Sisterly Love: The Saga of Lizzie and Emma Borden

by Jordan Bollinger

  This horrid haziness and uncertainty continued for more than a week.

  Chapter Two

  For the remainder of that dreadful day, and the days that followed, people -- both known and unknown -- questioned me. I tried to answer them all as best I could. Well, except for the falsehoods I already confessed to you, about not reporting Abby's death and changing my dress, and later, my foolish series of reasons as to why I claimed I had gone up to the loft.

  The problem was, that every day at home was so very much like another. As I have already said, although that Thursday morning I felt a bit better than I had on Wednesday, I was still unwell and lethargic. By the time I came downstairs, Father had left -- but, it was his habit to be gone when I came down of a morning. As a rule, Maggie -- we sometimes called Bridget this out of habit from a previous maid -- was doing something in the kitchen or dining room, while Abby puttered about the parlor and sitting room with a feather duster.

  So, you see, in retrospect, that fateful day began very much as most others. Even our uncle staying the night before and leaving before Father -- while not a frequent occurrence -- was not unknown. Nor, was there anything out of the ordinary about Abby receiving a note from someone asking her to visit, or her ordering the meat for our dinner while she was out.

  As far as I can remember, August fourth began as just another day. The only true exception, aside from the continuing heat and humidity, was Emma's absence. I cannot recall her going away without me since she had finished school, before we even moved from Ferry Street.

  I intended on returning to Marion after my meeting Sunday, Aug. 7th, on the evening train, after my afternoon church meeting. I had already planned on purchasing new fishing line, hooks and sinkers before my return. After I ruined the Bedford cord dress, I had decided to also go to Sargent's dry goods store, since they were having a sale on yard goods. So, even changing my attire to go downstreet was planned. I merely changed earlier.

  Abby most certainly told me she had been called out by a note, and that she would order the meat for our dinner while she was out. Perhaps, she didn't say it within Maggie's hearing -- but she did say it. Why ever should I know -- or at that time -- care what she did with the note? It was, after all, her note -- not mine.

  It was not unusual for Abby to do the marketing. Nor was it odd for Maggie to wash the windows. It was one of her regular tasks, and one she generally did near the end of the week. After all, Monday and Tuesday were for the washing of laundry, and Wednesday for ironing. --Yes, I hear you. -- We lived a most predictable existence. Predictable -- that was -- until a fiend stole into our house and killed my father and Abby.

  Mrs. Churchill, Alice Russell, and Mrs. Bowen fussed over me in the kitchen: fanning me, rubbing my hands, and pressing cold compresses to my forehead even though I don't believe I felt faint. I imagine it would be better described as numb. The only two things I clearly remember thinking were that someone needed to wire Emma, and also contact the undertaker, but I recall little else.

  Sometime around noon, my Uncle John Morse returned. I believe he looked at Father's body, but I could not swear to it. I think -- but again, I am not sure -- he might have gone upstairs to view Abby's body, as well. Eventually, he came into the dining room and sat down, but said very little. He, too, seemed remote and untouched -- however no one questioned his reaction, or lack thereof.

  However, later, I was told that despite the growing numbers of people milling about -- both in the yard and street -- his actions were most peculiar when he first arrived. For it seems he meandered -- that is the word they used -- into the yard, picked up a number of pears, flopped down onto the ground, and ate them before he even noticed a strange man standing guard on the back porch. I have always thought that most peculiar, especially not noticing the man.

  At some point, Doctor Bowen suggested I go upstairs to my room. I supposed this was because they were preparing to move the bodies into the dining room, and they thought it would be better if I did not see them. However, the only way we could reach the foyer and the stairs beyond, was to pass through a corner of the sitting room. One of the women -- Mrs. Bowen, I believe -- attempted to keep herself between me and my poor dead father. Yet, I still caught another horrifying glimpse of him -- or, at least, what was left of him.

