by Brandy Purdy
Why does the miracle of birth have to be so horrid? I felt so ugly and ungainly as I tottered around, swollen, half-sick, fearing I’d spew all the time, embarrassed by the blemishes erupting on my face, feeling like the pimple on my nose was drawing stares like a big pink and red bull’s-eye, and hating the way my clothes chafed but feeling slatternly whenever I dared flout propriety and venture out of my room in my robe. Even though the spring weather was quite mild, I felt stiflingly hot. I was sweating like a field hand, even though I’d done absolutely nothing. I’d lie in bed in my chemise, sucking on hard ginger candies to quell the nausea and plying a palmetto fan, feeling unable to breathe with fear whenever I thought about the ordeal that awaited me. I was terrified of the pain to come, afraid that this time I might not survive it.
Sometimes I’d force myself to rise and put on one of my silk Watteau dresses and go to the nursery to see Bobo. I’d go in, with a book in hand, ready to read to him, only to find Nanny Yapp already sitting beside him with a book that she had chosen herself, always something serious and morally edifying, with not a bit of fun in it. She disdained the picture books I bought for him as “frivolous” and was equally disapproving of Little Lord Fauntleroy, which I just loved reading to him, especially when he was old enough to wear the suits it inspired.
With his long ebony curls and white lace collars set against velvets in shades of garnet, cinnamon, licorice, plum, tawny, and chocolate to set off his coffee-bean-brown eyes, he was downright breathtaking. You never saw a child more beautiful, he could melt any heart, he was so sweet, and he just loved to cuddle and kiss.
The trouble was Nanny Yapp had no sense of fun and not one nurturing bone in her body.
On the rare days when I felt well enough to sit on the floor with Bobo and spread his little dresses out, getting ready to play dress-up with my beautiful living doll, Nanny Yapp would stop me as soon as I’d put the first one on him. “Now that the business of dressing is done, it’s time to move on to other things,” she’d decisively declare, and pick him up and take him away from me. When I tried to insist I wanted to change his clothes, she’d give me a withering stare and say, “We must learn to make up our minds, to make a decision and stick to it. We must remember that we lead by example, and we don’t want this young man to grow up to be a vain, changeable, and indecisive clotheshorse who will be late to the office every morning because of the time he wastes dithering over which necktie to wear, now do we?”
Ribbons and roses and lace also had a way of disappearing from Bobo’s little dresses; Nanny Yapp didn’t deny she cut them off, as she was of the firm opinion that his wardrobe was “unsuitably ornate for his gender now that he is getting older, madame. If you persist in dressing him in this manner, when he is old enough to walk in the park and play with the other boys they will be certain to tease him.”
I thought it very mean-spirited of her to spoil my pleasure. If she caught me giving Bobo bonbons, or the sugar cubes I used to slip into his little mouth every time I saw him, she’d scold me, saying children should not have sweets between meals, desserts were for afterward, and that “dietary discipline” was “essential to a child’s healthy and proper upbringing.” She accused me of teaching him unhealthy habits and said if I kept on he’d grow up to be one of those languid persons who thought nothing of lounging around all day with a box of bonbons. He would ruin his teeth, his figure, and eventually his health, she insisted, if I persisted in encouraging this bad habit. She gave me such a scalding look I half-suspected she thought I’d be sneaking him brandy and cigars next or taking him off to opium dens when we were supposed to be visiting the zoological gardens!
If I dallied overlong bathing Bobo, loving the feel of his smooth, baby-soft skin, marveling that this gorgeous creature had actually come out of my body, that Jim and I had made this little angel, she’d stand at my shoulder and stare at me as though I were a criminal.
“You will encourage him to evil tendencies, ma’am,” she’d say, and briskly roll up her sleeves and take the washcloth away from me and proceed to scrub Bobo as though he were a greasy skillet in the kitchen sink instead of a beautiful little being with angel-soft skin and feelings. She was equally disapproving when, after his bath, I wanted to rub my pink rose-scented lotion into his skin, to ensure it would stay sweet smelling and soft. But Nanny Yapp thought this would breed “indolent and effete habits” in him.
