The Wet Nurse's Tale (16 page)

After a little while, I heard a horse’s hooves come behind me and pass me. I looked up to see who it might be and though it was a’gloaming by then and the light quite dim, I made out the face of Master Freddie and I gasped. He seemed as surprised as I and stopped his horse and jumped down.

“Susan,” said he, “you’ve come back!”

“Yes, sir,” I said, keeping my tone level. I had much I wished him not to know. “I have and I am walking along home.”

“It surprised me to find that you’d left your position,” he went on. “No one could tell me why.”

I wondered at that. Who had he asked? I wondered. Had he really asked Mrs. Hart and if he had, what had she thought of that? I could not conceive that he had actually asked his mother. I imagined it thus, in an instant:

Freddie: Mother, where is that scullery maid, the one named Susan Rose?

Mrs. Bonney: Who?

Freddie: You know, Mother. The scullery, the fat one? Susan is her name. I no longer see her in the house.

Mrs. Bonney: Freddie, darling, why on earth would you want to know?

Freddie: Oh. Well, it’s just, I, well you see . . .

It made me right sick to think of it, really. “My mother fell ill, sir,” said I. “And so I had to go home.”

He looked at me with concern. I noticed that his waistcoat bulged at the buttons rather more than when I’d seen him last and that the skin on his forehead looked quite white with flakes, and very raw.

“Is she . . .” he said and waited.

I thought to myself to remember the lie I’d told him. “Oh,” said I, “thank you, sir. She is in excellent health, that she is. A proper recovery.”

His features came all over with relief. I felt touched in my heart to think that he might feel so much about the mother of one of his maids. I thanked him again and smiled.

He smiled back. “I am glad, then. And, Susan, how do you fare?”

I thought of what he did not know and felt the lie I’d tell by saying naught, as well as what a baby he was himself, to be protected from such a thing as I would not tell. That’s the difference between us and them, I thought. We know all of what’s bad because we can’t keep from it. They live in their big houses and the walls are thick enough around them to keep the bad out.

“Me, sir? I’m fine,” said I. And then, “What’s that?”

As we stood, a horseman came up the road very quick. The rider was hunched over, like he was racing, and he whipped the horse very much.

“My God,” said Freddie as the rider came toward us, “that man will kill that horse. He must be bent for the doctor for what else could need speed such as that?”

We stepped off the road to watch the rider pass, which he did, but not before his horse’s hoof threw a small, sharp stone at me which hit me on my leg, above the knee. I yelped and almost fell, but Freddie caught onto me and helped me across the ditch, where there was a bank to sit on.

“Shall we look at it, then?” said he, his voice all worry.

“I shall look at it while you may not, sir,” said I, for I could feel that it was just a prick. I felt myself flirting, but I was relieved to be safe and not have suffered a worse wound.

He smiled at me and turned his head away to protect my modesty, but pretended to snatch a glance at my leg as I picked up my skirt. He acted all rolling eyes and snickers, which made me laugh.

“Tis nothing,” I said and put my skirt back down. “There’ll be a blue mark and nothing more.”

“I’m delighted to hear it,” said Freddie and then, with no warning except what you’ve picked up already, Reader, he kissed me very deep and squeezed my bosom with both his hands.

“Sir,” said I, “you are married now, are you not?”

He drew himself a little away and looked ashamed. “I am,” he said. “Yes, I am. But she does not like . . .”

I giggled, though it was wrong of me to do it. “What is it that she does not like?” I asked, pretending to be innocent about it.

“Me,” he said. “She does not like me.”

Which was not the answer I’d thought it would be. I looked at him in pity and when he looked back it was with such hope, Reader. I remembered him, you see, how sweet he’d been, and I remembered my Joey, and though it shames me to say it now, well, it’s likely I don’t need to say it at all. I gave myself to him right there on the bank of the road though we pushed into the wood a bit so that if a traveler happened by, we would not be seen.

From then on, for several months, we would meet just thus. Twice a week, on Tuesdays and then again on Fridays, I would tell Martha that I had an extra job at the Great House after the laundry was done and that she should go along home without me. She had no reason to disbelieve me. When she had gone a distance down the road, I would walk on my way and very soon Master Freddie would find me and we, along with his horse, would walk up into the forest. It was his wood, you see.

We flirted a little but did not talk much otherwise. The same melancholy came upon me as had when we met in the pantry; the sense that he’d just as soon have talked as screwed. But the screwing seemed to give him some comfort as, in truth, it did for me.

Once he said thus to me:

“My wife befuddles me, to be sure.”

“Why, how can she,” said I, “for you are surely more learned than is she.”

“It hasn’t to do with education,” he said. “It has to do with what she likes and what she doesn’t.”

I did not speak.

“She does not like a kiss,” he said, giving me one.

“I like a kiss,” I said.

“She does not like a squeeze,” he said with his hand on my ass.

“I do not mind a squeeze,” said I.

“She does not care for a suck,” he said, putting his mouth on my nipple and suckling.

“Aah,” said I.

“My God, Susan, your breasts give nectar.”

I did not answer.

“She does not like a finger just there,” said he.

“I like a finger just there,” said I.

Etc.

Another time he said to me:

“My wife is in love with another.”

I did not answer.

“His name is Stephen Whitt and he is handsome.”

I said nothing.

“She told me so last night. She said she wished that my horse would throw me and that I would break my neck.”

I took his pecker in my mouth.

We met thus for two and one-half months.

This second time, my father was not so angry. He knew what I could do for him if I went out to nurse. So he called me a slut and slapped me for a week or two, but then he left me alone. He did not even seem interested in who the father was. He was dreaming of the gin he could buy with what my milk would bring.

