The House of Closed Doors

Published by Aspidistra Press
PO Box 9174
Gurnee, Illinois 60031-9174
Copyright © Jane Steen, 2012
Cover design by Wayne Kijanowski
Cover photography by Jill Battaglia
e-book formatting by
Guido Henkel
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ONE

M
y stepfather was not particularly fond of me to begin with, and now that he’d found out about the baby, he was foaming at the mouth.

I mean that literally: One of Hiram Jackson’s less attractive characteristics was the liberal spray of spittle that doused the room whenever he got agitated about his subject. He was in full flow now, in both the verbal and salivary sense, and a small crest of foam gathered in the corners of his thin lips as he paced, hands clasped behind his back and chin jutting. His face glowed a dull, mottled red, and the stretching of the skin occasioned by his outrage caused his eyebrows, small goatee, and side-whiskers to bristle outward like outcrops of winter trees on a piebald landscape. The charm for which he was famed had evaporated, and I found myself wondering, in a detached manner, what my mother had been thinking when she decided to end her long widowhood by marrying this man.

“Who is the father?” Hiram swung round to glare at me as I stood‌—‌as far from the spittle cannonade as possible‌—‌in a strategic position near the door. Bet, our housekeeper, had rushed me downstairs before I could reach for one of the shawls I had been using to conceal my growing belly, and my dress strained over the lump.
I would have to let it out again
, I thought. I was uncorseted, of course, as I had been for many weeks.

I did not answer his question, and he strode toward me, knocking over a small occasional table. Bet abandoned her position for a moment to retrieve it, then returned to the post she’d taken up to block my retreat.

“I said, who is the father? Answer me, Nell, or I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Hiram was a tall man and solidly built. His bulk hung over me, and those ice-blue eyes were the only unmoving objects in a face that seemed to be twitching in all directions. His side-whiskers also twitched. I lowered my eyes, caught suddenly between mirth and defiance and not wanting to display either.

“I cannot tell you, sir.”

I felt, rather than saw, Bet draw herself up and give me one of her best daggers-drawn stares. I knew exactly what she was thinking:
How many men?
Only one, dear Bet, I reassured her in my mind. Only one, and just the one time. I began again.

“I cannot tell you because I do not wish to marry him, Stepfather. If I told you his name, you would oblige us to marry.”

My mother’s soft voice cut across Hiram’s indrawn breath. “Then he is free to marry you, Eleanor?” she asked. “He is not a married man?”

A purplish flush spread over my stepfather’s cheeks, producing a most unpleasant effect. He turned on his heel and stamped over to the window, glaring sullenly out of it, with one hand massaging his lower back.

“Eleanor.” My mother’s voice trembled, but her English accent‌—‌and the use of my proper name‌—‌lent it an imperious tone. “Come over here.”

I approached her chair and looked anxiously at her face to see how the news affected her. I could hear her breath wheezing in her lungs but was glad to see that her hand was not at her bosom, always an indication that the chest pains had returned. I dropped to my knees by her side and placed my warm hands on her small, cold ones.

“Mama, I am so sorry. I‌—‌” What did I want to say? That I hadn’t meant it to happen? I wasn’t even sure if I had. Not the baby, of course, I had never wanted that, but the act that had caused it. In my memory I saw flashes of sunlight through a curtain of green leaves.

“You must tell us the name of this boy‌—‌this man. Nell, even to be wed in your present condition will cause a considerable scandal. But to remain unmarried‌—‌oh, my dear child! You must think of your stepfather’s political career. His opponents will use your behavior to convince the voters that my dear Hiram is unable to control his family. Just think, Nell! And, of course, it is wrong in the eyes of the law and the Lord not to marry,” she added as an afterthought. My mother generally put Hiram before the law and the Lord.

“I am sorry, Mama.” I knew my face was assuming the expression Bet called
the stubborns
. “I do not wish to give the name of the father.”

