The Secrets of Lizzie Borden (15 page)

There were several of them, more than I remembered from the casual, mildly curious glances I had given them in the past when I had no need of them. My eye lit upon three nestled right in a row.

But
which
to choose? Dr. Harmony seemed commendably straightforward, a man who seemed to understand the worries and woe that went hand in hand with my predicament, and even sugar-coated his pills to make them more palatable, but Swami Fecundi had
centuries
of success on his side and
thousands
of testimonials from satisfied customers all over the world. He was a holy man with exotic wisdom and herbs and his spiel had me swaying like a charmed cobra in his direction.

But then I thought that surely, in a situation like this, a
woman,
and a worldly, sophisticated
French
woman at that,
must
know best? And with
Saint
as part of her name, well,
surely
that was a good sign. A saint wouldn't lie!

And wasn't Saint Genevieve some sort of patron saint to troubled girls, or had she saved a village from a horde of raping and pillaging barbarian invaders? It seemed like I had seen a shrine to her somewhere during my travels or read an informative tidbit somewhere. Perhaps upon a bronze plaque mounted on a church wall or in a magazine or
Baedeker?
Or it might have been a romance novel wherein a troubled heroine had knelt veiled and in tears and lit candles before the saint's benevolent statue. But it seemed a most fortuitous memory, perhaps even a gift from that very saint to
this
troubled girl besieged by the barbarian David Anthony.

I made up my mind then and there to put my trust in Madame Saint-Genevieve. Praying that the address was still good—the magazine was after all several months old—I ran upstairs to address the envelope and enclose the requisite dollar.

I
had
to take action. I couldn't wait for Mother Nature to tell me if I was in trouble. My courses weren't due for over two weeks and that seemed an eternity, and I didn't want to wait for them, I knew all too well their leisurely, laggardly ways. I wanted the blood to come
now
and set me free from this prison of uncertainty and panic! I wanted to bleed and be done with it, and David Anthony, forever! I prayed that Madame Saint-Genevieve's promises were real and that she would be my salvation and the answer to my prayers.

Even though my hair was still wet, I put up my braid and pinned on my hat and set out for the post office. I
needed
my dollar to start its journey today; I
needed
to know that my remedy was on its way, and if my courses came before it did . . . it was only
one
dollar wasted in the quest for peace of mind, so it was worth it. As I strode boldly down the sidewalk, I felt my confidence returning now that I was actually
doing
something to save myself from a fate worse than death instead of sitting around waiting, worrying, and wallowing in misery.

 

Madame Saint-Genevieve was prompt, not fashionably late like I feared a Frenchwoman would be. The remedy arrived on Tuesday, August 2, 1892. She kept her promise of assured discretion, sending the preparation in a plain white wrapper bearing the elegant fleur-de-lis-embossed label of
Madame Saint-Genevive de Paris, Parfumier to Royalty,
but I can't really say whether it contained a miracle or not.

Father brought the mail home with him after his daily business rounds. An immense sense of relief filled me as I held the small discreet packet that contained my salvation in my trembling hands. I took it into the kitchen. Bridget was occupied elsewhere, and the stew made from the leftover mutton was simmering on the stove and didn't require her attention. I stood beside the stove and threw the wrapper in to feed the fire. I held the little amber glass vial of hope in my hand and pulled out the cork that sealed it and shook two little brown pills out onto my palm, which was quivering like a leaf. At that most inconvenient moment, Father called me. I heard footsteps and thought he was about to come in. I nearly leapt out of my skin. The vial and pills fell from my hand and, with a splash that sent a spray of scalding droplets onto my face, plummeted into the mutton stew. I burned my hand trying to fish them out before I thought to use a spoon, but it was too late. All I was able to retrieve was the empty vial; the pills had already melted and mingled with the mutton broth.