  Mrs. Churchill, Alice Russell, and Mrs. Bowen continued with me upstairs. We passed the guest bedroom where my poor stepmother's remains lay, and went somberly into my room. It was then, someone said I should probably change clothes, because the police would want to speak to me and examine the clothes I wore. So, I changed back into the pink-and-white wrapper I'd worn before I discovered Abby's body. It was lying there on the end of the bed, and I would have thought it was clear to anyone who saw it there, I must have been wearing it earlier that day.

  But, as in so many things, I was seriously mistaken.

  One of my pastors, the Reverend Buck, arrived to console me. It was shortly after that one of the policemen -- I could not tell you whom -- knocked at my bedroom door, saying he wished to speak to me. Reverend Buck asked him to wait a moment, before closing the door again. He advised me to answer his questions, to co-operate with them as best I could, and assured me he would remain at my side. The policeman came inside, and I told him all I could.

  I believe it was about then, Reverend Jubb also appeared, and someone brought me a cup of tea. More policemen came and searched both my room and Emma's. They asked for the key to the dress closet at the top of the stairs and searched there as well.

  Doctor Bowen came and told me he had sent the telegram to Emma in Fairhaven. It seemed to me he had been gone a long while, but perhaps it was only my imagination. For, by then, time had slowed for me.

  He gave me a preparation he said would relieve my headache and help me to remain calm. I tried to tell him I was all right, but he insisted. So, as usual, I did as I was told, took the medicine, and stretched out on the chaise lounge. One of the ladies brought another dose to me about an hour later, and stood over me until I had taken it as well.

  More people -- policemen, I suppose -- asked me more questions and searched both my room and Emma's. Neither my uncle nor I did anything to dissuade them from this. Even though I found men rooting through my clothes upsetting.

  What was even worse was they found the slop pail containing the soiled bird's-eye napkins from my monthly. Mortified, I realized I had forgotten to take the pail downstairs with me earlier. And now, I did not feel able to parade through the house -- with all these men about -- to take it to the cellar.

  At about six that evening, Bridget called up and said there was food laid out downstairs for supper. I was aghast at this, since I had heard that the police surgeon had ordered the bodies moved onto the dining room table for his preliminary examination.

  Alice fixed me a small plate of food and brought it to me where I sat in the kitchen. She sat beside me and encouraged me to eat, but she, herself, ate nothing. Only Uncle John seemed unaffected by the murders, policemen searching the house, and questioning us, or our close proximity to where, only minutes before, the bodies rested. He ate heartily, explaining how he had missed lunch.

  I felt Emma's absence acutely and expected her to come home by the earliest train. However, she did not arrive until the evening and, even then, closeted herself in her own room with Alice for nearly an hour before she came to me. When Alice scurried back to her own house, explaining she would return later, Emma finally came into my room. She proceeded to ask all the same questions everyone else had bombarded me with the entire afternoon.

  The crowd in the street did not diminish. Rather, it seemed to me, it continued to grow. However, the police still guarded the house, so we felt relatively safe. Once Alice returned, Emma sent me upstairs, saying they would be up as soon as they cleaned the kitchen. Bridget had insisted she would not stay in the house, and had already been escorted across the street to spend the night with the Bowen's girl.

  I was lying on my chaise, still dres
sed, with the wick of the lamp turned well down, when Emma and Alice appeared, carrying two trays -- one with a steaming teapot, sugar bowl and creamer; and the other with cups and saucers, and a few cookies on a plate. They set them down on my desk and dresser, and left again, saying they intended to unlock the communicating door between Father and Abby's bedroom and my own.

  When I heard them struggling to move the heavy chest of drawers on Father's side, I realized the unlocked door would still be unusable without me shifting my bed, and unbolting it on my side, as well. I knew Emma expected this of me, so I did it. For the first time since we moved into the house more than twenty years before, the door was unfastened on either side. They quickly made up Father and Abby's bed with fresh linens, and returned to my room, where we all had a cup of tea.

