I was by myself a great deal, and spent many a long hour dwelling on my future ordeal; and if I came to be hanged, what it would be like; and how long and lonely the road of death might be, that I could well be forced to travel along; and what awaited me at the other end of it. I prayed to God, but got no answer; and I consoled myself by reflecting that this silence of his was just another of his mysterious ways. I tried to think over all of the things I'd done wrong, so I could repent of them; such as choosing the second-best sheet for my mother, and not staying awake when Mary Whitney was dying. And when I myself came to be buried, it might not be in a sheet at all, but cut up into pieces, and bits and fragments, as they say the doctors did to you if you were hanged. And that was my worst fear.
Then I attempted to cheer myself, by recalling earlier scenes. I remembered Mary Whitney, and how she'd had her marriage and her farmhouse planned out, with the curtains chosen and all, and how it came to nothing, and how she died in agony; and then the last day of October came around, and I remembered the night we'd peeled the apples, and how she'd said I would cross the water three times, and then get married to a man whose name began with a J. All of that seemed now like a childish game, and I no longer had any belief in it. Oh Mary, I would say, how I long to be back in our little cold bedroom at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's, with the cracked washbasin and the one chair, instead of here in this dark cell, in danger of my life. And it did seem to me at times that a little comfort came back to me in return; and once I heard her laughing. But you often imagine things, when you are alone so much.
It was at this time that the red peonies first began growing.
The last time I saw Dr. Jordan, he asked if I recalled Mrs. Susanna Moodie, when she'd come to visit the Penitentiary. That would have been seven years ago, shortly before they put me into the Lunatic Asylum. I said that I did recall her. He asked me what I thought of her, and I said she looked like a beetle.
A beetle? said Dr. Jordan. I saw that I had astonished him.
Yes, a beetle, Sir, I said. Round and fat and dressed in black, and a quick and scuttling sort of walk; and black, shiny eyes too. I do not mean it as an insult, Sir, I added, for he'd given one of his short laughs. It was just the way she looked, in my opinion.
And do you remember the time she visited you, just a short time after that, in the Provincial Asylum?
Not well, Sir, I said. But we had many visitors there.
She describes you as shrieking and running about. You were confined on the violent ward.
That may be, Sir, I said. I do not recall behaving in a violent manner towards others, unless they did so first to me.
And singing, I believe, said he.
I enjoy singing, I said shortly; for I was not pleased by this line of questioning. A good hymn tune or ballad is uplifting to the spirits.
Did you tell Kenneth MacKenzie that you could see the eyes of Nancy Montgomery following you around? he said.
I have read what Mrs. Moodie wrote down about that, Sir, I said. I don't like to call anyone a liar. But Mr. MacKenzie put a misconstruction upon what I told him.
And what was that?
I said red spots, at first, Sir. And that was true. They looked like red spots.
And after?
And after, when he pressed me for an explanation, I told him what I thought they were. But I did not say eyes.
Yes? Go on! said Dr. Jordan, who was trying to appear calm; he was leaning forward, as if waiting for some great secret. But it was no great secret. I would have told him earlier, if he'd asked me.
I did not say eyes, Sir; I said peonies. But Mr. MacKenzie was always more fond of listening to his own voice than to someone else's. And I suppose it's more the usual thing, to have eyes following you around. It is more what is required, under the circumstances, if you follow me, Sir. And I guess that was why Mr. MacKenzie misheard it, and why Mrs. Moodie wrote it down. They wanted to have things done properly. But they were peonies, all the same. Red ones. There is no mistake possible.
I see, said Dr. Jordan. But he looked as puzzled as ever.
Next he will want to know about the trial. It began on the 3rd of November, and so many people crushed into the courthouse that the floor gave way. When I was put into the dock, at first I had to stand, but then they brought me a chair. The air was very close, and there was a constant buzzing of voices, like a swarm of bees. Different people got up, some in my favour, to say I'd never been in trouble before, and was a hard worker, and of good character; and others spoke against me; and there were more of these. I looked around for Jeremiah the peddler, but he was not there. He at least would have understood something of my plight, and would have tried to help me out of it, for he'd said there was a kinship between us. Or so I believed.
