The Wet Nurse's Tale (33 page)

Mrs. Norval was eager to hear about her, very eager, and asked me many questions which I answered. Sometimes, so as to make it seem like the truth, I told her I did not know the answer to the question she asked but that I would ask my friend who nursed for Mrs. Stone. And then the next day, I would tell Mrs. Norval the answer like this:

“Ma’am, do you recall that yesterday you wished to know whether Mrs. Stone will let her children eat as much toast as they like at tea? And I said I did not know?”

Mrs. Norval nodded and looked at me for the answer.

“Well, just this morning I saw my friend Jo as works for her, and I asked her that very question, and she allowed as how Mrs. Stone gives them each no more than two slices, as she says more will cause indigestion. Is that not wise?”

All week, I peppered her with Mrs. Stone this and Mrs. Stone that, til the poor lady was quite gripped. I felt in myself that all my lies were somehow evil, but I could do nothing else. All I had to use was what I had in front of me and that was Mrs. Norval’s strangeness and my own wits. And I must use both to save my child and so I would not think about what the most Christian thing might be. I had not the time.

As the week waned, I was hard pressed to remove Mrs. Norval from her bed. Her nerves were very bad. I had thought that I might need to be constantly reminding her of Mrs. Bonney’s visit, for I wished Mrs. Norval to be nervous about it, but I did not need to mention it. The visit was overmuch in Mrs. Norval’s mind, and indeed the only comfort she had at all was talk of Mrs. Stone.

On Saturday, she wept and would not eat and on Sunday, she retched into a basin after her luncheon, while I held her hair. She was very wretched and I felt pity for her, but I had started on a course I could not depart from, and must continue on my way.

“Ma’am,” said I when she was calmer and cleaned up, “missy, Jo told me that Mrs. Stone wished you the best for your visit with Mrs. Bonney.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Norval, her eyes very big in her white face, “how I wish I could talk to her about it. I am sure she could advise me.”

“If you please, missy,” said I, my eyes lowered very respectful. “Indeed, Mrs. Stone has offered you some of her thoughts about what she would do were she in your place. Shall you like to hear them?”

“Oh, I should like nothing better,” said Mrs. Norval, sitting up in her bed. “She is so very kind! But I wonder that she did not write to me! It is odd to send her messages through a servant, is it not?”

“Oh, ma’am,” said I, causing myself a chuckle, “not so odd, if you were to see her great number of children and how she cares for them. She says she would have writ indeed except for that she has never the time to pick up a pencil!”

“Well, I expect not; not when you have as many children as she,” agreed Mrs. Norval. “But come, Susan, what is her advice for me? What does she say?”

“Well,” said I, as if I was thinking and remembering, “she says that you must have the baby in the sitting room with you during the visit. She says that she shows her babies to her visitors and will not be parted from them. She does not have the nurse near. The nurse, she says, is for the house, not for the visitor. And besides, it is the style.”

“Does she?” said Mrs. Norval. “Is that really the style? Is it really?”

“It must be so, if she says it,” said I gaily, “for she is a lady who knows what it is a good mother should do.”

“Well, that is true,” said Mrs. Norval. “Only, Susan, what if the baby cries? What shall I do? I do not know how to make him quiet. Oh, Susan! I cannot have him in the room for fear that he will cry, but if I take him out, Louisa Bonney will think I am not a good mother. What shall I do?”

She was working herself into a fit, which I could tell because her face was again red and white at once.

“Never mind, missy, never mind. I shall look after him for you. I promise to you that he shall not cry. Do not worry yourself on that account, missy.”

She looked at me blank-like, but calmed down right away and I stayed with her there, sitting on her bed, til she went to sleep.

Fourteen

O
n the day of Mrs. Bonney’s visit, I rose quite early and my own stirring woke the baby. I carried him to the kitchen to sit before the fire so that I might nurse him while I had my tea and toast. He looked at me very fond while he nursed and smiled up at me around my tit, which made me laugh loud. He was a flirt is what he was. I kissed his brow and said my prayer that what I set out to do might work as I wished. And then I drank my tea.

Mrs. Norval rang for me very early. When I brought her breakfast to her, she allowed as how she had not slept a wink with nerves.

