The Endless Forest
Page 171
“Tobacco? Laudanum?”
Finally Mrs. Wilde leans back in her chair, her lips pursed while she thinks. With her right hand she strokes the silk embroidery on the arm of her chair.
“Well,” she says with a grimace. “Sugar water only goes so far. You’ll have to do. Go wait in the kitchen until Marjory comes to fetch you.”
There is no talk of salary or sleeping quarters, but those things can wait. She dare not make a sound that might change Mrs. Wilde’s mind.
The servant called Marjory brings the infant to her in the kitchen. It looks like all new infants, its crumpled napkin of a face blotched bright red. It mewls like a kitten and then breaks into a thin cry. With trembling hands Lorena begins to undo her dress, but Marjory stops her with a sharp word.
“No time for that. The coach waiting.”
She tells Lorena to bring her satchel, and leads her out into the rear courtyard where a coach is indeed waiting. The baby starts to cry in earnest. Lorena knows she should be asking questions, but she is so hungry and Marjory has put two baskets in the coach. From one comes the smells of roasted meat and new bread.
As the coach makes its way through the lanes Lorena looks to the child, who latches on to her breast with a furious purpose. Her bodice soaked with milk, she can no longer ignore her own hunger. With her free hand she reaches into the food basket. The bread is rough and dry, the mutton burned on the outside and blood-red at the bone, but she fills her stomach, pausing only long enough to burp the child and put him to her other breast. There is a bottle of elderberry water in the basket too, and Lorena finishes it off in three long swallows.
The child is asleep at her breast, its cheeks still working. There is the distinct smell of soiled clouts, and at that moment Lorena realizes she doesn’t know if this is a boy or a girl, or what name she should call it. In the half hour of talk in Mrs. Wilde’s parlor, she had said not one word about this baby.
There are fresh clouts in the basket, and she sets about undressing the baby.
A boy.
Lorena’s breath catches in her throat, in sorrow, in relief. When she puts this baby to the breast she might, one day, be able to put aside the memory of her own child.
When they stop to change horses Lorena learns that the driver knows no more than she does. He was hired only a few hours earlier, and his instructions are brief: He is to take the wet nurse and her burden to a house in Banfield, next to the Congregational Church, where Reverend TenHouten is expecting them. The rest Lorena can reckon for herself. She has been sent away from the city to take up the work of raising this unnamed, unwanted burden of a child who was most likely born on the same day, maybe in the same hour, as her own daughter.
He yawns, the silky white cheeks rounding like pillows, and Lorena wonders who she is weeping for.
Callie’s color had risen while Lorena talked. She had folded her hands on the table, but still they trembled. “Do you mean to say Jemima had nothing to do with raising him? It was all you?”
“Reverend TenHouten was kind. Nicholas thinks of him as an uncle.”
“But what of the baby’s name? He went almost ten years without a name?”
“Reverend TenHouten wrote to Boston and got a letter back saying we were to call the boy Nicholas.”
For once Ethan’s calm seemed on the verge of deserting him. “Jemima?”
Lorena’s brow lowered. “After the interview in Boston I never saw her again until the first of this year. First thing, she introduces Mr. Focht, says she’s remarried.”
There were so many questions to ask, Elizabeth could hardly order them in her mind. The others were not so hampered, and Lorena answered them one by one with a dignified calm.
“So you kept house for this minister—”
“TenHouten,” Lorena supplied. “A widower. I cooked and washed and kept his garden for him because he couldn’t anymore.”
“Wasn’t Nicholas frightened when Jemima showed up at your door? Had you told him about her?” Elizabeth asked.
“Of course I had,” Lorena said. “I told him everything I knew about his mother.”
“But you didn’t know if she was his mother,” Callie said. “You still don’t know. He could have been hers or some child she got out of the almshouse nursery.”
Lorena inclined her head, to acknowledge that Callie was right; there was no direct proof that the boy was in fact Jemima’s son by Callie’s father.
“What happened next?” Elizabeth asked.
Lorena was studying the table linen, her eyes tracing the pattern woven into the damask.
“They wanted to take Nicholas with them, to travel, they said. And they asked me along because Nicholas wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Ethan said, “Lorena, what do you know of Jemima’s plans? Why she brought him here just now, and what she hopes to gain.”
“They never talked about anything in my hearing,” Lorena said. “But they did talk in front of the other servants. The Africans, and Harper.”
That name hung in the air for a long moment.
“What did Harper know?”
“I don’t know. I never heard him talking about the orchard or apples or any bleeding heart.”
Levi put a hand on her shoulder in a gesture as simple and intimate as a kiss. He caught Elizabeth’s eye, his expression resolute. He was claiming Lorena as his own, which must be a good thing for them both, but was likely to confuse things even further before the current problem could be sorted through.
