Alias Grace (27 page)

While gathering her shawl and things together – she had a lovely parasol, pink in colour, although in need of cleaning – Nancy told me she was housekeeper to Mr. Thomas Kinnear, Esq., who lived in Richmond Hill, up Yonge Street past Gallow’s Hill and Hogg’s Hollow. She said she was in want of another servant to help her with the work, the house being large and the girl who was there before having left to get married. Mr. Kinnear was a gentleman of a fine Scottish family, and easygoing in his habits, and was not married; so there was less work, and no mistress of the household to carp and criticize, and would I be interested in the position?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some of the houses we passed along the way were large and fine, but others were just log houses, low and poor-looking. The fences around the fields were of different kinds, snake fences of split rails, and others made of the tree roots pulled out of the ground, which looked like giant hanks of wooden hair. Every now and then there was a crossroads with a few houses close together and an inn, where the horses could be rested or changed and a glass of whisky taken. Some of the men hanging about had taken a good many more than one glass, and were shabbily dressed and impertinent, and came up to the coach where I sat, and tried to look under the rim of my bonnet. When we stopped at midday, the dealer in farm implements said would I care to go inside and take a glass with him and some refreshments, but I said no, as a respectable woman should not go into such places with a stranger. I had bread and cheese with me and could get a drink of water from the well in the courtyard, and that was enough for me.

For the journey I had put on my good summer things. I had a straw bonnet, trimmed with a blue ribbon bow from Mary’s box, and my cap under it; and a cotton print dress with the drop-shouldered sleeves which were going out of style then, but I’d had no time to make it over; it was once red dots, but had washed to pink, and I had it as part wages from Coates’s. Two petticoats, one torn but neatly mended, the other now too short, but who was there to see it? A cotton chemise and a pair of stays, used, from Jeremiah the peddler, and white cotton stockings, mended but still with good wear in them. The pair of shoes from Mr. Watson the shoemaker, which were not the best quality and did not fit, as the best shoes came from England. A summer shawl of green muslin, and a kerchief left to me
by Mary, which had been her mother’s – a white ground printed with small blue flowers, love-in-a-mist, folded into a triangle and worn around the neck to keep the sun off and prevent freckles. It was comforting to have such a remembrance of her. But I had no gloves. No one had ever given me any, and they were too dear for me to buy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this man a friend of yours? said Jeremiah.

No he is not, I said.

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

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

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

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

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