  I was just about to get undressed when I noticed the slop pail and asked if one of them would accompany me to the cellar. Emma merely scowled at me, before she went into her own bedroom, apparently to change, but Alice picked up the lamp and went with me. Now, it was dark and we went downstairs carefully, but not stealthily. Although we said nothing to the officer standing watch on the back step, we did not sneak past him.

  We merely went down the stairs to the cellar. Alice stood near the bottom step, as I went to the laundry room. We were almost up to the kitchen again, when I realized I had left the slop pail in the laundry sink. Alice stayed at the top of the stairs while I ran back down to fetch it. I was out of her sight no more than a moment, but this, too, would come back to haunt me.

  We returned upstairs, readied ourselves for bed, and were just putting out the lamp, when a commotion broke out in the street. We heard the back screen slam and someone climbing up the stairs. Emma stepped out onto the landing and spoke to Uncle John. She gave a low laugh, as she reentered the bedroom. It seems he had slipped out to mail a letter, and was mobbed when the crowd recognized him upon his return. The police had rescued him, shoved him inside, and told him to not leave again without an escort.

  Alice went into Father and Abby's room, and Emma, after seeing that I took the dose of morphine Doctor Bowen had left for me, went into her own room. The door to Father and Abby's room remained open. Alice and Emma spoke for a few minutes, before they became quiet -- leaving me awake and troubled.

  The thing that most puzzled me, as I lay there, was what letter could have been so very important for Uncle John to take it the post office at that time of night?

  Chapter Three

  Friday dawned hot and muggy. Emma and Alice rose early and went downstairs, but I stayed in bed long after I awoke. I was sure I would be subjected to more questions, and wanted to postpone the inevitable.

  Eventually, Emma appeared in my door, admonishing me for my laziness. She told me that, indeed, the police wanted, not only speak to me, but to search our rooms again. She also announced our family lawyer, Mr. Jennings, had come. They had discussed several matters and he had left -- presumably to take care of them -- without talking to me.

  When I queried her about what topics, she just clucked at me and told me to hurry along and dress. I looked at the pink-and-white wrapper, decided it was unsuitable, and hunted through the dress closet until I found a dark-green calico. While it was not black, it was the most simple, somber dress I owned.

  I discovered a different group of policemen awaiting me in the parlor. Once again, I answered all their questions to the best of my ability.

  The afternoon before, I had told at least one of the officers how I thought I had been standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the sitting room when my father had returned the day before. But, on thinking on it, I realized I was mistaken. I had still been upstairs -- just beginning down the stairs -- but, still upstairs.

  I had to have been on the stairs, just as Bridget had said. I remembered this because I was wearing a hat and carrying my pocketbook, in preparation to go downstreet. When Father pounded on the locked and bolted front door, I realized escape was impossible. So, I had stepped back inside my own room and set my things on the dresser before hurrying downstairs.

  However, when I tried to tell my current inquisitor of my mistake -- without, of course admitting I had, indeed, changed my dress -- he merely eyed me critically. And I knew he believed me to be lying.

  After that, I volunteered nothing.

  Our Uncle Hiram, my father's sister's husband, presented himself to us early Friday afternoon. He was not really related to Emma and me, and had never been particularly welcomed by any of us -- not even Father.

  He barely spoke to Emma or Uncle John. Instead, he took me by my elbow and escorted me upstairs to my room where, of course, he carried out his own investigation. He apparently left the house and went straight to one of the plethora of journalists circling the house like buzzards. An interview with him, supposedly recounting our exact conversation, was published in the evening paper.

  While I was furious, Emma found the entire story quite comical. Only the truly foolish could have possibly taken his story for anything but the claptrap it was. He began by purporting me as "an avid fisherwoman" -- who had an array of fishing tackle, and therefore, no need for any equipment -- new or homemade. He went on to state I had described to him, in great detail, how I had helped my father prepare for his nap, first by removing his shoes and then by covering him with an afghan. It had been at least ninety degrees. Even the most old and feeble person imaginable would have had no need for an afghan on such a day.

