by Brandy Purdy
Emma, embracing ignorance like the lover she would never know, asked no questions, but everyone else . . .
Questions, so many, many questions! Why wouldn’t they shut up and leave me alone? I just wanted to roll over and go to sleep, but they wouldn’t let me no matter what Dr. Bowen said. Policemen are very tenacious and very mean! Why couldn’t they let me rest? I felt like I was back in school being put to the test and made to stand up there in front of the blackboard and the whole class! Everyone was staring at me! I just wanted them to stop!
“Must I see all these people now?” I wailed. “It seems as if I cannot think a moment longer, my head pains me so!”
A policeman—maybe more than one, I’m not quite sure; why did they all have to dress alike and confuse people?—asked me what I had been doing before I walked in and found Father dead upon the sofa.
I said I had been out in the barn, up in the loft, eating pears—three pears or maybe four—and after that I was ironing handkerchiefs in the kitchen, reading a magazine while I waited for the iron to heat and gossiping to Bridget about a dress sale at Sargent’s—only eight cents a yard!—you see, Bridget, I did remember! Later they would say that I said I had been out in the barn, up in the loft, rummaging about in a box of odds and ends, amongst bent and rusty nails and old doorknobs and broken locks, looking for some pieces of iron suitable to fashion sinkers for a fishing trip I was planning to Buzzards Bay. Maybe I did say that? The details sounded right. But I honestly don’t remember. Or maybe I wanted the iron to repair a screen? Someone said I said that too. I really cannot remember! Every time I look back upon that day it feels like being caught, trapped, and at the same time lost, in a bad dream that just drags on forever.
The hatchet was “the Great Emancipator” who set the slave Lizzie Borden free, but Morphine was “The Great Muddler” of Lizzie’s memory. I shall be forever grateful. That’s all I have to say about that awful, awful day.
Chapter 7
Even though I knew I was guilty, I believed implicitly in my innocence. That is what saved me and saw me through the dark days that followed when I languished, for ten months, my fate uncertain, in a prison cell and the shadow of the hangman’s noose hung always over my head like the sword of Damocles. That and the gallantry and gullibility of men.
Chivalry, I discovered, had not died; it wasn’t just the stuff of legends and fairy tales, and it went much further than doffing hats, offering chairs, and opening doors for ladies. Not a man upon my jury could believe that a prim New England spinster, a virtuous old maid who taught Sunday school, and was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Fruit and Flower Mission, could ever be guilty of such a bloody and violent crime. They could not imagine my ladylike hands wielding any sharp, steel object more threatening than an embroidery needle.
It also helped that Fall River at large abhorred the possibility of posterity remembering the city as the home of a murderess. They wanted this over and done with just as much as I did. We were all ready to sweep it under the rug. Every time an enterprising hack driver met an arriving train at the station and bellowed out an invitation to see the notorious Lizzie Borden house, we all cringed and looked ill.
And my gallant jury, my twelve New England knights in black broadcloth suits instead of shining armor, were far too fastidious to consider that menstruation might have helped mask murder. That very night, when Emma and I were left alone, though under guard, at the house on 92 Second Street, I had descended the cellar stairs, lamp in hand in my dressing gown, with Alice Russell, who had volunteered to stay with us, hovering anxiously at my side, walking right past a policeman, with the pail of bloody towels in my hand. He had politely looked away and pretended not to see us. I left the pail shoved out of sight underneath the sink to await laundering in time for next month’s need and thought nor heard no more about it. Since Bridget had broken her promise and left us—left me!—to divert suspicion away from herself, she had made a fine show of panic and refused to sleep another night under our roof, I have no idea who eventually did the laundry; I suppose Emma hired someone, or sent it off to the Celestials.
Later, during the course of my trial, that one tiny speck of blood, the size of a pinprick on the back of my petticoat, that “flea bite” as they politely called it in lowered, ill-at-ease voices, had caused the men no end of embarrassment, so they gave it the shortest possible shrift. When it was brought up in court, ladies and gentlemen alike blushed and averted their eyes as the lawyers steered me past the issue as quickly and discreetly as possible. It was obvious to all that it could have nothing to do with the murders, and why the prosecution felt the need to mention it at all was something no one could fathom, unless they thought the humiliation of having my intimate female functions discussed in open court would cause my composure to crumble entirely and lead me to confess just to have done with it.
