Read Online The Wet Nurse's Tale by Erica Eisdorfer - Free Book Online

her first baby, a wee little thing. And that’s why I’m here. He needs a nursey, for she,” and here she lowered her voice, “she can’t provide for him from herself. I heard that a nurse for hire lived here and that’s why I’ve come.”
    “Oh, Mrs. Potts,” said my mother, “I’m afraid you’re too late, by a year or more. I’ve all dried up.”
    “But what about she?” said Mrs. Potts, pointing straight at me. “She could.”
    It so happens that Joey had been sleeping for some time, and I had leaked along my front, as will happen when the vessels are all full and in need of emptying. And it happens also that I’d been thinking just that: that as I seemed to have more than enough for my own baby, it would hurt no one were I to share it with another baby who might need it. I had even said as much to my mother after a week or two of feeding Joey. “Mother,” I’d said, “now that I’ve caught on to it, I could do as you did.” My father had heard me say it and since then his mean words had tamed some, imagining the extra shillings I could draw, I suppose.
    “Yes,” he jumped in quick, “couldn’t you, Susan m’dear.”
    I threw him a look for the sweet words where there hadn’t been any in so long and came forward. “Yes, ma’am,” said I. “I’m sure I’d have enough.”
    “Well,” said Mrs. Potts, “and what would your husband say, though? Would he mind?”
    “He died,” I said as quick as I could. I said it too quick, and it made her look at me quite sharp, but she hadn’t said that she wanted a saint for her mistress’s baby, had she.
    “Ah,” said she. “A shame. Well, as the baby needs a nurse, and as you seem quite clean and very healthy, well, I think you’ll do. They’ll pay nicely, a pound a month, minus tea and sugar.”
    “A pound!” said my father, though I winced at him saying it. “The rates has risen!”
    Mrs. Potts nodded at him. “And I’ll see to it myself that she’s fed well.”
    My mother and I looked at each other, confused.
    My father replied in his gruff manner, “She’ll eat what we eat. I’ve provided well enough for my family these long years: Susan needs nothing more than my wife had and she was nurse for a faggot a years.”
    “Yes,” said my mother smiling, “ever so many.”
    Now Mrs. Potts looked confused and then suddenly, she understood something that we had not. “Oh, Mrs. Rose,” said she to my mother. “Now I see what’s befuddling us. The girl is to come with me. I’m to take her to Aubrey. The Holcombs wish for a nurse to live in their home. It’s the style now, you know, and there’s no worry for them, as to the cost of the thing.”
    “But,” I said right off, “what about Joey? He’ll need me for ever so long, still.”
    “You’re going, girl,” said my father. “Don’t try to wriggle out of it.”
    Mrs. Potts looked back at me. “How old’s the mite?” she asked, and when I told her she wrinkled her brow. “Well, yes,” she said, “that’s young but he can be hand-fed, can he not?”
    “Mother,” I said, turning, “Mother, you know it’s too soon to leave him. You know that.”
    “Yes, dear,” she said, “but a whole pound . . . and now that you’re not at the Great House . . .”
    “Mother,” I said. “But how will he live?”
    And then it was I made my mistake. “Father,” I said, though I oughtn’t to have done it, “you’re soft for Joey. You don’t want to see him without his mother, surely? How will he live?”
    At that, his eyes hardened. “He’ll live,” he said. I could tell it: if Mrs. Potts weren’t in the room, I’d already have a black’d eye. “Didn’t you hear your mother? She said she’d feed him by hand.”
    “Well,” said Mrs. Potts, standing from her chair, “I’ll be at my aunt’s house for two days more. I leave on the Thursday coach. You can make up your own minds, but, girl,” and here she looked me in the eye, “it’s not often you’ll have the