Alias Grace Read online

  I wonder what they did with his shirt. Was it one of the four sold to him by Jeremiah the peddler? It should have been three, or else five, as odd numbers are luckier. Jeremiah always wished me luck, but he did not wish any to James McDermott.

  I did not see the hanging. They hanged him in front of the jail in Toronto, and You should have been there Grace, say the keepers, it would have been a lesson to you. I've pictured it many times, poor James standing with his hands tied and his neck bare, while they put the hood over his head like a kitten to be drowned. At least he had a priest with him, he was not all alone. If it had not been for Grace Marks, he told them, none of it would have happened.

  It was raining, and a huge crowd standing in the mud, some of them come from miles away. If my own death sentence had not been commuted at the last minute, they would have watched me hang with the same greedy pleasure. There were many women and ladies there; everyone wanted to stare, they wanted to breathe death in like fine perfume, and when I read of it I thought, If this is a lesson to me, what is it I am supposed to be learning?

  I can hear their footsteps now, and I stand up quickly and brush my apron smooth. Then there's the voice of a strange man, This is most kind of you Ma'am, and the Governor's wife saying I am so happy to be of help, and he says again, Most kind.

  Then he comes through the doorway, big stomach, black coat, tight waistcoat, silver buttons, precisely tied stock, I am only looking up as far as the chin, and he says This will not take long but I'd appreciate it Ma'am if you'd remain in the room, one must not only be virtuous, one must give the appearance of virtue. He laughs as if it is a joke, and I can hear in his voice that he is afraid of me. A woman like me is always a temptation, if possible to arrange it unobserved; as whatever we may say about it later, we will not be believed.

  And then I see his hand, a hand like a glove, a glove stuffed with raw meat, his hand plunging into the open mouth of his leather bag. It comes out glinting, and I know I have seen a hand like that before; and then I lift my head and stare him straight in the eye, and my heart clenches and kicks out inside me, and then I begin to scream.

  Because it's the same doctor, the same one, the very same black-coated doctor with his bagful of shining knives.

  4.

  I was brought round with a glass of cold water dashed in the face, but continued screaming, although the doctor was no longer in sight; so was restrained by two kitchen maids and the gardener's boy, who sat on my legs. The Governor's wife had sent for the Matron from the Penitentiary, who arrived with two of the keepers; and she gave me a brisk slap across the face, at which I stopped. It was not the same doctor in any case, it only looked like him. The same cold and greedy look, and the hate.

  It's the only way with the hysterics, you may be sure Ma'am, said the Matron, we have had a great deal of experience with that kind of a fit, this one used to be prone to them but we never indulged her, we worked to correct it and we thought she had given it up, it might be her old trouble coming back, for despite what they said about it up there at Toronto she was a raving lunatic that time seven years ago, and you are lucky there was no scissors nor sharp things lying about.

  Then the keepers half-dragged me back to the main prison building, and locked me into this room, until I was myself again is what they said, even though I told them I was better now that the doctor was no longer there with his knives. I said I had a fear of doctors, that was all; of being cut open by them, as some might have a fear of snakes; but they said, That's enough of your tricks Grace, you just wanted the attention, he was not going to cut you open, he had no knives at all, it was only a callipers you saw, to measure the heads with. You've given the Governor's wife a real fright now but it serves her right, she's been spoiling you too much for your own good, she's made quite a pet out of you hasn't she, our company is hardly good enough for you any more. Well so much the worse, you will have to endure it because now you will have a different sort of attention for a time. Until they have decided what is to be done with you.

  This room has only a little window high up with bars on the inside, and a straw-filled mattress. There's a crust of bread on a tin plate, and a stone crock of water, and a wooden bucket with nothing in it which is there for a chamber pot. I was put in a room like this before they sent me away to the Asylum. I told them I wasn't mad, that I wasn't the one, but they wouldn't listen.

  They wouldn't know mad when they saw it in any case, because a good portion of the women in the Asylum were no madder than the Queen of England. Many were sane enough when sober, as their madness came out of a bottle, which is a kind I knew very well. One of them was in there to get away from her husband, who beat her black and blue, he was the mad one but nobody would lock him up; and another said she went mad in the autumns, as she had no house and it was warm in the Asylum, and if she didn't do a fair job of running mad she would freeze to death; but then in the spring she would become sane again because it was good weather and she could go off and tramp in the woods and fish, and as she was part Red Indian she was handy at such things. I would like to do that myself if I knew how, and if not afraid of the bears.

  But some were not pretending. One poor Irishwoman had all her family dead, half of them of starving in the great famine and the other half of the cholera on the boat coming over; and she would wander about calling their names. I am glad I left Ireland before that time, as the sufferings she told of were dreadful, and the corpses piled everywhere with none to bury them. Another woman had killed her child, and it followed her around everywhere, tugging at her skirt; and sometimes she would pick it up and hug and kiss it, and at other times she would shriek at it, and hit it away with her hands. I was afraid of that one.

