The Secrets of Lizzie Borden (11 page)

I boldly ventured out onto the terrace again, both hoping and dreading that I would meet that young man and he would take me in his arms again and this time not let me go until
he
was ready to. I shouldn't have, yet I felt drawn, pulled as if I were one half of two magnets facing each other. I wanted to be held and touched again. I wanted to be stirred. There was an indescribable ache within me that I wanted to appease, even though it scared me, because this was my body alone being assailed by these aching yearnings; it had
nothing
at all to do with my head or my heart.

Then there he was—locked in a smoldering embrace with a brassy-haired buxom beauty in gold brocade blazing from the diadem on her head to the hem of her gown with a fortune in diamonds. A pistol lay forgotten at their feet. A diamond bracelet that must have slipped from her wrist dangled from his pocket. Startled by my abrupt intrusion, they broke apart. She at least had the good breeding to blush, but he gave me a scornful look, a lifted eyebrow accompanied by a smirk that seemed to say
you had your chance
as he bent to retrieve his weapon. He put it in his pocket, then took his companion's arm and led her back inside the casino. From the doorway I watched her give him money to place a bet. I turned my back then and wandered, alone, back onto the terrace, burning with a fever that I alone couldn't quench.

It was a loss, and yet it wasn't. His ardent mouth and roving hands had finesse, yes, he knew
exactly
what to do because he had done it so many times before, but there was no magic, no
true
feeling or connection of the soul; it was nothing at all like that day at Glastonbury under the thorn tree. He did not touch my heart, only my body. I was lonely and couldn't be with the one I loved, and that—my wretched longing loneliness—I think had more to do with these sudden wanton spasms of lust than anything else. I wanted love, I just never knew how much until I left Fall River, and I must find a way to quench, or
kill,
these improper passions before I did something to disgrace myself, something unforgivable, with no hope of redemption.

Suddenly there was a rumble of thunder and a zigzag of silver lightning lit up the darkened sky. I nearly jumped out of my skin, then laughed at my own foolishness. The rain started to fall, at first a stray plop and then a steady drip-drip; then the sky ripped open like a piece of cheap midnight-blue calico filled with a million silvery needles. This rain was hard and violent, stabbing into my skin until I thought it would surely bruise me. But I didn't care. I threw back my head and opened my arms to it, flinging them wide, not caring that my corset pinched and my breasts jutted and strained alarmingly against my bodice, like a glass of milk about to overflow. I wantonly, brazenly opened myself to it and let it soak me to the skin and lick the paint from my face. I wanted to be washed clean, to feel fresh and new. I abandoned myself to the rain as if it were my lover, surrendered, and let it cool, wash away, and drown my fevered passion.

As a cold wind blew the rain sideways the strand of blue-green glass beads twined like a sleeping snake in my hair broke and, blown by the wind, went skittering and clattering all over the terrace. The fan of peacock plumes fell from my hair as it came tumbling down and I laughed as I watched it fly away like a tropical bird fleeing a hurricane.

My gown was ruined; it, like my hair, hung down straight, heavy with the weight of water, plastered to my body like a second skin. The skirt slapped and wrapped itself around my limbs so that I staggered like one intoxicated and nearly fell more than once as I made my way back into the bright lights of the casino, dragging my long, sopping-wet train along behind me like a mermaid with a crippled tail. I knew my companions would be
horrified
at the sight and sad, soggy state of me, but it was worth it, and the price of the Paris gown. I had needed this rain in a way that I could never hope to explain.

But I paid another price for “my foolishness,” “my wanton frolic in the rain.” I came down with a
dreadful
cold that I had great difficulty shaking off despite the plethora of pills and potions Miss Mowbry forced down my throat. But sunny Italy was a balm, a godsend, like a tonic for the soul to me. I sat in the sun, despite the risk of freckles, and let it bake the illness out of me.

