The Wet Nurse's Tale (23 page)

With the help of Mr. Canty and his eldest daughter and the midwife, all holding the suffering woman upright, my good wife urged that poor lady on through each pain so that finally the baby was born and Mrs. Drake catched it quick. With the baby came a copious amount of blood, so much that the daughter shrieked and must be hurried out of the room.

I did not think the woman would live for loss of blood. Indeed, she did not rise from her faint for four days altogether after the birth, but instead lay in fever and delirium due, no doubt, to some infection. I urged Mr. Canty to quickly take the baby, who was quite healthy, to Mrs. Rose, a wet nurse in Leighton, lest he have two deaths to deal with instead of just his wife’s one. She was reliable, I told Mr. Canty, and would do the job. He charged his daughter with bringing the baby there so that he could stay with his wife, which was as it should have been.

Indeed, Mrs. Canty recovered. I believe—and Mrs. Drake concurs—that her good health may well have been one of my deepest victories, for she was in dire straits indeed when she was at her lowest. A combination of physic and bleeding and rest was the tonic the lady needed, though she must stay in bed for some six weeks before I would approve her rising from it. She was lucky, I think, in her daughter who was able to care for the children in her place. I heard that the little baby grew up simple, but I am not surprised. Such a terribly hard birth must have some effect in the end.

Ten

L
ondon was right astonishing. Twas so noisome and it stank so! The people rushed hither and yon with no thought to whether they had stept on your shoe or poked you with their elbow. I helped Jeannie down from the coach with the babies and stood by for her reunion with her husband, who was a broad man with a mustache. He seemed very glad to see her and gave her and little Mary a kiss and then he looked at me in a kind way so that I was not afraid to say my name to him and how I had met his wife on the coach.

“And oh, Michael, Susan helped me ever so much with the babies on our journey,” said Jeannie.

“How de do,” said he and tipped his hat very friendly, but did he make to take the sleeping baby from me? No, he did not. Jeannie gave him a nudge with her shoulder, but he did not see what she was about until she told him to take his son. Then he understood and made a big show of accepting the child from my arms, while Jeannie and I made faces and rolled our eyes to each other where he could not see it.

“Will you have a bite of dinner with us then, Susan Rose?” said Jeannie, but I said that I would not, for I had no time to lose and must get me to where my son was being kept. We hugged each other, and she wrote her address in a quaint little notebook that she had and tore out the slip and handed it to me. I put it in my parcel for safekeeping. I did not tell her that I did not have my letters; instead I said that I had no home, so far, but when I did I would be sure to write to her. It sent a chill up my spine to think that for the first time I had no firm roof over my head, but I could not tarry to think on it and instead, I bid her and her family Godspeed.

I had in my mind but three words: Norval and Hampstead and then Street. Those three words I had recited over and over to myself for the whole of my journey. They had been the words that the wheels of the cart beat out whilst I sat with the nice old carter who drove so slow; they was the words I heard in the soft sobs of the poor girl in the carriage to Mansfield; they was the words I chanted in my head as Jim banged away at me on our way to Longbourne Village; those was the words I felt all through me as Jeannie’s babies suckled through the night. Norval and Hampstead and Street. And so I made to find them as quick as I could.

Twas not difficult, not compared to the journey I had been on. There was a stand of cabs waiting for fares right there where the coach left off, and I spied them out to see which of the cabbies had just put his horse’s bag on its nose and that’s the one I chose to talk to for that’s the one as had a minute. He told me what I wanted to hear the most, that Hampstead was but a short walk up the hill and he pointed east. I had to ask only twice more before I found the very street I wanted, and then I walked along and waited for a servant to come out with a shopping basket, which did occur very soon as I knew it would, for it was still morning. Of her I asked in my politest way if she might know which home was Mrs. Norval’s, and though the snit sniffed at me through her nose, she pointed to the house and there I was.

