Lilli de Jong

by Janet Benton

  At the nurse’s address sat a brick row-house—far better than Gerda’s shack, and on a block of solid buildings. I raised the knocker and dropped it. Charlotte gave a start as the door swung open. A weary face peered upward at us, the woman being even smaller than me.

  “Ye must be Miss Freid,” she said. Black eyebrows formed a thick line above her squinting eyes. Her straggly hair was pulled loosely back, and her clothing sagged on her narrow frame.

  “No, I’m Miss de Jong,” I said, “and this is Charlotte.” I tried to incline Charlotte’s face outward, but she pushed firmly into me and drew her head down, tightening her little fists on her blanket wrap. “I was sorry to read of thy baby’s passing,” I said, expecting to hear of a recent loss and meaning to investigate its cause.

  The woman nodded, pushing her mouth into a frown. “Three years ago next month.” When I said nothing, she continued, “Ya don’t forget.”

  “No,” I said, and we stood there. Three years? Could she even have much milk to offer? If she did, it wouldn’t have the right composition for a newborn. Dr. Snowe had indicated the importance of this.

  “I feeds ’em plenty, as if they was my own,” she said. “I’d be as a mother to your baby. Yes, I would.”

  My heart stepped up its pace, bringing on a flush.

  “Such full hair the baby has.” As she reached an arm, the sleeve of her dress pushed upward, revealing a suppurating sore on the wrist. “Ye don’t have ta be skittish! Let me hold her.”

  I reached Charlotte halfway, my throat so clamped it let out an involuntary squeak. What if this woman had some contagious disease, such as syphilis? An unclean scent arose from her. I pulled my darling close again, turned around, and plunged us into the dusty street.

  “Come back, miss,” the woman yelled, but I didn’t turn. I ran for as long as I could, the sack of Charlotte’s clothing banging my leg, until she began to cry. I sat on a stoop and held her body to my pounding chest, aiming not to succumb to hysteria. My uneven pulse sounded in my ears. I swallowed, trying to moisten my mouth. Sweat came to my skin and cooled me slightly.

  Charlotte wanted to feed. I walked between two houses into an alley, sat on an overturned barrel, and opened my clothing beneath my shawl. While she took comfort, my muscles began to loosen. I became aware of my own hunger and chewed a hunk of bread from my pocket. She finished quickly. Opening her blanket across my lap, I changed her diaper and clothes in the warm, humid air.

  Where was I to go?

  The Haven was at least two miles away. But it was the only friendly place I knew.

  I disliked being viewed by strangers as I traveled the residential streets. The women seated together on their stoops grew quieter when I passed, and I heard some whispering after. What secrets might they have seen written upon me? My appearance was no doubt peculiar, for I’d combined rich women’s hand-me-downs with my plain attire. I probably had spit-up milk down my back, as I’ve often found it there when I undress. And when was the last time I’d combed out my hair? Even the features on my face might have been in disarray—for how could they look right, when powerful feelings were coursing and tumbling through me like leaves and sticks in a swollen stream?

  At last we reached the Haven’s door. I rang the bell. Delphinia pulled back the curtain at the nearest window; on recognizing me, her look moved from suspicion to pleasure. She undid the several locks from a circlet of keys at her waist.

  “What joy!” she said. “We hardly get to see a girl after she leaves. You both look well!” She reached through the doorway to stroke Charlotte’s head.

  For a moment my heart unclenched at seeing her pink face framed by wisps of white. Then all at once I grew righteous. If she’d seen Charlotte when I’d first rescued her from Gerda’s…

  “Thee sent her to a baby farmer,” I said. “She nearly died.”

  Delphinia’s face blanched. “She went to a fine place.” She straightened her back and lifted her head. “Three dollars for two weeks, it turned out, and you’d left only two, so I put in my own dollar, which was a hardship.”

  “I’m very sorry. But if thee calls that a fine place, then I’m the queen of England. That woman was a baby farmer, with two other infants who won’t live out the month.” I paused to choke back a sob. “She robbed us both of every penny.”

