In the Garden of Spite

by Camilla Bruce

  “Dr. Miller swore it was his heart,” I answered, and added a few more tears. “I have no reason to believe that the good doctor was wrong, and Mads wouldn’t leave me alone to fend for the children. He was a good man, he would never do anything wrong . . .”

  Mr. Jackson spoke again, while the clerk scribbled in a book. “You see why we have to investigate this, Mrs. Sorenson. There are irregularities here, suspicious circumstances—”

  “And the brother wrote,” the clerk piped up, looking at Mr. Jackson, not at me.

  “Yes, his brother wrote to us and advised us to take a closer look. That’s how we discovered the duplicate.”

  “My husband’s brother is a difficult man. He never much cared for me, nor for my children.” I could not help that my lips twisted up with distaste. He had surely succeeded in making my life miserable.

  “Why is that, Mrs. Sorenson?” Samuels asked. “Why did he not care for you?”

  “Well, for a long time God didn’t provide us with any children, and Oscar grew resentful of me then.” I rubbed my aching jaw.

  “Because you didn’t have children?”

  “Yes . . . I thought it got a little better after Caroline was born, but then she died and he resented me again. I have three healthy girls now, but he hasn’t changed his mind. He maybe thinks I held back on purpose. That I denied his brother a child.” I made it all up as I went along, one lie clasping hands with the other. Had not the circumstances been so dire, I would have quite enjoyed it. As it was, however, much was at stake, not least my neck.

  “His death will leave you a very wealthy woman,” Mr. Jackson said. “Have you given any thought to that?”

  “No. I rather think I’m poorer for it, being left a widow. What good is money, then, if you have lost someone you held dear?” I sniffled a little and looked away.

  “Are you yourself a religious woman, Mrs. Sorensen?”

  “Yes, very much so.” I cleared my throat.

  “So you wouldn’t lie about any of this?” Mr. Jackson asked.

  “No . . . no, I would not dream of lying!” I lifted my hands as in shock.

  “And you knew nothing about these policies?” His eyebrow lifted a little and the crook of his mouth too.

  “No.” I dabbed at my eyes again. “Maybe it’s merely an act of God.”

  When I finally left that office, I was rattled to the core. I had clearly underestimated Oscar as an opponent. This was not good. I walked on perilous ground, and I knew it. How long would it be before they found out about the fires? Everything could unravel.

  My greed had made me stupid.

  * * *

  —

  I did not like it at all, the scrutiny of the insurance companies, which kept pestering me and sending worrisome letters. Jennie cried in her bed at night because the children in school said her mother was a murderer. I could see the little rascals hiding in the garden sometimes; running off shrieking if they saw me. The aftermath of Mads’s death had quite ruined the new house for me; the wallpaper seemed gray, all the flowers withered, and the paint appeared stained. Everything was filthy. The crystal drops in the chandelier seemed dull with dust, the icebox reeked, and my pantry filled up again with more food than we could eat. The preserves in the cellar grew a thick crust of mold. The venom people threw at me festered and spread through everything. I found no peace, I found no sleep—this was no way to live.

  “I ought to burn it to the ground,” I told James Lee one night when the children were asleep. I had traded my usual brandy for whiskey; I found some solace in the strong fumes in those days. Outside the window, the greenery was giving way to fall’s wet decay. Everything smelled rotten, not sweet and green as before.

  “It’s not something I’d advise at this point.” James was wearing a suit that night: crumpled and worn but a suit nonetheless. His bowler hat sat on the table, next to a bowl of half-peeled potatoes; the jacket was flung over a chair.

  “There is a fire every day in this city.”

  “They are already looking too closely.”

  “They won’t find a thing.” I tightened my shawl around my shoulders. “Oscar doesn’t have the means to have them do the whole autopsy, and the insurance companies won’t pay for it.”

  “Still, they are watching you.”

  “They will never find me out. They never did before.”

  “You didn’t kill a man then.” He knocked back his whiskey and held out his glass for more. “Remember Mr. Holmes? He hanged.” James had been deeply fascinated with Mr. Holmes in the years after the world fair, when the newspapers were rife with stories of his murder hotel. He had admired Mr. Holmes’s cunning: how he had lured and killed his victims to sell the bodies to medical students and suchlike. James thought him clever to have constructed such a bold enterprise.

  “They won’t hang a widow and a mother,” I claimed.

  “Unless they do.” I could not read his face. “One never knows with such things; if they are angry enough, they will. They might find you a disgrace to motherhood itself, and then all bets are off. People so often adore their mothers.”

  I smiled at that last part and tasted my whiskey. “If I can make the insurance companies pay what they owe me for Mads’s death, and all suspicion goes away. I’ll torch the house then, not before.”

  He shook his head, but he was smiling too. “You are a fearless creature, Mrs. Sorensen.”

  “They never found me out before,” I repeated.

  “One day they might.” His brow creased with concern.

  “But not today. I have some devil’s luck in me yet.” I had to believe that. I clung to that notion with all my might.

  “And if they do pay—both companies—what will you do then?”

