; but I didn’t know where he had gone.

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

Nine - Hearts and Gizzards

Chapter 32

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

He is dazed by the change. Living through the more gradual seasons of Europe, he’d forgotten these brutal transitions. His clothing is heavy as fur, his skin seems always damp. He’s under the impression that he smells like bacon fat and soured milk; or perhaps it’s his bedchamber that smells this way. It hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned for far too long, nor the sheets changed: no suitable maid-of-all-work has yet been located, though Mrs. Humphrey details her efforts along these lines to him every morning. According to her, the departed Dora has been spreading stories around the town — among all the potential servant-girls, at least — about how Mrs. Humphrey has not paid her, and is about to be turned out bag and baggage, on account of having no money; and also about how the Major has run off, which is even more disgraceful. So of course, she tells Simon, it stands to reason that no servants wish to take their chances in such a household. And she smiles a rueful smile.

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

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

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

The kitchen is even greasier than it was when he first entered it. Dust rolls have gathered under the stove, spiders in the corners, breadcrumbs beside the sink; a family of beetles has moved into the pantry. It is alarming how quickly one descends into squalor. Something must be done soon, some slave or lackey acquired. In addition to the dirt, there is the question of appearances. He cannot continue to live alone in this house with his landlady: especially not such a tremulous landlady, and one deserted by her husband. If it becomes generally known and people begin to talk — no matter how groundless such talk would be

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

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

Mrs. Humphrey is talking again; the subject is her gratitude to him, as it often is while he is eating his toast. She waits until his mouth is full, then launches in. His gaze wanders over her — the pale oval of her face, her stringent and bloodless hair, her crackling black silk waist, her abrupt white edgings of lace. Underneath her stiff dress there must be breasts, not starched and corset-shaped, but made of soft flesh, with nipples; he finds himself idly guessing what colour these nipples would be, in sunlight or else in lamplight, and how large. Nipples pink and small like the snouts of animals, of rabbits or mice perhaps; or the almost-red of ripening currants; or the scaly brown of acorn caps. His imagination runs, he notes, to wildwood details, and to things hard or alert. In reality this woman does not attract him: such images arrive unsummoned. His eyes feel squeezed — not a headache yet, but a dull pressure. He wonders if he’s running a low fever; this morning he examined his tongue in the mirror for telltale blanching and spots. A bad tongue looks like cooked veal: greyish white, with a scum on it. The life he’s leading is not healthy. His mother is right, he should marry. Marry or burn, as St. Paul says; or search out the usual remedies. There are houses of ill repute in Kingston, as everywhere, but he cannot avail himself of them as he might in London or Paris. The town is too small and he is too conspicuous, his position too precarious, the Governor’s wife too pious, the enemies of Reform too ubiquitous. It’s not worth the risk, and in any case the houses here are bound to be depressing. Sadly pretentious, with a provincial idea of the alluring in their wistfully upholstered furnishings. Too much brocade and fringe. But also briskly utilitarian — run on the North American mill-town factory principle of quick processing, and dedicated to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, no matter how grim and minimal the quality of that happiness may be. Soiled petticoats, whores’ sunless flesh pallid as uncooked pastry and smudged by the thick tarry fingers of sailors; and by those, more manicured, of the occasional Government legislator, travelling through, sheepishly incognito.

It’s just as well he must avoid these places. Such experiences drain the mental energies.

“Are you ill, Dr. Jordan?” asks Mrs. Humphrey, as she hands him a second cup of tea, which she has poured for him without being asked. Her eyes are motionless, green, marine, the pupils small and black. He wakes with a start. Has he been asleep?

“You were pressing your hand to your forehead,” she says. “Do you have a pain there?”

She has a habit of materializing outside his door while he’s trying to work, asking if there is anything he needs. She is solicitous of him, tender almost, yet there is something cringing about her, as if she’s waiting for a slap, a kick, a flat-handed blow, which she knows with dreary fatalism will surely come sooner or later. But not from him, not from him, he protests silently. He is a mild-tempered man, he has never been given to outbursts, to rampages and violence. There is no news of the Major. He thinks of her naked feet, shell-thin, exposed and vulnerable, tied together with — where has this come from? — an ordinary piece of twine. Like a parcel. If his subthreshold consciousness must indulge in such exotic poses, it ought to be able to supply at least a silver chain….

He drinks the tea. It tastes of marshes, the roots of bulrushes. Tangled and obscure. He’s had some intestinal problems lately, and has been dosing himself with laudanum; fortunately he has a good supply. He suspects the water in this house; perhaps his intermittent digging in the yard has disturbed the well. His plan of a kitchen garden has come to nothing, though he’s turned over a satisfying amount of mud. After his days spent wrestling with shadows, he finds it a curious relief to get his hands into something real, such as earth. But it’s getting too hot for that.

“I must go,” he says, and stands up, pushing back his chair, wiping his mouth brusquely, making a show of bustle, although in fact he has no appointment until the afternoon. Useless to stay in his room, to try to work; at his desk he will only doze, but with his ears alert, like a drowsing cat’s, attuned to the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

He goes out, wanders at random. His body feels insubstantial as a bladder, emptied of will. He is carried along beside the lakeshore; he squints into the immense morning light, passing here and there the solitary fishermen as they cast their lures into the tepid and indolent waves. Once he’s with Grace, things are a little better, as he can still delude himself by flourishing his own sense of purpose. Grace at least represents to him some goal or accomplishment. But today, listening to her low, candid voice — like the voice of a childhood nurse reciting a well-loved story — he almost goes to sleep; only the sound of his own pencil hitting the floor pulls him awake. For a moment he thinks he’s gone deaf, or suffered a small stroke: he can see her lips moving, but he can’t interpret any of the words. This however is only a trick of consciousness, for he can remember — once he sets his mind to it —

everything she’s been saying.

On the table between them lies a small and dispirited white turnip, which both of them have so far ignored.

He must concentrate his intellectual forces; he can’t afford to flag now, give in to lethargy, lose hold of the thread he’s been following over the course of these past weeks, for at last they are approaching together the centre of Grace’s narrative. They are nearing the blank mystery, the area of erasure; they are entering the forest of amnesia, where things have lost their names. In other words, they are retracing (day by day, hour by hour) the events which immediately preceded the murders. Anything she says now may be a clue; any gesture; any twitch. She knows; she knows. She may not know that she knows, but buried deep within her, the knowledge is there.

The trouble is that the more she remembers, the more she relates, the more difficulty he himself is having. He can’t seem to keep track of the pieces. It’s as if she’s drawing his energy out of him — using his own mental forces to materialize the figures in her story, as the mediums are said to do during their trances. This is nonsense, of course. He must refuse to indulge such brain-sick fancies. But still, there was something about a man, in the night: has he missed it? One of those men: McDermott, Kinnear. In his notebook he has pencilled the word whisper, and underlined it three times. Of what had he wished to remind himself?

My dearest Son. I am alarmed that I have not heard from you for so long. Are you perhaps unwell? Where there are mists and fogs, there are bound to be infections; and I understand that the situation of Kingston is quite low, with many nearby swamps. One cannot be too careful in a garrison town, as soldiers and sailors are promiscuous in their habits. I hope you will take the precaution of keeping indoors as much as possible during this intense heat, and not going out in the sun.

Mrs. Henry Cartwright has purchased one of the new domestic Sewing Machines, for the use of her servants; and Miss Faith Cartwright was so intrigued by it, that she has tried it herself, and was able to hem a petticoat with it, in very little time; which she most thoughtfully brought over yesterday, so that I might see the stitching, as she knows I am interested in the modern inventions. The Machine works tolerably well, though there is room for improvement — snarls of thread occur more often than is desirable, and must be cut or untangled — but such devices are never perfected at first; and Mrs. Cartwright says that her husband is of the opinion, that the shares in the company which manufactures these machines, would prove a most sound investment over time. He is a most affectionate and considerate Father, and has given much study to the future welfare of his daughter, who is his only surviving Child.

But I will not bore you with talk of money, as I know you find it tedious; although, dear Son, it does keep the larder supplied, and is the means for coming by those small comforts, which make the difference between a threadbare existence, and a life of modest ease; and as your dear Father used to say, it is a substance which does not grow on trees….

Time is not running at its usual unvarying pace: it makes odd lurches. Now, too quickly, it’s evening. Simon sits at his desk, the notebook open before him, and stares stupidly out through the darkening square of window. The hot sunset has faded, leaving a purple smear; the air outside vibrates with insect whines and amphibious peepings. His entire body feels swollen, like wood in rain. From the lawn comes a scent of withering lilacs — a singed smell, like sunburned skin. Tomorrow is Tuesday, the day when he must address the Governor’s wife’s little salon, as promised. What can he possibly say? He must jot down a few notes, organize some sort of coherent presentation. But it’s no use; he can’t accomplish anything of importance, not tonight. He can’t think.

Moths beat against the lamp. He sets aside the question of the Tuesday meeting, and turns instead to his unfinished letter. My dear Mother. My health continues excellent. Thank you for sending the embroidered watch-case made for you by Miss Cartwright; I am surprised you were willing to part with it, even though as you say it is too large for your own watch; and it is certainly exquisite. I expect to finish my work here quite soon….

