Lizzie Didn't Do It!. William Psy.D. Masterton
into trouble with Officers Fleet and Harrington and, through them, with the head of the Fall River police force, Marshal Hilliard. Her friends said that her calm demeanor after discovering her father's body was predictable; she always suppressed her emotions. Perhaps Lizzie herself said it best: "There is one thing that hurts me very much. They say I don't show any grief. Certainly I don't in public. I never did reveal my feelings and I cannot change my nature now."
In their attitudes toward money, Lizzie and Andrew were at opposite poles. Lizzie enjoyed spending money and did so every time she got a chance. While touring Europe she ran out of money; Andrew, much as it pained him, had to send her more. Her wardrobe was both expensive and extensive. Officers Fleet and Seaver examined the dresses in the Borden sisters' clothes closet, about eighteen in number; of these, one belonged to Abby, a few to Emma and the rest to Lizzie. Most of Lizzie's dresses were blue, her favorite color.
There was another side to Lizzie's willingness to spend money. With less than one tenth of Andrew's income, she gave at least ten times as much to charity. When the mother of one of her former teachers needed a major operation and couldn't pay for it, Lizzie assumed all of the expenses. Somehow she paid the doctor and hospital bills out of her savings. Throughout her life, Lizzie did many, many kindnesses of this sort.
Lizzie was extraordinarily sensitive to rebuff or disapproval. Victoria Lincoln, a Fall River native, explained this by saying, "Her need to be loved outstripped her ability to love." Her uncle, Hiram Harrington, put it more critically. "Lizzie is of a repellant disposition and after an unsuccessful passage with her father would become sulky and refuse to speak to him for days at a time."
Again, let's give Lizzie the last word:
"One thing that hurts is the malignity that is directed against me. I have done much good to people who now desert me. In my own home there are hands stretched out against me that I have loaded with favors in the past. There is no one so humble that does not dare to condemn me."
An insight into the differing views of Lizzie's character comes from two stories. One appears in the book, Lizzie Borden, the Untold Story by Edward Radin, who was convinced of Lizzie's innocence. It seems that there was a group of boys in the neighborhood who lusted for the pears growing in the Borden backyard. One of them went to the door and, when Lizzie answered, asked if he and his friends could pick a few pears.
"She told me we could pick the fruit that had fallen to the ground but we must not climb the trees. We soon found a way to beat that. We would sneak into the yard and shake a big pile of pears off the trees. I'll never forget the first time we did it. Lizzie gave a start when she saw that mound of pears on the ground. She caught on immediately. Her eyes danced, her lips quirked up, and you could see she wanted to laugh out loud. After that, it became a game. I know she watched us through the window shaking the trees first, but she never spoiled the game for us by telling us outright that she knew. It made the pears taste even better and she must have realized it."
Agnes de Mille, who choreographed the ballet Fall River Tragedy and believed Lizzie to be guilty, told a quite different story.
"A workman once witnessed a curious scene in connection with the laying of some bricks. Miss Borden returned from shopping to find them cemented contrary to her instructions. She wheeled on the laborer and without a moment's warning flew into such a white fury that she seemed almost out of her mind. Her language and the violence of her physical demeanor were horrifying. The workman left and refused to return."
On the evening before the murders, Lizzie had a long and lugubrious conversation with Alice Russell. She described her parents' illness and Abby's fears, which Lizzie apparently shared, that they had been poisoned. She told of Dr. Bowen's visit and the rude reception Andrew gave him. As Lizzie put it, "I was so mortified." Lizzie went on to tell Alice about the trouble her father had with a man who came to the house to rent a store from Andrew. Her father turned him down, at which point they argued angrily. Finally, Andrew loudly ordered the man out of the house.
Throughout their conversation, Alice tried to persuade Lizzie that she was "making a mountain out of a molehill". However, Lizzie persisted, telling Alice that, "They have broken into the house in broad daylight, with Emma, Maggie and me there. Mrs. Borden's things were ransacked and they [broke into father's desk and] took a watch, money and streetcar tickets. Father reported it to the police but they didn't find anything." (The robbery occurred in June of 1891; Andrew told the police he was afraid they would not be able to find the real thief.)
Lizzie summarized her foreboding by saying, "I am afraid somebody will do something." Indeed within twenty four hours someone did do something awful. Perhaps Lizzie had a premonition; then again, perhaps her prophecy was self-fulfilled.
Significant Others: John, Emma and Bridget
John Vinnicum Morse, a bachelor, was the brother of Andrew's first wife. Born in Somerset, a town bordering Fall River, he migrated to the midwest at age twenty two. There he accumulated a tiny fortune raising cattle and horses, first in Illinois and later in Hastings, Iowa. Two years before the murders, he came back to New England. In August of 1892 he was living in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts with a butcher named Isaac Davis. He made frequent visits to the Borden house fifteen miles away, showing up in late June and again in mid July of 1892.
On Wednesday, August 3, after shaving his friend Davis (who was blind), Morse came to Fall River, arriving at the Borden house shortly after noon. The senior Bordens, who had just finished dinner, greeted him heartily. Abby invited him to sit down and eat, saying, "Everything is hot on the stove. It won't cost us a mite of trouble."
Later that afternoon, Morse rented a team of horses and drove to Andrew's farms in Swansea. There he arranged to take delivery of some cattle that Isaac Davis had bought from Andrew. Shortly before 9 P.M., Morse arrived back at 92 Second Street, carrying a basket of eggs that Andrew had requested. The two men talked in the darkness for about an hour and then went their separate ways to bed. Curiously, Lizzie didn't say hello to her uncle when she came back from Alice Russell's; indeed she didn't even see him on this visit until after the murders.
John Morse was six feet tall and weighed about two hundred pounds. According to the Fall River Globe, "His full beard of iron grey partially concealed a well tanned face, which is enlivened by two small, restless grey eyes, deeply set behind shaggy eyebrows. His appearance certainly is not inviting or prepossessing, and his mannerisms and habits are peculiar." (The Globe didn't much like any of the Borden family except Abby.)
FIGURE 2.5 John Morse
Clearly John Morse was a frugal, taciturn Yankee who did not make friends readily. Beyond that, opinions differed. Isaac Davis spoke up for him, saying, "No, sir, John V. Morse never committed that crime. Why, I would have trusted him with everything in the world and would as soon think of my own son doing the deed." Morse's Iowa neighbors were less complimentary. One person described him as, "selfish, close, hardfisted, but scrupulously honest." Another was sure that the suit Morse was wearing on the morning of murders was the same one in which he left Iowa two years before. No wonder Andrew Borden and John Morse got along so well; they were "cut out of the same cloth".
Emma Borden, by general consensus, was a pale mirror image of her younger sister Lizzie. Emma was "plain" in appearance; Lizzie was "attractive". Emma had a weak jaw, Lizzie a strong one. The Fall River Globe was particularly cruel, referring to Emma's, "listless, expressionless face, indicating a person who is accustomed to obey the persuasion of a stronger mind." A reporter for the Boston Globe must have really hurt poor Emma when he said, "Lizzie looks six years younger than she is, Emma six years older." No wonder Emma seldom if ever posed for a portrait.
The contrast between Lizzie and Emma carried over to their personalities. Lizzie was "aggressive", Emma "submissive". Lizzie had a sense of humor; Emma never laughed (perhaps because she had very little to laugh about). Unlike Lizzie, Emma seldom strayed very far from 92 Second Street. Her two week visit to friends in Fairhaven, cut short by the murders, was highly unusual.
