Lilli de Jong

by Janet Benton

  At the Children’s Asylum, I stepped into the glare of the white-hot sun. Along the front of the building I tried the doors; all were locked. But at the back, a high row of windows ran for thirty feet or so, and a modest tree protruded from the dirt. It offered a chance I couldn’t decline. I hiked up my gown, took hold of the dun trunk, and hauled myself to its lowest branch, then to the one above.

  If I could erase what I saw next from my mind, I would do so rather than suffer my hand to write it down. But the hollow cheeks and feeble cries of those hundred friendless persons will never leave me. It might be less cruel of the nurses to give the infants arsenic when they’re taken in, so as to let them be done sooner with their lot. Except that Charlotte is likely among them—and a few others, as Anne noted, might somehow live.

  I leaned to the windows and saw a single enormous hall with cribs in rows, holding perhaps a hundred babies, with only the littlest ones crying or moving. The rest lay silent and immobile, while their stick-like limbs and bony faces spoke volumes. Malnourished or dehydrated or diseased or all three, they looked as though they could exhale their souls with their very next breaths. Their swathing cloths were stained with spit-up, the only sign of their having been fed.

  And who was caring for these frail beings? Two debilitated women were slouched in rocking chairs at each of the hall’s four corners, and two more were seated halfway down each of the four walls. That came to sixteen—one per six or so children. A pap boat sat beside each chair, used for feeding the babies no doubt, along with a pitcher of grayish milk and a glass—probably for the women’s nutriment. The women looked into the air ahead, each with a failing baby at her breast, perhaps thinking of the men who had violated them, run off, or died, or of their own misdeeds, or of the families who were unable to help.

  My view of the large room was unimpeded, but the farthest rows of cribs were hard to make out. And with the infants swathed in coarse cloths and wearing identical brown caps, I couldn’t discern if one was Charlotte. I scanned the rows again. Was that her? No, its mouth was larger. Was that? No, its chin was pointy. Nowhere did I see her fat cheeks, her lively eyes, her red curls that shine out when light hits them. But her hair would be covered by a cap, and her fat cheeks would have at least begun to melt away. Or her body might already have been ferried across the river and sold to dissectionists.

  Dear Lord, I prayed, preserve my Charlotte.

  I felt no relief, no reassurance from these words. But I must have spoken them aloud and been heard through a window, for a nurse returning an infant to a crib looked up and spotted me.

  “What’re you doing up there?” she yelled. “Get away!” The other nurses stared with alarm in my direction.

  I scurried down the tree, catching and tearing the hem of my skirt on its trunk. My chest was so tight that I couldn’t get air. Somehow I reached the carriage. I asked the driver to bring us quickly from the premises, which he did. He stopped outside the gate for further instruction.

  Feeling as if a rock was lodged in my throat, I asked him to bring me back to the stable where I’d hired him.

  He leaned his head of dark hair toward me and tilted it in a sympathetic look. “I gather yer in a kind a trouble, ma’am. If ye’ll pay me nine dollars for all, that’ll be enough.”

  Nine dollars? On seeing my stunned face, he said he’d shaved more than a dollar from the fee to make it nine, and I had to consent. Of course I’d spend every penny and beg for more to regain Charlotte—if she remains among the living.

  I passed the ride back to Germantown in a stupor. At the stable I paid the man. As I walked away, cracks of lightning began to breach the sky, and booms of thunder answered. It was lucky that the storm kept other folks indoors, for I stumbled and keened and grew ever more despondent as I made my way toward Henry.

  When I entered the kitchen door, Margaret rushed over with Henry in her arms, saying that he wouldn’t take a bottle or stop screaming and fussing. The poor fellow grabbed me with his fists and scratched me with his fingernails while sucking at my swollen breasts. But soon he settled into a well-fed daze and slept.

  I cannot sleep. Out the oval window at the foot of my bed I see the cold moon hanging, pitted with scars from untold battles. Bathed in its glow, I send up a prayer.

