Chapter Eighteen
THE RUSHING OF the stream over the rocks quietened the baby, as it never failed to do, and Wilson was at last able to perch on a boulder and rest. She gave Flush, who had followed her, a warning look which told him clearly he must not bark and set the baby crying again. Flush wagged his tail, a little mournfully. Though he no longer sulked, because this newcomer claimed so much of the attention that had been his he was still far from enamoured of the baby. Cautiously, Wilson lowered little Wiedemann from her shoulder and into the crook of her right arm and looked down on him. His eyes, huge like his mother’s, stared back at her, still bright with unshed tears and as she talked to him, a prattle of nothing making no sense even to herself, he began to smile, his fat cheeks breaking into the dimples which so delighted his adoring mother. He began to ‘sing’, to make those bird-like sounds which his parents declared were the sweetest music in the world, and to kick himself free of the shawl in which he was wrapped. His legs were chubby and strong and though he had been protected from too much sun had turned brown, the colour of an autumn leaf. Wilson propped him up so that he could see as well as hear the water and he pointed and gurgled and jumped in her arms. All day he had been wildly excited and she and the balia, Dolorosa, were worn out with carrying him around. It was, they both knew, the effect of yesterday’s trip to the top of Mount Prato Fiorito. How could such a young baby, a mere six month old, be calm and tranquil, as he ought, when, as she had written to Minnie:
—he is exposed to such adventures? Really Minnie you would wonder at it as I did but my opinion counts for nothing in the bringing up of this child. We set off on donkeys if you please at eight thirty in the morning when since it is now September it is not yet too hot and we travelled up the most steep and dreadful path sometimes with the donkey almost standing on its hind-legs it seemed and slipping often so that stones went crashing down the mountain. First I carried our precious babe with him securely lashed to my chest and then Dolorosa who is the wet-nurse took him but she was so afraid she prayed and cried the whole way and blessed herself at every corner. We got to the top before noon and a cloth was spread and we had a picnic of chicken and ham and cheese and figs and strawberries and my mistress was in raptures. Even then the baby was not placed in some quiet shady corner but she would have him naked Minnie naked as the day he was born and laid out on the ground to roll and kick as he willed. Mr Browning I am pleased to say did demur a little but she would not have it that there was any fault in allowing their child to display himself thus and merely said it would do him good. Eventually he grew red in the face and began to cry and Dolorosa was allowed to take him and feed him and afterwards he slept in a basket we have and I was relieved. The way down was if anything worse than the way up and I felt I might crush our baby if I fell forward over the donkey’s head since I had him the whole way Dolorosa needing to be blindfold to persuade her to go down at all and not being in a fit state to carry the boy I was exhausted with the worry and the fatigue of attempting to keep straight-backed. We got down safely and Mrs Browning declared she had never had such a wonderful day and would write to her sisters and describe the glories of the views but my legs shook and today they ache and indeed Minnie I confess I will be glad when we are gone from here which I trust we soon will be.
From the moment they had arrived at the end of June Wilson had been disenchanted. The house the Brownings had rented this year was so remote Wilson could hardly believe it was civilised and for once was in agreement with Alessandro who called upon God to help him as they installed themselves in the tiny rooms. Meanwhile her mistress was in ecstasies enchanted with the shade the trees gave, thrilled with the silence, constantly counting her luck that no house could be seen from theirs. There was nothing at all to do or see and by the end of the first week Wilson was in despair. She looked at Dolorosa, ever content merely to sit in the shade with her feet up feeding the baby or dozing, and not even appearing to miss her own child, left behind in Florence with her mother. She seemed to count herself privileged to get out of the heat and be paid for it and her cheerfulness put Wilson to shame. If it had not been for Jeannie, staying with the Ogilvys a short distance away, she felt she would go mad.
