In the Garden of Spite

by Camilla Bruce

I think that is the best way to keep away grifters who are always looking for such opportunities. Now, if you think that you are able to put up $1,000 in cash, we can talk the matter over personally. If you cannot, is it worthwhile to consider? I would not care for you as a hired man, as I am tired of that and need a little rest in my home with my children. I will close for this time.

  With friendly regards,

  Bella P. S. Gunness

  James came to visit with a crate. He laughed at my letter. “You make it sound like you’re bestowing some honor upon them.” He sat in my parlor drinking whiskey. The piles of letters from my suitors lay before him on the table. Petals kept dropping down on them from the flowers James had brought me.

  “Well, I’m certainly worthy of some cash.” I gave him a wide smile.

  “Your farm seems to have grown some as well.” He was referring to the number of acres I had given.

  “Ah, but they will never know.” They could barely count, some of them.

  He sat on the sofa and I was in a chair. The open bottle was on the table between us. Above our heads, I could hear Jennie ushering the children to bed. Lucy was looking for her rag doll and Philip was in a foul mood. I itched to go to them, but I knew that Jennie could manage. I had given them red berry soup with laudanum drops for dinner, and they would all fall asleep fast enough.

  “You are about to plant them in the yard, my dear,” James pointed out in response to my statement. His eyes glittered merrily toward me.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” I argued, though we both knew that I would. “I might marry again someday.”

  “But not any of these.” He motioned to the letters. “I know you won’t listen, but I still advise you to be cautious. You had a near miss with the butcher—”

  “I’m not leaving them out on display,” I cut in, a little dismayed. I was no fool, after all.

  “I know it’s hard to stop, Bella. Once the blood takes hold there’s nothing quite like it. If we lived in the west when there was no law, or if we were soldiers in a war, your hunger for it would even be encouraged, but we’re not.” He shook his head with mock sadness. “We have to slip and squeeze around the law as best as we can. I have told you before to be clever about it—”

  “It’s just for the money. I will stop when I have enough.” I lifted and downed my glass.

  “No, no, no.” He laughed and shook his head. “You’re no more in this game for the gain than I am. Not anymore. There will never be enough money, my dear, because the money isn’t the point.”

  “You think I like the act of murder.” I briefly met his gaze.

  “I know you like the act of murder.” His eyes narrowed and hardened.

  “I never used to feel such need before.” I had done just fine after Mads, and after Anders in Selbu. For a time.

  “It ages like fine whiskey, that lust; it grows and it blooms.” He lifted his own glass and sniffed it before bringing it to his lips.

  “I find that I’m angry.” I clutched the glass so hard that my knuckles went white. “I never knew that I was so angry.” My jaw started to ache.

  “I always knew you were.” His smile was close to pity. “I just never knew what for.”

  “I think it has to do with an old story that nearly killed me many years ago.” My gaze drifted to the window, to the farmyard outside.

  “I hope you will share it one day.”

  “I don’t think I can.” That story was embedded so deep within me it might never again see the light of day. Like a cancer, that story, gnawing at my bones. Bad enough that Nellie brought it up, peeling the scabs away from my wounds.

  “Did you kill him, whoever it was?” The pity was gone, replaced with glee.

  “Oh, I killed him.” I turned my gaze back on him and matched his wicked smile. “He was the very first one.”

  “I’m glad you got him, then. It must be hard to have a pain like that if the one who caused it is still alive.” The smile disappeared from his lips.

  “It still hurts.” I filled our glasses.

  “Always will, I suppose.” He sighed and leaned back on the sofa, his slanted eyes glittering again.

  “If I just get enough money, that—”

  “No, you’re fooling yourself. There’s no peace for the likes of us.” He held my gaze for a long time.

  “Lest we hang,” I said.

  “Yes, there’s that.” He lifted his glass high in the air. “May that unhappy day be far off yet.”

  * * *

  —

  I knew James was right, of course. It had been a long time since it was about the money, though I kept telling myself that was all there was to the “enterprise.” Perhaps it had been so when the fear of starvation was still chasing me through life, but now it was a different hunger that haunted me in the nights. It scared me, this rage I had just discovered. I wondered if it had been there all along, hidden beneath the hams and sausages, cheeses and spreads in my pantry. If it had disguised itself as my desire for riches, my need to always have more.

  Maybe it had been my anger all along. Maybe I still survived out of spite, just as I swore to do after the lake. Maybe I got rich and fat just to spite—had my children out of spite—and killed my husbands too, out of that angry sense of spite.

  Maybe I was still kicking at a dead man’s corpse, daring him to come at me again.

  I looked at myself in the mirror in my room and saw a stranger. A woman haunted and never free, plagued with an aching jaw. I felt ashamed that he still had such a hold over me. That all the things I did came back to him. I had killed him, after all, and it ought to be enough to keep him at bay, but no—he was still there, dwelling deep inside me. I wanted to kill him again and again, and that was what I did.

  This is how curses are made: someone does something to another, and traps that person in a web with threads so fine they can hardly be seen. There is no escaping that web.

  I could not escape that lake.