Hopelessness overwhelmed me. I stared despairingly down into the nauseating muddy brown depths of the mutton stew after my lost hope and wondered what to do. I could not take it upon myself to throw it out, or even feign an accident by knocking the pot off the stove, though it would have brought joy to every soul in the house except Father; we'd been having it for days on end for every meal and could not wait to see the last of it. But Father would have been
furious
at such wastefulness. That was why we were having mutton in the hottest summer Fall River had ever known; he had been given the meat by the tenant of our Swansea farm, and we had to make use of it quickly before it spoiled.

Abby had already tentatively voiced her concern that it might have gone bad already; she'd been feeling a trifle poorly since the mutton sandwich she'd brought up to bed with her last night. But Father scoffed at her concerns. There were few things he deplored more than the wasting of food, and as long as there was a morsel of meat left or a drop of juice that mutton would be on our table and there was no getting round it. Nor would he sanction anyone in the household eating anything else than what was laid before them on the table; he even balked at special food for invalids. “You will eat what is set before you or go without,” he always said. “There will be no special meals in
this
house!” To think, I actually feared Father's anger more than I did accidentally poisoning us all!

So, foolishly, I did nothing. I just let the pot sit and simmer until supper. Perhaps it was naïve of me, but with all the advertisement's promises of safety and gentleness, I didn't think it would hurt anyone. It was an herbal preparation after all, not poison. Since no one else was in the same predicament I feared that I was in, I thought it would just pass through their bodies harmlessly as water. Madame Saint-Genevieve had promised that it did its work without pain or nausea or detrimental effects of any kind and she, this acclaimed Parisian specialist with
Saint
in her name, certainly didn't strike me as a charlatan who would presume to peddle a dishonest product in the pages of a popular and highly respected women's magazine. The publishers most assuredly would not stand for it; they had a reputation to uphold, and there
must
be laws about that kind of thing. And they must think very highly of her indeed to put her on the same page, in the
same column,
as the compassionate and renowned Dr. Harmony and a holy man like Swami Fecundi! Why the latter must practically be upon a par with the Pope!

Father, as a man, should have been immune, and Abby was well past childbearing years. Emma's courses had also stopped; she was, regrettably, in all ways withered and dried up, and she was away visiting the Brownells in Fairhaven, so she would not be affected by my blunder at all. Bridget and I were the only women in the household of childbearing age, and she did not even have a fellow as far as I knew, and thus no cause for concern, so surely it would not hurt her. Madame Saint-Genevieve promised prominently in all capital letters that her product posed no detriment to future health and domestic happiness.

And it was a big stewpot, and there were only six, or maybe eight, or ten at most, tiny pills. So
surely
there was
nothing
to worry about. I only hoped, whatever little bit I ingested, might be enough to do me some good and save me from the bleak future I feared and foresaw for myself trapped in wedded misery with David Anthony. If I were found out to be with child by him, he would be compelled to make an honest woman of me, and that was what he had intended all along. That I did not want him was both insignificant and immaterial. We must save face and do what was morally and socially proper; Father was certain to insist upon it, and the Anthonys doubtlessly would also.

 

We had all gone to bed by nine o'clock because of Father's maddeningly incessant nightly reminders that kerosene and candles cost money, money that should be saved and invested to make
more
money, not squandered on creature comforts.

I lay in my bed, in stifling hot misery listening to the crickets chirp and a dog barking in the distance. I
hated
August! Everyone said that this was the hottest summer they could remember. In my thirty-two years I certainly could not recall a hotter one. Even the night brought little relief; though I left my windows open wide in eager invitation, no breeze crept through the mesh of the screen to stir the lace curtains. It was too hot to sleep. And I was too restless, too worried. Already my sheets were damp with sweat; my lightweight summer nightgown stuck to my body and, with the sodden sheets, tangled my limbs. I hated the way my thighs rubbed together whenever I moved. I lifted my arms above my head but instantly put them down again, sickened by the smell emanating from my armpits. Sweat pooled beneath my breasts, irritating the skin, and when I sat up, freed from the daytime prison of my corset, they felt uncomfortably heavy and pendulous. Despite the delight it can give, a bountiful bosom can be a bane at times. I never felt clean in summer, oil seeped from the pores of my face and no matter how often I washed it, it didn't seem to help. I
longed
for a proper bathtub, to immerse myself in the blissful chill of cold running water and to lie back and dream that I was a mermaid, a sensual, bare-breasted red-haired siren, trying to beguile a ship full of handsome sailors trapped by the ice of an Arctic expedition. My hair frizzed damply about my face. Though I had braided it tight, already my braid was a fuzzy, bedraggled mess. I felt so restless, I wanted to get up and walk, pace, and move about, but I knew that with the paper-thin walls and the way all the rooms opened into one another I could not do so without disturbing Father and Abby, sleeping, or trying to, on the other side of the locked door blocked, and half-concealed, by my bureau. And I was too distracted to read. I could get up, pour water in the basin, and wet a cloth and wash, I thought, but the water would be warm from the heat and provide little relief; my discomfort would be restored to the full degree within moments, so it was hardly worth the bother.

