The Ripper's Wife(26)
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!