by Alison Case
Dr Perkins was of the opinion that the fittest nourishment for most infants was to be had at their mother’s breast, and that ‘too often’ a wet nurse was engaged from ‘mere vanity of figure’ on the mother’s part or a ‘selfish desire of convenience’ on the father’s. However, he allowed as how there were instances when, ‘for reasons of health or through the intervention of tragedy’, this nourishment was unavailable. In that case, he said, the task of hand-feeding an infant should be delegated to ‘a responsible woman of cleanly habits, firmly attached to the household and the family’, who could be trusted to follow religiously the procedures he outlined in the remainder of the booklet.
Now at last we came to what I needed to know, instructions for the feeding of infants from birth through their first year, with recipes for the appropriate mixture of milky, sweetened pabulum needed at each period of their growth. Throughout, Dr Perkins laid a great emphasis on the importance of ‘scrupulous cleanliness’, as in the scouring and scalding of all utensils and containers with every use. This was very much like what I had already learned at the dairy, where the slightest failing on that front could turn the milk so that the butter would not come, and I had long prided myself on my success in that area, so I felt confident that I could manage it. Still and all, the milk pans only required cleaning once or twice a week, while the infant would need to be fed every few hours for months yet. I was lucky, I reflected, that he had been born in early summer, as it meant that my late-night risings to creep downstairs and prepare his feedings would not be too chilly, nor very dark either, for in fact we have but little darkness at that time of year.
Mrs Earnshaw wanted to name the child Fredrick, which had been her father’s name, but Hindley said that all the Earnshaw men must have names beginning with H, that it had been so for as far back as anyone could remember. So then she suggested that they call him Hareton, after the name over the door.
‘Think what it would be like for him, to grow up reading his own name carved in stone above the door of his own home, and to know that the house has been destined for him, from all those years ago! Hindley, when was the last time there was a Hareton Earnshaw in the family?’
‘If there has been one since the one that built this house, I haven’t heard of it. We are all Henrys and Harolds and Hindleys and Harrisons, that I know of.’
‘And Heathcliff,’ interjected Cathy.
Hindley snorted. ‘He’s no Earnshaw.’
‘He was named after the firstborn son, who would have been heir had he lived.’
‘I wish he had lived – then maybe we wouldn’t have been saddled with this one.’
‘Well I wish it too – then you wouldn’t be master here.’ This salvo earned a raised hand from Hindley, and Cathy scuttled from the room. Then Frances began to cry, and Hindley apologized, and the result of it all was that the child was named Hareton.
I don’t know how I can describe to you what that first week or two was like. He was with me both day and night, and I never had more than a couple of hours when he did not need my care, so of course I slept but little. I could not attend to many of my regular duties, and the loss of those familiar routines made my new state seem that much stranger. It seemed as if time slowed to a snail’s pace, in which hours felt like days, and days like weeks. I remember on one occasion, Maggie made reference to churning the butter with me ‘the day before yesterday’.
‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘I have not been able to do the butter since Hareton was born.’
‘But that was yesterday!’ she said.
I opened my mouth to correct her, but closed it again as I realized that indeed, it had been only a day since Hareton came to me. At the same time, I could not seem to remember that this period of all-consuming care would not last more than a few months, for I would catch myself fretting about how it would be to manage Hareton’s midnight feedings in the depths of winter, or whether Maggie could manage the Christmas baking without my help.
The nights were particularly difficult. Any new baby requires feeding every few hours, of course, but that is not too much of a difficulty for a mother or wet nurse, who has the right food always fresh and ready to hand. I had to rise and carry the crying child downstairs, hastening to get out of range of the master’s room, or he would storm out and yell at us both for disturbing his wife’s sleep. Then I must boil water to clean the bottle and teat, changing him while I waited, then heat up his mixture and cool it to the right temperature, all before he could even begin to be fed. Finally, if all went well, I would creep back upstairs with him, praying that he would go to sleep quietly until the next feeding. But sometimes he would not, and then I would have to pace back and forth with him in the tiny room we shared, for going out into the hall was sure to bring Hindley down upon us. I felt almost desperate sometimes, and had to fight the urge to shake the poor babe in sheer frustration. At those times I often felt that I loved him not, that his care was too great a burden, and that when morning came, I would tell Hindley to find someone else to do it. But then the morning would come, and Maggie would arrive, eager to make me breakfast and beg the privilege of an hour’s custody of Hareton. The master would come downstairs and make a few flattering remarks about how the baby was coming on, and joke about the strength of his lungs the night before – for Hindley was always at his most cheerful in the mornings – and Hareton himself would turn his wide dark eyes on me, and I would decide to manage for another day at least.
I was helped, too, by the steady stream of local matrons who soon made it their business to call on us, to pay their respects, take a look at the new baby, and of course, offer advice. The better sort came to the front of the house, and the lesser to the back, but in both cases it fell to me to entertain them, both because I had charge of the child, and because Frances generally preferred to conserve her strength to sit with Hindley in the evenings, knowing that he would be sorely grieved if she couldn’t. These ladies, great and small, liked nothing better than to reminisce about their own ‘firsts’, and from them I learned that there was nothing very remarkable in my experience.
