The House of Closed Doors

by Jane Steen

  He brought to me one day a gold wedding band incised with a tiny, delicate pattern of leaves and flowers. I must have looked puzzled, because he spoke before I could open my mouth.

  “In case you are seen in this house with the child, I want you to wear this. People may not necessarily believe a story of a secret marriage followed by the death of your husband, but I want you to concoct one nonetheless. You are a resourceful woman, and you will prepare your story well.” It was not a request.

  I turned the band around in my fingers; it did not look new. “Where did you come by this, Stepfather?”

  Hiram flushed uncomfortably. “I had it made for Emmie, but it was too big and the design did not please her.”

  “Emmie?” I could not place the name.

  “My Emmeline.” Hiram’s icy blue eyes actually softened a little. “My little wife.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Mama had told me about Emmie when she and Hiram were about to be married. Dead in childbirth, the child dead too, many years ago. Married when she was barely sixteen and Hiram in his thirties and dead just one year later. Hiram still visited her grave.

  I slipped the ring on the appropriate finger and looked at it critically. It fitted quite well; my hands are large, but my fingers, although rather solid-looking and squared off at the ends, are passably slender.

  I looked up at Hiram, not wishing to thank him. “I will wear it.”

  Hiram grunted his approval and stalked off, leaving me staring at the gold band. It symbolized, in my mind, not a nonexistent husband but the inescapable commitment that now bound me. I was tied to my daughter with chains that could only be dissolved by death: “whither thou goest, there shall I go.” It also seemed to symbolize Hiram’s promise that he would keep that bond intact.

  It was inevitable that my presence in Victory would gradually become known. Bet and Marie were sworn to secrecy, and I do not think they betrayed me; but in a small town like Victory, scandal has all the power of a barrel of rotten fish and is just as impossible to keep hidden for long. We invented an unfortunate personage by the name of Jerome Govender, who had married me in haste but had not lived long enough to repent at leisure. This ridiculous fabrication meant, of course, that I had to adopt mourning dress.

  “It will become you, Nellie.” Martin ran an appreciative finger over the fine alpacas and silks his assistant had brought over in the morning. “With your Titian hair and pale skin, the black will have a wonderfully dramatic effect.” He whisked a tulle ruffle out of the pile and held it around my neck, turning me to the parlor mirror so that I could see the result. “And you have a long neck‌—‌swanlike, I would say if you were a customer I needed to flatter‌—‌so if you wear your hair high, a frill just so‌—‌do you see?‌—‌will be most ornamental.”

  I did not know what “Titian” meant, but I could see his point about the frill. Martin’s hands rested lightly on my shoulders, and as he spoke about my neck, he brushed it lightly with the back of his hand. Something about the gesture reminded me of a far-off day in May, and I shivered.

  Martin immediately stepped away from me and turned his back as he searched among the parcels. “And you must have‌—‌ah! Here it is.” There was something forced about the joviality in his voice, but I did not inquire what was wrong. He was deftly picking open the knot on a very small parcel from which he extracted a length of the softest velvet ribbon I had ever seen and something that gleamed in the light from the window. He held it up; it was a beautifully carved oval of jet, leaves and branches twisted around a single large pearl held in a setting of chased silver leaves.

  “From Whitby, in England.” He grinned as he saw my face light up at the beauty of the pendant. “Just the thing for a young widow.”

  I had seen much mourning jewelry‌—‌after all, the War made many widows even in Victory‌—‌but this delicate masterpiece was far different from the morbid monstrosities most women wore. I was grateful that Mama had never worn my father’s hair as a bracelet or brooch.

  “Thank you, Martin.” I eyed the dull sheen of the black fabrics, calculating how best to make them up into a becoming dress. “If I must mourn an imaginary husband, then I suppose at least I may look elegant.”

  Martin caught my hand and kissed the very tips of my fingers. “Nothing but the best for my dear Mrs. Govender.”

  “Stop it.” I did not like the pretense, but I had to admit I had brought it upon myself, and any reminder of that fact was unpleasant to me. I looked down at the ring on my finger, twisting it around so that the minutely incised flowers danced in the afternoon sun.

