The Wet Nurse's Tale (35 page)

Carrie’s face fell. “Oh, Susan,” said she, “I am so unhappy for you. They will take the baby away and you’ll have no charge here. I heard him say to her that she made the mess and she ought to fix it and then I heard her say that she would send someone for the baby later today. Then she came out of the sitting room and told me to find her a cab and off she went.”

I wished that my heart would break but I am that strong, Reader, that it did not.

I knew that Mrs. Bonney was gone, and so I thought to walk downstairs and find myself some bread, as my stomach was rotten with nerves. I walked down the front stairway and looked into the drawing room as I felt curious to see the state of it. Twas a horror of a mess—a broken vase on the floor, the drapes pulled down, the little coffin shining strangely—and I thought to myself that I would help Lydia clean it before I left the house on the morrow. I could scarcely walk for worry of what I would do next.

I peeped into the sitting room as well and saw Mr. Brooks sitting with his head in his hands.

“Sir,” said I, “shall I bring you a cup?”

He looked up. “Susan,” he said. “Susan, do sit down. I’m afraid I have some unpleasant news for you.”

He needed to talk, is what, and I have found that it don’t really matter if you’re brought up fine or rough, but that it helps to have someone to spill your sorrows to. I was just a servant in his sister’s house, but my thought is that he reckoned I deserved to know what had happened, for I was shortly to be sacked. Or maybe he thought that my lowness made me the right one to hear the tale, as he could not tell his own set for fear of scandal. Or perhaps there was something about my size and shape that reminded him of his mother, who he might have talked to about his troubles when he was a lad.

He told me things that I already knew but should not have, and he told me things that I had not known at all but that made the story clearer. Some of what he told me made me put my fist in my mouth.

He told me that there had been a baby in that house before my Davey but that it had died. He did not tell me how, but he told me it had not been Mrs. Norval’s baby but instead had belonged to a pretty housemaid who had lost her life in having it. He did not say who its father was but I wagered I knew. And he told me that Mrs. Norval had tried to care for it but that there had been an accident. That is how he said it: an accident. And so Captain Norval, who was in the Orient the whole time, never even knowed the first thing about it all, not even that it had been born. Only Mrs. Bonney and Mr. Brooks knew the story. And they had kept it quiet until Mrs. Bonney taked it right upon herself to award Mrs. Norval—like my Davey was a bauble—with another baby, even after what had happened with the first one. Here he shook his head. “I blame that woman for my sister’s current state,” he said through his teeth. “I cannot conceive what may have led her to do such a thing as give a baby—a foundling, to be sure, but still a human baby after all—to my poor sister.”

I can conceive of it, I told myself. Mrs. Bonney had a baby and wanted to be rid of it and knew the way to do it. I thought back to when I was in her house begging her to give me my child and she had refused me, and how I had thought that it might be out of love for her own son that she wanted mine. But that was stupid of me. Twas only that when she got it she wanted it gone, by hook or by crook. By hook would have the baby in this house, safe enough. By crook would have it in this house, not safe at all. It was all one to her.

When I looked up, I saw that Mr. Brooks was looking at me quite strange. He had a look on his face as if he wanted to jump on me and kiss me or kill me. I started back, but then I held myself firm. I felt sick of this house and its strangeness.

“Susan,” said he, “my cousin is sending for the baby.”

I nodded, for I could not speak.

“I shall not let her have him,” said he, quite strong.

“Sir?” I said.

“I cannot trust her to take care of this mess properly, though justice says she should. I shall have to do it myself.” He fell quiet for a moment and then, “Susan?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You once told me that you love the baby. Is it true?”

My breaths began to come very fast.

“Like my own,” I whispered.

“Will you take him?” he said quite fast. “Can you take him away from here? Would you do it, though he is but a foundling? Do you have a place to go to where you can live together?”

“I will find a place, sir,” I said. I tried to sound calm but I do not think I succeeded.

“I will give you plenty of money for your trouble,” said he. He took out his wallet and began to empty it onto the table. There was fifteen pounds there, Reader, fifteen pounds.

“Take this,” said he, “and quickly pack your things. Take whatever you need for the baby. I shall call a carriage to take you to the train station. Can you do it?”

I nodded and started to thank him.

“No time,” he said, “just hurry so that it will all be done with by the time my sister awakens. I must remove that horrid thing from the front room. Oh, one last thing, Susan. I must know this: Mrs. Stone—she is not real, is she? She is a figment, is she not?”

I shook my head slowly. “No, sir,” I said very gently. “She is not real.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Brooks, his head back in his hands, “my poor sister.”

And that is how I left him.

And so, Reader, I took my baby and we went to Aubrey by rail. It took many hours, but was quite comfortable after all. I had money enough to buy food and beer and felt quite excited to see the land fly by me as if I was a stork winging off north. When the baby awoke, very groggy from the laudanum, I nursed him and cuddled him and kissed him and he fell back asleep. I closed my eyes, though I wished to see the coun tryside go by, but I squeezed them tight to thank the Lord for my good fortune. Twas hard to believe how it had turned in the end.