Lies and evasions on his side, and on hers, plottings and enticements. What does he care about Miss Faith Cartwright and her endless and infernal needlework? Every letter his mother sends him contains news of yet more knitting, stitching, and tedious crocheting. The Cartwright household must by this time be covered all over — every table, chair, lamp, and piano — with acres of tassel and fringe, a woolwork flower heavily abloom in every nook of it. Does his mother really believe that he can be charmed by such a vision of himself — married to Faith Cartwright and imprisoned in an armchair by the fire, frozen in a kind of paralyzed stupor, with his dear wife winding him up gradually in coloured silk threads like a cocoon, or like a fly snarled in the web of a spider?

He crumples the page, drops it onto the floor. He will write a different letter. My dear Edward. I trust you are in good health; I myself am still in Kingston, where I continue to… But continue to what?

What exactly is he doing here? He can’t sustain his usual jaunty tone. What can he write to Edward, what trophy or prize can he show? What clue, even? His hands are empty; he has discovered nothing. He has been travelling blindly, whether forward he cannot say, without learning anything except that he has not yet learned anything, unless he counts the extent of his own ignorance; like those who have searched fruitlessly for the source of the Nile. Like them, he must take into account the possibility of defeat. Hopeless dispatches, scrawled on pieces of bark, sent out in cleft sticks from the swallowing jungle. Suffering from malaria. Bitten by snake. Send more medicine. The maps are wrong. He has nothing positive to relate.

In the morning he will feel better. He will collect himself. When it is cooler. For the moment, he goes to bed. In his ears there’s a simmering of insects. The damp heat settles down on his face like a hand, and his consciousness flares up for a moment — what is it he is on the verge of remembering? — then gutters out.

Suddenly he starts awake. There’s light in the room, a candle, floating in the doorway. Behind it a glimmering figure: his landlady, in a white gown, a pale shawl wrapped around her. In the candlelight her long loose hair looks grey.

He pulls the sheet up over him; he is not wearing a nightshirt. “What is it?” he says. He must sound angry, but in fact he’s frightened. Not of her, surely; but what the Devil is she doing in his bedroom? In future he must lock the door.

“Dr. Jordan, I am so sorry to disturb you,” she says, “but I heard a noise. As if of someone attempting to break in through a window. I was alarmed.”

There’s no trembling in her voice, no quavering. The woman has a very cool nerve. He tells her he will come downstairs with her in a minute, and check the locks and shutters; he asks her to wait in the front room. He fumbles into his dressing-gown, which sticks immediately to his moist skin, and shuffles through the darkness towards the door.

This must stop, he tells himself. This can’t go on. But nothing has been going on, and therefore nothing can stop.

Chapter 33

It’s the middle of the night, but time keeps going on, and it also goes round and around, like the sun and the moon on the tall clock in the parlour. Soon it will be daybreak. Soon the day will break. I can’t stop it from breaking in the same way it always does, and then from lying there broken; always the same day, which comes around again like clockwork. It begins with the day before the day before, and then the day before, and then it’s the day itself. A Saturday. The breaking day. The day the butcher comes. What should I tell Dr. Jordan about this day? Because now we are almost there. I can remember what I said when arrested, and what Mr. MacKenzie the lawyer said I should say, and what I did not say even to him; and what I said at the trial, and what I said afterwards, which was different as well. And what McDermott said I said, and what the others said I must have said, for there are always those that will supply you with speeches of their own, and put them right into your mouth for you too; and that sort are like the magicians who can throw their voice, at fairs and shows, and you are just their wooden doll. And that’s what it was like at the trial, I was there in the box of the dock but I might as well have been made of cloth, and stuffed, with a china head; and I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out.

I said that I remembered some of the things I did. But there are other things they said I did, which I said I could not remember at all.

Did he say, I saw you outside at night, in your nightgown, in the moonlight? Did he say, Who were you looking for? Was it a man? Did he say, I pay good wages but I want good service in return? Did he say, do not worry, I will not tell your mistress, it will be our secret? Did he say, You are a good girl?

He might have said that. Or I might have been asleep.

Did she say, Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? Did she say, I will pay you your wages on Saturday and then you can be gone out of here, and that will be the end of it and good riddance?

Yes. She did say that.

Was I crouching behind the kitchen door after that, crying? Did he take me in his arms? Did I let him do it? Did he say Grace, why are you crying? Did I say I wished she was dead?

Oh no. Surely I did not say that. Or not out loud. And I did not really wish her dead. I only wished her elsewhere, which was the same thing she wished for me.

Did I push him away? Did he say I will soon make you think better of me? Did he say I will tell you a secret if you promise to keep it? And if you do not, your life will not be worth a straw. It might have happened.

I’m trying to remember what Mr. Kinnear looked like, so I can tell Dr. Jordan about him. He was always kind to me, or so I will say. But I can’t rightly remember. The truth is that despite everything I once thought about him, he has faded; he’s been fading year by year, like a dress washed over and over, and now what is left of him? A faint pattern. A button or two. Sometimes a voice; but no eyes, no mouth. What did he really look like, when he was in the flesh? Nobody wrote it down, not even in the newspapers; they told all about McDermott, and about me as well, and our looks and appearance, but not about Mr. Kinnear, because it is more important to be a murderess than the one murdered, you are more stared at then; and now he’s gone. I think of him asleep and dreaming in his bed, in the morning when I bring in his tea, with his face hidden by the tumbled sheet. In the darkness here I can see other things, but I can’t see him at all.

I tell over his pieces, counting. The gold snuffbox, the telescope, the pocket-compass, the pen-knife; the gold watch, the silver spoons that I polished, the candlesticks with the family crest. I Live In Hope. The tartan vest. I don’t know where they have gone.

I’m lying on the hard and narrow bed, on the mattress made of coarse ticking, which is what they call the covering of a mattress, though why do they call it that as it is not a clock. The mattress is filled with dry straw that crackles like a fire when I turn over, and when I shift it whispers to me, hush hush. It’s dark as a stone in this room, and hot as a roasting heart; if you stare into the darkness with your eyes open you are sure to see something after a time. I hope it will not be flowers. But this is the time they like to grow, the red flowers, the shining red peonies which are like satin, which are like splashes of paint. The soil for them is emptiness, it is empty space and silence. I whisper, Talk to me; because I would rather have talking than the slow gardening that takes place in silence, with the red satin petals dripping down the wall.

I think I sleep.

I’m in the back passage, feeling my way along the wall. I can scarcely see the wallpaper; it used to be green. Here are the stairs going up, here is the bannister. The bedroom door is half open, and I can listen. Bare feet on the red-flower carpet. I know you’re hiding from me, come out at once or I’ll have to find you and catch you, and when I’ve got hold of you, then who knows what I will do. I’m keeping very still behind the door, I can hear my own heart. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Here I come, I am coming now. You never obey me, you never do what I say, you dirty girl. Now you will have to be punished.

It is not my fault. What can I do now, where can I turn?

You must unlock the door, you must open the window, you must let me in. Oh look, oh look at all the spilt petals, what have you done?

I think I sleep.

I’m outside, at night. There are the trees, there is the pathway, and the snake fence with half a moon shining, and my bare feet on the gravel. But when I come around to the front of the house, the sun is just going down; and the white pillars of the house are pink, and the white peonies are glowing red in the fading light. My hands are numb, I can’t feel the ends of my fingers. There’s the smell of fresh meat, coming up from the ground and all around, although I told the butcher we wanted none. On the palm of my hand there’s a disaster. I must have been born with it. I carry it with me wherever I go. When he touched me, the bad luck came off on him.

I think I sleep.

I wake up at cock crow and I know where I am. I’m in the parlour. I’m in the scullery. I’m in the cellar. I’m in my cell, under the coarse prison blanket, which I likely hemmed myself. We make everything we wear or use here, awake or asleep; so I have made this bed, and now I am lying in it. It is morning, and time to get up; and today I must go on with the story. Or the story must go on with me, carrying me inside it, along the track it must travel, straight to the end, weeping like a train and deaf and single-eyed and locked tight shut; although I hurl myself against the walls of it and scream and cry, and beg to God himself to let me out.

When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.

Chapter 34

From the Governor’s wife, Simon accepts a cup of tea. He doesn’t much like tea, but considers it a social duty to drink it in this country; and to greet all jokes about the Boston Tea Party, of which there have been too many, with an aloof but indulgent smile.

His indisposition appears to have passed. Today he’s feeling better, although in need of sleep. He’s managed to get through his little talk to the Tuesday group, and feels he’s acquitted himself well enough. He began with a plea for the reform of mental asylums, too many of which remain the dens of squalor and iniquity they’d been in the last century. This was well received. He then continued with some remarks about the intellectual turmoil in this field of study, and about the contending schools of thought amongst alienists.

First he dealt with the Material school. Such practitioners held that mental disturbances were organic in origin — due, for instance, to lesions of the nerves and brain, or hereditary conditions of a definable kind, such as epilepsy; or to catching diseases, including those that are sexually transmitted — he was elliptical here, considering the presence of ladies, but everyone knew what he meant. Next he described the approach of the Mental school, which believed in causes that were much harder to isolate. How to measure the effects of shock, for example? How to diagnose amnesias with no discernible physical manifestation, or certain inexplicable and radical alterations of the personality? What, he asked them, was the role played by the Will, and what by the Soul? Here Mrs. Quennell leaned forward, only to lean back when he said he did not know.

