The Wet Nurse's Tale (18 page)

“Look, Father,” said John, “this big one goes right here, can you see? Here at the bottom, where this point is, is how it fits in.”

“Yes, I see and why don’t you go ahead and put it there if you’re so smart then?” my father said and then stood back and laughed while John tried to manhandle the giant stone by himself. Twas funny indeed to see the scrawny little boy try and we all laughed together at the fix John found himself in.

“He looks like him who takes the world on his back,” said I. “John, you told us about him who did that, that Mr. Guzzardi told you in school. What was his name?”

“Ninny,” panted John. “I cannot talk to you now, I have this thing up and I can neither put it down or pick it further up. Father, help!”

I remember that afternoon, for what occurred later that night was so serious that the whole of the day stood out to me. It acted like it was in a frame in my mind, that day, like it was one of those pictures on Freddie’s wall that I’d gaze at.

That night after dinner, my father had begun to snore in his chair and we girls were helping my mother with the dishes when there came a soft knock on the door. I opened it and there stood Mr. Guzzardi, the schoolteacher.

“Come in, Mr. Guzzardi,” said my mother. I heard the surprise in her voice. “Tom, look who’s come to visit,” she said loudly so my father would waken. He did.

Mr. Guzzardi stepped in and when the fire lit his face, we saw that he was much frightened.

“What’s happened then?” said my father to him as my mother led him to a chair and poured him a mug of ale.

We children had gathered all around, and of course Mr. Guzzardi was used to a crowd of young ones, but now he looked at us tongue-tied. My father saw this and yelled at us. “Get to bed, all you brats, and now.” We scurried but John and I, being more curiouser and braver than the others, opened the bedchamber door as soon as we dared and listened through the crack.

“I swear it, sir. I swear it to God,” Mr. Guzzardi was saying.

“Why do they accuse you, then?” said my father back, very gruff.

“Tis my faith,” said Mr. Guzzardi. “You know it is. They call me Papist and spit at me, though they send their children to me nonetheless. Now they look for me to hang me!”

I heard John gasp from just behind my head. I pushed the door open a bit more, just enough so I could see some small piece of anything. I saw my father’s back which made me brave as his face would have not. Mr. Guzzardi had not kept to his chair but instead paced, back and forth in front of my father, with his head in his hands. My mother must have been in the room but I did not see her.

“I did not touch her,” Mr. Guzzardi said. “You know I did not, Mr. Rose. I did not care to touch her! That she is with child is not my doing. They accuse me wrongly!”

“She is but a child herself!” My mother said that from a corner.

“She is!” said Mr. Guzzardi. “She is! She’s but twelve years. It’s a blasphemy. It makes my stomach turn.”

“Why did she say it was you?” said my father in a stern, loud voice. “Why, man?”

Mr. Guzzardi burst into tears. I had never seen a man cry before. John grunted; when my father turned his face toward us for a sip from his mug, I saw his curled lip.

“I know why! Her father had her and she’s afraid to say it!” said Mr. Guzzardi. I couldn’t imagine what he meant but I heard my father say, “The bloody bastard.”

Suddenly, a banging came at the door. “They’ll take my life from me,” sobbed Mr. Guzzardi. “I did nothing.”

“Tom,” I heard my mother whisper. “What shall you do?”

John and I watched as my father leapt toward Mr. Guzzardi, grabbed him and twirling, shoved him toward our very door. We stepped away just in time, for the door flew open and my father thrust Mr. Guzzardi in and closed it shut again.

John and I stared at Mr. Guzzardi and he at us and then, quick and without a word, the three of us pressed our ears against the door.

We heard my father open the door.

“Who’s there?” he said.

Mr. Galbraith spoke in his high voice. Father had laughed at it before. “He flutes like a little girl in a frock,” he’d said, just the last week.

“Are you hiding that bastard Guzzardi? Mike said he ran here, didn’t you, Mike? He said, ‘He ran on to Rose’s house,’ didn’t you, Mike?”

“I did,” we heard Mike say.