  I looked down at the table, where the Chicago Tribune rested with grease-stained pages. “I haven’t decided yet. Perhaps I’ll buy a farm. I see advertisements for fine pieces of land all the time.”

  “Surely not a pig farm.” James’s face fell.

  I shrugged. “Peter Gunness’s wife is pregnant but very ill. They don’t expect her to last.”

  “And now you want to take up with that butcher?”

  “As I said, I haven’t decided yet. First I have to manage not to hang.” I closed the newspaper and pushed it away. What good were dreams if I could not achieve them?

  James would not let the subject of Mr. Gunness go. “Is he your lover yet?”

  I did not answer; what was it to James? None of his concern. “He is a fine and decent man. A good father too, I think.” I lifted my chin a little when I looked at him.

  “He will never satisfy you.” The lips below the mustache tightened.

  “How do you know? He has a bloody trade.” Our gazes met across the table. He lifted his chin a little too, to match me.

  “He will never be one of us.” James’s voice was full of contempt.

  “Neither would I want him to be.” I could not help but laugh. “I just need him to raise pigs and take care of us all.” I looked away, to the stove, filthy with soot and food spills, and the bowl on the counter, brimming with rotting vegetables. These latest debacles had left me weak, sloppy, and blind to decay.

  “You lust for him, that’s it.” James lit a cigar and blue smoke rose toward the ceiling.

  “Would you judge me if I did?” My eyes were back on him. Our gazes dueled across the table; his was glittering and dark, with a sharp, sharp edge.

  “Who am I to judge you?” James dropped his gaze, drank again, and left his glass to hover in midair. “I’ve always had the utmost respect for your lust.” He added a lazy smile.

  “I know you do.” I smiled as well, and marveled at how his shifting eyes could still make my breath catch in my throat. “You have always been good to me in that way.”

  “I hope I always will be.” He set his
glass back down, leaned over the table, and caught my face in his hands. Then he kissed me. His breath was strong with drink, his lips as soft as ever. I only flinched a little when he bit me, and the taste of iron flooded my tongue. I reached with my hand for the peeling knife on the table and pressed it to his throat, not hard, but not too gently either. The knife was sharp enough, newly cleaned and whetted. I could tell from his breathing that he liked it, having the steel there where his vein throbbed. I knew he would be hard by now, aching for release.

  “Come.” My voice was a little bit husky when I spoke. I was not unmoved by him either. I lowered the knife but kept it with me as I led him by the hand through my night-quiet house, passing the open door to the children’s room. I did not stop before we stood on the chilly floor in my bedroom, where the massive bed stood empty with no simpering fool in it. “I know you always wanted to play the husband.”

  He laughed, utterly delighted. “What a gift, Bella, my dear. Your marriage bed at last.”

  “Only for a visit,” I said, but I laughed too. I whimpered when he pushed me up against the wall and fondled my breasts through the cloth of my dress and the stiff panes of my corset. His lips were at my throat, his favorite spot, and he chewed at the soft flesh there. I dropped the knife to the floor, dug my fingernails into his scalp, and spread my legs when he tugged at my skirts. By the time his hand reached its mark, I was slick around his fingers.

  Over his shoulder, I saw the open closet where Mads’s ironed shirts still hung.

  “On the bed,” I whispered, flushed with want, and pushed him roughly away, only to attack him when we tumbled onto the mattress, clothes and hair in disarray.

  I pulled my dress over my head and he fished the knife from the floor to slice the strip of satin that held the hooks of the corset—too eager now to bother with them. Not once did I flinch when the cool metal moved close to my skin. My breasts lay large and heavy in his hands; he fondled them greedily and licked them with his tongue.

  I pushed him over then so he lay on his back with me on top, and wrung the fabric of his shirt away from his chest. The peeling knife was back in my hand and I let it play ever so lightly over his nipples while straddling his hips, feeling his want for me strain against the fabric of his pants. He moaned and cursed me, sucked in a sharp breath as the knife drew blood. Not much; just a smear. The look of it on his pale skin excited me even more and I bent down to lick the little wound, earning me another outcry from James. His hand was in my hair, pulling hard to lift my head, and when I did, he kissed me again, breath hot and strained on my skin.

  I was done playing. I sat back up and pulled his pants and underwear down his legs, far enough that I could get what I wanted. I climbed back on top of him and slipped him inside me. I always relished that moment, that delicious few seconds when he entered me fully and I could squeeze him hard with my insides. I still held the knife while I rode him, wild and carefree. My hair had come undone by then; my skin was slick with salt, and the pewter button danced on its chain. James convulsed beneath me when he came—and I did too, right there on Mads’s bed. Just to spite.

  James knew me well enough to know it. When we lay resting in each other’s arms, he said, “You and your contempt for all and everything. You will torch the house again just to spite them, won’t you? If you win the insurance claim.”

  “I’m good with spite,” I told him. “And the devil hasn’t let me down yet.”

  “No.” James chuckled. “I suppose he is far too amused by your antics.”

  * * *

  —

  Eventually, the insurance companies had to give in. They had no evidence against me.

  I went to their offices every day for a week, with all the girls, complaining about my misery. “How am I to feed these girls?” I asked Mr. Jackson with tears in my eyes. “How are they to live now that their father is dead and buried? It’s certainly not their fault that he died on such a troublesome day.”

