Lilli de Jong

by Janet Benton

  Panic limited my breathing, as if a body had fallen on my chest. Alcohol certainly deserves its reputation for emboldening the lower appetites.

  “But of course that wouldn’t be appropriate.” Albert put down the glass and raised Henry toward me as the boy’s noises grew plangent.

  “Of course not.” With relief I stepped forward and took Henry.

  “Miss de Jong, you interest me.” His head swayed slightly as he watched me settle his son in my arms. Red spots colored his cheeks. He moved his hand toward the door, suggesting that I make my way out, then gave me a peculiar grin before shifting to a dreamlike state.

  I left in haste with Henry and turned the key in the nursery door once I stood inside that room.

  It’s been an hour since, judging by the clock’s tolling. I’m in my own room now, in bed, and the door has no lock. If Albert comes up here, I’ll run to Margaret’s room and refuse to be alone with him again.

  Fourth Month 21

  This morning, Frau V. and I were chopping onions for soup, and the kitchen air was dense with their pungent irritant. As tears wet our cheeks, she returned to the question I’d avoided answering the other day.

  “Why aren’t you with your father? He must need you, with your mother gone.”

  I gathered courage and told her of my clandestine pregnancy and my secretive departure. To my relief, her first reactions were sympathetic. But soon she became agitated.

  “You didn’t try to find the baby’s father?”

  “I had no address. He sent no letter, and my brother—he’s not the letter-writing sort. He’s rather shy.” I took up a rag and cleared my eyes.

  Leaving the board of onions, Frau V. reached into a package for a fish to scale. “So you did nothing?”

  “I didn’t have the money to travel to Pittsburgh. Even if I had, where would I have stayed, as a woman alone in my condition, and how would I have found them?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Besides,” I tried, “I was weak. I could hardly hold down a bite of food.”

  These reasons had seemed insurmountable at the time. But in the face of this determined mountain of a woman, they shriveled.

  She let out a huff. “And your family gave no help.” She threw a scaled, beheaded fish into the bucket of ice at her feet.

  I hesitated to agree with so final and condemning a statement. If Mother had lived, she would have helped. No—if Mother had lived, we would have continued to attend Meeting, and I’d have married Johan there. With her gone and Father derailed by grief, however, I had no one to count on. I told the cook all this. “I did give my baby’s father’s name to a solicitor,” I concluded. “He might be found and convinced to give support.”

  “All right.” She nodded. “Maybe that solicitor can get you some funds.” Wearing a doubtful scowl, she rinsed her hands at the faucet in the iron sink, lifted the big soup pot to the stovetop, and added a dollop of fat. I pushed the onions off the board into the pot.

  “But thee needn’t worry,” I told her. “I intend to become a sewing woman and raise my baby beside me.”

  She clamped her hands to her thighs and turned her substantial body toward me. “You intend to keep your baby? Without a husband?”

  “Yes.” I stirred the onions and dared to look at her. “She’s with a wet nurse now.”

  A strained noise came from Frau V.’s throat. “I didn’t know you were mad!” She gestured with her head toward the windows, indicating the outer world that would treat us terribly. “Your lives will be a torment!”

  Her reaction flooded me with dread. But I reminded myself that the harder way is often the truer. Almost twenty years ago, my father and two others from our Meeting were conscripted in the War of the Rebellion. They opposed slavery, of course, but they opposed killing, too. So they stood among rifle fire unarmed and were much abused by the other men for their refusal to carry guns. They held firm, drew the attention of commanders, gained their release, and took part in tending the wounded instead.

  “Why didn’t you write to the baby’s father?” the cook demanded.

  “I told thee, I had no address.” What did she expect, that I would write to every domicile in Pittsburgh?

  She stopped her labor to examine me. “But you can write to anyone care of the post office. You can write your young man that way.” She walked to the table and sat on a bench, shaking her head. “Such a smart girl, didn’t know that.”

