The House of Closed Doors (5 page)

The thought flashed across my mind that our activities had perhaps strayed beyond the bounds of socially acceptable lovemaking between single persons. And I didn’t care; after all, what very little knowledge I
had
acquired‌—‌from whispered conversations with girls equally as ignorant as I‌—‌had taught me that one had to be in a reclining position to do anything really shocking; and the ground still being a little muddy, there was no chance of that. Although I was, in truth, in danger of collapsing into the mud; my leg muscles had unaccountably become weak and trembling, and all coherent thought was fast leaving me.

My eyes flew open in surprise when a stinging pain, coupled with a strangely pleasurable sensation, intruded on my consciousness. Jack’s eyes were closed and his tanned face flushed; his teeth were gritted as if to stifle sound, and his fingers were digging into my nether regions. I closed my eyes again, not at all sure what to do. Jack gasped two or three times, and suddenly he pushed away and turned his back on me. I leaned weakly back against the smooth trunk of a young tree and tried to get my bearings about what had just happened.

After a minute Jack turned round and held out a white object decorated with the initials JHV. It was one of the handkerchiefs I had fashioned for him. To my astonishment, it was streaked with red.

“Quick,” Jack said. “Use this between your legs; you are bleeding.”

I took the handkerchief in mute surprise and turned away from him. A moment’s investigation revealed that his statement was accurate, and it took me a few minutes to adjust matters to my satisfaction. I heard Jack stammer a few phrases under his breath, among which I made out “I thought‌—‌I didn’t know‌—‌” but I was too preoccupied to pay heed to him. Voices rang out perilously close, and when I turned back to face Jack he had already slipped out of our hiding place and was hailing a group of girls, asking if they knew where I was.

Taking the hint, I moved around the back of the young willows and headed in the opposite direction to find a fallen tree where I could sit and look as if I had been contemplating the river.

I
was ignorant but not stupid. I realized that I had crossed over a threshold I should never have approached; but what was done could not be undone. I spent the rest of the picnic in alternating states of mind: puzzlement over the contrast between what I felt during our lovemaking and my feelings after its abrupt conclusion; anxiety as to how I would conceal the state of my undergarments; and strange feelings, like galvanic shocks somewhere between pleasure and fear, that ran up and down my arms and legs every time I thought of the day’s proceedings.

Jack was quiet and spent much of the time feigning sleep, although I saw a jade-green glance directed at me once or twice. When challenged by his sisters for being sleepy and stupid, he laughed and declared that he had eaten too much chicken.

When we returned to my house Jack handed me out of the carryall with as much unconcern as if I were one of his sisters, although this time he looked directly at me, and I thought I saw a tinge of anxiety in his gaze. I smiled brilliantly at him, and his face relaxed. Calling to my cousins that he would walk straight over to his hotel and return later for dinner, he sauntered off in that direction.

The next eighteen hours did not afford us any opportunities for private conversation, and at ten o’clock the next morning the hired carriage drew up in front of our house. The traveling trunks having already left on an earlier cart, there was nothing left for my female cousins to do but to worry about mislaid articles, fuss about the dustiness of the road, and cover my mother and myself with lavender-scented kisses and promises to write.

Jack handed his sisters into the carriage and turned to shake hands with Ruth Rutherford, who had called to say goodbye to the visitors. He stooped to kiss my mother gently on both cheeks and then took my hand.

“Goodbye, Cousin Nell. Thank you for a most delightful visit.”

His tone was polite and friendly, and there was a look of something like camaraderie in his eyes. A look that said, “No harm is done, and we are friends, are we not?” I examined my feelings. No, I was not distraught to see him go. Did I feel anything in particular toward him? He was the same as yesterday: a handsome man with pleasant manners, but now I understood better the promise of his sensual lips and watchful eyes. We had forged a bond, he and I, but not one, apparently, that either of us wished to draw tighter. I suddenly felt very grown up.

I smiled my most winning smile and lifted my eyes slowly to his face so that he could enjoy the full effect one last time. “Goodbye, dear Cousin,” I said steadily. “I wish you success with your career.”

His lips brushed my knuckles as they had the day of his arrival, and once again I felt their warmth and the cool touch of his silky mustache on the back of my hand. He straightened up, nodded imperceptibly at me, and sprang lightly into the carriage, instructing the driver to set a steady pace.

And then they were gone, leaving only a cloud of dust. Waving goodbye to Ruth‌—‌who had to return to her store‌—‌I took my mother’s arm and we walked back inside.

A
s the door shut behind us, my mother smiled at me, as gaily as if she too were almost seventeen.

“Jack is a handsome young man, is he not? You two seemed quite friendly together.”