Next he proceeded to the many new discoveries which were being made — Dr. Laycock’s bromide therapy for epileptics, for example, which should put paid to a great many erroneous beliefs and superstitions; the investigation of the structure of the brain; the use of drugs in both the induction and the alleviation of hallucinations of various sorts. Pioneer work was constantly going forward; here he would like to mention the courageous Dr. Charcot of Paris, who had recently dedicated himself to the study of hysterics; and the investigation of dreams as a key to diagnosis, and their relation to amnesia, to which he himself hoped in time to make a modest contribution. All of these theories were in the early stages of their development, but much might soon be expected of them. As the eminent French philosopher and scientist Maine de Biran had said, there was an inner New World to be discovered, for which one must “plunge into the subterranean caverns of the soul.”

The nineteenth century, he concluded, would be to the study of Mind what the eighteenth had been to the study of Matter — an Age of Enlightenment. He was proud to be part of such a major advance in knowledge, if only in a very small and humble way.

He wished it was not so damnably hot and humid. He was drenched by the time he concluded, and is still conscious of a marshy smell, which comes from his hands. It must be the digging; he’d done another spell of it this morning, before the heat of the day.

The Tuesday group applauded politely, and Reverend Verringer thanked him. Dr. Jordan, he said, was to be congratulated upon the edifying remarks with which he had honoured them today. He had given them all a great deal to think about. The Universe was indeed a mysterious place, but God had blessed man with a mind, the better to understand whatever mysteries were truly within his comprehension. He implied that there were others, which weren’t. This seemed to please everyone. Afterwards, Simon was thanked individually. Mrs. Quennell told him he’d spoken with heartfelt sensibility, which made him feel slightly guilty, as his chief goal had been to get the occasion over with as quickly as possible. Lydia, very fetching in a crisp and rustling summer ensemble, was breathless in her praise, and as admiring as any man might wish; but he could not shake the notion that she hadn’t really understood a single word he’d said.

“Most intriguing,” says Jerome DuPont now, at Simon’s elbow. “I notice you said nothing about prostitution, which, along with drink, is surely one of the major social ills afflicting our age.”

“I did not wish to bring it in,” says Simon, “considering the company.”

“Naturally enough. I would be interested in your opinion of the view held by some of our European colleagues, that the penchant for it is a form of insanity. They link it to hysteria and neurasthenia.”

“I am aware of it,” says Simon, smiling. In his student days, he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution, or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostitute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn’t have it both ways, he’d point out: if women are seduced and abandoned they’re supposed to go mad, but if they survive, and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with. He’d said that it seemed to him a dubious piece of reasoning; which got him the reputation either of a cynic or of a puritanical hypocrite, depending on his audience.

“I myself,” says Dr. DuPont, “tend to place prostitution in the same class as the homicidal and religious manias; all may be considered, perhaps, as an impulse to play-act which has run out of control. Such things have been observed in the theatre, among actors who claim that they become the character they are acting. Female opera singers are especially prone to it. There’s a Lucia on record who actually did kill her lover.”

“It’s an interesting possibility,” says Simon.

“You do not commit yourself,” says Dr. DuPont, gazing at Simon with his dark, lustrous eyes. “But you will go so far as to admit that women in general have a more fragile nervous organization, and consequently a greater suggestibility?”

“Perhaps,” says Simon. “Certainly it is generally believed.”

“It makes them, for instance, a good deal easier to hypnotize.”

Ah, thinks Simon. Each to his own hobby-horse. Now he’s getting to it.

“How is your fair patient, if I may call her that?” says Dr. DuPont. “Are you making progress?”

“Nothing definitive yet,” says Simon. “There are several possible lines of enquiry which I hope to follow up.”

“I would be honoured if you would permit me to try my own method. Just as a sort of experiment; a demonstration, if you like.”

“I am at a crucial point,” says Simon. He doesn’t wish to appear rude, but he does not want this man interfering. Grace is his territory; he must repel poachers. “It might upset her, and undo weeks of careful preparation.”

“At your convenience,” says Dr. DuPont. “I expect to remain here for another month at least. I should be pleased to be of help.”

“You are staying with Mrs. Quennell, I believe,” says Simon.

“A most generous hostess. But infatuated with the Spiritualists, as are many these days. An entirely groundless system, I assure you. But then, the bereaved are so easily imposed upon.”

Simon refrains from saying that he doesn’t need any assurance. “You have attended some of her…her evenings — should I call them’séances?”

“One or two. I am, after all, a guest; and the delusions involved are of considerable interest, to the clinical enquirer. But she is far from closing her mind to science, and is even prepared to fund legitimate research.”

“Ah,” says Simon.

“She would like me to attempt a session of Neuro-hypnosis, with Miss Marks,” says Dr. DuPont blandly. “On behalf of the Committee. You would have no objection?”

Curse them all, thinks Simon. They must be getting impatient with me; they think I am taking too long. But if they meddle too much, they will upset the apple cart, and ruin everything. Why can’t they leave me to my own devices?

Today is the Tuesday meeting, and as Dr. Jordan is speaking at it I did not see him in the afternoon, since he had to prepare. The Governor’s wife asked if I could be spared for a little extra time, as they were short hands and she would like me to help with the refreshments, as I have often done. Of course it was a request in form only, as Matron had to say yes, and did so; and I was to take my supper in the kitchen after, just like a real servant, as the supper at the Penitentiary would be over by the time I got back. I was looking forward to it, as it would be like the old times, when I was free to come and go, and there was more variety in my days, and such treats to look forward to.

I knew however that I’d have to put up with some slights, and hard looks, and spiteful remarks as to my character. Not from Clarrie, who has always been a friend to me although a silent one, and not from Cook, who is used to me by now. But one of the upstairs maids resents me, as I have been in this house longer, and know its ways, and enjoy the confidence of Miss Lydia and Miss Marianne, which she does not; and she is bound to make some allusion to murders, or strangling, or some such distasteful thing. Also there is Dora, who has been coming in to help in the laundry, but not permanent and only paid by the hour. She is a large person with strong arms, and useful for the carrying of the heavy baskets of wet sheets; but untrustworthy, as she is always telling tales of her former mistress and master, who she says never paid what they owed her, and carried on in scandalous ways besides, with him so far gone with drink he was no better than an imbecile, and blacked his wife’s eye for her more than once; and her taking sick at the drop of a hat, and Dora wouldn’t be surprised to find there was drink at the bottom of her vapours and headaches, as well.

But although Dora says all these things, she has accepted to go back there, and to be the maid-of-all-work again, and indeed has already begun; and when Cook asked her why she would do it, considering they are such disreputable people, she gave a wink and said that money talks, and loudly too; and that the young doctor who boards there has paid out her back wages, and begged almost upon his bended knee to have her back, as no one else was to be found. And he is a man who likes his peace and quiet and for things to be clean and tidy, and is willing to pay for it, although the landlady cannot, her husband having run off on her, so that now she was no more than a grass widow, and a pauper at that. And Dora said she won’t take orders from her any more, as she was always a carping and peevish mistress, but only from Dr. Jordan, as he who pays the piper calls the tune. Not that he is up to any good either, she says, having the air of a poisoner about him, as so many doctors do have, with their bottles and potions and pills, and she thanks the good Lord every day that she isn’t a rich old lady under his care, or she would not be long for this world; and he has a strange habit of digging in the garden, although it is now much too late to plant anything, but he goes at it like a sexton, and has turned over almost the whole of the yard, nonetheless; and then it’s her who has to sweep up the mud he tracks in, and scrub the dirt out of his shirts in the wash, and heat up the water for his bath. I was astonished to realize that this Dr. Jordan she was talking about was the same one as my Dr. Jordan; but I was curious as well, for I hadn’t known all those things about his landlady, or indeed anything about her at all. So I asked Dora, what sort of a woman was she, and Dora said, Skinny as a rail and pale as a corpse, with long hair so yellow it was almost white, but despite that and her fine-lady ways, no better than she should be, although Dora did not yet have proof of it; but this Mrs. Humphrey had a wild rolling to the eye, and a twitchy manner, and those two things together always meant warm work behind closed doors; and that Dr. Jordan should watch himself, because if ever she saw a determination to get a man’s trousers off him, it was there in the eyes of Mrs. Humphrey; and they took breakfast together every morning now, which to her mind was unnatural. Which I thought was coarse, at least the part about the trousers.

And I think to myself, if that is what she says about those she works for, behind their backs, then, Grace, what will she say of you? I catch her looking me over with her small pink eyes, and devising what sensational tales she will tell her friends if any, about taking her tea with a celebrated murderess, who ought by rights to have been strung up long since, and cut into slabs by the doctors, like butchers dressing a carcass, and what was left of me after they’d finished done up into a bundle, just like a suet pudding, and left to moulder in a dishonoured grave, with nothing growing on it but thistles and nettles. But I am all for keeping the peace, and so I say nothing. For if I was to get into a fight with her, I know sure enough who would be blamed.

