The Secrets of Lizzie Borden (14 page)

The biggest prize was Abby's watch, the one Father had given her on their wedding day, a delicate gold ladies' pocket watch I had helped him pick out at Gifford's with a lovely lavish floral design encircled by a double border of white diamonds and Abby's initials engraved upon the back of the case. Emma later took it and the rest of Abby's jewelry and dropped it in the Taunton River inside the red leather pocketbook weighed down with stones, since it would have been too dangerous to pawn. We burned the streetcar tickets, since they were numbered and could have been traced if we had dared use them, and divided the cash between us and spent it carefully over many months lest we draw suspicion to ourselves.

When the robbery was discovered, and Abby rushed back downstairs, hysterical and spouting tears like a fountain, we were sitting placidly in the parlor. Emma was sewing and I was idly leafing through a magazine. When the police came and found the cellar doors standing open wide I helpfully pointed out an eight-penny nail wedged into the padlock.

While Abby wept and blubbered to the police, “I prize that watch very much, and I wish and hope that you can get it back, but I have a feeling that you never will,” Father just frowned and stood there stiff-backed and silent and stared first at Emma, then at me, then back at Emma again, and then at me, back and forth, just like a tennis ball bouncing between two rackets.

Later he had some quiet words with the police outside. I don't know what was said, but they never came back, and no one ever said another word about the burglary; it was as though it had never happened at all. But from that day forward, whenever Father went out he made a point of locking the door of the bedroom he shared with Abby and laying the key prominently, in plain sight, right smack in the middle of the sitting room mantel, as though he was
daring
anyone to touch it. It was as though he
knew
we were the ones responsible but was punishing us with his silence. And that was somehow much worse than dragging it all out into the open and having hot words. Instead, he let the guilt hang, like a sword, over our heads.

About a week later, I was late getting home for supper. I had been helping to revive poor Flossie Grew, who had fainted dead away after a
beastly
drunken
brute
of an Irishman had
seized
her in his arms and
kissed
her—right on the mouth in front of
everyone!
—then
vomited
all over her new shoes when the Women's Christian Temperance Union was protesting outside of McCurdy's Saloon. Naturally we had all gone after him, whacking him over the head with our parasols and purses until the police came along and carried him off to jail, as the wretched coward was sniveling for them to do, where he would be safe from our outrage.
Poor Flossie!
I just hoped she would be recovered in time to go out with the Fruit and Flower Mission on Saturday to hand out bouquets of cherry blossoms as a sweet thank-you to the Celestials who worked so hard in the town's laundries and mills.

I had just put down the handsome placard I had painted, depicting the Devil in all his vile scarlet, horned, hoofed, and forked-tailed satanic glory, swilling from a bottle of rum, too drunk to hold on to his own pitchfork, and taken off my hat and was sliding into my chair at the dining room table and was making my apologies to everyone for my tardiness, though it truly was for a noble cause and thus completely excusable, when Bridget brought in a tray.

“Ah! Eight tender young squabs!” Father beamed with delight and reached out a fork to spear one. “Two for each of us! I hope you're hungry, Lizzie!” He smiled like the Devil as he deposited a pigeon on my plate, stabbing it with the fork, right in the breast, to show me how succulent and juicy it was!

I blanched and bolted from my chair. I ran out into the barn. My pigeons were gone! All that remained were a few gray and white feathers and some blood on the straw and staining the blade of the hatchet that had been left standing propped up against their empty cage. I fell down on my knees and vomited.

Later that night, Bridget crept into my bed and comforted me as best she could.

“I know just how you feel,
macushla,
” she said, hugging me close as she spooned her body around mine.

She told me about a little red hen she'd made a pet of back in Ireland when she was a little girl. Even though she knew the hen was meant for the cooking pot she could not help but love it. She'd clung to her brother and cried as he marched steadfastly across the yard with the hatchet in his hand and watched in horror as he chopped off the chicken's head. To teach Bridget a lesson, her ma had made her sit by the hearth, even though she was crying her eyes out, and pluck the bird naked for the pot.

“I soaked ev'ry feather with my tears, I did,
macushla,
” she sighed. “An' only the hunger gnawin' at my belly made me eat it, but I sicked it all back up afterward.”

She lay with me for hours, softly crooning sweet Irish lullabies, stroking my hair, and calling me “
macushla,
” and kissing me until I slept. When she started to creep out I stirred sleepily and reached out a hand and caught hold of her wrist.