“Then he is unsuitable for your station in life, is he not? Oh, Nell‌—‌you who have always been so particular about the young men of your acquaintance!” My mother’s eyes, the faded blue of old china, were bloodshot, and tears were beginning to gather. But her voice was steady and strong now.

“Amelia.” My stepfather had recovered himself from whatever emotion had temporarily robbed him of speech, and his face had settled back into its usual smooth, handsome lines. He moved toward us, ready to dominate the conversation again. “Your reproaches are quite clear-headed, my dear. But as always, you are too indulgent of your daughter’s ways. She must be made to tell us the name of the‌—‌the‌—‌the unspeakable blackguard who has put her into this shameful condition. You are quite correct that my political chances may be damaged by this, this, this,” he glared down at me and gestured at my belly, searching for a polite enough word. He failed to find one and began again. “She must tell.”

Two tears trickled down Mama’s soft, white cheeks. I shook my head.

“Hiram,” Mama said, gazing up at her husband who loomed above us both, fidgeting with his watch chain with one hand and massaging his back with the other, “how do you propose to make her tell? You cannot possibly be intending physical violence. And you cannot possibly withhold food or any of the necessities of life from her in this condition. Her innocent child must not be made to suffer for her sin. And you know that Eleanor will never yield once her mind is made up.”

My stepfather’s face flushed again, but the mere sight of my mother’s hand creeping up to clutch her chest in the region of her heart gave him pause. I will say one thing for Hiram: He really did seem to love my mother. He, too, knelt heavily by her chair and shot me a look of such venom that I quickly stood up and retreated to the door again.

“Amelia, my dear, do not distress yourself,” he said in quite a different tone. “I will give this matter thought and find an honorable course of action.” He turned to look at Bet, who had held her tongue all this time, sniffing occasionally and making noises under her breath to indicate her disapproval of my wretched self. “Bet, Mrs. Jackson is cold. Bring that blanket.”

Bet immediately grabbed the soft woolen coverlet neatly folded on the piano seat and went to tuck it in around my mother’s legs, murmuring, “There, Madam, and I’ll bring you a nice pot of tea directly. Leave it to the master to arrange things, now do. You must not get yourself into a state.” I noticed that her Irish brogue was to the forefront, as always when she was trying to placate my mother.

My stepfather, who had risen to his feet to get out of Bet’s way, now strode to the door. On the way he grasped me by the shoulder‌—‌so hard that I could feel his fingernails dig into bone and muscle‌—‌and breathed into my ear, the merest hiss that neither of the other women could hear: “I will arrange matters, you little whore, and you won’t like it.”

And then he was gone, and I heard his heavy tread as he ascended to his study.

T
he parlor seemed silent and much emptier without my stepfather in it. It resumed the character it had maintained for so many years since my father died: a realm of women, of soft and earnest gossip and the clink of china cup against delicate saucer. A world of women, who all adored me.

A shrinking world. My adored English grandmama, whose refined ways and English tastes had put their stamp on our Middle Western household, rested peacefully in Victory’s spacious graveyard. And my mother’s dearest friend, Ruth Rutherford, who had visited us almost every day despite the demands of her drapery business, now lay on her deathbed. Our refined, feminine life was under siege, buffeted daily by Hiram Jackson’s loud, large, cigar-scented presence.

I sighed and resumed my seat on the red velvet settee opposite my mother’s chair. Both Mama and Bet turned to stare at my belly, which made a firm, sausage-shaped lump against the lace trimmings of my blue day dress. I felt the baby move, a mere flutter inside me, and my stomach growled loudly.

“Bet,” I said in the most conciliatory tone I could summon, “I really am quite hungry. I have had no breakfast, if you recall. Please bring some buttered toast with the tea.”

Bet drew herself up to her full height and gave me the benefit of her best Irish stare. She had been with us since I was three years old and had gradually grown stouter and more heavily corseted. By now her figure was so compressed that I often wondered what happened when she unlaced at night: did she burst out in all directions like a split bag of flour? She sniffed loudly and linked her freckled fingers together over her tautly imprisoned stomach.