  That evening's paper brought even more news, for there was an ad placed by Mr. Jennings, offering a five thousand dollar reward for anyone providing information leading to arrest and conviction of whomever killed Father and Abby. Somehow, Emma had forgotten to mention this to me.

  Friday's paper contained a story claiming I had attempted to buy poison Wednesday afternoon. Not only had I never heard of the pharmacy named, I had never ever tried to buy any type of poison -- Wednesday or any other day!

  Very late Friday afternoon, the undertaker returned our parent's bodies -- now enclosed in plain, black, cloth-covered coffins. Emma was disappointed, because she had asked for them to be left open. However, while Mr. Winwood had managed for Abby's to be half-open, Father's remained closed.

  Most of the afternoon and evening was spent sorting through our clothes to find the most suitable things to wear to the funeral the next morning. Later, while I did not participate, Emma and Uncle John discussed those who were to act as pall bearers.

  Although, I will say that Uncle Hiram was not among those chosen.

  I dreaded Saturday: the funeral, the crowds, and the carnival-like atmosphere that had developed. However, it arrived, all the same. While the number of friends and neighbors invited to the house had been limited, strangers, police, and reporters crowded the street outside our door, and even more swarmed the cemetery.

  The actual graveside service was very brief. In fact, we left the cemetery before the coffins were even lowered into the graves. Of course, we were not to know until much later of the further indignities Father and Abby's bodies were yet to endure.

  Later, after we returned from Oak Grove Cemetery and the last lingering funeral guest had departed, Mayor Coughlin and Marshall Hilliard presented themselves to us. At first, I -- at least -- thought they had come to pay a formal condolence call. I could not have been more mistaken. Marshall Hilliard told us that the police had taken advantage of our absence to search both the house and grounds once again -- this time without any of us to "hinder them.'

  Then, citing Uncle John's unpleasant experience with the milling crowd the other night, Mayor Coughlin asked us to remain inside the house until further notice.

  Something in the way he stared at me as he spoke frightened me. His eyes penetrated through to my very soul. He made me so uncomfortable, I blurted out, "Why? Is one of us suspected?"

  For some inexplicable reason, Emma stepped forward and said, "We have tried to keep it from her for as long as possible."

  I gawked at her in sh
ock. She had repeatedly insisted there was nothing for us to worry over. Everyone -- Doctor Bowen, Mr. Jennings, Reverend Jubb, Reverend Buck, and Emma, herself -- told me the killer would be found out and apprehended. They all maintained that, as annoying as it might be to have the police underfoot, they were there to help us and we had no reason for concern.

  It was then I first realized what a precarious position I was in. That I might actually be blamed and find myself headed toward incarceration. Still, in my most stalwart and stoic Puritan voice, I answered, "I am ready to go at any time."

  Marshall Hilliard whispered something to Mayor Coughlin, then said to us, "Just stay in the house for now." They left, leaving Alice, Emma and I in complete and utter silence.

  Later that night in my bed, groggy from the double-dose of morphine Doctor Bowen still prescribed for me, I was struck by the thought of how very apropos was the phrase "pregnant pause." For in truth, the three of us had remained uncomfortably quiet for quite a while after the men had left.

  *****

  Our uneasy silence continued Sunday morning. I remained upstairs within the sanctuary of my room for as long as I dared. But, eventually, I knew I had to go down. Alice and Emma had finished eating, and Alice sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, while Emma was in the scullery, washing up the few dishes they had used for breakfast.

  I had no wish to interrupt Alice's reading. In truth, I had no desire to discover what new accusations the newspaper might be making against me -- so, I went into the little coal closet beside the stove. We kept old magazines there to while away times when we needed to stay near something cooking that didn't require constant attention. Instead of selecting an old Harper's Weekly, I picked up the bundled remains of the Bedford cord dress.

  I had set it in there the evening before, when Emma wanted its nail in the dress closet. In fact, I had separated the bodice from the skirt, since it was the top back that had ripped so badly. At first, I hoped I might be able to fashion a separate skirt from it, to wear with a blouse.