As I did, Charlotte turned her round face in my direction and opened her mouth in a cry.
Anne spoke to the men. “I’ll take the infant to Miss Partridge, our matron. She can distract her till you’re through.” She began to step out, then said over Charlotte’s wails, “Miss de Jong is not above hard work, despite her level of education. We require it here.”
With that she carried Charlotte away. The doctor shut the door and moved toward the bench where I sat.
“Just how much education do you have? What subjects did you teach?” He formed his lips into a prune.
“Twelve years of schooling and two years’ training for my work. I taught rhetoric and composition.”
He pulled his head backward on his neck and complained into the ear of his client: “Too much learning agitates a woman’s mind and brings unquietness to her milk.” Then, to me: “One doesn’t expect to find your type in such an institution.”
I nodded, familiar with his fondness for types.
He peered at me. “Are you willing to work as a household servant and get no special treatment?”
“Yes.” That was obviously the correct answer. It seemed I wouldn’t be receiving the consideration and fine foods Delphinia had predicted.
“Well, you’re of good stock,” he summarized, looking over his notes. “Possessed of a fine pink complexion and a full head of hair. Evidently you’re amply supplied with milk, as the infant has grown portly in a short time. The deposits of subcutaneous fat are impressive. And your milk is young.” To his employer he said, “Since her baby is a mere week older, Henry will get the rich milk suited to his age. He needs that to increase his weight.”
The other man grew somber at the mention of his son’s condition.
“But we need to be certain of her milk’s quality,” the doctor said. “There’s a life at stake. We’ll need to examine her mammary glands and take a milk sample with a pump. I’ll bring it to the hospital for a microscopic inspection.”
To his credit, the father reddened—as did I. By this time I was holding my arms at a slight distance from my front, for my milk was wetting my underlayers, and I didn’t want to push my bodice against them and make the wetness visible.
“Is that necessary? The baby gives us proof,” said Albert.
Then we heard quick footsteps, and with a swish of skirts Anne entered. She asked the state of our proceedings with a prim demeanor, and the doctor desisted from his last pursuit. Instead, he cleared his throat. “May I have this young woman’s medical records?”
Anne unlocked the cabinet with current records and handed him a slim folder. He perused the pages and looked at me.
“All’s in order,” he said. “Have you nursed any babies besides your own?”
“No,” I replied.
“Why do you ask this?” said Anne, her dark eyebrows rising.
“Anyone engaged in charitable work with infants ought to know that babies can carry syphilis from their mothers.” He raised a hand to twirl a tip of his moustache as he spoke. “With their wet little mouths on their nurse’s nipples, they pass the disease along.”
“I’m aware of that,” Anne said. “But I know how to examine the infants.”
“Oh, do you?” Dr. Snowe snorted. “Then you ought to teach the medical profession. We can’t yet claim such certainty.”
Anne fumed. I thanked Charlotte silently for her nursing rigor, since it had spared me from taking on a foundling.
“I presume, Doctor,” Anne said, “you have ensured that your charge has no diseases to pass to Miss de Jong.” She pressed her wide lips closed.
I heard his answer gratefully. “I’ve been his mother’s doctor for many years, and through the pregnancy and delivery. There’s no possibility of contagion.”
Outside, a church bell rang four times. Drops of milk trickled to my stomach. The doctor’s expression changed to one of sympathy.
“I have one more question,” he said to me. “What brought you to this reduced condition?”
Anne coughed once into her hand; I turned to the window. Two jet-black crows pecked among the roots of a tree. Crows can live a hundred years, some in devoted pairs.
“I was betrayed,” I whispered.
“What? Speak up!” said Dr. Snowe.
My shout came fierce and guttural. “I was betrayed!”
The doctor blanched and pressed no further. Albert Burnham looked at the floor, his face abruptly stiff—as if he might have betrayed a girl or two himself. Then he leaned to the doctor and gave his consent.
“We’ll hire her, then,” the doctor told Anne. “Twenty-five dollars a month.”
What a fortune! Anne looked to me. Speedily I consented. The doctor pulled from his jacket an agreement for Albert Burnham and me to sign in duplicate. I had no chance to read it, for Delphinia’s quick footsteps and Charlotte’s wails were coming near, but at my word, Anne signed in my place. Then the matron burst in with Charlotte, and I stayed behind while the men were escorted out.
To what exactly had I consented? As I nursed, I read the agreement. I was surprised to see that the family would pay the Haven a placement fee of thirty dollars, which might help explain Anne’s and Delphinia’s eagerness to move me toward such work. Also I’m to have cleaning and cooking duties in the Burnham household. And the agreement lists two addresses: one downtown, on Pine Street, and the other in the Tulpehocken section of Germantown, to which we’ll go for summer—less than half a mile from my home. I could be spied by someone I know! Worse yet is this: I can only visit Charlotte once a week—and not at all for the first two weeks.
Oh—and I’m to begin tomorrow.
I must be grateful and not afraid! So much is going smoothly. Delphinia even said she’ll bring Charlotte to a wet nurse herself. She hopes it will be a young woman who gave birth here several months ago, who lives in an area of squat row-houses south of Rittenhouse Square, not a dozen blocks from the Burnhams. Her mother allowed her to come back home with her baby, and she’s taking in others.
“She’s not refined,” Delphinia told me. “But she has a gentle way.”
When tears escaped my eyes, Delphinia patted my shoulder and echoed Anne’s earlier assurances. “Don’t fret, Lilli. Anyone can care for them at this age. It makes no difference to the babies.”
*
Charlotte has just gotten her last bath at her mother’s hands. No, not her last—only for six months or so, until I’ve saved enough to lease a sewing machine and a room. She’s nursing at my left side now, warming me with her still-damp flesh, which makes me think of rising dough.