  “What are you going to do about Hiram?” Martin’s tone became serious. “He all but confessed from what you told me. You saw the bodies of those he murdered; can you really keep silent?”

  I did not speak for several moments, watching the play of light across the soft silk. Far off downstairs I could hear Sarah’s squeal and Marie’s answering laugh. Hiram was out on some business or other, and Mama was resting in her bedroom; she had had a string of bad nights and for once did not feel up to keeping visiting hours. Martin rested his elbow on the pianoforte and waited for me to say something, his face still and patient. Amid the crimsons and browns of our overdecorated parlor, his hair gleamed like a golden beacon.

  I shook my head slowly. “No, I do not think I can keep silent. But think, Martin. Whom can we tell who is not a crony of my stepfather’s? He has every official in the county in his pocket.”

  “And in Chicago? Does his influence reach that far?” Martin’s brow was wrinkled in thought.

  “Go to Chicago? When? How?” It made sense. I did not think my stepfather had an extensive acquaintance with the large community of Irishmen who made up the police force.

  Martin ran a hand over his hair, straightening up to his full height. I tipped my head to follow the movement, fighting the temptation to smooth my hands over his clean-shaven cheeks as I did when I was a child. We were still the best of friends, but somehow I knew I could never go back to the innocent affection of those bygone days.

  “Let me think about it, Nellie. We could go to one of the police commissioners‌—‌they will surely have no jurisdiction this far north, but they will be able to suggest a solution, I am certain of it.”

  “Supposing we try, and fail, and Hiram gets to hear of it? He will definitely try to take Sarah from me then.”

  Martin’s square face held an oddly resolute expression. “If it comes to that, I would marry you myself and give you and Sarah the protection of my name.”

  My face must have shown the astonishment I felt. “You would do that?”

  “And annul the arrangement as soon as I could, naturally. Once you were well out of Hiram’s grasp.”

  “Ah.” Well, yes, I did not suppose Martin wanted to be married to me any more than I wanted to be married to him. After all, Sarah was not his child.

  Martin picked up his hat and motioned to the tea table. “We have let Bet’s good pot of tea go cold. She is sure to wonder what we were doing all this time.”

  “It’s none of her business, and anyway I will pour it into the aspidistra.”

  Martin grinned at my cowardice and reached out his hand to mine. I thought he would kiss it again, but instead he enveloped my hand in both of his large, warm ones and gave it a gentle shake.

  “If there is any justice to be found in this deplorable situation, I will help you find it. Give my love to your mama.”

  And then he was gone, leaving me staring out of the window until a sound from below made me fly toward the still-full teacups. Justice, I thought as I tipped the cold, pale liquid into the dusty earth of Mama’s favorite plant. Justice for Jo, for Benjamin, and for Blackie. At what expense?

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Oh, Nell, this is wonderful news.” My mother’s eyes were alight as she read a letter written on Cousin Elizabeth’s distinctive green letter paper. “Dear Jack is an attorney at last!”

  “Really?” I knew that I had flu
shed slightly and kept my head bowed over the black ruffle I was sewing for my new mourning dress. I cursed inwardly at myself for being sensitive to Jack’s name. After all, he was my cousin, at least in the technical sense. I would be hearing news of him for many years to come, no doubt.

  And from Mama’s lighthearted tone of voice, she had either dismissed or forgotten any suspicions she might have harbored about my relationship with Jack. Forgotten, probably. She had become a lot more forgetful lately, and that worried me.

  “Elizabeth says he is now a junior in the firm where he has been apprenticed the last two years‌—‌or is it three? I cannot remember. I am so glad for him. He found it hard to readjust to civilian life. But now look! He is on his way to success and fortune.”

  “He has a fortune already, Mama. Uncle Barnabas left my cousins very well provided for.”

  My mother chuckled softly. “You are hard on your mother’s little turns of speech, Nell dear. I was merely expressing the conventional wish that Jack will do well in his profession. A man needs a profession, however wealthy he might be.”