  Another was very religious, always praying and singing, and when she found out what they said I had done, she would plague me whenever she could. Down on your knees, she would say, Thou shalt not kill, but there is always God's grace for sinners, repent, repent while there is yet time or damnation awaits. She was just like a preacher in church, and once she tried to baptize me with soup, thin soup it was and with cabbage in it, and she poured a spoonful of it over my head. When I complained of it, the Matron gave me a dry look with her mouth all tight and straight across like a box lid, and she said, Well Grace perhaps you should listen to her, I have never heard of you doing any true repenting, much though your hard heart stands in need of it; and then I was suddenly very angry and I screamed, I did nothing, I did nothing! It was her, it was her fault!

  Who do you mean, Grace, she said, compose yourself or it's the cold baths and the strait-waistcoat for you, and she gave the other matron a glance: There. What did I tell you. Mad as a snake.

  The matrons at the Asylum were all fat and strong, with big thick arms and chins that went straight down into their necks and prim white collars, and their hair twisted up like faded rope. You have to be strong to be a matron there in case some madwoman jumps on your back and starts to tear out your hair, but none of it improved their tempers any. Sometimes they would provoke us, especially right before the visitors were to come. They wanted to show how dangerous we were, but also how well they could control us, as it made them appear more valuable and skilled.

  So I stopped telling them anything. Not Dr. Bannerling, who would come into the room when I was tied up in the dark with mufflers on my hands, Keep still I am here to examine you, it is no use lying to me. Nor the other doctors who would visit there, Oh indeed, what a fascinating case, as if I was a two-headed calf. At last I stopped talking altogether, except very civilly when spoken to, Yes Ma'am No Ma'am, Yes and No Sir. And then I was sent back to the Penitentiary, after they had all met together in their black coats, Ahem, aha, in my opinion, and My respected colleague, Sir I beg to differ. Of course they could not admit for an instant that they had been mistaken when they first put me in.

  People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart. What Mary Whitney used to say was, If there's farting in a room where the
y are, you may be sure you done it yourself. And even if you never did, you better not say so or it's all Damn your insolence, and a boot in the backside and out on the street with you.

  She often had a crude way of speaking. She said You done and not You did. No one had taught her otherwise. I used to speak that way as well, but I have learnt better manners in prison.

  I sit down on the straw mattress. It makes a sound like shushing. Like water on the shore. I shift from side to side, to listen to it. I could close my eyes and think I'm by the sea, on a dry day without much wind. Outside the window far away there's someone chopping wood, the axe coming down, the unseen flash and then the dull sound, but how do I know it's even wood?

  It's chilly in this room. I have no shawl, I hug my arms around myself because who else is there to do it? When I was younger I used to think that if I could hug myself tight enough I could make myself smaller, because there was never enough room for me, at home or anywhere, but if I was smaller then I would fit in.

  My hair is coming out from under my cap. Red hair of an ogre. A wild beast, the newspaper said. A monster. When they come with my dinner I will put the slop bucket over my head and hide behind the door, and that will give them a fright. If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided with one.

  I never do such things, however. I only consider them. If I did them, they would be sure I had gone mad again. Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.

  I don't want to be left by myself in this room. The walls are too empty, there are no pictures on them nor curtains on the little high-up window, nothing to look at and so you look at the wall, and after you do that for a time, there are pictures on it after all, and red flowers growing.

  I think I sleep.

  It's morning now, but which one? The second or the third. There's fresh light outside the window, that's what woke me. I struggle upright, pinch myself and blink my eyes, and get up stiff-limbed from the rustling mattress. Then I sing a song, just to hear a voice and keep myself company:

  Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,

  Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee,

  Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,

  God in three persons, Blessed Trinity.

  They can hardly object if it's a hymn. A hymn to the morning. I have always been fond of sunrise.

  Then I drink the last of the water; then I walk around the room; then I lift my petticoats and piss in the bucket. A few more hours and it will reek in here like a cesspool.

  Sleeping in your clothes makes you tired. The clothes are crumpled, and also your body underneath them. I feel as if I've been rolled into a bundle and thrown on the floor.

  I wish I had a clean apron.

  Nobody comes. I'm being left to reflect on my sins and misdemeanours, and one does that best in solitude, or such is our expert and considered opinion, Grace, after long experience with these matters. In solitary confinement, and sometimes in the dark. There are prisons where they keep you in there for years, without a glimpse of a tree or horse or human face. Some say it refines the complexion.

  I've been shut up alone before. Incorrigible, said Dr. Bannerling, a devious dissembler. Remain quiet, I am here to examine your cerebral configuration, and first I shall measure your heartbeat and respiration, but I knew what he was up to. Take your hand off my tit, you filthy bastard, Mary Whitney would have said, but all I could say was Oh no, oh no, and no way to twist and turn, not how they'd fixed me, trussed up to the chair with the sleeves crossed over in front and tied behind; so nothing to do but sink my teeth into his fingers, and then over we went, backwards onto the floor, yowling together like two cats in a sack. He tasted of raw sausages and damp woollen underclothes. He'd of been much better for a good scalding, and then put in the sun to bleach.

