“Yes, and I appreciate your stepping in to assist when I was not available. But I can check on Miss Smith and the others.”
“Daniel, I have not felt this good, this useful, in a long time.”
“Yes, I am sure. But remember, I agreed to take your place with the condition that you would stay home and ... get better.”
“Get sober, you mean.”
Daniel sighed.
“I am sober, Daniel. Have been for some time. I am ready to return.”
“I am glad, Father. I am. But for how long? This institution operates on public funding. We cannot afford any more pocks on its reputation.” His father’s pained expression lanced his conscience. “Father, I did not mean ...”
But the older man was already walking past him down the corridor, a bit less steady on his legs than he seemed only moments before.
Lord Clarendon, British foreign secretary, reported that Queen Victoria
was hostile to maternal breastfeeding. “Our Gracious Mistress,” Lord
Clarendon wrote, “is still frantic with her two daughters
making cows of themselves.”
—JUDITHSCHNEIDLEWIS,IN THEFAMILYWAY
CHAPTER12
When Charlotte first attempted to nurse her son, she quickly realized it wasn’t as easy as it appeared to be. As Sally helped her position her baby, and herself, she felt awkward and humiliated. When Sally then showed her how to coax the child’s small mouth open and compress her flesh to fit more fully inside, she was quite relieved no one else was in the room, that she had her private room at last.
She was just beginning to think she’d been dreadfully wrong in insisting she nurse her babe herself when finally, wonder of wonders, he latched on with a lusty mouthful and began suckling greedily. Seems they’d both figured it out at about the same time. Charlotte giggled with relief and satisfaction, and Sally smiled at her in return.
“There you are now—that’s how ’tis done. You shall be an old hand in no time, just like me.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to say she had no plans to become an experienced wet nurse as Sally was, but she thought better of it. She smiled at Sally instead.
“You have been such a help to me. To us.”
Us... the single syllable was an unexpected salve to her soul. She who had lost her family now had her own. The memory of birthing pains began fading more rapidly at the thought.
“Well, I’d better toddle back to the ward. Just you let me know if you ’ave any trouble, Miss Charlotte.”
“Thank you.”
Sally left, closing the door softly behind her.
Charlotte closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured, but she was no longer thanking Sally.
Her son suckled a few minutes more, his pink-fair skin and red lips bowed over her white bosom. His little hands, which had bundled into fists, now relaxed open. Eyes closed, he fell asleep, his mouth popping off in a wet sigh of satisfaction.
“My sentiments exactly,” she whispered and held him close. She leaned down and kissed his temple with the fine, downy brown hair. She studied his profile. So like his father. Was it possible for an infant to so resemble a man, or was she imagining it?
“If circumstances were different I should have named you for him. But as it is ...”
Tears filled her eyes and, though she squeezed them shut, hot wet streaks escaped and seared paths down her cheeks, alongside her nose, rolling under her chin.
Oh, dear God,she silently entreated.Please, please make a way. I know I do not deserve your mercy, but this little one does. Please watch over him. Please show me how to provide for him—make a life for him. I cannot do it without you. Please, make a way.
Daniel sat on the periphery of a group of gentlemen. The club was busy this night. He had met with the secretary of the Manor Home for Unwed Mothers earlier about the reduced funding over the last six months and possible ways to cut expenses. One of Daniel’s least favorite topics. The man had just bid him good evening and Daniel drank the last of his tea, somehow enjoying the disjointed hum and drone of deep male conversation though not participating himself.
