The Wet Nurse's Tale (32 page)

I was quite beside myself. I banged on the door very loud and heard her giggle and speak, and I knew that she had my Davey in there with her. All us servants were a’banging and hollering but she would not open the door. And so there was nothing for it but that I must break it down. Twas not a heavy door, but not so thin either, but it did not matter what it was made of, I must get behind it. So I started at one side of the room and ran toward it as fast as I could, with my shoulder out to take the weight. And it broke open with a burst. I fell into the room nearly on top of Mrs. Norval, who began to shriek when she saw that her plan would be thwarted.

Lydia burst in after me and I saw her, from where I scrabbled with Mrs. Norval on the floor—I saw Lydia reach down into the tub and lift my baby out of it. He was dripping but thank the good Lord, he coughed. I heard him cough. And then it was that I heard Mrs. Norval cry, “Why did you interrupt his bath? How dare you? Mrs. Stone recommends a bath and I was so careful. Do you think I would ever have let it happen again? Of course I would not. I was ever so careful.”

I stood up and took the baby from Lydia’s arms. I was crying very hard and Lydia could see that I could not bear to care for Mrs. Norval just then. I took the baby and sat on the settee, which being satin became very water-stained, but I did not care. I examined him and saw that he was quite well, though still coughing a bit. I heard Lydia coax Mrs. Norval, with Mrs. McCullough’s help, into standing up off the floor and getting into her bed, though the lady fretted and muttered to herself.

When I looked up at her in her bed, I caught her staring at me. The look she gave me was so contrary: contrite and naughty and angry all at once. And there was something else there too and I knew right away what to call it. It was glee, Reader, and I could not bear to see her, so I turned my face away.

I saw Mrs. McCullough say a thing to Lydia in her ear and then Lydia came over to me and took me from the room and down into the kitchen. I put Davey into his basket that I kept for him in the kitchen, and then I lit as big a fire as I pleased and I rubbed him with a towel til he was nice and dry, and then I suckled him til he was asleep. I saw that Lydia was brewing tea for Mrs. Norval. I saw her go into the cook’s room and when she came out she was holding a small bottle. She tipped a bit into the teapot, and then she looked at me, and then she quickly went up the stairs with the tea tray. Carrie came to sit with me from where she had been hiding in the hall outside Mrs. Norval’s room, as she feared to see the lady up close anymore. We sat together and did not speak.

Soon enough, both Lydia and Mrs. McCullough came down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Brew us all a cup, won’t you, Leah,” said Mrs. McCullough to her girl, who had just come in from the market and did not know what the fuss was.

“Was it poison?” asked Carrie after a moment. “Was it poison that you gave her, Lydia? I would not blame you, but I wish you would tell me.”

“No, no, child,” said Mrs. McCullough. “Just a drop of laudanum, just so she’ll sleep and let us have a moment. That’s all. No one will be poisoning someone in this house, I don’t think.”

I cleared my throat very hard. I had not yet said a word for I feared that I would begin again to cry if I must speak. But I wished, like Carrie, to know the truth.

“Lydia,” said I, with my voice very low in my ears. “Was he under the water? Did you find his head under the water?”

Lydia nodded at me, very serious. “I do not know,” she said, “whether it was so before you knocked the door down, Susan, but he had sunk low into the tub when I saw him first.”

“Yes,” said I. “She may have been bathing him proper. It may indeed have been I who caused him to drown.”

“But, Susan,” said Lydia very gentle, “he did not drown, you know. You see that he is fine.”

“There’s one as did,” whispered Mrs. McCullough.

We all looked at her to see what she meant by that. She was holding her two hands around her cup and looking into the fire. And this is what she told us.

“When I first came here, twas because the cook before me would not stay. She told me that a baby had drowned in this house. She told me that Mrs. Norval turned her back on it for an instant and . . .”

“You must never turn your back on a baby in its bath. Everyone knows that,” said Leah very loud.

Then Lydia said, “Who is Mrs. Stone? Do you know, Susan? You are much with Mrs. Norval. Have you heard before of a Mrs. Stone?”