The signora at the
pensione
where we stayed in Naples was a great, round, motherly woman and she instantly conceived a great liking for me. She plied me with food—plates heaped high with pasta covered with hearty, robust sauces, which I, at her encouragement, devoured with gusto. I fell in love with the food—the pastas swimming in rich sauces, breads, cakes, and, most of all,
Capezzoli di Venere,
the exquisite bonbons called “Nipples of Venus.” Roman chestnuts enrobed in white chocolate and brandied sugar with a daub of dark chocolate sitting atop the dome just like a woman's nipple, they tasted simply
divine,
and I could never get enough of them. I felt so daring and decadent when I cast off my shoes and stockings and all the manifold layers of my increasingly tight, stifling, binding, and confining clothes and lay back on the chaise longue in my room, naked as God made me, and languorously suckled and licked those divine candies. Sometimes I rose and went to stand rebelliously naked, sweaty and pink, with my hair all a-frizz, and my face and fingertips all stained with chocolate, before the looking glass and called myself a “greedy pig” before I threw a shawl over my reflection in disgust, then went right back to my chaise and chocolates, already knowing that as soon as they were gone I would throw on a robe and send the signora's boy out for more.

I was getting fat; there was no pretending otherwise. I cared and yet I didn't. Eating brought me a kind of comfort, and I began to eat more and more, to try to fill up the emptiness inside me. Even when I was no longer hungry I kept on eating, hoping I would eventually be full, even though I knew in my heart that it was not food I was craving. No mere food, no matter how enticing and delicious, could slake the hunger in my soul, but I kept on hoping, and eating.

The signora smilingly helped me let out the seams of all my dresses. She kissed away my tears when she took the measure of my waist and assured me that
real
men liked a woman with meat on her bones who knew how to appreciate good food.

“A woman with a lusty appetite is worth her weight in gold,” she said with a bawdy, knowing chuckle, “because a wise man knows she will bring her appetite with her to bed.”

I saw the ruins at Pompeii by moonlight alone but for a hired guide who was as annoying as a fly; he just kept buzzing around me talking all the while. I was tempted to dismiss him so I would be free to contemplate all the beauty spread out before me in blessed silence; besides, he only made me feel lonelier, and angry at him for not being the one I wanted most of all. I dreamed of my architect, of having him there, to kiss in the moonlight, and enthrall me with his tales of history. I
yearned
to have him hold my hand and guide me through Italy, explaining everything we saw, like why that tower in Pisa leaned, opening my eyes to all its wonders. I wanted
him,
not a guide or a book, to tell me.

In Rome, while the others were busy buying dresses, I visited churches, cathedrals, palaces, art galleries, and museums and went to the opera almost every night. Even though I could not understand the words, the passion of the singers and the beauty of their voices—lilting, soaring, cascading!—never failed to move me to tears. I'm sure I must have spent $100 throwing roses at the feet of tenors. But I didn't care. I was enraptured by the art, especially Raphael's
Sistine Madonna
. I could have gazed for hours upon the various Madonnas, cherubs, saints, and angels; even the devils fascinated me. I purchased a number of photographs and engravings to take home with me, but they were all in black and white when I longed most for color—
rich, vivid, vibrant, living color!
I loved the Sistine Chapel; I craned my neck and stared up at the ceiling until my neck ached, not daring to do what I really wanted to do and lie down upon the floor and gaze up at it to my lonely heart's content. And I toured St. Peter's twice, again alone; I did not care for the brash, noisy, but well-meaning chatter of the guides, they only made my heart ache worse.

In Venice I drifted for hours, listless and glassy-eyed, lost in daydreams and lusty longings, in a gondola, barely conscious of the Italian songs the gondoliers sang to me in their decadent dark baritone or sensual tenor voices, blind and impervious to the gorgeous scenery going by that I, most likely, would never see again.

Then it was back to Liverpool in bustle and haste with our ever-growing mountain of luggage to catch the next sailing of the SS
Scythia
.

There was a letter waiting for me—a letter that made my heart sing! He could not be there to bid me
bon voyage
on my homeward-bound journey, but he was still thinking of me fondly.
Fondly!
Thinking of
me!
I almost died of delight!

