The Secrets of Lizzie Borden

by Brandy Purdy

  I was on the landing when there was an exasperated rattling followed by a loud, sharp knock at the front door. Bridget and I both froze. Our eyes met. All the color drained from our faces. Bridget silently crossed herself. I watched the motion of her hand; moving from brow to breast, shoulder to shoulder, it seemed to take forever. In those moments—I know they were mere moments—Time seemed as sluggish as my feet and hardly to move at all. But the odd, slow sensation only lasted an instant; then life was speeding by as though I were watching it all from the window of a moving train.

  Thinking so quickly I surprised even myself, I took off my hat and yanked off my gloves and tossed them down to Bridget.

  “I’ve just come in!” I whispered.

  She nodded and set them down, then braced herself, squared her shoulders, and at a nod from me went to open the door.

  It was Father. While she was tending me and cleaning up the mess I had made, Bridget had had the good sense to lock the front door from the inside, rendering Father’s key useless.

  I forced a smile and went down to greet him.

  “I’m sorry, Father.” I hugged him and kissed his cheek. “How thoughtless of me. I’ve only just come in. I wasn’t thinking and must have locked the door.”

  “How typically careless of you, Lizzie,” Father said as he shrugged out of his old musty black Prince Albert coat and swatted away the hands I raised to help him. “I would only be disappointed if I dared let myself expect more from you these days. But I know you all too well, my girl—you never take the time to do anything right!”

  “Father!” I cried, leaping back as though he had just struck me. “That’s hardly fair! Anyone can make a mistake—”

  “Here!” He thrust his coat at me. “Hang this up! And make sure you take the time to do it right so it doesn’t wrinkle or fall on the floor.”

  “Yes, Father.” I sighed dutifully, clutching the coat against my chest as though it could hide my heart’s frantic pounding. I didn’t feel like arguing; trying to defend and justify myself was just a waste of words and never yielded the hoped-for results. I should have given up a long, long time ago. Why bother? He had made up his mind and Father was always right about everyone and everything.

  “Where is your stepmother?” he asked.

  “She’s gone out.” I had to think of something—and quickly! “There was a note.... Someone was sick!”

  “Who?” Father asked.

  “I don’t know. I was still feeling under the weather when I came downstairs—really, Father, if we make one more meal of that mutton I’m sure it will be the death of us all!—and I saw her with the note, but I wasn’t really paying attention. . . .” I smiled and shrugged apologetically as I trailed after him into the sitting room with his coat still draped over my arms.

  “If someone else is sick it can hardly be the mutton,” Father said. “Something must be going around.”

  “You look a trifle peaked, Father,” I ventured. “Wouldn’t you like to lie down on the sofa for a bit? A nap might make you feel better. I promise I will call you the moment Abby comes in.”

  “Yes.” Father nodded. “I think I will.” He lay down, or rather half-reclined, on our hard, unyielding black monstrosity of a sofa. It was too short for him to stretch out properly upon, but it had come with the house.

  “Hang that coat up properly, Lizzie,” Father called after me, “before it gets wrinkled or you lay it down God only knows where and forget all about it.”

  “Yes, Father.” I just nodded and smiled, like the good dutiful daughter he expected me to be.

  As I went to hang it up, wrinkling my nose at the rank odor that rose from it—it really needed a good washing, but Father would wear the same suit every day—a stiff roll of papers bound with twine fell from the pocket. I picked it up. With a glance back toward the sitting room, to make sure Father wasn’t standing in the doorway watching me to make sure I treated his coat properly, I called back cheerily, “I’ll be in the kitchen if you want me, Father; I have some handkerchiefs to iron.”

  If he answered, I didn’t hear him. I had already torn off the twine and unrolled the document and discovered that it was his will and that he had already damned me before David Anthony even had a chance. Though it had not yet been signed and witnessed, it was only a matter of time. “I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. . . .”