‘Ah, the first month feels as if it lasts a year,’ they liked to say, ‘but after that, it all goes by in the wink of an eye.’ On the subject of hand-feeding, though, they were less helpful, for their information was generally second-hand, and not encouraging. ‘I never knew an infant yet to thrive on it,’ one said bluntly, and then, when my face fell, added, ‘though a few do muddle through, if they’re strong to start with, and he looks likely enough.’
‘Still and all, though, I’d take hand-raising over hiring a wet nurse,’ said another. ‘My brother had one in, when his poor wife died in childbed, and she spent every penny of her wages on gin, and smelt so bad, he couldn’t be in the room with her without gagging.’ Then would ensue a lively debate on the merits of hand-raising versus wet nurses, with a great deal of worrisome evidence brought to bear on both sides, and the dispiriting conclusion that both were bad, and that it was God’s will, whether a child would live or die.
I must say that my heart warmed to Frances during those weeks. I had always thought her frailty largely imaginary, indulged or ignored by her as suited her convenience. Now that I knew how ill she really was, I was more impressed by her usual good spirits, and made allowance for her occasional peevishness. She was delighted with Hareton, and sometimes, propped up comfortably on the couch, she would hold him for as much as an hour, seeming content just to look into his face as he slept. But she never interfered with my management of him in any way, as I had very much feared she might, or evinced any jealousy when it was time for me to take him away. And if she felt any grief that her time with him was like to be short, she did not show it.
During those first weeks, Hareton was, upon the whole, what we call an easy child, which is to say that he cried mostly only when he was hungry or wet, and he slept a great deal. He seemed to take well enough to the bottles of warm, sweetened milk I prepared for him, too. His appetite was small, or so it seem
ed to me, but neither Dr Kenneth, who stopped in occasionally to look at him, nor anyone else, seemed much concerned about this.
When Frances died, though, Hareton gradually took a turn for the worse. Instead of thriving on the milky pap I fed him, he grew increasingly reluctant to take it, and showed signs of distress, after. I hoped this would pass soon, but instead it only grew worse. By the time a week had passed from the death, it had got to where every time I tried to feed him, he would turn his head away from the bottle and wail, and when I could coax him into taking some, he would spit up most of it, soon after.
Hindley was mad with grief and drinking heavily – he only ordered me out of his sight and hearing if I tried to talk to him about it, so at last I sent Maggie for Dr Kenneth myself.
When he arrived, it was only mid-afternoon, but Hindley was already drunk. Kenneth made the mistake of knocking at the front door. I tried to smuggle him into the back without Hindley’s noticing him, thinking the master not fit for company, and I had reason to believe I’d been successful, for I had got Dr Kenneth settled at the kitchen table and just beginning to examine little Hareton, while I anxiously described his symptoms.
Then the door banged open, and Hindley charged in, red-faced and shouting.
‘It’s not enough that you frighten my wife into her grave with your dire predictions, but now you must go after my son, too?’
Dr Kenneth had risen and fallen back a step in the face of this assault, but his voice was steady.
‘I said nothing to your wife, Hindley,’ he said calmly. ‘I told you what to expect, believing that, as her husband and the head of the household, you had the right to know it, and the fortitude to bear it. I am very sorry for your loss, but Mrs Earnshaw was in a consumption before you married her, and bearing a child hastened her end. Now, if you will excuse me, I will do my best to save your son from the same fate.’
‘My son was fine before you started meddling with him,’ Hindley roared. ‘Now get out of my house before I throw you out, with a black eye to send you on your way!’ He was waving a fist as earnest for his threat, so Dr Kenneth thought it best to obey, while I hastily gathered up Hareton from the table. At the door the doctor turned back to say hurriedly, ‘Try a different milk.’
As soon as he was gone, Hindley turned to me.
‘I ought to send you packing too,’ he snarled, ‘and I will the next time I catch you sneaking behind my back like that.’
But I was not so easily intimidated. ‘I thought you not … fit to be disturbed,’ I said pointedly. ‘Hareton is not well, and frightening away the doctor won’t cure him.’
‘Hareton was fine before you got hold of him,’ said Hindley. ‘Even Dr Kenneth said he’d never seen a likelier lad.’
‘He was fine until his mother died,’ I replied, ‘but now his food won’t agree with him. We must do something – if you won’t take Dr Kenneth’s advice, perhaps we should employ a wet nurse.’
It was a mistake to try to reason with Hindley in this state, though. He slammed his fist on the table so hard that I jumped, and Hareton began to cry.
‘I won’t have it!’ he said. ‘Do you think I can afford to pension off every lazy slattern in the neighbourhood? If you can’t take the trouble to manage him, get out of the house, and I’ll give him to Maggie – she’s keen enough.’ With that he swept out of the room, but turned at the door to add a final threat. ‘And don’t you try some other sneaking thing, either. Do you think I don’t notice all your tricks and connivances?’ Then he slammed the door before I could get a word out in my own defence.
