The Diary of Anna Caster in those Times before and after the Borden Murders

Anna Caster, an immigrant from England, comes under the employ of the Borden family before the fateful murders... her journal on these events.

June 17, 1892

Reader,

            As I have never much been fond of the idea of writing to an inanimate object, but have found it to be necessary to chronicle my coming to and staying in America for my future generations, I have picked up this journal to keep my memoirs in this new land. However, because I have never been able to write down my feelings to a “diary,” I have decided more so to write letters to you, my reader. And so, whether you are my daughter or grand-daughter or great-great-grand-son, I would like you to read this, the story of not just myself, Anna Caster, but of your own family history: the history of the first in your family to come to “the land of the free.”

            The air tastes different here I think, than in our homeland, England. It is cleaner, perhaps, but the people are just as despicable. You will find as you grow older that, though people like to place themselves in different categories, they are the same regardless of race, creed and sex – they all have the same ambitions. And you can rarely trust any of them. Why, just as I disembarked from the passenger ship which carried me across the Atlantic, a thief tried to pickpocket my wallet. I caught him in the act, luckily, and, upon finding him to be surely no older than ten, merely clocked him in the ears and sent him on his way. (Although it isn’t as though he would have obtained much from my purse. I truly am the peek example of “poor immigrant girl.”)

            Perhaps now for a little about myself: my name, as you by now well know, is Anna Caster, I am eighteen years old and have left my homeland for the simple reason that there is nothing for me there anymore. You see, my mother recently passed on… well, I don’t like to talk about that much. Suffice to say that I have no family left in England to return to and I need a new start. I currently sit writing to you on a bench in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts. New York was a nice enough place for a while, but the people grew unnerving and its streets too close.

            Twilight draws ever nearer and I fear that if I do not find an inn forthwith there will be no more vacancies.

            All my love,

                        Anna

 

June 23, 1892

Reader,

            I found work yesterday, thankfully. My purse is nearly empty and I would dread a night wandering the streets, even in such a quiet town as this. I will be under the employment of the prominent Borden family. They are quite well-to-do, and have even offered me a room with their other maid in the attic. I accepted, of course.

            I must settle in and begin my chores,

                        Anna

 

June 30, 1892

Reader,

            It is an official fact that Bridget Sullivan, the other maid here, loathes me. She’s Irish; so she quite literally just heard my accent and scowled. Because she is twenty-six and eight years my senior she has found it her lot to make my life as miserable as can be whenever possible. For the past week I have borne the most grueling of chores and the latest of hours. But how can I complain? It has, after all, only been a week and my master and mistresses would certainly not like to hear such mutterings from a simple housekeeper. I only pray that it will be a long time before I again have to scrub the latrines, or take care of the rats in the cellar.

            In truth, though it has only been a week, I find myself disliking the people of this household more and more each day. The girls, Lizbeth and Emma are demanding, indeed, and I constantly hear them telling their father how the house they currently occupy is “beneath their station.” They are demanding of me, as well, and, I swear, only order me around to compensate for the state of their house, and make themselves feel, again, more important that their father lets them appear to be.

            Master Borden, despite his daughters’ begging, is too frugal to consider a move to a more expensive part of town, or so it would seem. He is always in his accounting books, which he guards, like the rest of the house, under lock and key. Supposedly, as Bridget has snidely told me, there was a burglary in the house within the past year, and so now Mr. Borden is obsessed with personal safety. He seems a bit paranoid with all his chatter of his “enemies,” which I overhear nightly as I serve the family their dinner. And, though I know that he is not a particularly liked man in Fall River, I must say that I find his incessant fears to be ridiculously misplaced. 

            I’m tired and so think that I will rest,

                        Anna

 

July 18, 1892

Reader,

            There has not been much to write, nor has there been much time in which to write of it. I have been nearly a month in the Borden residence and still have not come to like the circumstances of my employment. The mentality of the household becomes ever grimmer, and its occupants more agitated. It is sore hot this summer – particularly, I have heard, for Massachusetts, and most people seem irritated by the heat. Lizbeth is one of these more notable people.

