The Wet Nurse's Tale (9 page)

It was no trouble to me to take care of Charles and Henry when the shop was smaller. I had only to bring them with me and the ladies of Seagrove thought nothing amiss about it. But now that the town is growing and we are serving the likes of baronets, well, it’s different. Mr. Moore and I were both surprised when I realized, though it was late in our marriage, that I was with child; after all, the boys are both big enough to be away at school, which gives us our days to attend to the business. We talked together about it as we do with all our business deals and thought to put this one out to nurse.

Before the child was born, I had made my inquiries and had found a fine spot with a lady named Mrs. Rose down in Leighton, not five hours away by coach. I reserved the spot and pre-paid an extra half-shilling in advance, in order to hold it. I knew better than to depend on the shopgirls to keep the business going while I hunted for a wet nurse. Sometimes, I told my husband, money spent is money earned.

“That’s the way to do it, Mrs. Moore,” said my husband to me when he’d heard what I’d done. I also told him that I’d made the nurse sign her X to a paper that said if the baby died before the first three months, I would deduct that same extra half-shilling from her year’s wage. She agreed to do it and we had a contract.

Four

W
hen I walked into Mrs. Holcomb’s bedchamber, I think she would have liked to hug me around my neck, though she’d never set eyes on me before. She was that glad to see me. She was sweet enough, as was her baby, though my Joey was ever so much handsomer.

“Oh, Susan,” she said, friendly right off, “this is the baby! His name is William,” she said as she handed him over. He was tiny and grayish, though his eyes, I noted, seemed to fix quite well on my face for a mite so young. I told her so and she smiled at me from her bed where she’d been holding him.

“Oh, Susan, do you see that too? And you will take good care of him?”

“Of course I will, ma’am,” said I with a curtsy. We were alone in the room, she and I, or else I might have been too shy to say what was next. “Ma’am, do you think he might be hungry now? I have been traveling a long way and . . .” And then I spoke no more because my blouse spoke for me. I felt in somewhat of pain and I needed to be milked, to say it blunt.

“Oh, do try and see,” she said, sitting up in her bed. “May I watch?”

I felt shy at a lady’s eye on me like that, but I needed that baby to suck or else I’d be drenched in no time. So I sat in a chair and undid my blouse and my shift and gave the baby to suck and suck away he did, the dear. I looked down upon him in his bliss and it made me smile and weep, together. Then I heard a sniff from the bed.

“What can be the matter, ma’am?” said I alarmed. I made to give the baby back at which he started to squall, having his meal interrupted.

“No, Susan, let him drink,” sobbed the lady. “I am only jealous. I meant to nurse him myself, but the pain in my tit was more than I could bear. He’s been living all this time off the nurse next door who our neighbors said we could share til we found someone of our own. I meant to nurse him myself, I’m sure I did. I’m sure there is something wrong with me. I think it may be the tightness of my corsets. . . . I have always liked them quite tightly laced. Perhaps they shaped me in some way that did harm.” Her tears flowed.

I thought to tell her that it always hurt at first but then the pain subsides. I had had it from my mother, who had told me so, and I found it to be true. I thought to say that a compress of cold tea leaves would ease the pain and toughen the teats, but then again I thought not to. My employment depended on her needing me, after all. Now that I had been parted from my own darling and landed here in this lady’s house, I might as well perform my duties. After all, if I went home, my father, now that he had the idea that city people paid as well as they did for a nurse, would find me another spot in a breath’s time. At least here, the mistress seemed kind.

Later that night, as I sat in my room—my own, though tiny!—the master of the house came to meet me. He was a nice-looking man with handsome ginger whiskers but he said this, “Susan, is it? Yes, well, we are very glad you’ve come and that Baby William has taken to you as well as he has.” I nodded and waited. “Lucinda . . . Mrs. Holcomb . . . feels greatly her inability. I don’t wish it to depress her. I ask you only, Susan, to use discretion in the performance of your duties.” He said it kindly but he looked straight at me as he did and I understood. “Yes, sir,” I said. “Of course.” And that was that.

Mrs. Holcomb would have liked to have kept the cradle in her bedchamber, but Mr. Holcomb could not sleep through the night because of the baby’s crying. She wept more tears when the cradle was moved to the lovely nursery all set up.

“Oh, but Mrs. Holcomb,” said I as I set the nappies out and the lard, “this is quite a good thing, it is. It means he’s growing so fast, you see, that he cries during the night. He does it because he’s hungry!”

And then there were tears afresh because, “Oh, Susan, I hate to think of him growing! I know you’ll think I’m silly” (which I did, rather), “but he’s so perfect as he is, isn’t he.”

I looked at her sitting in a chair, all a’ruffled and a’laced, holding that baby like he was a precious jewel and I had to smile. “Yes, ma’am,” said I. “He’s that.”

It surprised me, it did. I figured society ladies like herself cared not a whit about their babes; after all, I’d seen enough rich people’s babies in my own house for months or even more than a year whilst I grew up. One lady, very high born, sent her baby through her footman, who told us that his mistress traveled abroad and thus could not care for him herself. Indeed the little boy stayed with us for upwards of eighteen months without that we heard a word from the lady, but only received her payment. But Mrs. Holcomb was different than that. She liked nothing more than to be in the nursery, watching while he slept or changing his nappies or singing and rocking.

Wait til I tell Mother about this, I said to myself, because she will not believe it. “That’s how it goes with those who farm their babies,” she had said to me once. “They aren’t near ’em, are they, so if the baby was to die, well, the pain of it’s slighter than with us who lives with our own.”