“I may be,” said our father. “He may be just inside my house. He may be just on the other side of the door.”

I saw Mr. Guzzardi’s eyes widen.

“But you’ll never know,” said my father. “For you’re not invited in.”

“If you know what’s good for you, Tom, you’ll send him out.”

“They’re all drunk, Tom,” said my mother.

We heard a low rumbling from outside. “Sounds like a pack of dogs,” John whispered. Mr. Guzzardi’s breath came quick.

“Galbraith,” said my father low and mean. “Get your filth away from my door. It makes me sick.”

“If you don’t send him out,” said another, “we know how to come in.”

“Galbraith,” said my father, very loud this time, “shall I tell them what I know?”

There was a silence.

“What do you know?” called a voice.

“I know,” said my father clearly, “that Pat Galbraith should be God-damned for a hypocrite as well as for much else.”

“What’s he mean? Galbraith, what’s he saying?” yelled the voices.

We heard the crowd quiet themselves a bit. Then Galbraith spoke. He sounded like he’d been punched in his guts.

“I believe he’s bluffing, lads. The bastard’s not here. He’s probably run off by now. Aah, my poor lass.” He began to sob like drunks do. The men outside began to disperse; we could hear them walking away from where we were. One of them even said, “Sorry, Tom,” to which my father answered, “Fuck off, then.”

Then he slammed the door. John and I ran to hide behind the chair in our darkened room so Father didn’t see us when he yanked the door open and pulled Guzzardi, who seemed about to faint, out of it.

“That’s enough of my trouble for you,” said my father. “Tomorrow night they’ll just drink more and be after you again. Here. Take this and get ye gone. God only knows why you came to me anyhow.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you,” groveled Mr. Guzzardi. “You saved my life, sir. Thank you for the coins. I shall pay you back, I swear.”

My father grunted.

“Good-bye, Mr. Rose. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Rose. I am in debt to you.”

Then he left and we heard the door close behind him.

Twas suddenly silent, except for the sound of my father pouring himself more ale.

My mother spoke very softly. “It’s because you can read, I expect,” she said. He did not answer her.

John and I looked at each other, amazed. We had never before known that our father could read. He had never tried to teach us, nor even told us that he could.

For a long time, twas a mystery to us—why he’d kept it secret—and we would together try to work out why it is that he’d kept it from us, when other men might be proud. But as time passed and our father succumbed more and more to the drink, we did not speak of it to each other anymore.

I think now that my father did all he could to forget what he might have done, but did not do, with his life. That he came to naught, he blamed on us: on our mouths, always open and crying, like a nestful of baby birds. And of course he blamed my mother. And the blame made him so mean.

I try to see it different from how he did. If only, I think to myself, if only he could have seen that to be a good father and a good husband is the most Christian of all the world’s duties, well then, he might not have champed so at the bit in his mouth. He might have kept himself some dignity and some pride. But then I think: well, Susan, that’s what you did too, is champ, and hard. I champed hard enough to forget the good teaching I’d had as a lass. I’d champed hard enough to lie down with whomever I wanted, commandment or no. And so this way, I understand my father better, though I hate him still. After all, my sin never blacked an eye nor yet chipped a tooth.

When Davey was but two months old, my mother came to me with a message. My mother’s cousin, Patsy Garnett, had a daughter who had a baby just born. The daughter’s husband made hay for the manor house in Butterfield, just a little way down the road, and he wanted his wife’s help in gathering it in. She must be in the fields all the day next provided the weather held, and she worried about her child as there was no nursing woman in all the town. Patsy wished I would come up, just for the morning. “It would ease her mind so, my dear,” said my mother to me, “because hers is such a tiny mite, it cannot go for longer than an hour and she’ll be away from it all the day. My cousin Patsy said she’d feed it by hand for the afternoon, but if they had you for the morning, it would help a great deal.”

“And Davey?” said I, a little short, for I still smarted from my Joey’s fate.

