The Wet Nurse's Tale (17 page)

Twas the middle of the night when my time came. I thought perhaps I would die like Ada did. We were right surprised, Mother and I, for with my size we thought I’d never have a problem slipping out a baby. He was breech, and she had to reach her hand in me and turn him. Twas like hell. I vomited in a basin she had for me, over and over. She’d reach up and turn him a bit, then I’d vomit and then she’d give me a rest for a minute and then turn him a bit again. I screamed til my voice hurt me and when I could see at all, I saw the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Mother,” I shrieked, “Mother!”

“Don’t die, my love,” she sobbed. “Don’t die, Susan, my own,” and with that, she reached up inside me one last time and grabbed the baby’s arm and pulled it down so he pointed right. And so, she saved our lives.

The slightest little mite, just lovely he was, with hair black as black silk.

“Such a little thing, to make such a fuss of it,” whispered my mother as she stroked his little cheek to make him suck. I was so worn with my labors that she had to hold him up to my breast and watch that he knew what he should do. But he did, the pet. After he had dined, she swaddled him and put him in the crook of my arm and we, all the three of us, slept like kings.

I named him David. It seemed fitting, exactly. David was small when he fought Goliath; my baby was small, but when I looked into his serious eyes, it seemed to me that he would someday do something great, though I might never know what it would be. David was a great warrior; when I looked at my baby’s form, I thought he would be a sturdy man, able to defend them who needed it. I knew that David from the Bible wrote the Psalms; I made up my mind that my David would learn his letters. The name David was a fine old name—from the Jewish Bible to be sure, but fine nonetheless. And I thought that if it ever came to pass that his father was to see him, he would be pleased to think that his son’s name came from that testament. It would signify to him that I had chosen that name out of that book. He would take it as an honor, for him and for his race. For you see, Reader, Harry Abrams was my baby’s father.

You will think that I am a Jezebel. You will wonder how I could bed Freddie, when I knew I had another’s child growing in me. You will wonder what sort of slut I might be. Indeed, it’s not easy for me to explain what I might’ve been thinking as I accepted Freddie’s attentions. Of defenses, well, I have none. More, it’s explaining that I can do if I must.

It was Tamar from the Bible that I was thinking of when I did it. It was the Hebrews that made me remember her story, and then her story that made me lie with Freddie. Here’s my meaning.

When I lost my Joey, I might have died from the sadness of it. Women have lost their babies before me, I know it, but that does not mean we who next lose ours don’t feel it just as hard. And when I lost Joey, I wanted to die but I did not die. And instead, I found myself in the Hebrew section and then in the arms of a Hebrew himself.

I learned that in the Hebrew temple, the people read the Bible, just as we do in church. And the very day I went into their temple, their man of God read to us from the story of Tamar. I did not know it then because he spoke in their tongue which is rough enough to give you an earful of splinters. I recall that, before I thought if it was polite, I said such to Harry and his sister when I ate supper at their house, but they laughed and so I knew I hadn’t vexed them much. It was they who told me that the man had been telling of Tamar, and I recalled the story and wished I could have understood the words it had been told in, as I always did like that one in particular.

“And what is it that you like about it?” said Harry to me as we were eating.

I remember that I paused because I had not before thought about it overmuch. “Well,” I said to him, “I like it because she does for herself.”

“But think,” said Harry’s sister, “what she does! She’s a disgrace, if you ask me.”

I nodded. She acted the whore, did Tamar, and with her father-in-law. Twas a disgrace, Harry’s sister was right.

“Still,” said I.

“Still?” said Harry. “You’re not ready to throw Mistress Tamar to the likes of my sister just yet, or so I see?”

“No I amn’t,” said I. “Not quite yet. What I like about her is that she didn’t just sit back and let herself be tilled under. She could have just pined away and never had not one thing for herself. But she’d been promised a husband, and a husband she meant to get. I suppose it’s that she didn’t give up, that I admire.”

“Oh well,” laughed Henrietta, “I’ll have to take care never to try to cheat you at a game of cards, if I know what’s best for me, now won’t I?”

“What’s it to do with cards?” said I, not understanding her city talk.

“Nothing,” said Harry. “My sister just means that you like what’s just, is all. And of course you’re right to do so.”

So, as it was Tamar who’d been talked about at dinner that night, and since Mr. Abrams and I didn’t speak much more than that, that’s the talking I remember. And I did remember it. I went over and over it in my mind because I had enjoyed it, that talking. I liked that we all three knew the story, and I liked that he asked me my opinion of it, and I liked also how though my opinion wasn’t usual, still I kept firm to it, and that made me proud.

