Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

Outside the gates was a chestnut tree, and each leaf of it seemed rimmed by fire; and sitting in the tree there were three white pigeons, which shone like the angels of Pentecost, and at that moment I knew that I had truly been set free. At such times of more than ordinary brightness or darkness I used to faint, but on this day I asked Janet for her smelling salts and so remained upright, although leaning on her arm; and she said it would not have been in nature for me to have remained unmoved, on such a momentous occasion.

I wished to turn and look back, but I remembered Lot‘s wife and the pillar of salt, and refrained from doing so. To look back would also have meant that I regretted my departure and had a wish to return, and this was certainly not the case, as you may imagine, Sir; but you will be surprised to hear me say that I did indeed have a sort of regret. For although the Penitentiary was not exactly a homey place, yet it was the only home I’d known for almost thirty years; and that is a long time, longer than many people spend on this earth, and although it was forbidding and a place of sorrow and punishment, at least I knew its ways. To go from a familiar thing, however undesirable, into the unknown, is always a matter for apprehension, and I suppose that is why so many people are afraid to die. After this moment I was back again in ordinary daylight, although light-headed. It was a hot and humid day, such as the climate beside the Lakes produces in August, but as there was a breeze coming off the water, the weather was not too oppressive; there were some clouds, but only the white kind that do not foretell rain or thunder. Janet had a parasol, which she held over both of us as we proceeded. A parasol was one item I lacked, as the silk of Nancy‘s pink one had all rotted away. We went to the railway station in a light carriage driven by the Warden’s servant. The train was not due to leave until one-thirty but I was anxious about being late, and once there could not sit quietly in the Ladies’ Waiting Room but had to walk up and down the platform outside, as I was very agitated. Finally the train drew in, a large shining iron monster puffing smoke. I’d never seen a train so close up, and although Janet assured me it was not dangerous, I had to be assisted up the steps. We took the train as far as Cornwall, but though it was a short enough journey I felt I should never survive it. The noise was so loud and the motion so rapid I thought I would go deaf, and there was a great deal of black smoke; and the blowing of the train whistle startled me nearly out of my wits, although I took hold of myself and did not scream.

I felt better when we descended at the Cornwall station and went from there to the docks in a pony trap, and took a ferry across the end of the Lake, as that form of travel was more familiar to me and I could get some fresh air. The motion of the sunlight on the waves was at first bewildering to me, but this effect ceased when I stopped looking at it. Refreshment was offered, which the Warden had brought with him in a basket, and I managed to eat a little cold chicken and drink some lukewarm tea. I occupied my mind with looking at the costumes of the ladies on board, which were varied and brightly coloured. Sitting down and standing up I had some trouble managing my bustle, as a thing like that takes practice, and I am afraid I wasn’t overly graceful, it was like having another bum tied on top of your real one and the two of them following you around like a tin bucket tied to a pig, although of course I did not say anything so coarse to Janet.

On the other side of the Lake we passed through the Customs House of the United States, and the Warden said we had nothing to declare. Then we took another train, and I was glad the Warden had come, as otherwise I would not have known what to do about the porters and luggage. While we were sitting on this new train, which rattled less than the previous one, I asked Janet about my final destination. We were going to Ithaca, New York — that much I’d been told — but what would happen to me after that? What was the home provided to be like, and was I to be a servant in it; and if so, what had the household there been told about me? I didn’t wish to be placed in a false position, you see, Sir, or expected to conceal the truth about my past.

Janet said that there was a surprise awaiting me, and as it was a secret she could not tell me what it was; but it was a good surprise, or so she hoped it would be. She went so far as to tell me it concerned a man, a gentleman she said; but as she was in the habit of using this term of anything in trousers above the station of a waiter, I was not any the wiser.

When I said what gentleman, she said she couldn’t tell; but he was an old friend of mine, or so she’d been given to understand. She became very coy, and I couldn’t get another word out of her. I thought back over all the men it might be. I hadn’t known very many of these, not having had the chance you might say; and the two I’d perhaps known the best, although by no means the longest, were dead, by which I mean Mr. Kinnear and James McDermott. There was Jeremiah the peddler, but I did not think he would be in the business of providing good homes, as he had never seemed the domestic type. There were also my former employers, such as Mr. Coates and Mr. Haraghy, but surely by now all were either dead themselves or very elderly. The only other one I could think of, Sir, was you yourself. I must admit that the idea did cross my mind.

And so it was with anxiety but also expectation that I descended at last onto the station platform at Ithaca. There was a crush of people meeting the train, and all talking at once; and the hustling of the porters, and the many trunks and boxes being carried and wheeled about on carts, made it hazardous to stand there. I held on tightly to Janet while the Warden arranged about the luggage, and then he conducted us to the other side of the station building, the side away from the trains, where he began to look about him. He frowned at not finding what he expected, and glanced at his watch, and at the station clock; and then he consulted a letter which he took from his pocket, and my heart began to sink. But he looked up and smiled, and said, Here’s our man, and there was indeed a man hurrying towards us. He was above the average height and bulky, but lanky at the same time, by which I mean that his arms and legs were long but he had a more solid and rounder middle part to him. He had red hair and a large red beard, and was wearing a black suit of the Sunday-best kind that most men have now if they are at all comfortable in worldly goods, with a white shirt and a dark stock, and a tall hat which he was carrying in his hands, held in front of him like a shield, by which I could tell that he too was apprehensive. He wasn’t a man I’d ever seen before in my life, but as soon as he came up to us he gave me a searching glance and then flopped onto his knees at my feet. He seized my hand, glove and all, and said, Grace, Grace, can you ever forgive me? Indeed he almost shouted it, as if he’d been practising it for some time. I struggled to pull my hand away, thinking he was a madman, but when I turned to Janet for help she was in a flood of sentimental tears, and the Warden was beaming away as if he had hoped for nothing better; and I saw that I was the only one who was completely at sea.

The man let go of my hand and stood up. She doesn’t know me, he said sadly. Grace, don’t you know me? I would have known you anywhere.

And I looked at him, and there was indeed something a little familiar about him, but still I could not place it. And then he said, It’s Jamie Walsh. And I saw that it was.

We then repaired to a new hotel close to the railway station, where the Warden had arranged accommodations, and partook together of some refreshments. As you may imagine, Sir, a good deal of explanation was then required, for the last time I’d seen Jamie Walsh was at my own trial for murder, when it was his testimony that turned the minds of judge and jury so much against me for the wearing of a dead woman’s clothes.