Alias Grace

This chapter consists of a letter to Simon from his mother, written in August, 1959. In it she bemoans her failing health, and she asks for Simon to write to her and relieve her anxiety about him. 

Simon dreams of being in the attic again, outside the maids’ rooms. He is looking for a woman. Then, he sees a woman under a sheet, and he must dissect her. He approaches the table and lifts off the sheet, but there is no woman, only more sheets. At the bottom of the pile of sheets, there is still no woman. He is failing his examination, but he’s also relieved. He will be all right.

He dreams that Grace Marks is standing over his bed. He pulls her into his bed and has sex with her. He realizes that he isn’t dreaming, and it is Mrs. Humphrey in his bed. He has just had sex with Mrs. Humphrey.

Grace announces that Simon has gone away to Toronto, and she imagines what she can say to him about her arrest and trial.

Grace and McDermott are arrested and taken back to Toronto. They are jailed and questioned. Grace tells them what she can remember. She has no lawyer until very near her trial. The newspapers call Grace McDermott’s accomplice and paramour.

At the inquest, Grace doesn’t know what to say, but she can see that everyone assumes she’s guilty. She knows that if she tells the truth, that she was unconscious for many parts of the day, she will not be believed. She cobbles together a story, in which she does not know that Nancy is dead, though she sees Mr. Kinnear’s body. She also tells the court that McDermott shot at her, which is corroborated by the authorities’ finding a ball in the wood by the door.

Both Grace and McDermott are bound over for trial. Grace is tormented by people coming in to stare at her and by the constant ribald sexual jokes of the jailors. She gets a lawyer, Mr. Mackenzie, in October. He tells her to make up a believable story and not to mention that she doesn’t remember what happened. She tries to do what he asks.

She knows that things look bad for her, and she has a lot of time alone. She contemplates her hanging and repents the wrongs she has committed, such as not staying awake when Mary Whitney was dying. This is when the peonies begin blooming.

Grace imagines that next Simon will want to know about her trial. Jamie Walsh gives damning testimony. For example, he tells the courtroom that everything Grace is currently wearing once belonged to Nancy, which paints Grace in a callous and cruel light. Despite MacKenzie’s pleading that Grace is a young, motherless, impressionable child, and basically a half-wit, she is convicted as an accessory before and after the fact and sentenced to death. She faints when she hears the verdict. 

Simon takes the train to Toronto to see Kenneth MacKenzie. He is convinced that Grace is deliberately hiding the truth from him. He wants to slap her.

He is relieved to be away from his mistress, Rachel Humphrey. The situation has quickly overwhelmed him. She pretends aversion to sex and revulsion at her behavior, but she actually feels the opposite. This is Simon’s first relationship with a so-called respectable woman; his previous sexual relationships have all been with servants or prostitutes. By day, he resents Rachel, but by night he’s obsessed with her.

He arrives in Toronto and gets a room in a nice hotel. He yearns for the anonymity of a European city.