Lizzie Borden (4 page)

She saw in her mind’s eye, her father lying on his bed in the next room, hands folded over his stomach. She saw a horrible old man whose claws grasped money and held it to his soul as if it would be the saving of his species. She saw a pitiful old man whose meanness tried to mask his terror of growing old alone. She saw an embarrassment. She saw the patriarch of her family as a whining wretch, incapable of showing leadership and love to a family, yet oh-so-capable of running a financial empire. Lizzie could no longer be proud of the Borden name as headed by Andrew Borden.

Lizzie rocked, holding onto the book that no longer felt exciting. She rocked and rocked, thinking about the house and how it had a hold on her.

She rocked and her head pounded until she was afraid she would fall onto the floor. And then she undressed, got into bed, and held the book close.

The past receded, the family receded, wants, desires, inadequacies and all other thoughts were beaten down, pound after throbbing pound of the blood through her arteries. Eventually, there was nothing but the pain, the awful, humiliating, all-encompassing, equalizing pain.

Lizzie delved into it, horrified by it, discouraged by it, yet freed because of it.

~~~

The next morning, feeling shaky and fragile, Lizzie avoided quick moves and bright lights. She lay awake in her bed for a long time before rising. She gently lowered herself onto the metal slops bucket and listened to voices in the kitchen. There were happy sounds, even a trill of laughter from Emma. Joyful sounds were such rare occurrences in the Borden household, Lizzie was intrigued. She cleaned herself, noticed with dismay that her menses had begun during the night and messed her nightgown, laid a cloth over the soiled pot and slid it back under the bed. She would empty slops later. She donned robe and slippers and slowly, carefully, descended the stairs.

“Lizzie, you lazy thing. Aren’t you ready yet?”

“Ready?”

“Our appointment at the dressmaker’s. It’s in a half hour.”

“A half hour!” Lizzie jumped, then put a hand to her fragile head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did tell you, I most certainly did. I told you when I made the appointment, and I reminded you last week. You’ve just had your head in the clouds, that’s all. You need to learn to pay attention, child!”

Lizzie glared at Emma. She did
not
tell of the appointment. Going to pick out fabrics for the spring dresses was one of the nicest things they did during the long winter. She would have remembered it. She would never have forgotten.

But Emma wanted to keep her off balance. Emma, Lizzie noticed, was dressed smartly, ready for a fitting with the best of the townswomen, while Lizzie. . . her hair was dirty, she hadn’t cleaned and pressed her town dress. . . She felt her face go hot. “I’m not going,” she said.

“Not going? Lizzie, dear, you must. Your spring wardrobe. Your summer dresses.”

“I’m not fit. I need to bathe.”

“Go, then, quickly, and bathe. We have time.”

“My hair. . .” Lizzie had forgotten about being angry in a whirlwind of thought of how to be presentable enough to go for her fitting. Her mind was barely able to function, after a night of racking pain, and she felt ill equipped to spar with Emma this morning. But that didn’t change the fact that Mrs. Longworth wouldn’t have another available appointment now for months.

“Dash your hair. It’s fine.”  Lizzie looked at her older sister. It wasn’t fine, and Emma knew it. Emma took every advantage to look, act and be superior.

“You never told me,” Lizzie said, as she took a bowl to the sink, filled it with cool water and warmed it with water from the kettle. “Remind me to ask for some fabric scraps while we’re there.”

Instead of taking it upstairs, where she normally bathed, Lizzie took it down cellar where she could bathe in privacy and then discard the water that would be bloody with her menses, without embarrassing any other member of her family.

“I’m sure Mrs. Longworth saves them for you by now,” Emma’s voice followed her down the stairs. “You could buy yourself a yard or two of cotton at the store, you know.”

Lizzie set the basin on the stand, then ran back up the stairs, as fast as her brittle head would allow, through the kitchen, the sitting room, and up the stairs to her room, where she fetched clean underwear. She shook out her only presentable dress and brought them all down stairs, and on into the cellar. Then she had to stop for a moment, hand on the clammy cellar wall, while the darkness cleared from her vision.

