I went over to the chest of drawers and opened the bottom one. It still contained a few of Peter’s shirts; I lifted them out and placed them in the drawer above, then pulled the bottom drawer out completely, and placed it on top of the chest. ‘And Nathaniel will sleep here.’
She looked down at the drawer, without comprehending at first. Then, as my proposal dawned on her, she protested, ‘But what about soot? What about dust? Have you no cot, with draperies? And a cover you can wash? Why, this is disgusting.’ Her eyes started to fill with tears, and she looked as if she was going to fall over. ‘I had such a beautiful berceaunette for Nathaniel! It had yellow flowers, and cream lace. And my perambulator! It came from France!’
But this is Lambeth, love, I wanted to say to her, where we carry our babies, and put them in a drawer to sleep, but if they’re lucky they get a bit more love than in some other places. Not always, but sometimes.
I watched her for a while as she dried her tears on the lace edges of her sleeves, then I helped her out of her dress and into one of my nightgowns.
‘You must do something about this,’ she said, as she took her petticoats off, and pulled a bloody towel from between her legs. ‘Take it, please, and get me another one.’
I folded the towel in on itself, and put it in the chamber-pot to take downstairs. Then I pulled a flannel from the press, folded it, and handed it back to her ladyship. When she was ready, I wrapped her in a blanket, and took her out on to the landing.
‘And where is the bathroom?’
I must have looked at her blankly, for she repeated the question.
‘There’s a tap in the coal cellar,’ I said eventually, ‘and a hip-bath under the bed. If you want hot water for it, ask Pansy, but please, not on a Monday, which is wash-day.’
We went downstairs again, and I brought Lady Knightley and Lucinda a bowl of soup and some griddle-cakes, and we sat and ate in silence, watching the flames flicker, and listening to the sweet babble of Lucinda to Nathaniel. But soon the baby was crying again, and I picked him up and leant him against my shoulder to rub his back. Lucinda came over and caressed his meagre hair.
‘Maybe it’s time to feed him some more,’ I said gently.
‘I can’t bear to do it, Dora,’ Lady Knightley snapped, ‘whatever that awful woman said. Go be a love, get me a teat and a bottle from the pharmacist, and we’ll make do with that.’ I simply sat and stared at her; her child raged against my shoulder and tried to suckle first the skin on my neck, and then its own fists. It was all too much to take in. ‘Get me one, now, or I shall strike you!’
I rose to standing and felt the words come out as a shout, despite myself. ‘Strike me all you like, you’re using your own tit to feed that child!’
I handed Nathaniel to her, went to the kitchen, took the glass of breast milk off the windowsill, and found a clean tea-spoon. I wondered at myself and what had brought me to shouting at someone of her station, but my anger was still hot. And when I returned, her head was bowed and tears were dripping off the end of her nose, but her chemise was slipped down, and for a while, Nathaniel was sucking her breast with relative satisfaction and quiet. I waited until he started to cry again, and then I pulled up a chair and spooned the the milk into his mouth as his mother held him, then I made her some tea with the fenugreek, which she took obediently despite its awful taste, and we both knew the balance of power had shifted in my favour, and would stay there as long as she was under my roof.
Chapter Nineteen
Blackamoor, Taunymoor,
Suck a bubby,
Your Father’s
A Cuckold,
Your Mother Told Me.
The visit from Diprose or Pizzy never came. I wondered if they had been informed but did not care, or whether for a moment we had slipped the scrutiny of the Eeles spies. It did not much matter, either way.
Sylvia (for that is what I was now to call her) spent her first week at Ivy-street living entirely in the past or the future. The present situation and the immediate needs of her child, beyond suckling him, were lost on her. Her milk had started to flow well, and she seemed to gain some small satisfaction from the nursing, but her heavy sighs would startle the baby from his milk-filled dozes. She floated and cried, prayed and yearned, around the house; even the simplest chores seemed to perturb her. She made not a single mention of my Peter, or gave a moment’s recognition that I might wish for peace and solace in my time of mourning. She was not interested in what I did all day in the workshop, or even in meeting Din again – in fact, she did not even seem to remember he was now working for me – such was her self-obsession.