“But, missy,” said I, very bold, “what is it that ails you? Why are you afraid of your cousin so?”

“Oh me, I do not know exactly,” she answered. “She does not approve of me and thinks me weak. Ah, weak, weak, weak, weak . . .” and she would have gone on and on had I not stopped her with a shush. This is how she had begun to do. She would repeat a word over and over and not stop, just like she had walked around the park that freezing day, like as if she could not stop herself, nor could she be easily thwarted by others. Twas frightening-like, for it panicked her, as well it should. I think she could hear herself and that she knew she should stop but could not make herself do it.

Mr. Brooks was to bring Mrs. Bonney by at teatime. All week, Mrs. Norval had shown very much interest in what to serve for the meal. “Mrs. Stone says chicken aspic and cakes,” she told Mrs. McCullough, who curtsied and nodded but later wished aloud for Mrs. Stone to come and cook up her own bird if she was such a proper hostess.

After her breakfast, the missus began to fret about what she would dress herself in. She forced Lily to take every gown from her cupboard and then began to shriek that she had nothing at all. When I came up the stairs to look in upon her, as I had begun to do for all our safety, I saw Lily open the door of the bedchamber and dash out. We servants had begun to know: at a certain point in her madness, Mrs. Norval did not know what we did and would not remember if we disobeyed her and so we must look to our own. This was to Lily’s advantage for it meant that she could leave Mrs. Norval in the worst of her ravings and yet keep her position. When I put my head in her door, Mrs. Norval was standing in her shift and crying at her reflection. I hurried to help her.

“Come now, miss,” said I, “look at all the lovely frocks. Can not you choose one?”

“They’re ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly . . .”

I stepped up very close to her, and it worked to calm her down. She sat very forlorn on her settee and looked at me with tears in her eyes; quite helpless, she was. And then I saw my chance, and as I picked up the frocks from the floor, which she liked to see me do and which calmed her, I said in a very low voice, but very close to her ear, “Jo told me a secret that Mrs. Stone has.”

She stopped quite suddenly and looked up at me to hear what it was.

“Now, miss,” I said very brisk, “you must dress yourself. Shall you choose the blue?” (It was gauze. There was sleet coming from the sky.) She knew from my tone that she must obey or I would not tell her what she wanted, so she quick put it on and let me do her up. And then she sat down again.

“Tell me the secret,” she said.

I made my voice very quiet and my look very gay. “Tis something wonderful,” I said.

“Tell me!”

“I shall, then. Mrs. Stone has a present for you.”

“Another present!”

“Yes, miss. And this present will be just the thing for your cousin’s visit!”

Mrs. Norval gasped and smiled her poor confused smile. “Shall it help?”

“Yes, miss,” said I. “It will show your cousin that you are the perfect mother. Mrs. Stone has said that she admired the sort of mother you are . . .”

“Truly? Did she truly say such?”

“Yes, miss. She did indeed. She said that her gift to you would be a sign to those who see you use it, that you have no other thought than for the child. It belonged to Mrs. Stone, and she herself has used it all these years for all her babies and they have thrived because of it. She wishes you to have the same luck with your child that she has had with hers.”

I do not know how it is I knew to say words such as those, but they worked to put a light into Mrs. Norval’s eye. I will tell you here that I had a pang just then, for what I was working at because I knew that it was bad. But I thought to myself that I had no choice. I knew that the home of this poor lady with her befuddled mind was not safe, no indeed. I could not risk that she would hurt Davey, meaning the best for him. I did not know the exact circumstances of what had happened to the baby who had lived in Mrs. Norval’s house before my Davey came, but I was just so curious and no more than that. That baby was someone else’s baby. Davey was mine.

I looked down at her where she sat on her settee in her summery frock, all wrong, it was, with her hair a’flying out from her head and her brow damp from her sweating. She looked as eager as a pup and so I smiled at her very big.

“Indeed, miss,” said I, “I will tell you what it is as you are so impatient. Shall I?”

“Yes, Susan Rose, tell me, I beg you!”