I thought how amazed she’d be to hear how much Mrs. Holcomb dotes, though she’s rich. And then I thought about myself, who don’t live with my baby but loves it like my own life. For, Reader: how could I be happy? All the time my thoughts were with my own child. I prayed for his health and wept for a sight of his little face. I recalled to myself the portrait of Master Freddie and his mother which I had seen when still a scullery in the Great House, and I cried to think that when next I saw my child, he would look so different from the last time. I asked Mrs. Potts when next she would visit her aunt so that I could send a message and hear a word, but it was not to be for a long while, and so all I could do was to wait and hope that all was well at home.

One day, after about three weeks of my time at the Holcombs’, the mistress came into the room whilst the babe nursed.

“You needn’t turn away, Susan,” she said, sitting across from me. “I am resigned to it now.”

“It’s just that the master . . .” said I, but she interrupted me.

“Yes, James thinks that I am more fragile than I am, in fact,” said she. “I am just glad that we found you and so quickly. Really, you are just the thing for the baby.”

I thanked her.

“But really, Susan,” said she, her eyes wide, “I have heard such stories about nurses! A friend of mine . . . do you remember her, Mrs. Hughes who came in a pink gown . . . had a nurse that dosed her baby with laudanum to keep it quiet! Mrs. Hughes caught the woman one day as the horror tippled it into the baby’s mouth! The nurse said it was all the done thing in London. Mrs. Hughes had begun to suspect something was amiss when her baby’s eyes did not focus as they should have. Laudanum for a baby that small! Dreadful.”

“Gracious,” said I, “what a thing to think of ! ” And then I thought, oh, is that why she spends the time she does in the nursery? To catch me at something? I looked at her and it must’ve been reproachful-like, because she started and then she said, “Oh, Susan, do not think that I ever suspected you of any misdeed. Never have I. I have only been glad that you were here, that my darling child had your gentle care and your . . . softness.”

I laughed because I was relieved. “Ah, miss,” said I, “soft is certainly what you might call it. I’m like a pillow for the baby, amn’t I.” And then my own tears started up and fell.

“Susan,” said Mrs Holcomb, “is it your own baby you’re thinking of? Poor dear, to have lost a baby. I am indeed a lucky woman.”

“Why,” said I, staring, “my baby is as alive as yours! He is at home with my mother, who is feeding him by hand whilst I am here for yours.” Then, as I saw her face change, I realized that I spoke too brashly. I said quickly, “I do miss him but your William is sweet and you are so kind.”

“But, Susan,” said she, still horrified, “what of him? How could you leave him?”

I shook my head and thought how stupid rich people can be. She would not like it, I knew, if I told her I was there because she paid me. She wanted to think that I suckled her baby because I loved him and that I accepted the money like it was an afterthought. “There was nothing for it, ma’am,” I said, “it was how it had to be.”

“I cannot understand it,” said she, “but I tell you again: I am glad for it.”

“He’s asleep now,” said I, looking down. “Shall you hold him or shall I put him down?”

“I’ll hold him for a moment,” said she, and she grasped him like she hadn’t seen him in weeks.

I closed the door soft when I left the room. I saw that Mrs. Holcomb could not understand how things were at my house; how my father would drive me and Joey both out if I were to leave this position. A pound a month wasn’t nothing to turn a back on in my family. I doubted that even Mrs. Hart back at the Great House earned as much. But that was life in town, and whether it was to my misfortune or not to have the slot, Reader, I leave it to you to say.

One day, after I had been with the Holcombs for over two months, Mrs. Potts told me that she planned to visit her aunt in a fortnight and that if I could work it with the household, I might accompany her. I was right wild with joy. It was the evening and I was having my dinner while Mrs. Holcomb sang the baby to sleep which she liked to do now and again, before he slept. He was a dear little thing and had grown fat and rosy and slept as well now as anyone could ever wish. I could not wait to ask her permission for my visit home.

The Holcombs finally finished their dinner, and since they had dined without guests, I thought to ask the butler to beg for a moment of their time for me. I was shown in and I curtsied deep and then looked up at Mrs. Holcomb’s worried face.

“Susan,” said she, “surely there is nothing wrong?”

“Oh no, ma’am, the baby is sleeping like a little angel.”

“What is it then?”

I tried to be dignified but my happiness made my words tumble. I described the opportunity. “And, ma’am,” said I, “William will be well cared for. I have seen to it. I asked Mrs. Kildare’s nurse Ratliff whether she could take him on, just for a very few days, and she said she thought she could and she would ask her mistress. And you could cut my pay for that piece of time . . .”

Mrs. Holcomb interrupted me. “Susan, you are ahead of yourself. How can you wish to leave William in the hands of someone he does not know? He knows you, Susan, and would perhaps be too shy to sup from anyone else and might take ill!”

“Oh but,” said I.

“Really, Susan, I am shocked that you . . . that is, I know that you want to see your own child, I’m sure you do, but you know that William is delicate . . .”

“But, ma’am, he’s plump as a peach, he is. And twould be three days only, and . . .”

“That will do, Susan,” said Mr. Holcomb in a sharp voice. Mrs. Holcomb had jumped up from the sofa where she’d been drinking coffee and had turned away. I could see her slender back shaking. My shock had made me numb and I could not yet believe that she would not grant me leave to see my child.

“Susan,” said Mr. Holcomb, “please leave us. Mrs. Holcomb and I will discuss the matter and be sure to give you a final answer very soon. I know that you are distressed but please compose yourself. I have heard that the baby’s milk may be affected by the nurse’s moods. Please try to collect yourself as best you can.”

I opened my mouth and closed it and curtsied and left the room. My despair was very great. The “baby’s milk,” he’d called it, as if I had been born for them, as if my own sweet Joey had given me my milk for my masters and their brats.