  But even if I had found the name and shape of what haunted me, it did not make much difference. My days were too busy to dwell. I had children to care for, cows to milk, chickens to pluck and bread to bake. It was better that I felt strong, I thought, able to take down the biggest of men, than feeling like that ruined girl bleeding on the ground.

  I tried not to think of her—and stayed busy.

  The earth at Brookside was soft and hungry; it did not mind the dead at all. Just as the house embraced me and held me, the dirt kept my secrets safe in the dark. My neighbor, Mr. Christoffersen, told me that a doctor who used to live there kept his own graveyard, so the soil had eaten the dead before. It was miraculous to me, the way the dirt would swallow up the remains—just as the ground in Selbu had taken my little girl. When I flattened the topsoil with my shovel, the smooth surface gave nothing away. It was my house and my land and it would not betray me. It was a part of who I was.

  If I had no ready grave or the ground was frozen, I sometimes rowed my suitors out on Fishtrap Lake. The water was a fine friend too, closing over the crates. It was hard work, though, as the makeshift coffins had to be weighted down—and dangerous too, as the lake was used by others. I had no control of the crates and their loads after they had slipped into the water. If they rotted and spat out their contents, there was no way I would know before the law was at my door.

  I preferred the earth.

  The area by the lake was fine for that purpose too, the soil around its edges soft and yielding. I could dig a proper hole myself; it was not much trouble at all. Once a neighbor caught me, though, just as I finished up.

  “My God,” said he. “What is that smell?”

  I leaned on the shovel and gave him my best smile. “Oh, a man passed by this morning. His dog had just died and he offered me five dollars to bury it on my land. It was a stinky thing so I brought it out here. I jus
t didn’t want it in my yard. I’m sure the smell will be gone soon.”

  He believed me, of course; why would he not? I was always sweet to those people. I lent them equipment and labor if I could, and pinched their children’s rosy cheeks at church. No one cared if I had guests at the farm; if anything they found it endearing. All of La Porte knew it by then, that Belle Gunness was looking for a husband. I swear they made bets at the bar whenever a new suitor came with the train. They gossiped about it at kitchen tables over heaps of food and mending. Maybe they sighed and shook their heads when the newest suitor just up and left, often leaving me in a pinch. Such a horrid thing to do, they would say, leaving a woman to fend for herself in midseason to go with some horse trader or return to Norway.

  Belle Gunness sure was in bad luck when it came to finding a man who could fill Peter’s shoes.

  It was a glorious enterprise, and they never saw me coming.

  I always cared well for my guests, was ever attentive and listened to their woes. I offered my assurances that life would be better from now on. Now that they had found me. I wrote them long letters urging them to sell whatever they had and bring the money to invest in our future together. They like that, men: comfort and prospects. I offered them oranges too, juicy and sweet, to take their minds of all life’s troubles.

  Some men I liked more than others, those who were not lewd or fallen to drink. Those who could provide me with much-needed labor. I kept them with me longer. In the end, there was always something, though, a brazenness or a wrong word. None of them lasted very long, and certainly not to marriage.

  Every time it was different. If I was in a quarrelsome mood, I gave them chloral. They did not die from that; they just slept. Sometimes the poison did not take as I wanted, and the men woke up and fought me before the cleaver showed them mercy. Sometimes it took a few strong whacks to have them die, as tendons and flesh can be thick and hard. Other times, I made a mess of things, leaving blood all over the floor.

  If I did not feel like fighting, I gave them my trusted cyanide. They died on their own then—no bother at all. Just some sickness and convulsions, and they were gone. The taste and the smell were strong but could easily be masked with food. The orange was ever my favorite; so easy to tap into with a syringe.

  When the men were good and dead, I hauled them down in the cellar.

  I was a thriving enterprise and my money box filled up.

  I felt safe then, safe in my castle, until Nellie came to call and everything went wrong.

  38.

  La Porte, 1906

  My sister seemed nervous when she arrived; her hands fluttered between her chest and her lap, and she cleared her voice several times before speaking during our first conversation. She had come to borrow silverware for Olga’s upcoming wedding, and she and Nora would stay with us for two nights.

  Her nervousness made me uneasy in turn—I knew there was something bothering her, something she was not saying.

  The visit started out pleasant enough. Nellie and I browsed the silver—of which I had plenty—while Nora and Jennie brought the girls out in the pony cart. Little Philip was nearly three by then, and played with his wooden horses around our feet as we sat side by side by the dining room table, looking at spoons and forks.

  “I cannot believe she’s getting married,” I said in my sweetest voice, to make her feel more at ease. “She was a little girl only yesterday.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Nellie sighed. “And with a Catholic! Can you imagine that? Mother would have been aghast.”

  “Oh, she knew well enough that children will do as they please. She wasn’t too thrilled about us coming here either.” I lifted a long-tined fork and wiped off a tiny smear with my sleeve.

  “She is old enough, it’s not that, but it still feels like losing her somehow.” Her voice was a little thick with emotion.

  “I think all mothers feel that way. I sure will, when it’s my turn.” I handed her an ornate knife, one of my very finest. “This is a lovely pattern, don’t you think? It’s very modern, with the lilies.”