Then they brought in Jamie Walsh. I was hoping for some token of sympathy from him, but he gave me a stare filled with such reproach and sorrowful anger, that I saw how it was with him. He felt betrayed in love, because I'd gone off with McDermott; and from being an angel in his eyes, and fit to be idolized and worshipped, I was transformed to a demon, and he would do all in his power to destroy me. With that my heart sank within me, for of everyone I knew at Richmond Hill, I had been counting on him to say a good word for me; and he looked so young and fresh, and unspoiled and innocent, that a pang went through me, for I valued his good opinion of me, and it was a grief to lose it.
He got up to testify, and was sworn in; and the way he took the oath on the Bible, very solemn but with hard rage in his voice, did not bode me any good. He told about our party the night before, and playing the flute, and how McDermott had refused to dance, and walked him partway home; and how Nancy was alive when he'd left us, and on her way upstairs to bed. And then he told how he'd come over the next afternoon, and seen McDermott with a double-barrelled gun in his hand, which he claimed he'd been using to shoot birds. He said I was standing by the pump with my hands folded, wearing white cotton stockings; and when asked where Nancy was, I laughed in a teasing manner, and said he was always wanting to know things; but that Nancy had gone to Wrights', where there was someone ill, with a man who'd come to fetch her.
I remember none of this, Sir, but Jamie Walsh gave his testimony in a straightforward manner which it was difficult to doubt.
But then his emotions overcame him, and he pointed at me, and said, "She has got on Nancy's dress, the ribbons under her bonnet are also Nancy's, and the tippet she has on, and also the parasol in her hand."
At that there was a great outcry in the courtroom, like the uprush of voices at the Judgment Day; and I knew I was doomed.
When my turn came, I said what Mr. MacKenzie had told me to say, and my head was all in a turmoil, trying to remember the right answers; and I was pressed to explain why I hadn't warned Nancy and Mr. Kinnear, once I knew James McDermott's intentions. And Mr. MacKenzie said it was for fear of my life, and despite his nose he was very eloquent. He said that I was little more than a child, a poor motherless child and to all intents and purposes an orphan, cast out upon the world with nobody to teach me any better; and I'd had to work hard for my bread, from an early age, and was industry itself; and I was very ignorant and uneducated, and illiterate, and little better than a halfwit; and very soft and pliable, and easily imposed upon.
But despite everything he could do, Sir, it went against me. The jury found me guilty of murder, as an accessory both before and after the fact, and the judge pronounced sentence of death. I'd been made to stand up to hear the sentence; but when he said Death, I fainted, and fell on the railing made of pointed spikes that was all around the dock; and one of the spikes went into my breast, right next to my heart.
I could show him the scar.
44.
Simon has taken the morning train for Toronto. He's travelling second class; he's been spending too much money of late, and feels the need to economize.
He's looking forward to his interview with Kenneth MacKenzie: through it, he may uncover some detail or other, som
ething Grace has failed to mention, either because it might show her in a bad light or because she has genuinely forgotten it. The mind, he reflects, is like a house - thoughts which the owner no longer wishes to display, or those which arouse painful memories, are thrust out of sight, and consigned to attic or cellar; and in forgetting, as in the storage of broken furniture, there is surely an element of will at work.
Grace's will is of the negative female variety - she can deny and reject much more easily than she can affirm or accept. Somewhere within herself - he's seen it, if only for a moment, that conscious, even cunning look in the corner of her eye - she knows she's concealing something from him. As she stitches away at her sewing, outwardly calm as a marble Madonna, she is all the while exerting her passive stubborn strength against him. A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.
Some days he would like to slap her. The temptation is almost overwhelming. But then she would have trapped him; then she would have a reason for resisting him. She would turn on him that gaze of a wounded doe which all women keep in store for such occasions. She would cry.
