The Wet Nurse's Tale (12 page)

I thought to take my outing in a new part of Aubrey, where I hadn’t been before, but almost like I didn’t have naught to do with it, my feet led me once again to the Hebrew part of town. It was so strange, see, and that’s where I found the attraction.

All my life I’ve liked a bit of what’s not the usual. Me and my brother John were alike in that way: we chafed at never getting to see anything new. When I was little, I used to beg to go to church on Sunday just for the stories you might hear if the curate were in a telling mood. I liked to dream of the ancient places and how they looked, so different from my workaday world.

I felt the same when it was time for the Great House. Knowing I was to go into service there had been exciting for me as a lass; to know that I’d see things what I’d never seen before. I wasn’t like Mary or even Ellen, dreaming of the day when I’d wear lace or take tea—I knew those days wouldn’t never come. I just wanted to see the stuffs they wore and the food they ate. I’d never even dreamed of the pictures on the wall: they came simply as a wonderful surprise.

Once, Gypsies came to Leighton. Father hated them for tales he’d heard of them and told us to stay put around the house, but John and me were crazy with wanting to see them and so, though we knew it would go poor for us in the end, we ran off. We hid in the bushes around their camp and though their dogs knew we were there, the Gypsies themselves did not seem to.

There were perhaps twenty-five of them, men with soft hats and women with hair black as mine and children in bedgowns, mainly, and a smattering of babies. One of the children finally saw us and pointed, so we came out of the trees, but the adults ignored us and we would not play with the children as we were too shy; we just stood there and looked at them. I remember that I looked upon one of the smaller girls, who had dark skin and gold earrings, and felt that I wished to be her and wear her earbobs and her skirt and eat from the stewpot that a woman stirred over one of the fires.

While we were there, several riders rode up and dismounted. They were young gentlemen and ladies from a manor house in the next village from us, come to have their fortunes told. A crone came forth from a tent and motioned one of the young ladies inside, but she was afraid and none of her lady friends would go with her, and the young lady would not accept any of the young men as an escort. They laughed very much but the young lady much desired to go inside the tent, you could see it, and the Gypsy woman wanted her to, as well. Finally, one of the gentlemen pointed to me and said, “Faith, take her with you, she’ll be your chaperone,” and though the young lady laughed, she did take me.

Inside, it smelled strange, and I saw the lady wrinkle her nose. I did not mind it at all. It smelled spicy and I thought, in my fascination, that it was perhaps the way tents in the Bible smelled. The Gypsy gave the lady a seat and then grabbed her hand and peered at it for a long time til the lady chirped with a giggle, but I think it was just nerves. She kept looking at me as if I, a child, would protect her if something ran amiss. Then the Gypsy murmured something about a man with a red waistcoat which made the lady put her glove to her mouth and blush. But I did not think that it had been difficult for the Gypsy to tell that the lady loved that gentleman, because she had looked at him more than at the other men when we were all outside together.

But then the Gypsy gave me a sharp look and she asked the lady, “Tuppence for the little one’s told,” and the lady shrugged and gave her some coins and then left the tent, giggling about her own business. The Gypsy came toward me and took my hand up in hers, and I did not look at my hand but only at her face which was dark and hard, I thought. And then she looked from my hand to my eyes and said, “You’ll see to yourself, girl,” and that’s all she said. And she threw my hand down and left the tent to bargain with the other young ladies on their horses. I have always remembered that time though I did not understand what it meant.

Our father never found out where we’d gone, even though John scrapped with one of the Gypsy boys and got his nose bloodied for his trouble. Later that week we heard that one of the women in the camp died from having a baby and that the sexton wouldn’t allow her to be buried in the churchyard, though her family had plenty of money to give him. They buried her outside the gates and after a time, the Gypsies left in their wagons, with their dogs following behind.

I thought of the Gypsies for the first time in many years as I entered the Hebrew district. I passed the dentist’s house, Mr. Abrams is his name, I thought. The streets bustled. The air smelled of spices; perhaps it was this that recalled the Gypsies to me especially. There was much to look upon and to hear: great vats of pickled cucumbers and what looked to be bits of fish in brine. To be sure, this last smelled disgusting to me, but truly I have never cared much for fish—it floats in the belly as much as in a pond. The old-clothes sellers wore their wares on their backs if they did not have a stall; one man had hats to sell all piled up on his head.