But where was I, to be sure? I did not know what to do next. All that time in the coaches, I had imagined that the moment I stood before the house where my baby was being kept, I would know just what to do to get him back. Now I saw how it was not true, and I felt a flame of fear and my heart burned me where it was under my breast. I knew that I could not simply stand in front of the house, for it would look very odd and someone would spy me who should not. I must act with stealth and with patience. But oh, it was very hard to do! I walked up the street in front of the house and then back down again, but I saw no movement behind the curtains. My own sense told me not to knock at the back door.

I loathed to spend a farthing, but I thought to myself that I must have a place to stay the night. It came to me to walk back down to where the coach had left off and there to find a cheap room in a cheap inn, just for to have a place to land my bundle and also, if truth be told, to have a place to piss. So I took one more turn up the street and then back down, and just as I was passing the front stoop, look if the front door to the house did not open and a lady did not come out! She was very slender, like bones only, and she had the arm of a gentleman with a top hat. He looked down upon her head like she would break, but not quite as if it would pain him if she did. As the door was closing behind them, the lady quick turned and leaving off her grip on her companion’s arm, she pushed it back open a bit.

“I hear it, James,” I heard her say, “it will never be quiet, you know. I think it must drive me mad.”

“And that is why we walk, Jane,” said the gentleman as if he was trying for patience but would rather have acted like my old dad and blacked the lady’s eye for her. Indeed, she shrank back from his tone and let the door close behind her. I did not wonder what they spoke of for I thought to myself that I knew quite well: twas but Davey’s crying for his mother. I felt again as if I might scream if I did not work fast, but patience was ever my tool and I must use it well.

The couple turned toward me as I stood there watching them. I stepped back several steps and made as if to retie my bonnet and move my bundle-basket, as if I had just paused on the street. I knew that if they spied me with any interest, it would be hard to place me: I had the look of a servant but not the uniform, and thus made a strange piece to the puzzle. But I was relieved; they walked right past me with nary a look which shows that if you’re servant enough, you can shrink into the shadows, even in the bright morning sun and even if you’re large enough to often block it.

I followed them, natural enough. I wondered who the gentleman might be, for I knew the lady’s husband stayed in India and that there had not been enough time passed for him to have come to her, if what Cousin Anne at the Great House had told me was the truth. I followed them into a park where they walked. They did not speak much. Sometimes the gentleman would bend to address her a word; she answered him but little. I could not hear what it was they said to each other, but I saw how it was between them. His jaw was set; she did not look much at him. Twas a lovely mid-morning, before luncheon and thus there was quite a throng in the park, for which I thanked God. I hoped to seem like a servant on her half-day, taking the air.

Soon enough the lady seemed to tire and the gentleman led her to a bench. Another bench stood next to theirs, but it was occupied by two nursemaids, each minding a pram, so I could not sit near enough to hear the lady and her companion speak. I found a seat across from them, and though it was too far for me to hear any words they might speak to each other, I could see them well enough. The gentleman spoke to the lady, but again she did not answer overmuch and at length he drew out from his pocket a newspaper, which he opened and began to read. I thought to myself that it was rude of him to do so but I saw how often he would read to her from the print so as to make it seem less of an affront.

She did not listen to him read though, for I could see that she was overmuch interested in the prams next to her. But, Reader, she did not look into the prams to see the little faces and to smile at them. Instead, she looked as if there was some insect in the carriages, something that gave her fright and repelled her. Twas unnatural! I could hear nothing for the crowd around me, but one of the babes must have begun to wail, for I saw the nurse bend down over her little charge and talk to him or jiggle him or try one of those tricks that we know to try. And as she did, the lady’s hand went to her throat, her chest in its tight bodice rose and fell faster than a bird’s breast, which I could see even from where I sat across the walkway.