The lovely pastel-colored perfumed soaps I always bought for Bobo also had a way of disappearing. I was certain that woman took them for her own use; when I got close to her my nostrils often caught an expensive whiff of roses and lavender not in keeping with her salary. I had already noticed that there was lace and ribbons trimming her petticoats beneath her plain uniforms and aprons, snipped, I suspected, from my son’s wardrobe. But Jim refused to be drawn into it. He was seemingly deaf to my every complaint about that wretched woman.
I almost died bringing my daughter, Gladys Evelyn, into the world. Outside it was the most beautiful July day you ever saw, all blue skies and butterball-yellow sun, but it was absolute Hell inside my bedroom. I could feel the demons’ claws tearing at my innards. I felt like my spread legs were each tied to a wild horse and I was being torn apart by them. I bled and bled and screamed and screamed. When I felt my flesh burning and tearing, I wished I were dead; it seemed the only way to escape the agony. Every time I felt the child writhe inside me, I thought my last breath was going out with my scream.
This time Mrs. Briggs didn’t dare come in, only stuck her head around the door to tell me that such carrying on was unseemly; after all, women had babies every day. Suffice it to say the names I called her were unmentionable then and still are now in polite society. I think we were both surprised; I never even realized I knew such words. The crude brutality of childbirth must have dredged them up out of some long-forgotten memory of when I’d overheard the conversation of sailors. Then it was all over. I fainted with relief. Everything went black for me before I could even hold my daughter in my arms. Dr. Hopper had to stab a lancet into the sole of my foot to shock me back to my senses. I still shudder and feel sick and light-headed at the memory of that terrible remorseless pain. No one should ever have to suffer so!
Afterward, I developed such a fear of childbirth I could hardly bear for Jim to touch me. Terror flooded every part of me when, smiling over Bobo’s and Gladys’s dark heads, he jokingly declared that now all we needed was a pair of golden ones to match mine and our little family would be complete.
Like some poor shell-shocked solider boy, I’d find myself reliving the worst agonies of childbirth in moments when I should have been experiencing only the most exquisite pleasure. I consulted with Mama and began to make some discreet attempts at contraception, experimenting with different methods, praying each time I would not bungle it and find myself expecting again.
The fear was so great, I had trouble relaxing; I was tense and awkward where I had once been so fun loving and free. I no longer initiated our love play; most of the time I just lay there and left it all to Jim, and I know he missed the naked adventuress who loved to let down her golden hair and cast off her inhibitions with her clothes, and the naughty banter that always accompanied our mutual explorations. I would have complained of headaches, only he always had some remedy ready to dose me.
When we made love, if I’d managed to discreetly slip into my bathroom before I’d always be worrying that the little sponge or one of the French womb veils Mama sent me from Paris I’d inserted might slip or that Jim’s nose might catch a suspicious whiff of lemon juice or vinegar or the little string meant to make retrieval easier might dangle or catch on his finger and give me away. On the nights when I’d been unable to prepare myself, I worried that the cuddling afterward, which I adored so, would delay me from douching with the mixture of warm water, lemon juice, vinegar, and carbolic acid I always used and give Jim’s seed a better chance to take root. A couple of times I was so tired, and the warm weight of Jim’s body so co
mforting and sweet, that I was lulled off into sleep and missed my chance and was in absolute terror until my courses came. Once, when they were late and I was terrified of what that might mean, I tried to bring them on with a foaming douche of nitric acid while Jim was at work. I don’t know how I got through that without screaming the house down. I nearly bit my lip clean through and had to make up a tale about tripping on the stairs to explain the bloody marks my teeth left.
