“Is she not the most beautiful of infants?” I murmured. “Oh, look—her first smile!” It was the most celestial thing I had ever beheld.
Truly, Mrs. Jones agreed with me, for not two days after Maria was born the wet nurse was eager to gratify the wishes of the manufactory workers by presenting to them “the little heiress of Tregunter,” as they had been calling her.
“But it’s October,” I protested, noting the autumnal nip in the air.
“Pshaw,” tutted the wet nurse dismissively. “In these parts, Mrs. Robinson, it’s no surprise to see infants carried into the open air on the very day they open their eyes on the world. ’Sides which, you don’t want to go a-disappointin’ all them honest, hardworking factory folks as been waiting to catch a glimpse at their new little mistress. You don’t want to be committing the sin of pride, which is what they’ll all be thinking if you refuse to take little Maria Elizabeth for a visit.”
The birthing had left me feeble and exhausted. As I was not yet able to be up and about, Mrs. Jones brought my sweet delight down to the factory. Maria’s absence seemed an age. But when the nurse reported how fondly my tiny girl was doted upon by the flannel workers, and the effusive praise that was sprinkled like holy water upon her tiny blond head, my heart was filled to bursting with the fondest gratification and delight.
I was not to enjoy my euphoria, however. Amid these warm and never-to-be-forgotten sensations, Mr. Harris and Miss Betsy entered my chamber, unannounced.
“Well, what do you mean to do with the child?” demanded Mr. Harris of the precious bundle in my arms.
Stunned to the quick, I made no answer. How coarse of him to speak so brusquely, and of intimate family matters, in the presence of Mrs. Jones, whom he scarce knew, and who was nearly a stranger to me as well!
“I will tell you,” added he. “Tie it to your back and work for it.”
Did he truly expect me, a gentlewoman, to become a laborer? I shivered with horror. But the man’s greater insult was to my daughter. “It? It? We are talking about a girl. Not an it. A sensate human being, not a bundle of turnips!”
“Prison doors are open,” my father-in-law continued crudely. “Tom will die in jail, and what is to become of you?”
“I know what will become of her,” tittered Miss Betsy. Shaking her head with mocking dolefulness, she glanced at tiny Maria Elizabeth, her tiny dimpled hands curled up to her mouth, the placid features of her innocent sleeping face, and added, “Poor little wretch! It would be a mercy if it pleased God to take it.”
I summoned every dram of energy within me. “Out!” I cried, intending a shriek that I fear carried no more weight than a whisper.
I saw them no more during my recuperation. The very sound of their footsteps would have been enough to curdle my milk.
Three weeks hence, Mr. Robinson came to me wringing his hands. “We must leave Trevecca House at once. My creditors are on our trail!”
The amiable Mrs. Jones cautioned against my undertaking such an arduous journey—and where were we to go?—in my debilitated state. “Could you not begin the trip in another week or so, at the very least?”
But I argued that my husband’s liberty was in danger, and with it my own, that my place was with him. “My own life is of little consequence to me now,” I told the nurse.
“But what good will it do the poor mite to be motherless?” averred the pragmatic Mrs. Jones.
Yet I would not be dissuaded from my purpose, even though it meant leaving the good Mrs. Jones in Wales, as she was a widow with two small daughters of her own in Brecon. I would nurse Maria myself, though such devotions would undoubtedly scandalize our gently bred family and friends. But I saw no alternative. We were in no position to engage another wet nurse. Still, I feared for my own maternal abilities. Would I have them? Would I know what to do? As a girl, I had been schooled in the masculine mode; I had learnt but little of the domestic occupations.
“Nature will tell your body what your heart already knows,” said the nurse, as we parted from one another tearfully and with great regret. “You will be a splendid and devoted—and quite capable—mother.”
With the reassuring words of Mrs. Jones a tonic to my nervous ears, just a step ahead of his creditors, Mr. Robinson, Maria Elizabeth, and I set off for Monmouth, to visit my mother’s kin. There we were received with genuine affection and the kindest hospitality—such a welcome change from the harsh treatment we had met with at the hands of the Harris clan.
I wept with joy to see my grandmother, still looking as my memory had fixed her, always attired in brown or black silk, her countenance mild and pleasant, her manner ever gracious. And how she beamed at the presentation of her great-grandchild!
“You must take regular airings,” Grandam insisted. “You’ll lose your health entirely if you remain a shut-in. Remember how you always used to love to wander about the ruins of the castle?” She pointed to the crumbling battlements just beyond her garden wall. Her pale blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “They’re still there, you know.”
What a balm it was to be treated with respect, to be greeted like a proper gentlewoman with smiles and words of kindness.
I passed many happy hours with my infant in Grandam’s paneled library, reveling in her finely bound collections of poetry and philosophical essays. I breakfasted on fresh eggs and porridge in her print room, which, though the lavish wall coverings were now somewhat faded, had once been the height of fashion. And I strolled with little Maria Elizabeth