  It’s true; I hadn’t known. I’d never had cause to know. “But even so,” I objected, “why would he seek mail from me at the post office, if he has no need for me anymore?”

  “Sit down,” she directed, patting the bench. I picked up a load of potatoes and heaped them on the table. Her wide body took up much of the seating, so I stood to keep my elbow from jabbing her as I peeled. With a heavy exhalation, she reached an arm for the peeler.

  “Give me,” she said. “I can’t stay still. You get a knife and start to cut them.” As she peeled and I sliced, she continued. “Young men, they’re ignorant. They don’t know the value of a woman’s love. But if you told him about the baby, maybe he’d come back. If you begged him, he might marry you.”

  I shook my head side to side.

  She admonished me: “Don’t be so stubborn.”

  I stood and walked to the stove to shake down ashes. When I lifted the top and poured in more coal, a wave of red heat rushed out. My fury is that hot, I thought. Turning to her, I asked, “Was thee ever deceived and abandoned by a man thee loved—the father of thy child?”

  “My Joseph is a good man!” she exclaimed. “We’ve been married thirty-two years.” She nodded and lifted her shoulders proudly. “We have seven children.”

  Just as I’d expected. “Then thee has no idea of the loathing I feel. To grovel before Johan for help or marriage? I’d rather live on the street! And don’t call me stubborn.”

  “I see you won’t be easy to convince.” Her wry tone irked me further, and I replied with more than a little warmth.

  “That’s correct. If thee wants to help me, consider my poor baby’s situation. I’ve never met her nurse, haven’t heard from that woman despite sending a letter, and can’t visit to see my baby’s condition for nine more days. To be of use, join thy prayers to mine.”

  I ran out and up to my room, where I’ll remain till Henry calls.

  Could I have made Johan come back, if I’d sent a letter? I must put this pencil down, so I can lower my head to my hands and weep.

  Fourth Month 23

  Still no word from Gerda. I pulled two pages from this book, one to write on and one to fold into an envelope and post with my last stamp.

  I intended to bring this letter directly to the kitchen to see if anyone was stepping out and could mail it. I walked from my room to the second story, and in the hall I paused to rest on a chair, feeling light-headed. Clementina must have heard my movements, for she called me to her office. Her original purpose was cast from her mind when she saw my envelope.

  “To whom can a servant need to write—her mother?” She toyed with a red pendant at her neck.

  The woman has an astringent effect on me, and I didn’t want to answer.

  “No,” I said. “My mother passed away.” I fingered my locket, its metal as smooth to my fingertips as Mother’s cheek.

  “From what did she die?”

  I spoke the truth that rose to my head. “From the bleeding and prescriptions of an allopathic doctor.”

  “My father is an allopath,” she said. “A noted one.”

  “Pardon me,” I replied. “This one killed my mother, so I didn’t much like his methods.”

  “You might learn some diplomacy,” she admonished—correctly, of course, given my dependence on her. And then, “Are you writing to your baby’s father? You’re using time while in my employ, so I must know.”

  With her wasp waist from her tight-laced corset and the expanded shoulders and high collar of her yellow gown, she looked more like a p
uppet than a woman, and her haughty expression only added to her theatricality.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I have no way to reach him.”

  Her lips moved into a slight smile. She picked up an Oriental fan and opened it, then fanned herself. “What sort of a man was he?”

  “He was kind, and more intelligent than average.”

  “Ah.” She seemed disappointed. “Why didn’t you marry him?”

  “He went away and didn’t send for me as promised.”

  Clementina looked out the window and pushed her lips together. “There are worse fates than never marrying. At any rate, I called you here to find out how often you feed Henry.”

  “When he requests it.” I sank onto a gold velvet chair, for I was light-headed again.

  She widened her eyes. “Make it every four hours. My father has just written to say that frequent feedings make their stomachs weak.”

  “If I can’t feed him when he calls, he’ll disturb thee.”

  “You may take him to the cellar if that happens. But don’t light the stove down there, or the roots will rot.” She stroked her cheek and turned toward the door, suggesting that I exit.