I stood at the railing as the ship pulled out to sea; this time it was not raining, and the sun was shining down on me like a golden blessing straight from God. When England was but a mere speck too small for me to see I went back to the cabin I shared with Anna and lay down on my bed and read his letter again and again until I had committed every precious, wonderful word to memory. And then I wept, but I was smiling through my tears, like sunshine through rain. A woman's heart and hopes are contradictory things; no wonder so many men take such a dim view of feminine constancy and think us fickle and contrary. “La donna è mobile” indeed!

Chapter
3

R
eturning to Fall River and reentering my father's house felt just like being found guilty of a terrible crime and being sentenced to live out the rest of my life in a dreary prison with no amenities to make life pleasant or even bearable.

The first thing that greeted me when I stepped through the front door of 92 Second Street was the smell of mincemeat. Abby was in the kitchen baking a pie and I could hear her singing as she bustled about the kitchen, her voice mingling with Bridget's rhapsodizing about “the golden slippers I'se goin' to wear to walk the golden street.”

There were times when I thought hating Abby was more trouble than it was worth just to keep the peace with Emma, and this was one of them.

Emma was thirteen when our mother died; she had already built up a treasure trove of memories, and was ready to resent
any
woman Father married. And if I forgot, as any child would, and shared a smile or a laugh with Abby, Emma
always
made sure I regretted it; she would call me “a traitor to our mother's memory,” punish me with a savage pinch, and refuse to speak to me for
days
afterward. And in the early years of their marriage, she was always quick to remind me that Abby was still young enough to bear children. She was old enough to make it dangerous for herself, that was certainly true, but she still bled every month. Father had always wanted a son; I was supposed to be the boy he always wanted. But if Abby gave him the son our mother never could . . . he—that boy, Abby's greedy, suckling male piglet—would inherit
everything,
what should, by right, be ours, and another male would follow in Father's footsteps and have control of us until the day we died. God we could trust to be merciful, but
NEVER
the son of Abby and Andrew Borden!

Emma made me see all the possibilities; she relentlessly hammered them into my head and made sure I
never
forgot that Father could at
any
time change his will, and even if Abby never gave him a son—and she never did, and within a few years all possibility of that had ceased—he could still leave everything to her and make us beholden to “The Cow” for every blessed little thing all the days of her life, until Abby herself died and left everything to her precious little piglet sister Sarah. So I let Emma, “my little mother,” guide and counsel me, I let her fuel my fears, and I erected an ice-cold wall between myself and Abby.

But hearing her in the kitchen still made me smile. How she loved to bake sweet things, all my favorite things—cookies, cakes, and pies! I was five years old when she married Father, and I used to spend my days with her while Emma was at school and Father was away tending to business. Abby told me the secret of her mincemeat pies, exactly what made them so special—she only baked them for people she liked, and
always
sprinkled them with rosewater. And now she was baking one to welcome me home. Tears pricked my eyes and I fought the urge to go into the kitchen and give her a hug, something I hadn't done in years.

One day, in that first year, when we were all still getting used to one another, Abby made me a pretty pink dress with ruffles and a sunshine-yellow sash even though Emma said girls with red hair should
never
wear pink. And Abby curled my hair with hot irons, taking the time to make sure that each ringlet was perfectly shaped and shining. I remember she held my hair up to the light and showed me the multitude of shades, the red, orange, brown and gold, the colors, the ingredients, like the love and rosewater she always put in her mincemeat pies, that made redheads so special. She knew children could be cruel and that I had already been teased many times about my red hair, and she was trying to make me feel better, just like when she told me that each one of the freckles I detested was a kiss from an angel, a blessing on my very own skin. Then she stepped back to look at me, clasped her hands over her ample breasts, and, beaming, declared that I looked “just like a little French doll.”

