Holding her tightly by the arm Mrs Poulter drew Kirsten along a dim passage and through another green-baized door; and then they were crossing a huge hall and, skirting buckets and kneeling maids, their heads turned in enquiry, up a staircase bare of carpet for half its length and soon to an enormous landing where the hard stone walls were covered from floor to ceiling with pictures, down another corridor and to a door outside which Mrs Poulter drew her to a halt and stood panting. They were both panting. Mrs Poulter now went to knock on the door of the master’s dressing room, then changed her mind and drew Kirsten hastily on, not to the next door but the one beyond it; and this she opened without knocking. But she paused on the threshold, her body half turned, her arm outstretched still holding on to Kirsten, who held back in the passage, and now she was exclaiming, ‘Oh! sir, I’m sorry. I…I didn’t expect. I…mean.’
‘It’s all right, Poulter, come in. Ah! You’ve got her.’
Kirsten, her mouth agape, stared at the red-robed figure coming towards her. She had never seen a man dressed like this; she had never seen a man with a body the breadth of two, nor with hair so thick and fair, and with eyes hardly darker, but of a shade of grey, clear piercing grey. He was like a creature from some childish fantasy, a kindly, ugly, squat giant.
‘She’s hardly more than a child, Poulter.’
Kirsten watched the man turn his head and look down on the housekeeper who answered, ‘She’s a mother, sir; she’s plenty of milk.’
‘Ah well, that’s what we want. Come in. Come in.’ He was backing from Kirsten now, and as if he were a magnet she walked towards him; and when he stopped, she stopped.
‘Your name?’
‘Kirsten.’
‘Sir.’ Mrs Poulter was nudging her with her elbow, and dutifully Kirsten looked back at the man and said, ‘Kirsten, sir.’
‘You know what you’re here for?’
There was a long pause before she muttered, ‘Yes, sir.’
He was staring down into her face as if fascinated by something, her eye likely.
‘Come, get on with it then.’
She remained standing. And then his voice startled her, almost lifting her from the ground. ‘What are you waiting for? Do you want assistance? See to it, Mrs Poulter.’
‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Come.’ Mrs Poulter had hold of her arm again; then she was pushing her onto a low nursing chair, and as she did so she hissed at her, ‘Bare your breast, girl. Bare your breast.’ Then she went to a door in one corner of the room, from behind which was coming a thin, tired wail, and the wailing became more audible when she opened the door. A minute later she returned with the baby in her arms and, coming to Kirsten, she bent over her with a kind of reverence and placed the child on her lap.
Its head against her bare breast, the child’s mouth groped around the warm flesh for a moment; then, as if it had but recently left her womb, the cord having been severed between them, it clung to her for sustenance. When it gulped, and gulped a second time, then sucked hungrily, Kirsten felt a thin thread of pain, that yet wasn’t pain, nor yet pleasure, but something inexplicable being drawn up through her bowels, through her heart and into her breast.
She lifted her face from Hop Fuller’s son and looked at the man whom this child would call father. He looked back at her and smiled; then he put out his large hand, and a finger gentle as thistledown touched her breast.
PART FOUR
THE WET NURSE
One
Kirsten didn’t know at what time of the night it was when she felt a hand gripping her shoulder and the voice hissing at her. ‘Wake up, you! Wake up!’ But she knew immediately it was the important one.
She had no sooner lain down on this beautiful, soft bed than she had wanted to sleep, to sleep from sheer exhaustion, brought on not only by her weak condition but also by the excitement of the day. She had asked herself almost every hour of it if she wasn’t really dreaming.