I nodded. “Yes,” said I. “But she is not flesh. She does not live except in Mrs. Norval’s mind. She is from her imagination only.” And we all looked at each other and drank our tea.

“I wish,” said Mrs. McCullough very soft, “I wish there was a way to remove the baby from her hands. I think a baby is not safe enough in this house.”

I nodded and an expression jumped into my head. I had heard it only once before, and that was when I dined with Harry Abrams and his sister and mother. His mother said it, laughing at something he had said, and I remembered it. Twas a Hebrew expression, I knew, for she had said it in her own rough language, and they had laughed and then he had explained it to me and I had liked it.

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” said I. Lydia looked at me and smiled and Carrie held my hand and Mrs. McCullough nodded at the fire, and then we drank our tea.

I knew that Davey and I could not stay in Mrs. Norval’s house any longer. I must take my baby and leave. I must have a plan as soon as it was possible. And then, the very next day, just as if God Himself had heard my prayer in the kitchen, the answer to my troubles appeared to me.

It being a Sunday, Mr. Brooks stopped by to see his sister. Mrs. Norval was calm enough; it seemed that the laudanum that Lydia had dropped in her tea had still some effect. She greeted her brother nicely and offered him tea. Lydia said that when she served it, Mr. Brooks was reading his paper while Mrs. Norval sat very calm on her sofa.

After about an hour, Mr. Brooks called for his coat and hat and Lydia brought it. I had just closed the door of the baby’s room and thus happened to be in the hall, so I heard what he said to her as he buttoned his coat and put on his hat.

“Jane, I almost forgot. I have had a note from Cousin Louisa Bonney.”

My heart bumped my breast to hear the name.

“Have you?” said Mrs. Norval.

“Yes. She will come to town for the season and will call upon you next Monday. I shall bring her. She writes that she will look in on the baby to see how you come along.”

“Oh, James!” said Mrs. Norval very loud and very sudden. Lydia told me later that the lady’s face looked very red and white, at once. “Oh, James, do not let her come! I cannot abide her. She does not care for me and . . .”

“Nonsense, Sister,” said Mr. Brooks quite sternly. “She is your cousin and she likes you well enough. She has asked to come and see the baby, and I will not deny her such a simple request. What would she think!”

“Please, James, cannot you tell her . . .”

“Jane, you must stop this immediately. We will stop by on Monday week for tea. Thank you, Lydia. Good-bye.”

I remembered what he had said about Mrs. Bonney being a meddlesome woman. I thought he would bring her so that he might rub her nose in what she’d done by bringing a baby to a woman who was not herself all sane. I knew that Mr. Brooks was angry with Mrs. Bonney for having worsened a sad situation. I thought he was right to make her see what she had done, for Mrs. Bonney should suffer some, as well as the rest of us, for her meddling.

And so I came upon my plan. I thought it all out as I nursed my baby, in those long hours of the night, when everyone else is asleep. The picture of it played out in my mind, like it was a skit. Once the Bonney girls had given one for their friends, and Ellen and me had hid behind a door and watched them play, these rich young ladies and their pretty friends. When I thought about what I would do, I saw it like that: what would happen first, then next, then finally.

The next morning I told Carrie that I must do an errand and that she must watch the baby. I told her to take him into her own room upstairs, for Mrs. Norval would never think to go looking for him there. “I will do your chores for you, Carrie, if you will watch him. And, Carrie, do promise me . . .”

But here she interrupted. “Susan,” said she very serious, “you needn’t worry. There is no one more than I who knows her madness. I would not let her get him, not for anything.”

I nodded and gave her a kiss, and then I put on my hat and coat and went out of the house. I quickly walked down to the square where the cabs waited, where I had got off the coach when first I arrived in London. I asked the way to where I wanted to go and paid my fare to the cab man and was taken there. Twas across London and took upwards of twenty minutes and along the way I saw sights I had not yet seen in my weeks there. We crossed the river and I saw the Tower and the clock. I might have felt like a holiday sightseer, except for my errand which was of a gruesome nature.