  He had set it all down in black and white, for a lawyer to read aloud, for everyone to know, after he died, telling the world that Emma and I were a pair of frivolous and foolish, naïve, and gullible old maids who didn’t know the value of a dollar and could not be trusted to govern and guard ourselves wisely, or the fortune he had spent a lifetime accumulating, against the ravages of fortune hunters and our own imprudent impulses. Thus the bulk of his estate would go to his loyal and obedient widow, the ever dutiful Abby Durfee Gray Borden, to administer as he herein decreed. “He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat . . .

  “Oh, be swift, my soul to answer Him . . .”

  As for Emma and me, his flesh and blood daughters, he was leaving us a measly $25,000 each in trust to be administered by Abby, to be doled out as she saw fit, at her discretion, and upon her death a suitable administrator of her choosing was to carry on the task as long as we lived, making us beg and account for every cent.

  From beyond the grave, Father would continue to control us; we would never be free of him. I had wasted my youth, miserably and helplessly watched it pass by, for NOTHING, $25,000—not even $1,000 for every squandered stolen year of my life! Thirty-two years wasted, sitting wretchedly at his feet, like an odalisque in a tyrannical sultan’s harem, suffering and secretly seething, Die, just die, before it’s too late for me to live! And the cage wasn’t even gilded, the shackles weren’t silver, only the cheapest and basest of base metals that raised an angry maddeningly painful red rash upon my very soul. And now . . . now Emma and I were, by this document, bound forever by Father’s will, denied all hope, and even the dream, of the freedom that only money can buy. We would be slaves in one form or fashion until our dying day, like chattels, imbeciles, and little children on a penny per week allowance, denied the right to choose, to live our lives as we saw fit; we must always answer to another.

  Even if Abby didn’t long survive Father, with the reins of power so firmly in her grasp she was certain to remember every petty slight and pain we had caused her and pass them on to her precious piglet, Sarah, and she would not hesitate to make us suffer for every tear we had caused Abby to shed! Even if Abby didn’t, Sarah would be sure to humble us; she’d have us barefoot and in burlap sacks if she could! And, by Father’s will, she could! Abby would cede that power on to her! I was so outraged, I completely forgot that Abby was dead!

  He might as well entomb us with him, like the pharaohs used to do to ensure their slaves would be there to serve them in the afterlife! I thought as I crumpled Father’s will furiously in my fist. I felt rage, rabid, red-hot rage, like a feral cat trapped inside me, yowling, scratching, biting, clawing, desperate to get out! Without even stopping to consider the consequences, I shoved Father’s will into the stove and slammed the lid. Burn, burn, burn! I silently screamed. Devil take your will! Burn in Hell, Father! I will be your slave no longer!

  And then a glint of silver caught my eye. Tempting me, enticing me, a second time. “I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish’d rows of steels, as ye deal with my condemners so with you My grace shall deal . . .” There was “the Great Emancipator” lying on the table where Bridget had left it, ready to free me from bondage once and for all if I only dared use it. And I did dare! I DID! Oh by God and the Devil I DID, Heaven help me!

  “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. . . .”

  Father would die to make me free.

  It was the only way. . . .

  The next thing I knew the red mist was receding and I was lying huddled on the blood-speckled faded flowers of the sitting room car
pet sobbing at Father’s feet, naked except for the blood-soaked towel between my thighs and Father’s Prince Albert coat—I couldn’t let him see me naked; he might have laughed! He would have certainly told me that I was fat. He always told me that; I was his “piggy in a blue gown.”

  “The Great Emancipator’s” silver blade was buried deep in Father’s mangled red and now unrecognizable face, cleaving his left eyeball in half. It was dangling by its bloody roots down against the bare bones of his cheek.

  A red bubble burst inside my brain and I saw my fat, blotchy breast pop out of Father’s black coat as I hefted the hatchet high above my head. Father’s eyes snapped open wide. He was LOOKING at me! He was about to say something.... I knew it would be mean!

  “DON’T LOOK AT ME!” I screamed, and brought the blade down.

  A thick spurt of hot blood hit my face, just like a fist. I staggered back, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t! I thought of the will—his will telling the world that I was a fool and a spendthrift, too stupid to govern myself, to know what my own best interests were, that a stupid cow had more common sense than me. How could he do this to me?