            Just yesterday I walked in on an argument – or rather, a heated discussion, for I have never heard Ms. Lizbeth raise her voice – which she and her stepmother were having about Mr. Borden. I was mortified to be the cause of the discussion’s ceasing.  Silently, both women left the room, Lizbeth rudely brushing my shoulder.

            She may appear the demure, respectable Sunday school teacher that the rest of the town sees, but I have seen evidence of an anger behind Lizbeth’s eyes. Both she and Emma visibly hate Mrs. Abby Borden, refusing to call her “mother” and only referring to her as “Mrs. Borden,” even when talking to their father about her. Abby is Andrew Borden’s second wife and the ladies do not hesitate to tell him of their lack of respect for this intruder in their family.

            The situation with the locks on the random rooms of the house at random times, I think is one to which I have become accustomed. For the first few weeks of my employment, I simply could not get it straight in my head which doors were set to be unlocked at which times, which made delivering laundry to respective rooms an ungodly task. Still, only yesterday was I locked out of the house and had to hammer on the back door for entry. Mrs. Borden came down, visibly irked by the audacity of my knocking, but let me in after unlatching the triple-locked screen door. I think that Bridget had something to do with the incident.

            It is too hot to write anymore,

                        Anna

 

July 25, 1892

Reader,

            The ladies’ uncle, Mr. Borden’s brother-in-law, John Vinnicum Morse, visited the house today. He is rather astute looking. The two men locked themselves in the study at midday and did not come out until dinner was served. I hope that what they were doing wasn’t too messy, because I just cleaned in there.

            The doings in this house are truly so curious,

                        Anna

 

July 27, 1892

Reader,

            It would seem that in America it is custom to keep secrets from one’s own family; today I found something that I know I should not have found.

            Bridget did, joyously, make me to clean the study again after Mr. Borden and Mr. Morse left on business this afternoon. While monotonously dusting the largest bookcase behind Mr. Borden’s desk I accidentally knocked down a secreted slip of paper, which had been laying fat on a book ledge rather high above one’s head so as to remain concealed. I know that it was unethical of me, but I did not even hesitate to scan its contents, sure that it had something to do with the meeting held by Mr. Borden and Mr. Morse two days previously. Having read the contents of the paper, I now undoubtedly believe it true, for contained within the text, which was the draw up for a new will by Mr. Borden, my master had decided not to leave his fortune and home to his daughters by his first marriage, but to the one person that they loathe more than any other being: his second wife.

            I know the ladies will not be happy when they hear this news (but they will not hear of it from me),

                        Anna

 

August 3, 1892

Reader,

            Everyone in the house seems to have been touched with a bit of the stomach flu; I myself feel queasy. Unfortunately, so does Bridget, and if she is catty on her good days then, in comparison, she is bearish on her bad ones. She keeps forcing me to the cleaning of the first-floor carpets, a job supposed to be hers, because she says that she feels too ill.

            Lizbeth does not seem to feel as bad and went to the Smith’s Drug Store today, she said, to get soda water to ease our stomachs. She came back empty-handed and everyone thought her mannerisms to be curious. She said that she forgot her reason for going out. She was frustrated, kept muttering about “only ten cent’s worth!” and “who will give me the prescription?” I suppose that means that she is sicker than she let on.

            We had a regular visitor to the house today, Ms. Alice Russell, who is Ms. Lizbeth’s best friend and confidante. Ms. Russell left soon after seeing us all ill, and after noticing that Lizbeth seemed particularly agitated on this day. Even I myself noticed her – well, almost frantic attitude. Thought frantic of what, I could not say, as here in this house I am looked down on by the girls as nothing but a servant, no better than them and most certainly not their equal.

            Mr. Morse returned this evening for a stay. I do not know how long he intends to be here with us, but, as with Ms. Russell, I am sure that he will leave soon after witnessing the state of things in the house.