I looked down at my weeds, that I’d been wearing since Joey died. Mrs. Holcomb had bought me this dress as a kindness. I thought perhaps it was time to change it. Mrs. Chandler gave her old frocks to her servants but of course there was none my size, ever. I found myself in front of a stall as had ladies’ used dresses on the wall; the keeper kept a stick with a hook to get them down.

“Anything in my size, then?” said I, and he looked and indeed, there was a sprigged muslin, worn a bit, but large enough to fit. And the buttons were at the front, what’s more, which is where you need ’em in my profession. So I told him to take it down and he did, and I told him I must try it, and he showed me a curtain to get behind, and it fit. Mrs. Chandler would approve of it, I knew, as it was quite plain and well-made. We wet nurses have no need of a uniform; I can wear what I like, and that’s a blessing. It did right up, so I kept it on and paid the man near what he asked for but not all because I showed him there was a rip in the hem and a button almost loose at the waist, but it’d stay, I thought, while I took more of my walk.

“Miss,” said the seller as I looked in my purse for a coin. “Look at this lovely ribbon, here. It matches just right, do it not? Why, this is ribbon as only a grand lady might wear.”

I have always liked a ribbon. For those as us who cannot afford to put ourselves in smooth stuffs, like silks and satins, a little piece of ribbon is a luxury. I was feeling so gay that day! I looked at his ribbon—a lovely brown, just like the chocolate Mrs. Chandler drank for breakfast. I nodded.

“Just a small piece,” said I. “Just a bit.”

The seller cut a piece for me and wrapped it round and round. When he turned round for a moment, he dropped a little loose end of it onto the ground. No longer than my thumb it was, but waste not want not, I always say, so I knelt and took it up as fast as ever I could and he did not even see me. So I got my ribbon plus a extra bit and that was a piece of good luck for me.

When I came out of the rag seller’s I found myself very near a main thoroughfare, where two streets crossed. There, just across the road from where I stood, I spied their temple. The building was large, with two stone columns. Many people were going in, and before I could stop myself, I had crossed the street and as if I knew what I was doing, I climbed the steps and entered the building.

Reader, it was like I had been pulled there! What would my father say to such news as his own daughter inside the worship-house of the heathens. He had not himself an overabundance of religion, indeed he hadn’t, but he would beat me til I died if he could see what I was about. I stared amazed at my own Christian feet, that they would not stop me from entering the place, but as they did not, I decided to look around.

To my surprise, it was quite like the church I had visited on a Sunday when I went with Mrs. Holcomb, though of course I had sat in the balcony. Indeed, the temple was quite clean and decent. Previously, I had not wasted one thought on what their temples would look like on the inside in the whole of my life, but if I had done, I would have told you that there would be no clean seat to sit on nor any clean person sitting on them. That race is not known for cleanness, somewhat like the Gypsies. But in fact it was quite respectable and on the whole the people did not smell worse than a usual crush would.

I saw that men and women did not sit together, for once inside the men went one way and the women the other. Indeed, a wall stood between them so they could not see each other at all. I followed a group of women and noted that they pulled their shawls up over their heads if they had no bonnets; my black bonnet did fine. I felt like giggling to think what I was doing. It was like spying a bit, wasn’t it, and I knew the sin of it, but it was exciting and made me feel very brave. It would not hurt me really. I knew that, because I am firm in my faith in the Lord.

The service was not like a decent Christian service where the people sat quietly. The whole while the Hebrew women chattered and laughed with each other in their strange language. Children ran up and down the aisles and hid under their mothers’ seats. Sometimes, it is true, everyone would stop their talking and say a prayer together or sing one of their mournful hymns. At one point, some men opened a box on the platform and lifted out a scroll with a very ancient look to it, and then everyone quieted down and bowed. There was very much to look at all the time.