  I raised the hatchet high and brought it crashing down on Father’s face again. “He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. . . .” It wasn’t a sword, it was a hatchet, but it was sharp, angry steel just the same! Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, over and over and over again! Ten or eleven times the coroner afterward said, but to me it felt like a hundred.

  How dare he look at me, at my ugly naked flesh and even uglier angry naked soul? How dare he make me his slave for thirty-two years—wasting MY life away when I was on FIRE to LIVE, LIVE, LIVE!—and then try to keep me chained and bound to him even beyond the grave? To give my deed to Abby, to let her own and control me the way he dictated! Negroes were free, but women were still slaves, their father’s property until he deeded them over to a husband he deemed worthy, but if no worthy husband ever appeared. . . slaves to the parental hearth and home until death set them free one way or another, but my father had found a legally binding way to circumvent that and keep me imprisoned eternally until... “The Great Emancipator” struck blow after mighty, bloody blow to set Lizzie Borden free! “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, with a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” I won my freedom and baptized it in blood, with Death acting as midwife at the bloody birth that spawned my new life! In one blood-bathed day I was transfigured! I was set FREE! Free, rich, and orphaned all in the same bloody day!

  Then Bridget was there, just like before, crouching down beside me, comforting me. “Glory, glory hallelujah!” It was over! I was free! She took care of me, just like she had before. She carefully shucked Father’s coat from my shoulders and wadded it up and thrust it beneath his head, since it was covered in blood and too bulky to burn in the kitchen stove.

  Bridget carefully pried the blade from Father’s face and reverently carried “the Great Emancipator” away. God bless you, President Lincoln! I thought as I caught a last fleeting glimpse of his profile imprinted in the wood of my savior’s hickory handle. You set me free, just like you did the slaves!

  More newspapers, more bloody towels. I was having a painful and heavy period. Then I was clean again and back in my comfy old soiled and faded blue diamond housedress, my town clothes had been put away, and Bridget and I were sitting at the kitchen table, heads together, hands tightly clasped, as we hurriedly pieced together our story. A note had come for Mrs. Borden, from someone who was sick, we didn’t know who, we were both still feeling poorly from the night before and barely paying attention, and Abby had rushed out without even changing into a proper town dress. Bridget had been washing the windows all morning but had been taken ill and after vomiting in the yard had come in to have a little lie down, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes or so. Then, feeling better, she returned to her work; she wasn’t a one to leave a task undone. And I had been lounging about not doing much of anything all day. I had trifled over my breakfast of cookies and coffee and taken a few bites of a banana while leafing through an old magazine and waiting for the iron to heat so I could iron some handkerchiefs. When Father came in I was there at the door to welcome him, just like I always did, and see him settled comfortably on the sofa for his nap. Then someone had come in and killed him. Bridget and I heard nothing, saw nothing. I just walked into the sitting room and there he was, dead on the sofa, his face a bloody mangled mess with one eyeball dangling against the bare bones of his cheek. It was a sight I would never forget no matter how hard I prayed to.

  I tried to take it all in, really I did, but I was feeling sluggish and heavy headed, like I was walking underwater again in leaden shoes and hems, Bridget’s urgent words reaching me as though from far, far away. I could tell she was badly shaken as well, though she was trying hard not to show it. No wonder there were so many inconsistencies when the time came for us to tell our stories under scrutiny. Neither of us realized that the alleged note would become so vital, that it would be endlessly sought for and debated; rewards would even be offered if the author would only come forward, but no one ever did, because there was never any note at all; it was entirely our own invention.

  “I’m goin’ for Dr. Bowen now,” Bridget said as she let go of my hands and got up from the table.

  But I snatched them back and clutched them to my breast. “Bridget!” I cried fervently. “Promise you’ll never leave me!”

  “I promise.” She bent swiftly and kissed my cheek, but she lied. She lied! She never really came back, not to me. No one stays; everyone goes. No one loves me; everyone knows.

  I trailed after her to the back door and leaned there, slumping against the screen, watching her round the corner, heading across the street to Dr. Bowen’s house. Nosey old Mrs. Churchill, our next-door neighbor, was peeping through her curtains.