When Emma saw me she flew into a rage. She dragged me upstairs to our room, barking my shins against the steps, and
tore
that beautiful dress off me. She took it outside and pounded it into the pile of horse manure Father kept for fertilizer. She stood there with a shovel, hitting it, again and again and again, until her arms were too tired to continue and she was splattered head to foot with manure and bleeding from where she had bit her lip clean through. Then she came back to deal with me. She ripped the ribbons from my hair and poured water into our basin and plunged my head into it. I began to cry, I thought she was trying to drown me, but she was just wetting my hair. Then she took the comb and raked it viciously from the top of my scalp to the ends of my hair. I
screamed
as the teeth bit into my scalp, brutal enough to draw blood. When the ringlets resisted she yanked the comb harder, pulling the hair out in clumps, until I was afraid she would snatch me bald headed. But that was Emma's way. How very ironic that all the world sees her as the very picture of the meek as a mouse prim and pious brittle and birdlike little maiden lady in eternal mourning too afraid to ever say
Boo!
to a goose. They don't know the
real
Emma; no one does except me.

I was still standing there savoring the scent of Abby's mincemeat pie when Emma appeared, staring me in the face with hard, piercing eyes, pulling me out of the past to confront the present.

“Father is waiting for you in the sitting room,” was all she said. It was all she had to say.

Then I was standing before him. I had not even taken off my hat and sealskin cape or removed my muff and gloves.

I saw him rise up from the sofa. He was clenching his jaw and that made his snow-white whiskers quiver. He was looking at me with such utter contempt that I wanted to run away and hide.

And then he began to speak, unleashing a torrent of angry words, coming closer all the while, until he was gripping my shoulders and
shaking
me so hard that my hat fell off and my hairpins rained down onto the carpet.

“I never thought I would have cause to say this, Lizzie, but I am
ashamed
of you! I let you, out of the goodness of my heart, go gadding off to Europe, let you see something of the world, I let you have your heaping dose of culture, and what do you do? Fall in love with some
foreigner!
Some scoundrel who preys on innocent women traveling abroad! Gullible American women are probably his bread and butter! For shame, Lizzie!
Shame!
I thought you had more respect for yourself, for your family, for
me!
I thought you were a decent, respectable girl, a virtuous, God-fearing girl, but I was wrong; you've proven that! What did you just say? Don't you
dare
tell me not to treat you like a child, miss! I treat you like a child because you
act
like a child! A silly, credulous child who would believe the moon is made of green cheese if someone told her so, especially if he was handsome and had an English accent!”

Father released me so suddenly that I stumbled and fell to my knees. I caught frantically at his hands. I tried to reason with him, I tried to tell him that he was wrong, that it had not been like that at all. My architect was not the sort of man he thought. He was not one of those oily faux counts who preyed on American heiresses, or a barefoot peasant selling olives on the street; he was kind, and intelligent, a hard worker, diligent and respectable in
every
way. Father was free to make all the inquiries he wished; I knew my love and was confident that he could withstand even the most painstaking scrutiny. But private detectives cost money—
lots
of money—and Father wasn't about to pay a Pinkerton man to confirm what he already knew; he was that certain that no respectable man of solid and impeccable reputation and means could ever fall in love with me.

“I don't want to hear another word about him!” Father cut me off. “I am
ashamed
of you, Lizzie Borden!
Ashamed,
of
you,
my own flesh and blood! And you a Sunday school teacher!” he shuddered. “God help those poor Celestials with
you
for a teacher!”

Suddenly he reached down and jerked me to my feet. “Did you let him touch you?” he demanded. “Did you let him kiss you?”

The memory of that kiss flashed behind my eyes and Father saw that he had struck a nerve, that there was
something:
No matter how innocent it might have been, there was
something.

“
You DID! No!
Don't bother to deny it; I can see it in your eyes! Your own face betrays you!”

“Father,
please,
let me explain—”

“Explain what? That you behaved like a
whore?
I already
know
that
!
For all your churchgoing, you're a hypocrite, Lizzie Borden. You have the soul of a whore; just like a bitch in heat, you want a man between your legs no matter the cost. Someone must have a care for your soul, since you are unfit to govern yourself, and as your father that duty falls to me, and as long as I live you
will
walk the straight and narrow; there'll be no straying onto the primrose path and dillydallying with fortune hunters, worthless men who want to fritter away my hard-earned money!”

