Free The Wet Nurse's Tale by Erica Eisdorfer

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,