Lizzie’s tone was even as she spoke, as if she’d rehearsed the story a dozen times in her head. “I don’t remember Eliza. She died before I was born, but Father said she was quiet and kept to herself most the time. I was named after her, or so Emma tells me.”
I couldn’t help but look out the window and wonder if Minnie knew how connected her employer’s house was to the Borden’s. To Lizzie.
“She bore him three children. Holder, Eliza Ann, and Maria.”
“The same Maria—”
“Yes,” Lizzie cut me off, obviously irritated that I’d interrupted her story. “You’ve met her; she’s married to Samuel Hinckley, although he’s never been right since the war. Quiet, portly, not too bright.”
I’d heard her use the same words to describe her stepmother, even her sister Emma on occasion. “What about the other two . . . Holder and Eliza Ann?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “It is their mother that you should be concerned about. According to Father, she was prone to fits of hysteria, but they always seemed to get better. She holed herself up in her room after Holder was born. She refused to come out for days, refused to eat. Father said it was a hot summer, not unlike this one. Perhaps it was the heat that caused her madness.”
Lizzie paused as if considering the possibility, perhaps wondering if the heat was to blame for her own recent state of fugue. I couldn’t help but wonder the same thing.
“Uncle Laddy was out checking on one of his mills,” Lizzie said as she visibly shook that thought off and continued on. “Eliza came out of her room that day, dressed in her shift, her hair uncombed and hanging down to her waist. She dismissed her maid to her room and gathered the children, then brought them all downstairs to the cistern in the cellar. One by one she dropped them in, watched them drown. Maria got away and ran down the street screaming for help.”
The lantern sputtered out, leaving us with nothing but the faint glow of the pre-dawn sky to light our faces. I sat there paralyzed, so horrified by what Lizzie was saying that I could barely think straight. Eliza. Two children. Murdered in the well. It was all jumbled up into a wretched mess in my mind, a story I knew I would never be able to forget.
Lizzie was moving about, no doubt looking for some oil or a second lantern. Within moments a fresh lantern flared to life, illuminating her pale face once more.
“What happened to her? What happened to Eliza?” I asked.
“Great-Uncle Laddy found her sprawled across their bed that same day. She had taken his straight razor to her throat.”
I’d never seen a picture of Eliza, but that didn’t stop the image from flashing through my mind. Her body splayed out across the bed. Her blood seeping into the white linen. Her eyes lifeless as they stared into the darkness. Not unlike the pigeons’ eyes; not unlike Lizzie’s eyes.
“Why did your father buy this house if he knew what happened next door?”
Lizzie stood there silently for a moment, apparently lost in thought. “He said he bought it to be closer to his holdings in town, to keep better track of his tenants, and be closer to the bank. But the house on Ferry Street, the Grey house, even this one . . . it’s like he is collecting pieces of his own history, trying to contain the curse that follows this family.”
“Curse,” I repeated, stunned. “Is that what you think?”
Lizzie shook her head and adjusted the flame of the lantern slightly higher. “No, I don’t think he cares about what happened next door. I think he’s as mad as she was.”
Terror gripped me. Although I’d never admitted it directly to Lizzie, I was beginning to think she was right. Mr. Borden was more than simply peculiar. He was sinister. Warped. Touched in the head, as they would say back home.
“The fits you have, Lizzie, do you remember anything about them? Do you remember being in the kitchen or saying any of those things?”
Lizzie’s face turned grim, ashen, in the shadows. “I remember hearing the crying and the voices. I remember saying the words now, but I don’t know who I was talking to or why.”
“You were saying, ‘she’s not well.’ What does that mean, Lizzie? Is it you who’s not well?”
“Not ‘she’s not well,’ Bridget. What I was saying was, ‘she’s in the well.’”
Lizzie shook her head, and for the first time since I’d set foot in this house, I saw fear, real fear, in her eyes. “You don’t think it’s happening to me too, do you, Bridget? Do you think my family is cursed? The madness that claimed my Aunt Eliza . . . the madness my father claims took hold of my mother . . . do you think is taking root in me?”
