Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
She used to have him into the front part of the house to console him; she said that none knew better than a widow like herself, what it was to lose a spouse, it knocked a body down, and such were in need of a true and sympathizing friend, one who could share in his sorrows; and she let on that she was just the one for the job; and she may have been right about that, as there were no others applying for it.
As for our father, he took the hint and played up, and went around like a man half-stunned, with a handkerchief always at the ready; and he said his heart had been torn alive out of his body, and whatever was he going to do without his beloved helpmeet by his side, now in Heaven, having been too good for this earth, and all these innocent little mouths to feed. I used to listen to him going on in Mrs. Burt's parlour, the wall between the two parts of the house being none too thick, and if you put a tumbler to a wall and your ear against the other end of it, you can hear even better. We did have three tumblers, as Mrs. Burt had lent them to us, and I tried them all in turn, and soon picked out the best one for the purpose.
I'd found it hard enough when our mother died, but attempted to keep myself together through it all, and to put my shoulder to the wheel; and to hear my father snivelling away in that fashion was enough to turn the stomach. I believe it was only then that I truly began to hate him, especially considering how he had treated our mother in life, no better than if she had been a rag for cleaning his boots. And I knew - although Mrs. Burt did not - that it was all put on, and that he was working on her feelings because he was behind in the rent, having taken the money for it to the nearest tavern; and then he sold my mother's china cups with the roses, and although I begged for the broken teapot he sold that too, as he said it was a clean break and could be mended. And our mother's shoes went the same way; and our best sheet; and I might as well have used it to bury my poor mother, as would have been right.
He would go out of the house as jaunty as a rooster, pretending to look for work, but I knew where he was off to, I could tell by the smell of him when he came back. I would watch him swaggering down the lane and tucking his handkerchief back into his pocket; and soon enough Mrs. Burt gave up on her plan of consolation, and there were no more tea parties in the parlour; and she stopped the supply of milk and bread to us, and asked for her tumblers back, and for the rent to be paid, or she would have us all turned out, bag and baggage.
This was when our father began to tell me that I was almost a grown woman now and I was eating him out of house and home, it was time I went out into the world to earn my own bread, as my sister had done before me, although she had never sent enough of her wages back, the ungrateful slut. And when I asked who would look after the little ones, he said my next sister Katey would do it. She was nine years old, although halfway to ten. And I saw there was no help for it.
I did not have any notion about how to get a position, but I asked Mrs. Burt, she being the only person in the town that I knew. She now wanted to be rid of us, and who was to blame her; but she saw in me a hope of being repaid. She had a friend who knew the housekeeper at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's, and she'd heard that they were short a pair of hands; so she told me to tidy myself up, and lent me a clean cap of her own, and took me there herself, and presented me to the housekeeper. She said I was a very willing and hard worker of good character, and she would vouch for it herself. Then she told about my mother having died on board ship and being buried at sea, and the housekeeper agreed that it was a shame, and looked at me more closely. I have noticed there is nothing like a death to get your foot in the door.
The housekeeper was called Mrs. Honey, although she was sweet only in name, being a dried-up woman with a pointed nose like a candle snuffer. She looked as if she lived on stale crusts and cheese parings, which she most likely had done in her life, being an English gentlewoman in distress who was only a housekeeper through the death of her husband, and being stranded in this country, and having no money of her own. Mrs. Burt told her I was thirteen, and I did not contradict her - she'd warned me beforehand that it would be best that way, as I would stand a better chance of being hired; and it was not entirely a lie, as I would be thirteen indeed in under a month's time.
Mrs. Honey looked at me with a pinched mouth, and said I was very scrawny, and she hoped I was not ill with anything, and what had my mother died of; but Mrs. Burt said nothing catching, and I was just a trifle small for my age and hadn't yet got my full growth, but I was very wiry, and she'd seen me carrying stacks of wood around just like a man.
Mrs. Honey took this for what it was worth, and sniffed, and asked if I was bad-tempered, as redheaded people frequently were; and Mrs. Burt said I had the sweetest temper in the world and had borne all my troubles with Christian resignation like a saint. This reminded Mrs. Honey to ask if I was a Catholic, as those from Ireland generally were; and if so she would have nothing to do with me, as the Catholics were superstitious and rebellious Papists who were ruining the country; but she was relieved to hear that I was not. And Mrs. Honey asked if I could sew, and Mrs. Burt said I could sew like the wind, and Mrs. Honey asked me directly if this was true; and I spoke up for myself, although nervous, and said I'd helped my mother make shirts from an early age, and could do the best buttonholes, and mend stockings, and I remembered to say Ma'am.
Then Mrs. Honey hesitated, as if adding up sums in her head; and then she asked to look at my hands. Perhaps she wished to see if they were the hands of a person who had been working hard; but she needn't have bothered her head, as they were as red and rough as could be desired, and she appeared satisfied. You would have thought she was trading a horse; I was surprised she did not ask to look at my teeth, but I suppose if you pay out wages you want to get a good return on them.