  Charlotte, Charlotte, wherever thee is, please wait for me. Please live through the night. Please give me another chance to hold and kiss thee whose smells and sounds and sweetest flesh I adore, my baby.

  Sixth Month 5

  I wanted to leave for Anne’s and Blockley immediately this morning. But Miss Baker wasn’t coming in, for she had many errands in the Burnhams’ absence. And she’d given the day’s leave to Margaret, who had an invitation from her friend to a boat ride on the Delaware River. Since she’d already stayed up late to do what she’d neglected on my account yesterday, I could hardly blame her when she declined to take care of Henry again. When she left, apologetic but blushing with anticipation of her first boat ride, I said I would keep the kitchen fire going, make beef stew for our supper, and prepare two bedrooms for Clementina’s parents, who will arrive with her and Albert in coming days—we don’t know when.

  I started on these things, then cleaned and fed Henry and let him lie on a blanket and make his strong efforts to advance. But as he grunted and rocked side to side, trying to use his stomach strength to roll over, I was as impatient as I’d ever been. When he grew fussy, I laid him in his crib. Then I walked about the house like a caged beast. In room after room I shivered, unable to eat or perform more duties, trying to find something to take my mind off my dire preoccupation. Books contained indecipherable letters; even my hand stirring the stew looked foreign, like a hook or a claw. Soon I was gagging with hard sobs. Having no one in hearing distance gave free rein to my distress.

  Henry woke and cried again to eat. His call functioned as an alarm that set me into motion. I couldn’t keep hiring hacks, with only ten dollars and change remaining. So I consulted the grandfather clock in the foyer, then a printed schedule, finding that a train going to Ninth and Green was arriving soon at the Germantown depot. I counted out five dollars. That ought to pay my round-trip fare downtown, my fares on streetcars, and the almshouse charge for three days’ care—which couldn’t be more than a dollar or two.

  I tucked the money into my small purse, pulled its string to close it, and hung it about my neck. Then I did something that sickened me at heart, something I never would have done if my baby’s life wasn’t hanging in the balance: I painted laudanum, which the doctor had given me during my illness, onto my nipples, and I fed Henry from them. This way he wouldn’t know of his aloneness.

  In my anxious arms he fell into a deep and imperturbable sleep. I placed him in his crib and rushed out the door of that otherwise empty house and toward the Germantown depot.

  I realized as I ran that I’d left the stewpot on the wood stove; the fire would burn out eventually, but nevertheless the stew might turn to mush and burn before Margaret or I returned. And I was frightened by what I’d done to Henry. I’d never given anyone laudanum before, not even myself. How long would he stay asleep? Had I given him too little, leaving him to wake and cry alone? Had I given him too much? Might one dose of laudanum—it was terribly unlikely—but please, dear God…

  I reached the depot, the one near to my house, where I’d said goodbye to Johan and Peter. I barely looked about and kept shawls wrapped over my head and face, and fortunately I recognized no one among the others waiting. As I waited, the nearness of my childhood home brought on prickling sensations, perhaps not unlike what amputees feel in the areas of their missing limbs.

  On the train, after paying my fare, I checked three times that the remaining money was still in my purse. Then I focused on suppressing my panic. When at last I arrived at Anne’s, I found much to bolster me: the women had prepared Charlotte’s birth certificate and a letter attesting to my character and my being the baby’s mother, even telling of the fire and of Charlotte being
sent without my knowledge to Blockley.

  “I don’t know what good a letter from me can do,” Anne said as she handed over the envelope. “It hardly gives you the best provenance.”

  I said the letter and the birth certificate would do plenty of good—for how could the almshouse turn away a nursing mother, even an unwed one? I hugged Anne despite her stiffness. Then Delphinia saw me to the door. Unbidden, she gave me coins from her apron pocket, pressing them into my hand—27 cents—along with a buttered roll.

  “You’d best stop trying for the day,” she counseled. “Return to your work, if you intend to keep it.”

  I sighed.

  “Your little one was plump and strong when she left Gina’s?”

  I nodded.

  “She’ll stay that way a while longer.”

  “I have to try today,” I insisted. “No baby there was plump or strong.”

