Emmeline shook her head and pressed her dry lips closed.
Where this urge came from I don’t know, for I’d never bribed a soul—but I rose from bed with Charlotte clutched to my chest, and with my free hand I took a dollar from my purse. I proffered it to Emmeline. Her eyes grew large, but she snatched the bill and pushed it into her dress. Like a mouthful of oil, that dollar greased her tongue.
“I shouldn’t tell ye,” she said, “and ye mustn’t tell Mrs. Pierce.”
I gave a solemn nod of agreement. “I’ll be grateful for any advice thee can share.”
She moved closer to me and whispered. “I visit once a year till each child reaches the age of independence. Most of our families do their children justice. But the things I’ve seen with them bastards, miss, would give you chills. Oh, those families claim they’ll treat ’em fair. But they haven’t the money to feed their own flesh and blood. No, there’s no charity in taking a bastard. They see the chance for free labor, which is the entire reason they’ll take it.”
“Free labor?” I said. “From a baby?” Charlotte gave an exhalation, and dampness seeped through her clothing to my forearms.
“Oh, they’ll grow up right quick.” She joined her hands, stretched out her knobby arms, and cracked her fingers. From the pocket of her skirt she removed a wad of tobacco. With this tucked in her cheek, she leaned her bony frame forward again. “I’m only saying this once and shouldn’t say it at all. They’ll feed the babe enough to keep it alive and give it clothes. But once it can push a broom or clean a stall or hold a needle, they’ll make it work. No wages or schooling, and they’ll beat it for any sign of gumption.” She paused to suck at her tobacco, then added in a deeper tone, “Mind ye, we do get better families wanting a baby. But what can ye expect for a bastard?”
She stood and spit into the sink. The powdery smell of Charlotte’s skin and the urine in her diaper mingled with the bittersweet reek of tobacco juice.
“Can’t thee find a better family for her?” I begged. And then, “I have more money.” I quelled the sob in my chest.
“There’s no use in asking to be treated different from the rest.” She indicated Charlotte with a jab of her chin. “Who’ll take such a one as that, if they want to raise a lady or a gent?”
Such a one as that! About my Charlotte!
It had been one thing to consider keeping my baby in a surge of honesty, despite the promise of her rose-colored future with another family. It was quite another to discover that her life would be disgraced and impoverished without me. The lump in my throat descended to my gut, as if I’d swallowed a rock. My next words came out small and pinched. “Is it best that I not give her away?”
“Not if ye care that much, miss.” Emmeline shook her head with vigor. “It’d make no sense to give the baby over, not a whit.”
She waited for a reply. Receiving none, she bowed to me and left. Soon after, I received a visit from Anne, which I experienced as a fleeting dream.
Few people will have the strength to associate with you, Anne said.
Should I care more for being liked than for being true?
How can you hold on to your misfortune? she asked.
I leaned to kiss my baby’s forehead and to inhale her elusive scent.
Thee is no misfortune, Charlotte. Thee is a blessing.
Fourth Month 17
Between changing, nursing, holding, and tidying up, it’s a wonder I can write. But I need to decide where to go, because I can’t go home.
Some na?ve, good-hearted person might tell me to try. But my status would threaten Father’s livelihood, not to mention that Patience despises me already; imagine how her cruelty would grow if I disgraced her house. And I couldn’t bear to see Father’s belief in my goodness vanish with his first sight of my baby. Besides, Patience would never let me stay.
No. With grief eating at my heart, I decided to ask Anne how I might obtain a sewing machine. I could easily make clothes, I figured—plain ones, at least—and support Charlotte and myself in this way.
Anne was out, but Delphinia obliged me with a consultation. I sat on the bench with Charlotte, who stared through the many-paned window at the falling rain.
“What can I do for you, dear?” The matron peered across the desk at me, giving off a hint of irritation. Her deeply lined face was surrounded in a halo of white hair. It occurred to me that she must be very tired from caring for the inmates here, and that my change of plans had strained her further. Quietly I told her I’d decided to become a sewing woman and asked whether she knew how I might obtain a machine.
“You can apply to a ladies’ aid society for a grant,” she said. “I’ll give you an address. However, sewing work pays poorly. Many a widow has failed to feed her children through it.”
“I could work in a garment factory,” I offered. “Then I’d earn better.”
Delphinia sighed. She rested her elbows on the paper-piled desk, then propped her chin on her upraised fingers. “Would you, then? Do you have any idea what that entails?”
“I don’t,” I admitted.
“You’d work twelve-hour days, six or seven days a week. You’d be made to buy your own needles and thread from your employer. Docked pay or even beaten for speaking a word to another worker or for arriving a minute late. And paid barely enough to buy the meanest food and rent a corner of some dirty, shared room.”
I stared in reply. Her face was warm with passion.
“Where would you keep your baby?” she asked, baiting me.
I was quiet.
“One young woman left this place determined to support herself and her baby through factory work. The wages were too low for her to place her baby with a wet nurse, so she tried day boarding. Do you know what that is?”
“No.” My hold on Charlotte tightened.
“Her baby spent its days with an impoverished grandmother who sat on a stoop and watched hordes of children go at their mischief. The babies sucked on rags soaked in sugar water and laudanum, which makes babies sleepy and takes away their appetite.” Her face grew stiff. “Without the milk it needed in the day, that baby died within weeks of leaving here.”
“The poor thing!” My heart contracted.
“Not actually.” Her voice lowered. “The babies who live will learn to crawl. This means, if there’s no money to pay for day boarding, their mothers have to tie their legs to a table or some other heavy thing before leaving them in their sordid lodging. Do you know the reason?”
I shook my head.
“So they won’t get burned on the stove or climb out a window while their mothers are at their factory shifts.” Delphinia stood and came around the desk to plant her sturdy frame before me, perhaps to increase the effect of her words. “So if you worked at a factory,” she continued, “your baby would spend most days without your milk, either at day boarding or bound to a plank and placed upon the highest shelf.”