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 laug
h 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.
IX.
HEARTS AND GIZZARDS
During the evening James Walsh came in, and brought his flute with him, Nancy said, we might as well have some fun, as Mr. Kinnear was away. Nancy said to McDermott, you have often bragged about your dancing, come let us have a dance, he was very sulky all the evening, and said he would not dance. About ten o'clock we went to bed. I slept with Nancy that night; before we went to bed McDermott said to me that he was determined to kill her that night, with the axe, when in bed. I entreated him not to do so that night, as he might hit me instead of her. He said, damn her; I'll kill her then, first thing in the morning. I got up early on the Saturday morning, and when I went into the kitchen McDermott was cleaning the shoes, the fire was lighted, he asked me where was Nancy, I said she was dressing, and I said, are you going to kill her this morning. He said he would. I said, McDermott, for God's sake don't kill her in the room, you'll make the floor all bloody. Well, says he, I'll not do it there, but I'll knock her down with the axe the moment she comes out.
- Confession of Grace Marks,
Star and Transcript, Toronto, November 1843.
"That cellar presented a dreadful spectacle.... [Nancy] Montgomery was not dead, as I had thought; the blow had only stunned her. She had partially recovered her senses, and was kneeling on one knee as we descended the ladder with the light. I don't know if she saw us, for she must have been blinded with the blood that was flowing down her face; but she certainly heard us, and raised her clasped hands, as if to implore mercy.
"I turned to Grace. The expression of her livid face was even more dreadful than that of the unfortunate woman. She uttered no cry, but she put her hand to her head, and said -
" 'God has damned me for this.'
" 'Then you have nothing more to fear,' says I. 'Give me that handkerchief off your neck.' She gave it without a word. I threw myself upon the body of the housekeeper, and planting my knee on her breast, I tied the handkerchief round her throat in a single tie, giving Grace one end to hold, while I drew the other tight enough to finish my terrible work. Her eyes literally started from her head, she gave one groan, and all was over. I then cut the body in four pieces,
and turned a large washtub over them."
- James McDermott,
to Kenneth MacKenzie, as retold by
Susanna Moodie, Life in the Clearings, 1853.
... the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world....
- Edgar Allan Poe,
"The Philosophy of Composition," 1846.
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.
Alias Grace Page 29
