Lady's Maid by Margaret Forster

Author:Margaret Forster
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446443576
Publisher: Random House

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.

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