Alias Grace (42 page)

“I said, What do you want here, but he did not answer, he just kept on being silver, so I went out to milk the cow; because the only thing to do about God is to go on with what you were doing anyway, since you can’t ever stop him or get any reasons out of him. There is a Do this or a Do that with God, but not any Because.

“When I came back with the pails of milk I saw McDermott in the kitchen. He was cleaning the shoes.

Where is Nancy, he said.

“She is dressing, I said. Are you going to kill her this morning?

“Yes, he said, damn her, I will take the axe now and go knock her on the head.

“I laid my hand on his arm, and looked up into his face. Surely you will not, surely you cannot bring yourself to do such a wicked thing, I said. But he didn’t understand me, he thought I was taunting him.

He thought I was calling him a coward.

“You will see in a minute what I can do, he said angrily.

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t kill her in the room, I said, you will make the floor all bloody. It was a foolish thing to say but that is what came into my mind, and as you know, Sir, it was my job to clean the floors in that house, and there was a carpet in Nancy‘s room. I’d never tried to get blood out of a carpet but I’d got it out of other things, and it is not a task to be sneezed at.

“McDermott gave me a scornful glance, as if I was a halfwit, and indeed I must have sounded like one.

Then he went outside the house, and picked up the axe from beside the chopping block.

“I could not think what to do. I went into the garden, to gather some chives, as Nancy had ordered an omelette for breakfast. On the bolted lettuces the snails were making their lacework. I knelt down and watched them, with their eyes on little stems; and I reached out my hand for the chives, and it was as if my hand was not mine at all, but only a husk or skin, with inside it another hand growing.

“I tried to pray, but the words would not come, and I believe that is because I had ill-wished Nancy, I had indeed wished her dead; but I did not do so right then. But why did I need to pray, when God was right there, hovering above us like the Angel of Death over the Egyptians, I could feel his cold breath, I could hear the beating of his dark wings, inside my heart. God is everywhere, I thought, so God is in the kitchen, and God is in Nancy, and God is in McDermott, and in McDermott’s hands, and God is in the axe too. Then I heard a dull sound from within, like a heavy door closing shut, and after that I can remember no more for a time.”

“Nothing about the cellar?” says Simon. “Not about seeing McDermott dragging Nancy by the hair, to the trapdoor, and throwing her down the stairs? It was in your Confession.”

Grace clutches her two hands to the sides of her head. “That is what they wanted me to say. Mr.

MacKenzie told me I had to say it, to save my own life.” For once she is trembling. “He said it was not a lie, as that is what must have happened, whether I could remember it or not.”

“Did you give James McDermott the kerchief from around your neck?” Simon sounds more like a courtroom lawyer than he wishes to, but he presses on.

“The one that was used to strangle poor Nancy? It was mine, I know that. But I have no recollection of giving it to him.”

“Nor of being down in the cellar?” says Simon. “Nor of helping him to kill her? Nor of wanting to steal the gold earrings off the corpse, as he says you wished to do?”

Grace covers her eyes with a hand, briefly. “All that time is dark to me, Sir,” she says. “And in any case, there were no gold earrings taken. I won’t say I didn’t think of it later, when we were packing up; but having a thought is not the same as doing it. If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”

Simon has to admit the justice of this. He tries a different line. “Jefferson the butcher testified that he spoke with you that morning.”

“I know he did, Sir. But I cannot remember it.”

“He says he was surprised, as it was not you who ordinarily gave the orders, but Nancy; and he was further surprised when you said that no fresh meat was wanted for the week. He found it most peculiar.”

“If it was me, Sir, and acting in my right mind, I’d of had my wits about me, and ordered the meat as usual. It would have been less suspicious.”

Simon has to agree. “Well then,” he says, “what is the next thing you remember?”

“I found myself standing at the front of the house, Sir, where the flowers were. I felt quite dizzy, and had a headache. I was thinking, I must open the window; but that was foolish, as I was already outside. It must have been about three o’clock. Mr. Kinnear was coming up the driveway, with his light wagon all new-painted, yellow and green. McDermott came out from the back, and we both helped with the packages, and McDermott gave me a threatening look; and then Mr. Kinnear went into the house, and I knew he was looking for Nancy. A thought came into my head — You won’t find her there, you will have to look below, she is a carcass — and I became very frightened.

