Alias Grace

Simon brings Grace a radish the next day, and in gratitude, Grace resolves to tell him her story with as much interesting detail as she can.

Mr. Kinnear returns from Toronto on Saturday morning, having been delayed over Friday night in Toronto on business. He’s invited two friends over for dinner.

Colonel Bridgeford and Captain Boyd arrive for dinner, and Grace serves them. The men drink quite a bit of alcohol and tease Grace about how good-looking she is, saying Nancy will be jealous, and josh Tom about his “harem” (252). Grace takes all of this in her stride, hoping that Nancy doesn’t hear.

Nancy asks Grace to go to church with her. Grace does, and she’s puzzled by the behavior of the churchgoers. No one greets them, and they appear to be shunned by their neighbors. Grace is shocked at how they are treated and thinks that the people are cold and mean-spirited.

Nancy fires McDermott, telling him that he’ll be leaving at the end of the month. McDermott finds Grace and tells her that he’s glad to be leaving, because Nancy is a whore. Grace believes that this is the usual bad language and lying from McDermott, until he tells her that Nancy and Thomas Kinnear are living like they are married and that Grace is an idiot for not figuring it out. The whole neighborhood knows. Grace realizes that this is the truth and not more of McDermott’s lies. This truth explains the strange behavior of the people at church, along with Nancy’s fancy clothes and gold earrings. Grace feels tricked and ashamed for being a fool. 

Grace argues with Nancy, having lost respect for her. Mr. Kinnear does not appear to notice anything is wrong, and continues to be kind and friendly toward Grace. His friendliness turns Nancy even more against Grace. Meanwhile, McDermott drinks far too much of Kinnear’s whiskey, and, when drunk, he threatens to kill Nancy and Mr. Kinnear. He claims to want to kill Nancy because he’s afraid that she will turn him out and withhold his wages. McDermott hates Kinnear simply because he’s a rich man. Grace, having grown up with a father who behaved the same way, ignores him. She doesn’t believe that he’s serious.

The next Wednesday is Grace’s sixteenth birthday. Nancy wishes her a happy birthday, picks some flowers for her room, and gives her the afternoon off.

Grace wanders into the apple orchard nearby and contemplates the fact that she has no friends or family. She becomes very sad and cries. She pulls herself together by noticing the natural beauty surrounding her. Jamie Walsh comes upon her. Grace tells him a little of how she’s feeling, and he says he is her friend. In fact, he would like to be her sweetheart, and when he is older he wants to marry her. She doesn’t take him seriously. He entertains her by playing the flute, and then they make daisy chains for Grace to wear around her neck and on her hat.

When Grace returns to the house, she notices that Mr. Kinnear was spying on her with his telescope, and Nancy makes a comment about how silly she looks with a daisy in her hair. McDermott too makes nasty remarks about her cradle-robbing ways and preferring a youngster to a grown man like himself. She feels angry and upset that all of them were spying and gossiping about her innocent birthday fun. 

Grace has been at Kinnear’s for nearly two weeks, when Jeremiah the peddler arrives. Kinnear and Nancy are both away from home visiting friends. Jeremiah asks how she likes her new position, and because he seems to know that things are not good there already, she tells him everything, starting with Mary Whitney’s death.

Jeremiah warns Grace that Nancy used to do her job and that she should be careful with Mr. Kinnear. Jeremiah asks Grace to come away with him, as she would be safer with him than where she is. He says she would make a wonderful medical clairvoyant and paints a picture of what their life would be like, traveling and making a lot of money. Though she is tempted, when Jeremiah says there is no need for them to be married, Grace realizes that she doesn’t know Jeremiah well enough to leave with him. 

The Dr. Reid arrives several days later to see Mr. Kinnear; Grace overhears Dr. Reid telling Kinnear that he’s fine. But while Kinnear isn’t looking, Nancy runs out to talk to the doctor too.

Grace is scrubbing the kitchen floors, at Nancy’s request, when she senses someone behind her watching her. It’s Mr. Kinnear. Nancy comes in. She is very angry with Grace, and as she thinks Nancy’s behavior over, she realizes that Nancy is pregnant.

Later, she eavesdrops on Nancy and Mr. Kinnear. Mr. Kinnear is happy because the work is getting done. Nancy says that she’s given McDermott his notice, and that she’s thinking of giving Grace her notice too. Grace, though a good and quick worker, has become argumentative, and Nancy thinks she might not be right in the head, because Nancy hears her talking to herself.

That night, a terrible thunderstorm hits, and Grace hears a voice in her ear, saying “It cannot be,” and she faints. She dreams that she goes outside in the moonlight and a man comes up behind her and embraces her, kissing her neck and the side of her face. She does not know who he is: first she thinks the man is McDermott, then Jeremiah, and finally Mr. Kinnear. She sees white birds perched in the trees, but then they change into white angels washed in blood.

In the dream, she loses consciousness and finds herself in her bed, and the sun has risen. Her nightgown is damp with dew, and her feet are dirty, so she knows that what she experienced was real, not a dream.

She sees that the white wash she did the day before was left out all night and blew into the trees. The clothes look like the angels she saw in her “dream.” She remembers that this same thing happened when Mary Whitney died. She regrets not leaving with Jeremiah, because she believes that some in the house are going to die.

Grace’s attempt to give Simon a great story is successful. He busily writes down what Grace has said.