Lizzie Borden (17 page)

“Have you a thought about it?”

“No sir, I haven’t a clue. Emma and Bridget were home all day yesterday, and the bedroom door was kept locked as always.”

“Have you spoken with Maggie and Lizzie?”

“With the maid Bridget, yes sir. With Lizzie, no. She was not yet up when I left the house.”

Andrew turned to Emma. “Is Lizzie here?”

“Here, Father.” Lizzie rounded the corner. Emma knew she’d been standing on the stairs listening.

“Lizzie, do you know of some items missing from your mother’s dresser drawer and jewelry case?”

“No, Father. Not except what Emma has told me.”

“You were here all day yesterday? You didn’t go out at all?”

“I was here.”

“And you saw nothing, heard nothing that would lead you to believe that there was another person in the house?”

Lizzie shook her head, then looked at Emma. Emma looked away.

“And the maid was here all day? And Emma?”

“Emma was in and out, Father.”

Andrew looked at his wife. “We should fetch the police, Abby. If there’s been a robbery, then it ought to be reported. Perhaps the police. . . But how the deuce was it done? The bedroom door is always locked. The front door is triple locked, the kitchen screen is always latched. Could someone come in through the outside cellar door?”

“Padlocked,” Lizzie said.

“Yes. Hmmm.” Andrew rubbed his chin, then fingered the pipe in his pocket. He was anxious for a smoke. “Perhaps after supper,” he said, “perhaps we’ll go for the police.” And he went out and lit his pipe on the back porch.

Abby went up to her room.

“See, Emma? Nobody is accusing you.”

“She is,” Emma said. “
She
is.”

Lizzie gave an exasperated sigh and flounced out of the room. A moment later, Emma heard the kitchen screen slam again as Lizzie either went to the barn, or went outside to sit with her father as he enjoyed his pipe. Either way, Emma was left alone to stew. She picked up the newspaper that her father had brought, and sat on the settee in the sitting room. Her eyes scanned the print, but she read nothing. She listened to the sounds about her.

Maggie was baking biscuits to accompany the evening meal. Abby had retired to her bedroom to rest, probably, after her excursion to town.

A few minutes later, the screen slammed again, and Emma heard Andrew tell Maggie to fetch the police. She replied something that Emma could not hear, then the door slammed again. Emma jumped up and went to the kitchen.

“Here, Emma,” Andrew said. “Maggie needs someone to watch the biscuits so they don’t burn.”

“You sent her for the police?”

“Of course. A robbery’s been committed.”

“They’ll accuse me, Father.”

“Why you?”

“Because
she’ll
tell them that I was the one who did it.”

“Emma, I think you’re going a little bit too far here.”

“I know who did it, Father. She did. Abby did. She threw her old jewels away and gave the tenner to her stupid Sarah and now she wants to blame it on me.”

“I think I’ve heard enough, Emma.”

His loyalty to that fat woman infuriated Emma. Her hysteria reached a new pitch. “She wants me out of here, Father, can’t you see that? Can’t you see what she’s doing to this family?”

Andrew frowned.

“Maybe I
should
move. Maybe that would just make everybody happy. Maybe I should just move out and leave you all to your own wicked devices. Nobody appreciates the things I do around this house anyway. Maybe I should just die.”

“Maybe we should go sit down for a spell, Emma.” Andrew took Emma’s elbow. She ripped away from his touch.

“Don’t touch me! You’re on her side. You’re
all
on her side!” Tears choked her and she hefted her skirts and ran for the stairs.

Lizzie hadn’t locked her bedroom door, and Emma’s was still standing open. Emma ran through, slamming both doors behind her, and threw herself onto her bed. She could hear the springs creak beneath her as she heaved and sobbed. It was true, she thought. Father never once tried to correct her. Her thinking was perfectly accurate. The hurt seared like a hot poker.

Why doesn’t anyone ever follow me, to try to console me? Nobody cares. Nobody cares.