The upshot was that Mrs. Honey consulted with Mrs. Alderman Parkinson, and sent word the next day that I was to come. My wages were to be board and a dollar a month, which was the lowest she could in conscience pay; but Mrs. Burt said I could command more once I had some training and had grown older. And a dollar bought more at that time than it does now. As for me, I was delighted to be earning money of my own, and thought it a fortune.
My father had the idea that I would go back and forth between the two houses, and sleep at home, which was what he called our two rickety rooms, and continue to get up first thing every morning and light the brute of a stove, and boil the kettle, and then tidy up at the end of the day and wash the laundry into the bargain, what laundry we were able to do, there not being any sort of copper and it was useless asking my father to spend money on even the worst kind of soap. But at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's they wanted me to live in; and I was to come at the beginning of the week.
And although I was sorry to part with my brothers and sisters, I was thankful that I had to go away, because if not, it would soon have come to bones broken between myself and my father. The older I became, the less I was able to please him, and I myself had lost all of a child's natural faith in a parent, as he was drinking up the bread out of his own children's mouths, and soon he would force us to begging or thieving, or worse. Also his rages had returned, stronger than before my mother died. Already my arms were black and blue, and then one night he threw me against the wall, as he'd sometimes done with my mother, shouting that I was a slut and a whore, and I fainted; and after that I feared that he might someday break my spine, and make a cripple out of me. But after these rages he would wake up in the morning and say he couldn't remember a thing about it, and he hadn't been himself, and he didn't know what had got into him.
Although I was dog tired at the end of each day, I would lie awake at night brooding over it. It was the never knowing when he would go off his head like that and start rampaging about, and threaten to kill this or that person, including his own children, for no reason that anybody could see at all, apart from the drink.
I had begun to have thoughts about the iron cooking pot, and how heavy it was; and if it should happen to drop on him while he was asleep, it could smash his
So as I made ready to go to Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's, I thanked God for taking me out of the path of temptation, and prayed that he would keep me out of it in the times ahead.
Mrs. Burt kissed me goodbye, and wished me well, and despite her fat mottled face and her smell of smoked fish I was glad of it, because in this world you have to take your bits and ends of kindness where you can find them, as they do not grow on trees. The little ones cried as I went away, carrying my small bundle including my mother's shawl, and I said I would come back and visit them; and at the time I meant it.
My father was not at home when I left. It was just as well, as I am sorry to say it would most likely have been curses both ways, although silent on my part. It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between.
16.
From Dr. Simon Jordan, care of Major C. D. Humphrey, Lower
Union Street, Kingston, Canada West; to Dr. Edward Murchie,
Dorchester, Massachusetts, The United States of America.
May 15th, 1859.
My dear Edward:
I am writing this by the light of the midnight oil, which we have so often burned together, in this damnably chilly house, which is fully equal to our London lodgings in that respect. But soon it will grow too hot, and the dank miasmas and summer diseases will be upon us, and I will complain about those in their turn.
I thank you for your letter, and for the welcome news it contains. So you have proposed yourself to the lovely Cornelia, and have been accepted! You will forgive an old friend for not expressing any great surprise, as the matter was writ large enough between the lines of your letters, and could easily be divined, without any great perspicacity on the reader's part. Please accept my earnest congratulations. From what I know of Miss Rutherford, you are a lucky dog. At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven, in which to bestow their hearts; or perhaps I envy them for having a heart to bestow. I often feel that I myself am without one, and possess in its stead merely a heart-shaped stone; and am therefore doomed to "wander lonely as a cloud," as Wordsworth has put it.
The news of your engagement will no doubt invigorate my dear mother, and spur her on to even greater matrimonial efforts on my behalf; and I have no doubt but that you will be used against me, as a prime example of rectitude, and as a stick to beat me with, at every opportunity. Well, no doubt she is in the right. Sooner or later I must set aside my scruples and obey the Biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply." I must give my stony heart into the keeping of some kindly damsel who will not mind too much that it is not a real heart of flesh, and who will also have the material means necessary to care for it; for hearts of stone are notoriously more demanding of their comforts than the other kind.
Despite this deficiency of mine, my dear mother continues her matrimonial scheming. She is currently singing the praises of Miss Faith Cartwright, whom you will remember encountering several years ago during one of your visits to us. She is supposed to have been much improved by a sojourn in Boston, which to my certain knowledge - and to yours too, my dear Edward, for you were with me as an undergraduate at Harvard - has never improved anyone else; but from the way my mother hymns the young lady's moral virtues, I fear that the rectification of the deficiencies in her other charms has not been among the improvements. Alas, it is a type of maiden other than the worthy and spotless Faith, who would have the power to transform your cynical old friend into the semblance of a lover.