  Delphinia scrutinized me, apparently deciding I was too upset to reason with. “Don’t stand in the doorway,” she scolded. “Come this way.” She wrested the sack from my sweating fingers and ushered me through the hall to the office.

  Anne sat at her desk, neat and serious, and beheld me with curiosity.

  “Lilli says her baby went to a baby farmer,” said Delphinia, eyebrows raised.

  “Sit, my dear.” Anne indicated the bench where—full of naïve hope—I’d sat but three weeks earlier to be interviewed by Albert Burnham and Dr. Snowe. “We can’t be held responsible for what happens to the babies,” Anne told me. “A servant of one of our benefactors brought your girl to his sister and vouched for her.”

  “Well, thee was sorely misled.” I explained what I’d found.

  “Surely it wasn’t that bad,” said Delphinia, reaching her arm to pat my shoulder.

  I pulled away. “In ten days, Charlotte became nearly a skeleton.”

  Anne sighed and addressed the matron. “We’ll have to tell the Hollingers. Apparently their man’s judgment can’t be trusted.”

  That was all—no apology, no regret. Anne returned to her papers, and Delphinia brought me to the recovery room to see Gina—who has had her baby! We were thrilled to see each other. Delphinia fetched us tea and oat biscuits from her private stores. As we relished them, I got a good look at Lucia, who has her mother’s dark hair and paleness—and, fortunately for her mother, a peaceful disposition.

  When the matron left to supervise the inmates at their chores, Gina asked why I’d come. I described our plight, and here is the amazing consequence: Gina is going to nurse Charlotte along with Lucia! She’ll start soon, probably this coming Seventh Day, after she takes up occupancy with her dead lover’s parents. I offered one dollar fifty cents a week, which she said was ample. When she held Charlotte a moment, the change brought only pleasure to my baby—a promising sign.

  Of course Clementina is dissatisfied and annoyed with the delay. Yet I’m certain this will be a safe situation, as Gina is healthy and good, unlike those who merely claim to be.

  Fifth Month 12

  Clementina called me down a short time ago and handed me a letter. I almost couldn’t bear to look, so badly do I crave news from Peter. But look I did. It was from Delphinia on behalf of Gina, who can’t read or write. Gina left yesterday for her new home and expects me and Charlotte this very afternoon! Delphinia supplied an address on Centre Street in Germantown that’s not more than a half-mile from Father and Patience.

  Clementina said I can go, and of course I must. But I dread putting Charlotte outside my protection again. She’s not yet six weeks old, and delicate. A Holland bulb’s nascent flower, half-formed within its sheath. A damselfly only half-emerged from its casing, not yet able to stand or walk or find food, for whom the careless brush of a human finger could mean a lifetime of disfigurement.

  If Henry were cast out so expeditiously, would his parents notice? It might take a day or two.

  This parting from Charlotte is harder, now that I’ve seen her harmed. But there’s a world of difference between Gina and Gerda.

  I hear Isaac Penington’s words of long ago, which as a child I’d recited when teachers bade us to:

  Give over thine own willing,

  give over thine own running,

  give over thine own desiring to know or be anything,

  and sink down to that seed

  which God sows in thy heart

  and let that be in thee, and grow in thee,

  and breathe in thee, and act in thee….

  I pray my seed can grow and breathe and act in me, and bring me toward a home where I c
an live with my own child.

  * * *

  The hour came when I could delay no longer. For speed, using coins that Frau Varschen pressed upon me, I took a train to Germantown, keeping my head hidden beneath my old gray shawl and Charlotte hidden beneath my yellow one. Perhaps due to the bouncing of the car, she fell to sleep. The other passengers, mostly workingmen, were reading papers or staring out the sides. No one but me stepped from the train near Chelten Avenue, which was relieving. I knew this section but a little; people called it the Yards.