  “He’s only just getting up his weight,” I dared to say. “He shows no signs of a weak stomach.”

  Clementina looked skyward and sighed. “Are you a doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know what’s best for my baby. I’m following a doctor’s instructions.”

  Lord save us from the doctors and their faddish ideas. Reason cannot compete.

  Then Henry began to wail from the nursery down the hall. His mother and I examined each other across her broad desk as my breasts began to tingle and fill. She picked up a pen to begin some new task, and a bold question raced through my head and leaped over the barriers I threw up hastily to confine it.

  “May I ask why thee doesn’t care for Henry?”

  She lifted her head, pausing her pen. “I was raised by a wet nurse. Are you saying this does a child harm?”

  “I have no experience with the effects,” I said.

  She widened her eyes.

  “Forgive me,” I added.

  “I won’t forgive you. You’ve no right to ask such a question. But I’ll tell you exactly why. I see no point in being enslaved by his bodily needs when you can fulfill them in my stead.” A glimmer of some feeling passed behind her eyes, like a fish seen through dark waters.

  I made no reply but looked at the ornately flowered wallpaper behind her, keeping my face unaffected. I thought I might understand her behavior, just a little. In sealing her heart against her son, she can retain a modicum of liberty.

  “I have a column to write,” she said, pointing her pen toward the door. “And by the way, don’t sit in my presence unless invited.”

  I hurried off to the nursery to answer her baby’s calls. As he drank, I thought how Mother often said I was too fiery, and I promised myself I’d be more deferent. I’ve always detested apologetic simpering, yet I must learn to do it. I can’t afford not to.

  I finished with Henry. There was no one in the kitchen, so I put on my cloak and walked my letter to the collection box on the corner lamppost. This was my first venture outside in nearly a week, since I’d arrived at the Burnhams’! How strange it felt to step down the front stoop into a rush of strangers pursuing their business in all directions, with the urgency of that business tightening their faces. Or perhaps it was the unpleasantness of their surroundings that made them look so peeved. Carriages and wagons barreled past, their iron-rimmed wheels grating on the cobblestones. Coal and wood smoke thickened the air, and all about in heaps lay the dung of livestock driven earlier to market. The garments of many of these people were finer than what some wear in Germantown, but it appeared that their enjoyment of each moment was less. Many in Germantown can open their doors in spring to the scents of grasses and flowers and to air kept fresh by towering trees.

  One might presume that I was homesick.

  I mailed my second letter to Gerda.

  Margaret is stopping today at the stationer’s for a pile of notebooks and some pencils, some for me and some for herself. There are but a few coins remaining in my purse.

  Fourth Month 24

  Day six away from Charlotte, and no word from her nurse. I did receive a letter from Anne—a record of my lying-in costs, with some of the balance forgiven, and the amount due represented by a line of zeroes, because she’d been so extraordinarily generous as to apply much of the Burnhams’ fee to my debt. So in three or four months I may have enough saved for a month’s rental on a room and a first installment on a sewing machine.

  Delphinia and Frau V. have cast doubt on this way of earning our keep—but I have no better. No school would hire a teacher with a bastard. And I might get a grant to buy a machine from that ladies’ aid society; Delphinia promised to send on any correspondence.

  Last night I began to put Clementina’s new feeding schedule into action. I commenced my absurd strolling around the bins of beets, cabbages, carrots, and horseradish in the cellar, dodging the braided onions and garlic suspended on nails, while Henry squalled. All was not bleak; the stone walls gave off a pleasant, earthy smell; a blanket draped over us kept the chill at bay. And I did wait for the first four-hour interval to pass, wearing a path into the dirt floor and turning my old slippers dark. But before the next appointed hour, Henry fussed so that my aching breasts sprayed out their milk, and I put him to me. He curled his minuscule hand around my forearm and kneaded my flesh as he gulped.

