“I wonder that they don’t move into the other house,” said Bridget.
“Not fit for them,” said Maggie with her chin lifted and a haughty expression adopted on her face.
“You’re just the picture of her!” breathed Mary Doolan.
“It’s the house they once lived in with their true mother, and they didn’t want to return! They’re renting it out. And it’s over that bundle of pettiness that they began calling her Mrs. Borden.”
“The very greed of it,” marveled Bridget.
“Yet they’re unashamed. They lost a ‘mother’ for the sake of helping out a family member with a no-good husband and two young children to provide for.”
A fellow came out then, bringing music and cheer with the opening of the door, and the stark silence of the stars as it swung shut behind him.
“Evening, ladies,” he said. For the sake of his privacy, of one accord they nodded and moved back toward the dancehall.
“Well, I’ve done my job in warning you,” said Maggie. “All the rest is up to you now.”
They were swallowed by sound as they entered, and Bridget felt weary of the music that had previously invigorated her. She felt the other two were of the same mind, troubled by what they’d talked of. The grins on others’ faces were no longer infectious and instead a reminder of the blankness in her gut.
“If ill befalls you, come to me,” said Mary. “Throw stones at my window, and I’ll let you in.”
“I hope it won’t come to that,” said Bridget. “Oh, Mary, would you mind much if we left now?”
“I’ve gone and spoilt your evening,” said Maggie.
“Thank you for your concern, truly,” said Bridget. “I’ve not many options, though. I’m the breadwinner, and my family still in Ireland waiting on the odd coin I send.”
“And isn’t that the very brunt of it; it always comes down to money,” said Mary.
“Watch yourself,” said Maggie, “and you can always bunk with me if the times get rough.”
“You’re very kind,” said Bridget. She stared at the other girl, who she knew not from Adam, but whose disquiet for Bridget had taken over the evening. “Go raibh maith agat,” she added in Irish.
“Tá fáilte romhat,” said Maggie. “You’re welcome indeed.”
On the walk home, Mary Doolan hummed the titular tune of the pub, a ballad about a headstrong lass who took a ring off a fellow and then crossed the ocean without him. They walked in companionable silence other than the droning strains, but Bridget soon realized she was dreading the return to the dark house. The pub had been too merry, but the home would be too low.
Soon enough, they were at the Kelly house, where Mary turned off with a flash of a grin and an immediately contrary somber face. “’Twas up and down tonight, weren’t it?” she said.
“Aye,” said Bridget with a rueful smile.
“I’ll see you in the backyard then,” said Mary, and with a nod she was gone.
Bridget continued on a few more paces until she reached the Borden home. She surveyed its simple, asymmetric face, the pitched roof. No curtain might twitch for her; the rooms that faced the street were only the sewing room and the clothes press. Would she work here until her serving days were over? Was this clapboard tenement to be her final stop?
She went to the side door and used her key. No lamp had been left for her, but it was easy enough to climb the stairs with the guidance of the brittle banister. She trod quietly, aware that her footfalls might awake Mr. and Mrs. Borden. She passed the landing where she could hear the breathing of her sleeping employers, long abed on a Saturday night. She carefully felt with her foot for the turn and the beginning of the next flight of stairs.
She began to climb, her eyes becoming accustomed to the dark. It was then she saw the shape ahead of her on the staircase, a silent immobile mass that she strained to see. A rook-colored pillar, fathomless, black as carbon.
She stopped, hand clenching the banister.
The shape stirred a bit, arousing itself from the glut of darkness. It was a woman.
Bridget could detect her standing five steps above her, in full skirts that acquired the plum flush of belladonna, not black, as her eyes adjusted.
The woman pressed herself to the other side of the steps, against the wall, as if merely a cask one might need to step around. She was trying not to be seen.
It was Miss Lizzie.
Bridget discerned the silhouette now, the frizzed hairs, the stone-shaped head. She couldn’t see Lizzie’s face or her blankly savage eyes. Both women remained rooted in place.
Bridget’s falter and stare must have surely alerted Miss Lizzie that she could see her, yet she said nothing. Bridget gripped the banister so tightly that her nails dug in. She knew she must move, but how? Retreat downstairs? Run to Mary Doolan across the moon-dappled yard?
Continue on climbing to the attic bedroom meant to be her sanctuary but now guarded by a Cerberus in human form?
She could not now, after this long silence, call out a greeting to Miss Lizzie and pretend all was well. The wait became interminable. Her heart took an immodest leap in her throat.
She quelled the impulse to turn and steeled herself to continue her way to her room. Miss Lizzie’s stealth seemed intentional, and so she would preserve the pretense that she wasn’t there.
She forced herself to continue climbing, no hitch in her step, as they drew even and Miss Lizzie’s silver eyes caught hers.
The coldness of the gaze shocked Bridget. It was imperious, frigid glance of someone who did not care. Miss Lizzie faced forward; only her eyes had crept to the side to capture Bridget’s. The whites took on a luster in the stairwell, and Bridget shuddered as she bolted the remaining steps. She resisted the urge to look back, feeling the skin on her neck crawling, cold despite the sweat from the warm evening’s walk.
She grasped the doorknob, fumbling and nearly muttering an oath to herself at the panic she felt to put a door between her and the silent mistress.
Had Miss Lizzie been in Bridget’s room? It was her house after all, and she had the right to enter any room, but what might she be after in Bridget’s attic? Or had she not entered and only stood in the gloom, waiting for Bridget to return?
The door relented and Bridget pushed forward into the dark room. As she turned to close it behind her, she saw that Miss Lizzie had not moved, still facing forward, crushed to the side of the wall, perhaps in some illusion of invisibility.
Bridget closed the door and sank down against it. She waited in vain, weariness dogging her eyelids, for the swish of skirts to alert her that Miss Lizzie had left her strange post.
The darkness, implored for movement, laid bare no secrets. She bent to peer at the small strip where the door did not meet the floor, half expecting the silvery eye to regard her from the other side. It was too dark to see. She listened and wished her night to be essayed afresh: to not have gone out, but to have stayed safely in her quarters, each corner scrutinized by lamplight until the kerosene gave out, to not know of the figure monolithic on the stairs, and most of all unwitting of Maggie’s accusations formed in this very chamber.
NOVEMBER 17, 1889
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