I felt doubly bad for deceiving Jim, for not openly telling him what I was doing and why. But men so seldom understand these things. They take that verse in the Bible to heart about women being meant to bring forth offspring in pain, without being able to fathom just how bad that pain actually is. They think we weak, delicate things make overmuch of it, that we, wanting sympathy and presents, and to loll around in bed afterward being waited on hand and foot for a fortnight, greatly exaggerate. I wanted to tell him the truth, but I was so afraid of how he’d react. I wanted to believe he would understand and be content with the two children we had, but another part of me was afraid of the anger I knew lurked inside him, that my confession might bring the violence out. He might even forbid me privacy in my bathroom to make sure I never attempted the like again, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of May, Mrs. Briggs, or—God forbid!—Nanny Yapp standing there scrutinizing me at moments that should have been absolutely private.
It was such a difficult position to be in; I loved my husband and for him to hold and kiss and touch and caress me all over, his lips and fingers bringing me to the pinnacle of pleasure, but inviting him to do so only opened the door to more. Every time I opened my legs to him, I felt more and more fear and less and less pleasure. I wanted to hold on, I wanted it to stay, I didn’t want to lose the intimate joys of our marriage, but the fear was ripping it all away. I just could not forget the pain, and that it had almost killed me, and that this pleasure was the prelude to that pain. Jim and I were always superstitious about threes, the third time being the charm, and I was certain that if I was brought to childbed again it would be the end of me.
The horrors of her birth seemed to also have left a mark on Gladys. She was a sickly little mite and gave Dr. Hopper a deal of trouble trying to coax her into staying in this world where she belonged. Dark-haired like Bobo, but with my violet-blue eyes, poor little Gladys wasn’t blessed with even a smidgen of her brother’s beauty. She was a plain, poorly little thing. I dearly hoped Mama would be proven right when she predicted that Gladys was probably just a late bloomer: “No daughter o’ yours could ever be anythin’ but beautiful, Florie!”
Nanny Yapp seemed to take the same instant dislike to my daughter as she had to me and was apt to neglect her in the nursery. Time and again, I’d hear my daughter screaming at night and rush in only to find her unattended, in a pitch-dark room. I’d turn on the light, take my daughter in my arms, comfort her, then roust that woman out of bed, rip the covers off her, and demand to know what she was about ignoring my child, leaving her to scream her throat raw in the dark. The poor little mite couldn’t speak yet; crying was the only way she had to make herself heard and let us know if anything was wrong.
But Nanny Yapp always faced me, cool and indomitable as an iceberg in her white nightgown and cap, and said that Gladys already had all the earmarks of a nervous child and if I wanted her to grow up to be a timid, frightened woman, leaping out of bed and running to her and coddling her every time she cried was exactly the right way to ensure that unhappy outcome. Gladys, Nanny Yapp said, must learn that crying wasn’t the way to woo attention or win affection, and once she understood that she would sleep through the night without a single whimper.
I wanted to kick that awful, cold and unfeeling woman right down the stairs, but Nanny Yapp went running to Mrs. Briggs, just like she always did. Then they both went and had a talk with Jim. My husband called me into his study like he was the headmaster and I some troublemaking student and said mother love must be blinding me because Nanny Yapp was “quite right,” and had once again proven herself “an exemplary nanny any household would be blessed to employ” and that I should consider myself lucky to have her. “We would not be so fortunate to find her like again.” My first instinct was to shout, Well, hallelujah, I sincerely hope God did break the mold after He made her!, but I knew better.
“We do things differently here in England than you do in America, Bunny dear,” Jim said, kissing my check. “You’ll see. Nanny Yapp knows her business, and everything will turn out right in the end; isn’t that right, Matilda?”
“Quite right, Jim.” She nodded and moved to stand beside him, as if she were his wife and I was the enemy they were closing ranks against. “I took great pains to find you the perfect nanny, Florie. I’ve never seen such splendid references in my life, and I went over them most carefully; I was determined that you should have the best. So why you, a woman with no experience with children beyond the act of giving birth, feel the need to question and cast doubt upon her judgment at every turn . . . I cannot fathom. But, I do know this. If you are not careful, she’ll leave you and go to another family that will appreciate her. I suggest you apologize soon. . . .”
To my horror, Jim concurred. “The sooner the better, my dear.”