We had orders to keep our ears open for the end of the meeting, which would be signalled by applause, and a speech to thank Dr. Jordan for his edifying remarks, which is what they say to everyone who speaks on these occasions; and that would be our signal to bring up the refreshments; and so one of the maids was told to listen at the parlour door. Down she came after a while, and said the thanks were being given; and so we counted to twenty, and then sent up the first urn of tea, and the first trays of cakes. I was kept below, cutting up the pound cake, and arranging it on a round platter, for which the Governor’s wife had given instructions that there was to be a rose or two in the centre; and very nice it looked. Then word came down that I was to bring in that particular plate myself, which I found odd; but I tidied my hair and carried the pound cake up the stairs, and in through the parlour door, expecting no harm.

There amongst the others was Mrs. Quennell with her hair like a powder puff, wearing pink muslin, which was far too young for her; and the Governor’s wife in grey; and Reverend Verringer looking down his nose as usual; and Dr. Jordan, somewhat wan and limp, as if his talk had worn him out; and Miss Lydia, in the dress I’d helped her with, and pretty as a picture she was.

But who should I see, looking straight at me with a little smile, but Jeremiah the peddler! He was considerably trimmed as to hair and beard, and got up like a gentleman, in a beautifully cut sand-coloured suit, with a gold watch-chain across the vest; and holding a cup of tea in the best mincing gentleman’s manner, just as he used to do when imitating the same, in the kitchen at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s; but I’d have known him anywhere.

I was so taken aback that I gave a little shriek, and then stood stock-still, with my mouth open like a haddock, and almost dropped the plate; and indeed several pieces of the pound cake slid off it onto the floor, and the roses as well. But not before Jeremiah had set down his cup, and laid his forefinger alongside his nose, as if scratching it; which I don’t believe anyone saw, as they were all looking at me; by which gesture of his I knew that I was to button my lip, and not say anything, or give him away. So I did not, but excused myself for dropping the cake, and set the platter on the side table, and knelt down to retrieve the spilt cake into my apron. But the Governor’s wife said, Never mind that at present, Grace, I wish to introduce you to someone. And she took me by the arm, and led me forward. This is Dr. Jerome DuPont, she said, he is a noted medical practitioner, and Jeremiah nodded to me, and said, How do you do, Miss Marks. I was still confused, but managed to keep my composure; the Governor’s wife saying to him, She is often startled by strangers. And to me, Dr. DuPont is a friend, he will not hurt you.

At which I nearly laughed out loud, but instead said, Yes, Ma’am, and looked down at the floor. She must have feared a repetition of that other time, when the head-measuring doctor came here, and I screamed so much. But she need not have worried.

I must look into her eyes, said Jeremiah. It is often an indication as to whether or not the procedure will be efficacious. And he lifted my chin, and we gazed at each other. Very good, he said, all solemn and sedate, just as if he was what he pretended to be; and I had to admire him. Then he said, Grace, have you ever been hypnotized? And he kept hold of my chin for a moment, to steady me, and give me time to control myself.

I should certainly hope not, Sir, I said, with some indignation. I do not even know rightly what it is. It is an entirely scientific procedure, he said. Would you be willing to try it? If it would help your friends, and the Committee. If it is decided by them that you should. And he gave my chin a little squeeze, and moved his eyes up and down very quickly, to signal to me that I should say yes. I will do anything within my power, Sir, I said; if that is what is wanted. Good, good, he said, just as pompous as a real doctor. But in order for it to be successful, you must repose your trust in me. Do you think you can do that, Grace?

Reverend Verringer and Miss Lydia, and Mrs. Quennell and the Governor’s wife, were all beaming at me with encouragement. I will try, Sir, I said.

Then Dr. Jordan stepped up, and said he thought I’d had enough excitement for one day, and care must be taken of my nerves, as they were delicate and must not be damaged; and Jeremiah said, Of course, of course. But he looked well pleased with himself. And although I have an esteem for Dr. Jordan, and he has been kind to me, I thought he looked a poor fish beside Jeremiah, like a man at a fair who’s had his pocket picked, but does not yet know it.

As for me, I could have laughed with glee; for Jeremiah had done a conjuring trick, as surely as if he’d pulled a coin from my ear, or made believe to swallow a fork; and just as he used to do such tricks in full view, with everyone looking on but unable to detect him, he had done the same here, and made a pact with me under their very eyes, and they were none the wiser.

But then I recalled that he’d once travelled about as a Mesmerist, and done medical clairvoyance at fairs, and really did know the arts of such things, and might put me into a trance. And that brought me up short, and gave me pause to consider.

Chapter 35

“It is not the question of your guilt or innocence that concerns me,” says Simon. “I am a doctor, not a judge. I simply wish to know what you yourself can actually remember.”

They have come at last to the murders. He’s reviewed all the documents at his disposal — the accounts of the trial, the opinions of the newspapers, the Confessions, even Mrs. Moodie’s overblown rendition. He is fully prepared, and also tense: how he conducts himself today will determine whether Grace will at last crack open, revealing her hoarded treasures, or whether she will instead take fright and hide, and shut herself up like a clam.

What he’s brought with him today is not a vegetable. Instead it’s a silver candlestick, supplied by Reverend Verringer, and similar — he hopes — to the type used in the Kinnear household, and purloined by James McDermott. He hasn’t yet produced it; it’s in a wicker basket — a shopping basket, actually, borrowed from Dora — which he has placed unobtrusively by the side of his chair. He isn’t entirely sure what he plans to do with it.

Grace continues her stitching. She does not look up. “Nobody has cared about that before, Sir,” she says. “They told me I must be lying; they kept wanting to know more. Except for Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie the lawyer. But I am sure that even he did not believe me.”

“I will believe you,” says Simon. It is, he realizes, a fairly large undertaking. Grace tightens her mouth a little, frowns, says nothing. He plunges in. “Mr. Kinnear left for the city on the Thursday, did he not?”

“Yes, Sir,” says Grace.

“At three o’clock? On horseback?”

“That was the exact time, Sir. He was to be back on the Saturday. I was outside, sprinkling the linen handkerchiefs laid out in the sun to bleach. McDermott brought the horse round for him. Mr. Kinnear was riding Charley, as the wagon was down in the village getting a fresh coat of paint put on it.”

“Did he say anything to you at that time?”

“He said, ”Here’s your favourite beau, Grace, come and kiss him goodbye.“”

“Meaning James McDermott? But McDermott was not going anywhere,” says Simon. Grace looks up at him with a blank expression which verges on contempt. “He meant the horse, Sir. He knew I was very fond of Charley.”

“And what did you do?”

“I went over and stroked Charley, Sir, on the nose. But Nancy was watching from the winter kitchen door, and she’d heard what he said, and did not like it. Nor did McDermott. But there was no harm in it. Mr. Kinnear only enjoyed a tease.”

Simon takes a deep breath. “Had Mr. Kinnear ever made improper advances to you, Grace?”

She looks at him again; this time there’s a faint smile. “I don’t know what you mean by improper, Sir. He never used foul language to me.”

“Did he ever touch you? Did he take liberties?”

“Only what was usual, Sir.”

“Usual?” says Simon. He is baffled. He does not know how to say what he means, without being too explicit: Grace has a strong dash of prude in her.

“With a servant, Sir. He was a kind enough master,” says Grace primly. “And liberal when he wished to be.”

Simon lets his impatience get the better of him. What does she mean? Is she saying she got paid for favours? “Did he put his hands inside your clothing?” he says. “Were you lying down?”

Grace stands up. “I have heard enough of that kind of talk,” she says. “I do not have to stay here. You are just like them at the Asylum, and the prison chaplains, and Dr. Bannerling and his filthy ideas!”

Simon finds himself apologizing to her, and no wiser into the bargain. “Please sit down,” he says, when she has been soothed. “Let us go back to the chain of events. Mr. Kinnear rode away at three o’clock on Thursday. Then what happened?”

“Nancy said we was both to leave after the next day, and she had the money to pay us. She said that Mr. Kinnear was in agreement with her.”

“Did you believe that?”

“As regards McDermott, I did. But not as regards myself.”

“Not yourself?” says Simon.

“She was afraid that Mr. Kinnear would come to like me better than her. As I’ve said, Sir, she was in the family way, and it often happens like that with a man; they’ll change from a woman in that condition to one who is not, and it’s the same with cows and horses; and if that happened, she’d be out on the road, her and her bastard. It was plain she wanted me out of the way, and gone before Mr. Kinnear came home. I don’t believe he knew a thing about it.”

“What did you do then, Grace?”

“I cried, Sir. In the kitchen. I did not want to leave, and I had no new situation to go to. It had been so sudden, I’d had no time to seek for one. And I was afraid she would not pay me after all, and send me off with no reference, and then what would I do? And McDermott feared the same.”

“And then?” says Simon, when she does not continue.