The morphine Dr. Bowen gave me and the paint-stained housedress that I had burned a few days after the murders further muddied the waters, making it impossible for anyone to clearly divine my innocence or guilt.
Everyone argued and took sides, but it was just too cloudy to ever be settled for certain. I fancied myself living out the rest of my life as a mystery wrapped in an enigma. There were days when I would sit in court, my chin pillowed on my palm, and imagine myself in an embroidered silk dress of shifting shades of blue covered all over with countless question marks and an ermine opera cape with the little black tails dangling down like even more question marks, an ensemble evocative of the eternal question of my guilt, the one that would never die; it would outlive me, and everyone I knew.
In truth, I recall little of my trial, it passed in a muddled and perplexing litany of drab dresses, blue dresses, Bedford cords, and bengalines, corded cottons, and heavy silks, a light-blue ground with a dark-blue figure, or a dark-blue ground with a light-blue figure, diamond patterns, nondescript, or unmemorable patterns, stylish town dresses, and ordinary, common, not particularly attractive housedresses, unsullied by any stains detectable to the naked eye or ruined by unsightly smears of reddish-brown paint suspiciously similar to the shade of dried blood, a stylish town dress presented in court, and one conspicuously absent paint-spattered old cotton housedress that refused to rise before their eyes like a phoenix from the ashes of our kitchen stove. Everyone who had seen me on August 4 was called to the stand to describe what I had been wearing at the time, and none of them, it seemed, had a particularly good memory or eye for fashion, with the notable exception of a handsome young policeman who made quite an impression upon the ladies when he described in meticulous detail the candy-pink-and-white-striped housedress with the red belt I had changed into after the murders even though it wasn’t particularly relevant. When called to account for these precise remembrances, he sheepishly explained that he liked to paint in his free time and had always had a keen and appreciative eye for colors and patterns. Many thought it downright lamentable that he had never seen me in the blue; his sharp memory could have cut through the confusion like a knife.
Alice Russell forfeited our friendship by testifying in great detail about the day I burned that faded, filthy old housedress in broad daylight, shoving it into the kitchen stove, right in front of her astonished eyes.
On and on, day after day, the confusing litany continued—my lingering so leisurely and long in the baking oven of the barn on a blistering hot day, the pears I claimed to have eaten, one, two, or three, maybe four, iron scraps and sinkers for a proposed fishing trip to Buzzards Bay versus a torn window screen, whether or not the dust on the floor of the loft had been disturbed by my footsteps or the sweeping hem of my skirt, handkerchiefs and heating flatirons, dirty windows, locked doors, the dress goods sale at Sargent’s, and whether Bridget and I were upstairs or downstairs, indoors or out at any given time; every second must be accounted for.
My imprisonment made a far greater impression upon me than my trial ever did. I spent the better part of ten months in the Bristol
County Jail in Taunton, as the one in Fall River lacked accommodations suitable for the long-term housing of female prisoners, they apparently being somewhat of a rarity in wholesome, hardworking Fall River. It shook and scared me as nothing else ever has. It gave a whole new meaning to the word trapped. Whereas before I had felt stifled and trapped, like a prisoner in the grim, outmoded confines of my father’s house, now I was confined to a single cell, allowed out only for an hour’s exercise each day and when my presence was required in court. And the stark iron bedstead, washstand, and single chair made my room at the house on 92 Second Street seem luxurious as a grand hotel suite in comparison.
The worst part was being left all alone in the darkness at night, unable to sleep; even the drugs, all the sleeping syrups and calming injections I tried, failed to usher in a few blessed hours of quiet, restful oblivion. Some thought it symptomatic of a guilty conscience; others said fear. The course Justice would take could never be predicted with absolute certainty; murderers had gone free before and truly innocent souls had languished decades behind prison bars or lost their lives upon the scaffold, so I had every reason to be afraid.