  Jennie sometimes cried at these meetings, from fear I suppose, as she disliked angry voices, but it certainly was effective. Lucy rode on my hip, dazzling the world with her large blue eyes. Myrtle clung to my skirts, as if I were the longed-for harbor in a terrible storm.

  It was all so very perfect—and the insurance men in their fine suits could not wait to have us out the doors, promising a little too much, perhaps, in their eagerness to see us go.

  No one wants a weeping widow standing on their marble floors, clutching a brood of little angels and lamenting the company’s heartlessness to every passing soul. It does not speak well for their business.

  Oscar had gone home at last. His silly experiment with the autopsy had been stranded when he ran out of money, and the new examination of the body had ended before they even got to the heart. They had not found anything to condemn me, and I always made a point of reminding Mr. Jackson and Mr. Wicker of that fact.

  Oscar did me a favor in that way.

  What he had done to cause me grief was telling every one of my neighbors and acquaintances of his suspicions. I saw it in the eyes of every wife on the street, and every deliveryman who came to my door, that they had all heard about the life insurance and Oscar’s vile claims. No wonder my girl was being teased in school, when her uncle had been out spreading rumors about me.

  But no one could prove a thing, and eventually I was paid.

  Shortly after the insurance money arrived, I had James set a fire in the cellar in Alma Street, as I felt it would be better if we lived somewhere else. The children and I escaped out on the street, where kindly neighbors comforted us while the firemen battled the flames.

  It did not burn down, which annoyed me some but pleased me too. Perhaps it would not be so bad to move back in if it was all redone and furnished with new things. The dream of a farm kept haunting me, though. I could not cease longing for privacy and peace. Even when we lived temporarily on Sophia Street while our own house was being repaired, I felt I was being looked at everywhere I went—that the taint of suspicion was with me always.

  Jennie still cried every night.

  I had money, though, and that was some comfort. Even if my nights were sleepless, I knew I could fill my pantry.

  I had James set a fire on Sophia Street too, so I could get rid of the furniture from Alma Street, which smelled charred even after airing. It was better that the insurance company paid for the new things than I.

  After both fires, they grumbled but could not prove a thing. At the last fire, I was not even in the house. “Maybe someone has it in for me,” I suggested. “Maybe someone wants to see me stranded without a home. Someone, perhaps, with a grudge.” I was thinking of Oscar, of course. It could not hurt to sow a tiny suspicion that perhaps he had agents with ill intent. I dearly wanted to get back at him for all the grief he had cost me, and he was a lucky man to live as far away as he did.

  Should our paths ever cross again, I would surely repay him with interest.

  The children and I went back to Alma Street after the renovation, but despite the new boards and paint, it still felt like a murky place, festering from within the walls.

  I craved for a new life for us, my girls and me, far away from suspicions.

  Surely I had earned as much, after all the trouble I had seen.

  26.

  Nellie

  At first, when Bella asked me, I was adamant that I would not go. There was my back, for one, which prevented all comfortable travel, and then there was the rest of it: how Mads’s death had left such a bad taste behind, and the fear that sometimes gripped me at night and woke me up with a sense of being choked, covered in cold sweats and beset with shivers.

  I no longer felt at ease around my sister.

  John knew it, and sometimes asked me after we had gone to bed for the night.

  “What is it that bothers you so?” he would say with worry in his dark gaze. His hair had turned
gray, and his skin was wrinkled, but his good sense and kindness had not changed.

  “Nothing,” I would say, but the lie would almost choke me, make my voice come out thick and muffled.

  “Then why are you so rarely there anymore?” The way he looked at me then, as if daring me to voice what was truly the issue. He knew very well what was being said about Bella, but he seldom mentioned it at home, as he knew that it would upset me. My children knew as well. Olga would frown and sneer at it all, claiming the rumors to be nothing but lies. Rudolph took a more thoughtful approach, and remarked once, at one Sunday dinner, that their marriage had indeed been a powder keg. Little Nora, at thirteen, got in trouble at school for threatening to send her aunt after some boys who had teased her and called her names.

  “Well, they did stop,” she said when I confronted her. “No one wants to make Aunt Bella angry.”

  Nora was the only one of my children who still lived with us. Olga had taken a room above the hosiery store where she worked, and Rudolph shared a room with a friend. It felt empty and lonely without them, but they were growing up, and I had been much younger myself when I left home. The rooms around me seemed vast without them, though, and I missed the bustle in the mornings and the sounds they made at night. I truly should have spent more time with my nieces, helping Bella out—but I found it so hard to be there.

  I believed her, I told myself. Of course I did believe her.

  What else was there to do but believe?

  And yet I woke up in a choke hold, covered in slick, salty sweat.

  “That Oscar is long gone now,” John said the night after she had asked me to go. “He did not find a thing. I think it’s only because Bella and Mads fought like they did that people think such vile things now.”

  “I know,” I mumbled into the pillow. “But it was that date he died . . .” This was the closest I had ever come to voicing my shameful doubt, and John took a hold of me and pulled me close to his chest.