The Wet Nurse's Tale (26 page)

“A pity,” said she. She did not seem without a heart, but distracted-like, so that I did not hate her for her cold words. She turned away from me and again peered out the window. She seemed to forget that I stayed there and did not turn back around.

I did not know what she was thinking but thought I must hasten the matter at hand. I cleared my throat and she turned back.

“And so, ma’am, you need a nurse?” I said, to remind her, like.

“Yes,” said she. “Very direly. The baby has no nurse at present and cries very much.”

“I can nurse him,” said I, for I thought that I must gently prod her. She seemed strangely quiet. My mother had an expression for it, this lost look. “Have the fairies got you, then?” she’d say when one of us was just staring and not doing. “Get to your mending, or they shall,” she’d say and it would knock us out of our daydream. Mrs. Norval looked up at my words and her eyes grew sharp and she came all over brisk.

“Good. Is there any reason that you should be unable to perform your duties in this regard?”

“No, ma’am, I cannot fathom a thing,” said I. “I have no one at home, as my husband and my little one both were taken from me. I have naught to keep me from what’s here. I have plenty of milk for the baby and can begin as soon as ever you might need.”

“And are you healthy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She paused as if judging my possibilities, but I thought it might just be for show. Quite quick enough she told me I should do and she named my wage. I bowed my head to her and thanked her. She seemed quite relieved to have the business of it out of the way.

“I shall take you to him myself,” she said.

The thought that I would see his face in a moment almost broke me down and made me wail. I could hardly bear to walk up the stairs; I would rather have been able to take them by twos or threes. I did not know what to do with myself, and yet I must remain quiet and calm. I was quite wild and could hardly attend to the words that Mrs. Norval spoke as we climbed.

“His name is David. You shall sleep in the nursery with him as there is no spare room for you in the servants’ quarter. You must make him be quiet if you can. He is a good baby but I am afraid that the previous nurse’s milk may have disturbed him somehow.” Her voice trembled as she said this last and I thought to soothe her.

“Aah,” said I very serious, “it is a well-known fact that even bad milk does not make a lasting mark on an innocent baby if it is raised in a good home.”

Mrs. Norval stopped on the stair and turned around to look at me. Her eyes were wide and her mouth quite pinched. “Then he may not be permanently marked?” she gasped. “Is this truly the case?”

“Oh yes, ma’am,” said I. “Tis certain.”

She brightened and smiled a bit. “Well, that’s a great relief to me,” said she. “Mrs. Caraway may have told you that the previous nurse was not all that she should have been. I had quite worried myself to death to think how it had affected the babe.”

“I am sure,” I ventured, “that with fresh milk he will take no lasting harm.”

And then she opened the door and there he was, lying asleep in the cradle: an angel, a darling, my own bright little star, my own dearest love. His little mouth worked as he slept, his lashes feathered his little cheeks. A great sob welled up in me which I could not hold back, and my mouth opened like a guppy and out it came. The tears coursed down.

Mrs. Norval peered at me in surprise. I did not want her to think that her new nurse was strange so I dug my fingernails into my palm hard to calm myself. “Well,” said I just to say something, “he is lovely, isn’t he.”

I yearned to snatch him up from his cradle and smell his hair and kiss his sweet eyes. I yearned to pet the soft little back and to rub my hand over the down on his head. I could not wait to check his little body for rash or bite, to look in his ears, to remove the lint I knew was clutched in his tight fists. I yearned to change his nappies and his binding cloth and to listen to him breathe as I held him with his head near my ear. But most of all, I craved to nurse him and to feel that pull on my poor dugs that I had battered so over the course of this week, as I kept them full for him.

He opened his eyes and my milk let down at once. He let out a wail and I made to pick him up, and then I thought I’d better ask first, to show that I did not assume higher than my place. But when I glanced at Mrs. Norval to see if she did approve, she seemed struck as if by a panic. Her eyes were wide and she had flattened her palms over her ears. “Oh,” said she, “oh, do make it stop.”

I quickly picked up little Davey and patted his back, and he stopped his crying just as fast as ever you could like. But still Mrs. Norval was the picture of horror, so I took one of her arms and gently drew it down so that it was next to her side and no longer near her face. She did not move the other hand the way you might have thought she would, but kept it instead where it had been, close over her ear. She seemed like a little child with the night worries. I had never seen anything like it in my days before. I wished to slap her and send her out of the room so that I could fondle my baby and kiss him and love him, but I could tell that she was the more in need than even he and that never would I be able to attend to him as I wished til I had to her.

“Come, Mrs. Norval,” said I in my gentlest voice, “come and lie down for a moment. You look pale and tired, you do.”

“Yes,” said she in a wandering voice, “I do not sleep well, it is true. I slept hardly at all the last night, what with that woman in the house.”

I felt a pang for the lives I’d mucked about with, but shook it away.

“Do come,” said I, leading her into the hall. “Now, which is your chamber? This way? Come, I shall help you.”

Still holding my little son, I led her down the hall and into the room she pointed at. I was shocked, Reader, at the sight I saw there. The bedclothes had not yet been put to rights, though the day was nearly done, and the grate was filthy. The curtains were still drawn and there were underclothes on the floor. I saw more than one breakfast tray balanced upon a little table, rimes of toast still on the plates.

“Come, miss,” said I, thinking that the “miss” might be comforting to her like as if she were a little lass being tended. “Shall I help you with your stays?”

“No,” said she. “No thank you. They are not so very tight. I think I shall just lie down for a moment and rest my eyes. Suddenly, I am overcome.”

She lay herself down and I covered her over with her bedclothes. “There now,” said I when she looked more comfortable, “is this somewhat better?”

She looked up at me. “Oh,” said she, “you still carry him!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said I, smiling, “I can do as much with one hand, as most can with two; I am that used to holding a babe.”