“Then McDermott said to me, I know you will tell, and if you do, your life is not worth a straw. I was confused by this. What have you done? I said. You know very well, he said with a laugh. I did not know; but now I suspected the worst. Then he made me promise I would help to kill Mr. Kinnear, which I did say I would; for if not, I could see by his eyes he would have killed me as well. Then he took the horse and wagon to the stable.

“I went into the kitchen, to go about my duties as if nothing was wrong. Mr. Kinnear came in, and asked, Where was Nancy? I said she had gone to town in the stagecoach. He said that was strange, as he’d passed it on the way and did not see her. I asked him if he would like something to eat, and he said yes, and asked, had Jefferson come with the fresh meat; and I said no. He said that was curious, and then said he would have some tea and toast and eggs.

“And so I made it. I brought it to him in the dining room, where he sat waiting, reading a book which he had brought with him from town. It was the newest Godey’s Ladies’ Book, which poor Nancy liked to have, for the fashions; and although Mr. Kinnear always pretended it was only ladies’ fripperies, he himself often took a peek at it when Nancy was not nearby, as there were things in it other than dresses; and he liked to look at the new styles of undergarments, and to read the articles on how a lady should behave, which I would often catch him chuckling over on those occasions when I brought in his coffee.

“I went back into the kitchen, and McDermott was there. He said, I think I’ll go and kill him now. But I said, Good gracious McDermott, it is too soon, wait till it is dark.

“Then Mr. Kinnear went upstairs and had a nap, with all his clothes on, and so McDermott had to wait, whether he wanted to or not. Even he was not up to the shooting of a sleeping man. McDermott stuck to me all afternoon, as close as glue, because he was certain that I would run away and tell. He had the gun with him, and kept fiddling with it. It was the old double-barrelled shotgun that Mr. Kinnear kept to shoot ducks with, but it was not loaded with duck-shot. He said he had two lead bullets in it — one he’d found, the other one he’d made from a piece of lead; and that he’d got the powder for it across the way at his friend John Harvey’s, although Hannah Upton, the hard-faced bitch — she was the woman who lived with Harvey — had told him he couldn’t have it. But he’d taken it anyway, and be damned to her.

By this time he was very excited and nervous, and swaggering as well, and proud of his own daring. He was cursing a good deal, but I did not object to it, being afraid.”

“About seven o’clock Mr. Kinnear came down, and had his tea, and was quite uneasy about Nancy.

Now I will do it, said McDermott, you must go in there and ask him to come into the kitchen, so I can shoot him on the stone floor. But I said I would not.

“He said in that case he would do it himself. He’d get him to come, by telling him there was something wrong with his new saddle, it was all cut to ribbons.

“I wanted nothing to do with it. I took the tea tray across the courtyard to the back kitchen, which was the one with the stove lit, as I was going to do the washing up in there; and as I was setting down the tray I heard the report of a gun.

“I ran into the front kitchen and saw Mr. Kinnear lying dead on the floor, and McDermott standing over him. The gun was on the floor. I attempted to run out, and he yelled and swore, and said I must open the trapdoor in the hall. I said, I won’t; he said, You shall. So I did, and McDermott threw the body down the stairs.

“I was so frightened that I ran out of the front door onto the lawn, and around past the pump to the back kitchen, and then McDermott came out of the front kitchen door with the gun, and fired at me, and I fell onto the ground in a dead faint. And that is all I can remember, Sir, until much later in the evening.”

“Jamie Walsh testified that he came into the yard about eight o’clock, which must have been right after you fainted. He said McDermott still had the gun in his hand, and claimed to have been shooting birds.”

“I know it, Sir.”

“He said you were standing by the pump. He said you told him that Mr. Kinnear was not back yet, and that Nancy was gone over to the Wrights‘.”

“I cannot account for it, Sir.”