“Father, no, it isn't like that—”

He dealt me a stinging slap that knocked me flat upon the floor.

“
I am ashamed to call you my daughter!
” he roared.

And he walked away from me. There was no hesitation in his footsteps and he never looked back. I lay on the floor and wept, watering the faded flowers on the carpet with my tears. No one came near me. Not Abby, not Emma, not even Bridget. I cried until I had no tears left.

The next morning, when I came downstairs, Father informed me that he had made an appointment for me to see Dr. Bowen promptly at three o'clock.

“You are looking a little fatter, a little rounder, than you were when you left us, Lizzie, and I want to make certain there are no surprises a few months from now.”

I grasped his sleeve as he was walking away from me and tried to tell him about all the rich foods, the pastries in France, the pastas and sauces in Italy, all the cheese and cream, the sinfully soothing chocolates, but he would not listen or believe me.

“Three o'clock, Lizzie, promptly at three,” was all he would say to me.

 

Dr. Seabury Warren Bowen lived across the street from us. I had known him almost my entire life; it seemed like he had always been our family physician, neighbor, and friend. Indeed, I could not remember a time when he had
not
been there. He was a kind man with gentle and wise brown eyes. His brown hair was receding from his brow, and he had a fine mustache which he always kept waxed in a perfect handlebar.

As three o'clock approached, I sat in his waiting room staring down at my shoes, my knees shaking bad enough to bruise beneath my blue flowered skirt. I was so embarrassed, so ashamed, at what I knew was about to happen. I had never had cause to submit to an intimate examination; I thought they were only for expectant ladies. He had to call me twice before I could make my legs obey and stand up and stagger clumsily through the door he held open for me.

He pointed to a dressing screen and asked me to strip down to my chemise and remove my drawers, then lie flat upon his examination table. He draped a white sheet modestly over me and asked me to spread my legs wide and draw up my knees. I stared up at the ceiling, my face burning with shame and tears blurring my eyes. He asked me when I had last had fleas. That was a euphemism unique to Fall River that we used to refer to a woman's monthly illness, and any stains resulting from it were known as flea bites. I answered his question as best I could. He nodded and bent down and lifted the bottom edge of the sheet.

I tensed at the sudden intrusion of his fingers as he parted the pink petals of my sex and reached inside to test my purity. He told me to try to relax, that it would all be over soon. But I was only able to relax when he finally withdrew, after what seemed like an eternity but was only minutes, I'm sure, and turned away to wash his hands.

“Intact. I shall assure your father that all is as it should be,” he said. Then he turned back to face me. I was sitting up, but my face still burned scarlet with shame, and I could not meet his eyes.

He came to me and gently took my hand.

“I am a doctor, Lizzie; I am
your
doctor, Lizzie, and anything you say to me is just between us. Would you like to tell me why your father insisted on this examination? It might make you feel better.”

I hesitated for a moment; then it all came pouring out, and once I started talking I couldn't stop. I told him all about my Englishman, the
wonderful
architect who I was quite certain loved me. When I had finished, Dr. Bowen put his arms around me, drew my head down onto his shoulder, and let me cry.

“Your father is a hard man, Lizzie,” he said. And I saw the anger in his eyes. He had been our family doctor for years; he knew what Father was like. Doubtlessly Father would wrangle with him over the bill he presented for this examination too; he always put up a fuss about Dr. Bowen's bills, though everyone else thought he was quite reasonable.

“I want to give you something, Lizzie,” Dr. Bowen said. “Just a little morphine to calm your nerves and help you rest. Don't be afraid,” he said when I gasped and instinctively drew back at the sight of the fearsome metal and glass syringe.

He took my arm and, as gently as he could, injected the drug. He made soothing noises, as one would for a hurt and frightened child or animal, when I winced and whimpered at the sharp pinch as the needle penetrated my skin and sent liquid rest into my vein.