But enough of my grumblings and repinings. I am heartily glad for you, my dear fellow, and will dance at your wedding with the greatest goodwill in the world, provided that I am in your vicinity when the nuptials take place.
You have been kind enough - in the midst of your raptures - to enquire as to my progress with Grace Marks. I have as yet little to report, but as the methods I am employing are gradual and cumulative in their effects, I did not expect rapid results. My object is to wake the part of her mind that lies dormant - to probe down below the threshold of her consciousness, and to discover the memories that must perforce lie buried there. I approach her mind as if it is a locked box, to which I must find the right key; but so far, I must admit, I have not got very far with it.
It would be helpful to me, if she were indeed mad, or at least a little madder than she appears to be; but thus far she has manifested a composure that a duchess might envy. I have never known any woman to be so thoroughly self-contained. Apart from the incident at the time of my arrival - which I was unfortunately too late to witness - there have been no outbursts. Her voice is low and melodious, and more cultivated than is usual in a servant - a trick she has learned no doubt through her long service in the house of her social superiors; and she retains barely a trace of the Northern Irish accent with which she must have arrived, although that is not so remarkable, as she was only a child at the time and has now spent more than half her life on this continent.
She "sits on a cushion and sews a fine seam," cool as a cucumber and with her mouth primmed up like a governess's, and I lean my elbows on the table across from her, cudgelling my brains, and trying in vain to open her up like an oyster. Although she converses in what seems a frank-enough manner, she manages to tell me as little as possible, or as little as possible of what I want to learn; although I have managed to ascertain a good deal about her family situation as a child, and about her crossing of the Atlantic, as an emigrant; but none of it is very far out of the ordinary - only the usual poverty and hardships, etc. Those who believe in the hereditary nature of insanity might take some comfort in the fact that her father was an inebriate, and possibly an arsonist as well; but despite several theories to the contrary, I am far from being convinced that such tendencies are necessarily inherited.
As for myself, if it were not for the fascination her case affords, I might run mad myself, out of sheer boredom; there is little-enough society here, and none who share my sentiments and interests, with the possible exception of one Dr. DuPont, who is a visitor here like myself; but he is a devotee of the Scottish crackpot Braid, and a queer duck himself. As for amusements and recreations, there are few to be had; and I have decided to ask my landlady if I may dig in her back garden - which has been let go sadly to waste - and plant a few cabbages and so forth, just for the distraction and the exercise. You see what I am driven to, who have scarcely lifted a spade before in my life!
But it is now past midnight, and I must close this letter to you, and go to my cold and lonely bed. I send you my best thoughts and wishes, and trust that you are living more profitably, and are less perplexed, than is,
Your old friend,
Simon.
VI.
SECRET DRAWER
Hysterics - These fits take place, for the most part, in young, nervous, unmarried women.... Young women, who are subject to these fits, are apt to think that they are suffering from "all the ills that flesh is heir to;" and the false symptoms of disease which they show are so like the true ones, that it is often exceedingly difficult to detect the difference. The fits themselves are mostly preceded by great depression of spirits, shedding of tears, sickness, palpitation of the heart, &c.... The patient now generally becomes insensible, and faints; the body is thrown about in all directions, froth issues from the mouth, incoherent expressions are uttered, and fits of laughter, crying, or screaming, take place. When the fit is going off, the patient mostly cries bitterly, sometimes knowing all, and at other times nothing, of what has taken place....
- Isabella Beeton,
Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1859-61.
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
And blossom in purple and red.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
Maud, 1855.
17.
Simon is dreaming of a corridor. It's the attic passageway of his house, his old house, the house of his childhood; the big house they had before his father's failure and death. The maids slept up here. It was a secret world, one as a boy he wasn't supposed to explore, but did, creeping silent as a spy in his stocking feet. Listening at half-open doors. What did they talk about when they thought no one could hear?
When he was feeling very brave he would venture into their rooms, knowing they were downstairs. With a shiver of excitement he'd examine their things, their forbidden things; he'd slide open the drawers, touch the wooden comb with two broken teeth, the carefully rolled ribbon; he'd rummage in the corners, behind the door: the crumpled petticoat, the cotton stocking, only one. He'd touched it; it felt warm.
In his dream the passageway is the same, only bigger. The walls are taller, and yellower: glowing, as if the sun itself is shining through them. But the doors are closed, and also locked. He tries door after door, lifting the latch, pushing gently, but nothing yields. There are people in there though, he can sense them. Women, the maids. Sitting on the edges of their narrow beds, in their white cotton shifts, their hair unbound and rippling down over their shoulders, their lips parted, their eyes gleaming. Waiting for him.
The door at the end opens. Inside it is the sea. Before he can stop himself, down he goes, the water closing over his head, a stream of silvery bubbles rising from him. In his ears he hears a ringing, a faint and shivery laughter; then many hands caress him. It's the maids; only they can swim. But now they are swimming away from him, abandoning him. He calls out to them, Help me, but they are gone.