The cab left me off in front of the spot I needed. From there, I could see the dead yard, which it being London, was enormous. The day had gone blustery and cold, and the trees stretched down their branches toward the stones like fingers. Twas a terrible sight. I thought of my Joey. I thought of the baby who had drowned in Mrs. Norval’s house. I thought upon Mrs. Caraway, the dead woman whose name I had taken to trick myself into my position, and of Ellen, who I mourned still, and of my father, who might yet still be alive but deserved to be dead. I hoped that when he died, and it could not be too soon for me, that he would lie in a poor grave with no stone so that no one would know who it was who was buried there and his name would be lost before many of his kin yet lived and died.

I entered into the house I needed and transacted my business. Indeed, it did not take long at all though the price was higher than I could have wished. When I finished, I found another cab quite quick to take me back to Umstead Square where I had got on. I found an apothecary and went inside. Last, I went to the used-clothes district, which I knew where it was, and bought the prettiest baby cap that I could find.

“I can wrap it in a bit of paper if you like, love,” said the woman and I told her yes, please, as it was to be a present for a lady. And then I walked back to Hampstead Street where I found Carrie playing nicely with the baby. When I looked in at Mrs. Norval, I found her sitting on her sofa, fiddling her fingers near her mouth like a child.

Mrs. Norval was like a cockroach in the fire for the week before Mrs. Bonney was to come and visit. She could not sit, she must pace. She could not eat. She muttered to herself quite constantly. She could not be calm though she was not violent in any way. She did not ask to see the baby though she talked about him very much.

I arranged it with Mrs. McCullough and Lydia and Carrie so that I could leave the baby in their care more than I was used to doing. I told them that Mrs. Norval was quite beside herself and needed my attention, and as they were very glad to avoid her themselves, they were grateful to me and happy to watch the baby. I wished to be in Mrs. Norval’s presence very much. Twas part of my plan.

The first thing that I did, on the afternoon after my errand, was to go into the sitting room and see her. I behaved as if all was very well. I smiled greatly and acted very gay and as if nothing unusual had ever happened. I feared that she would see me different after I had broken her door, but she seemed to trust me as much as ever. I treated her just as she would like, as a little lass, all beribboned. I confess that it made me sick to do it, but twas necessary.

“And, miss, you will never imagine,” I said very bright to her as she watched me tidy up the room as she liked to do, “Mrs. Stone’s maid has brought by a present. She told me to give it straight to you, as her mistress would like you to have it very much. Shall I fetch it?”

Mrs. Norval was very excited to see the gift and so I quick got it and gave it to her. When I laid it in her hands, she looked up at me all smiles and I had a pang for her sometimes sweetness. She was not bad, not to the heart. She unwrapped the package carefully, so to save the paper.

“Oh, Susan Rose, do see what Mrs. Stone has given the baby,” said she as she held up the pretty bonnet. “How thoughtful! Oh, it is lovely, is it not?”

“Oh yes, miss,” said I, “it is. Oh, miss! Might he wear it for your cousin to see him in?”

Her face fell as she recalled the visit she dreaded and she put the cap back in its paper and put her fingers into her mouth.

“Now, missy,” said I, “Mrs. Stone will want to hear how much you liked the cap. Do sit at your desk and write her a note, will you not? I shall find out her address for you, if you like.”

And so she did.

Reader, every day, nay, every hour I could do it without making her suspicious, I spoke of Mrs. Stone. Most of what I said was trifling: how Mrs. Stone’s hair was very thick or how Mrs. Stone had trouble with her downstairs maid or how Mrs. Stone’s elder boys, Luke and John (which names I got from a pair of twins as my mother nursed), were set to go to public school in Oxfordshire. Sometimes, I would tell Mrs. Norval about things more important to good mothering: how Mrs. Stone wished her children to learn their catechism and how she would not let her children stay up past their times and how she herself brought the baby to his father for a good-night kiss.