Alias Grace (20 page)

Mary took me under her wing from the very first. She soon guessed that I wasn’t as old as I said I was, and she swore not to tell; and then she looked over my clothes, and said most of them were too small for me, and fit only for the scrap bag, and that I would never make it through the winter with only my mother’s shawl, as the wind would go right through it like a sieve; and she would help me get the clothes I needed, as Mrs. Honey had told her I looked like a ragamuffin and I was to be made presentable, since Mrs. Alderman Parkinson had her name to keep up in the neighbourhood. But first I must be scrubbed like a potato, I was that filthy.

She said she would get the loan of Mrs. Honey’s hip bath; and I was alarmed, as I had never been in a bath of any sort, and also I was afraid of Mrs. Honey; but Mary said her bark was worse than her bite, and in any case you could always hear her coming, as she clanked like a wagonful of old kettles because of all her keys; and if there was any argument she would threaten to bathe me outside, stark naked, under the pump in the back courtyard. I was shocked by this, and said I would not allow it; and she said of course she would never do such a thing, but the mere mention of it would obtain Mrs. Honey’s consent.

Back she came quite soon, and said we could have the hip bath as long as we scoured it well out afterwards; and we took it to the
laundry room, and pumped the water, and took the chill off it on the stove, and poured it in. I made Mary stand at the door to prevent anyone from coming in, and with her back turned, as I had never taken off all my clothes at once before, though I kept my shift on out of modesty. The water was not very warm, and by the time I’d finished I was shivering, and it was a good thing it was summertime or I would have caught my death of cold. Mary said I had to wash my hair as well; and though it was true that washing it too much would take all the strength out of your body, and she had known a girl who had faded away and died from too much hair washing, still it needed to be done every three or four months; and she looked at my head, and said at least I did not have any lice, but if any appeared I would need sulphur and turpentine put on, and she had this done once and smelled like rotten eggs for days afterwards.

Mary lent me a nightdress until mine should be dry, because she’d washed all my clothes; and she wrapped me up in a sheet so I could go out of the laundry and climb up the back stairs; and she said I looked very comical, just like a madwoman.

Mary asked Mrs. Honey to give me an advance on my wages, for a decent dress; and we got leave to go into the town the very next day. Mrs. Honey preached us a sermon before we set off, and said we were to behave modestly, and go and come back straight away, and not speak to any strangers, especially men; and we promised to do as she said.

I am afraid however that we went the long way round, and looked at the flowers in the fenced gardens of the houses, and at the shops, which were not nearly so many or so grand as in Belfast, from what I had briefly seen there. Then Mary said would I like to see the street where the whores lived; and I was frightened, but she said there was no danger. I was indeed curious to see the women who made a living by selling their bodies, because I thought if worst
came to worst and if starving, I would still have something to sell; and I wanted to see what they looked like. So we went to Lombard Street, but as it was the morning there was not much to be seen. Mary said that there were several bawdy-houses there, although you couldn’t tell them from the outside; but inside they were said to be very fancy, with Turkey carpets and crystal chandeliers and velvet curtains, and the whores lived in them with their own bedchambers, and with maids to bring them their breakfasts and clean their floors and make their beds and take out their slops, and all they had to do was put on their clothes and take them off again, and lie around on their backs, and it was easier work than a coal mine or a mill.

The ones in these houses were the better class of whore, and the more expensive, and the men were gentlemen, or at least good-paying customers. But the cheaper sort had to walk about outside, and make use of rooms rented by the hour; and many of them got diseases, and were old by the time they were twenty, and had to cover their faces with paint, so as to deceive the poor drunken sailors. And although they might look very elegant from a distance, with feathers and satins, up close you could see that their dresses were soiled and ill-fitting, as every stitch on their backs was rented by the day, and they scarcely had enough left over for their bread; and it was a dismal sort of life, and she wondered they did not throw themselves into the lake; which some did, and were often found floating about in the harbour.

