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_."
In my ignorance and simplicity this captured me completely, so I replied
at once saying I would take baby to Ilford the next day.
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.