Perry sighed dramatically and took her time arranging the milk, spoons, carafe, and teacup and saucer. Tessa loomed over her, arms crossed, breathing in and out. In Joseph’s arms, Christian began to wiggle.
He managed, “Thank you again, Perry.”
Perry bobbed a curtsy. “You’re quite welcome, Mr. Chance. And if I might say, sir, that I always knew you would return home to London and be a gentleman about the baby and Miss Tessa and want—”
“Good-bye, Perry,” intoned Tessa, reaching for her son.
She settled on the sofa and positioned the baby on her lap with his back against her chest. Clearly accustomed to this position, the baby began an insistent sort of cooing whine and reached out with his thick, pink hands.
“That’s right, Dollop,” said Tessa. “Shall we show Pap—shall we show Joseph what a very good eater you are?”
With no warning, the words,You may refer to me as Papa,formed in Joseph’s mind, but before he could say them, Tessa asked, “Can I impose on you to help? Perry is correct, it is a two-person job, I’m afraid.” She nodded to the empty spot on the sofa beside her.
Joseph sat immediately. Tessa smiled but did not look at him, deftly taking one spoon and holding it out for Christian to grab.
“Does he feed himself?” Joseph asked.
Tessa chuckled. “No, but he is more able to sit still and makes fewer swipes for my spoon when he is holding his own spoon.”
The baby extended his arm and opened chubby fingers like a fan, taking up the heavy silver. He brought the spoon immediately to his mouth and began to diligently gum the cool metal.
Next Tessa poured milk from the carafe into the teacup and set it on a saucer. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “you will hold the cup of milk close, so that I may dip my spoon into it without risking spills. When the cup is on the table, half the milk ends up on the floor. Or on me.”
“Right,” said Joseph. He watched her spread a linen napkin over the baby and herself. Christian let out a long, impatient coo.
“Dollop,” scolded Tessa gently, “can you show Joseph your very best manners?” She looked up and smiled, her blue eyes calm and clear and full of love. Joseph thought for a moment he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“Shall we?” She nodded to the teacup. Joseph offered the cup and she pooled a spoonful of milk and brought it to Christian’s mouth. Like a baby bird, Christian opened wide and watched the spoon descend. She held it to his lips, and he slurped it up with a combination of gusty sucking and Tessa tipping the milk directly into his mouth.
When the spoon was empty, she scooped another draught. The baby sat still and silent, his mouth dutifully open, watching some combination of his mother’s face and the spoon. His own decoy spoon was held tightly in his right fist like a scepter. At his side, his left hand curled tightly around Tessa’s pointer finger.
Joseph felt every perforation in his heart bleed together until the organ itself was a levitating ball of light.
“That’s right,” whispered Tessa to her son. “My hungry Dollop.” She glanced at Joseph. “It’s not the most efficient way to feed a baby, but it gets the job done.” She shook her head. “In the first days, when we could not sort out how to, er, get food to him...” She paused, looking thoughtful, the spoon halfway to the baby’s mouth. “He screamed unrelentingly, so very hungry, while I wept. Perry was frantic. The Boyds, I’m sure, were regretting taking in their niece’s pregnant friend. They sent for the doctor countless times, but his only advice was to keep trying. He felt the baby would sort out how to eat when he became hungry enough. If this did not happen, he told us we should seek out a wet nurse.” Tessa bit her lip and her eyes went misty.
The baby squawked, impatient with the story. She shook her head and spooned the milk into his mouth.
“And did you locate a wet nurse?” Joseph asked.
Tessa shook her head. “I... It sounds foolish. Selfish and risky, especially since my baby needed nourishment, but the thought of another woman, someone more experienced at motherhood than I, living here with us and feeding my son in such an intimate way...? I could not countenance it. I knew so very little about how to care for him, I worried that some other mother would, in a way, replace me. I’d already been through so much to have him and to have him properly. To be married, to give him a proper surname. I was determined to be his mother in every way.”
Joseph considered this, considered what she had been through. Her family was lost to her, certainly. And her life as a carefree young belle was over. But did she also mean she’d had to give up Joseph?
He asked, “Who devised the spoon?”
“Perry’s mother,” she laughed. “Can you believe it? All the way back in Surrey.” She shook her head wistfully as if the story had happened to someone else.
“It is safe to say that Icannotbelieve it,” Joseph said in a strangled voice. How had he not thought of her, struggling alone in London while he bemoaned his broken heart in Barbadoes?
Tessa went on. “Sabine set out for home on horseback. Don’t worry, we sent her with two of the Boyds’ grooms. She is an excellent rider and we felt she could make Surrey in a day.”
“I’ve no doubt, but why seek help from so far away?”
Tessa shrugged. “Of course there were midwives throughout London who might advise us, but we didn’t know who we could trust. God help us, we were so adrift, but Perry kept assuring us that her mam would know exactly what to do. It’s one of those frantic moments where the most familiar way seems the best, even if it is more complicated.”
Tessa sighed and sat back. “Perry’s mother, thank heavens, sent Sabine back with instructions for exactly what to do. She described how her daughter’s infants had been fed, first by sucking a cloth dipped in milk and then, when they can hold up their heads, with a spoon.” She smiled down at Christian. “And that’s what we did, isn’t it, Dollop?”
The baby held open his tiny bird mouth for the next spoonful.