Impulsively I sat up and yanked my nightgown over my head and flung it aside. I turned around and lay down again with my head at the foot of the bed and propped my legs high against the wall. Feet braced flat against the faded wallpaper, I spread them wide, and felt a wanton thrill as my hand dipped greedily between my thighs. The door leading into my bedroom did not have a lock; Emma's room was a dead end, she could not gain entrance to it any other way except by passing through mine, but Emma was away . . . and the other two doors posed no threat. The one leading into the master bedroom was locked and blocked by my bureau, and the guest room was empty, and the door was half blocked by my desk, so I was really quite safe. But still . . . If I were caught in such a position. . . the shame, the humiliation. Father might even part with some of his cherished dollars to consult one of those doctors who specialized in madwomen whose symptoms often took the form of unabashed wantonness. I had to put a hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle, though it really was no laughing matter.

But the truth was my shocking behavior was born more out of boredom than any real desire; it was just something to do, and I was trying not to think about what was happening inside me. Even though I was not hungry, I had forced myself to eat more of the mutton stew than I had any appetite for. I knew the medicine would be greatly diluted and I wanted to ingest enough to do me some good. But, so far, I felt nothing, no signs or clues to tell me it was working. Sometimes I thought I felt a slight heaviness, a sluggishness, and a bloated feeling in my stomach and a faint ache below, as I normally did each month, but a part of me was afraid I was only imagining it, that it was wishful thinking, because I wanted it
so much
.
Please, God, please, Madame Saint-Genevieve,
I prayed as my hand moved rapidly, slick and sweaty between my thighs,
bring my courses on NOW!

A moan on the other side of the wall startled me and I started up guiltily and grabbed my nightgown. I sometimes think this style of house is called “cracker box” because the walls are as thin as cheap crackers. In Father and Abby's room someone moaned again and made a desperate scramble for their slop pail and began to vomit. These sounds were repeated as the room's other occupant did likewise. Then came the sputtering of watery bowels. This continued throughout the night.

But I still felt fine and eventually drifted off to sleep. Around six o'clock, however, an urgent loosening in my bowels caused me to start awake. My skin was hot and clammy and my throat was burning as though it were on fire. I barely managed to squat over my slop pail in time before the vile torrent was unleashed. But it was an upset of the stomach, not what I had been hoping for; there was still no sign of that.

At half past nine when I went downstairs, Abby was as white as Death, shivering, despite the sheen of sweat on her brow, sitting at the table in abject misery, complaining that since last night her throat had felt as if she had swallowed a lit match, and such cramps assailed her stomach she felt as if she were being stabbed by a hundred knives. She shivered and complained of clammy skin, then was interrupted by the sudden need to vomit again.

A little while later, though she knew Father would disapprove, she stole across the street to see Dr. Bowen. He was most sympathetic. He blamed her illness on the mutton; he suspected it had gone putrid in the hot weather. After she had vomited again right there in his office he prescribed a dose of castor oil to be washed down with a small glass of port wine, and even escorted her back across the street so he could see for himself how the rest of us fared. I was simply
mortified
when Father, despite feeling poorly himself, ordered him out and told him in no uncertain terms that his services were not required and, furthermore, not to even think of sending him a bill for a house call he had not requested.