The Wet Nurse's Tale (21 page)

“Your father told me about your first child. I assume he was my son’s as well. Do you not see, you stupid girl, that the baby is far safer where he is now? Let it go. I am afraid that if you do not, your father may beat you. He seemed a violent man.”

“He was not Freddie’s,” I shrieked. “Freddie is not this baby’s father.”

She stopped in the doorway and turned. “Is that true?” she said, very low.

“Yes,” I cried. “Yes! My father’s wrong in his story. He believes it but it’s false.”

She looked at me, abashed. Then she shrugged. The gesture was familiar to me. I had seen the same, more times than I could count, when she had done with what she was at and wanted to be on to the next thing.

“Ah well,” she said, “it’s done, anyhow, and so best to leave it.”

And with that she turned and walked out the door.

I had not the luxury to bask in my horror. I ran from the folding room to the stairway, praying that I should meet no one. As I had expected, the maids were busy with the dishes and the men were clearing the table or serving coffee in the drawing room. With any luck, I could slip upstairs unnoticed. The back stairs, while creaky, were bless edly deserted.

I climbed two flights, taking two stairs at once, and opened the stairway door slowly. Just across the hall, I found the room I wanted. It was the least desirable room on the hall, for how near it was to where us servants came and went like ants, all the livelong day. Twas the perfect room for a poor relation. I tried the door. It opened right away and I went in and sat in the chair next to Miss Anne’s bed to wait for her return.

Twas but a quarter of an hour. She had entered her room and closed her door before she saw me. She started and almost screamed but did not. I sat very still. I felt quite desperate.

“I cannot help you,” she hissed at me. “You would do well to get out before I call someone and the constable is summoned. They would put you in the stocks, you know, or worse.”

“Where did they take him?” I said calmly.

“I will not tell you anything,” said she. And then she said, “Slut.”

“Thief,” I parried.

Her eyes flashed in anger but then I saw what I wanted. I saw fear.

“If you do not tell me this instant,” I said, rising and walking toward her, “I will tell them about the things you took.” I knew only about the necklace I saw her take that one day she had helped Mrs. Bonney with her letter whilst I cleaned the grate. But I gambled on more and I saw that I was right for she had paled.

“I do not know what you may be speaking of,” she said, but her hand trembled where she rested it on her bedpost. She spoke very soft. I could see that I had hit a nerve.

“Tell me where they took him and I shall keep what I know about you to myself.”

“I do not know,” she said, but her eyelids fluttered very fast.

“Shall I tell them now?” I said so loudly I almost frightened myself, but it worked: she shushed me with her finger to her mouth.

“I shall tell, only please, I beg you to speak but softly,” she said in a panic.

I did not allow any hope to come into my eyes, lest she feel she might disarm me. I cared only to look dangerous, as if I would do anything at all, which was only the truth.

She told me that she and Mrs. Bonney had a cousin who was an officer in the Royal Indian forces. He had married a young woman some years ago and taken her to India with him, but she had become ill there and so he had brought her home and then returned to fulfill his commission. Mrs. Norval lived in London. Not three months earlier, Mrs. Bonney had received a letter from Captain Norval, stating his concerns about his wife: that she seemed quite turned with loneliness. He begged Mrs. Bonney to do something for the lady. He thought it would do her good to have a companion, or perhaps a child, as she had always loved children and yet had none of her own. Mrs. Bonney received his letter the exact day before my father had come to her first. It seemed a natural fit, then, and so it had become a plan.

Norval—I cached it tight in my mind.

“Have you an address?” I hissed at her as I made myself up to leave.

I saw her: she almost spoke and then thought not to and instead, shook her head as if she’d changed her mind about it. “No,” said she with a shrug, the same shrug as Mrs. Bonney had shown, the same as if she’d learned it like a lesson at her knee. Twas not that she didn’t know, no, not at all. Twas rather that she didn’t care to say. What care had she if someone else was in pain or worse? I could hear their thoughts, hers and the lady’s: how could it possibly matter to me, they would say through those pinched, false red lips.

I am not a violent girl, though I’m big. I can fight if I need to fight, mind you, but mostly I don’t need to, excepting when my brothers used to need stopping. But that shrug made me see blood behind my eyes, and I tell you, Reader, twas a good thing for that heartless bitch of a Miss Anne that I was in a hurry to get out of that house and find my baby. Even so, my hand darted out and I struck her, hard enough to knock her to the floor. She lay and looked up at me in fear and I felt how good it feels to cause it when it’s wanted. My pleasure must have showed in my eyes, for when I looked at her again she whimpered, with her hand to her face, and said, “Hampstead Street,” in a small, scared voice.

Then shame rose up inside me like a curtain. Twas not that I felt guilty for striking her, not at all. Twas more that I had not hit Mrs. Bonney, though she’d shown me the very same shrug. I had turned on Miss Anne instead, whose life was not so sunny as to afford it. No, Susan Rose, I told myself, you suffer the rich to do as they wish and hold the less fortunate to a higher standard. Tis unfair and tis the dirty part of the world that we all live in, but there it is just the same.

She yet lay on the floor when I slipped out of her room. I ran across the hall in two steps, down the back stairs and the downstairs hall and out the rear door. I cannot say if anyone saw me or not and nor did I care. I had the information I required and it was needful for me to say good-bye to the Great House for then and forever.

