The Wet Nurse's Tale (28 page)

I could not simply take Davey away from the house on Hampstead Street. Where would we go? We could not go home to my father’s house; no, not until I heard that my father was mouldering in his grave could we go home to Leighton. I had no friends anywhere in London to go to and not the money to set up for ourselves. I let the thought of Harry Abrams’s dark face wander into my head and then I shook it away. There was no point in wishing for a thing that was impossible and so I would not wish for it.

And even if I did have a place to go, Davey was not, as far as those in that place knew, mine to take. Who would the police believe: me, a penniless country girl who had told lies to get her place, or Mrs. Norval, who, while she cut a strange figure, was a rich London lady with proper talking and money to spend? I did not think that it would help Davey much if his mother were to hang for kidnapping him.

And what’s more is that I liked the money. Indeed, twas hard to forget that Mrs. Norval was paying me handsomely for nursing my own babe. Who would not want such a position as I had?

Twas dangerous though and I knew it. As the days skipped by, I remembered Mrs. Chandler, the mother of the twins, who cast me out without so much as a by-your-leave when she was ready for her babies to wean. I could hope that here I would be allowed to stay on as my son’s dry nurse, but there was no guarantee. Now that I had him back, I could not entertain the idea of losing him once again. It was necessary for me to make a plan in my head but I could not fathom what it was to be.

And thus it was that I was as trapped as a pig in a pond. I could not leave; I hoped only to stay. I aimed my every thought at how I should try to make the mistress think that she could not live without her Susan Rose, as it was that she called me, like as if I had two Christian names instead of one. My task seemed simple, for Mrs. Norval seemed as lost as the little girl in the wood. But what I realized soon enough was that though it might be easy enough to make her fond of me, the greater trick was to keep her sound.

One morning when I was playing with Davey in our room—he had just learned to laugh, and it was my joy to hear his deep baby chuckle as I bounced him—I heard a shriek as if we were all a’trapped in a fire. I put him in his cradle, which I can assure you he did not like overmuch, and I ran toward the shriek which was coming from Mrs. Norval’s bedchamber. The noise came from her bath closet and when I snatched the door open, there stood the lady herself accompanied by Lily, her dull little maid. As I looked at what was before me, I heard the others come pounding up the stairs; there came Carrie and Lydia looking over my shoulders at the sight and a strange sight it was.

Lily had backed herself against the wall, and she was crying with her hand on her cheek and her hair all out of its cap, like someone had pulled it hard. And there was Mrs. Norval screeching like the monkey I once saw on a chain. She had taken off her underclothes and was shredding them like they was paper. She had her bodice on but wore nothing on her legs. We saw her hair: twas so thin I could see the slit of her privates. I saw that she had her monthly and that she was bleeding very much so that it fell to the floor in drops.

“I do detest it,” she screamed over and over as she shredded, “I do detest it,” as if she could end it with a tantrum. She did not seem to see us. Instead, she whirled and her view lighted on her tub all full to the brim with water. She took hold of it and began to pitch it back and forth, and I could see that she meant to spill it over. I marveled at her strength for all that she was a reedy little thing.

I felt a nudge and looked behind me to see Carrie pleading to me with her look. Twas she that would have to sop it up were it to spill out. I stepped forward.

“Why, missy,” said I, “you have got yourself a little dirty, have you not?”

I had learned that the lady seemed to like it best when she was treated like as if she was small and so that is what I thought to do. Indeed she stopped her screeching for a second but then started it again.

I tried once more. “I shall help you to tidy up,” said I very loudly so she could hear me over her own noise. “And then you shall have a nice cup of chocolate and some toast. Will you like that?”

She turned to look at me.

“Chocolate?” said she in a baby voice.

“Yes,” I said and shot a look at Lydia, who ran to fetch it. “Carrie,” I muttered, “do peep at Davey.”

“What?” said Carrie, still gaping. I thought to myself that if there were ever a real panic in the house, Carrie would be like a dragging anchor and I would have to leave her to burn up in it.

“Please check on the baby,” I hissed, my head turned full away from Mrs. Norval. I thought it best, in such a situation, to avoid reminding her of the baby in the house.

After I had got Mrs. Norval calmed down, she seemed to come back into herself a bit, and then she came all over with tiredness though she’d just risen from her bed not long before. She let me put the rags in her underclothes just like I’d changed Davey’s nappies that very morn. She let me take her elbow and draw her to her bed and brush her hair, which she liked, and she drank the chocolate that Lydia brought to her. Lydia was smart and left it outside the bedchamber rather than entering. Twas all I could do to get dull Lily to leave the room but when she finally did, Mrs. Norval did not seem to note it at all. At last, she slept so that I could go back to Davey, who had been good for Carrie but was happy to see his own mother.

When I first came to Hampstead Street, I found it very odd that the servants seemed to do little and eat much. Indeed, I thought to myself that the situation was nothing more than a weak mistress with a staff of servants who cared only to take advantage of all they could. But as my stay in Mrs. Norval’s house grew longer, I began to see that this was not exactly the case.

After all, the rooms in the house other than Mrs. Norval’s bedchamber were clean enough. And the servants were polite to their mistress, and did not talk about her overmuch behind her back. It is true that the schedule of the house seemed odd, but as the lady had few visitors and never any tea, the servants did what they must and the house ran as well as can be expected with a strange lady to guide it.

That Mrs. Norval had taken to me as she had, and so soon, was a blessing to me but odd. She called for me often and I helped her with little things. She began to allow only myself to bring her her breakfast tray at which I thought Lydia would take offense but that was not so.