Yet he doesn't feel she dislikes their conversations. On the contrary, she appears to welcome them, and even to enjoy them; much as one enjoys a game of any sort, when one is winning, he tells himself grimly. The emotion she expresses most openly towards him is a subdued gratitude.
He's coming to hate the gratitude of women. It is like being fawned on by rabbits, or like being covered with syrup: you can't get it off. It slows you down, and puts you at a disadvantage. Every time some woman is grateful to him, he feels like taking a cold bath. Their gratitude isn't real; what they really mean by it is that he should be grateful to them. Secretly they despise him. He recalls with embarrassment, and a kind of shrivelling self-loathing, the puppyish condescension he used to display when paying out his money to some pitiful shopworn streetgirl - the beseeching look in her eyes, and how large and rich and compassionate he felt himself to be, as if the favours about to be conferred were his, not hers. What contempt they all must have kept hidden, under their thanks and smiles!
The whistle shouts; grey smoke blows past the window. To the left, across flat fields, is the flat lake, dimpled like hammered pewter. Here and there is a log shanty, a line of washing flapping, a fat mother no doubt cursing the smoke, a clutch of staring children. Freshly cut trees, then old stumps; a smouldering bonfire. The occasional bigger house, red brick or white clapboard. The engine pounds like an iron heart, the train moves relentlessly westward.
Away from Kingston; away from Mrs. Humphrey. Rachel, as he has now been entreated to call her. The more miles he is able to put between himself and Rachel Humphrey, the lighter and less troubled in spirit he feels. He's gotten himself in too deep with her. He's floundering - images of quicksand come to mind - but he can't see how to extricate himself, not yet. Having a mistress - for that's what she's become, he supposes, and it hasn't taken long! - is worse than having a wife. The responsibilities involved are weightier, and more muddled.
The first time was an accident: he was ambushed in his sleep. Nature took advantage of him, creeping up on him as he lay entranced, without his daytime armour; his own dreams turned against him. This is the very thing Rachel claims of herself: she was sleepwalking, she says. She thought she was outdoors in the sunlight, gathering flowers, but somehow she found herself in his room, in the darkness, in his arms, and already then it was too late, she was lost. Lost is a word she uses a lot. She has always been of a sensitive nature, she's told him, and subject to somnambulism even as a child. They used to have to lock her into her room at night, to prevent her wandering around in the moonlight. He doesn't for an instant believe this story, but for a refined woman of her class he supposes it's a way of saving face. What was really in her mind at the time, and what she is thinking now, he scarcely dares to guess.
Almost every night since, she's come to his room in her nightdress, with a white ruffled peignoir thrown over it. The ribbons at the throat untied, the buttons open. She carries a single candle: she looks young in the dusk. Her green eyes gleam, her long fair hair is down around her shoulders like a shining veil.
Or if he stays out late, walking by the river in the cool of night as he's increasingly inclined to do, she'll be there waiting for him when he returns. His initial reaction is one of ennui: there is a ritual dance to be gone through, and it is one that bores him. The encounter begins with tears, quivering, and reluctance: she sobs, she reproaches herself, she pictures herself as ruined, wallowing in shame, a soul condemned. She's never been anybody's mistress before, she has never stooped so low, indulged in such abasement; if her husband discovers them, what will become of her? It is always the woman who's blamed.
Simon lets her go on in this vein for a time; then he comforts her, and assures her in the vaguest of terms that all will be well, and says he doesn't think any the less of her for what she has so inadvertently done. Then he adds that nobody need know, provided they are discreet. They must take great care never to betray themselves by word or glance, in front of others - especially Dora, because Rachel must know how servants gossip - a caution that isn't only for her protection, but for his. He can imagine what Reverend Verringer would have to say; among others.