Although the matron, Mrs. Hannah Regan, was kind and quite lax about enforcing many of the rules, like letting me wear my own clothes instead of prison garb and having my meals brought in from fashionable restaurants in lieu of the usual prison rations of fish hash, bread, and water, and my cell was constantly filled with flowers and boxes of candy from well-wishers, and lots of books to read, including my Bible and a complete set of Dickens, no matter how I begged and cajoled she would not permit me a light when I needed it most—at night. My lamp must go out at the same hour as all the other prisoners’ did. I think it was a punishment, that we all must sit, or lie, restless in the darkness, alone with our thoughts and fears, and any guilt, remorse, or regret our hearts might be harboring.
I passed a lonely Christmas behind bars. Emma knitted me a big black wool shawl trimmed with thirty-two tassels, one for each year of my life. It shrouded my shoulders like a silent and perpetual reminder that I was supposed to be in mourning and reminded me that I might not live to see thirty-three if the tide of the trial turned against me. At least it helped keep me warm on those cold, cold nights when only lustful thoughts about Lulie Stillwell or Bridget Sullivan reminded me that my blood was still hot even when my limbs felt like they were turning to ice.
Unable to sleep, I sat up on my cot, wide awake and alert to every noise, hugging my knees in the dark, watching the sky through the iron bars, waiting for it to lighten, and longing for a glimpse of the moon, praying for a flash of lightning, as over and over in my mind I relived the days after the one rash, mad one that had changed my life forever, for worse or better.
The doctors the police sent had no sense of decency. They stripped Father and Abby stark naked and laid their bodies out on the dining room table and autopsied them there. Emma and I glimpsed them as we fled, sickened, upstairs. We would never eat at that table again; we both agreed we would have it taken out and burned as soon as it was seemly. The doctors’ assistant threw the bloodied clothes carelessly down the cellar steps so that I tripped over one of Father’s boots and entangled my slippered feet in Abby’s bloody mint-sprigged housedress and would have fallen had Alice not been there to catch me when we descended to the privy. Red water sloshed out of my pail and the soiled napkins floating inside it swirled like angry white fish, churning sickeningly in the bloody water. I felt so sick that I set the pail down and lurched unsteadily to the privy, braced my hands against the wooden box seat, and vomited until I thought my eyeballs would pop out. Then I saw Father’s eye, dangling, bloody, and broken, against the exposed ivory bone of his cheek, that I had laid open with the hatchet, and I vomited again, even though I hadn’t eaten anything since the few nibbled bites that had been my breakfast and brought up only bile, I didn’t think I would ever stop until I disgorged my very heart and stomach.
Then the undertaker, Mr. Winward, had come. He dressed Father and Abby in their Sunday best, and laid them out in the sitting room where Father had died. Abby looked so serene it was as though she were only sleeping; the lace-bordered white satin pillow she laid her head upon and the undertaker’s finesse with reattaching her switch of long, thick black hair hid all the damage my rage had inflicted on the back of her skull. Had one not known otherwise, she might have died peacefully in her sleep. Father’s head was swathed in layers of cotton bandages, wound round and round, creating a perfect plump white ball. He looked curiously like a featureless, blank-faced snowman whose jolly round body had melted into gauntness and been dressed in a severe black suit and tie worthy of the undertaker he had been in his ambitious youth.
I couldn’t bear to look at them for more than a moment. As Emma bent, dutifully, to kiss Father’s bandage-swaddled brow, I squeezed my eyelids shut tight as hot tears seeped out and clamped a hand over my mouth and fled as the burning bile rose like a geyser in my throat. When I came back, the caskets were mercifully closed.
I didn’t have a black dress and even with the tightest lacing I was still too fat to fit into any of Emma’s. I felt like a hippopotamus when I stood beside her before the mirror in my petticoat and stays and glumly regarded my bulging arms, broad shoulders, and bounteous hips. Rather than brave the crowd of curiosity seekers still gathered outside the house, or send Alice out shopping on my behalf, I wore my darkest blue, one that might easily be mistaken for black. But the August sun showed me no mercy; like an accusing beacon, it shone down upon me and everyone knew I wore blue to my parents’ funeral. “Blue!” they whispered in damning disapproval. “She wore blue to her own parents’ funeral!” As though my disrespect would kill them all over again! Every time they looked at me they damned me with their eyes.