I startled at her words. Not once had I ever heard claims of Lizzie’s mother being mad. What little I knew about her, what little I’d managed to glean from John Morse or Emma indicated that she was kind and gentle. That she had succumbed to an illness that often befell women. “What do you mean, your mother was mad?”
“Emma had some of my mother’s things stored away in her dresser. Nothing of value, just a monogrammed handkerchief, a picture, and tiny bottle of her perfume. I didn’t know she had them. I mean, I’d seen pictures of my mother, but I never owned any myself. Uncle John has a few, and he was always willing to answer all my questions. My father . . . well, I’d always assumed he was telling the truth when he claimed there was nothing of hers to keep.”
I thought back to the countless times I’d laid Emma’s delicates in her dresser. Never once had I seen any of the items Lizzie was talking about. “Where are they now? The things Emma kept, what happened to them?”
“Emma was packing her belongings the day before we moved here to Second Street. She had them on her bed and was carefully wrapping each of them in her stockings. I was twelve and excited to hold anything that once belonged to my mother. Emma told me no, and I yelled for my father, foolishly thinking he’d make her show me.”
My heart sank at her words. I gathered that since coming into this world thirty-two years ago, Lizzie had yet to “make” her father do anything.
“He burned them. When he saw that Emma had them, he took them and threw them in the fireplace, destroyed every memory Emma had of our mother that night. Emma begged him not to; she carried on for hours. Father told her she was tempting fate, cursing this family with the memory of a madness he’d ridded it of ten years prior.”
I quickly sorted through the rumors in my head as I tried to figure out what curse he was talking about.
“My mother,” Lizzie said, answering my unspoken question. “The curse of madness he was referring to was her. Father once told me he stayed by her day and night through the last days of her madness, reminding her of who she was and how much he loved her. And in the end, she died anyway, something to do with her insides being all twisted up. But I know the truth. Emma and John know the truth.”
“What truth, Lizzie?”
She turned away from me and sighed, her entire body collapsing in on itself. “What happened to my mother that night no longer matters, Bridget. But I do wonder if my father is right, if my mother was mad and I am damned to the same fate.”
I did my best to smile with confidence although that was most certainly the last thing I was feeling at the moment. Petrified would be more accurate. For all the times I’d woken to Cara’s mumbled words, for all the times I’d sat with her as she talked herself back to sleep, never once had her words been dark or tinged with the madness Lizzie spoke of.
“You’re not mad, Lizzie. A bit outspoken and more stubborn than any other woman I know, but you’re certainly not mad.”
I patted Lizzie’s hand gently, nearly gasped when she grabbed onto it and held it tight. “Don’t leave me, Bridget. Promise me, no matter what happens in this house, you won’t leave me here alone.”
“I swear it. I won’t leave you.” No sooner had those words parted my lips then I regretted them. But it was the truth. As much as I wanted to throw on my day clothes and go running to Liam straight away, I wouldn’t. If Andrew Borden really
was a madman, if this house was filled with the spirits of drowned children and bleeding mothers, if there was any way that Lizzie was being dragged into the darkness herself, then I wouldn’t leave her.
Chapter 16
Four hours. Four measly hours of sleep wasn’t nearly enough to get me through my chores for the day. Especially when my mind kept wanting to revisit the terrifying events of last night. Lizzie’s muttering and trancelike stupor, her insistence that there was a curse on the Borden family. It was unfathomable and yet so utterly believable at the same time.
I doubted Lizzie slept at all. She poked her head into my room just after dawn and told me she had some errands to run for the Fruit and Flowers Mission. Had I not been so exhausted, I would have questioned her, asked exactly what kind of charitable errands she could possibly be charged with at that early hour.
But now it was nearly noon, and she’d yet to return. Probably for the best. Talking about last night would only make it worse, keep it fresh in my mind when all I really wanted to do was forget.