She cries more at the thought of discovery; she writhes with humiliation. He doesn't think she's been taking the laudanum any more, or at least not so much; otherwise she wouldn't get so worked up. Her behaviour would not be so reprehensible if she were a widow, she goes on. If the Major were dead, she would not be betraying her marriage vows; but as it is.... He tells her the Major has treated her abominably, and is a cad, a scoundrel, a dog, and deserves even worse from her. He has kept a semblance of caution: he's made no offers of instant marriage, should the Major suddenly and accidentally topple off a cliff and break his neck. Inwardly he wishes him a long and healthy life.
He dries her eyes with her own handkerchief - always a clean one, freshly ironed, smelling of violets, tucked conveniently into her sleeve. She winds her arms around him, presses close, and he feels her breasts pushing against him, her hips, the full length of her body. She has an astonishingly tiny waist. Her mouth grazes his neck. Then she draws back, aghast at herself, with a gesture of nymph-like coyness, and bends away from him in an attitude of flight; but by this time he is no longer bored.
Rachel is unlike any woman he's ever had before. To begin with, she's a respectable woman, his first; and respectability in a woman, as he's now discovered, complicates things considerably. Respectable women are by nature sexually cold, without the perverse lusts and the neurasthenic longings that drive their degenerate sisters into prostitution; or so goes the scientific theory. His own explorations have suggested to him that prostitutes are motivated less by depravity than by poverty, but nevertheless they must appear as their clients wish to imagine them. A whore must feign desire and then pleasure, whether she feels them or not; such pretences are what she's paid for. A cheap whore is cheap not because she's ugly or old, but because she's a bad actress.
With Rachel however things are reversed. Her pretence is a pretence of aversion - it's her part to display resistance, his to overcome it. She wishes to be seduced, overwhelmed, taken against her will. At the moment of her climax - which she attempts to disguise as pain - she always says no.
In addition, she implies, by her shrinking and clinging, her abject imploring, that she's offering him her body as a kind of payment - something she owes him in return for the money he's spent on her behalf, as in some overdone melodrama featuring evil bankers and virtuous but penniless maidens. Her other game is that she is trapped, at the mercy of his will, as in the obscene novels obtainable at the seedier bookstalls of Paris, with their moustache-twirling Sultans and cowering slave-girls. Silvery draperies, chained ankles. Breasts like melons. Eyes of gazelles. That such configurations are banal does not rob them of their power.
What idiocies has he
uttered, in the course of these nightly debauches? He can hardly remember. Words of passion and burning love, of how he cannot resist her, which - strange to say - he himself actually believes at the time. During the day, Rachel is a burden, an encumbrance, and he wishes to be rid of her; but at night she's an altogether different person, and so is he. He too says no when he means yes. He means more, he means further, he means deeper. He would like to make an incision in her - just a small one - so he can taste her blood, which in the shadowy darkness of the bedroom seems to him like a normal wish to have. He's driven by what feels like uncontrollable desire; but apart from that - apart from himself, at these times, as the sheets toss like waves and he tumbles and wallows and gasps - another part of himself stands with folded arms, fully clothed, merely curious, merely observing. How far, exactly, will he go? How far in.
The train pulls into the station at Toronto, and Simon attempts to put such thoughts behind him. At the station he hires a gig, and directs the driver to his chosen hotel; not the best one - he doesn't want to squander money unnecessarily - but not a hovel either, as he has no wish to be bitten by fleas and robbed. As they move through the streets - hot and dusty, crowded with vehicles of all descriptions, lumbering wagons, coaches, private carriages - he looks around him with interest. Everything is new and brisk, bustling and bright, vulgar and complacent, with a smell of fresh money and fresh paint about it. Fortunes have been made here in a very short time, with more in the making. There are the usual shops and commercial buildings, and a surprising number of banks. None of the eating establishments looks at all promising. The people on the sidewalks appear prosperous enough for the most part, without the hordes of destitute beggars, the swarms of rickety, dirty children, and the platoons of draggled or showy prostitutes that disfigure so many European cities; yet such is his perversity that he would rather be in London or Paris. There he would be anonymous, and would have no responsibilities. No ties, no connections. He would be able to lose himself completely.