As it was, she felt permanently irritable. If the baby was asleep and the work done she was free in the afternoons but hardly relished her freedom. She wanted to get away from Dolorosa and Alessandro with whom she felt little in common and who were becoming too friendly for her taste and clearly wanted to be rid of her as much as she wanted to go. All there was to do was trudge along the stream with Flush at her heels and back again, or scramble up the mountain paths and into the woods as her mistress did with her husband. She had heard Mrs Browning tell Mrs Ogilvy that ‘Nature restores Robert’, and that the beauty and peace of the scenery healed his grief for his mother who had died soon after his son was born, but it did not soothe her own discontent. It was restful and cool, of course, but dull beyond belief. The only benefit isolation brought that she could think of was that it showed her how unsuited she was for country life. If she had married Leonardo Righi and gone to Prato she was sure she would have regretted it. And that was another thing …
There had been a letter, brought on from Florence by a friend of the Ogilvys. The letter addressed to Wilson was in a hand she knew only too well and had thought never to see again. Mrs Browning recognised it too, as she handed it to her, and stared at her hard. Wilson felt quite composed, even uninterested, as she took the letter, but after she had read it she was thrown into a state of bewilderment. Leonardo wrote, in a shaky hand, to say he had been ill, very ill, nigh unto death, with a recurring fever which had lasted the whole year until now when he was much recovered. He said her letters had been kept from him when he was ill and he had only read them and been much distressed by them some weeks ago. He vowed he would come to Florence in October to make her his own.
Mrs Browning said at once that it was all nonsense. She pointed out that Mr Righi’s letters had stopped before Christmas and that an illness such as he had described could never have been responsible for a weakness so great he could not have managed a line before now. Wilson herself was only confused. What confused her was not so much Leonardo’s explanation but her own desire to believe he had not been false and she had not been duped. She had once heard her mistress tell Mrs Ogilvy how pleased she was that ‘dear, sensible Wilson got over her disappointment with the faithless Mr Righi very well and quickly and really does not care’. It was not true, and she had burned to hear her misery so lightly described. What she had done was accept Leonardo’s defection as something which had to be endured but she had not stopped thinking about him. It was the same as, only worse than, after Timothy disappeared from her life. She remembered the attraction, the comfort of being loved by someone, the satisfaction of being a pair. And she had missed it. No other man had taken her eye and the birth of Wiedemann together with another birthday passing had depressed her utterly.
The child was fast asleep. She cuddled him close, loving the softness and warmth of his body, loving the way it seemed to fit so naturally the contours of her own. Often, watching Dolorosa bare her huge breast and slip the nipple into the baby’s mouth, she had felt an answering spasm in her own breast and as the child sucked and fed and the surplus milk trickled down Dolorosa’s skin and stained her dress she had been struck with awe at the sight and became weak with the longing to perform this maternal function. And then, when she picked Wiedemann up sometimes from his cradle and he clung to her she had experienced the same yearning to produce such a miracle. Over and over her mistress called him – ‘our little miracle’ – and never stopped congratulating herself on her own blessed luck. Hearing her, Wilson wanted to cry out that her own luck was cruel, that at twenty-nine she ought to be married and have a child of her own, but then she would remember the long, long years her mistress had served as a spinster before ‘the miracle’ had happened and feel guilty at such unworthy thoughts. But she worried, as she had nev
er done, about her own future. Once having doubted whether marriage was for her, she now positively looked for it. If Leonardo arrived in October and if her feelings for him were rekindled, then who knew what she might do?
Except that she did not want to go and live in a mountain village. She wanted to live in Florence, or at least some fair-sized town, and not be withdrawn from the vitality and gaiety of city life which she had learned to love and which suited her. It was odd, she knew, that someone such as herself, thought of as so quiet and demure even now, should prefer the city but she did. She felt less conspicuous, less thrown on her own resources. The silence of Bagni Caldi this summer had almost driven her mad, it had made her question the purpose of her life and no amount of praying had stopped this introspection. It was not enough to tell herself that God decided all, that it was not for her to make her own path. She felt it was and, since she could not think how to do so, was plunged into despair and a strange fearfulness. And she could no longer truly remember how she felt about Leonardo. She half dreaded the sight of him.