“Stay with me!” I whispered urgently, and she did. I passed the entire night in her arms.

Father never said a word about my pigeons. Everyone pretended it hadn't happened. No one ever mentioned that supper or the pets that no longer drew me out to spend hours in the barn. It was as though my pigeons had never existed. The only good to come out of Father's malicious act was that it had brought Bridget to my bed.

Sometimes I wished I could kick the old man down, plant my foot on the back of his head, and
grind
his face into a pile of fresh manure and say,
Thank you for that, at least!
while I remembered the sweet touch of her lips and the way she had passively allowed me to untie the green silk ribbons of her nightdress and slip my hand inside. I had given her those ribbons, casually tossing them down one day while she was ironing, saying I had no use for them and thought she might like to have them. I'd even wrinkled them to make it look like they truly were odds and ends I'd found at the bottom of my sewing box instead of new ones I'd bought just for her. I'd
die
of embarrassment if she ever knew about the fifteen minutes I had spent
agonizing
over the selection at Sargent's to choose the shade of green that was the best match for her beautiful eyes. But those memories were
mine,
and precious, and I was a coward; I didn't have the courage to crow like a rooster and gloatingly proclaim my sweet, sweet secret shame to one who had it within his power to punish me for the intoxicating and doubly sinful combination of unnaturalness and bliss.

Chapter
5

I
never meant for it to happen. David Anthony was
not
the man for me. He was too young, too wild, dark and dangerous. Oh, but he was a handsome, sulky, sultry brute, all man and muscle, leather and spice, with his slick black hair and pencil-thin mustache. He reminded me a little of the suave and slightly dangerous men I had seen at the casino on the Riviera, but in a much cruder, rougher way. His hands were calloused, and hard with dirt-caked nails not immaculate, soft, manicured ones with silky finesse instead of brute force in their caresses. While the sophistication might have been lacking, the veneer of danger was not. He drove his father's meat wagon, drawn by a team of four sturdy white steeds. It was painted a glaring white and each side was emblazoned with a big red pig branded ANTHONY & SWIFT MEAT CO. OF FALL RIVER in white letters. David made the daily deliveries to private residences and businesses, and was rumored to entice pretty girls into the back of the meat wagon with the promise that he would give them a nice, fat sausage.

Reason decreed that he was far too young for me; at twenty-two he was a full ten years my junior. But Passion was blind. And when you're starved for love and the sensual glide of a tender, knowing hand, sometimes being wanted is enough. After all, there are worse compromises.

In another couple, ten years might not have made such a difference, but between us it was a yawning chasm. Besides, he was the butcher's son and I was Andrew Borden's daughter and I knew what my father—and other people—would say: that David only wanted an old maid like me for my father's money, that when he looked at me visions of dollar signs danced in his head like a child's sugarplum dreams the night before Christmas. We had
nothing
in common, no shared interests, and our conversations were awkward and stilted at best. But he wanted me, and I wanted to be wanted. And, for a little while, I deluded myself into believing that that was enough. So I kept reality at bay; whenever it threatened to rudely intrude I shoved it away, and let myself go on dreaming. But I let things go further than I should. It only happened once, but once was enough to change my life forever.

I had started teaching a twice-weekly evening reading and writing class for the poor immigrant girls who worked in the mills. Afterward, David would be waiting for me outside, to walk me home—or almost home; we'd always say good night on the corner so Father wouldn't see us together. I was flattered by the attention. Then we started to meet in the barn where I used to keep my pigeons and go and visit the horse, before Father decided I spent too much time out there and that the carrots and apples I snuck sweet Fred as treats rightly belonged in the stews and pies Abby made instead.
You don't feed animals that don't feed you, Lizzie!
Father always said; it was his way of justifying the slaughter of my pets and the selling of Fred. The barn quickly became our favorite trysting spot. Sometimes we sat and fondled and kissed each other in the old sleigh Father had been unable to sell because of its deplorably decrepit state, with the cracks in the red leather seat pinching the bare flesh above my black stocking tops whenever David could coax my skirts up over my hips. Sometimes we sat and snuggled in the straw of Fred's former stall, sharing a sack of penny candy and sugary kisses, or lolled about in the loft eating pears from the tree in our backyard or grapes from our straggling vine. Once David brought decadent dark cherries from his mother's garden and dangled them enticingly by their stems over my mouth as he fed them to me one by one. Another day, when Abby unexpectedly went out, we stole the blueberry pie she had left cooling on the windowsill and left telltale blue stains all over our skin wherever we touched and kissed.