I might have sobbed with happiness, but something kept me from it, and that was dread, still lingering around me. I had been afraid for so long that I could not stop my body from remembering its feeling. Let time pass, I whispered into Davey’s head like as if I was talking to him, instead of to myself, as it was in fact. Let time pass, and the fear will melt away like butter in a pan.

Aubrey was bright and sunny and cold. We took a hansom to the place I knew best in the city, which was the Hebrew district. Ah, it looked like home to me!

You may not be surprised, Reader, that it was to this part of the city that I went with my baby. You may have guessed that this was the plan in my head all the time I was a’plotting and a’scheming there in Mrs. Norval’s house: that if it turned out that I was able to run with my babe, I would head here, where I would never be found if one day all the truth came out about what I had done. For who would think to look for me here, after all? No one, is who. Those that do not think large enough, and that is mostly everyone, would not imagine that I had taken my baby and Mr. Brooks’s fifteen pounds and gone to live with the Hebrews.

As I stood on the street and adjusted my bundles and my baby—not so much weight after all for a strong girl like me, but just enough to hold happiness—I thought a thought that made me smile to myself. And that was that as I stood there on that street in that neighborhood and looked at the familiar shops and stalls, I felt as if I was a’laying my head upon a soft bosom. Is that not funny? A town compared to a bosom! And yet that was how it was with me—twas as if I myself was a babe and had found a place of comfort. For that, Reader, is a good part of nursing right there, is it not. Tis nourishment, to be sure, but the comfort part’s as important, and those of us as does it for our livings know it.

What did I hope for just then? I am a regular lass, after all, and I hoped for whatever we girls do. I hoped for safety and I hoped for a laugh and I hoped for a home. And it goes almost without saying that I hoped for love. And if it came my way in the shape of a man with curly hair and a bright brown eye, why, I thought I would catch it up and not let it go.

I asked the first passerby for the hospital and the lady smiled down at Davey in my arms and pointed to a building but a block from where we stood. There, we waited for a doctor to speak to. He was very obliging, and for a shilling or two, he told me of a lady who wanted a wet nurse and would take a one who had a baby already at the breast. There were those who would, if they seemed like they could do it, which is how I seemed. Plus, we came cheaper.

When I met Mrs. Golden, which was my new lady’s name, I told her that I was a widow. I told her that I had wet nursed for many a year, from having lost a baby a long time ago. When she asked me, I told her the same lie that I had told before: that I was a Jewess but that I had been raised in a Christian home, being a orphan, and that I yearned to know more about the ways of my people. She liked to hear that, and told me that she would help me to learn. I was very happy, for indeed I much remembered my visit to their place of worship and wondered what it would be like to know more about the small customs of their lives. As I wished to make my home in the Hebrew district for a very long time, I thought it was best that I understand their ways. Though I have broken my share of rules, to be sure, I have always been glad to do as I ought, and was pleased to think that Mrs. Golden would teach me all that I needed to know.

“I shall show you our prayers and how we eat,” she said, very excited and proud, “and you will feel most comfortable amongst us after a very little while.”

“Ah,” said I, “I am very glad to be here and would be entirely easy, ma’am, if . . .”

“If what, my dear?” said Mrs. Golden, very concerned-like.

“Oh,” said I, contrite, “I did not mean to worry you, not at all. It’s nothing, just a ache in my tooth, not even a ache, really, but . . .”

“Aah,” she interrupted, smiling very broad, “as to a bad tooth, you mustn’t worry! We have here the most excellent dentist and he will make short shrift of your tooth.”

“Well,” said I, very pleased and surprised-like, but wanting just a bit more, “I have always approved of a good dentist. It seems to me a most honorable way for a man to make a living for his family, or so I have always thought.”

“Yes,” she sighed just exactly as I had hoped she would, “but poor thing, he was widowed some time ago and never remarried. His chambers are just by here, quite near to the temple. Well, I shall point you to him tomorrow. And now, let me show you my fat little baby. Walk this way, Susan, do.”

Mrs. Golden’s baby was a fine boy named Samuel. He was very like Davey, with dark hair and bright eyes, but smaller, being younger. It seemed to me, and I said as much to Mrs. Golden, who kissed me to hear it, that nursing her boy would be like nursing my son’s brother. She showed me to my room. It was a very pleasant room, with a chair and a good bed and a rug on the floor. And, Reader! There was a window in it!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My sincerest thanks go to Alexandra Machinist, my literary agent. Every piece of her advice proved perfect. Rachel Kahan, my editor at Putnam, is a person of taste and passion and knowledge, and I am obliged to her. Thanks to Rachel Holtz man for her attention to detail and to Allison Hargraves for her editorial skill.