HKB
is all vapours and fancy,” says the old woman; “I tell you their credit depends upon the child’s life, and they are as careful as any mother of you all.”
“O mother,” says I, “if I was but sure my little baby would be carefully looked to, and have justice done it, I should be happy indeed; but it is impossible I can be satisfied in that point unless I saw it, and to see it would be ruin and destruction to me, as now my case stands; so what to do I know not.”
“A fine story!” says the governess. “You would see the child, and you would not see the child; you would be concealed and discovered both together. These are things impossible, my dear; so you must e’en do as other conscientious mothers have done before you, and be contented with things as they must be, though they are not as you wish them to be.”
I understood what she meant by conscientious mothers; she would have said conscientious whores, but she was not willing to disoblige me, for really in this case I was not a whore, because legally married, the force of former marriage excepted.
However, let me be what I would, I was not come up to that pitch of hardness common to the profession; I mean, to be unnatural, and regardless of the safety of my child; and I preserved this honest affection so long, that I was upon the point of giving up my friend at the bank, who lay so hard at me to come to him and marry him, that, in short, there was hardly any room to deny him.
At last my old governess came to me, with her usual assurance. “Come, my dear,” says she, “I have found out a way how you shall be at a certainty that your child shall be used well, and yet the people that take care of it shall never know you, or who the mother of the child is.”
“Oh mother,” says I, “if you can do so, you will engage me to you for ever.” “Well,” says she, “are you willing to be a some small annual expense, more than what we usually give to the people we contract with?” “Ay,” says I, “with all my heart, provided I may be concealed.” “As to that,” says the governess, “you shall be secure, for the nurse shall never so much as dare to inquire about you, and you shall once or twice a year go with me and see your child, and see how ’tis used, and be satisfied that it is in good hands, nobody knowing who you are.”
“Why,” said I, “do you think, mother, that when I come to see my child, I shall be able to conceal my being the mother of it? Do you think that possible?”
“Well, well,” says my governess, “if you discover it, the nurse shall be never the wiser; for she shall be forbid to ask any questions about you, or to take any notice. If she offers it, she shall lose the money which you are suppose to give her, and the child shall be taken from her too.”
I was very well pleased with this. So the next week a countrywoman was brought from Hertford, or thereabouts, who was to take the child off our hands entirely for £10 in money. But if I would allow £5 a year more of her, she would be obliged to bring the child to my governess’s house as often as we desired, or we should come down and look at it, and see how well she used it.