“It was at this time, Sir, that McDermott said he had a secret, and I promised not to tell; and you know, Sir, that once having promised such a thing, I was bound by it. Then he said he was going to kill Nancy with the axe, and strangle her as well, and shoot Mr. Kinnear when he came back, and take the valuables; and I was to help him, and go with him, if I knew what was good for me, as otherwise I would be blamed for all. If I hadn’t been so upset I would have laughed at him, but I did not; and to tell you the truth, we’d both had a glass or two of Mr. Kinnear’s whisky, which we saw no reason not to help ourselves, seeing as we were to be turned away in any case. Nancy was over to the Wrights‘, and so we had a free hand.”

“Did you believe McDermott would do as he said?”

“Not altogether, Sir. On the one hand, I thought he was just bragging, about what a fine man he was and what he could do, which was a thing he was prone to when drunk; and my father was the same way. But at the same time he seemed in earnest, and I was afraid of him; and I had a strong feeling as if it was fated, and it couldn’t be avoided, no matter what I did.”

“You did not warn anyone? Nancy herself, when she came back from her visit?”

“Why would she have believed me, Sir?” says Grace. “It would have sounded too stupid, if I said it out loud. She would think I was getting back at her, because she told me to leave; or that it was a servants’

quarrel, and I was paying back McDermott. There was only my word for it, which he could easily deny, and say I was nothing but a silly hysterical girl. At the same time, if McDermott really meant it he might have killed the both of us right there and then; and I did not want to be killed. The best I could do was to try to delay him until Mr. Kinnear got back. At first he said he was going to do it that very night, and I persuaded him not to.”

“How did you manage to do that?” says Simon.

“I said that if Nancy was killed on the Thursday, that would mean a whole day and a half of having to account for her whereabouts to anyone who might enquire. Whereas if he left it till later, there would be less suspicion aroused.”

“I see,” says Simon. “Very sensible.”

“Please don’t make fun of me, Sir,” says Grace with dignity. “It is very distressing to me, and doubly so considering what I am being asked to remember.”

Simon says he didn’t mean it that way. He seems to be spending a lot of time apologizing to her. “And what happened then?” he asks, trying to sound kind, and not too eager.

“Then Nancy came back from her visit, and was quite cheerful. It was always her way, after she’d been in a temper, to pretend as if nothing had happened and we were all the best of friends; at least when Mr. Kinnear was not present. So she acted as if she hadn’t told us to leave, or given us any hard words, and all went on as usual. We had supper together in the kitchen, cold ham, and potatoes made into a salad, with chives from the garden, the three of us; and she laughed and chattered. McDermott was sullen and silent, but that was no change; and then Nancy and I went to bed together, as was always the case when Mr. Kinnear was away, on account of her fear of burglars; and she suspected nothing. But I made very sure the bedchamber door was locked.”

“Why was that?”

“As I’ve said, I always lock the door when I sleep. But also, McDermott had some foolish notion of creeping about the house at night with the axe. He wanted to kill Nancy while asleep. I said he should not do that, as he might hit me by mistake; but it was hard to convince him. He said he didn’t want her looking at him when he did it.”

“I can understand that,” says Simon drily. “And then what happened?”

“Oh, the Friday began right as rain, to the outward eye, Sir. Nancy was very gay and light-hearted, and did not scold at all, or not as much as usual; and even McDermott was less sullen, in the morning, as I told him if he went around with such a hangdog face then Nancy was sure to suspect he was up to no good.

“In the middle of the afternoon young Jamie Walsh came over with his flute, as Nancy had asked him to. She said that as Mr. Kinnear was away we would all have a party, to celebrate. What was to be celebrated I am not sure; but in her good mood Nancy was very lively, and liked a song and dance. We had a fine supper, with cold roast chicken, and beer to wash it down; and then Nancy told Jamie to play for us, and he asked me if there was a tune I would especially wish to have, and was very attentive and kind to me, which McDermott did not like, and told him to stop making sheep’s eyes at me, as it was enough to turn the stomach; and poor Jamie flushed bright red. Then Nancy told McDermott not to tease the boy, and couldn’t he remember being young once himself; and she told Jamie he would grow up handsome, she could always tell a thing like that — much handsomer than McDermott with his scowling and pouting, and in any case handsome is as handsome does; and McDermott threw her a look of pure hate, which she affected not to see. Then she sent me down into the cellar to get more whisky, as by that time we had emptied the decanters upstairs.

“Then we laughed and sang; or Nancy laughed and sang, and I joined in. We sang The Rose of Tralee, and I remembered Mary Whitney, and wished very much that she was there, as she would know what to do, and would help me out of my difficulties. McDermott would not sing, as the dark mood was on him; nor would he dance when Nancy urged him, and said now was his chance to make good his boasts about what a nimble dancer he was. She wanted us all to part friends, but he was having none of that.

“After a time the life went out of the party. Jamie said he was tired of playing, and Nancy said it was time for bed; and McDermott said he would walk Jamie back to his own house, across the fields, I suppose to make sure he was well and truly gone. But by the time McDermott was come back, Nancy and I were upstairs already, in Mr. Kinnear’s room, with the door locked.”

“Mr. Kinnear’s room?” says Simon.

“It was Nancy‘s idea,” says Grace. “She said his bed was bigger, and cooler in the hot weather, and I had a habit of kicking in my sleep; and in any case Mr. Kinnear would not find it out, as it was us who made up the beds, not him; and even if he did discover it, he would not care, but would no doubt like the idea of two serving-maids in his bed at once. She had drunk several glasses of whisky, and was talking recklessly.

“And I did warn Nancy, after all, Sir. While she was brushing out her hair, I said, McDermott wants to kill you. She laughed, and said, I expect he does. I would not mind killing him, either. There is no love lost between us. He is in earnest, I said. He is never in earnest about anything, she said lightly. He is always bragging and boasting, and it is all just air.

“So then I knew there was nothing I could do, to save her.

“Once she was in the bed, she fell asleep at once. I sat brushing out my own hair, in the light of a single candle, with the naked woman in the picture looking out at me, the one who was taking a bath outdoors, and the other one with the peacock feathers; and they were both smiling at me, in a way I did not like.”

“That night Mary Whitney appeared to me in a dream. It was not the first time; she’d come before, but never to say anything; she would be hanging up the wash and laughing, or paring an apple, or hiding behind a sheet on the line up in the attic, which were all things she used to do before her trouble came; and when I dreamt about her in that way I would wake up comforted, as if she was still alive and happy.

“But those were scenes of the past. This time she was in the room with me, the very room where I was, which was Mr. Kinnear’s bedchamber. She was standing beside the bed in her nightdress, with her hair down, as when she was buried; and on the left side of her body I could see her heart, bright red through the white of her dress. But then I saw it was not a heart after all, but the red felt needle-case I made for her that Christmas, which I’d put in the coffin with her, under the flowers and the scattered petals; and I was glad to see she still had it with her, and hadn’t forgotten me.

“She was holding a glass tumbler in her hand, and inside it was a firefly, trapped and glowing with a cold and greenish fire. Her face was very pale, but she looked at me and smiled; and then she took her hand from the top of the glass, and the firefly came out and darted about the room; and I knew that this was her soul, and it was trying to find its way out, but the window was shut; and then I could not see where it was gone. Then I woke up, with the tears of sadness running down my face, because Mary was lost to me once more.”

“I lay there in the darkness, with the sound of Nancy’s breathing; and in my ears I could hear my own heart, trudging and trudging, as if on a long and weary road that I was doomed to walk along whether I wanted to or not, and who could tell when I would get to the end of it. I was afraid to go to sleep again, for fear I might have another such dream; and my fears were not in vain, for that is indeed what happened.

“In this new dream, I dreamt I was walking in a place I had never been before, with high walls all around made of stone, grey and bleak as the stones of the village where I was born, back across on the other side of the ocean. On the ground there were loose grey pebbles, and out of the gravel there were peonies growing. They came up with just the buds on them, small and hard like unripe apples, and then they opened, and there were huge dark-red flowers with glossy petals, like satin; and then they burst in the wind and fell to the ground.

“Except for being red, they were like the peonies in the front garden on the first day I came to Mr. Kinnear’s, when Nancy was cutting the last of them; and I saw her in the dream, just as she was then, in her pale dress with the pink rosebuds and the triple-flounced skirt, and her straw bonnet that hid her face. She was carrying a flat basket, to put the flowers in; and then she turned, and put her hand up to her throat as if startled.

“Then I was back in the stone yard, walking, with the toes of my shoes going in and out under the hem of my skirt, which was blue and white stripes. I knew I’d never had a skirt like that before, and at the sight of it I felt a great heaviness and desolation. But the peonies were still coming up from the stones; and I knew they shouldn’t be there. I reached out my hand to touch one and it had a dry feel, and I knew it was made of cloth.

“Then up ahead I saw Nancy, on her knees, with her hair fallen over and the blood running down into her eyes. Around her neck was a white cotton kerchief printed with blue flowers, love-in-a-mist, and it was mine. She was holding out her hands to me for mercy; in her ears were the little gold earrings I used to envy. I wanted to run to her and help her, but I could not; and my feet kept walking at the same steady pace, as though they were not my own feet at all. When I was almost up to Nancy, to where she was kneeling, she smiled. Only the mouth, her eyes were hidden by the blood and hair, and then she came apart into patches of colour, she scattered, a drift of red and white cloth petals across the stones.