I sat down to soothe little Hareton, and tried to collect my thoughts. ‘Try a different milk,’ the doctor had said. Did he mean a different recipe for the mixture I fed him? Or the milk of a different beast altogether? I remembered reading something about this in the booklet, so I took Hareton up to my room to search it out. Sure enough, it offered up two alternative recipes for the milk mixture – one with toasted flour, and another with barley malt – which I resolved to try. At the same time, it informed me that in some cases infants could not tolerate cow’s milk at all, and in these instances goat’s milk might do better. We kept no goats, but it occurred to me that sheep’s milk might do as well. The lambs were mostly weaned already, but there were one or two late-bearing ewes that still let their little ones suckle. Still, to obtain milk from them would be difficult without Joseph’s assistance, so I resolved to try the new recipes first.
The results for both were the same: at first, Hareton took to the new mixture with a hungry eagerness that lifted my heart, but within minutes he would spit it all up, and then wail with colic for hours. So the next morning I gave Heathcliff a clean, fresh-scoured milk-pail, and promised him a penny if he could bring me half a pint or so of sheep’s milk before midday, without Joseph noticing. He laughed at the challenge, promising to be back with the prize in less than an hour. He was as good as his word, so I got to try its effects on my charge before the morning was far advanced, but alas, it was no better than the other. I was growing desperate now, and I worried that this constant switching of foods was only worsening Hareton’s digestive difficulties. It had got to where the only thing he could keep down was boiled sugar-water, and I knew he could not hold out long on that. At last I resolved to defy Hindley, and try the effects of a wet nurse.
The difficulty was where to find one. I could not ask our own tenants to defy Hindley, and the one or two other poor cottagers that I remembered to have seen with babes at the breast appeared filthy and often visibly drunk. At length I hit upon one Mrs Dodd. She was a kind, sensible woman, whom I knew from before her marriage. She lived on a remote farm tucked up against the moors, and her husband had the reputation of a decent man. They were tenants of the Lintons, which I hoped would mean that Hindley’s disapproval held no terrors for them, and their farm was not so prosperous but that a little extra money would be welcome. The greatest difficulty was that they were a brisk hour’s walk away from us. To sneak Hareton over there every time he needed feeding, I would need to be carrying him to and fro almost unceasingly, day and night. Still, I thought the most urgent need was to get some food into the poor babe that he could tolerate, before his health declined further, and with that aim I bundled him up that very afternoon, tucked some of my own savings into my purse (for I dared not spend Hindley’s money on this), told Maggie something about an errand at a nearby farm, and set out.
When I came within sight of the Dodds’ cottage, Mrs Dodd issued from the door and began hurrying down the path towards me.
‘Why if it isn’t Nelly Dean,’ she cried out cheerfully, as soon as I was near enough to be recognized. ‘What a pleasure to have you here – and is this the little motherless Earnshaw babe? I had heard about him, poor fellow, and that you were to be his nurse.’
‘Mrs Dodd,’ I began, but she would not let me finish.
‘Oh, call me Emma, as you always did,’ she said. ‘Marriage has not changed me that much, I hope!’
‘Emma, then, I have something to ask of you.’
‘Come inside first, and sit down for a cup of tea. You are all out of breath. There’s time enough to tell me what you need, when you’ve had a chance to catch it. Besides, I’ve left my own little Jonnie in his crib asleep, so I must hurry back, before the cat settles down to sleep on his face.’
I followed her in to the little cottage, which was satisfyingly neat, and as clean as a dirt-floored cottage can ever be. Sure enough, a large tabby cat had just jumped into the cradle and set it rocking. Mrs Dodd shooed it off unceremoniously with a sharp slap on its nose, motioned me to a chair by the scrubbed deal table, moved the kettle onto the hob, and then sat down opposite me.
‘Kitty is an excellent mouser,’ she said, ‘and I am glad enough of her company, up here by myself all day, but she cannot resist jumping into the crib with Jonnie, every chance she gets.’
‘Why don’t you set up a cat’s cradle over the crib, to keep her off?’ I asked.
&
nbsp; ‘Oh I do, at night or whenever I need to leave him for any length of time, say to work in the garden. But it is too much trouble to be setting it up and taking it off again all the time, when I am right here anyway to shoo her off. You would think she would know by now that she is not allowed there, but there is no training a cat.’
‘Not to stay away from a warm spot to sleep, anyway,’ I agreed.
‘So what brings you out here?’ she asked at last. ‘Not that I am not glad to see you at any time – it is lonely up here during the day, when John is off in the fields, but I am not such a fool as to imagine folk will walk all the way out here just to keep me company.’
‘I would if I could,’ I said truthfully, for I had always liked her. ‘But as I said, I do have something to ask of you, and it concerns this same motherless babe.’ I explained to her what had happened to Hareton, since his mother died, and what efforts I had made to find something he would eat, though I omitted mentioning Hindley’s views on the matter. While I spoke, the kettle began to boil, and she motioned me to continue speaking while she prepared the tea. When she had sat back down again with the teapot, and poured me a cup, she loosened her top and took up Hareton, before I had even reached the question of payment.