  “Is something wrong, Lizzie?” Her voice floated out to me.

  I heard myself answer, “Oh, Mrs. Churchill, do come over! Someone has killed Father!”

  The next thing I knew I was swooning in a rocking chair and she was leaning over me, laying a cold compress across my brow and rubbing my hands vigorously.

  “I shall have to send for the undertaker,” I think I said. I was so deep underwater and my words were up there bobbing on the surface with the waves crashing around them. Then Mrs. Churchill was leaning over me again, speaking comforting words and rubbing my hands, I saw her mouth moving, but the waves were crashing and roaring so loudly I couldn’t hear a word she said; I only knew that her mouth was moving. And the stars came to dance before my eyes. I knew they weren’t fireworks. It was past the Fourth of July.

  A parade of brass-buttoned blue-uniformed policemen passed before my eyes. They all had different names and faces, but I couldn’t tell them apart. They all looked the same. Blue coats, brass buttons. I don’t think I ever saw so many handlebar mustaches in my life! And questions! So many questions! “Where is Mrs. Borden?” Note. Sick friend. “I think I heard her come in. Oh, do go and look, Mrs. Churchill!” A scream from upstairs. A syringe in Dr. Bowen’s kind, capable hands, a needle pricked my arm, and I think my head floated away and got lost in the clouds and then they burst into powder and Lulie Stillwell was there, stark naked and smiling at me.

  Concerned women from the neighborhood hovered over me uttering comforting words and condolences as I lay upon my bed, wandering half-lost in a lovely world of hazy morphine dreams. I smiled and said, “Thank you, you are very kind,” every time anyone spoke to me, and turned my flushed, hot pink face into my pillow and let them think I was stifling tears instead of laughter, because they would have died if they had known I was thinking about Lulie all the time they were being so very kind to me.

  Someone, Alice Russell I think, helped me change my dress. An excuse to search my body for wounds and bl
oodstains no doubt, but the only blood was oozing out between my legs, and that explained the one tiny dot on the back of my petticoat. I left the soiled towel to soak in the pail beneath my bed with the rest, I would attend to them later, and obediently donned the fresh one Alice handed me. Then I let her help me into clean undergarments, meekly stepping into the drawers she held open for me and raising my arms so she could slide a chemise and then a petticoat over my head. Glassy-eyed and docile, I stood still and let her help guide my arms into the sleeves of my candy-pink-and-white-striped housedress. As she fastened the gay red belt around my waist, I regarded the stripes on my sleeves and smiled. That delicious bright pink had me thinking of Lulie again. But I didn’t care! I just wanted to lie down and lose myself in a world of dreams, to turn back time . . . to unmake the mistakes I’d made. Lulie should never have married Johnny Hiram; she should have been mine!

  Late that afternoon Emma arrived, gnawing at her lips and wringing a tear-drenched handkerchief in her hands, summoned back from Fairhaven by an urgent telegram from Dr. Bowen. I remember her leaning over my bed, her dark eyes boring into mine.

  “Lizzie, did you . . .” she began tremulously, the words hovering, trembling like tears, upon her raw, bitten lips.

  “Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies,” I whispered back dreamily.

  And she never did. Never!

  Of course Emma knew the moment she looked into my eyes, but she would spend the rest of her life pretending not to and in public she became my staunchest defender, especially after I told her about Father’s will. But in private, a wall of impenetrable ice grew up between us.

  I always thought Emma was the strongest one, the one with all the backbone despite her brittle, fragile appearance. But Emma had been content only to grumble like a sour stomach, to damn Abby with every glance and thwart her plans whenever she had the chance. Cordially detesting our stepmother had been Emma’s way of dealing with the situation. Her fury was meek and mostly obedient. But I . . . I had taken up the hatchet and actually done something about it! I had hacked away the chains and set us both free. Emma’s public support was her way of thanking me. But when we were alone and no other eyes were watching us, we were sisters bound by blood and secrets only; otherwise we were cold and chilly strangers.