The Secrets of Lizzie Borden (36 page)

She played this scene several times to great effect for the so-called “gentlemen of the press” who applauded her selfless self-sacrifice, nobly devoting her life to bringing pleasure to thousands of theatergoers while steadfastly denying herself the dearest, sweetest, most natural instincts of a woman's homebound heart.

“It is one of the vain regrets of my life!” she would heartrendingly sigh. “But I have schooled myself to say to all who talk to me of a home life, though that is ever a sore and tender spot with me, that I have no thoughts of settling down at all—the stage is my life, and I have ground my very soul under heel to succeed there!”

I remember a magazine feature, “A Day at Nance O'Neil's Farm,” in which she posed for a series of photographs gathering eggs; herding the sheep; sitting by the pond playing with fluffy yellow ducklings; milking a cow; bathing a billy goat in her own bathtub with her lily-of-the-valley-scented soap; standing proudly, like a domestic goddess, beside the kitchen stove holding a large potato speared awkwardly upon a fork and smilingly declaring in the caption below that she was about to
bake
it for her husband's supper before plunging it into a pot of boiling water; gingerly holding a broom as though she hadn't the faintest clue what to do with it; sitting with a lapful of knitting needles and a mound of hopelessly tangled wool; and relaxing by the fire at day's end dozing dreamily with her head resting on Alfred's knee as he, per their nightly custom, read to her from one of the great classics of literature—actually a sporting magazine concealed inside a copy of
David Copperfield
. Life for Nance was indeed a stage, and she was
always
on it, playing a part; I sometimes wondered if she had
any
idea who she truly was.

It all reminded me of Marie Antoinette's pretend farm I had read about where servants bathed and perfumed the animals before they were led into the royal presence. Nance even had two cows named Blanche and Brunette that she liked to take for walks as though they were dogs while she smiled and waved hello to the locals, or “quaint peasants,” as she called her neighbors. And she liked to dress up like Little Bo Peep, replete with sunbonnet and ringlets and ruffled pantalets, in a Mother Goose pantomime to herd the sheep, all of them curiously clean for farm animals and wearing blue or pink satin bows to denote their sex.

 

Like carefree young girls in bare feet and dresses of cheerful calico—Nance in green and yellow and me in blue and red—with our hair down in pigtails, the ends tied with ribbons to match our dresses, we wandered hand in hand all over the farm. One wonderful drowsy afternoon we made the most passionate love in a haystack. Afterward, Nance told me that the farm was haunted, that on nights when the moon was bright a pair of lovers from a bygone century roamed about and relived their own forbidden passion.

Back in the days when the Puritans still held sway, the farm had been an inn. The innkeeper had had a beautiful daughter, with long golden hair and a sweet, docile disposition. One day, while gathering mushrooms in the forest nearby, she had met a gypsy girl, part of a roving band that camped on the outskirts of town. The two had fallen instantly in love. And though the innkeeper's daughter struggled with what she perceived as a great and terrible sin and fears for the fate of her immortal soul, she could not renounce her love. They continued to meet, whenever they could, in the woods, but as the weather grew colder they grew bolder and moved their secret trysts inside the barn. One night they were discovered in a naked embrace in the hayloft. The gypsy girl was accused of using witchcraft to seduce the innkeeper's daughter and taken out and hanged from a tree on the grounds. Her beloved died shortly afterward, of a broken heart, the legend said. Some versions of the story claimed she had hanged herself from the same tree or drowned herself in the pond.

“And to think I shall lose this place,” Nance sighed as she lay in my arms, her head on my shoulder, drowsy with love, “if I cannot raise seventy-five hundred dollars.”

“We shall have to see what we can do to prevent that,” I answered, thoroughly under her spell, so caught up in her web I would have promised her the moon on a velvet pillow or the stars for a necklace if she had hinted that such was her desire.

 

One late Sunday afternoon, our last at the farm before the tour resumed, Nance and I were lazing away the day in the library. She was restless and got up from beside me and went and plucked a book from a shelf and carried it to the desk. I thought nothing of it and went on reading my own volume until she leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed my cheek and presented the book to me with a flourish.

It was a beautiful book with a deep-mustard-yellow cloth cover embellished with wreaths of golden flowers and a sky-blue satin marker sewn into the binding. It was a collection of poems by her friend, and sometime lover, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had turned his epic poem about Judith of Bethulia into a play to create a worthy showcase for Nance's “immense and awe inspiring talent.”

She had taken the trouble to copy one of the poems out onto the flyleaf just for me. It was called “Flower and Thorn.”

Daphne
—that was my secret name for her. I alone called her that. The idea had come to me one day when I saw her swimming naked in the pond, her body white, her hair like liquid gold floating out about her bare shoulders, among the pink and white water lilies. Daphne, for the chaste and beautiful water nymph of ancient lore, upon whom the gods took pity and transformed into a laurel tree the moment the lascivious Apollo's eager arms closed around her—thereby preserving her chastity and saving her from rape. There she would stand by the river, stiff, proud, stately, and unyielding forever as a warning to presumptuous lovers who would force their lust, and their will, upon another.

Why couldn't I see beyond the sentiment, that this pretty gift of poetry contained an implicit warning? My Daphne was telling me that if I tried to hold on to her I would be left with nothing. But I couldn't think then; she was in my arms again, nuzzling and nestling, and telling me how happy she was that I had decided to go to Chicago with her.