Slowly, she walked back down the stream and across the bank towards their rented house. She could see, from a distance, her mistress lying on a wickerwork chaise longue under the shade of the trees, reading. That morning, she had been sick and had returned to bed, declaring it was merely the after effects of the excursion to Mount Prato the day before. ‘I daresay you will tell me it is my own fault, Wilson,’ she had said, quite sharply, and Wilson had said nothing. She thought the reason for the nausea quite other. Her mistress ought to know that she was likely to be pregnant once more and if she did not, then this time she would not remind her. The baby would be born in April, a mere thirteen months after the birth of the little love she held in her arms. Coming into the garden, she could not help noticing how well Mrs Browning looked, in spite of the morning sickness and the fatigue from yesterday. All July and August it had been hot with only the slightest of breezes, but she had thrived on it. The arms that held the book were quite rounded and the body on the chair not nearly as insubstantial as once it had been. But the greatest change since the birth of her baby was in the face. The eyes did not dominate it entirely now that the cheeks were filled out and the ghastly pallor which had so often given it the appearance of a mask had given way to a healthier, creamy complexion not untinged with a little colour.
She approached the chaise longue and her mistress looked up and smiled and held out her arms. A little reluctantly, for his mother had a way of holding the child awkwardly and if he sensed any discomfort he would waken, Wilson handed over her charge. But he slept on and his mother gazed down at him, letting her book slide to the ground. Wilson picked it up, looking at the title as she did so. It was The Count of Monte Christo.
‘I have a fancy you have read this before, in Wimpole Street,’ she could not resist saying as she handed it back.
‘Well, of course, I have read it,’ Mrs Browning said, lightly stroking her son’s cheek with a finger, ‘but what is to be done when new novels are so hard to get? You of all people ought to know the deprivation, Wilson. Why, I have not yet even had a copy of Mrs Gaskell’s Mary Barton and it has been out almost a year. It is too bad.’
‘I heard Mrs Ogilvy speak of it,’ Wilson said, wishing she had the courage, as Jeannie would have, to beg her mistress not to run the risk of disturbing the sleeping child with that irritating stroking. ‘It is about a poor woman and how she is wronged by the son of an employer. Mrs Ogilvy says it is much admired by Mr Dickens and thought a very brave book for speaking out.’
Mrs Browning looked at Wilson, a little astonished. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and that is why I wish to read it. I have had a mind for years to speak out myself, though not in the manner of Mrs Gaskell. There is injustice for women in the world and we, who are so fortunate, must not forget it.’
Wilson could not think exactly why, but for the whole of the next month, until the return to Florence put it out of her mind, she felt a kind of vague disgust at what her mistress had said. Later, she had heard her question Mrs Ogilvy closely about Mary Barton and express her concern for all the poor and exploited women in the world and yet, leading a life such as hers, how could she know of them? She thought of mother and Ellen and May, eking out a perilous existence in Sheffield, so far from their real home and dependent on the charity and word of one man for their livelihood – let Mrs Browning experience that and she might know what she was talking of. Then Jeannie had just been given her annual rise, without the least need to ask for it, and Wilson was painfully aware that she, who had still never had a rise, was being left behind. It did not need a Sarah Allen to point out that she was now a nursemaid as well as all the other roles she filled. But each time she thought of casually mentioning the subject, the words dried in her throat, seeming too greedy and ungrateful. Mrs Browning had only to smile at her and call her ‘dear’ for all resolution to speak out to leave her.