  Delphinia squeezed me close and nudged me through the doorway. “Godspeed to you, then.”

  I rushed toward Market Street to travel across the river, my mouth pasty from the city soot. The women’s help had lessened my fear, to the point that when I reached Market Street and stepped into a streetcar, it was with an almost jubilant air. The driver raised his reins and the horses were off, bells raucous at their necks. Then I took another streetcar to the almshouse stop and walked through the gate.

  About forty small children were running about in rough-hewn garments on a patch of ground. Their bodies looked stunted, and every face I saw had deep pockmarks, perhaps from smallpox. These were the lucky ones who had survived. With a wave I saluted their hardiness.

  I’d come to the Children’s Asylum during receiving hours and called myself an applicant, so the robust woman who answered the door let me past. In the dim foyer, I was assaulted by a distinctive smell that mixed the aromas of excrement, old shoes, sweat, boiling soup bones, rancid grease, herbal tinctures, and mentholated unguent. Breathing shallowly, I followed the woman to an antechamber where a thin young man sat at a desk. A closed door behind him bore the words VISITOR OF CHILDREN on its square of opaque glass. The fellow at the desk told me that this official was occupied but that we could start on my application. I said I sought my own baby, two months old, named Charlotte.

  He raised his chin, with its short whiskers, and appraised me as someone more income-supplying than expected. “Your own baby?” he replied. “So you left her on a doorstep with a note, and now you regret it?”

  I informed him that I’d never surrendered my baby but that she’d been sent by Germantown Hospital because they had no way to reach me. He pulled out a leather book whose cover was embossed with the words ADMISSIONS AND DISCHARGES.

  “Three days ago?” the young man asked.

  I nodded.

  “Two babies were admitted. One estimated to be two months old, the other, six months.” He cleared his throat and ran his ink-stained index finger along the columns. “The younger, number 23259, was given the name Mary Foundling.” He shut the book. “Perhaps that’s yours. But if she remains among us, I cannot say. There’s always a disease running through the nursery. Dysentery. Typhoid. Measles kills the most.” He sighed. “The coroner gives us a list on Fridays.”

  Dizzied by his litany, I held to the side of his desk.

  “You know about the charge for support?” He stared at me, then stood and fetched a chair from a wall and placed it beneath me. I sank onto it. “You know about the charge?”

  “I know about the charge,” I replied feebly.

  The door behind him opened, and from the inner office stepped a short and fleshy man. He wore a striped suit and held a gold pocket watch. “Anyone to see me?” He looked about, widening his eyes and furrowing his brow.

  I stood and followed him into his office. Its tall, opened windows let in the mooing of distant cows. The man shut the door behind us and introduced himself as Mr. Lambert.

  “Lillian de Jong.” I gave a slight bow before sitting. “All I want is my daughter, who is probably the one called Mary Foundling.” I began to pull an envelope from my pocket and saw that my hand was trembling. “I have papers showing she’s my daughter. She’s here because her wet nurse’s house—”

  “So you want special treatment.” He waved a plump-fingered hand at me.

  “No,” I said. “I only—”

  “It’s the duty of my position to see that our children are given only to respectable families or institutions. What would I tell the Board of Guardians if I didn’t give you the same treatment as others, and your character ended up being unstable, or you failed to provide Mary with the proper surroundings?”

  He gave me a vexed expression. I returned the same, observing the broken blood vessels in his nose and the glints of yellow in his eyes. He broke our stare, then shrugged. “I’m sure you’re not a bad sort. You say you’re the mother?”

  “Yes.” I handed him Charlotte’s birth certificate.

  He read a moment, then clucked as he handed it back. “There’s a father listed, but his name isn’t de Jong. Are you married?”

  I kept quiet and decided not to show Anne’s letter.

  He picked up a cigar from his desk and took it into his mouth. “Unless you have a husband, I can’t place a baby with you.”

  My hope sank with my stomach.