 

In hindsight I suppose Nance was very happy to have me there. A lawsuit was looming and costumes and scenery she needed had been seized by an irate theater manager after Nance defaulted on a loan. Nance insisted it was all “mean-spirited meanness” and she couldn't remember any such loan; the money was a gift, she insisted. She was
determined
to challenge the charges in court, and I followed her bravely into the arena, despite the clamor of photographers and newspapermen. I put on a dress of pearl-gray and pale-mauve satin trimmed with dotted black net, ropes of pearls, my silver fox fur, with a mammoth corsage of orchids, and an enormous veiled hat the size of a serving platter erupting with a riot of silk orchids and sleek pink, purple, and magenta feathers, and sat beside Nance, holding her hand and nodding encouragingly throughout the ordeal. And when she lost the case and burst into tears because she had spent the last $25 she had in the world on the orchid corsage she was wearing and her own lawyer was going to sue her because she couldn't pay his fee, I consoled her by writing a check, to discharge her legal obligations and secure the release of her costumes and props. The smile she gave me in return was like the sunlight breaking through the rain and vivid blue skies chasing away the grim black thunderclouds.

After Chicago a train whisked us away to New York. We dined every night at Delmonico's. I remember sitting there simmering with jealously over a lobster dinner while Nance danced, flirted, and laughed with her admirers. I clenched my fists so tight my white kid gloves split. My face, captured in the mirrors lining the silk-papered walls, was as red as the velvet gown Nance had chosen for me. I sat there and watched her waltz obliviously right past me in the arms of a handsome, silver-haired financier, anxiously fingering the gold scorpion brooch, Nance's own, that she had herself pinned on to my bodice as we dressed for the evening as a gift to thank me for chasing her financial woes away and to remember her by forever. As if I could
ever
forget
her!

She reveled in the attention of her admirers, male and female; she simply could not get enough of their adoration, gifts, and flattery. Though she kissed me every chance she got and called me her “angel” and her “lady bountiful,” I was no longer enough. She had even started to plead exhaustion and headaches to keep me from her bed.

At first, I believed her, until, restless, and unable to sleep without her beside me, I rose and peeped out into the corridor and saw Nance's door open and a black-haired girl with caramel skin in a beaded topaz satin gown softly slipping out with the dawn, satin high heels twinkling with faux diamonds in her hand as she tiptoed in her silk stockings down the rose-carpeted corridor to her own room. I recognized her as Alfred's latest protégé and the newest member of the troupe, a Brazilian beauty named Ricca who was obviously taking her role as Nance's understudy quite literally into bed and directly under the great star herself.

Yet I couldn't leave Nance or even openly reproach her. I feigned blind ignorance and never said a word about Ricca and just went on smiling, showering Nance with affection, gifts, and money and playing the charade of love, hoping she would eventually tire of her new dalliance and come back to me. More fool I not to realize that there would
always
be a
new
diversion to delight Nance. If she didn't find them, they would find her. Variety was the spice of Nance's life; she lived for novelty and could not abide stagnation and boredom.

But the curtain always has to fall. The night
finally
came when it was no longer possible for me to pretend anymore and she turned all my gold and silver tinsel dreams to cold gray, dead ashes. I was dancing in her arms, in my bloodred velvet gown, cheek to cheek, heart to heart, gold scorpion at my breast, when Nance coyly alluded to the
greatest
gift of all, one that only
I
could give her. Then, when the hint eluded me, she came brazenly out with it and asked the impossible of me.

“Give me your life, dearest Lizbeth,” she begged, her voice sultry and hot against my ear, her tongue flicking out, to tease the lobe, just like a snake's forked tongue.

She was asking me to give her the once in a lifetime role all actresses dream of, the one she would be forever identified with; no matter how many other actresses attempted it in the decades that followed, it would always be
her
role. She wanted to portray me in a play. I would be given
full
credit as authoress even if I didn't write a single word and left it all to an anonymous phantom pen Nance would hire, and we would appear together before the press and I would publicly declare that Nance was the
only
one I trusted to do full justice to the story of my life, that no other actress could breathe such life and heart into my personal tragedy.

I felt stung, used, and betrayed. For the first, and only, time I said
No
to Nance. And so she said
good-bye
to me, but not in actual words, at least not then. And I was still too much in love with her to see the truth behind her sad little smile as she laid her head upon my shoulder and let her tears soak through my lace collar as we finished what was to be our last dance.

“It was just an idea, that's all; let's forget the whole thing,” she whispered. Of course, she didn't mean a word of it. Forget and forgive was a concept completely foreign to Nance.

But I was only too happy to agree and go on pretending.

When the music ended and we sat down, as a conciliatory gesture I drew my checkbook out of my purse.

“Now you need never worry about losing your farm,” I whispered as I handed her a check for $10,000.

I thought it was enough. But Nance didn't even say thank you. She just folded the check in half and stuffed it down the front of her marigold velvet bodice for safekeeping, then sat forward and moodily pillowed her chin against her fist and wearily began reciting:

Then she yawned right in my face and languidly lit another cigarette.

I knew then, with my sinking heart, terrified by the plunge it was so suddenly and abruptly taking, back into darkness and lonely oblivion, that she really was bored with me, and tired of me, and that Ricca and all the other casual dalliances were not just passing fancies, merely the continuation of a long-established pattern. And, even worse, Nance was disappointed in me, because I had finally said
no,
where before I had
always
said
yes
. That
no
was the death knell of our love, if it ever really was love, and about that I had my doubts even if I didn't want to acknowledge them. I only knew I felt let down, like
I
had failed
her,
even though I knew I hadn't done anything wrong; I just didn't want my life story paraded before the footlights. I didn't want to be a playwright or provide the fodder for any more headlines. It wasn't a slight against Nance herself, or her talent. I just wanted the scandal to die and to be allowed to live out my life in peace, blessedly free of the macabre notoriety that had for so long surrounded me.