Bending down, I rolled up the area rug in the sitting room and lifted it. It was old, the edges fraying, and the colors in the middle trudged out from Mr. Borden’s constant pacing. I could barely keep a grip on it as I made my way down the back stairs and towards the fence that separated the Borden house from the rest of the world.
Panting beneath the weight of the rug, I couldn’t help but think of Lizzie. She’d helped me with the larger chores before, claiming it was unfair for me to suffer because her father was too miserly to hire a second maid. These rugs would’ve been nothing for the two of us to manage. Between her sturdiness and my wiry strength, we would’ve had them beaten and laid back down in two hours flat. Instead, I’d likely struggle with them the whole afternoon.
“Bridget!” Minnie hovered by the fence, her face flushed with heat. Judging by the large basket at her feet and the clips in her hand, she was hanging out the wash.
Smiling, I heaved the rug over the fence and swiped the sweat off my forehead. I couldn’t help but notice her droopy eyes, the pale look to her skin that told me she’d been out with Seamus the night before. She looked as tired as me, maybe even more so.
I laughed, thinking what a strange match they were. Minnie’s innocent expressions, fair skin, and slight build looked downright misplaced next to Seamus’s boisterous presence. I think that’s why she was drawn to him. Where I craved predictability, Minnie seemed to thrive on spontaneity. Seamus made Minnie’s life bearable, made her laugh when the world of Fall River regulated us into a bone-weary mess.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
I smiled, realizing that she probably had been chattering along while I was lost in my head. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
Minnie looked at the yard behind me as if to ensure no one was sneaking up to listen. I followed her gaze, wondering why in the world she thought anyone would be interested in our simple conversations. “What is it?”
She paused, her eyes wide and conflicted as she answered. “I saw the lanterns turning on and off last night. I could have sworn I saw shadows moving around, too.”
I did my best to hide my surprise . . . and my anger. Rumors about the Bordens were already plentiful, and Lizzie most certainly did not need Minnie making them worse. “I couldn’t sleep. The heat up on the third floor can be dreadful this time of year, so I took to the kitchen in search of better air. No doubt it was me you saw wandering about.”
Minnie nodded, but her lips remained pursed into that thin, tight line. She didn’t believe my story. I wouldn’t either I suppose, but then again, I knew the truth, had witnessed it in eerie detail.
“But there were two shadows. And before that . . . ,” Minnie trailed off, and I gestured for her to keep talking. The one thing Lizzie had taught me was to listen to everything. Better to know what people are saying about you than pretend everything is fine, she would always say. Something about it giving you the upper hand. Besides, I knew Minnie better than anyone—even Seamus. If there was something to find out, I’d get it from her.
“Before that what, Minnie?” I asked, coaxing her along.
She fidgeted with the stained apron tied around her waist, her large green eyes darting this way and that. We were friends, good friends, and she didn’t want to answer. That couldn’t be good.
“How long have you known me?” I asked.
“Since primary school.”
“Umm-hmm, and who introduced you to Seamus?”
“You,” she said, a tiny smile playing at her lips.
“You can tell me anything, Minnie O’Rourke. Anything. I’ll keep your confidence, you have my word.”
“Well, it’s just that there was this noise. A sound that woke me up. I swear, Bridget, it sounded like someone singing.” Her voice lowered, and she leaned in closer. “A nursery rhyme.”
The beater I’d been holding slipped from my hands and landed in the grass by my feet. The story about the Borden children who died in the well came back to me, and I did my best to contain it, shove it back into the dark recesses of my mind where I housed all of Lizzie’s secrets.
Minnie shifted in her place, grabbed another handful of pins from the basket, and set about hanging up the bed linens to dry. I knew what she was doing, I’d done it more than once myself—avoiding the obvious, avoiding having to process through a logical explanation for something that was clearly insane.
“Anyway, I got up and thought I’d been dreaming, but when I came downstairs and saw the light in the Borden house, I got to wondering.”