Yet mid-October, when once more they were all installed in the Casa Guidi, would have been the time to make a stand since no sooner were they back than, as Wilson wrote to Minnie:
—we are expecting another interesting event next April but do not speak of it to anyone Minnie not even Miss Arabel for Mrs Browning is very desirous to keep the news secret a little longer the better to be safe. Naturally, this time she hopes for a daughter and counts herself lucky to be given the chance. Would that I had it myself. I tell you Minnie this darling of ours brings out in me feelings I did not own up to having and I can hardly bear to think of not having a baby of my own before too long so you will see this little angel has put me in a dangerous way. But do not think from this that I am about to take the plunge for it is quite the reverse. Signor Righi did not after all appear as promised and now I have written him off entirely. My hopes though raised last month were not high so the disappointment has been less. I am resolved not exactly to look elsewhere never having been driven to looking before but not to close my eyes to the approaches that are made for it will not do to ignore every sign of interest men being only human.
But now that there was Wiedemann to care for, she found she was not much in the kind of situation nor among the kind of company where it was possible to attract any male attention. Her day was spent with other nursemaids and babies and there were no more long peregrinations of the exciting sort she had made with Sarah Allen. It seemed an eternity since the two of them had sat eating ices outside cafés watching and being watched furtively by interested parties. Wiedemann demanded all her attention and it was always more sensible to take him to the Boboli Gardens, even though it exhausted her, than into the city squares. Nor did she have the free time she had once had, confessing to her mother as Christmas approached:
— I have hardly a minute to myself and you must not imagine me any longer a lady of leisure but quite the reverse. At nine months our precious baby wriggles like an eel in my arms and is nigh to jumping out of them in the street so much so I have told his father I cannot safely carry him in any place where it is crowded. In the house he is ever on the carpet rolling over and over and dragging himself from one end to another tormenting Flush who bears it well while all the time his mother claps and praises him and though his father intervenes to say he is not convinced such freedom is wise he is ignored. And Mother it is not too soon to say he is spoiled indeed he is. I love him not a whit less than they I do believe but I can hardly bear to watch the level of indulgence. He has more toys than he knows what to do with yet they are forever buying more. There is no weaning attempted – Dolorosa feeds him still and is glad to keep the job on and his mother loves to think of him at the breast. When this other baby comes it is hoped Dolorosa will serve and Wiedemann be weaned accordingly but I foresee trouble.
It never came. In mid-December Mrs Browning started to bleed. She remained in bed from then onwards but another bleeding followed and the pregnancy pronounced at an end. It was without drama, so much so that within the week Mrs Browning was as well as ever and though chastened not plunged
into misery. ‘At least,’ she said, ‘now we are certain to go to England in the summer, Wilson, and you may write and tell your mother so. We will go in May and stay until it turns cold so you will have plenty of time to visit your family, dear. Is that not exciting?’
Immediately Christmas was over – made memorable by Wiedemann crawling on the Day itself – plans began. Maps and guide-books littered the drawing room and there was no other topic for discussion which held the interest more. Mr Browning, Wilson noticed, seemed a little harassed over the route, constantly begging his wife to remember the cost and to look for ways of cutting the expenses down. One way was to take Wilson and no other servant so Wiedemann must be weaned and Alessandro paid off. Wilson heard this with satisfaction, on both counts. Wiedemann was now standing and about to walk, it was not, in her opinion, seemly to have him chasing after Dolorosa to be fed. And as for Alessandro, once paid off he might never come back and that would be so much the better.
Spring, when it arrived in March, was so particularly lovely that year that Wilson felt an ache in her chest. She could not understand what was upsetting her and did not dare confess, when questioned, that she had a sense of foreboding. She had no faith in this long-desired trip to England even though plans were firmer than ever now Miss Henrietta was married. She could not decide whether this might mean she was at heart reluctant to go, or whether she was in some way ill. Jeannie, forthright as ever, said she was more likely to be exhausted with all she was doing and vowed she was wearing away into a shadow. Wiedemann kept her running after him all day long and in addition she fulfilled not only her normal duties but those of seamstress since her mistress wanted a whole new wardrobe made for London ‘so they will not think me shabby and decidedly the worse for married life’.
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