  “I wish him well too, Mama. You might tell Elizabeth that when you reply to her letter.”

  And indeed, I did wish him well. I just did not want to see him again for the rest of my life.

  My mother, who was absorbed in the letter and was not listening to me, drew in her breath sharply.

  “My goodness!”

  “More news?”

  “He has done it!”

  “Mama, you are not making sense,” I said. “Who has done what?”

  “Jack has proposed to his sweetheart. Her name is Elizabeth too, but everyone calls her Beth. Elizabeth‌—‌your cousin, I mean‌—‌says,” she paused for a moment to decipher the handwriting, “that she is a remarkably‌—‌Nell, I cannot read this. Do look.”

  I made my face as expressionless as possible and took the sheet of paper from my mother’s hand, beginning where she indicated: “… a remarkably sweet-tempered girl who is ready to spoil Jack just as much as we have done, dear Aunt. She will make him an excellent wife and brings a considerable sum of money with her, so they will be quite a‌—‌beguiled?‌—‌no‌—‌gilded couple.”

  Oh, dear. Beguiled indeed. Fortunately, Cousin Elizabeth’s letter took a more practical turn as she launched into details of the bride’s relatives. English and aristocratic. Jack must be relishing his new connections.

  “Ah, that is better.” Mama took the letter back from me. “Elizabeth must have fetched a new pen.” She continued to plow through the details of family alliances, third cousins, and political connections. Her absorption gave me time to think.

  I had always rather imagined Jack as the villain of our little story‌—‌after all, was he not older and more experienced than I?‌—‌but it was borne in upon me, as I listened to the soft drone of my mother’s voice, that Jack and Beth were going to begin married life on a false footing, and it was all my fault. I had never, right from the moment I had begun to suspect I was pregnant, thought of anyone other than myself. Now I began to wonder whether, indeed, it would have been right to inform Jack that he had a child before he betrothed himself to this innocent girl. It would have ruined his life and mine, to be sure, but now there were three people involved. And soon, if they had children, there could be more victims of my silence.

  “They may have children before two years are out.” My mother’s thoughts chimed in most unpleasantly with my own, and I squirmed in my chair. “How delightful it will be to have more little ones in the family! It is such a shame I cannot tell them about Sarah.”

  My limbs turned to ice. “I think we should be prudent about concocting falsehoods on paper, Mama.” I felt my breathing quicken and stitched assiduously, willing myself to be calm.

  “Of course.” My mother’s reply sounded vague, and a shudder ran down my legs. What was I going to do if Mama inadvertently mentioned Sarah in a letter to the happy couple?

  THIRTY-NINE

  Fortunately for my peace of mind, Mama did not write back immediately to Cousin Elizabeth. She had little energy for anything much, preferring to sleep late and confine activity to the hour in the afternoon when she received visitors. I was now expected to receive with her, but I found those times very trying. Which is why, one hot afternoon, I was slumped in a chair in the kitchen staring at nothing in particular.

  “Ah, there you are.” Martin held a hand up to Bet, who was attempting to rise from her seat at the kitchen table. “No, please, Bet, I don’t need a thing and do not wish to disturb your rest. Nell, why are you in the kitchen?”

  “I’m hiding.” I shrugged my shoulders at Martin as he pulled out one of the plain wooden chairs, watching him slide his arms out of his formal working jacket. He hung the garment over the chair and sat down opposite me, resting his elbows on the vast, scrubbed table.

  “Aunt Amelia said you had gone out for some fresh air.”

  “As if there were any fresh air.” I turned away from Martin, determined to be out of sorts. The late summer heat was oppressive and the black gown, although most becoming‌—‌as Martin had predicted‌—‌felt heavy. I had stripped Sarah of her gown and put her, dressed in her thin shift, on a blanket atop the cool tiles. She was busy gazing at her toes, chewing on them from time to time and keeping up a stream of very soft sounds that sounded like an attempt at speech.