For the first time, I wanted to kick my husband down the stairs too. But I just nodded and forced a smile. What else could I do? I knew I couldn’t win, and, to my everlasting shame, I didn’t have the gumption to even try. I was just too tired.
7
The years passed, each marked by a new dress, a champagne toast, and a kiss shared with Jim at midnight. It was 1884, then 1885, 1886, 1887, and that curious year of the three eights that will never come again—thank heaven!
I was twenty-six. Outwardly, I possessed everything a well-bred young woman could want or wish for. I had a wonderful, loving, and attentive husband, handsome and well preserved for his forty-nine years; maybe there’s something to be said after all for arsenic as an embalming agent? I was a mother twice over, to a boy so beautiful the angels up in heaven must weep for missing him, and a little girl who was fast coming into her own fragile beauty. We were all dressed perfectly as Paris fashion plates, like we’d stepped straight out of the pages of La Mode Illustrèe, hand in hand, a smiling, happy family. We lived in one of the most beautiful houses in Liverpool. We were members of the Currant Jelly Set, leading a charmed life that revolved around society balls, dinners, race meets, card parties, and nights out at the theater. I had one brother-in-law who was world famous and cordially detested me, and another who was a charming wastrel, a loafer, who was my best friend and loved me more than he should have.
But it was all just a façade, like the sets for a stage play, just pretty, flat painted pictures, with no real substance behind, just a few sticks of lumber shoring it all up. The big bad wolf could have blown it all down in a single breath without even really exerting himself. At the slightest gust it would have all come down easier than the little pig’s house of straw.
There had been a drastic dip in the cotton market that forced Jim to close his offices in America and cease his travels across the sea. I didn’t rightly understand it; after all, didn’t the world need cotton just as much as ever? People weren’t wearing less clothes or using fewer handkerchiefs, or tablecloths and napkins. But I didn’t try too hard to; I was happy to have my husband home with me instead of gadding about Norfolk and New Orleans without me. I even told Jim I wouldn’t mind if we had to move into a smaller house with fewer servants; we could start implementing some measure of domestic economy right away by dismissing Nanny Yapp. Jim reacted to that as though I had poured a flagon of syrup over his head right in front of the Prince of Wales. He was horrified that I would even suggest it!
“Have you gone mad?” he demanded. “We would be ruined outright! All our creditors would see that we were in trouble and close in on us like sharks, each wanting the first bite, and that would be the end of us as far as the Currant Jelly Set is concerned. The most important
thing we can do now is continue to keep up appearances. If we must retrench, we must make cuts only where it will not show.”
Jim started by drastically cutting my household budget. Oddly, that was the very thing to make Mrs. Briggs decide it was high time for me to take a more active role in managing my own household. She’d been neglecting her own far too long on my account. I discovered then that apparently my husband expected me to be some kind of miracle worker, able to wave a magic wand and conjure up money or stretch a pound note like taffy and make it go further than anyone else could.
I tried to keep a budget, but it was simply impossible. Jim said I mustn’t even think of cutting the servants’ wages or reducing the size of the staff; servants being such a gossipy sort, word would be sure to get out and we would be ruined in no time. But out of the new allowance he allotted me there just wasn’t enough left over to buy the usual provisions after their wages had been paid. And, as any housewife knows, little emergencies crop up all the time and they have a habit of doing so at the least convenient moments. The stove needed repairing, I cracked a tooth on a horehound drop, there was a leak in the roof, Bobo broke a finger, Bessie saw a spider and dropped a whole stack of our best china plates, one of the carriage horses tore a tendon, a pipe burst, and little Gladys was sick so often. Jim and I had to keep up with the Currant Jelly Set and be seen at all the most fashionable places, like balls at the Wellington Rooms, and keep boxes at the opera, theater, and races, and, of course, we had to keep up with the fashions. It all cost money, money we didn’t have. For all the good it was doing me, I might as well have been using my household ledger to press flowers. I soon exhausted my supply of red ink and had to buy more from the stationer’s shop—on credit.
