Alias Grace (19 page)

Then he went back upstairs to his own rooms, with a slop pail he’d located; the kitchen had been a shambles. He cleaned up the spilled breakfast and the broken dishes from his floor, noting that for once the now-ruined egg had been perfectly cooked.

He supposes he will have to give notice to Mrs. Humphrey, and change his lodgings, which will be an inconvenience; although
preferable to the disruption of his life and work that would surely be the consequence if he were to stay. Disorder, chaos, the Bailiff’s men coming for the furniture in his own chambers, no doubt. But if he leaves, what will become of the wretched woman? He does not want her on his conscience, which is where she will be if she starves to death on a street corner.

He buys some eggs, and some bacon and cheese, and some dirty-looking butter from an old farm woman at one of the stalls; and, at a shop, some tea twisted up in a paper. He would like bread, but there is none to be seen. He doesn’t really know how to go about this. He’s visited the market before, but only fleetingly, to obtain the vegetables with which he has been hoping to prod Grace’s memory. Now he’s on a different footing entirely. Where can he purchase milk? Why are there no apples? This is a universe he has never explored, having had no curiosity about where his food came from, as long as it did come. The other shoppers at the market are servants, their mistresses’ shopping baskets over their arms; or else women of the poorer classes, in limp bonnets and bedraggled shawls. He feels they are laughing at him behind his back.

When he returns, Mrs. Humphrey is up. She’s wrapped herself in a quilt and tidied her hair, and is sitting beside the stove, which is luckily alight – he himself would not know how to manage it – rubbing her hands together and shivering. He succeeds in making her some tea, and in frying some eggs and bacon, and in toasting a stale bun which he eventually found at the market. They eat these together, at the one remaining table. He wishes there were some marmalade.

“This is so good of you, Dr. Jordan.”

“Think nothing of it. I could not let you starve.” His voice is heartier than he intends, the voice of a jolly and insincere uncle who can scarcely wait to bestow the expected quarter-dollar on the grovelling poor-relation niece, pinch her cheek, and then make his getaway
to the opera. Simon wonders what the bad Major Humphrey is doing right now, and curses him silently, and envies him. Whatever it may be, it is more enjoyable than this.

Mrs. Humphrey sighs. “I am afraid it will come to that. I am at the end of my resources.” She is now quite calm, and is looking at her situation objectively. “The rent of the house must be paid, and there is no money. Soon they will come like vultures to pick over the bones, and I will be turned out. Perhaps I will even be arrested for debt. I would rather die.”

“Surely there must be something you can do,” says Simon. “To earn a living.” She is clutching for her self-respect, and he admires her for it.

She gazes at him. Her eyes, in this light, are an odd shade of sea-green. “What do you suggest, Dr. Jordan? Fancy needlework? Women like me have few skills they can sell.” There’s a hint of malicious irony in her voice. Does she know what he was thinking as she lay unconscious on his unmade bed?

“I will advance you another two months’ rent,” he finds himself saying. He’s a fool, a soft-hearted idiot; if he had any sense he would be out of here as if the Devil himself were in pursuit. “That should be sufficient to hold the wolves at bay, at least until you’ve had time to consider your prospects.”

Her eyes fill with tears. Without a word, she lifts his hand from the table and presses it gently to her lips. The effect is only slightly dampened by the trace of butter that remains upon her mouth.

T
oday Dr. Jordan looks more disarranged than usual, and as if he has something on his mind; he does not seem to know quite how to begin. So I continue with my sewing until he’s had time to gather himself together; and then he says, Is that a new quilt you are working on, Grace?

And I say, Yes it is, Sir, it is a Pandora’s Box for Miss Lydia.

This puts him in an instructive mood, and I can see he is going to teach me something, which gentlemen are fond of doing. Mr. Kinnear was like that as well. And he says, And do you know who Pandora was, Grace?

And I say, Yes, she was a Greek person from days of old, who looked into a box she had been told not to, and a lot of diseases came out, and wars, and other human ills; for I had learnt it a long time ago, at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s. Mary Whitney had a low opinion of the story, and said why did they leave such a box lying around, if they didn’t want it opened.