It seemed that the nurse could not quiet the baby by sitting, as is often the case, is it not, so she stood up from the bench and her friend did as well and off they strolled. Quick, but not too quick, I crossed the walk and took their seat. I put my back to the lady and looked through my basket as if for a purse or paper, for I did not want her eyes on mine. When I felt that her interest had shifted, I turned slow around so that I was sitting on the bench, very quiet, not like you’d even know I was there at all.

“My goodness, Jane, hear this if you will,” I heard the gentleman say to her, “it’s quite horrible!” He read, “ ‘Elias Lucas and Mary Reader, who were indicted for the willful murder of Susan Lucas’—that was his wife, I suppose—‘were hanged, just yesterday in front of the County Gaol at Cambridge for murder by arsenic poisoning.’ Why, we have seen that very place a dozen times! Recall if you will—it is just across from the eating house where we supped with Gerald when we saw him but a month ago, do you remember it?”

“Oh, James,” said the lady, “how horrible.”

“Yes,” said he, “I shall read more . . .”

“Brother, no,” said she, “do not, as I hate to hear such things.”

He read on as if she had said nothing. “They write of the trial here,” and he read, “ ‘It will scarcely be believed that hardened man, as he saw his innocent and unsuspecting victim eating the deadly poison, and expressing a disgust at the taste, the food being thoroughly seasoned with arsenic, brutally exclaimed to her complaint, “O dall it, mistress, I’ll eat mine if it kills me.” ’ ” Here, the lady’s brother gave a great loud laugh which made her blush and shush him.

“My God, what a rake,” said James. “He certainly deserved a hanging. Oh, and listen. Mr. Martin, the surgeon of Haverhill, made a statement which they have here: ‘I went up to the body and it was warm,’ ” read James, disregarding his sister’s discomfort. “ ‘I observed that she died in a state of collapse and that her fingers were clenched as if,’ oh, do listen, Jane, this is awful, ‘as if in a bird’s claw.’ Can you not see it? What a terrible death!”

At this he put down his paper to look at his sister. Despite his ill manners toward her, I do not think he meant to distress her quite as much as he did, for he seemed to feel some shame when he saw her face.

“Oh, Jane, you are so pale! I did not mean to upset you so! Come, cheer up now! Why, I recall as youngsters that your stomach was iron. Look how dainty you’ve become. Let me help you home. I do apologize,” and with that, brother helped sister up off the bench and they made their way back, I suppose, to Hampstead Street.

I did not rise. I was thinking very hard and desired to continue. I was thinking of a plan.

After a little while, I felt hungry. I had long finished the loaf that I had bought when the coachman took a stop to water the horses. I recalled a pub just by the big square where we’d all left the coach and where I’d said my good-byes to Jeannie, and because I knew the way—indeed that was the only bit of London that I did know—I headed toward it.

I ate a pasty at the pub and then inquired about a room to stay in for the night. The hussy behind the bar asked if I wanted to share or not, and I said I didn’t mind, for I had little money and needed yet to spend a bit that very day. She showed me to a room up two flights, and I paid her my farthing and asked for a pitcher of water. She said I might have it if I pumped it myself, which I was glad to do as it gave me a chance to rinse the pitcher, which was none too clean. I went up to the room and closed the door and emptied my dugs into the chamber pot, for there was nothing else and I had to drain. I wept as I milked to think of little Davey in that house which was yet one half hour from where I there stood wasting his own milk into that wretched pot. When I finished, I bathed my bosoms with the water from the pitcher til they was as clean as I could make them. I had no bit of soap to help, which I wish I had done.

Back in the pub, I asked the girl for directions and then I asked her if, by chance, she knew where the foundling hospital was. I thought that if it passed that I could not get to Davey quick, then I would need some employment and the hospital was most likely to give it to me. She looked at me odd and at my stomach, but I shook my head and said that no, I was a nurse bound there for work. I did not care to tell her more than she needed to know. She admitted then that she did not know its whereabouts and that she “ ’oped Oi neever nade it,” is how it sounded to me, but I knew well enough what she meant.