I sat on a bench in the midst of four or five young mothers. Two of them had babes in arms and others had small children in their laps. There were no boys over ten or so; I supposed that they’d been sent to the other side of the wall to sit with the men. At one point during the service, a quarrel broke out between two of the children who were playing together at the back of the room, behind the women’s benches. At the sound, the woman beside me, who had a baby in her arms, turned and spoke something to the children. The noise did not abate though, so she sighed very loud and shook her head and stood to go break up the spat. I looked up at her as she stood and our eyes met, and she smiled and thrust her little baby at me for me to hold while she went to make the older children be good.

I have held other women’s babies all my life, since I was a wee little lass, and I’ve always liked them. I like the tiny ones the best, when they’re breathing so fast it’s like they’ve run a race and must gasp for air. And they’re so dear when they’re older and smile and reach to touch your face. But there’s something about knowing you’re being paid to care for ’em that holds your heart a little away, don’t it, and it’s like that with everything in the world. What’s your own is dearer to you, and that’s all there is to it.

I recall watching my mother see her sister’s baby for the first time. My mother’s sister was very dear to her, and so when she first put my little cousin into my mother’s arms, my mother cried. I remember because it seemed that strange to me: all the day my mother held babies, her own, the paying babies, and she had done so for years, every day, babies. And here my aunt puts yet another little child into my mother’s arms and she weeps.

And here I was looking into this little baby’s face, like I’d never seen a baby before, my heart full. It was just this: I wasn’t being paid to hold it. I guarded that baby for a favor for a woman who’d never yet seen me before but who looked at me and thought me safe enough. To her, I simply looked like another woman from the district, in my neat sprigged frock and my covered head and my smile. I seemed to her to be a woman as would know how to hold a baby and keep it quiet. Which I was.

The service went on a bit, but not as long as some I’ve been to. I remarked to myself that as people left the building, they seemed as busy as ever. They did not have the peaceful expression on their faces that Christians have when they leave church. I thought this to be odd. But when I thought more, it seemed to me that often I have seen a peaceful expression turn to anger as fast as a whip cracks, and so the look on the face might mean less than what it seems to be.

“Mrs. Rose,” was what I heard as I made my way down the steps of the temple.

I felt startled near out of my skin. I felt like I’d been caught robbing. I’m sure I blushed scarlet. “Mr. Abrams,” said I so I almost couldn’t hear myself, I said it so low. I was that ashamed.

“And how do you do? How is your tooth?”

“How can it be, when it’s not any longer in my mouth?” said I, trying to banter. “You took it, so you ought to know.”

He laughed, bless him, and then he introduced me to the lady on his arm. “This is my sister, Henrietta. Hen, this is Mrs. Rose.” We bobbed at each other but I was still too embarrassed to look up much. I thought that I was lying not to tell that I wasn’t a missus, but I also couldn’t imagine the purpose it’d serve to set him right. So I didn’t.

“Mrs. Rose,” said he, “how’ve you come to our service here? I have not seen you here before, I think?”

“No, sir,” I said, low again. “You have not. I was in your part of town here, where I come sometimes to do some trade.” And then, as if I was a puppet in a Punch and Judy show and someone’s hand was in my back to move me, I said, “I felt drawn to come here, for I though I was raised in a Christian home, I am of your blood.”

They gaped and I am afraid I did as well. I cannot say what made me do it. Twas such a lie! But I was afraid of being caught in a place where I did not belong, you see, and thus the fib came forth. And as well, as I had sat with the women of the district, and watched them talk and pray and scold their children, I had noted something else: a resemblance between them and me. Often, in a place—in church or the market or the street—I thought that I seemed darker of hair and complexion than other women. But there, sitting in the Hebrew temple, I thought I looked quite at home, though I might not have felt it.

“I confess,” said Mr. Abrams, “I am amazed. I have never heard such a story. How did this happen to you? Where did you . . .”

But his sister stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Harry, leave off your inquiry!” she said. “You will frighten Mrs. Rose away!” Then to me, “I’m sure you didn’t understand much this evening. Did you not find it tiresome?”