“Then it was dark suddenly, and a man was standing there with a candle, blocking the stairs that went up, and the cellar walls were all around me, and I knew I would never get out.”

“You dreamt this before the event?” says Simon. He is writing feverishly.

“Yes Sir,” says Grace. “And many times since.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper. “That was why they put me away.”

“Away?” Simon prompts.

“Into the Asylum, Sir. Because of the bad dreams.” She has laid her sewing aside, and is looking down at her hands.

“Only the dreams?” Simon asks gently.

“They said they were not dreams at all, Sir. They said I was awake. But I do not wish to say any more about it.”

Chapter 36

“On the Saturday morning I woke up at dawn. Outside in the henhouse the cock was crowing; he had a hoarse and rattling sort of crow, as if there was a hand tightening around his neck already, and I thought, You know you’re for the stewpot soon. Soon you will be a carcass. And although I was thinking about the rooster, I will not deny that I was thinking about Nancy as well. It sounds cold and perhaps it was. I felt light-headed, and detached from myself, as if I was not really present, but only there in body.

“I know these are odd thoughts to confess to, Sir, but I will not lie and conceal them, as I could easily do, having never told this to anyone before. I wish to relate everything just as it happened to me, and those were the thoughts I had.

“Nancy was still asleep, and I took care not to disturb her. I felt she might as well have her sleep out, and the longer she stayed in bed the longer it would be before anything bad happened, either to her or to me. As I crept cautiously out of Mr. Kinnear’s bed she groaned and rolled over, and I wondered whether she was having a bad dream.

“The night previous, I’d put my nightdress on in my own room off the winter kitchen before going upstairs with my candle, so I went in there and dressed as usual. Everything was the same but not the same, and when I went to wash my face and do my hair, my own face in the mirror over the kitchen sink was not like my face at all. It looked rounder and whiter, with two great startled staring eyes, and I didn’t wish to look at it.

“I went into the kitchen and opened the window shutters. The glasses and plates from the night before were still on the table, and they looked very lonely and forlorn, as if some great and sudden disaster had overtaken all who had eaten and drunk from them, and here was I, coming upon them by accident, many years later; and I felt very sad. I gathered them up and carried them into the scullery.

“When I came back out there was a strange light in the kitchen, as if there was a film of silver over everything, like frost only smoother, like water running thinly down over flat stones; and then my eyes were opened and I knew it was because God had come into the house and this was the silver that covered Heaven. God had come in because God is everywhere, you can’t keep him out, he is part of everything there is, so how could you ever build a wall or four walls or a door or a shut window, that he could not walk right through as if it was air.

“I said, What do you want here, but he did not answer, he just kept on being silver, so I went out to milk the cow; because the only thing to do about God is to go on with what you were doing anyway, since you can’t ever stop him or get any reasons out of him. There is a Do this or a Do that with God, but not any Because.

“When I came back with the pails of milk I saw McDermott in the kitchen. He was cleaning the shoes. Where is Nancy, he said.

“She is dressing, I said. Are you going to kill her this morning?

“Yes, he said, damn her, I will take the axe now and go knock her on the head.

“I laid my hand on his arm, and looked up into his face. Surely you will not, surely you cannot bring yourself to do such a wicked thing, I said. But he didn’t understand me, he thought I was taunting him. He thought I was calling him a coward.

“You will see in a minute what I can do, he said angrily.

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t kill her in the room, I said, you will make the floor all bloody. It was a foolish thing to say but that is what came into my mind, and as you know, Sir, it was my job to clean the floors in that house, and there was a carpet in Nancy‘s room. I’d never tried to get blood out of a carpet but I’d got it out of other things, and it is not a task to be sneezed at.

“McDermott gave me a scornful glance, as if I was a halfwit, and indeed I must have sounded like one. Then he went outside the house, and picked up the axe from beside the chopping block.

“I could not think what to do. I went into the garden, to gather some chives, as Nancy had ordered an omelette for breakfast. On the bolted lettuces the snails were making their lacework. I knelt down and watched them, with their eyes on little stems; and I reached out my hand for the chives, and it was as if my hand was not mine at all, but only a husk or skin, with inside it another hand growing.

“I tried to pray, but the words would not come, and I believe that is because I had ill-wished Nancy, I had indeed wished her dead; but I did not do so right then. But why did I need to pray, when God was right there, hovering above us like the Angel of Death over the Egyptians, I could feel his cold breath, I could hear the beating of his dark wings, inside my heart. God is everywhere, I thought, so God is in the kitchen, and God is in Nancy, and God is in McDermott, and in McDermott’s hands, and God is in the axe too. Then I heard a dull sound from within, like a heavy door closing shut, and after that I can remember no more for a time.”

“Nothing about the cellar?” says Simon. “Not about seeing McDermott dragging Nancy by the hair, to the trapdoor, and throwing her down the stairs? It was in your Confession.”

Grace clutches her two hands to the sides of her head. “That is what they wanted me to say. Mr. MacKenzie told me I had to say it, to save my own life.” For once she is trembling. “He said it was not a lie, as that is what must have happened, whether I could remember it or not.”

“Did you give James McDermott the kerchief from around your neck?” Simon sounds more like a courtroom lawyer than he wishes to, but he presses on.

“The one that was used to strangle poor Nancy? It was mine, I know that. But I have no recollection of giving it to him.”

“Nor of being down in the cellar?” says Simon. “Nor of helping him to kill her? Nor of wanting to steal the gold earrings off the corpse, as he says you wished to do?”

Grace covers her eyes with a hand, briefly. “All that time is dark to me, Sir,” she says. “And in any case, there were no gold earrings taken. I won’t say I didn’t think of it later, when we were packing up; but having a thought is not the same as doing it. If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”

Simon has to admit the justice of this. He tries a different line. “Jefferson the butcher testified that he spoke with you that morning.”

“I know he did, Sir. But I cannot remember it.”

“He says he was surprised, as it was not you who ordinarily gave the orders, but Nancy; and he was further surprised when you said that no fresh meat was wanted for the week. He found it most peculiar.”

“If it was me, Sir, and acting in my right mind, I’d of had my wits about me, and ordered the meat as usual. It would have been less suspicious.”

Simon has to agree. “Well then,” he says, “what is the next thing you remember?”

“I found myself standing at the front of the house, Sir, where the flowers were. I felt quite dizzy, and had a headache. I was thinking, I must open the window; but that was foolish, as I was already outside. It must have been about three o’clock. Mr. Kinnear was coming up the driveway, with his light wagon all new-painted, yellow and green. McDermott came out from the back, and we both helped with the packages, and McDermott gave me a threatening look; and then Mr. Kinnear went into the house, and I knew he was looking for Nancy. A thought came into my head — You won’t find her there, you will have to look below, she is a carcass — and I became very frightened.

“Then McDermott said to me, I know you will tell, and if you do, your life is not worth a straw. I was confused by this. What have you done? I said. You know very well, he said with a laugh. I did not know; but now I suspected the worst. Then he made me promise I would help to kill Mr. Kinnear, which I did say I would; for if not, I could see by his eyes he would have killed me as well. Then he took the horse and wagon to the stable.

“I went into the kitchen, to go about my duties as if nothing was wrong. Mr. Kinnear came in, and asked, Where was Nancy? I said she had gone to town in the stagecoach. He said that was strange, as he’d passed it on the way and did not see her. I asked him if he would like something to eat, and he said yes, and asked, had Jefferson come with the fresh meat; and I said no. He said that was curious, and then said he would have some tea and toast and eggs.

“And so I made it. I brought it to him in the dining room, where he sat waiting, reading a book which he had brought with him from town. It was the newest Godey’s Ladies’ Book, which poor Nancy liked to have, for the fashions; and although Mr. Kinnear always pretended it was only ladies’ fripperies, he himself often took a peek at it when Nancy was not nearby, as there were things in it other than dresses; and he liked to look at the new styles of undergarments, and to read the articles on how a lady should behave, which I would often catch him chuckling over on those occasions when I brought in his coffee.

“I went back into the kitchen, and McDermott was there. He said, I think I’ll go and kill him now. But I said, Good gracious McDermott, it is too soon, wait till it is dark.

“Then Mr. Kinnear went upstairs and had a nap, with all his clothes on, and so McDermott had to wait, whether he wanted to or not. Even he was not up to the shooting of a sleeping man. McDermott stuck to me all afternoon, as close as glue, because he was certain that I would run away and tell. He had the gun with him, and kept fiddling with it. It was the old double-barrelled shotgun that Mr. Kinnear kept to shoot ducks with, but it was not loaded with duck-shot. He said he had two lead bullets in it — one he’d found, the other one he’d made from a piece of lead; and that he’d got the powder for it across the way at his friend John Harvey’s, although Hannah Upton, the hard-faced bitch — she was the woman who lived with Harvey — had told him he couldn’t have it. But he’d taken it anyway, and be damned to her. By this time he was very excited and nervous, and swaggering as well, and proud of his own daring. He was cursing a good deal, but I did not object to it, being afraid.”