“He’s a fat little man, isn’t he now,” said my mother, smiling and rubbing Davey’s tummy as I held him in my lap. “What a milk belly you’ve given him!” We both smiled at the tyke and were rewarded with a burp and a smile.

“Well, I’ll do it,” said I, “to help her out. But, Mother,” and I lowered my voice to say this, “watch Father around my baby.”

My mother looked at me with something of reproach but then her face changed. “Aah,” said she, shaking her head, the tears starting from her eyes, “I can never forgive myself for letting your Joey go. I have kept so many babies, and hardly ever lost a one. Just that little lass with the fever like your Joey and then the tiny boy who died in the cradle. Woe is me, it’ll be a sorrow and a cross to bear, all my life, to think what I lost for you, my dear.” And she wept.

“Now, Mother,” I said, drying my own tears and then hers, “I could never blame you for it and I never have. I know you did what you could for him. It’s Father I blame more, for it was he forced me to go before Joey was able to lose me. And listen: I do not mean for the same thing to happen again. I don’t, Mother, no matter what occurs.” I looked at her in her face to see if she understood.

“Yes, my dear,” said she, “you must do as you see fit. But he may yet come around, Susan, you shall see. He was such a good man when I married him.” Twas hard for me to believe it at all.

Patsy’s daughter sent a horse for me and off I went early the next morning. I’d had it in my mind to wonder how a woman, so recently on the childbed, could stand a day of baling, but as soon as I saw her, I understood. She was as tall as a man, and as broad, with arms veiny and thick. Tis not often I feel dainty; in her presence, I rather did. Vincy, as was her name, acted right glad to see me.

“I am so obliged to you,” she said, “you see how small he is yet, having been born a week or two early. He’s my first and came so quick, though the pains was fierce. He sucks like a monster though.” She looked at him fondly.

“He’ll have a deal of growing to do to reach your chin,” I said, taking him from her.

She laughed a great laugh. “Ha, you should see his da,” said she. “He’s right like a tree! Yes, if he takes after us, he’ll be a giant, true enough. Thank you once more for helping me this way. Bob said I might work but half the day.” She laughed again. “I told him that in that half-day, I’ll do as much as most men will in a whole.” And off she went.

So I took her little mite to the breast, and just as she’d said, he sucked like a fury. When he was sated, and his little head nodded, I put him in his cradle and he slept. I looked under the cloth she’d showed me, and there was a lovely pasty and some cheese as well as a nice mug of ale, and so I had a little rest. Twasn’t usual for me to just sit. In my mother’s house, when I wasn’t nursing, I was hard at work in the kitchen, or churning, or mending, or twisting wicks, or anything else I could do to make it so I wasn’t just a leech on my father’s arm. But here, where it wasn’t my house, I could just sit and wasn’t it heavenly.

The baby suckled three times before his mother returned, all brown and blown, from the fields. She came into the door laughing and grabbed him from the cradle to kiss his head. He cried some, as babies will do when they sense their own mothers are there, and this just made her laugh the more. Twas sweet, though sweet’s not a word you’d think of first when you saw that giantess. Still, that’s what it was.

I had to wait a bit for the carter she’d hired to come along, but then he did. The journey wasn’t a long one, but by the time he got me home, I was half asleep from the rocking, as well as from the second glass of ale Vincy had pressed upon me as we waited.

I thanked the carter, and jumped down to go inside. Little Janey, sitting in the doorway, blocked my way in.

“What’s amiss, Janey?” said I, squatting to look in her little face. She was only seven years old, and for most of her life, I’d been off to nurse so she was shy with me yet.

“Are your brothers horrors?” I asked, putting my hand on her head. “You must learn to fight ’em back, you know,” but she looked up at me and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“It’s Father,” she said. “He oughtn’t to hit Ma.”

“True enough,” said I, but then a dread came over me. I stepped by her into the house and there I saw my mother, sitting in her rocker, holding a rag to her lip and weeping. “Mother,” said I, rushing up to her. “What’d the bastard do this time? You’re all right, aren’t you? Let me see.” But she would not.