And so that’s how the Jews put Tamar in my mind. And how they caused me to lie with Freddie is this: when I had lost my profession and I was with child and I lived once again under my father’s thumb and I could not ever hope to be with Mr. Abrams again, it was a dire thing to me. I had feelings for Mr. Abrams even though he practiced his heathen faith, but because I am a Christian, it meant that I had sinned double in lying with him. I could not see how anything could go right for me anymore. And then I remembered Tamar and how she was not afraid to get what she wanted. I thought to myself that I did not know how to get what it is that I wanted and so I thought, Well then, Susan Rose, you may just as well do as you like. And that was how I came to lie with Freddie. It may not follow to you, Reader, but I have found that things of this nature rarely do if they ever do at all.

But a baby’s a whole new thing, as my mother would say whenever she held a little one, and there’s nothing truer. How they come hardly matters once you’ve got one in your arms. I gazed at my Davey and wept: for joy and for Joey, too, and I suppose, for the things I’d like to have had but never would. And then I opened my shift and gave him the breast and nursed him til he was satisfied.

MRS. BOATWRIGHT’S REASON

I am Mrs. Hiram Boatwright as was Miss Lucinda Tanner. My husband and I are married seven years. I have borne five healthy children and every one of them has lived, for which I thank the Almighty every day, for I know that not all women are as blessed as am I in that way. My father farms his land just outside Aubrey and saw to it that I had the pleasantest childhood you can think on. He made a good living and we were very happy and had all the fresh milk in the world to drink. My brothers had very good white teeth. As do I, I am proud to say.

When I was seventeen, I married Mr. Boatwright as was a widowed man from Aubrey. He was still young and had no children as his wife had died in the childbed with their first. We met in church, and as a suitable time had passed and as he no longer wore his mourning suit, my parents agreed that he should court me and so he did. He had to ride a good five miles just to have dinner with us, but he paid me that compliment several times before he asked for my hand.

After we married, I moved to his house in town. I had not much lived in town, but I found it very congenial with many entertainments and people to see. Soon enough I found myself with child and we was very happy waiting for the baby. As my time came near, I began to fret. Though I did enjoy my town life very much, I worried that my dear little baby would suffer from it. When I took a turn out of doors, it seemed to me that the air was thick with dust and that the streets were not clean. I recalled to myself my own wholesome childhood on the farm: the clean air, the green fields, the blue sky, and the good, fresh milk. It came to me very strong that my own dear babe should have those things that I had! I felt a relief like the hand of God on my brow to have thought of it.

I told Mr. Boatwright that I wanted to put the baby out to nurse in the country where it could breathe the fresh air. He agreed. We got the name of Mrs. Rose from a doctor who once lanced a boil on Mr. Boatwright’s foot. When I heard that she lived in Leighton, I knew that she was just the one. I have been to Leighton and it is a green little village, in the old English style. That was just what I wanted for my babe.

That first baby, our son Hugh, became quite huge with Mrs. Rose, and when we took him back into our home, it was time to give her our second, little Alice. Each of my babies has gone to nurse (though only those two went to Mrs. Rose) and that is the reason, I am sure, that they thrived as they have done. Country air is the thing for babies as it reduces colic and helps a baby’s lungs to work properly.

Eight

F
or a fortnight after Davey was born, all fared well. I stayed abed a deal and my mother brought me soup and porridge, and I nursed my child til he began to unbend a bit and his lashes unpeeled and shewed themselves. I loved little ones like this, with their head a’bobbing. And this one was mine! I thanked God for him.

He was strong for being so little, able to hold his head up very early. If I didn’t take care to swaddle him tight, he’d kick off the cloth with his scrabbling. At night, I placed him on a pillow so that he was like a gem in a ring and then took him to bed with me. When he woke in the night and began to bawl, I needed only to bring him to my breast and he’d suckle away very serious. Ofttimes, when he had just waked and was ravenous, his little chin would judder with the wanting. Every baby does this same; this one was mine and thus it seemed charming to me.

At first, my father had little to say about the baby. For a man as full of anger and ale as he, it seemed strange that he was quiet. I watched him, as he pretended not to watch me, and never left the baby alone for long. I did not know what he might do, and I trusted him not at all.

One day he spoke.

“You’ll go to nurse, missy?” said he.

I had been waiting for it. “No, sir, not just yet,” I answered. “I will not lose another. I’ll wait til this one is set before I go.”

He growled. “And how long might you be planning to loll around, eating and drinking what all’s in the house?” he said, his lip curled like a nasty dog.

“Six months, perhaps.”

“Six months! And who’s to pay for you and your bastard?”

I looked at him straight. “Why, Father,” said I, “did you drink it all away, the money I sent while Joey was here dying?”

He slapped me but I’d thought he would, so I’d turned my face away in time to miss the worst of it.

Once, when I was a little girl, my father saved a man’s life. Twas a mild spring afternoon and my father and my brother John were mending a stone wall that stood between our house and the road. The snow of the winter past had tumbled the wall so that it took a good day’s work to fix it. The stones were large and old and they needed scraping of the old muck, which I was doing along with Emily. John and my father together would fit them back to their holes in the wall. Twas like a puzzle and they were amused by it, though it sweated their shirts right through.