She undressed, throwing her soiled housedress into the corner, putting her menstrual rag into a bucket filled with a dozen others soaking in ice-crusted water under the sink. Then, dancing in the cold, Lizzie took a sponge, filled it with warm water from the bowl, soaped it and rubbed it all over her ample body. It was freezing cold in the cellar. The worn piece of wood that covered the dirt floor rumbled as she danced. Goose pimples rose all over her skin and her nipples shrank down to hard little nuts.

“Quickly, quickly,” she breathed. She rinsed out the sponge, rinsed herself off then briskly rubbed a scratchy towel around her skin. Then she donned a freshly laundered pad, pinned it to her own homemade belt, this one pink cotton with little red flowers, courtesy of Mrs. Longworth’s scraps, got into her long underwear, her slip and petticoat, then pulled the dress over her head.

Then she squeezed out the sponge, rinsed the bowl, turned it upside down and ran upstairs, barefoot, buttoning her dress.

“My goodness, Lizzie,” Emma said.

“It’s cold down there.”

“You’ll catch your death in your bare feet.”

“Even in Europe we had bathrooms. Every floor had its own water closet and bath. Every floor.”

“I know, I know,” Emma said. “Every house in this neighborhood does, too. And gas! We’re the only house not hooked up.”

Lizzie noted the time. She still had ten minutes before they had to leave. She went upstairs, unpinning her hair. She powdered a touch of cornstarch along her hairline and brushed it out, her long hair flying with static electricity. She twisted it, knotted it up, pinned it and checked the results in the mirror. Her glorious light brown hair with its reddish highlights was not shiny and silky as it would be if she had just washed it; instead, it was cornstarch dull, but at least it did not look not oily.

She pinched her cheeks to bring up a little color, smoothed out her dress, donned stockings and her new button shoes, and she was ready. Not as ready as she would like to have been, but ready nevertheless.

She walked down the stairs, opened the closet and took out the seal cape her father had given her on her thirtieth birthday, one of only two extravagances she’d ever known him to bestow, put the cape around her shoulders, picked up her bag and her gloves, and walked back into the kitchen.

“I’m ready now, Emma.”

Emma looked her up and down. Lizzie stood still for her appraisal, waiting for the deprecating word, but none came.

“Let’s be gone, then,” Emma said, and began to give daily orders to the maid.

They walked from the pinched little house on Second Street, four blocks through the biting January winter to the dressmaker’s. They walked in silence, Lizzie trying on different shades of peach in her mind, still miffed with Emma for taking the greatest amount of pleasure out of her semi-annual fitting. Next time, she thought, I’ll make an appointment myself and go alone. It would be ever so much more fun. But they had always gone together, and no matter what Lizzie thought of Emma and her jealous ways, Emma did have superb taste. “How many dresses are we allowed?” Last year, Father put Emma in charge of the household budget, something that had only momentarily placated Emma’s lust for control.

“We can each have three housedresses, one church dress and two town dresses.”

“One church dress? That’s hardly enough. I have enough ugly housedresses. I’ll trade them in for another church dress.”

“One church dress costs more than three house dresses, Lizzie, you must know that.”

“So? I can’t possibly go through the whole spring and summer with only one more church dress. The pastor’s wife snickers over my wardrobe as it is.”

“Lizzie!”

“Well, she does.”

“All right. Two church dresses for you, then, if you must, but it will mean a month of decent meat.”

“I don’t care.”

“See if you care when Father gets mutton instead of pork.”

~~~

Mrs. Longworth had laid out the most fascinating array of colored fabrics in her salon. In every possible color and color combination, there were cottons, woolens, flannels, silks, linens, in solids, plaids, stripes and flowers. There were brocades and tapestries and beaded fabrics. There were laces and nets, eyelets and chintz. It was a feast for the eyes, and Lizzie wanted to gather them all up in her arms and whirl around the room.

“Good morning, Mrs. Longworth,” Emma said.

“Emma. Lizzie. Excuse me for a moment while I tidy up. I’ve just fitted a bride and three bridesmaids.”

Lizzie went to the pastels and began fingering some peach colored calico. Emma, she noticed, went directly to the darker colors.

“Lizzie, come look at these fabrics. This green would accentuate your eyes.”

“I think something pastel this spring, Emma,” Lizzie said. “Like this peachy one for example.” Emma curled her lip in distaste. “It clashes with your hair, with your eyes and with your complexion. It would make you look dead.”