He is surprised to find I know that, and says, But do you know what was at the bottom of the box?

Yes Sir, I say, it was hope. And you could make a joke of it, and say that hope was what you got when you scraped the bottom of the barrel, as some do who have to marry at last out of desperation. Or you could say it was a hope chest. But in any case it is all just a fable; although a pretty quilt pattern.

Well, I suppose we all need a little hope now and then, he says.

I am on the point of saying that I have been getting along without it for some time, but I refrain; and then I say, You do not look yourself today, Sir, I trust you are not ill.

And he smiles his one-sided smile, and says he isn’t ill, only preoccupied; but that if I would continue with my story, it would be a help to him, as it would distract him from his worries; but he does not say what these worries might be.

And so I go on.

Now, Sir, I say, I will come to a happier part of my story; and in this part I will tell you about Mary Whitney; and then you will understand why it was her name I borrowed, when I was in need of it; for she was never one to refuse a friend in need, and I hope I stood by her as well, when the time came for it.

The house of my new employment was very grand, and was known as one of the finest houses in Toronto. It was situated on Front Street, overlooking the Lake, where there were many other big houses; and it had a curved portico with white pillars at the front. The dining room was oval in shape, as was the drawing room, and a marvel to behold, although drafty. And there was a library as big as a ballroom, with shelves up to the ceiling all stuffed full of books in leather covers, with more words in them than you would ever want to read in your life. And the bedchambers had high tester bedsteads with hangings, and also netting to keep out the flies in summer, and dressing tables with looking glasses, and mahogany commodes, and chests of drawers all complete. They were Church
of England, as all the best people were in those days, and also those who wanted to be the best, as it was Established.

The family consisted, first, of Mr. Alderman Parkinson, who was seldom visible, as he was much engaged in business and politics; he was the shape of an apple with two sticks stuck into it for legs. He had so many gold watch-chains and gold pins and gold snuffboxes and other trinkets, you could have got five necklaces out of him if he was melted down, with the earrings to match. Then there was Mrs. Alderman Parkinson, and Mary Whitney said she ought to have been the Alderman herself, as she was the better man. She was an imposing figure of a woman, and a very different shape out of her corsets than in them; but when she was firmly laced in, her bosom jutted out like a shelf, and she could have carried a whole tea service around on it and never spilt a drop. She came from the United States of America, and had been a well-to-do widow before being, as she said, swept off her feet by Mr. Alderman Parkinson; which must have been a sight to behold; and Mary Whitney said it was a wonder Mr. Alderman Parkinson had escaped with his life.

She had two grown sons who were away at college in the States; and also a spaniel dog named Bevelina, which I include as family because it was treated as such. I am fond of animals as a rule but this one took an effort.

Then there were the servants, which were many in number; and some left and others came while I was there, so I will not mention them all. There was Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s lady’s maid, who claimed to be French although we had our doubts, and kept to herself; and Mrs. Honey the housekeeper, who had quite a large room at the back of the main floor, and so did the butler; and the cook and laundress lived next the kitchen. The gardener and stablemen lived in the outbuildings, as did the two kitchen maids, near the stable with the horses and three cows, where I went sometimes to help with the milking.

I was put in the attic, at the very top of the back stairs, and shared a bed with Mary Whitney, who helped in the laundry. Our room was not large, and hot in summer and cold in winter, as it was next the roof and without a fireplace or stove; and in it was the bedstead, which had a pallet mattress filled with straw, and a small chest, and a plain washstand with a chipped basin, and a chamber pot; and also a straight-backed chair, painted a light green, where we folded our clothes at night.

Down the passageway from us were Agnes and Effie, who were the chambermaids. Agnes was of a religious temperament, although kind-hearted and helpful. In her youth she had tried a preparation for taking the yellow off the teeth, but it took the white off as well, which may have been why she smiled so seldom, and took care to do it with her lips closed. Mary Whitney said she prayed so much because she was praying to God to get her white teeth back again, but so far no results. Effie had become very melancholic when her young man was transported to Australia for being in the Rebellion three years before; and when she got a letter saying he had died there, she attempted to hang herself by her apron strings; but they broke, and she was found on the floor half-choked and out of her mind, and had to be put away.