  Nellie inspected the silver in her hand, “Oh, she would like that. She wants everything to be elegant.”

  “How is it with money? You know you only have to ask if you need to borrow some for the wedding.” It would suit me well, truth be told. Perhaps Nellie would let her suspicions slide if she were indebted to me. It never hurts to have a hold over another.

  “We’ll manage,” she said, her lips pursed tightly together. I thought she was foolish. Surely they could use the help. True, they had more now than they did before, but a wedding was still a large obligation, and Nellie’s new son-in-law had four older siblings with families of their own and several aunts and uncles in America. It would be a large party. I could not help but wonder if my sister saw through me—that it was my money she deemed tainted somehow. That she did not want to owe me. The thought sent my heart racing in my chest, and I quenched a wave of anger.

  “Thank you, though,” Nellie said. Her gaze darted from knife to fork to chandelier. She looked flustered; her cheeks had turned a crimson red. “I certainly appreciate the offer.” She gave a wan smile.

  “You need only say,” I repeated, but Nellie did not reply. She was fingering the knife with a pained expression, and though I tried very hard to make things light and good between us, she never did seem to relax—which annoyed me and set me on edge in equal measure.

  * * *

  —

  The real trouble started later that day. Nellie was in the kitchen with the children preparing vegetables for dinner while I was out caring for the horses. When I came back inside through the back door and set to unlacing my shoes, I could hear my sister speaking:

  “You are very good at this, Myrtle. Look how pretty your potato peel spirals are, all long and even.”

  “I can make spirals too,” peeped Lucy.

  “You are a little too young, I think, to be handling such sharp knives. Next year, maybe.”

  “Mama lets me use the knife.”

  “She does not,” Jennie said. “She does not, Aunt Nellie. It’s just Lucy who wants to.”

  “Look,” said Nellie. “You can fill this pot with carrot cubes . . .”

  “Mr. Davidson cut them into shapes, like flowers.”

  “Who is Mr. Davidson, Lucy?” Nellie’s voice sounded curious.

  “He visited Mama.”

  “Did he now?”

  “Lucy, I don’t think you should—” Jennie started to say, but Nellie cut her off.

  “Does he still come to see her?”

  “No,” said Lucy. “It’s been a long time. He was only here once, like all the others.”

  “The others who?” Nora spoke, while I fought and struggled with the laces of my shoes, stiff with manure as they were. I had to get them off and get in there, or my children would right give me away.

  “The other men who visit Mama.”

  “She has many visitors out here, has she?”

  “Yes, and then they leave before breakfast.”

  “Lucy!” Jennie’s voice cracked in the air. “I’m sorry, Aunt Nellie, she doesn’t know any better.” I could hear Nora chuckle in the background, finding it all so very amusing.

  “But is it true, though?” said Nellie. “Myrtle, is it true that your mama has male visitors who stay only for one night, and then are gone in the morning?”

  “Sometimes they stay a little longer,” Myrtle said softly.

  “But then they disappear?”

  “It’s no one’s business but Mama’s,” said Jennie. She sounded afraid. I could hardly burst in there filthy and reeking without making Nellie even more suspicious, so I forced myself to stand still and listen while the horror unfolded in the kitchen. “She is just looking for a husband,” Jennie told my sister. “I don’t think she wants you to know.”
<
br />   “But why do they leave in the night?” Nellie asked.

  “They remembered they had to be in Chicago,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, Lucy,” said Jennie, “they have all kinds of reasons.”

  “Usually they remembered they had to be in Chicago.” The girl stood her ground. I should perhaps have been a little more inventive with my excuses.

  “Isn’t it strange, though, that they all seem to figure this out during the night,” Nellie noted.

  “I don’t know,” said Lucy.

  “We’re not supposed to talk with them much,” said Myrtle. “But if they stay on for a while, we have to. Sometimes they play with us, or do funny things, like with the carrot flowers.”

  “One of the men shook me,” said Lucy, “but then Mama sent him away.”

  “And rightly she did,” said Nellie. “No man should ever punish a child not his own.” On that, at least, we agreed. My mind was swirling with what I had just heard, and I was thinking up ways to explain it to my sister. I could say I had become a moneylender, perhaps, or that I had opened my home to gentlemen traveling alone but had been too embarrassed to say so. Surely she would understand that, both the need for an extra income and the embarrassment. It was hardly proper for a widow to have strange men coming and coming.

  Then, just as I thought the horror had mounted, a fresh wave hit in the kitchen:

  “How are we with peas?” Nellie asked.

  “We are almost all done,” said Jennie. Clearly, the two eldest had been tasked with shelling.

  “We could use some cabbage too with this,” said Nellie. She was cooking up a soup with salt beef and greens. “You keep them in the cellar, yes?”

  “Yes,” said Jennie, “but—”

  “We are not allowed to go down there,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, why is that?” Nellie asked.

  “The stairs are rotten,” Jennie answered. “Mama is afraid we’ll hit our heads.”

  “She should have those stairs fixed, then,” Nellie said. “How does she get down there herself?”