  No supper last night or the night before that, nothing except the bread, not even a bit of cabbage; well that is to be expected. Starvation is calming to the nerves. Today it will be more bread and water, as meat is exciting to criminals and maniacs, they get the smell of it in their nostrils just like wolves and then you have only yourself to blame. But yesterday's water is all gone and I'm very thirsty, I am dying of thirst, my mouth tastes bruised, my tongue is swelling. That's what happens to castaways, I've read about them in legal trials, lost at sea and drinking each other's blood. They draw straws for it. Cannibal atrocities pasted into the scrapbook. I'm sure I would never do such a thing, however hungry.

  Have they forgotten I'm in here? They'll have to bring more food, or at least more water, or else I will starve, I will shrivel, my skin will dry out, all yellow like old linen; I will turn into a skeleton, I will be found months, years, centuries from now, and they will say Who is this, she must have slipped our mind, Well sweep all those bones and rubbish into the corner, but save the buttons, no sense in having them go to waste, there's no help for it now.

  Once you start feeling sorry for yourself they've got you where they want you. Then they send for the Chaplain.

  Oh come to my arms, poor wandering soul. There is more joy in Heaven over the one lost lamb. Ease your troubled mind. Kneel at my feet. Wring your hands in anguish. Describe how conscience tortures you day and night, and how the eyes of your victims follow you around the room, burning like red-hot coals. Shed tears of remorse. Confess, confess. Let me forgive and pity. Let me get up a Petition for you. Tell me all.

  And then what did he do? Oh shocking. And then what?

  The left hand or the right?

  How far up, exactly?

  Show me where.

  Possibly I hear a whispering. Now there's an eye, looking in at me through the slit cut in the door. I can't see it but I know it's there. Then a knocking.

  And I think, Who could that be? The Matron? The Warden, come to give me a scolding? But it can't be any of them, because nobody here does you the courtesy of knocking, they look at you through the little slit and then they just walk in. Always knock first, said Mary Whitney. Then wait until they give you leave. You never know what they may be up to, and half of it's nothing they want you to see, they could have their fingers up their nose or some other place, as even a gentlewoman feels the need to scratch where it itches, and if you see a pair of heels sticking out from under the bed it's best to take no notice. They may be silk purses in the daytime, but they're all sows' ears at night.

  Mary was a person of democratic views.

  The knock again. As if I have a choice.

  I push my hair back under my cap, and get up off the straw mattress and smooth down my dress and apron, and then I move as far back into the corner of the room as I can, and then I say, quite firmly because it's as well to keep hold of your dignity if at all possible,

  Please come in.

  5.

  The door opens and a man enters. He's a young man, my own age or a little older, which is young for a man although not for a woman, as at my age a woman is an old maid but a man is not an old bachelor until he's fifty, and even then there's still hope for the ladies, as Mary Whitney used to say. He's tall, with long legs and arms, but not what the Governor's daughters would call handsome; they incline to the languid ones in the magazines, very elegant and butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, with narrow feet in pointed boots. This man has a briskness about him which is not fashionable, and also rather large feet, although he is a gentleman, or next door to it. I don't think he is English, and so it is hard to tell.

  His hair is brown, and wavy by nature - unruly it might be called, as if he can't make it lie flat by brushing. His coat is good, a good cut; but not new, as there are shiny patches on the elbows. He has a tartan vest, tartan has been popular ever since the Queen took up with Scotland and built a castle there, full of deer's heads or so they say; but now I see it isn't real tartan, only checked.
Yellow and brown. He has a gold watch-chain, so although rumpled and untended, he is not poor.

  He doesn't have the side-whiskers, as they have begun to wear them now; I don't much like them myself, give me a moustache or a beard, or else nothing at all. James McDermott and Mr. Kinnear were both clean-shaven, and Jamie Walsh too, not that he had anything much to shave; except that Mr. Kinnear had a moustache. When I used to empty his shaving basin in the mornings, I would take some of the wet soap - he used a good soap, from London - and I would rub it on my skin, on the skin of my wrists, and then I would have the smell of it with me all day, at least until it was time to scrub the floors.

  The young man closes the door behind him. He doesn't lock it, but someone else locks it from the outside. We are locked into this room together.

  Good morning, Grace, he says. I understand that you are afraid of doctors. I must tell you right away that I myself am a doctor. My name is Dr. Jordan, Dr. Simon Jordan.

  I look at him quickly, then look down. I say, Is the other doctor coming back?

  The one that frightened you? he says. No, he is not.

  I say, Then I suppose you are here to measure my head.

  I would not dream of it, he says, smiling; but still, he glances at my head with a measuring look. However I have my cap on, so there's nothing he can see. Now that he has spoken I think he must be an American. He has white teeth and is not missing any of them, at least at the front, and his face is quite long and bony. I like his smile, although it is higher on one side than the other, which gives him the air of joking.

  I look at his hands. They are empty. There's nothing at all in them. No rings on his fingers. Do you have a bag with knives in it? I say. A leather satchel.

  No, he says, I am not the usual kind of doctor. I do no cutting open. Are you afraid of me, Grace?