I turned quickly toward the parlor door to hide the blood I felt rising to my cheeks. “Mama,” I said, forcing a reproving tone, “I hope you are not getting any ideas.”

“Not in the least, my love. And besides, Henrietta let slip that there is a sweetheart back East. A girl of very good family, she says.”

This put a completely new complexion on things, and I felt a strange emotion‌—‌a mixture of relief and foreboding.

“Jack did not seem like a man about to marry,” I remarked. “He talked a great deal about youth’s freedoms.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Amelia.” Hiram had bidden a hasty farewell to all and had ensconced himself in his armchair with the newspaper while we lingered over our goodbyes. He ignored me, addressing his remarks to my mother. “The boy should establish his career before he thinks of marrying. And I implore you, my love, to stop treating every male who comes within three feet of Nell as a potential husband. Although,” he laid his newspaper down on his lap, “that money of Barney’s would come in useful.”

“But we have ample money, do we not?” Three small lines of anxiety appeared on my mother’s alabaster brow.

Hiram cleared his throat, jerking the newspaper back up in front of his face. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Amelia. I meant for Nell. I do not want to have to support her husband as well as her.”

I drifted off toward the stairs while the discussion continued, my mother having adopted a bantering tone as she pretended to fret over her spouse’s parsimony. Why, I found myself wondering, had Jack flirted with me if he had another love at home? And if his attraction to me had overridden his conscience, why had he found it so easy to leave me? Really, I mused, I had thought I understood men. They were obviously not quite as straightforward as I had imagined.

FIVE

S
everal weeks passed before I suspected that my lapse had consequences. In the first month I simply refused to believe there was any significance to the absence of my monthly “visitor”; my recent experiences, I convinced myself, had disturbed my body’s equilibrium. When the second month passed without a sign of menstruation and my breasts became tender, I began to worry; but whom could I consult?

Unmarried women were only given the information they needed to maintain the proper level of hygiene; usually a girl’s mother or married friend instructed her, as close as possible to her wedding night, about what would be expected of her. Only once she was safely married would such matters as pregnancy be discussed. Those in my social set, innocents all, were as ignorant as I; and with Grandmama gone, I had no close friendships with any married women except my mother and Ruth Rutherford. Asking Bet seemed like a possibility, but I knew that her loyalty to my mother would mean instant revelation. Ruth, perhaps? But she had already taken to her bed for what would be her final illness.

So I remained silent, hoping that I was wrong about my condition. I never felt any illness as I had heard some women did; I participated in the usual summer activities of buggy rides, picnics, outdoor dances, and rambles down by the river. Flirting had lost its thrill for me, and my few female friends were not slow to comment; but I simply stated that I was beginning to find such things childish, which was the plain truth. Two boys who were determined to take an interest in me were eventually rebuffed by my distinctly unenthusiastic manner and turned to other girls instead.

My corset began to feel increasingly uncomfortable, but my waist was thickening, and I laced it tighter. The heat became stifling, and in the evening Bet would open every window in the house to let in what little coolness the night provided. My nights were spent listening to the cacophony of insect voices outside my window, chasing the mosquitoes that always managed to find a way in despite the screens, and passing my hands over my barely swelling stomach. I had heard that women lost their babies sometimes; could that miracle happen to me?

I was not pious; I went to church, of course, and sat with bowed head as my mother and stepfather said their rote morning and evening prayers, but prayer was not something I did unless I was expected to. Now, in the singing nights of summer, I did pray one prayer over and over again: Lord, don’t let this happen to me.

The waists of my dresses became tight, and I carefully let them out in the privacy of my own room. By September I developed a craze for shawls, even though they were not the height of fashion. Rutherford’s had some truly magnificent fabrics that year, Martin having come across a consignment of embroidered Indian silks on his monthly buying trip to Chicago. Fringed, they looked splendid; I made several, and my mother and friends became accustomed to seeing me swathed in yards of bright color. Several of the younger women in Victory were seen sporting a similar article; I could not help but laugh at the irony of being a leader of fashion when all I was trying to do was hide.

By October a distinct lump had emerged, and I was beginning to feel the flickers of life inside me. What was I going to do? The question was resolved one morning when, pleading a headache, I had begged my mother to be allowed to remain in bed a little longer. By ten o’clock I was ready to rise; and unfortunately, it was just at the moment when I swung my legs over the edge of my bed that Bet entered the room.

I
could see straightaway from Bet’s face that she had noticed the bump through the thin cotton of my nightgown. For a second, she froze; then she crossed the room at amazing speed for her size and seized my shoulder. The fingers of her left hand held me immobile as she poked at my abdomen with her right.

“Mother of God.” Her face had drained of color, and the freckles and blotches on her weathered skin stood out plainly.

“Mother of God,” she said again. “What have you done?”