“Oh no indeed, Susan,” said Lydia to me when I told her that I meant not to take her place. I did not want to cause bad feeling with the servants; I knew that was the quickest way to get the boot from a house. “No indeed, you go take the tray, if she likes it so. She scares me, she does, for her peculiar ways and I am pleased to have someone else do it.”

I was glad that Mrs. Norval liked me of course, but I wondered at it. Was it my novelty? Did she recall her own nurse to look at me? But then one day, I understood.

One morning, earlier than Mrs. Norval was awake, I was taking my breakfast in the kitchen with the other servants before our day began afull. I had learned to sleep quite late—often past seven o’clock—so as to keep the schedule of the house, and wasn’t it a luxury! This morning, as I finished my bread and butter, I saw Carrie standing with the blacking bucket and Lydia with her dusting cloths and the cook with her knives and the cook’s girl at the sink. And a thought came upon me.

“Why, look,” said I, “I’m as different from the rest of you as if I was the short thumb with the long fingers!”

They laughed and Carrie, who was the best tempered of them, said, “Oh pshaw, Susan,” but anyone with two eyes could see it was true. Mrs. McCullough had lovely yellow hair and Lydia’s nose was as elegant as if she was a lady and Carrie had skin as smooth as Davey’s and the cook’s girl had teeth that shone very white. But what was hardest to miss was their figures. To a girl they was slim and tall with a nice high bosom.

“And I suppose you’ve all been with the family long?” I inquired, for I looked to prove my point to myself.

“Yes,” said Lydia, hunting for more dusting cloths. “Now where’s that polish gone to? Before Mr. Norval went away to India, we was all hired. Cook’s been here the longest.”

“Oh?” said I to Mrs. McCullough, but she was whipping some eggs and did not answer me.

“Oh, she’s been here ever so long,” said Carrie, giggling at the look which the cook threw her. “Mr. Norval hired her himself, same as he did me and Lydia, to save the missus the trouble.”

I saw Lydia wince. The cook’s girl looked around, but when she saw me looking back at her, she turned fast back to her washing up. Mrs. McCullough sighed.

“Mr. Norval likes to handle the servants himself,” she said, and then she glared when Carrie burst out into laughter.

“Oh come,” said Carrie to the rest of them, “he wasn’t so bad, though he was handsy. And he’s gone now, anyhow.”

And then Davey woke up hungry and Lydia took her cloths and polish and our day began. While I nursed the little mite, I thought that I knew why Mrs. Norval liked me best. Twas my lumpy figure and my potato nose and my rough hair she liked, I think, as much as my skill as a nurse. I was nought to worry about, was I. Not like the other servants, the ones her husband had got.

So, now I knew that while the husband might have been a rascal, the servants themselves were not. On the whole, they seemed a fair bunch of girls. And so why did they avoid their work? Quite soon, I saw that it was all for keeping Mrs. Norval calm. If she could not abide one of the pretty servants in the bedroom she had shared with her husband, well, they would not go in, though the room might fall to shambles. If she preferred to nap her tea away—a time when once a comely upstairs maid might have catched her husband’s eye—well then, they would let her sleep through it. After all, they were as anxious to keep their positions as I was mine. They were paid well—Mr. Norval had seen to that—and if they were to have to find another place, and without a reference from the lady of the house—it would go poorly for them. I knew that Lydia sent money home and I knew that the cook might be secretly wedded—I had seen the same man leave her bedroom two or three times now.

And thus my position seemed secure. I made up my mind that if I could fix her attachment to me very firm, without provoking the servants, that I would do just that. Thus, I cleaned her room and made her comfortable and treated her like a little lass, what with bringing her treats from my pocket. Indeed, when Lily with her open mouth did not think to do it for the lady, I suggested a bath and then soaped her back myself. Or perhaps I would show her the day and pack her off for a walk in the little park. She was like a child: she would do what I told her but if I did not tell her to do a thing, she would stand by the parlor window and look out at the street for a full hour at a stretch. If another lady came to tea, which did not much happen, Mrs. Norval could sit and listen to the lady and pour the tea and then say a pretty good-bye, but this was as much as she could do by herself.

I had my hands full, what with the baby and Mrs. Norval, especially because the lady did not like me to hold the baby while I tended to her, though I had proven that I could. And so, I had to very much be thinking of when to do a thing: would the baby sleep while Mrs. Norval watched me tidy her room as she liked to do? Would Mrs. Norval drink a cup of tea like a good girl so that I could nurse my Davey? Would Carrie have done with the silver so that she could look in at Davey while I persuaded Mrs. Norval to answer her husband’s letter, so that I could play This Is the Way the Lady Rides with my Davey? Ah—it was all as tight as a knot. Indeed, it made my guts curl to worry it so and all that helped was bread to eat, so that I did eat it very much and Carrie teased me for it.

After I had lived in the house for a little longer than a fortnight, Mrs. Norval received a letter from her husband and whatever there had been of her right mind left her. Twas a shame. By then I had come to pity her for her strangeness which we lived with and had all got used to somewhat.

Her habits were odd, it’s true, but no danger to us nor to anyone and so we did not fear them overmuch. She complained of the heat constantly, like as if she had a fever, but she did not, and her clothes stank of her sweating. It was full winter by then and we servants shivered upstairs for she would allow no fire in any hearth. Twas all the cook could do to explain to her that there’d be no cooking without a fire in the stove at least.