Take the food she had been made to eat, forced to eat, and the arguments over it. Mrs Poulter had suggested she have a pint of beer a day, but Miss Cartwright said it was nonsense; she should have no intoxicating beverage, she should have nothing but boiled or roast meat and milk puddings, but no cheese, for it would give the child wind. And the master had laughed at Miss Cartwright. And this had angered the tall woman, and she had dared to cry at him, ‘The girl is too young, she will never have enough sustenance. Any fool knows that you shouldn’t have a wet nurse under twenty.’ At this, the master had become quiet and, his face unsmiling, he had pointed down to herself and the child and said, ‘Not enough sustenance? And must be over twenty? Look at that! Look at my son. Have you seen him so happy since he was born? When I returned he was bawling his head off. Why? Simply because his belly was empty. Look at him I say, then tell me that age makes any difference to the paps that supply good milk.’ His voice rising, he now cried, ‘No more of it! Get back to my wife and tell her she need worry no more about her figure, she can keep on her binder. Her son will thrive. Aye, this child-mother will see to that. As for the food she’ll eat, she’ll have the same food that is served to me.’ He turned to Mrs Poulter and ended, ‘See to it Poulter; whatever I have, bring the same to my son’s nurse.’ Then he had stormed out, and Miss Cartwright had also stormed out, seeming unable to contain herself, and she herself had been left with the housekeeper. Mrs Poulter had patted her on the shoulder and, her voice low and her smile knowing and sly, she had said, ‘You’ve got the master with you, you need no other champion. Don’t fear that one, for even her power is limited.’
But here was that one, looking down at her now through the light of a night candle and her voice was hissing at her. ‘It was a bargain we made, a legal bargain, remember? You said you would go.’
‘Aye.’ Kirsten blinked the sleep from her eyes. ‘An’ I meant to, honest. It…It’s no wish of mine that I’m here.’ Yet as she said this, and with conviction, she knew that part of her was glad that she was here, and glad strangely that she was feeding the child, her child. Life, this kind of life, was beyond her—she couldn’t understand it, so many things were happening to her—but she liked it, she knew she liked it. And so she dared to stare back into the face above hers and say firmly, ‘You needn’t worry. You…you can tell the mistress an’ all, never…never will I say anythin’, I’ll have me tongue cut out first.’ She was using Ma Bradley’s frequent saying when wanting to stress her integrity, the only difference was she meant it. She did not want to claim this child, she did not want the burden of him. What would she do with him if on her own? But as it was she could, as the saying went, have her cake and eat it, and be happy in so doing.
She pulled herself up in the bed, then craned upwards towards the long, plain, stern face as she said, ‘Believe me, honest, I don’t want the bairn. I don’t love him. I could never love him. But he, the master, wants him, and you want him, and…and the mistress must want him, so therefore I’m glad. An’ as long as I’m needed I’ll stay, an’ when that ends I’ll go, I promise, when I’m not needed I’ll go.’
The interview had taken a most unusual turn and Bella was slightly nonplussed by it, so much so that she sat down on the edge of the bed until her face was just above that of the girl, and her body slumped and she sighed for she was very tired, very weary, and all she could say now was, ‘You will go as soon as you’re no longer necessary to the child?’
‘Aye, yes. I promise you.’
Again there was silence between them. Then the candle fluttered in the quick movement Bella made as she thrust her hand inside the neck of her bodice. Drawing out a chain on which hung a cross, she held it towards Kirsten and whispered, ‘Hold this and swear on it.’
Slowly Kirsten lifted her hand and took hold of the cross and, her voice awe-filled and trembling, she said, ‘I…I swear on it.’
‘Say after me: If I don’t keep my word disaster will attend me.’
Kirsten gulped, but she repeated, ‘If I don’t keep me word disaster will attend me.�
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Slowly Bella dropped the cross down inside the front of her bodice again and, getting to her feet, she looked for a moment longer at Kirsten, then went silently from the room.
Kirsten lay stiff in the bed staring up into the blackness. The significance of swearing on the cross had meant nothing to her, merely the act of making a promise. How long did it mean she could remain here? How long would the child need suckling? She had no idea. Six months? Oh no; longer, longer than that; a year, two years?
