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The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. I Am Lost - Chapter 91 |
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_ SIXTH PART. I AM LOST NINETY-FIRST CHAPTER
I told her of the dimness of my sight and the aching of my eyeballs, whereupon she held up her hands and cried: "There now! What did I tell you? Didn't I say it is _after_ a lady feels it?" The moral of her prediction was that, being in a delicate state of health, and having "let myself low" before baby was born, it was my duty to wean her immediately. I could not do it. Although the nurse's advice was supported by my Welsh landlady (with various prognostications of consumption and rickets), I could not at first deny myself the wild joy of nursing my baby. But a severer monitor soon came to say that I must. I found that my money was now reduced to little more than two pounds, and that I was confronted by the necessity (which I had so long put off) of looking for employment. I could not look for employment until I had found a nurse for my child, and I could not find a nurse until my baby could do without me, so when Isabel was three weeks old I began to wean her. At first I contented myself with the hours of night, keeping a feeding-bottle in bed, with the cow's milk warmed to the heat of my own body. But when baby cried for the breast during the day I could not find it in my heart to deny her. That made the time of weaning somewhat longer than it should have been, but I compromised with my conscience by reducing still further my meagre expenses. Must I tell how I did so? Although it was the month of July there was a snap of cold weather such as sometimes comes in the middle of our English summer, and yet I gave up having a fire in my room, and for the cooking of my food I bought a small spirit stove which cost me a shilling. This tempted me to conduct which has since had consequences, and I am half ashamed and half afraid to speak of it. My baby linen being little I had to wash it frequently, and having no fire I . . . dried it on my own body. Oh, I see now it was reckless foolishness, almost wilful madness, but I thought nothing of it then. I was poor and perhaps I was proud, and I could not afford a fire. And then a mother's love is as deep as the sea, and there was nothing in the wide world I would not have done to keep my darling a little longer beside me. Baby being weaned at last I had next to think of a nurse, and that was a still more painful ordeal. To give my child to another woman, who was to be the same as a second mother to her, was almost more than I could bear to think about. I _had_ to think of it. But I could only do so by telling myself that, when I put baby out to nurse, I might arrange to see her every morning and evening and as often as my employment permitted. This idea partly reconciled me to my sacrifice, and I was in the act of drawing up a newspaper advertisement in these terms when my landlady came to say that the nurse knew of somebody who would suit me exactly. Nurse called the same evening and told me a long story about her friend. She was a Mrs. Oliver, and she lived at Ilford, which was at the other end of London and quite on the edge of the country. The poor woman, who was not too happily married, had lost a child of her own lately, and was now very lonely, being devoted to children. This pleased me extremely, especially (God forgive me!), the fact that Mrs. Oliver was a bereaved mother and lived on the edge of the country. Already in my mind's eye I saw her sitting on sunny days under a tree (perhaps in an orchard) with Isabel in her arms, rocking her gently and singing to her softly, and almost forgetting that she was not her own baby whom she had lost . . . though that was a two-edged sword which cut me both ways, being a sort of wild joy with tears lurking behind it. So I took a note of Mrs. Oliver's address (10 Lennard's Row, Lennard's Green, Ilford) and wrote to her the same night, asking her terms and stating my own conditions. A reply came the following day. It was a badly-written and misspelt letter, which showed me that Mrs. Oliver must be a working woman (perhaps the wife of a gardener or farm-labourer, I thought), though that did not trouble me in the least, knowing by this time how poor people loved their children. "The terms is fore shillins a weke," she wrote, "but i am that lonelie sins my own littel one lef me i wood tike your swete darling for nothin if I cud afford it and you can cum to see her as offen as you pleas."
I did all this in a rush, but when it came to the last moment I could scarcely part with my letter, and I remember that I passed three pillar-boxes in the front street before I could bring myself to post it. I suppose my eyes must have been red when I returned home, for my Welsh landlady (whom I had taken into my confidence about my means) took me to task for crying, telling me that I ought to thank God for what had happened, which was like a message from heaven, look you, and a dispensation of Providence. I tried to see things in that light, though it was difficult to do so, for the darker my prospects grew the more radiant shone the light of the little angel by whose life I lived, and the harder it seemed to live without her. "But it isn't like losing my child altogether, is it?" I said. "'Deed no, and 'twill he better for both of you," said my landlady. "Although Ilford is a long way off I can go there every day, can't I'!" "'Deed thee can, if thee'st not minding a journey of nine miles or more." "And if I can get a good situation and earn a little money I may be able to have baby back and hire somebody to nurse her, and so keep her all to myself." "And why shouldn't thee?" said my Welsh landlady. "Thee reading print like the young minister and writing letters like a copybook!" So in the fierce bravery of motherly love I dried my eyes and forced back my sobs, and began to pack up my baby's clothes, and to persuade myself that I was still quite happy. My purse was very low by this time. After paying my rent and some other expenses I had only one pound and a few shillings left. _ |
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