I sent up a quick prayer for forgiveness, then started to weave my lie. “Aye, it was my singing you heard. The air in that house is heavy. You know how Mrs. Borden is, afraid opening the windows will invite prowlers.”
I stopped long enough to judge Minnie’s expression. She nodded, buying my tale. “The air in the kitchen was no better than my rooms, so I went outside. I don’t take too kindly to the dark, ya’ know, so I started singing an old rhyme Mum used to sing to me back in Ireland. Soothes my nerves, ’tis all. Sorry I woke you.”
Minnie shook her head, the smile on her face bright and genuine. I wished I could do that with Lizzie, go and tell some silly tale and have her believe it . . . believe she wasn’t going crazy, and that the unimaginable wasn’t possible.
“You didn’t wake me. I was concerned and wanted to make sure you were well. The stuff that goes in that house and all . . . well, I simply wanted to make sure you were all right. Liam would have a fit if he knew something was wrong over there, and I stood by and did nothing.”
I muttered a curse under my breath as I picked up the rug beater once more and took a heavy swing. A billow of dust spread across the fence, covering Minnie’s face. She coughed, two month’s worth of Borden dust seeping into her lungs. Having Minnie next door was good, pleasant. But at times like this, I wished her blocks away, none the wiser to anything going on in the Borden house and unable to relay anything to Liam.
“Don’t be tattling like the rest of the neighborhood, Minnie. We were raised better than that. The Bordens are fine people.”
The Bordens may have been fine people, but they were also odd people, and the entire town, including Minnie, knew that. No doubt I wouldn’t always be able to explain away the peculiarities of that house, but for Lizzie’s sake, I’d do my best. I wouldn’t let my own friends make her life more unbearable than it already was.
“I’m not tattling, I swear! It’s only that—” Minnie stopped abruptly, her green eyes skirting upward towards Lizzie’s room. The windows were dark, shut up tight with the lace curtains drawn across them. Nobody could see in or out of that house, and that’s the way Mr. Borden liked it.
I followed her line of vision, only refocusing on her as I remembered my lengthy list of chores. Minnie’s face was grim, her gaze dancing along the angles of the house.
“Do you want to hear what Mr. Alfred told me this morning?” she asked, and I swung my head towards the b
arn.
Mr. Alfred was one of the farm hands out on the Borden’s farm in Swansea. I’d heard Mr. Morse and Mr. Borden talk about him often, bickering back and forth over whether he had the smarts about him to be the manager.
I hadn’t heard Mr. Alfred come by this morning, but that was no surprise. He never came in the house, just repaired whatever Mr. Borden had sent for him to fix and moved on. I had no interaction with him, but the fact that Minnie did had me curious. No doubt it would interest Seamus, too.
I scanned the barn. I knew one of the hinges on the door was broken; Mr. Borden had complained about it the other day at supper. I presumed that’s why Mr. Borden had sent for Mr. Alfred, but from what I could see, the hinge was still broken, the wood still leaning awkwardly to the right.
“When did you talk to him?” I asked.
“This morning, when he first came. He told me to mind myself in the heat.” She flushed as she said it, the small smile at her lips telling me she was more interested in the attention she was getting from Mr. Alfred than in her employer’s wash.
Mr. Borden would not be happy that his hired help was talking to the neighbors, would probably have Mr. Alfred’s job for it if he ever found out. “What else did Mr. Alfred have to say?” I asked.
Minnie perked up and leaned over the fence, eager to talk. “Did you know Miss Lizzie kept pigeons in that barn?”
I shook my head and pretended as if that was news to me. I hadn’t merely heard about it; I’d seen their bloody carcasses splayed out in the kitchen for me to cook. Their dead eyes, lifeless and fixed on me as if they were still seeing . . . still part of this earth.
“There are always birds roosting in the barn,” I said as I took another swing at the rug. “They use the old hay in the loft for their nests.”
“Not birds, Bridget. Pets. Miss Lizzie kept them as pets.”
Sweet Madness Page 8