The Wet Nurse's Tale (19 page)

“He took him,” is what she said, “and I could not prevent it.”

My eyes nearly sprang from their sockets; I could feel them pop. I ran to the cradle but it was empty. Empty! Davey was gone! I looked at the shelf where his things were and it too was bare. No nappies, no lard. I know I screamed loud enough to raise a soul from the deepest part of hell.

I felt as if my very skin could not contain the horror. I thought I was stuck inside a hideous fancy. The pasty and the ale came up and I ran to the sink to vomit. Suddenly, but I could not tell you why, my hair seemed ridiculous; why my hair? I cannot say. But it seemed to me that I must rip it from my scalp so as to be able to again take a breath.

“Mother!” I screamed. “Where’s Davey? Where has he taken him? What has he done with him? Mother! What shall I do? Mother, tell me what he said. Make haste! As you love me, tell me now!”

And this is what she told me.

Even as I carried Davey inside me, my father must have determined to find the baby’s father and make him pay. And “pay” he meant; he did not care that I become an honest woman; he cared more for the shillings that could be got out of me and my situation. He may have sus picioned on several young men of the town, but if he did, I’m sure they laughed in his face. I imagine those meetings: Gar, I’d rather fuck a cow than your daughter, Old Tom. But then, said my mother, one evening as my father sat in the tavern, a man he didn’t know told him a story.

The man said he’d been walking in the wood—and by that I expect he meant poaching—near the Great House and he’d come upon a couple going at it in the dirt. He told my father that he had sneaked to watch—the nasty thing—and had heard the gen’lman—he could tell he was a gentleman by his boots, my mother told me and then she colored in her cheeks—say how he’s used to having roses under him. I knew then that the story was true because I remember Freddie saying just that to me and how we had laughed at it.

I suppose the man hoped to get a shilling for his trouble in telling the story; it’s more likely that my father broke his nose for him. But however it ended in the tavern, I do not know nor care. My father did not tell my mother a word of it until that very morning or she would have warned me. When she tried to stay him from snatching the baby right out of her arms, he yelled the story at her, broke her lip, took my Davey and ran.

“My God,” I said to my mother. “He’s not taken the baby to the Great House?”

And my mother, holding the side of her face, simply wept.

“But he doesn’t understand,” I screamed. “Davey’s father hasn’t anything to do with the Great House and them. He’s a man I met in Aubrey!”

“What can you mean, Susan?” said my mother. “Is the story your father heard a lie, then? Oh, I knew there was no truth to it. I knew it.”

When I saw what my deception and slatternliness had done to them I loved, I felt a wish to die. If I had known what there was yet to know, my heart might have refused to beat further. My mother beaten and confused, my baby kidnapped, and all because I had some evil in me that was bent on coming out. But there was no time to muse on my badness just now.

“When did he take him, then?” I cried, dashing away my tears. “Will I catch him?”

“I don’t know, my dear,” said my mother. “He has been biding his time. He told me that he found out about you and the young master,” and then again, she looked muddled, “but that’s not the truth, I now know . . .”

“But when did he talk to that man?” I asked.

“Ah, it seemed to me that it was ever so long ago, before even Davey was born. And now, to think it’s not true!” And again she wept.

“Mother, you must dry your tears and talk to me! When did he take Davey? How long ago?”

“Twas not long after they came to get you this morning, my dear,” said my mother. “I stood in front of the cradle, but he split my lip and threw me hard against the wall. He had a horse from someone, and he took the baby up like a sack of apples under his arm, the little thing just crying . . .”

I screamed as loud as ever I could. “But I must go!” I said. “I must go and get back my baby!”

I ran to my trunk and pulled out my bag and threw into it my other dress and an apron. Then I made haste into the barn and there I grabbed our shovel. I dug in the southwest corner and found my money, and I wrapped it tight in a kerchief so it would not clink and give itself away, and I put that in my bag. And then I went back to the house to hug my mother and we were both crying. She handed me some coins, and I did not thank her with words but instead just kissed her again on her mouth and her hand.

“Take care of yourself, Mother,” said I. “I will always think of you, every day of my life. I will see you again before the end.” And she clutched me and cried and then I found myself on the road walking as quickly as ever my legs would carry me. I did not look back for I could think only of what lay in front of me, though I might not know what it was.

I could not get a ride. There was no one on the road and those few who did ride by were but single horsemen who, when they saw my size, ignored my pleas and rode past me at a gallop. It took me a good forty minutes to get to the Great House, and the whole time I was thinking thoughts that made the walk seem like the path to hell.

I supposed my father would go to the Great House to tell them what he had heard about the baby’s father and try to get some money out of them. I supposed Mrs. Bonney would intercept the problem so she might protect Freddie from his father if she could.

But what if I could not get to Mrs. Bonney? What if she refused to take the baby, what would he do with it? What if she did take the baby, what then? What if the family was not at home: what would I do? Where would next I go to find my child? What if one of the few riders coming down the road was my father? Would he hurt me bad enough so that I could no longer search for Davey? Who would feed Davey? I tried to banish thoughts of feeding from my mind immediately, lest they bring my milk down, but it was too late: that familiar tightening arose, and my breasts filled and leaked onto my shift. I could not run; my bosoms was too big and it hurt to bounce them. I made do with a trot, more like, and finally, there in front of me was the Great House.

I made my way as quick as I could to the downstairs entrance and slipped in. Twas late by then, but the house was lit and I could tell by the kitchen that there was a fancy supper upstairs. The soup had been served; I could see the big silver tureen on the kitchen table ready for washing, and for an instant, it recalled to me my hours of polishing when still I was a maid and a maiden, too. The Bonneys and their guests upstairs were on to the meat course, which I knew because the cook and the kitchen girls were sitting at their own table, eating their own suppers, which they might do before the salads were served.