“Well,” said I, going around behind her and taking the pins down out of her hair, “well, I know that it is a cradle. Mrs. Stone is giving you a special cradle.” I had made my voice very excited, like I have talked to my younger brothers and sisters when I wanted them to like whatever chore I had for them. The smart ones were never took in, but the others got right to it to hear me sound so excited about potatoes or the broom. Ellen used to laugh so to hear me trick them, this I recall.

“A cradle!” said Mrs. Norval, all gasps. “Her own that she used herself?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said I, “and it must be lovely because Jo assures me that it is the very cradle she kept in the drawing room so her visitors—and she had so very many visitors!—could view her baby as he slept. She does so love to show off her babies, does Mrs. Stone!”

“Yes, Susan Rose,” said Mrs. Norval very thoughtful, “I do recall that you said that Mrs. Stone always kept the baby in the drawing room when visitors called. I recall that you told me that. And yet, I am afraid that he may cry. And how shall I make him stop?”

“You leave it to me, miss,” said I. “I shall see to it that he is as good as gold.”

She mused for a while as I did her hair up. She began to mutter to herself and I heard her say the word “letter,” over and over.

“Yes, miss,” said I, “you must indeed write to her to thank her kindly. But,” said I as if the thought had just come to me, “where will you put the cradle? I should expect the delivery quite soon. Mrs. Stone knows that Mrs. Bonney will be by in the afternoon.”

And so nothing else would do but that we must go downstairs and move the furniture in the drawing room to fit the cradle in. It upset her to do it, for she did not like a change in the way things were set about, but she watched without too much fuss while I made a space for it. She grew calmer when I plumped the pillows of the settee and when I picked up a speck off the couch that was not really there; she did like to see me tidy up though I do not know why it gave her such delight. I asked her if she should like a fire and she shook her head no, but then became confused and could not decide. I counseled against it, though the house was too cool. Mrs. Norval said she would go to her room to rest for a moment, but she bade me see to the delivery when it came. I thought that really she did not rest when she was in her room and that rather she was in there rocking or chanting or such nonsense as that. But it did better to have her gone just then, so I nodded that I would keep a good eye out.

Very soon I heard the bell ring. I ran and poked my head out of the door. There were the carters bringing the delivery and I told them they might bring it in the front door. It took only one of them to do it, for they were big men in their business.

I opened the door wide and showed the man into the drawing room and pointed to the little table I had cleared of its ornaments. And he laid the thing I had ordered on the table. I gave him a penny and he tipped his hat and went on his way.

I ran down to the kitchen to check on Davey, who was having a nap. Lydia said that she had played with him and that he had been very good and happy. I kissed Davey very soft and thanked Lydia for watching him. “She’s terrible off today,” I said, lifting my eyes to the ceiling to mean Mrs. Norval, and Lydia nodded and thanked me back for attending to Mrs. Norval so that she might not have to do it herself.

I heard no answer when I knocked on Mrs. Norval’s door. I pushed it open to just look in at her and saw her sitting on her bed and rocking, back and forth, as if she was herself in a cradle. I thought to myself that of all the places that she would like to be in the most, a cradle was it. It seemed to me that every day she seemed to grow a little younger in her mind til I wouldn’t be surprised to see her one day in a blue sash and the next with her fingers in her mouth and the next so that she could not yet walk down the stairs without her two hands held.

Rocking and rocking, she was, but when I walked in she catched herself as quick as she could and stopped it.

“Miss,” said I, “Mrs. Stone has sent it and it is lovely, indeed it is. Shall you come down and look at it?”

“Shall I?” she said. She did not know how to get up off the bed, so I helped her to do it. I took her down the stairs very slow and talked to her low and light, as I have heard my brother John do with horses to gentle them. She seemed like a china teacup balanced on a mantelpiece too shallow for it; she held herself very rigid as we walked.

“It is right in here, the cradle Mrs. Stone has sent,” I said. “And if you put the baby in it, he will sleep as sound as a egg in a nest and Mrs. Bonney shall be most impressed, that she will. I promise you.”

We went into the drawing room and I led her over to it, and though she looked puzzled, she did not cry out. She did not want to touch it but she smiled at it and allowed as yes, the baby would look an angel as he slept there. I led her into the sitting room where she felt more comfortable and left her near the window where I knew she would sit, which she did, with her fingers in her mouth, but quiet. And then I went to prepare.