            I feel ill and so that is all for tonight,

                        Anna

 

August 4, 1892

Reader,

            I have no doubt that this is the hottest day I have ever suffered. The temperature reaches over 100^o and with the household’s current ailments, no one is in the mood to do much more than sleep. Emma was feeling better and departed to visit a friend in nearby Fairhaven, but Bridget got much worse and excused herself from making breakfast to go be sick outside. I, instead, made the meager meal. No one was in much of a way to eat anything, but they did gratefully (for once) accept my tea.

            Mr. Borden has gone out on some business or other, and Mrs. Borden is out as well, or so Lizbeth has told me. There was something about a letter received from a sick friend…

            I swear I just heard Lizbeth laugh; at what, I wonder? I –

            Bridget is calling for something, and though my stomach screams out in protest, I must go do her bidding,

                        Anna

Later:

Reader,

            I am afraid that I fainted, for that could be the only way that I would be laying again in my cot. I remember Bridget screaming for me and then telling me to wash the windows – I must have swooned, yet I do not recall a thing. Bridget lies now on her own cot across the room tossing and turning in the heat.

            I must go check on my employers and see that they are returned and well,

                        Anna

 

August 6, 1892

            I write here what I know for dread that I may soon be no longer able to tell my tale. Andrew and Abby Borden had their funeral today. Yes, they are dead – not only dead but murdered, and I am afraid, so afraid, because I know who murdered them. I saw it. Saw it with my own two eyes as the hatchet went up and down forty-one times over the entirety of poor Mr. Borden’s body – she gashed his face till he was nearly unrecognizable and split his eyes and nose and he screamed so loudly for the first few blows, and he bled so long after the ordeal just bled and bled and bled… while she smiled and cackled and laughed that laugh I had heard earlier in the day, the laugh that ushered poor Mrs. Borden to Heaven, may they rest in peace those two, oh my God… they took off the heads from the bodies for further evaluation… headless…. I have to get out of this house before I go mad because she comes into my room at night and stares at me and I pretend that I am asleep but she knows, I know she does, that I am awake and sense her presence there, she knows…and even when I sleep, when I catch a few breaths of that restful darkness it is her face that consumes me and wakes me screaming so that I must muffle my cries lest she come up to “visit” me again… oh God….

 

August 7, 1892

            I saw her burning the dress over the stove today. She said it was covered in paint, that’s what she said to Alice Russell and I – but I knew she was lying.

            I knew.

 

August 9, 1892

            She is going to kill me I know she is. I can tell by the way she looks at me at dinner. Emma has left the house after an argument with her sister; Alice Russell is going to testify against her and Bridget, that leech, that traitor, that bloody accomplice has left town for good. 

           She asks me where my allegiances lie – I think she saw me there after the deed while talking with Bridget, giving her instructions to get rid of the hatchet and dress for a time.

            She knows that I know. She smirks, and it says I’m next. I’m next.

            I have to get out of the house but she is worried about me she says, the liar… the murderer, cold blooded killer of her own family. She won’t let me leave and locks me in my room now… trapped.

 

April 10, 1892

            It was Lizzie Borden who killed her parents I write her name here as my testimony, as evidence. I hear the subtle creaks of the house. She gets me tonight. Up, up, up the attic steps to my door and nothing can stop her…

            To this I put my name: Anna Castor.

 

April 10, 1892

            Reader:

            Poor, poor Anna. She didn’t scream so much as I supposed she would. But couldn’t have her running about could I, threatening to spill secrets like she did to you, “Reader,” now could I? She had no one, so she won’t be missed – and neither will this journal. By the time anyone reads this it won’t make a difference at all. And even now, who would suspect a demure Victorian girl like myself of any such heinous act as this?

            They have a rhyme now on the playground at the school house: “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks.  And when she saw what she and done, she gave her father forty-one.” But they are wrong. It was forty-two. Well, mistakes happen.

            Poor, poor Anna,

                        Lizbeth Borden.

Author's Note

This was an English assignment from last year and probably needs some cleaning up.