“About seven o’clock Mr. Kinnear came down, and had his tea, and was quite uneasy about Nancy. Now I will do it, said McDermott, you must go in there and ask him to come into the kitchen, so I can shoot him on the stone floor. But I said I would not.

“He said in that case he would do it himself. He’d get him to come, by telling him there was something wrong with his new saddle, it was all cut to ribbons.

“I wanted nothing to do with it. I took the tea tray across the courtyard to the back kitchen, which was the one with the stove lit, as I was going to do the washing up in there; and as I was setting down the tray I heard the report of a gun.

“I ran into the front kitchen and saw Mr. Kinnear lying dead on the floor, and McDermott standing over him. The gun was on the floor. I attempted to run out, and he yelled and swore, and said I must open the trapdoor in the hall. I said, I won’t; he said, You shall. So I did, and McDermott threw the body down the stairs.

“I was so frightened that I ran out of the front door onto the lawn, and around past the pump to the back kitchen, and then McDermott came out of the front kitchen door with the gun, and fired at me, and I fell onto the ground in a dead faint. And that is all I can remember, Sir, until much later in the evening.”

“Jamie Walsh testified that he came into the yard about eight o’clock, which must have been right after you fainted. He said McDermott still had the gun in his hand, and claimed to have been shooting birds.”

“I know it, Sir.”

“He said you were standing by the pump. He said you told him that Mr. Kinnear was not back yet, and that Nancy was gone over to the Wrights‘.”

“I cannot account for it, Sir.”

“He said you were well, and in good spirits. He said you were better dressed than usual, and were wearing white stockings. He implied they were Nancy‘s.”

“I was there in the courtroom, Sir. I heard him say it; although the stockings were my own. But by then he had forgot all of his former loving sentiments towards me, and only wished to damage me, and to hang me if possible. But there is nothing I can do about what other people say.”

Her tone is so dejected that Simon feels a tender pity for her. He has an impulse to take her in his arms, to soothe her, to stroke her hair.

“Well, Grace,” he says briskly, “I can see you are tired. We will continue with your story tomorrow.”

“Yes, Sir. I hope I will have the strength.”

“Sooner or later we will get to the bottom of it.”

“I hope so, Sir,” she says wanly. “It would be a great relief to me, to know the whole truth at last.”

Chapter 37

The leaves of the trees are already taking on an August look — lustreless, dusty, and limp — although it isn’t yet August. Simon walks back slowly through the wilting afternoon heat. He carries with him the silver candlestick; he didn’t think to use it. It’s dragging on his arm; in fact, both of his arms hold a curious tension, as if he’s been pulling hard on a heavy rope. What was he expecting? The missing memory, of course: those few crucial hours. Well, he hadn’t got it.

He finds himself remembering an evening long ago, when he was still an undergraduate at Harvard. He’d gone to New York on an excursion with his father, who was still rich then and also still alive; they’d seen the opera. It was Bellini’s Sonnambula: a simple and chaste village girl, Amina, is found asleep in the count’s bedroom, having walked there unconsciously; her fiancé and the villagers denounce her as a whore, despite the Count’s protests, which are based on his superior scientific knowledge; but when Amina is seen walking in her sleep across a perilous bridge, which collapses behind her into the rushing stream, her innocence is proven beyond a doubt and she awakes to restored happiness. A parable of the soul, as his Latin teacher had pointed out so sententiously, Amina being a crude anagram for anima. But why, Simon has asked himself, was the soul depicted as unconscious? And, even more intriguingly: while Amina slept, who was doing the walking? It’s a question which now holds implications for him which are far more pressing.

Was Grace unconscious at the time she claimed, or was she fully awake, as Jamie Walsh testified? How much of her story can he allow himself to believe? Does he need a grain of salt, or two, or three? Is it a real case of amnesia, of the somnambulistic type, or is he the victim of a cunning imposture? He cautions himself against absolutism: why should she be expected to produce nothing but the pure, entire, and unblemished truth? Anyone in her position would select and rearrange, to give a positive impression. In her favour, much of what she’s told him accords with her printed Confession; but is that really in her favour? Possibly it accords too well. He wonders if she’s been studying from the same text he himself has been using, the better to convince him.

The difficulty is that he wants to be convinced. He wants her to be Amina. He wants her to be vindicated. He must be careful, he tells himself. He must draw back. Looked at objectively, what’s been going on between them, despite her evident anxiety over the murders and her surface compliance, has been a contest of wills. She hasn’t refused to talk — far from it. She’s told him a great deal; but she’s told him only what she’s chosen to tell. What he wants is what she refuses to tell; what she chooses perhaps not even to know. Knowledge of guilt, or else of innocence: either could be concealed. But he’ll pry it out of her yet. He’s got the hook in her mouth, but can he pull her out? Up, out of the abyss, up to the light. Out of the deep blue sea.

He wonders why he’s thinking in such drastic terms. He means her well, he tells himself. He thinks of it as a rescue, surely he does.

But does she? If she has anything to hide, she may want to stay in the water, in the dark, in her element. She may be afraid she won’t be able to breathe, otherwise.

Simon tells himself to stop being so extreme and histrionic. It may well be that Grace is a true amnesiac. Or simply contrary. Or simply guilty.

She could of course be insane, with the astonishingly devious plausibility of the experienced maniac. Some of her memories, especially those of the day of the murders, would suggest a fanaticism of the religious variety. However, those same recollections could as easily be interpreted as the naive superstitions and fears of a simple soul. What he wants is certainty, one way or the other; and that is precisely what she’s withholding from him.

Perhaps it’s his methods that have been at fault. Certainly his technique of suggestion has not been productive: the vegetables have been a dismal failure. Perhaps he’s been too tentative, too accommodating; perhaps something more drastic may be in order. Perhaps he should encourage Jerome DuPont in his neuro-hypnotic experiment, and arrange to witness it himself, and even choose the questions. He distrusts the method. Still, something new might emerge; something might be discovered which he’s so far been unable to discover by himself. It would at least be worth trying. He reaches the house, and fumbles in his pocket for the key, but Dora opens the door for him. He regards her with disgust: a woman so porcine, and, in this weather, so distinctly sweaty, should not be permitted out in public. She’s a libel on the entire sex. He himself has been instrumental in bringing her back to work here — he’s practically bribed her to do it — but this doesn’t mean he likes her any better than he ever did. Nor she him, judging from the venomous look she gives him, out of her small red eyes.

“Herself wants to see you,” she says, jerking her head towards the back of the house. Her manners are as democratic as ever.

Mrs. Humphrey was strongly opposed to Dora’s return, and can hardly bear to be in the same room with her, which is not surprising. However, Simon had pointed out that he cannot be expected to function without tidiness and order, and someone must do the work of the house, and as no one else was to be had at the moment, Dora would have to do. As long as Dora was paid, he’d said, she would be tractable enough, although politeness would be too much to expect; all of which has proven to be the case.

“Where is she?” says Simon. He shouldn’t have said she; it sounds too intimate. Mrs. Humphrey would have been better.

“Lying on the sofa, I guess,” says Dora with contempt. “Same as always.”

But when Simon enters the parlour — still eerily bare of furniture, although some of the original pieces have mysteriously reappeared — Mrs. Humphrey is standing by the fireplace, with one arm and hand draped gracefully over the white mantelpiece. The hand with the lace handkerchief. He smells violets.

“Dr. Jordan,” she says, breaking her pose, “I thought you might care to dine with me tonight, as a poor recompense for all the efforts you have made on my behalf. I do not like to seem deficient in gratitude. Dora has prepared a little cold chicken.” She enunciates each word carefully, as if it’s a speech she has memorized.

Simon declines, with as much politeness as he can summon. He thanks her very much, but this evening he is engaged. This verges on the truth: he has half accepted an invitation of Miss Lydia‘s, to join a party of young people in a rowing excursion on the inner harbour.

Mrs. Humphrey accepts his refusal with a gracious smile, and says that they will do it another time. Something in the way she’s holding her body — that, and the slow deliberation of her speech — strikes him as odd. Has the woman been drinking? Her eyes have a fixed stare, and her hands are trembling slightly.

Once upstairs, he opens his leather satchel. Everything seems in order. His three bottles of laudanum are there: none is emptier than it should be. He uncorks them, tastes the contents: one is almost pure water. She’s been raiding his supplies, God only knows for how long. The afternoon headaches take on a different significance. He should have known: with a husband like that she was bound to seek out a crutch of some kind. When in funds she no doubt buys it, he thinks; but cash has been scarce, and he has been careless. He ought to have locked his room, but now is too late to begin. There is, of course, no way he can mention it to her. She is a fastidious woman. To accuse her of theft would be not only brutal, but vulgar. Still, he’s been taken.

Simon goes on the rowing trip. The night is warm and calm, and there’s moonlight. He drinks a little champagne — there only is a little — and sits in the same rowboat as Lydia, and flirts with her in a half-hearted way. She at least is normal and healthy, and pretty too. Possibly he should propose to her. He thinks she might accept. Cart her home to propitiate his mother, hand her over, let the two of them work on his well-being.

It would be one way of deciding his own fate, or settling his own hash; or getting himself out of harm’s way. But he won’t do it; he’s not that lazy, or weary; not yet.

