Lizzie Borden (9 page)

Abby’s own plate had chilled. Half-melted butter had congealed on the potato, and it didn’t look at all as it did before she left to coax the girl from her room. She added salt and ate it anyway.

Andrew cleared his throat and set his fork upon his plate, tines down, with a sound that commanded attention. Abby’s potato stuck in her throat. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, dread coursing through her. He was going to spoil whatever it was that had just begun to happen. Should she speak? Dare she?

“Lizzie, I’ve been thinking.”

Dear God
.

Lizzie looked up from her plate, chewing slowly, thoughtfully. She took a long drink from her water, then dabbed at the corners of her mouth and waited patiently for her father to collect his thoughts.

“I think I’ll give Emma the money she wants so badly, and ask her to see if she can’t live with her friends there in New Bedford.”

The thrill that ran up Abby’s spine at her husband’s words stopped dead when she saw the expression on Lizzie’s face.

Andrew cleared his throat. “Or. Well. She’d be a wealthy woman by any standards. She could buy her own house there, or here in town, for that matter.”

The expression on Lizzie’s face was unreadable. There was shock there, and disbelief, but something more, something Abby couldn’t identify, and it seemed to disturb Andrew as much or more than it did her.

Lizzie’s fork, forgotten in her hand, slowly lowered itself to the plate with a light
ting
.

“She’s become disruptive to the family, Lizzie,” Andrew said.

Lizzie was silent, her eyes still on her father’s face.

“She’s a grown woman, Lizzie. She should have a life of her own, in a home of her own.”

Lizzie set the fork down. Abby swallowed. Her eyes darted back and forth between her stepdaughter and her husband. She silently prayed, Dear God, not something new to rend this family, please, not something new.

“I would go with her,” Lizzie said quietly.

Andrew let out a sigh. “Lizzie, don’t say that. Don’t lets make any firm decisions about this. It was an idea, a suggestion. I say we all sleep on it tonight and then discuss it again in the morning.”

“Nothing will be different in the morning, Father,” Lizzie spoke in full voice. “If Emma is to leave the house, then of course I must go with her. I, too, am a grown woman and if you think she should be on her own, then I should also.”

“But the three of us,” Andrew pointed his fork at Abby, “get on so well together. And it would be better for us, given the chance.”

“There are things you don’t understand, Father,” Lizzie said.

“Tell me.”

Abby heard a wistfulness in his voice, and she knew he had lost the battle. He would never ever let Lizzie leave his side. Never. Ever.

“She`s my sister.”

“So?”

“So, she raised me, practically.” Lizzie did not look up to see the knife twist in Abby’s heart.

“You may think that, child, but. . .”

“I’m not a child, and I do think that. I also think. . .” Lizzie put her napkin to her face.

“Go on, Lizzie.”

“I also think that Emma cannot get on by herself. I think she would die. And I owe her too much to let that happen.”

“That’s foolish talk, girl.”

“You may think that,” Lizzie retorted with a small smile.

Abby wanted so much to jump in and pour out her heart. She wanted to tell Lizzie how much she loved her, how she had always loved her wonderful green-eyed little girl, and how hard it had been for her all these years, deferring always to Emma and Emma’s ways. Abby wanted to come around the table and clutch Lizzie to her and say, “Please, Lizzie, make an old man and an old woman happy in their last years. Please.” But the words were not there. This was a discussion between Andrew and Lizzie, and while it affected her entire life, she was not to have a say.

Pictures came to Abby’s mind. Pictures of Lizzie following Emma around like a puppy. Pictures of Lizzie copying everything Emma did. Pictures of a little girl idolizing her older sister, and an older sister who took advantage of that position. Emma had been jealous of the plump baby Lizzie since the day she was born, Abby was sure. Emma treated Lizzie poorly, always telling her she had no worth, and Lizzie believed every word. Abby would spend all day with Lizzie, talking to her, making her laugh, being friends and playmates, and as soon as the front door opened with Emma home from school, gaiety vanished in the household and Lizzie was once again Emma’s.

Lizzie and her father were close, but there would be nothing to break the tie that held Lizzie to Emma.

“Just think about it over night.”

“As you wish, Father.” Lizzie folded her napkin and rose. “Excuse me.” The icy exterior had returned. For some reason it had melted during the day, this frost that had covered Lizzie for the past few years, and now it was back, horrible and cold, yet. . . yet. . . Abby hated to admit it to herself, but the coldness was familiar. It was safe. It was comfortable.

She looked at her husband and the look on his face touched her soul. Such a good man. Such a good man. She hated to see his heart break over his daughters. Again. She touched Andrew’s arm and he moved it away from her.

MARCH

Andrew Borden looked into the mirror and carefully combed what sparse white hair the Lord had seen fit to save for his declining years. He checked his shave with a hand that trembled and then straightened his bow tie. He didn’t care much for mirrors; mirrors had a way of attracting one’s scrutiny, and the more one gazed upon one’s self, the more attention one paid to one’s appearance. Vanity was employment for the foolish, he had always believed, and so there were only the necessary mirrors in his house; hand mirrors in each bedroom and a small one downstairs, on the wall in the foyer. Especially women, he thought. Give a houseful of women a houseful of mirrors, and there will be trouble. Serious trouble.

He finished his inspection, placed the mirror face-down upon Abby’s dressing table and laid his towel over the bowl filled with cold soapy water and gray whisker shavings. The warm smell of fresh biscuits baking wafted up from the kitchen. He knew there would be gravy leftover from the evening meal to enjoy with them.

He patted down his pockets. He had the rent bills, his keys, his wallet, his money clip. He left the bedroom and locked the door behind him.