Finally Mrs. Wilde leans back in her chair, her lips pursed while she thinks. With her right hand she strokes the silk embroidery on the arm of her chair.
“Well,” she says with a grimace. “Sugar water only goes so far. You’ll have to do. Go wait in the kitchen until Marjory comes to fetch you.”
There is no talk of salary or sleeping quarters, but those things can wait. She dare not make a sound that might change Mrs. Wilde’s mind.
The servant called Marjory brings the infant to her in the kitchen. It looks like all new infants, its crumpled napkin of a face blotched bright red. It mewls like a kitten and then breaks into a thin cry. With trembling hands Lorena begins to undo her dress, but Marjory stops her with a sharp word.
“No time for that. The coach waiting.”
She tells Lorena to bring her satchel, and leads her out into the rear courtyard where a coach is indeed waiting. The baby starts to cry in earnest. Lorena knows she should be asking questions, but she is so hungry and Marjory has put two baskets in the coach. From one comes the smells of roasted meat and new bread.
As the coach makes its way through the lanes Lorena looks to the child, who latches on to her breast with a furious purpose. Her bodice soaked with milk, she can no longer ignore her own hunger. With her free hand she reaches into the food basket. The bread is rough and dry, the mutton burned on the outside and blood-red at the bone, but she fills her stomach, pausing only long enough to burp the child and put him to her other breast. There is a bottle of elderberry water in the basket too, and Lorena finishes it off in three long swallows.
The child is asleep at her breast, its cheeks still working. There is the distinct smell of soiled clouts, and at that moment Lorena realizes she doesn’t know if this is a boy or a girl, or what name she should call it. In the half hour of talk in Mrs. Wilde’s parlor, she had said not one word about this baby.
There are fresh clouts in the basket, and she sets about undressing the baby.
A boy.
Lorena’s breath catches in her throat, in sorrow, in relief. When she puts this baby to the breast she might, one day, be able to put aside the memory of her own child.
When they stop to change horses Lorena learns that the driver knows no more than she does. He was hired only a few hours earlier, and his instructions are brief: He is to take the wet nurse and her burden to a house in Banfield, next to the Congregational Church, where Reverend TenHouten is expecting them. The rest Lorena can reckon for herself. She has been sent away from the city to take up the work of raising this unnamed, unwanted burden of a child who was most likely born on the same day, maybe in the same hour, as her own daughter.
He yawns, the silky white cheeks rounding like pillows, and Lorena wonders who she is weeping for.
Callie’s color had risen while Lorena talked. She had folded her hands on the table, but still they trembled. “Do you mean to say Jemima had nothing to do with raising him? It was all you?”
“Reverend TenHouten was kind. Nicholas thinks of him as an uncle.”
“But what of the baby’s name? He went almost ten years without a name?”
“Reverend TenHouten wrote to Boston and got a letter back saying we were to call the boy Nicholas.”
For once Ethan’s calm seemed on the verge of deserting him. “Jemima?”
Lorena’s brow lowered. “After the interview in Boston I never saw her again until the first of this year. First thing, she introduces Mr. Focht, says she’s remarried.”
There were so many questions to ask, Elizabeth could hardly order them in her mind. The others were not so hampered, and Lorena answered them one by one with a dignified calm.
“So you kept house for this minister—”
“TenHouten,” Lorena supplied. “A widower. I cooked and washed and kept his garden for him because he couldn’t anymore.”
“Wasn’t Nicholas frightened when Jemima showed up at your door? Had you told him about her?” Elizabeth asked.
“Of course I had,” Lorena said. “I told him everything I knew about his mother.”
“But you didn’t know if she was his mother,” Callie said. “You still don’t know. He could have been hers or some child she got out of the almshouse nursery.”
Lorena inclined her head, to acknowledge that Callie was right; there was no direct proof that the boy was in fact Jemima’s son by Callie’s father.
“What happened next?” Elizabeth asked.
Lorena was studying the table linen, her eyes tracing the pattern woven into the damask.
“They wanted to take Nicholas with them, to travel, they said. And they asked me along because Nicholas wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Ethan said, “Lorena, what do you know of Jemima’s plans? Why she brought him here just now, and what she hopes to gain.”
“They never talked about anything in my hearing,” Lorena said. “But they did talk in front of the other servants. The Africans, and Harper.”
That name hung in the air for a long moment.
“What did Harper know?”
“I don’t know. I never heard him talking about the orchard or apples or any bleeding heart.”
Levi put a hand on her shoulder in a gesture as simple and intimate as a kiss. He caught Elizabeth’s eye, his expression resolute. He was claiming Lorena as his own, which must be a good thing for them both, but was likely to confuse things even further before the current problem could be sorted through.