I knew the place like I knew my Davey’s hand. I snuck by the servants as they ate and turned left down the hall toward the pressing room, where we laundry girls would stack the sheets and shirts after they was all cleaned and ironed. I went in and closed the door. I did not know what to do next and felt quite wild at being so very close to them as perhaps had my child. I wondered if he was in that very house, hungry, while they ate their quail and drank their wine.

Then the door opened and in came Mrs. Hart. She opened the door very sudden, just as she used to do when I lived at the Great House. The other girls thought it was so she could catch them at some sloth, which often she did, but I knew better. She was just a fierce one, was Mrs. Hart, and she opened doors the way she did because it was in her nature to be rough. I knew this about her because I am the same. Strong and rough. We looked at each other in our eyes. She was surprised to see me.

“Susan Rose,” she said sharply. “What do you here?”

“Mrs. Hart,” I said. I could hear that my voice was harsh and hoarse with the passion of my situation. “I believe my baby is here in this house.”

I could not tell what was in her look: was it fury or was it pity? I could not say. Footsteps rang in the hall. Mrs. Hart turned so that she blocked the door and said to the person outside, “Maggie, come back later.” Then she turned back toward me, closed the door behind her, and locked it.

“How do you dare to come here?” She did not sound angry now, but more curious.

“I believe my baby is here,” I repeated. “I mean to get him back. Is he here?”

“Why should he be?” she said.

“You know,” I said. “For the love of Jesus, tell me.”

She said nothing and looked me up and down.

“I have money,” I started, but she shook her head.

“They say,” said she, “that it’s Master Freddie’s baby you carried.”

“No, mum,” said I, quite fierce, “it’s mine.”

Mrs. Hart pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows and suddenly I knowed exactly what she wanted. She wanted to know. She was overcome by curiousness and that was all it was. I saw it clear: to such as her, the knowing what others don’t is what keeps her above them. She was a breed apart, was Mrs. Hart: not part of us servants nor yet part of the masters of the house, and that in-between place was where she’d found her betterment in the world. If she’d been a man, she’d have gone to sea or she’d have been a general in the army. Instead she was a housekeeper of someone else’s house and she might hate it, but the power of it was what kept her alive.

So I fed her. I told her about meeting Freddie by the side of the road, which made her nostrils flare in anger, but whether she was angry at me for reaching so far above my station or because she did not like Master Freddie or because she did not like what we did, I cannot know. I told her what I knew about my father’s meeting with the stranger in the tavern, and she listened closely, but no expression showed on her face.

I did not tell her that Freddie was not Davey’s father. I thought to do it and then bit back the words. Mrs. Hart had no care for me after all. Her cares were only for the Great House and them what was in it. If she knew that Davey was not Freddie’s, why, there’d be nothing left in my story to interest her. And I needed her to want to know more, and yet more.

I debated in my mind about whether to tell her about Joey and I decided that I would. She may have heard that I had had a baby before, and leaving it out might set her against me. She might ask me how I’d made my way in Aubrey and I thought the fewer lies I told her, the better it would go for me, as she was shrewd enough to catch me in them. And I thought that if she had a spark of pity in her breast, which I did not know if she did, but if she did, it would soften her up to think that I had already lost a child before this one. I did not know: perhaps she had had a child herself, though she never spoke of one nor had a likeness that she shewed around.

I did not tell her who Joey’s father had been. I knew that of all the things in the world, it would make her angriest to think that one of her maids had been lying in the larder with the master under her watch. So I did not tell her about that. The truth, I thought to myself as my brain worked at what to leave out, is a very good thing, but only if it steers you in the right direction.

When I finished she nodded. Then she looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap.

“There was a baby here this morning,” said she.

My eyes popped. “Is he still?”

“No,” she said. “He is not.”

I panted. She continued.

“Several months ago, a rough man with blue eyes . . .”

“My father!”

She nodded once. “He came here one morning and asked to see Mrs. Bonney. I quizzed him as to what he wanted but he would not tell me. I almost turned him away, but he told me that his message concerned Master Freddie so I thought it wise to tell the mistress. I made him wait outside til Mrs. Bonney had dressed, which was a good hour and a half, but he waited. When I told Mrs. Bonney that a Mr. Rose wanted to see her, she seemed quite curious about what he might want. She called in Miss Anne as a chaperone. Their meeting lasted for a good while.

“I did not see Mr. Rose leave. But for a week following, Mrs. Bonney took to her bed and refused even to move to the sofa in the morning room. No one could attend her but Miss Anne . . . not even Master Freddie. This was perhaps four and a half months ago.”

I could not keep my moan to myself. It was horrible to me that my father had laid his terrible plan, the particulars of which I did not know, while I was still big; that he’d kept it close to his chest while I labored; that he harbored it as I nursed his grandson.

Mrs. Hart continued. “This morning, quite early, he came back. Rawlings showed him right in to Miss Anne, who seemed to have been expecting him. They did not sit, but left the house immediately and made for the stables. Later, Miss Anne ordered that a bowl of milk and a spoon be sent out. I never saw her again inside the house til after the cart came.”

“The cart?” I croaked.

She quit her speech. I stared at her but her mouth was pursed as tight as a mail slot, as if sudden-like, she realized how much she was giving away for free.

“Please,” I said.

“Before noon, a carter drove up with a woman riding along. He hopped down and went inside the stable and was out in a trice. He handed a bundle to the woman, who took it in her arms and then they drove off.”