She nodded but then wrinkled her brow. “My impression,” she said, “was that you had only the one child whom you lost. And yet you seem to know much about little babies.”

“Ah,” said I, “my mother, you see, was a wet nurse, and I grew up watching her.”

“I see,” said she. “Thank you, Susan. I shall rest now.”

I left her room and closed the door quietly. And then, as quick as if I were stealing a gold piece, I ran to the nursery and closed the door behind us. There was a bed in the room and I sat on it and put Davey on my lap and gazed at him, just as much as I had craved to do since he had been taken from me. I kissed his sweet face and his mouth, just like a bud it was, and his little shoulders. His nappy was wet and when I took it off, it was as I feared: his bum was red and raw. I took a soft cloth that was hanging near his cradle and dipped it in the basin and breathed on it to warm it and dabbed him and then rubbed the lard on him to soothe the rash. I smelled his neck and nuzzled him and kissed him many times. My tears washed his little hair and ran down into the folds of his neck, and he looked up at me with his big eyes.

Finally, he whimpered and so I unbuttoned my frock and he nursed very sweet. He put his two little hands on my dug, as if helping to hold it, and he gazed at me as he drank. He looked very thoughtful as he nursed, and I imagined that he was remembering me from when I carried him in my belly and when he was born and indeed, from just four days ago—though it seemed a lifetime—when he had been taken from me. Twas a very sweet hour. Is it foolish of me to think that he knew his mother, a baby that small? And yet I believe he did.

Soon he slept, and I felt hungry and thought to go look for some dinner. I put him gently into his cradle and made sure that he was full asleep before I left the room, for I did not know the tricks of the house—whether the door would creak when I opened it, whether the window rattled in the wind. I wished for nothing to waken him. I was nervous that he might rouse Mrs. Norval if he cried and that if he did, she might dismiss me for not keeping my duties as I ought. But as all seemed well, I left him in his cradle and gently walked out of the room.

On my way to the back stairs, I passed the lady’s room and listened at her door but there was only silence. I wondered about the state of the room. Would she let no servants enter? I thought perhaps that was it; I remembered that Mrs. Chandler, who was mother to the twins, acted thus for a week once. In her case, it was a pout that made her do it. I wondered if Mrs. Norval was a pouter as well.

There was no one in the kitchen when I entered, and though I was very hungry, I did not like to take without permission. I called and received no answer which I thought was quite odd, as it was time for tea. There was no kettle over the fire, nor cake to be sliced, nor bread to be toasted. Did Mrs. Norval not take a regular tea? Did she nap through teatime every day as she did today? Perhaps the servants were used to such behavior and had no thought about it.

I was not used to such. Tea is quite the best meal of the day, in my mind, and what separates us Englishmen from those heathens in Italy and suchlike. Not that I had ever had much time for more than a quick cup, but still, whenever I was needed to serve, I would like to very much, so as to see the dishes and the sandwiches and cakes. They always used the prettiest plates for tea. And if ever there was cake left over, we servants would sometimes have a treat.

At any rate, I found the larder easy enough and a loaf. And I stirred the fire so’s it would heat the kettle and then must look for the tea leaves which were there in a tin, just as in other houses. As I spooned leaves into a plain teapot, I heard an odd sound coming from behind a door off the kitchen. Twas a thump, thump. I could not tell what it might be, but as my kettle began to sing, I thought no more about it for a minute until another sound gave it away, and that was a groan and then I put the thumps and the groans together, and then I knew what I was hearing.

I could not imagine what happened in this house: no tea in the afternoon but this instead? Twas utmost strange to me, but as I wanted to be with my baby more than feast my wonder, I quick made my tea and took my cup and my slices and started out of the room. And then the door opened and out came the cook herself, and a working man whom I had never seen, and we all stopped and stared at each other. They had been laughing but when they saw my face they ceased off. The man tipped his head at me and then at the cook and fairly ran out the door.

“Good afternoon,” said I, making to go up the stairs, but she stopped me.

“No need to spy around,” said she in a nasty way that I did not care for at all. She was a strange-looking cook, to begin with, for she was not nearly as fat as I nor was she much older. I thought there might be a story to how she came to have her position, but I thought I’d like to get it from the maid instead of the cook herself, for then I’d perhaps get the truth. I wondered if it had to do with the absent Mr. Norval and if the cook’s position in the kitchen had anything to do with her positions in the bedroom.

“I was not spying,” said I as mildly as I could. “I came for my tea but as there was none, I made it myself.”

“Humph,” said the cook. “Well, you needn’t tell the missus about Teddy. What she don’t know won’t kill her, as they say.”

“That’s sure,” I said, relaxing a bit, “but should I not bring the lady a cup?”

“If you must,” said she. “Go ahead and make it.”

She showed me Mrs. Norval’s teapot and a tray and such, and I made it all up which was not at all my job, and went with it up the stairs and knocked very soft on Mrs. Norval’s door. She answered it, and I went into her room and set it on the floor as I could see no room for it on the table near the bed. Quick as I could, I cleaned the table and then I poured her a cup. “Now,” said I, “drink this right up and here’s a nice cake for you as well.” She sat in her bed like a little child and sipped at the tea. “Can I get you anything more?” said I, “before I check on the baby?”

She looked at me odd, but then she murmured, “No thank you,” and so I went back to Davey with my own tea, which I had left outside her door and which was still warm.

That night, I slept with him in my arms and at my breast. I wept with the joy of it and could not think of a moment when I had been as happy. A beloved baby is like an arm or a heart; the wrenching away of it is terrible. To have him back with me was as good as heaven, and when he awoke in the night, which he did right often, I soothed him and nursed him and kissed him til he slept again.