I knew nothing about the Rebellion, not having been in the country at the time, so Mary Whitney told me. It was against the gentry, who ran everything, and kept all the money and land for themselves; and it was led by Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, who was a Radical, and after the Rebellion failed he escaped through ice and snow in women’s clothing, and over the Lake to the States, and he could have been betrayed many times over but was not, because he was a fine man who always stood up for the ordinary farmers; but many of the Radicals had been caught and transported or hanged, and had lost their property; or else had gone south; and most of those left here were Tories, or said they were; so it was best not to mention politics, except among friends.

I said I understood nothing about politics, so would not think of mentioning it in any case; and I asked Mary if she was a Radical. And she said I was not to tell the Parkinsons, who had heard a different story, but her own father had lost his farm that way, which he had cleared himself with much labour; and they had burnt the log house he’d built with his own two hands, while fighting off the bears and other wild animals; and then he’d lost his life too, through illness caused by hiding in the winter woods; and her mother had died of grief. But their time would come, they would be revenged; and she looked very fierce as she said this.

I was pleased to be with Mary Whitney, as I liked her at once. Next to me she was the youngest one there, being sixteen; and she was a pretty and cheerful girl, with a tidy figure and dark hair and sparkling black eyes, and rosy cheeks with dimples; and she smelled like nutmegs or carnations. She asked all about me, and I told her about the journey in the ship, and about my mother dying, and sinking down into the sea among the icebergs. And Mary said that was very sad. And then I told her about my father, although keeping back the worst parts, because it is not right to speak ill of a parent; and how I feared he would want all of my wages; and she said I should not give him my money as he had not worked for it, and it would not benefit my sisters and brothers, as he would spend all on himself and most likely on the drink. I said I was afraid of him, and she said he could not get at me here, and if he tried, she would speak to Jim in the stables, who was a large man with friends. And I began to feel easier.

Mary said I might be very young, and as ignorant as an egg, but I was bright as a new penny, and the difference between stupid and ignorant was that ignorant could learn. And she said I looked like a good worker who would pull my weight, and we would get along fine together; and she’d had two other situations, and if you had to
hire yourself out as a servant, it was as well at Parkinsons’ as anywhere, as they did not stint on the meals. And this was true, as I soon began to fill out and grow taller. Food was certainly easier to come by in the Canadas than on the other side of the ocean, and there was a greater variety of it; and even the servants ate meat every day, if only salt pork or bacon; and there was good bread, of wheat and also of Indian corn; and the house had its own three cows, and kitchen garden, and fruit trees, and strawberries, currants, and grapes; and flower beds as well.

Mary Whitney was a fun-loving girl, and very mischievous and bold in her speech when we were alone. But towards her elders and betters her manner was respectful and demure; and because of that, and the brisk way she did her work, she was a general favourite. But behind their backs she made jokes about them, and imitated their faces and walks and ways. I was often astonished at the words that came out of her mouth, as many of them were quite coarse; it wasn’t that I’d never heard such language before, as there was a sufficient store of it at home when my father was drunk, and on the ship coming over, and down by the harbour near the taverns and inns; but I was surprised to hear it from a girl, and one so young and pretty, and so neatly and cleanly dressed. But I soon got used to it, and put it down to her being a native-born Canadian, as she did not have much respect for degree. And sometimes when I would be shocked at her, she would say that I would soon be singing mournful hymns like Agnes, and going around with a mouth pulled down all glum and saggy like an old maid’s backside; and I would protest, and we would end by laughing.

But it angered her that some people had so much and others so little, as she could not see any divine plan in it. She claimed that her grandmother had been a Red Indian, which was why her hair was so black; and that if she had half a chance she would run away to the woods, and go about with a bow and arrow, and not have to pin up
her hair or wear stays; and I could come with her. And then we would fall to planning about how we would hide in the forest, and leap out upon travellers, and scalp them, which she had read about in books; and she said she would like to scalp Mrs. Alderman Parkinson, except it would not be worth the trouble as her hair was not her own, there were hanks and swatches of it kept in her dressing room; and she’d once seen the French maid brushing a heap of it, and thought it was the spaniel. But it was just our way of talking, and no harm was meant.