I wondered how Mary knew so much about it; but she laughed, and said that I would hear a lot if I would keep my ears open, especially in the kitchen; but also a girl she’d known from the country had gone to the bad, and she used to meet her on the street; but what had become of her since she didn’t know, and feared it was nothing good.

After that we went to King Street, to a dry-goods shop where ends of bales were sold cheaply; and there were silks and cottons and
broadcloths and flannels, and satins and tartans, and everything you could desire; but we had to consider the price, and the use it was to be put to. In the end we bought a serviceable blue and white gingham, and Mary said she would help me make it up; though she was surprised, when the time came, to find I could sew so well and with such tiny stitches, and said I was wasted as a servant, and ought to set up as a dressmaker.

We bought the thread for the dress, and also the buttons, from a peddler who came round the next day, and was well known to all there. He was a great favourite with Cook, who made him a cup of tea and cut him a slice of cake while he opened up his pack and spread out his wares. His name was Jeremiah, and when he came up the drive to the back door he was followed by a band of five or six raggedy urchins, like a parade, and one was banging on a pot with a spoon; and all were singing,

The racket brought us all to the window; and when they’d reached the back door, he gave them a penny to spend, and they ran off; and when Cook asked him what all that was about, he said he would rather have them following under his command, than pelting him with clots of mud and horse dung, which was their habit with peddlers, who could not chase them away without abandoning their packs; which if they did, would swiftly be pillaged by the little ruffians; so he’d chosen the wiser course, and employed them, and taught them the song himself.

This Jeremiah was a deft and nimble man, with a long nose and legs and a skin all browned by the sun, and a curling black beard,
and Mary said that although he looked like a Jew or a gypsy, as many peddlers were, he was a Yankee with an Italian father who’d come over to work in the mills, in Massachusetts; and his last name was Pontelli, but he was well liked. He spoke good English, yet with something foreign in his voice; and he had piercing black eyes and a wide and handsome smile, and flattered the women shamelessly.

He had a great many things I wanted to buy, but could not afford to, even though he said he would take half the money now and leave the rest until the next time he came; but I do not like being in debt. He had ribbons and laces, as well as the thread and buttons, which were metal or mother-of-pearl or wood or bone, and I chose the bone; and white cotton stockings, and collars and cuffs, and cravats and handkerchiefs; and several petticoats, and two pairs of stays, used, but well washed and almost as good as new; and summer gloves in pale shades, most beautifully made. And earrings, silver and gold in colour, although Mary said they would rub off; and a real silver snuffbox; and bottles of scent that smelled like roses, very strong. Cook bought some, and Jeremiah said she scarcely needed it, as she smelled like a princess already; and she blushed and giggled even though she was nearing fifty and not of a graceful figure, and she said Onions, more like; and he said she smelled good enough to eat, and the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and then he smiled with his large white teeth, which looked all the larger and whiter due to his dark beard, and gave Cook a hungry stare, and licked his lips, as if she herself was a delicious cake he longed to devour; at which she blushed even more.

Then he asked us if we had anything to sell, for as we knew, he gave good prices; and Agnes sold her coral earrings that she had from an aunt, as being vanity, but we knew she needed the money for her sister, who was in difficulties; and Jim from the stables came in, and said he would trade a shirt he had, and also a large coloured handkerchief, for another and finer shirt he liked better; and with a
wooden-handled pocket-knife thrown into the bargain, it was done.

While Jeremiah was in the kitchen it was like a party, and Mrs. Honey came to find out what was making all the commotion. And she said, Well Jeremiah, I see you are up to your old pranks, taking advantage of the women again. But she smiled while saying it, which was a rare sight. And he said yes, that was what he was doing, there were so many pretty ones he could not resist, but none so pretty as her; and she bought two lawn handkerchiefs from him, although she did say he had to be brisk about it, and not take all day, as the girls had their work to do. And then she clanked away out of the kitchen.