  I followed the tracks to the coal yard, which was rambunctious with noise. I asked a man with a coal-blackened face to help me find the correct block of Centre Street. He pointed behind me, so I doubled back toward a dirt road. I moved down a slight hill, past a wide-open area, and toward a stretch of recently built row-houses in good repair. I pulled the shawl off my perspiring head and undraped Charlotte, who shot up her head and looked about as if helping me to find the house.

  The front doors of all the homes were propped open to let in the slight breeze. The buildings bore no numbers, so I walked toward one to ask for assistance. By luck, Gina herself sat in the foyer, dandling her baby!

  We embraced, laughing at the awkwardness of doing so with babies in our arms, then examined one another’s darlings; she commented on Charlotte’s cheerful vitality, and I noted Lucia’s delicate features, which gave her the look of a living doll.

  I pulled a chair from the foyer wall and sat beside Gina, who said she was tired but confident she’d have milk for two. She’d already been feasting on meals prepared by Angela, who works most days at the hosiery mill but cooks and helps with the baby at night. The house held the fragrances of garden herbs and the syrup of long-simmered tomatoes.

  “Angela’s glad to have us,” Gina said. “She sings all the time.” She bent closer, whispering: “Everyone believes. They say, ‘Stefano and Gina married in secret before he died.’ Even Victor, her husband, believes.” Then she had me lean out the door and look to the border of the coal yard, to an area she called the piazza. A dozen men sat at tables, playing cards, smoking, and drinking from squat glasses. Now and then a man yelled out in Italian, and others shouted back. “Victor is there,” she said. “He is a stonemason, like my father. He is finished for this day.”

  I asked where she would keep Charlotte, so she directed me to follow her into the room off the foyer. Two cradles stood against a wall, one of them reserved for Charlotte; a bed for Gina lay alongside. I marveled at the luck of having two cradles.

  “People help us,” Gina said. “It’s good here.” Her eyes linked with mine, and we grew teary, knowing how unlikely such an outcome had appeared while we’d lived side by side.

  “I’m glad for thee.” I looked down at Charlotte. “And for her!” Our eyes caught and we embraced once more, babies clutched to our chests.

  The house was modest and clean; the air was fresh; its occupants, it seemed, were loving. All signs pointed to an excellent situation. I hated to hand Charlotte over, but hand her over I did. Gina stood on the front porch, a baby in each arm, to watch me go. My Lotte craned her head toward me, and I turned away. A sharp pang shot through my chest as I began walking alone up the dusty road toward the train. And then I heard her wail.

  I closed my eyes and asked inwardly to be informed if I was making a mistake. I waited to hear words in my mind that might come from a deeper authority than my own worries.

  “Turn back!” I expected to hear, or “Don’t leave her again!”

  No warning came.

  Fifth Month 13, First Day

  Last night’s thunderstorm brought a sparkling morning. I spent it in the kitchen garden, where the seedlings of chards and lettuces, parsley, squash, and so much else were crowded close. With the wet soil loosening their roots, it was easy to thin them, to give the remaining plants more space and light. And what a pleasure to find so much that has overwintered! We can make several soups from the parsnips, carrots, potatoes, and onions that were missed at harvest, with nothing needed from the market except bones. Frau V. said she’ll spend the savings on finer meats and poultry for the Burnhams and keep slivers for me and Margaret. I found tender leaves of spinach and chickweed, too, and new sprouts on the surviving stalks of thyme and sage. Henry balked at my milk afterward, probably because of the radishes and bitter greens I ate as I thinned.

  When I gardened at home, I often considered how the growth of plants resembles the gradual growth of the spirit. And seeing life make its way from seed to plant does bring one a glorious hope. All through the plant’s movement toward maturity, it is beautiful: adorable in its seedling state, full of promise as it sends its stalks up and out, then gorgeously fulfilled as it offers its yearly profit.

  Yet this no longer seems to me to describe the trajectory of the human spirit, which can easily be thwarted by circumstance and become warped and bitter.

  Are we so much less fortunate than plants? Or am I the warped and bitter one, who fails to see the profit in my struggles?