When she heard the child begin to whinge she sprang up from the bed and went into the anteroom and lifted it from where it was sunk in the downy cradle; then she took it to the nursing chair which was set behind the high screen that shaded the light from the candelabrum, and opening her nightdress she gave it her breast. And it hung on to it, its small fist kneading her flesh the while. After a time it drew its mouth slowly from the nipple and, its head lolling to the side, it opened its eyes wide, and for the first time she really looked at it. It didn’t look like Hop Fuller, its eye sockets were shaped something like her own, wide. Its mouth too. Slowly her finger moved around its mouth, and it gurgled and hiccuped, and the milk ran out of the corner of its mouth and its lips parted and it smiled. She found herself smiling back at it; then without fully realising why, and the action surprising herself, she gathered him to her and rocked him. Again as if she had been surprised in some wrong act, she stood up quickly and, now holding him away from her, she returned him to the cot from where in the dim light, he stared up at her and continued to gurgle.
In bed once more, her next reaction was as surprising to herself as those of a moment ago, for now she turned her face into the pillow and cried unrestrainedly.
Two
It was almost a week later, on Shrove Tuesday, when she saw the mistress for the first time.
During the week so many things had happened that her mind was dizzy with impressions, but foremost among them one fact stood out, and it was that Miss Cartwright was now for her…in a way that was; she was for her when the nurse was against her. The nurse had come on the scene three days after she herself had entered the house. She had come on the insistence of the master, for he said that Miss Cartwright could not alone manage her mistress. In a voice loud enough to be heard down in the kitchens he had wanted to know, was she superhuman and did she not require sleep?
Kirsten realised that the master liked to be alone with his wife, and that he fussed her. On numerous occasions, from behind the door in the anteroom, she heard him laugh. He had a rumbling deep laugh that rose and fell like waves coming onto the shore, and like waves ebbing over beaches it trailed away into a warm chuckle. She often found herself smiling when the master laughed. She had yet to hear the mistress laugh.
There was enmity between the nurse, whose name was Walters, and Miss Cartwright from the moment they met, and of the two, if Kirsten had been forced to make a choice, she would have picked the tall, austere woman, for although when Miss Cartwright addressed her, her manner and voice were cold and haughty and held a threat, the latter hadn’t about it the bossing qualities of the nurse. Somehow Kirsten connected the nurse, however faintly, with Ma Bradley.
The nurse complained of how Kirsten held the baby and how she bound it up. She said the belly bands weren’t tight enough, she called them pilches. It was when they were alone in the room together that the nurse complained to her about the meagreness of the child’s wardrobe. She said that Lady Carter, whom she had nursed last, had no less than six dozen napkins for her baby, together with twelve pairs of shoes, two dozen petticoats, robes and gowns, not counting three dozen bibs, swathe and head squares, and so very much more. It was at this point that Miss Cartwright’s voice came from behind them, saying, ‘I will inform the mistress that her son is ill-prepared for.’
Whether Miss Cartwright did this or not Kirsten didn’t know, but she knew there was war between Miss Cartwright and the nurse, and as in a tug-of-war, she sensed she herself was being used as a rope, but she didn’t mind. She minded nothing very much; her stomach was full, her body was clean, she was clothed neatly, even finely, she considered, and she was being paid three shillings a week. Mrs Poulter had said she was to get two shillings a week but the master had said, ‘Make it three.’
She liked Mrs Poulter; even when late at night she came up to the nursery and her breath smelt of whisky and her small eyes were brighter and merrier than during the day, this in no way lessened her liking for the housekeeper, for it was her she had to thank for her present wonderful state.
Then came the afternoon when she was feeding the child and the nurse came into the anteroom, saying hastily, ‘Give him here! The master says to bring him to his mother.’ But as the nurse made to bundle him up Miss Cartwright said, ‘Leave the child be, he’s not finished yet.’
The plump, well-fed body of the nurse turned towards the thin, lean one, and the eyes of both held; then the nurse said, ‘I’ll tell the master, will I, that he’s got to be kept waitin’ then?’
For reply, Bella walked towards Kirsten and, looking down at her, said stiffly, ‘Do yourself up, girl, and take the child in.’