Her wailing masked the sounds of her father’s heavy footstep on the front stairs. He walked through Lizzie’s bedroom and lay a soft knock on Emma’s door. “Emma?”

Emma jumped when she heard him. He rarely came to her bedroom, in fact she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him in there. She swiped at the tears on her face and the moisture running from her nose.

“Emma, something has happened. Please come downstairs.”

Something has happened?
Emma remembered hearing the kitchen door slam twice. Once, she assumed, was Maggie, returning from her excursion to notify the police of the robbery. And the other. . . The policeman? Lizzie? Her head hurt.

She stood up, shook out her clothes, patted her hair, splashed her face in the basin of cool water, and went downstairs.

The family was in the dining room. Andrew sat at his place at the head of the table.. in fact everyone was in their eating seat, yet there was no food on the table. The stew smelled lovely, and so did the biscuits, but there was no food on the table.

In front of Lizzie was a dirty, rusted meat tin. And inside it were some dollar bills and Abby’s missing jewelry.

Emma slipped into the room and sat at her seat.

Andrew cleared his throat.

“Now that we’re all present, Lizzie, suppose you tell us about this.”

“I found it in the barn,” Lizzie said simply.

“Where in the barn?”

“In the storage area. Sitting on top of a box. Out in the open. I noticed it first thing as I walked in.”

“And has the barn been locked?”

“No, sir, not since Emma asked me to leave it open.”

Emma gasped. It was as if Lizzie had stabbed her.

“Do you know anything of this matter, Lizzie?”

Lizzie took a long time in answering. Emma saw a curious look cross her face. Her brow wrinkled and her eyes lost focus for a moment, kind of an odd response to quite a straight-forward question, Emma thought, but then it was quite an odd situation. “No, sir, I do not.”

“Bridget?”

“No, sir. I know nothing.”

“Emma?”

“I’ve already told you, Father.”

“A simple yes or no will suffice, Emma.”

“No, Father. I know nothing of the matter.” She looked at Abby, who failed to meet her gaze. “Nothing,” she spat at the woman’s downcast eyes.

“Abby?”

“I can’t imagine how they got to the barn, Mr. Borden. It’s as if. . .”

“As if what? Finish your sentence.”

“Well,” she said, “if someone had wanted the money and the jewelry, they would have taken them away. This is. . . this is more like someone just took them for the. . .”

“Sport,” Andrew finished.

Abby nodded, her eyes again on the hands in her lap.

Tension mounted. It was clearly Andrew’s turn to speak, and yet he gave no sign of knowing what to say.

Then a knock came at the front door.

“Oh my,” Abby said. “The police.”

Everybody stood up and went to the front door. Andrew opened it and greeted the uniformed officer.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, “but I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. The money and jewelry has been recovered, it seems as though it was a simple case of misplacement.”

“I see,” said the officer, and took out his little notebook and began to write.

“So thank you anyway,” Andrew seemed nervous. “I’m sorry you’ve had to make a trip out here for nothing.”

“Nothing to worry about, Mr. Borden. Good day.”

Andrew closed the door, but not before he saw Mrs. Churchill, the nosy next-door neighbor, looking over her fence.  He turned and faced his family. He cleared his throat.

“An incident like this need never happen again,” he said. “And we need never speak of this one, either. Understood?”

Everyone nodded.

“Dinner will be served in ten minutes,” Bridget said, and everyone disbursed to their private corners of the house.

Lizzie went back down for supper, out of curiosity more than anything else. She was sick of Emma and the whole family drama, but this stealing of Abby’s property was really strange. Even for Emma.

So she went back down for supper, hopefully to think of something besides the pain she felt as her heart was breaking. The pain over Kathryn’s behavior toward her was so great when she was alone that at times she couldn’t tell where the pain ended and she began.