I stepped into a dark night. I knew that at that time of night there would be no transport to take me to London, which was a very long way. I crept to the laundry, snuck in, and lay on a pile of dirty sheets. My tears would not stop and no longer did I try to make them. I cried til my heart ached inside my chest.

After a while, I opened my shift and let it hang down around my waist. Then I stood over a sink and like as if I was a cow, I milked my own full dugs and watched the wasted milk as it dripped down into the drain. Each breast was very full. I squeezed and squeezed and rung myself out like I was a rag. I mirrored each drop from my bosom with the tears from my eyes. Twas a long and tedious business, but it was important that I do a job of it. Only Davey himself kept me in milk, only his suckling filled me again. I knew that unless I emptied myself completely, my supply would dwindle and when I did finally find him, I might have nothing for him, and a trouble as bad, no way to earn our keep. I meant to find my child. If you have ever fed a child, with breast or by hand, you will know how long it took me.

In the morning, I rose before the sun and went out onto the road. I had taken a bit of bread and cheese from the small larder that Mrs. Hubbard kept in the laundry for her midday meal, but, as I did not have my letters, I could not write her a message to tell her who her mouse had been. I walked out onto the road and started south toward London. Soon, it began to show some life with horsemen and farmers with carts. Twas not long at all before a carter picked me up. I asked him what he hauled; he said parsnips. He asked where I was off to; I told him London. At that, he looked me up and down and said, “Blimey. And what’ll you do there, love?”

“I’ll find work as a nurse, is what I sincerely hope,” said I.

He nodded as if he approved of my plan and then he filled his pipe and smoked as his horse trotted down the lane. My heart lay very heavy and I was glad to be quiet with my thoughts. The day before, on my way to the Great House, I had felt that I could not move fast enough, that my skin was tight around me, as if I should have to shed it to breathe. I could not sense where my hands should go or what expression my face should wear. All the little things that my body knew how to do, like blinking my eyes or swallowing, all seemed too silly to go on with. I felt like I was breaking into parts and I feared madness, I truly did.

Today, I felt better. I was no less anxious but I felt a bit calmer, more as if I had a plan. For that I did. I had the name of a lady and I had the name of a street. And each turn of the carter’s wheels brought me closer to that lady and that street and to my Davey.

During my night in the laundry, I had prayed, like Hannah prayed for Samuel til God heard her cries. And I believe God heard me. For when I awoke, I felt as if He had poured strength into me that I might not use up were I to walk for one thousand miles. It was not that far to London, but far enough. I had no time to walk. I must ride or perhaps be too late.

The carter, who seemed a good enough fellow, said that he would let me ride with him almost to the gates of London itself, but he went too slow and I could not abide it. I bade him let me off in Christchurch, and there I paid a fortune to take a night coach so I would not lose time. The coach was full of travelers but we did not speak to each other overmuch. It is as true as my nose: decent folks don’t travel at night unless they must. There were four in the coach with me: an old man with but one leg who hawked through the night and spat into a crock, also a younger man who kept his eyes tight shut til he resigned his seat, though I think he did not sleep, and also a woman in weeds and her daughter, about my age, also in black. The daughter wept for hours, til her eyes were swole up as tight as nuts. Her mother sat still and stared out into the dark.

We departed from the coach in Mansfield. I had heard of the town, for my mother’d had a baby from there. I stepped over to the inn and asked if I might use the outhouse and there I milked myself as dry as I could, though again, it took some while. When I had finished, I went into the inn and ordered a bit of bread and a glass of ale and inquired of the keep as to when the next coach to London would come.

“Not for some hours, miss,” said he, “for the regular coach has gone and broke a axle, and they’re hard put to find another.”

“But is there naught else than that coach?” I asked, very upset, and he shook his head with a no.

As I sat and fretted, a man stepped over, very polite-like, and told me that if I should give him a shilling, he would give me a ride to Longbourne Village where I could pick up a coach that very afternoon. I thanked him and asked when he would start off, and he said that he would wait for me to finish my ale and then we could leave. I drank it in a gulp and jumped up from my bench, which caused him to smile. He was a nice-enough-looking man, though his teeth were rotted.

His cart, I was glad to see, was sturdy and not too full so as to weigh it down. I told him as much, so as to be a hint that I would like a fast ride, though in truth I was at his mercy and must accept whatever speed he saw fit. But he laughed again and said, “You are in a hurry, are you, miss?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” said I. “My young man in London and I have posted the banns and are to marry before the week is out. He has found good work there as a smith.”

“Your young man? ” said he and he looked at me and smiled again.

“Yes,” said I. “He is a smith,” I repeated. “He has a house set up for us.”

“Doesn’t that sound comfy, then,” said he.

Then he said, “He must be a big man, I suppose?”

“Yes,” said I. “He is like a Goliath in his way.”

He laughed. Then he said, “Miss, I must beg your pardon. We must make one stop, just up the road a bit. I’m hauling a batch of brooms to town for my neighbor, and we must stop by his warehouse and collect them. It will not take a moment.”

I nodded though I felt that I did not want to stop at all.

We traveled in silence for a few minutes and then he said, “Aah, do you see it ahead, his storehouse?”

I nodded again.