What kind of girl didn’t own a black dress suitable for funerals or move Heaven and earth to procure one in time for her own parents’ funeral? all Fall River, it seemed, was asking. A guilty girl who didn’t care what anyone thought. To them it was plain as day; that blue dress was my way of flaunting it. I was not a good daughter; I was not a dutiful daughter like sorrowful black-clad Emma in her plain, somber, and sweltering high-collared, long-sleeved heavy silk, bereft of ornamentation, even lace, proper black gloves, stockings, and sturdy, practical black leather shoes, black-bordered mourning handkerchief, and trailing crepe veils. She looked just like a bride who had fallen into a vat of ink, weeping sorrowful tears when she led the procession to Oak Grove Cemetery; all that was missing was a groom for her to lean upon. They said I was cold, indifferent, and devoid of emotion, that I just didn’t care. I didn’t even cry. I didn’t even pretend, or leave people to wonder by shrouding my face in a veil. I left it bare, stark naked in my brazen lack of feeling, for everyone to see that my eyes were dry. They thought I had no tears, but the truth is I had no tears left; I had spent thirty-two years crying them in secret.
While the preacher’s sonorous voice spoke words I don’t remember, I stood between the pair of stark black caskets and laid a sheaf of golden wheat on Father’s and an olive branch atop Abby’s. It was my way of thanking Father for his bounty there was now no barrier to our inheriting and my sad, silent way of making peace with Abby. I was sorry, and yet I wasn’t. I had done the right thing, even though it was wrong. If only things, if only we—all of us—had been different it might never have come to this. If only, if only, if only . . .
The funeral procession was like a parade, only without the cheers, costumes, and flag waving. People lined the streets thousands strong all the way to Oak Grove Cemetery. I think the whole population of Fall River except infants and bed-bound invalids at death’s door must have turned out. People confined in wheelchairs had even had their nurses or spinster daughters wheel them out to gawk as the pair of glass-enclosed hearses bearing the coffins of Father and Abby, and our carriage, rolled past. Did I only imagine it, or did I really see Lulie in a royal-blue satin and black lace gown, her perfect porcelain-white complexion shaded
by a big black leghorn straw hat trimmed with blue satin roses and a black lace half veil, standing on the sidewalk idly twirling a black lace parasol trimmed with royal-blue satin bows amongst the throng of fashionably dressed women who had assembled on the sidewalk to watch us pass? They weren’t in mourning, so they didn’t have to wear black; they could trick themselves out like tropical birds and no one would criticize them. As we rode past, my hand ached to reach out and rip her veil off just so I could see her face again. But there was too much distance between us. I imagined she was as beautiful as ever; everyone knew Lulie was Mother Nature and Father Time’s favorite child.
At Oak Grove Cemetery, as the coffins sat beside the open graves, a hysterical old Irishwoman with rosary beads wrapped around her gnarled fingers broke from the crowd and threw herself down on top of Abby’s casket. She claimed to have been the Grays’ Maggie before “Miss Abby married Mr. Borden.” Maybe she was? Or she might have been exactly what she seemed—a crazy old woman avid for attention. The undertaker’s men had to forcibly tear her away; she was clinging so tight to the lid I was afraid she would take it with her.
But to the crowd surrounding us, this was barely a ripple upon a pond; they could hardly bear to tear their eyes away from me. That poor madwoman could have torn her clothes off and danced a lascivious Can-Can right on top of Father’s casket and I would have still been the star, center stage in their attention. They just kept staring at me, watching intently, scrutinizing my every move, my every gesture, if I blinked my eyes or twitched my nose, brushed back a stray wisp of hair, rubbed my ear, tugged at my glittering jet carbobs, or adjusted my collar or a fold of my skirt. I heard the word fidgety whispered several times behind my back. They were waiting for me to crack and break down. They wanted to see me weep, tear out my hair, and fling myself into Father’s grave no doubt, throwing myself instead of a clod of earth down onto his coffin.