The tin with Abby’s found property had been removed from the table. Slowly, the family members gathered and had their meal together, an uncommon occurrence. Perhaps we are brought together at this time because we are such an odd family, Lizzie thought. Other families come together as a matter of course, and split apart over petty inconsistencies and discourtesies. Our family comes together only when one or another of us is under grave suspicion. Grave suspicion and heartache.

The meal progressed in silence. No one beside Lizzie had much of an appetite. Lizzie threw bread in her mouth as fast as she could swallow. She spread it heavily with salted butter and had extra portions of meat. Somehow she hoped that the hollow that Kathryn had opened in her stomach could be filled with food. She knew that all eyes were upon her. Abby began to eat a little after watching her, but Emma and her father ate almost nothing.

After supper, Lizzie lolled about a bit in the kitchen, wanting nothing in particular. She didn’t want to be in her room, she didn’t want to talk with anyone, she didn’t want to eat any more, she didn’t want anything, except Kathryn. And Kathryn, it appeared, didn’t want her anymore. Every time Lizzie thought it, she wanted to scream. Finally, when Emma shooed her out of the way for the third time, she went out to the barn. She opened the barn door and breathed deeply of its familiar smell. She looked at the piles of junk, looked at the box where the tin of booty had been found. Why on earth would someone do something so strange? It could only have been Emma.
It could only have been Emma.
Lizzie felt mildly guilty for thinking that, but Emma really was the only one who could be responsible for such a bizarre act.

Lizzie climbed the ladder to the loft. She crossed over and looked out the dusty window. From this vantage point she could see the side of the house and Second Street beyond. It would be nice to bring a little box up here so she could sit and look out this window. It was a nice view, and a private one. Someone might see her looking wistfully out her bedroom window at the street below, but no one would catch her gazing out the window of the hayloft. Lizzie felt quite invisible.

She turned back to her study area, pulled
Pathways
from its hiding place under some hay, dusted it off, and set it on the little table. Then she took her seat between the table and the haystack and contemplated the ritual she was about to undertake.

Lesson three was a meditation to “empower each of the individual selves which make up one’s personality. We take them each in turn in order to know them, understand them, trust them, then enlist them in our endeavors. Only in this way may we align them purposefully toward our goals.” And then there was a list of “selves.” Lizzie was to take them each in turn, spend as much time with it as she felt she needed in order to convince it not to work at cross-purposes in her life. The list included: The Angry Self, The Greedy Self, The Jealous Self, The Slothful Self, The Prideful Self, The Lustful Self, The Gluttonous Self, The Higher Self, the Healthful Self and The Whole Self.

She had tried to visualize the Angry Self, but hadn’t had much luck. Sometimes she imagined she saw that face in the mirror, that distorted picture she saw when she did the exercise with the candles, the one with the vacant eyes. But it seemed to swim in and out of focus, and she could never enlist in conversation the way she supposed she was to do.

She opened the book to the first lesson, but the book was heavy and her heart heavier. She didn’t have much enthusiasm for her studies. She felt leaden, cast aside.

But she tried. As always, she began by thinking about Beatrice and her impending arrival. The thought of it always made Lizzie’s heart beat a little faster, there was so much to accomplish between now and then, and the days just kept flying by and Lizzie just could not see enough progress to feel good about herself. She felt squeezed, and that’s what kept her coming to the hayloft three times a day to do her lessons and her reading and wonder why she kept eating like a hog when she knew she had to take some pounds off before Beatrice arrived. And oh God, how she had just eaten! She felt as tight as a tick.

Even Kathryn had made a comment. Lizzie had gotten used to Emma’s snide remarks—Emma, who was always as thin as a rail, and looked hooked because of it—was always making remarks about Lizzie’s heftiness, but then Kathryn said something of the same just two nights ago.

Lizzie had sat up in Kathryn’s bed and asked her if she had something to eat in the house. Some sort of a snack. Their lovemaking always left Lizzie ravenous. Usually, she would go home and paw through the pantry, but this time she thought it might be fun to see what Kathryn, the gourmet cook, had on hand for snacks.