  Martin was silent for a few minutes, and the kitchen settled back into its former tranquility. The calls of chickadees and finches drifted in through the half-open window, fitted with a screen to exclude the insects. The large wall clock near the scullery door ticked with a monotonous metal sound. At one corner of the table sat Marie, preparing the vegetables for dinner. Bet’s meat pie was finished and sitting ready for the stove, covered with a clean cloth to keep off any flies that dared invade the kitchen. Bet had donned a clean apron and a better cap in order to serve tea to the visitors and had given me tea and a delicious slice of yesterday’s jam sponge. Now she sat at her ease, her gold-rimmed pince-nez‌—‌a treasured possession‌—‌perched on her nose as she read a Beadle’s Dime Novel.

  A commotion upstairs announced the departure of the visitors, and the parlor bell rang. Bet sniffed and carefully removed her pince-nez from her large, straight nose. She plunked her novel on the table. It was called Myra, The Child of Adoption, and from its lurid cover I assumed it had a romantic ending.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” I said. “I simply could not bear one more moment of making polite conversation and telling lies.”

  “So you left your poor mother to do your dirty work? She is looking dreadfully tired, Nell.” Martin’s voice held a note of concern.

  “Exactly. If I am there to pepper with questions, they never go away. If I leave Mama with them, she soon tells them that she is too weary for a long visit.” I buried my face in my hands. “I wish they would leave me alone. I do not even want to walk around the town; there is always someone who has not yet had the chance to pry into my affairs.” I sank my chin into my hands and glared at the table. If Martin thought I was not worried about Mama, he was wrong. But I had no intention of discussing her in front of the servants and lapsed back into silence.

  Bet returned and seated herself at the table, pulling her pince-nez out on their retractable line from the bow-shaped brooch pinned to her bodice. “I have settled Mrs. Jackson on her chaise for a nap,” she said. “Her hands are that cold, Miss Nell, even in this terrible heat. I gave her one of her fur muffs to wrap around them, the poor dear.” She shook her head portentously and picked up her dime novel.

  Sarah crowed loudly and rolled off her blanket onto the tiled floor. Bet immediately shot out of her chair and scooped up my daughter, murmuring nonsense words to her and smoothing her red curls. Sarah grabbed at Bet’s pince-nez and dislodged them roughly from her nose, making Bet’s eyes water. She checked to see that the sudden shock had not harmed the lenses, then sat down at the table and showed Sarah the picture on the front cov
er of her novel. Sarah immediately grabbed at the book and shoved one corner into her mouth.

  “Ah, no now, Miss Sarah.” Bet removed the book from Sarah’s grasp and pinched up a crumb of sponge cake from the half-eaten slice on her plate. She held it to Sarah’s mouth long enough to allow it to become mush against Sarah’s pushing tongue, getting her fingers covered with drool in the process. Sarah absorbed the cake, blinked a few times as if surprised, and then rocked strenuously backward and forward. Martin and I burst into loud laughter, and I began to forget my fit of temper.

  “Your stepfather’s off on his travels again in a few days,” observed Bet.

  “Where is he going?” I was glad enough of the news that I would have Hiram out of my sight for a few days. Even his newfound politeness could not reconcile me to his presence.

  “North Carolina, I hear. On business.”

  “He sure has a lot of business.” Marie had been topping and tailing green beans at an impressive speed, but now she laid down her knife and flexed her hands. “Don’t he ever go to that store of his? My father says a man needs to stay on his premises, see the work’s done right.”

  “Your father’s never owned a store, nor never done work right neither,” snapped Bet. “You carry on with your own work, and thank the Lord for the good training I’m giving you.”

  “Yes, Bet.” Marie sighed and picked up her knife.

  “I had a letter from Mrs. Lombardi this morning,” I informed Martin, who was making faces at Sarah. “Hiram read it before I did.”

  “Ah. Well, it is the right of the paterfamilias to read his womenfolk’s correspondence, Nell.” Martin cringed in mock terror as I searched for something to throw at him, but I desisted when I caught Marie’s black eyes twinkling at us in amusement. I mopped my perspiring brow with a dainty handkerchief, trying to look the part of an elegant widow.