  “That is,” he continued, “until you’re married. Then there’d be a trial period with the child.” He lit his cigar, sucked at it, and released smoke in my direction. “You’d be visited, and reported to me for unfair treatment.” He patted his chest, then leaned forward, reducing his voice to a whisper. “Some folks’ll take foundlings and work them like slaves. We try to protect them from the worst sorts.”

  The worst sorts? As if I was one of them? I was near to screaming. I might never get through such a thicket of fools.

  “My husband died last summer in a mine accident in Easton,” I said. “All I have left is our baby.” I held back a real sob that expanded painfully in my chest. “Thee must please release her to me.”

  “So you’re a widow!” He grimaced, showing the gold in his teeth. “I’m a widower myself. And you’re a Quaker! You people have unusual ways. Is that why you didn’t take your husband’s name?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, emboldened. “We often keep our father’s surnames.”

  All of this softened his approach. “If you can pay for her keep, that’s the first thing to do. It’s two dollars for every day she’s been here.”

  I gasped.

  “Been here three days, you say. Six dollars, then, and you can take her. Providing you have a letter from your employer and can show proof of a safe habitation. Have you got that letter and that proof?”

  “Well…” I had a letter that confirmed my unwed status and no “proof of a safe habitation.”

  He consulted his gold watch. “I’ll be leaving shortly. You gather those things and return tomorrow.”

  “But tomorrow I’d owe eight dollars.”

  “That’s correct.” He showed his gold caps in a self-regarding smile, then put the cigar back in his mouth and puffed.

  “By then my baby might be dead. I have nearly five dollars in my purse. Please let me take her.”

  “She’s not yours yet.” He held the cigar between his teeth and spoke around it. “She’s the responsibility of the city. Once we’ve got your full fee and the letters, we’ll see about you taking over her care.”

  Despite the urgency of Charlotte’s plight, I saw no way around this blockade of a man. I had to return to Henry and—assuming he could be roused—to remedy his neglected condition before anyone saw that I’d left him.

  I stood, wishing I was taller. “I’ll see thee tomorrow,” I said, as if it were a threat, “and take my baby from this awful place.” Somehow I would make this true. I had to. I turned and left.

  At the almshouse gate I considered ways of traveling the seven miles or so to the Burnhams’ house. Walking would be too slow. The streetcars across the river would mo
ve quickly, but I’d have to wait for each to come, and after that, I’d be waiting for another streetcar or a train to Germantown—and all the while, Henry might be suffering. Trickles of milk traced paths down my abdomen. A laborer walked past and eyed my chest, then smirked. I looked down: my bodice was marked with two round blotches.

  I hailed a passing hack. The man drove us well and fast, and I relieved my hunger with the buttered roll from Delphinia.

  When I stepped out at the Burnhams’ driveway, a challenge ensued: the driver demanded that I pay round trip, since I’d brought him far from downtown and he’d likely have no rider on his return. He spouted rates: this much for the first two miles, that much for each added mile through four, then a different rate per mile, which came to four dollars seventy cents one way—which meant, round trip, I owed him nine dollars forty cents. He bent his wiry body toward me from his seat, the reins in his lap, counting on his begrimed fingers.

  Meanwhile, inside the house, for all I knew, Henry might have been choking on his spit-up or even passing into a comatose state.

  I raised my hand to stop the driver’s tabulations and said that he’d no doubt find a rider at the Germantown depot, as well as a watering trough for his horse. From the purse at my neck I took all the money inside—four dollars and coins. I had but five dollars remaining in my trunk. I handed the money over and began running toward the back of the mansion. He shouted after me but didn’t abandon his horse to take chase.

  I entered the dim kitchen and heard no sounds. The stew had turned to a charred mush in the cast-iron pot. I hid the pot out back, then raced up the servants’ stairs to inspect my little charge. I picked up his body, finding his bedsheet and clothing thoroughly soiled. As I cleaned him, he opened his eyes—with effort, as though the lids were heavy. When he registered my presence, hungry cries seized his frame. I sat and opened my layers, and he drank. I kissed his forehead with a hard mix of regrets: sorry to have drugged him, and sorrier still not to be holding my Lotte.