Ten - Lady of the Lake

Chapter 38

What McDermott told me later was that after he’d fired the gun at me, and I’d fallen down in a dead faint, he pumped a bucket of cold water and threw it over me, and gave me some water with peppermint to drink, and I revived immediately, and was as good as new and quite cheerful, and stirred up the fire and cooked supper for him, which was ham and eggs, with tea after, and a shot of whisky to steady us; and we ate it together with a good will, and clinked our glasses, and drank to the success of our venture. But I can’t remember any of that at all. I could not have acted so heartlessly, with Mr. Kinnear lying dead in the cellar, not to mention Nancy, who must have been dead too, though I didn’t know for certain what had become of her. But McDermott was a great liar.

I must have lain unconscious for a long time, for when I woke up the light was already fading. I was lying on my back, on the bed in my own bedchamber; and my cap was off and my hair was all disarranged and down about my shoulders, and also it was damp, and the upper part of my dress as well, and that must have been from the water that James had thrown over me; so that part at least of what he said was true. I lay there on the bed, trying to remember what had happened, as I couldn’t recollect how I’d got into the room. James must have carried me in, for the door was standing open, and if I’d walked in by myself I would have locked it.

I meant to get up and latch the door, but my head was aching and the room was very hot and airless; and I fell asleep again, and must have tossed restlessly, for when I woke the bedclothes were all rumpled and the coverlet had fallen off onto the floor. This time I woke suddenly and sat bolt upright, and despite the heat I was in a cold sweat. The reason for it was that there was a man standing in the room looking down at me. It was James McDermott, and I thought he had come in to strangle me in my sleep, having killed the others. My voice was all dried up in my throat with terror, and I couldn’t speak a word. But he said, quite kindly, did I feel better now after my rest; and I found my voice again and said I did. I knew it would be a mistake to show too much fear, and to lose control of myself; for then he’d think he couldn’t trust me or depend on me to keep my nerve, and would be afraid I would break down and begin crying or screaming when there were others present, and tell everything; which was why he had shot at me; and if he thought that, he would do away with me as quick as winking, rather than have any witness.

Then he sat down on the side of the bed, and said now it was time for me to keep my promise; and I said what promise, and he said I knew very well, for I had promised him myself in exchange for the killing of Nancy.

I could not remember having said any such thing; but as I was now convinced he was a madman, I thought he had twisted around something I had indeed said, some thing that was innocent enough, or only what anyone would say; such as I wished she was dead, and that I would give anything for it. And Nancy had been very harsh with me, from time to time. But that is only what servants are always saying, out of their masters’ hearing; for when you can’t answer back to their faces, you must give vent to your feelings in some other way.

But McDermott had turned this around to mean what I never intended, and now he wished to hold me to a bargain I hadn’t made. And he was in earnest, as he put a hand on my shoulder, and was pushing me backwards onto the bed. And with the other hand he was pulling up my skirt; and I could tell by the smell of him that he’d been into Mr. Kinnear’s whisky, and heavily too.

I knew that the only way was to humour him. Oh no, I said, laughing, not in this bed, it is too narrow and not at all comfortable for two people. Let us go to some other bed.

To my surprise he thought that was a fine idea, and said it would give him great pleasure to sleep in Mr. Kinnear’s bed, where Nancy had so often played the whore; and I reflected that once I’d given in to him, he would consider me a whore as well, and would hold my life very cheap indeed, and would most likely kill me with the axe and throw me into the cellar, as he had often said a whore was good for nothing but to wipe your dirty boots on, by giving them a good kicking all over their filthy bodies. So I planned to delay, and to put him off as long as I could.

He pulled me to my feet, and we lit the candle that was in the kitchen, and climbed the stairs; and then we went into Mr. Kinnear’s room, that was all tidy and with the bed neatly made up, as I had done it myself that very morning; and he threw back the covers, and pulled me down beside him. And he said, No straw for the gentry, nothing but goose feathers for them, no wonder Nancy liked to spend so much time in this bed; and for a moment he seemed overawed, not by what he’d done, but by the grandeur of the bed he was in. But then he fell to kissing me, and said, Now my girl, it’s time, and began unbuttoning my dress; and I remembered that the wages of sin is death, and I felt faint. But I knew that if I fainted I was as good as dead, with him in the state he was in.

I burst into tears, and I said, No, I can’t, not here, in a dead man’s bed, it isn’t right, with him in the cellar stark and stiff; and I began to sob and cry.

He was very annoyed, and said I must stop at once, or he would slap my face for me; but he did not. What I had said had cooled his ardour, as they say in books; or as Mary Whitney would say, he’d mislaid the poker. For at that moment Mr. Kinnear, dead as he was, was the stiffer man of the two of them.

He pulled me up off the bed, and yanked me down the hallway by one arm, and I was still wailing and howling for all I was worth. If you don’t like that bed, said he, I shall do it in Nancy‘s, for you are as great a slut as she was. And I could see which way the wind was blowing, and I thought my last hour had come; and I expected at any moment to be thrown down, and dragged along by the hair. He flung open the door, and hauled me into the room, which was in disarray, just as Nancy had left it, for I hadn’t tidied the room, there being no need and indeed no time to do so. But when he pulled back the coverlet, the sheet was all spattered with dark blood, and there was a book lying there in the bed, covered with blood also. At which I let out a scream of terror; but McDermott stopped, and looked at it, and said, I’d forgot about that.

I asked him what in Heaven’s name it was, and what it was doing there. He said it was the magazine that Mr. Kinnear had been reading, and he’d carried it with him out to the kitchen, where he was shot; and in falling he’d clapped his hands to his breast, still holding the book; and it therefore received the first spurts of blood. And McDermott had thrown it into Nancy’s bed, to get it out of sight, and also because it belonged there, having been brought from town for her, and also because Kinnear’s blood was on Nancy’s head, for if she had not been such a bloody great whore and shrew, all would have been different, and Mr. Kinnear needn’t have died. So it was a sign. And at that he crossed himself, which was the only time I ever saw him do anything so Papist.

Well, I thought him as mad as a moose in heat, as Mary Whitney used to say; but the sight of the book had sobered him up, and all notions of what he’d been about to do had gone right out of his head. And I held the candle down close, and turned the book over with my thumb and finger, and it was indeed the Godey’s Ladies’ Book which Mr. Kinnear had so enjoyed reading, earlier in the day. And at this memory I nearly burst into tears in earnest.

But there was no telling how long McDermott’s present mood would hold. So I said, That will confuse them; when they find it, they will not be able to guess at all how it came here. And he said yes, it would give them something to puzzle their brains over; and he laughed in a hollow sort of way. Then I said, We had better hurry, or someone may come while we are here; we must make haste, and pack up the things. For we will have to travel by night, or someone will see us on the road, with Mr. Kinnear’s rig, and will know something is wrong. It will take us a long time to reach Toronto, I said, in the dark; and also Charley Horse will be tired, having made the trip once today already. And McDermott agreed, as one half asleep; and we commenced searching through the house, and packing up the things. I did not want to take very much, only the lightest and most valuable items, such as Mr. Kinnear’s gold snuffbox, and his telescope and pocket-compass, and his gold pen-knife, and any money we could find; but McDermott said, in for a penny, in for a pound, and he might as well be hanged for a goat as for a sheep; and in the end we ransacked the house, and took the silver plate and candlesticks, and the spoons and forks and all, even the ones with the family crest on; for McDermott said they could always be melted.

I looked into Nancy‘s box, and at her dresses; and I thought, There is no need for them to go to waste, poor Nancy has no further use for them. So I took the box and all in it, and her winter things too; but I left the dress that she’d been sewing, because it seemed too close to her altogether, as it was not finished; and I’d heard that the dead would come back to complete what they had left undone, and I didn’t want her missing it, and following after me. For by this time I was almost certain she was dead. Before leaving, I tidied up the house, and washed the dishes, the plates from supper and all; and I put Mr. Kinnear’s bed in order, and pulled the coverlet up over Nancy’s bed, although I left the book in it, not wanting to get Mr. Kinnear’s blood on my hands; and I emptied her chamber pot, as I did not think it a nice thing to leave, as being somehow disrespectful. And meanwhile McDermott was harnessing Charley, and loading the boxes and the carpetbag into the wagon; though one time I found him sitting outside on the step, and staring vacantly in front of him. So I told him to pull himself together, and be a man. For the last thing I wanted was to be stuck there in that house with him, especially if he’d gone completely out of his mind. And when I told him to be a man, it had an effect, for he shook himself, and got up, and said I was right.

The last thing I did was to take off the clothes I’d been wearing that day; and I put on one of Nancy‘s dresses, the pale one with the white ground and the small floral print, which was the same one she had on the first day I came to Mr. Kinnear’s. And I put on her petticoat with the lace edging, and my own spare clean petticoat, and Nancy’s summer shoes of light-coloured leather, which I had so often admired, although they did not fit very well. And also her good straw bonnet; and I took her light cashmere shawl, although I did not think I would need to wear it, as the night was warm. And I put some rose-water behind my ears and on my wrists, from the bottle of it on her dresser; and the smell of it was a comfort of sorts.