For a moment Kirsten’s lower jaw fell slack; then she whispered, ‘Me?’ and Bella made a motion with her head as she said, ‘Yes, you. The mistress has never seen you, I’m sure she would like to.’
They exchanged a long, knowing look. Then Kirsten quickly buttoned up her bodice, after which she pushed her fingers through her hair for a moment as if to straighten it. But the act was merely a sign of her agitation. She then picked up a damp flannel from the wash-hand stand and went to wipe the child’s mouth, but was checked by the nurse’s voice exclaiming. ‘Did you ever! Fingering her dirty hair then putting her hand to the child’s face. Huh! I’ve never seen the like. But what can you expect from a young…snipe.’ She omitted the word road.
‘Snipe or no snipe, she’s the master’s choice. And you would do well to remember that, and also your place. Moreover, her hair is clean; I supervised its washing yesterday. Come, girl.’
Kirsten looked at the two women, both of a like age, but dissimilar in every other way, and she marvelled at the nurse’s courage for she spoke to Miss Cartwright as if, like herself, she too were just a servant and not related to the mistress and a power in the household.
Bella now pushed Kirsten forward through the white gold-embossed door, around a screen on which silk dragons were crawling, and into a room so beautiful that Kirsten forgot for a moment that the master was standing at the foot of the great bed; and in the bed, as if resting on a cloud, was the mistress. She had a confused vision of gilt chairs and a chaise longue, of an enormous dressing table gleaming with silver and bottles, an open fireplace from which came a terrific heat, and under her feet thick carpet that misted all the whiteness in the room with a deep pink glow.
‘Come! Come!’
She went towards the extended hand of the master, and when it came onto her shoulder and pressed her forward up by the side of the bed her legs began to tremble, and the trembling moved rapidly up her body and focused in her right eye as she stared at the face almost on a level with her own. It could have been Nellie’s face, only it was cleaner. No, no, not Nellie; more like Cissie, dollified, with the lips pouting, not unlike a child’s when it wanted to suck.
‘Well, Florence!’ The voice boomed over them, seeming to bring them into an awareness, not of each other, but of where they were. ‘Your wet nurse. The little mother who has saved your figure, eh?’ This was followed by a deep laugh. ‘And doing very nicely. Look at your son; have you seen a happier face? Go on, child.’ He was now pushing Kirsten in the back. ‘Let your mistress have her son.’
The face in the bed looked as if it had never known human warmth, it was like the face of an alabaster bust, set, staring. Not even when Konrad Knutsson, his voice louder now, shouted, ‘Come on, woman! Come on; you’re quite able to hold your son. I want to see you hold your son. Give her the child, girl,’ did the features alter
.
Kirsten held out the child to the motionless figure, and perhaps the arms might never have lifted to receive the baby had not Bella from the other side of the bed, her voice strangely soft now, said, ‘Take him, Florence, just for a moment; you’re well enough now.’ And when Bella repeated, ‘Just for a moment,’ Florence’s arms came up like those of an automatic toy, and into them Kirsten placed her child.
‘There now, the great deed has been accomplished, mother and son united. It wasn’t so difficult, was it?’ Konrad was leaning over his wife, leaning over them both, his face flushed with pride. Then he lowered himself onto the side of the bed and remained quiet for a moment, his eyes now resting on his son, and, still keeping his eyes on him, he asked his wife, ‘When will you be up? We’ll have the christening as soon as you are about.’
‘Oh!’ Florence seemed to come alive. She shook her head, then turned her eyes towards Bella before she answered him, saying, ‘Another two weeks; I…I feel so unwell, Konrad, you don’t realise…’
‘That will be almost a month in bed, woman. You will get weak. In Sweden the women are on their feet in four or five days. Yes, yes. And look.’ He swung round, his boot almost overturning the bed-step as he did so, and pointing now to Kirsten, where she was standing some distance from the foot of the bed, he said, ‘That child, she was delivered the same day as you after being nearly drowned in the river, and she was up and about three, four days later.’
The Slow Awakening Page 9