Part 54 (2/2)
”If you please,” said the courtier, mastering a sigh; for in Mrs.
Wilson there was much that promised fluency.
”Well, miss, when you came into the world, your mamma could not nurse you. I do notice the gentry that eat the fat of the land are none the better for it; for a poor woman can do a mother's part by her child, but high-born and high-fed folk can't always; so you had to be brought up by hand, miss, and it did not agree with you, and that is no great wonder, seeing it is against nature. Well, my little girl, that was born just two days after you, died in my arms of convulsion fits when she was just a month old. She had only just been buried, and me in bitter grief, when doesn't the doctor call and ask me as a great favor, would I nurse Mrs. Fountain's child, that was pining for want of its natural food. I bade him get out of my sight. I felt as if no woman had a right to have a child living when my little darling was gone. But my husband, a just man as ever was, said, 'Take a thought, Mary; the child is really pining, by all accounts.' Well, I would not listen to him. But next Sunday, after afternoon church, my mother, that had not said a word till then, comes to me, and puts her hand on my shoulder with a quiet way she had. 'Mary,' says she, 'I am older than you, and have known more.' She had buried six of us, poor thing.
Says she, scarce above a whisper, 'Suckle that failing child. It will be the better for her, and the better for you, Mary, my girl.' Well, miss, my mother was a woman that didn't interfere every minute, and seldom gave her reasons; but, if you scorned her advice, you mostly found them out to your cost; and then she was my mother; and in those days mothers were more thought of, leastways by us that were women and had suffered for our children, and so learned to prize the woman that had suffered for us. 'Well, then,' I said, 'if you say so, mother, I suppose I didn't ought to gainsay you, on the Lord His day.' For you see my mother was one that chose her time for speaking--eh! but she was wise. 'Mother,' says I, 'to oblige you, so be it'; and with that I fell to crying sore on my mother's neck, and she wasn't long behind me, you may be sure. Whiles we sat a crying in one another's arms, in comes John, and goes to speak a word of comfort. 'It is not that,'
says my mother; 'she have given her consent to nurse Mrs. Fountain's little girl.' 'It is much to her credit,' says he: says he, 'I will take her up to the house myself.' 'What for?' says I; 'them that grants the favor has no call to run after them that asks it.' You see, Miss Lucy, that was my ignorance; we were small farmers, too independent to be fawning, and not high enough to weed ourselves of upishness. Your mamma, she was a real lady, so she had no need to trouble about her dignity; she thought only of her child; and she didn't send the child, but she came with it herself. Well, she came into our kitchen, and made her obeisance, and we to her, and mother dusted her a seat. She was pale-like, and a mother's care was in her face, and that went to my heart. 'This is very, very kind of you, Mrs.
Wilson,' said she. Those were her words. 'Mayhap it is,' says I; and my heart felt like lead. Mother made a sign to your mamma that she should not hurry me. I saw the signal, for I was as quick as she was; but I never let on I saw it. At last I plucked up a bit of courage, and I said, 'Let me see it.' So mother took you from the girl that held you all wrapped up, and mother put you on my knees; and I took a good look at you. You had the sweetest little face that ever came into the world, but all peaked and pining for want of nature. With you being on my knees, my bosom began to yearn over you, it did. 'The child is starved,' said I; 'that is all its grief. And you did right to bring it' here.' Your mother clasps her hands, 'Oh, Mrs. Wilson,'
says she, 'G.o.d grant it is not too late.' So then I smiled back to her, and I said, 'Don't you fret; in a fortnight you shan't know her.'
