Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

“Ah yes,” says MacKenzie. “She thought she was going to be hanged, you know. Fear is a remarkable aphrodisiac; I advise you to try it some time. We lawyers are so often cast in the role of St. George, at least temporarily. Find a maiden chained to a rock and about to be devoured by a monster, rescue her, then have her yourself. It’s the usual thing with maidens, wouldn’t you agree? I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. She was very young and tender then; though no doubt prison life has hardened her.”

Simon coughs, to hide his rage. How could he not have noticed that the man had a mouth like a depraved old lecher’s? A provincial brothel-trotter. A calculating voluptuary. “There has never been any suggestion of that,” he says. “In my case.” He’s considered the daydreams to be all on his side, but already he’s beginning to doubt it. What has Grace really been thinking about him, as she sewed and recounted?

“I was very lucky,” says MacKenzie, “and so of course was Grace herself, that the murder of Mr. Kinnear was tried before the other. It was obvious to everyone that she couldn’t have helped to shoot Kinnear; and for Nancy‘s murder — indeed, for both of them — the evidence was circumstantial only. She was convicted not as a principal, but as an accessory, as all that could be proven against her was that she’d known of McDermott’s murderous intentions in advance, and had failed to inform against him; and that she similarly neglected to broadcast the news of his completed achievement. Even the Chief Justice recommended clemency, and with the aid of several strong petitions in her favour I was able to save her life. By that time the death sentence had been pronounced against both of them and the trial had been closed, since it was thought unnecessary to go into the details of the second case; so Grace was never tried for the murder of Nancy Montgomery.”

“And if she had been?” asks Simon.

“I couldn’t have got her off. Public opinion would have been too strong for me. She would have been hanged.”

“But in your opinion, she was innocent,” says Simon.

“On the contrary,” says MacKenzie. He sips at his sherry, wipes his lips daintily, smiles a smile of gentle reminiscence. “No. In my opinion, she was guilty as sin.”

Chapter 46

What is Dr. Jordan doing and when will he come back? Though what he is doing I think I have guessed. He is talking to people in Toronto, trying to find out if I am guilty; but he won’t find it out that way. He doesn’t understand yet that guilt conies to you not from the things you’ve done, but from the things that others have done to you.

His first name is Simon. I wonder why his mother named him that, or it may have been his father. My own father never bothered with the naming of us, it was up to Mother and Aunt Pauline. There is Simon Peter the Apostle, of course, who was made a fisher of men by our Lord. But there is also Simple Simon. Met a pie man, going to the fair. And said, Let me taste your ware, and had no penny. McDermott was like that, he thought he could take things without paying for them; and so does Dr. Jordan. Not that I don’t feel sorry for him. He was always thin, and it’s my impression that he is getting even thinner. I believe he is a prey to some gnawing sorrow.

As for what I was named after, it might have been the hymn. My mother never said so, but then there were many things she never said.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now I’m found,

Was blind but now I see.

I hope I was named after it. I would like to be found. I would like to see. Or to be seen. I wonder if, in the eye of God, it amounts to the same thing. As it says in the Bible, For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.

If it is face to face, there must be two looking.

Today was Bath Day. There is some talk of making us bathe naked, in groups, instead of by two’s in our shifts; they say it will save time and be more economical, as less water need be used, but I think it an immodest idea and if they attempt it I shall complain to the authorities. Although perhaps I won’t, as these things are sent to try us and I should put up with it without complaint, as I do all the rest, for the most part. The baths are unpleasant enough already, the stone of the floor all slippery with dirty old soap, like a jelly, and there’s always a Matron watching; which may be just as well, as otherwise there would be splashing. In winter you freeze to death, but now in the heat of the summer with all the sweat and grime, which is twice as much after working in the kitchens, I don’t mind the cold water so much, as it is refreshing.

After the baths had been got through I spent time at the plain sewing. They are behindhand at the prison with the men’s uniforms, as more and more criminals keep being admitted, especially in the dog days of summer when tempers are short and folks run to vindictiveness; and so they must use my extra pair of hands. They have their orders and their quotas to fill, just as in a factory. Annie Little was sitting next to me on the bench, and she leant close and whispered to me, Grace, Grace, is he handsome, your young doctor? Will he get you out of prison? Are you in love with him, I suppose you are.

Don’t be silly, I whispered to her, talking such rubbish, I’ve never been in love with any man and I don’t plan to start now. I am condemned for life and there is no time for that sort of thing in here, and no space for it either when it comes to that.

Annie is thirty-five, she’s older than I am, but besides being not always right in the head she has never grown up. That happens in the Penitentiary, some of them stay the same age all the time inside themselves; the same age as when first put in.

Get off your high horse, she said, and dug me with her elbow. You wouldn’t mind a stiff piece in a tight corner, it never comes amiss; and you are so sly, she whispered, you’d find a time and a place for it if you wanted, Bertha Flood did it with a keeper in the tool shed, only she got caught and you’d never, you’ve got such a steady hand, you could murder your own grannie in her bed and never turn a hair. And she gave a snorting laugh.

I fear she has led a most disreputable life.

Silence there, said the Matron on duty, or I’ll take down your names. They’re becoming stricter again, as there is a new Head Matron; and if there are too many marks against you they cut off your hair. After the noon meal I was sent over to the Governor’s house. Dora was there again, as she has an arrangement with Dr. Jordan‘s landlady that she may come to us on the days of the great washing; and as usual she was full of gossip. She said if she told half she knew, it would take someone down a peg or two, and there was many a whited sepulchre wearing black silk and carrying lace handkerchiefs, and having sick headaches in the afternoons as if thoroughly respectable; and others could suit themselves, but she is not one to have the wool pulled over her eyes. She said that since Dr. Jordan went away, her mistress was spending hours in pacing the floor, and looking out the window, or sitting as if sunk into a stupor; which was no wonder, as she must be fearing he’ll run off on her, as did the other one. And then who would pay for her whims and whams, and for all the running and fetching she required?

Clarrie for the most part ignores what Dora has to say. She is not interested in gossip about the better classes; she only smokes her pipe, and says, H’m. But today she said why should she care what the likes of those get up to, you might as well watch the hens and roosters scuffling in the barnyard, and God put such folks on this earth to dirty up the laundry as far as she could tell, because she couldn’t for the life of her see any other use for them. And Dora said, Well, they are doing a fine job of that, I must say, they dirty it up as fast as I can get it clean, and the both of them are in the dirtying of it together if the truth was to come out.