Lizzie picked up the bolt, unrolled a yard and held it in front of her face in the mirror. It did, she had to agree, give her face a greenish cast. Lizzie’s mousy brown hair and pale green eyes needed the blues and greens, Emma was right. And the darker colors were more slimming. Beatrice had dark brown hair, snapping brown eyes, and dark brows. She also wore makeup to accentuate her looks, whereas Father would allow no “paint” on any member of his household. No, peach was definitely a color for Beatrice, but not for Lizzie.

She put the bolt back and picked up a sunshiny yellow.

“No,” Emma said, without even looking. “Come look at this blue. This cornflower would look lovely.”

Everything in Lizzie’s closet was blue. She took the cornflower bolt from Emma and held it up. It was nice. I was very nice. But it was blue.

A familiar feeling began to come over Lizzie. She remembered now, about these fittings. It was the same every year, twice a year. She was bowled over by the shouts of the fabrics, but Emma chose the same colors, patterns and styles for her over and over and over again.

The feeling grew as Mrs. Longworth took her measurements and wrote them in her black ledger. Each number was larger than the one she had written down last year, and she mentioned that with each measurement. Emma clucked with every inch.

By the time they got to choosing the styles, there was no fun left for Lizzie. Emma chose all her fabrics and her styles, and they were just the same as she’d always had.

When they left the dressmaker, all the promise of the day had fled.

“I don’t know why you’re such a brat,” Emma said. “Those dresses will be very smart on you.”

“Blue, green and lavender,” Lizzie said. “No pinks, no yellows, nothing bright and cheerful.”

“It’s what you look best in,” Emma said.

“Says you.”

“Do you want to go back?”

For a moment, Lizzie considered it. But then just before they were finished, Mrs. Kelly and her daughters came in for their fittings, and the shop would be filled with emerald greens and bright yellows with eyelet and lace and feminine giggles. The redheads had all the luck when it came to wearing vibrant colors. Not so Lizzie Borden.

“No,” she said.

“Then be grateful. You got two church dresses, you know.”

“Both blue.”

“Both expensive. They will last for years if you take care. And, of course, if you watch your weight.”

Lizzie felt like a child. She felt as if she’d never break out of the icy igloo that having four parents had built around her. She was never allowed an opinion, she was never allowed her own taste, she was never allowed to express herself in any manner, if it were the least bit unconventional.

“I’m going to stop by the dry goods store and buy some yellow and pink cottons,” she said to Emma. “At least I can stitch myself a couple of dusters.”

Emma nodded her approval.

She would sew them, Lizzie knew, but she had neither the patience nor the talent for needlework that Emma and their stepmother had. Abby Borden created masterpieces at the sewing machine, and Emma did intricate work by hand. Lizzie did adequate work, but it was rustic, and the result usually ill-fitting.

The sisters parted ways in town, Emma going to stop by the post office before heading back home, Lizzie going to the dry goods store for her little calico symbol of rebellion.

That evening, when Emma’s two quiet knocks came at her door, Lizzie went down to take up her supper before Andrew and Abby were called to the table. Supper consisted of crusty bread spread with salted lard and a bowl of stewed cabbage. Lizzie wondered if the household budget had really expired this early in the month or if Emma had made a meager meal in order to spite Father. She ladled her bowlful and took it up to her room. She was glad she’d pilfered the cakes from yesterday’s tea, because she had no appetite for the meal.

As always, she was glad to have slipped in and out of the kitchen without meeting anyone else; as far as she knew, Father was in his room, Bridget in hers, and Abby was out.

She dipped her spoon into the stew and blew across it to cool. It didn’t taste bad, but Emma’s culinary expertise had clearly gone the wayside for this meal.  Then her bedroom door opened, and Emma came in, her eyes downcast.

“Emma. What is it?”

“I am at my wits’ end with that old man, Lizzie.”

“Emma, he’s our father.” She looked at the door that separated her bedroom from his. “And he might hear you.”

Emma lowered her voice. “You may call him Father if you like. To me he’s a miserly, mean old man. And I don’t care at all if he hears me. He’s heard it all before.”

Lizzie set her bowl of stew aside.