“I need the position badly, and I’m grateful for it,” I replied.
She said she’d return to let me know when the mistress was ready to meet me. She stood a moment longer in a near-trance of fatigue, her blue eyes half closed and staring into space, before clicking back to alertness and running to whatever task I’d interrupted.
During her short absence, questions spun through my head. Was Charlotte being delivered to her nurse at that moment? What sense could she possibly make of my arms and breasts, my familiar smells and sounds, being so suddenly gone?
Soon Margaret summoned me down a flight of stairs to the doorway of a sitting room. She curtsied to the lady inside, who motioned from her desk for me to enter.
The room was lovely, with a gold velvet settee and matching chairs, tapestry-like drapes over its tall windows, and an Oriental carpet that cushioned my steps. The person behind the cherry-wood desk looked lovely, too—with refined features and a pile of light brown curls upon her head. Her clear green eyes spoke of intelligence. Yet instantly she was unpleasant toward me. She appeared no more than a few years past me in age, and she held herself erect, as any woman in a tight corset must.
“My husband says our doctor chose better this time,” she began. “So I needn’t examine you.” She observed me a moment. “You’re well dressed for household help.”
I flushed. “These clothes were donated to the—the place where I was living.”
“And where were you living?” She raised her well-shaped eyebrows.
“A lying-in hospital.”
She ought to have known this from her husband. But she raised her hands in a questioning gesture. “A hospital? Are you ill? Doctor Snowe can’t have overlooked this.”
I decided to be as blunt as she. “It was a charity for unwed mothers.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “So you’re no improvement over the other nurses. In fact, you’re worse. Two of them were widows. Our cook’s daughter is married.” She emitted an odd sound, half laugh, half snort. “Our doctor must have determined that at least your milk is pure.”
I reminded myself that I should expect no better, since I was no longer within Anne’s sheltering walls. “Yes,” I replied, nodding slightly.
The lady shrugged. “You’ll be gone before my son can even speak. I’m sure you’ll have little influence.”
I was stunned. She was dismissing the effects of my work before I’d even begun it. But I kept nodding. “Yes, madam.”
“Call me Clementina,” she said. “When someone calls me madam, I think they mean my mother.”
It was easy to perceive that vanity, not egalitarianism, motivated this request. Yet her preference served me well, since I was raised to call people by their names, not by titles.
“What’s your name?” she finally asked.
“Lillian de Jong. Usually I’m called Lilli.”
She gestured with her head toward the door. “The nursery is down the hall to the left, Lilli. Once you’ve fed the baby, go to the kitchen and ask our cook to assign your other duties.” She turned her head down to the papers spread before her, then raised it once more. “Do you wish to keep this position, Lilli?”
“Yes, Clementina,” I replied.
“Then never let my son’s cries rise to a level that disturbs me. I have a newspaper column to write nearly every day. And do as our cook tells you; don’t seek me out. If I need you, I’ll send Margaret.” Down went her head. I was dismissed.
It must pain Clementina to squeeze into a corset little more than a week after delivery, not to mention that she must be binding her breasts to stop her milk. These things might help explain her dourness. I made such excuses readily while walking down the hall—until I saw her son.
A baby’s whole body being visible at once, one can form an instant sense of its condition. And already this boy gave off an air of anxiousness and privation. He lay on his back in a finely wrought metal crib with dulled eyes and a pinched expression. The elegant petticoat and slip of white nainsook covering him couldn’t disguise his misery and lack of vigor. I leaned over the rails, and he emitted a whimper that made me lift him immediately.
I sat in the rocker and opened my clothing. A shudder passed through me as I guided his lips and mouth to my nipple. After a few seconds of fumbling, he latched on and fed.
I was as put off by the neediness of his suck as by the large size of his head, with its dark eyebrows and its nose that was far broader than Charlotte’s. He nursed more quickly than my darling and sank into oblivion. When I placed him in the crib, he didn’t startle or awaken.
I waited a moment, marveling at this simplicity, and grateful, and hoping my milk would improve his condition. Then I went off to find the cook.
Unfortunately I set her against me by descending the wide front stairs and walking through the foyer and hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. When I entered her domain, she turned an angry face my way. A stout woman of middling height, she had a ruddy complexion and thinning hair held back severely with pins and combs.
“You must,” she reprimanded—stepping back from her cast-iron pots—“use the back stairs into the kitchen. Don’t make the Burnhams see a servant unless they call for one.” She removed her thick-lensed glasses to wipe away the fog brought on by the steaming pots. She told me her name was Frau Varschen—“and that’s the only name you ought to go a’bothering.”
I focused on her stocky black shoes, my eyes stinging with tears, as I apologized for having taken the wrong stairs. “My family didn’t have servants,” I explained, “and most people we knew didn’t either.”
This made her laugh, a harsh sound that set my skin to prickling. “D’you think I learned to be a cook by having one?”
I was a fool. “What I ought to say,” I corrected with embarrassment, “is that I’m not as knowledgeable as thee about the right ways of behaving. I promise to learn quickly and to do as thee directs.”
Her irritation eased slightly. “Come find me in the kitchen or the garden when Henry sleeps. I’m here six-thirty in the morning to eight at night, every day but the Lord’s. I’ll find you a task.”
“But when can I make up for the sleep I’ll lose at night?” I asked. She wanted me to work around the clock! To mute my forwardness, I looked down at the floor’s pine planks.
“I hear you’ll be the best paid in the house,” she retorted, “and that comes with hard labor.”
She turned back to the polished stove, took up a wooden spoon in each hand, and stirred whatever filled her pots. Then she turned again to examine me, apparently perceiving my depleted condition. Exhaling through her nose and losing some of her fierceness, she pointed with an elbow toward the back stairs.
“You go settle in,” she directed. “I’ll make the soup today.”