It was Saturday. Andrew liked Saturdays. They were a change of pace. They bore the fruit of his labors. On Saturdays, Andrew Borden collected his rents. It was usually one of his favorite tasks. Sometimes one of the tenants could not pay, and eviction made not such a pleasant day, but he hadn’t had to evict a tenant for some time.

The thought of his pockets filled with money as he came home today brightened his outlook. Almost everyone paid in cash. He’d probably even come home with a treat or two from one or another of the farms. Some fresh butter—how Abby loved that freshly churned sweet butter—or maybe some milk or eggs. The very thought of his pockets full of money and his hands full of fresh food for his wife sparked his appetite. He went downstairs ready to enjoy a full meal.

He was right. Fresh biscuits were in the warming oven. He took two, cut them open and laid them on his plate, then ladled warm gravy from the pot over them. He took his plate to the dining room, where Abby and Emma were breakfasting. Abby poured him a cup of tea.

“Good morning.”

“Morning, Father.”

Andrew tucked his napkin into the neck of his shirt and spread it out over his front. He cut the biscuits into deliberate squares with his knife and fork, then sipped his tea and took a bite of biscuit and gravy. Wonderful.

“Father?”

Andrew looked up at Emma. Her eyes were on her plate. Not a good sign.

“Do you think we could put in with some remodeling this year?”

“Remodeling? The house is comfortable. It has heat.”

“I know. The wood furnace was a wise investment. No, I mean some other things that might make the house a little more comfortable. Like hot water in the kitchen. And perhaps a bath and W.C. upstairs.”

Andrew’s temperature rose. “We’ve been over this before, Emma.”

“I know. How well I know. I thought I would ask you one more time.” Emma set her fork down. “I thought that perhaps you had given it some consideration and come to a
sane
conclusion for once.”

Abby gasped. Andrew felt his face getting hot. “You may be excused.”

Emma threw her napkin on the table and stomped from the room. Andrew pinched and pulled the skin on his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Borden,” Abby said. “I don’t know why she does that at your breakfast.”

“I don’t know either.” Andrew took a deep breath and looked squarely at his wife. “Are you inconvenienced? Would hot water from a faucet and a bath upstairs be terribly different?”

“It would be nice, I grant you that, but. . .”

“But?”

“Well, I know how business is, Mr. Borden. Money is tight, as you say, and there are other things best done first.”

“That’s right, Abby. If I thought for a moment that it would make a difference, a substantial difference, or even a modest difference, I would have the plumbing installed today. But we have lived thus for twenty-seven years, and I am quite accustomed.”

“Emma sees the neighbors. . .”

“Dash the neighbors! I know all about the neighbors. Emma and Lizzie care too much about appearances. They need to concentrate instead on what goes on in their minds, not what happens in their bathrooms.” He looked down at the gravy cooling on his plate. It had lost all its appeal.

“I must go collect rents. My tenants expect me before noon. Good day.”

He set his napkin beside his plate, donned his suit coat, his overcoat and his tall black hat, picked up his umbrella, although the day looked perfectly clear, and walked out into a perfect spring morning.

He turned and looked at his house. It was not the pretentious home that his daughters would prefer. It was not built in the prestigious neighborhood on the Hill. It was a small house, an unusually narrow house, no more than twenty or so feet wide as it fronted on Second Avenue. And it was indeed an odd shape, as he noticed again, what with the maid’s bedroom added as a third story only on the very back of the house. When he bought the house, it had been a two-family house. They had put in a couple of doorways in order to connect some of the rooms and that had been the end of it. As a result, the layout was unusual, with the rooms being strung along like beads: having access to one meant going through the others. His and Abby’s room was only accessible from the back stairs off the kitchen, as was the maid’s tiny cubicle Andrew had built on a third level, just above their room. The girls’ rooms and the guest room were gotten to from the front stairs off the sitting room and parlor.

Yes, it was an odd little house, pinched a bit, he supposed, but it was serviceable, and he was in no mood to move to a new house at this stage in his life. Nor was he about to have the house torn up so pipes could be wandering about.

And so dismissing his decision as being right, Andrew sniffed the air. He smelled the campfire scent of the cook-stoves busy heating kitchens in the neighborhood. He smelled loamy earth awakening from the winter. He smelled the horses on the streets, their leathers freshly waxed and proud. The world seemed new, and Andrew felt like striding importantly down the street. All the dim unsettledness of the household was left behind, and it only came to mind when he caught a whiff of his overcoat, permeated as it was with the scent of the Borden home. And even then, the familial troubles seemed vague. Unreal.

At the corner in town, he stopped and pulled out his package of rent bills. He shuffled through them, knowing all the while which one was first. He always traveled the same route. He began his Saturday in town and finished it at the farm in Swansea. Whenever he added a new property to his portfolio, he would sit and plan the rerouting of his rent collection to include the new tenants. His method was efficient; he didn’t want any unexpected inconveniences to mar the pleasure he got from his Saturdays.

He turned left down Main Street, and passed the First Congregational Church. He’d be walking down this way again tomorrow morning, with his wife, if she felt up to it. Lately, Abby had taken to preferring to stay at home of a Sunday morning. But Andrew would be there with her or without her, and he would sit in the Borden pew with his two daughters. Lizzie taught Sunday school, and would have to be there an hour before the worship service, so she didn’t join him on his Sunday walk to town. Perhaps Emma would. Perhaps Emma would take kindly to a Sunday stroll through town and perhaps the Lord would smile down on Emma and remove some of the bitterness that ruled her life.

Andrew collected all three rents due in town. Every tenant was home; every tenant expected his visit; every tenant had cash in the right amount ready and waiting for him. Feeling flush with the successes of his life, he walked around to the livery stable to borrow the carriage that belonged to the bank so he could collect his money in the outlying areas.