Some wanted him to tell their fortunes by looking into their hands; but Agnes said it was meddling with the Devil, and that Mrs. Alderman Parkinson would not want word to get round of such gypsy doings in her kitchen. So he did not. But after much pleading, he did an imitation of a gentleman, with the voice and manners and all, at which we clapped our hands with joy, it was so lifelike; and he made a silver coin appear out of Cook’s ear, and showed us how he could swallow a fork, or appear to. He said these were conjuring tricks he had learnt in the days of his wicked youth, when he was a wild lad and worked at fairs, before he’d become an honest tradesman and had his pocket picked and his heart broken fifty times over by cruel and pretty girls such as we were; and all present laughed.

But when he’d stowed everything away in his pack again, and had drunk his cup of tea and eaten his slice of cake, and said nobody made such good cakes as Cook did, and was going away, he motioned me over to him, and gave me an extra bone button, to go with the four I’d bought. He put it into my hand and folded my fingers over it, and his own fingers were hard and dry, like sand; but he peered into my hand swiftly first; and then he said, Five for luck; for people of that kind consider four an unlucky number, and odd numbers luckier than even ones. And he gave me a quick and intelligent look with his shining black eyes, and he said, quite low so that the others
did not hear it, There are sharp rocks ahead. Which I suppose there always are, Sir, and there had certainly been enough of them behind, and I had survived them; so I was not too daunted by that.

But then he said the strangest thing of all to me. He said, You are one of us.

And then he shouldered his pack and took up his staff, and walked away; and I was left wondering what he’d meant. But after I had mulled it over, I decided he meant that I too was homeless, and a wanderer, like the peddlers and those who worked at fairs; for I couldn’t imagine what else he might have had in mind.

We all felt a little stale and flat after he had gone; for it wasn’t often that those of us in the back rooms and offices were allowed a treat like that, and a good look at such pretty things, and a chance to laugh and fun in the middle of the day.

But the dress came out very well, and because there were five buttons and not four, we used three at the neck and one on each of the sleeve cuffs; and even Mrs. Honey said what a difference it made in my appearance, and how trim and respectable I looked, now that I was decently dressed.

M
y father came round at the end of the first month, and wanted all my wages; but I could only give him a quarter, having spent the rest. And then he began to curse and swear, and seized me by the arm; but Mary set the stablehands onto him. And he came back at the end of the second month, and I gave him a quarter again, and Mary told him he wasn’t to come any more. And he called her hard names, and she called him worse, and whistled for the men; and so he was chased off. I was of two minds about this, as I felt sorry for the little ones; and I tried to send them some money afterwards, through Mrs. Burt; but I do not think they received it.

I was set to work at first as a scullery maid, scouring out the pots and pans, but it was soon observed that the iron cauldrons were too heavy for me; and then our laundress left for a new position, and another one came who was not so brisk, and Mrs. Honey said I was to assist Mary with the rinsing and the wringing out, and the hanging up and the folding and the mangling and mending, and we were both very pleased. Mary said she would teach me what I needed to know, and as I was bright enough I would learn it quickly.

When I would make a mistake and become anxious about it, Mary would comfort me and say I should not take things so seriously, and if you never made a mistake you would never learn; and when Mrs. Honey spoke sharply to me and I was on the verge of tears, Mary would say I should not mind her, as that was her way, it was because she had swallowed a bottle of vinegar and it came out on her tongue. And also I should remember that we were not slaves, and being a servant was not a thing we were born to, nor would we be forced to continue at it forever; it was just a job of work. She said it was the custom for young girls in this country to hire themselves out, in order to earn the money for their dowries; and then they would marry, and if their husbands prospered they would soon be hiring their own servants in their turn, at the very least a maid-of-all-work; and that one day I would be the mistress of a tidy farmhouse, and independent, and I would look back on my trials and tribulations at the hands of Mrs. Honey as a fine joke. And one person was as good as the next, and on this side of the ocean folks rose in the world by hard work, not by who their grandfather was, and that was the way it should be.