At first, we only talked, but we had little to talk about; there were so many awkward silences and long, uncomfortable pauses. Then he tried to fill the anxious silence with kisses that would make us both forget that we really had nothing to say to each other. Then he groped my breasts and fumbled clumsily with my clothes and told me I was pretty and grabbed my wrist with bruising, hard fingers and pressed my hand against the plump “sausage” in his pants and whispered hot, urgent words into my ear, urging me to take it out and hold and pet it. “It” wanted “to come out and play,” he said, but “it” was never satisfied with just play; what “it” wanted most was a kiss from me, David said, assuring me that once I became accustomed I wouldn't gag and feel queasy like I had the one time I gave in and tried, but I could never stomach a second attempt; just the thought was enough to make me roll over in the straw and retch.

Part of me wanted to push him away, but another part of me, the part that wanted
so badly
to be wanted, yearned to draw him nearer, deep inside, to fill me up with all the love I had spent my whole life longing for. I kept telling myself it was a compliment, to be desired by a handsome young man like David Anthony, so dark and dangerous; everyone has to play with fire once in their life in order to discover that it burns. It was my mistake to think that I, being older and richer, had the upper hand and could control the game.

He said he wanted to marry me, but I had only to look at his perpetually pregnant sisters, sisters-in-law, cousins, and aunts, and his mother, wretched and worn out from bearing a child almost every year since she was nineteen, to know what life with him would be like: a life spent in servitude to the Anthony men, marked by black eyes, burst lips, and broken ribs, and other bruises conveniently hidden by high collars and long skirts and sleeves, veils, and discreet applications of powder and paint. A life spent out of sight in the kitchen, or on well-dressed parade at Sunday services and afterward sitting placidly in the parlor or around the dinner table, silent unless spoken to, rising only to cater to the needs of the menfolk. To marry David Anthony would have been to exchange one prison for another, one where generous brutality, not excessive frugality, defined the jailer.

I made excuses; I told him that Father would
never
give his consent. I was too cowardly to tell David the truth—that
I
would
never
give
my
consent. I didn't want to marry him, but I didn't want him to leave me either, not just yet; it felt
so good
to be desired, to lie there in the straw with my shirtwaist and corset open, letting him kiss my breasts, so I kept postponing the inevitable. I wanted to play with fire for just a little while longer. Though I feared the burn, I liked the heat of it very much.

But David Anthony was a dangerous man to play games with; I should have known better than to think I could just stop and dismiss him like a servant whenever I liked. At our last rendezvous in the barn I found that out. That was the day I got burned, but no one ever knew; the pain, the fear, the charring, and the scarring were all beneath the skin. Fires are furious, merciless things, I discovered, and hard to control, and so was David Anthony.

That day we were up in the loft. I was laughing, and had my hands up above my head, holding on to a rafter, swaying and giggling like a silly girl. David had told me a joke; I can't remember what it was now. My white cotton shirtwaist was hanging open and my breasts were bare, my blue satin corset unhooked and the long blue silk ribbons on my chemise dangling free, teasingly tickling his face whenever I leaned down. I was happy and enjoying the unaccustomed sensual freedom and the feel of his admiring eyes on me.

Kneeling at my feet, David twirled a piece of straw between his fingers. He reached up to tickle my nipples with it before he let it fall and then he reached for me. Suddenly his hands were under my navy-blue skirt, gliding over my black stockings, playfully snapping the sky-blue satin garters, then, rising higher and higher, his fingers hooked over the waistband of my white cotton drawers.

For what seemed like a very long moment, Time, and the two of us, seemed to stand still as we gazed deep into each other's eyes. Then, with one quick movement, he yanked my drawers down. I
wanted
him to! I stepped out of them, willingly, savoring this special moment of brazen bare-bottomed delight, of being naked under my skirts. It felt
so
wonderfully wanton, so decadently daring! David smiled up at me. With a swift motion, he ducked his head beneath my petticoat. I felt his mouth on the most secret part of me and I was lost, drowning in the most exquisite pleasure; it was even better than my wicked, wanton dreams. I felt like I was melting into his mouth and I would soon lose all of me and be swallowed up whole and devoured by David. I bore down, pressing into him, and felt his broken front tooth, cracked on a diagonal, against the secret pink pearl of my womanhood. It felt
so
good, I thought I was going to die; surely no one could withstand such pleasure and survive.