I schemed too, of course. I had hidden some money from my father out of each month’s pay, as who would not? I told him what was not true: that the town ladies took money from my wages for beer, when they did no such thing. I told neither him nor my mother any word about the extra money I had as a bonus from the Holcombs nor about the pound I got at the house of the baby and mother who died. I kept it secret. I made a plan for myself and my babe; when it was born, we would flee my father’s house and we would go to the city where I could wet nurse to keep us. I had heard of women who would be taken on with their own little babies, if they agreed to nurse the paying babies first. If I could not find work like that, I would go to the foundling hospital though they would pay but little. They might not pay a shilling, I thought, and it would matter not at all. This time, I would keep my baby. This time, my baby would have its mother near it to keep it quite safe.

Freddie, bless his soul, never gave me a problem, when I told him we must stop our nonsense. (I called it nonsense to ease it a bit; he must not think he was being thrown off. Sweet he might be, but master he still was. It had to be managed, see. But he gulped at the bait.) The last time we met, I simply told him that I had another young man in the village, and though he sighed, he nodded. “But I wish I had thought to bring you a present, one of these times,” he said. “I have enjoyed our meetings.”

I almost laughed. He spoke as if we’d been sitting thigh to thigh in church, listening to the sermon together. I wondered what he’d say if he thought for one instant that he’d been father to my Joey. I could not imagine what he would do. He was so like a child himself; I thought that if he found out, he might cry and run to his mother. He did not seem to like his wife much, but that she scared him was for certain. A bastard, even with someone as low as I, would be the makings of a ripe scandal, especially if it came uncovered that it was the second brat with the same servant woman. Now that’s a story as could make even the cold Maude burn. In families such as the Bonneys is, scandal’s what they’re most afraid of, you see. Well, the why of it is clear. When such as us have to do with who we oughtn’t or drink more than we should or have a brat without a husband, there’s no story in the newspapers. Them who writes newspapers and them who reads ’em, don’t much care about us. “We’re the humbler contingent,” is what my father used to say.

“What’s a contingent, Father?” John would ask, because that was the way of the joke; it never seemed as funny if one of us asked as it was when John did.

“If you must ask, lad, you mayn’t know,” my father would say, and then we’d laugh.

It seems quite small to me now, that jest. But I do like to think of it sometimes, especially when my father’s eyes turn hard. Yesterday, when my mother put her hand on his shoulder as she gave him his stew, he growled at her. She quick snatched it back but I saw how she remembered that he’d used to let her put it there if she liked. She looked quite downcast and I hated him, as I often do. And then the baby roiled in me and, for no reason that I could think on, I recalled the joke. And so I said it. I said, “What’s a contingent, Father?” though it belonged to John but John was grooming so he wasn’t at table. The little ones didn’t remember it but Mother did and Bill did and so did Father. He looked at me like I’d asked him for a shilling but when he saw our faces, like we were expecting something, he said, “If you must ask, you mayn’t know,” and though he didn’t smile, we did.

As for Master Freddie, well, I was glad of my quick mind, that I’d thought of the phantom young man in the village. Twas the perfect fool. I saw him smiling sadly to think that I, of whom he was doubtless fond, had found my own true love. That was Freddie all over. He preferred something to turn out happily. Myself, I prefer what’s real to elves and fairies, all the time.

I continued my work in the laundry til almost the day I dropped my baby. Twasn’t easy. When I stirred the sheets, the baby stirred me. Sometimes it would kick me so hard I’d lose my breath, and then I’d have to sit and catch it. “Why, Susan,” said Mrs. Hubbard, “why do you pant so? Are there too many sheets in the kettle?”

“Tis nothing,” said I. “Tis a heavy load, is all.”

Gossip made the time pass. I am afraid that Mrs. Hubbard and I corrupted Martha that way. She was a quiet girl who minded her own, but Mrs. Hubbard and I enjoyed to tell what we could by the linens. And oh, there’s clues.

We could tell when a lady had her monthly of course, from the stains. We knew when Mrs. Bonney had one of her bad colds; her bed-sheets had a special trim and she had the habit of blowing out her nose into them. Freddie’s wife, Maude, had very fine things and very many of them. The three of us laundry women would examine them close to see the stitches and the fabric: the finest silk, the finest muslin. That Freddie wore his underdrawers longer than he should surprised me not at all; Martha laughed and laughed at them and would hold them on the end of a stick like a flag, to tease.

We could tell when there were visitors by the extra laundry we had to do. The gentlemen’s blouses resembled each other’s very close; we had to take care to know whose was whose so as to return the right shirts to the right man.

One of the gentlemen’s shirts was finer than any of the others, finer than Freddie’s, and his were always very good. That was Stephen Whitt, the very one who Maude loved. His shirts were of the finest cotton I’ve seen; Mrs. Hubbard, who knew about such things, said the cotton was from Egypt where the pharaohs lived. He’d had small letters embroidered in the ends of the shirttails, and Martha, who could read a bit, said they spelled out “Whitt.” “That way,” said Mrs. Hubbard, “he won’t take a chance to lose a blouse, I suppose, and get it traded for something less.”

“Fancy,” said Martha as she admired the stitchery. She had an interest in sewing and loved a perfect seam.

One sort of stain made Martha blush. They appeared most often on the backs of ladies’ nightclothes and sometimes on the sheets. When Mrs. Hubbard spotted such a stain she’d most likely sigh and say such as, “Well, we all do it, whether we be rich or we be poor, but it’s the poor as has to clean it,” and then I’d giggle and Martha would turn her head away or put her hands on her ears. What I noticed, though I think the others did not, was that when Stephen Whitt visited, Miss Maude often had stains of that sort on the back of her petticoats. Twas easy to remove those stains as there was no color to ’em, but they told a lot of story, for being as small as they were.