You see I was beginning to feel proud of what I knew I could do for you. I was a healthy young woman, and could have nursed two children as easy as some can one. To make a long story short, I gave you the breast then and there; and you didn't leave us long in doubt whether cow's milk or mother's milk is G.o.d's will for sucklings. Well, your mamma put her hands before her face, and I saw the tears force their way between her fingers. So, when she was gone, I said to my mother, 'What was that for?' 'I shan't tell you,' says she. 'Do, mother,' says I. So she said, 'I wonder at your having to ask; can't you see it was jealousy-like. Do you think she has not her burden to bear in this world as well as you? How would you like to see another woman do a mother's part for a child of yours, and you sit looking on like a toy-mother? Eh! Miss Lucy, but I was vexed for her at that, and my heart softened; and I used to take you up to the great house, and spend nearly the whole day there, not to rob her of her child more than need be.”
”Oh, Mrs. Wilson! Oh, you kind, n.o.ble-hearted creature, surely Heaven will reward you.”
”That is past praying for, my dear. Heaven wasn't going to be long in debt to a farmer's wife, you may be sure; not a day, not an hour. I had hardly laid you to my breast when you seemed to grow to my heart.
My milk had been tormenting me for one thing. My good mother had thought of that, I'll go bail; and of course you relieved me. But, above all, you numbed the wound in my heart, and healed it by degrees: a part of my love that lay in the churchyard seemed to come back like, and settle on the little helpless darling that milked me. At whiles I forgot you were not my own; and even when I remembered it, it was--I don't know--somehow--as if it wasn't so. I knew in my head you were none of mine, but what of that? I didn't feel it here. Well, miss, I nursed you a year and two months, and a finer little girl never was seen, and such a weight! And, of course, I was proud of you; and often your dear mother tried to persuade me to take a twenty-pound note, or ten; but I never would. I could not sell my milk to a queen. I'd refuse it, or I'd make a gift of it, and the love that goes with it, which is beyond price. I didn't say so to her in so many words, but I did use to tell her 'I was as much in her little girl's debt as she was in mine,' and so I was. But as for a silk gown, and a shawl, and the like, I didn't say 'No' to them; who ever does?”
”Nurse!”
”My lamb!”
”Can you ever forgive me for confounding you with a servant? I am so inexperienced. I knew nothing of all this.”
”Oh, Miss Lucy, 'let that flea stick in the wall,' as the saying is.”
”But, dear Mrs. Wilson, now only think that your affection for me should have lasted all these years. You speak as if such tenderness was common. I fear you are mistaken there: most nurses go away and think no more of those to whom they have been as mothers in infancy.”
”How do you know that, Miss Lucy? Who can tell what pa.s.ses inside those poor women that are ground down into slaves, and never dare show their real hearts to a living creature? Certainly hirelings will be hirelings, and a poor creature that is forced to sell her breast, and is bundled off as soon as she has served the grand folks' turn, why, she behooves to steel herself against nature, and she knows that from the first; but whether she always does get to harden herself, I take leave to doubt. Miss Lucy; I knew an unfortunate girl that nursed a young gentleman, leastways a young n.o.bleman it was, and years after that I have known her to stand outside the hedge for an hour to catch a sight of him at play on the lawn among the other children. Ay, and if she had a penny piece to spare she would go and buy him sugar-plums, and lay wait for him, and give them him, and he heir to thousands a year.”
”Poor thing! Poor thing!”
”Next to the tie of blood, Miss Lucy, the tie of milk is a binding affection. When you went to live twenty miles from us, I behooved to come in the cart and see you from time to time.”
”I remember, nurse, I remember.”
”When I came to our new farm hard by, you were away; but as soon as I heard you were come back, it was like a magnet drawing me. I could not keep away from you.”
”Heaven forbid you should; and I will come and see you, dear nurse.”
”Will ye, now? Do now. I have got a nice little parlor for you. It is a very good house for a farm-house; and there we can set and talk at our ease, and no fine servants, dressed like lords, coming staring in.”
Lucy now proffered a timid request that Mrs. Wilson would take off her bonnet. ”I want to see your good kind face without any ornament.”
”Hear to that, now, the darling;” and off came the bonnet.
”Now your cap.”
”Well, I don't know; I hadn't time to do my hair as should be before coming.”
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