The next thing I knew I was flat on my back in the hay and he was on top of me, grinding his loins hard against mine. That was the moment when all the pleasure died. His hand was clamped hard over my mouth, and my legs, kicking futilely, were splayed wide around his hips, the pounding of my heels upon the wooden floor of the loft muffled by the straw we were lying upon. I felt a pain, like a railway spike was being driven between my thighs. I struggled and squirmed and tried to break free, to scratch and bite,
anything
to break free of him. He took his hand away, but before I could scream or wriggle free, his fist struck. I felt my lip split and tasted my own blood, salty and hot, as I lay back in the hay, still and stunned, stars dancing before my eyes. Then David was upon me again and a gushing wet warmth filled me, to mingle with my virgin blood, but it soon grew cold and did nothing to ease the burning pain.

I lay there gasping. I felt like a noose was tightening around my throat; I couldn't seem to get enough air.
What have I done? What have I done?
I kept desperately repeating in my mind. I had just given a woman's most precious gift, the one that can be given only once, the chastity that should be preserved for her wedding night, to this man who did not deserve it. No one must ever know, I decided then and there; this must be my most deeply guarded secret and go to the grave with me. If anyone ever found out, I would be ruined, or worse . . . I would be thrown into the prison of wedlock with David Anthony as my jailer.

David picked up my arm, as stiff and lifeless as a corpse's, and pulled my handkerchief from my sleeve, then let my arm fall back into the straw again. It was one of my best handkerchiefs, snowy white, painstakingly embroidered with my initials in blue silk thread. He reached under my skirt and roughly wiped at me. I winced at his touch, at the rawness, the terrible searing, throbbing pain. I briefly saw the bloodstain before he wadded the handkerchief up, wet and sticky, and thrust it into his pocket; then he retrieved my drawers from where they lay abandoned in the straw and pocketed them too.
Evidence, proof,
my befuddled brain instantly understood.

He stood up and stared down at me with hard, unfeeling eyes. I should have known he had no heart!

“Now you'll
have
to marry me.” He smiled fiendishly with a devilish gleam lighting up his eyes. “
You're caught!
”

As he towered over me and did up the row of small black buttons on the front of his trousers, he boasted to me about how fertile the Anthony men were. There was always more than one woman expecting in the family.

“
You're caught, Lizzie Borden; you're caught!
” He bolted from the barn laughing all the way, jubilant and mocking. He had set a trap for the miserly millionaire's daughter and I had walked right into it, blind and trusting.
I was a fool!
Father had been right all along! I was nothing but a dollar sign in men's eyes! No one would ever
really
love
me!

I do not know how long I lay there in that hay, weeping, with blood seeping from between my legs. At last, I struggled to my feet, blood crusted on my lips and chin and staining the collar of my shirtwaist where it had dripped down—I would tell everyone that I had tripped and fallen in the barn—and slowly made my way down the ladder. Wincing and nearly weeping at the raw stabbing soreness between my thighs, I hobbled into the kitchen. I remember thinking what an odd feeling it was to be naked underneath my skirts, to feel David's seed, mingling with my blood, trickling down my thighs to sop into my stocking tops.

I don't know how I did it without breaking down and weeping, sobbing the whole sorry story out to someone, anyone, but I managed to keep a calm exterior and tell the lie I had concocted about a fall as I was coming down the ladder from the loft, as I heated enough water to fill the tub and went down into the dark privacy of the cellar to bathe. I wanted to be clean. I wanted to forget. I wanted to wash away every trace of David Anthony from my life and skin and forget what he had done to me, even the pleasure that had come before the pain. But I was afraid of what he had left inside me, and I couldn't get that out of my mind, or, I feared, of my body.

I knew I should just wait for my courses to come. Worrying about it, and whether they would come or not, would do no good and might even delay them, but I couldn't help it; I couldn't stop thinking about it and what would happen to me if they didn't. Somehow I remembered the discreetly worded advertisements I had seen in the backs of women's magazines, the ones that promised a remedy for “delayed courses and feminine obstruction,” their discreet, coded references for unwanted or inconvenient pregnancies.

After I was bathed and dressed in clean clothes, everything fresh and uncontaminated by David Anthony, I found myself in the sitting room seated on the horsehair sofa where Father liked to nap in the afternoons, frantically flipping through old magazines searching for those ads.