  Regardless, I loved much about this morning. When my hands are immersed in dirt, my mind drifts away, and my body is left to take part in the buzz of aliveness where the so-called lower creatures dwell. Today the plants and trees and dirt and rocks vibrated with that power. I felt the sap flowing in the trees, delivering its timeless message: renewal comes.

  Margaret returned from church in late afternoon, and we resumed her lessons after supper. We sat on the hooked rug in her room a dozen steps from mine. She pulled her lesson book from beneath her mattress and showed me page after page of carefully formed letters. No wonder I’ve seen light beneath her door when I rise at night. She can write all the uppercase letters now!

  When I praised her progress, she shared her intention to write not only to her oldest sister but also to Rosa—a friend in Germantown. She wants to make a sampler for her mother, too, to show how well she makes use of her time. I’ll help her choose a verse of Scripture for the bottom of it.

  We practiced the lowercase. She sounded out each letter after me, and next I had her trace each one on the page with her finger. She felt a good deal of excitement, sometimes exclaiming “Oh!” or “I wondered how that sounds!”

  Advanced composition was my forte at the Meeting school; my students, by Margaret’s age, knew their letters forward and backward and upside down. I guided them in crafting arguments, not in learning the alphabet. But teaching Margaret her letters this afternoon was equally rewarding. There was such a sweetness in guiding her hand with mine.

  Soon her hand grew tired. It’s strong and rough from hauling and scrubbing, but holding a pencil is a new kind of work. I got up to leave and noticed a drawing upon her nightstand, with “Meghan Tooley” written in neat script at its bottom.

  “My oldest sister drew that,” she told me. “She’s the one that went to school.”

  “What’s that building?” I asked.

  “The cottage where my family lives. See the stream?”

  I nodded. “How far from here?”

  “Some forty miles.”

  “Does thee miss it?”

  Her somber nod told me she did. “But I don’t miss the cotton mill.” She told me that her entire family besides her father gets up before dawn for black coffee and biscuits, then walks to the mill for eleven-hour shifts, six days a week. She did this with them from age five to eleven, which is why sometimes she coughs. “Everyone coughs,” she said, “from the fibers and dust in the air.”

  Because their combined wages had been hardly enough to feed and house them, Margaret came by train to the city, being the one among her siblings who spoke well and had the best manners by nature. She found her job with the Burnhams through an intelligence office. She sends back twelve dollars a month—most of her earnings, and more than she made at the mill—and spares her family the cost of keeping her, besides.

  Our conversation ended abruptly, for Henry called out. My time is marked in segments sized by a baby’s stomach. />
  As I nursed him, I felt glad to be in this house. Today was First Day, and I found no moments for silent waiting. But teaching Margaret was my worship.

  NOTEBOOK SIX

  Fifth Month 15

  Today we closed the windows against a heavy rain, making it an ideal time for removing the grime that wafts in from the street and covers everything. Since Margaret was already serving Clementina and two lady visitors in the parlor, in addition to her usual round of tasks, I began to do this job rather than cooking through Henry’s morning nap.

  I fetched rags, a bucket, the lamb’s-wool duster, and a feather brush and began in the dining room, making fast progress. I wiped the cherry table, the chairs, the dishes, and the sideboard. I cleaned the glass cabinet doors while peering in at charming items of painted porcelain and silver. Then I stepped into Albert’s study and lost my focus. For the basic features of the world seemed encapsulated in that room—in its collections of shells and rocks and feathers, its stuffed pheasant under a dome, its array of insects pinned to velvet trays, its foreign stamps under glass. The walls held botanical drawings, a painting of people in baggy pants hunting tigers amid odd-shaped trees and hills, and a wall hanging embroidered with an unfamiliar alphabet and roughly rendered people and animals.

  Whether these items gave evidence of an active mind and wide-ranging adventures or had merely been purchased to give such an impression, I couldn’t say. But I was enthralled. What drew me most were the things I’d spied while sitting before the hearth with Albert and Henry: the books that crammed the many shelves.