“He said you were well, and in good spirits. He said you were better dressed than usual, and were wearing white stockings. He implied they were Nancy‘s.”

“I was there in the courtroom, Sir. I heard him say it; although the stockings were my own. But by then he had forgot all of his former loving sentiments towards me, and only wished to damage me, and to hang me if possible. But there is nothing I can do about what other people say.”

Her tone is so dejected that Simon feels a tender pity for her. He has an impulse to take her in his arms, to soothe her, to stroke her hair.

“Well, Grace,” he says briskly, “I can see you are tired. We will continue with your story tomorrow.”

“Yes, Sir. I hope I will have the strength.”

“Sooner or later we will get to the bottom of it.”

“I hope so, Sir,” she says wanly. “It would be a great relief to me, to know the whole truth at last.”

Chapter 37

The leaves of the trees are already taking on an August look — lustreless, dusty, and limp — although it isn’t yet August. Simon walks back slowly through the wilting afternoon heat. He carries with him the silver candlestick; he didn’t think to use it. It’s dragging on his arm; in fact, both of his arms hold a curious tension, as if he’s been pulling hard on a heavy rope. What was he expecting? The missing memory, of course: those few crucial hours. Well, he hadn’t got it.

He finds himself remembering an evening long ago, when he was still an undergraduate at Harvard. He’d gone to New York on an excursion with his father, who was still rich then and also still alive; they’d seen the opera. It was Bellini’s
Sonnambula:
a simple and chaste village girl, Amina, is found asleep in the count’s bedroom, having walked there unconsciously; her fiancé and the villagers denounce her as a whore, despite the Count’s protests, which are based on his superior scientific knowledge; but when Amina is seen walking in her sleep across a perilous bridge, which collapses behind her into the rushing stream, her innocence is proven beyond a doubt and she awakes to restored happiness.

A parable of the soul, as his Latin teacher had pointed out so sententiously,
Amina
being a crude anagram for
anima.
But why, Simon has asked himself, was the soul depicted as unconscious? And, even more intriguingly: while Amina slept, who was doing the walking? It’s a question which now holds implications for him which are far more pressing.

Was Grace unconscious at the time she claimed, or was she fully awake, as Jamie Walsh testified? How much of her story can he allow himself to believe? Does he need a grain of salt, or two, or three? Is it a real case of amnesia, of the somnambulistic type, or is he the victim of a cunning imposture? He cautions himself against absolutism: why should she be expected to produce nothing but the pure, entire, and unblemished truth? Anyone in her position would select and rearrange, to give a positive impression. In her favour, much of what she’s told him accords with her printed Confession; but is that really in her favour? Possibly it accords too well. He wonders if she’s been studying from the same text he himself has been using, the better to convince him.

The difficulty is that he wants to be convinced. He wants her to be Amina. He wants her to be vindicated.

He must be careful, he tells himself. He must draw back. Looked at objectively, what’s been going on between them, despite her evident anxiety over the murders and her surface compliance, has been a contest of wills. She hasn’t refused to talk — far from it. She’s told him a great deal; but she’s told him only what she’s chosen to tell. What he wants is what she refuses to tell; what she chooses perhaps not even to know. Knowledge of guilt, or else of innocence: either could be concealed. But he’ll pry it out of her yet. He’s got the hook in her mouth, but can he pull her out? Up, out of the abyss, up to the light. Out of the deep blue sea.

He wonders why he’s thinking in such drastic terms. He means her well, he tells himself. He thinks of it as a rescue, surely he does.

But does she? If she has anything to hide, she may want to stay in the water, in the dark, in her element.

She may be afraid she won’t be able to breathe, otherwise.

Simon tells himself to stop being so extreme and histrionic. It may well be that Grace is a true amnesiac.

Or simply contrary. Or simply guilty.

She could of course be insane, with the astonishingly devious plausibility of the experienced maniac.

Some of her memories, especially those of the day of the murders, would suggest a fanaticism of the religious variety. However, those same recollections could as easily be interpreted as the naive superstitions and fears of a simple soul. What he wants is certainty, one way or the other; and that is precisely what she’s withholding from him.