  Earlier in the night, Margaret and I had our first lesson. She’s intelligent and will make quick progress if she practices. The bits she’d learned from her sister will help her make a strong start. In a month or two, she may be ready to write a simple note to her family.

  And who knows what other good may come from her pen. Perhaps the Lord has put me here for Margaret, and her for me, with some larger purpose.

  * * *

  Frau V. had me turn the soil in the small kitchen garden behind the house. Though they don’t strictly need a garden downtown, where markets are abundant, she prefers the freshest possible herbs and greens in the spring, and roots in autumn.

  I was glad to have time in the open air, which was soft on my skin and enlivened me. But being in a garden put me in mind of how I’ve changed. At home I’d loved pushing a shovel into the ground, turning the dirt over, smelling its musty dankness. Today, however, as I shoveled row upon row of good soil, with many worms and a grand brown richness, I felt an aching hardness in my breasts, and an ache in my arms from so many hours spent holding a baby, and a dizzying ache in my mind from thoughts of Johan. Because he abandoned me, I’m committed not only to our infant but to another, and must serve his peculiar parents besides. On my life’s loom, the warp and woof are so disarrayed that I can no longer weave its cloth. Yet Johan, the agent of my disgrace, strolls merrily along his chosen way, with no alteration in his prospects, no lessening of freedom, no suffering on account of our hour of intimacy.

  I pictured his long face coming close to mine, seeking a furtive kiss, as he had often done after we’d agreed to marry. I pictured throwing my whole body into him and knocking him to the ground. Liar, thief of my innocence, scoundrel of the lowest order! I wish I could go to Pittsburgh and tell him what his hollow promises have wrought. Yet I see no way to make this happen in my obligated state.

  So little is permissible for a woman—yet on her back every human climbs to adulthood.

  Fourth Month 25

  The morning’s post brought no word from Gerda. My ever-growing anxiousness may explain this peculiar vision that came to me.

  I’d fallen asleep in the rocker with Henry in my lap. Not long afterward I awakened, or so it seemed. I felt the cool air from the partly opened window, and the damp of Henry’s diaper. Then, with just as much seeming realness, I saw the lanky figure of Johan stoop to enter the nursery door. He held a worn felt hat to his chest. His eyes were
downcast, and he’d grown a scraggly beard. He looked up and stared at me, his look so intense that I felt its heat.

  Then the vision vanished, leaving only questions. Is he in trouble? Or is this merely another of the many fearful visions I’ve had since leaving Charlotte, whether sleeping or awake I can’t be sure?

  All the rest have featured Charlotte being taken from me—so that madmen can subject her to disfiguring experiments, or because she’s been stricken with some hideous contagion, or thrown in a river. Or sometimes I have simply lost her, having turned my head to follow the flight of a bird and turned back to find her gone, which sends me running about the muddy streets of some village or tripping along the cobbles of a city street, anguished, calling her name.

  Now this vision of sad Johan. What can it mean?

  I’m becoming like some early Friend, beset by messages and urgings, though mine may come merely from my own fears.

  * * *

  My worry over Charlotte grows.

  The doctor came to examine Henry at midday, and Clementina sent me to the kitchen. I sat with Margaret, Frau V., and a day jobber named Flo. Flo had come to help Margaret shake the winter’s grime from the rugs, wash curtains, wipe the baseboards, and much else for the house’s spring cleaning.

  We ate beef stew together at a table on the back porch, despite the chill and the rain falling beyond the roof. Flo was tall, and her carriage was straight. She wore long braids and had brass bracelets up her arms. The quilted pouch about her neck gave off a penetrating scent. We all spoke of pleasant things, until she learned that my baby is with a wet nurse.

  “I hope she isn’t with a baby farmer.” Her voice was smooth and low. “My second baby died that way.”

  She’d worked in a cannery at that time and had to put her baby in day boarding, she said. While the mothers worked, the caretaker subdued the infants with rags soaked in sugar water and laudanum—just what Delphinia had described! Within two weeks, her son was down to skin and bones.