Chapter 8 #5
The lids were lifted easily, not set with nails, and revealed wadded bits of packing paper and sawdust. Ellen and Amelia delicately sifted through it, coming up with several bundles wrapped in old cloth.
Ellen unwrapped a pile of linen nappies. “These will be useful.” She held up the first nappy to the light and noticed a few stains. “Hmm.” She assumed some stains would be inevitable on used nappies, but these seemed worse than she’d expect. Did they try to get the stains out before donating them?
“Oh, a breast pump!” Amelia exclaimed, pulling a trumpet-shaped glass item from her cloth.
“We never have any of these!” The red rubber bulb at the end, which Ellen assumed provided the suction, looked rather like the end of a bicycle horn.
Amelia’s face fell as she held up the device, turning it in the light.
“It’s…cracked. I don’t think we can use a cracked pump. Wouldn’t the milk leak right out?”
Ellen shrugged at Amelia’s searching look. “We’ll have to ask Mrs. Daugherty.”
Amelia’s mouth curved downward and she set the medical device to the side. “Hopefully the other items are in better shape.” She turned to another box and sifted through the packing.
Ellen continued to examine the nappies, setting aside four that had holes in the fabric. I suppose I can include these in our laundry order and see what they can do. Ellen had expected the donations to all be used, as baby supplies were exorbitantly expensive. But she’d expected gently used.
Amelia gasped, making Ellen’s head jerk upward in alarm. “What’s the matter?”
Mark shifted, leaning a little closer to get a look as well.
Amelia’s arm shot aloft, holding a glass bottle. “Look at this. Look at this.” The glass caught the light and refracted, sending a spot of light skittering across the floor.
“It’s…a baby bottle?” Mark offered hesitantly.
Ellen’s jaw tightened. “They donated a murder bottle?”
Amelia’s other hand went up, holding the rubber tubing and teat that would be attached to the glass bottle. “They did.”
Ellen reached for the bottle parts, turning them in her hands to examine them. Amelia rummaged around in the crate and practically growled. “Five more! There are five more of these.”
Mark cleared his throat and crouched, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. “Murder bottles?”
Ellen handed him the clear glass bottle, shaped a bit like a violin, with the name Mummie’s Darling stamped on the bottom.
“They used to be the most popular way to artificially feed your baby. All the household management books recommended them. But they’re terribly unhygienic.
” She pointed at the rubber hose, nearly as long as her forearm.
One end fitted around the mouth of the bottle, the other end held the teat.
“It’s nearly impossible to clean. And the curve of the bottle is hard to sterilize, too. ”
Mark looked at them with morbid fascination. “So they remained dirty? And caused infants to fall ill?”
“Caused infants to die,” Amelia corrected darkly, setting the five other bottles in a row on the floor beside her. “Physicians have been preaching against this bottle design for, oh, at least fifteen years. Perhaps longer. They belong in the rubbish bin, not a donations box.”
“Perhaps the women were unaware of the dangers?” Mark suggested hesitantly, setting the bottle beside its brethren. “If it’s been a few years since their children were young, perhaps they don’t realize they’re donating…murder bottles.”
“Unlikely,” Ellen said shortly. “These are well off, educated women. They know exactly what they donated.”
Amelia pulled a receiving blanket out of the third box, fingering the frayed edge. “These aren’t donations, they’re rubbish. They are just using us to get waste out of their homes.”
Anger flared, burning in Ellen’s chest. “The women of St. Giles deserve better than rubbish.”
Amelia nodded. She pulled another glass bottle from the bottom of a crate.
“Finally. A bottle that won’t kill the baby,” she said sardonically.
She held up a bottle shaped like a banana.
These were the newest, best designed bottles.
A mother could actually get a brush inside and clean it properly.
And the rubber teat attached directly to the mouth of the bottle, no tubing required.
“I’ll give that to Mrs. Heinrich,” Ellen decided. “She’s not had enough supplies to feed her granddaughter.”
Quietly the women sorted through the rest of the items. There were pacifiers made of ivory, swaddling blankets, a lovely christening gown, two more banana bottles, nappies, a dozen pocket-sized Bibles, and handfuls upon handfuls of religious pamphlets.
Mark helped them sort it into piles: hand out and rubbish.
Amelia and Ellen debated what to do with the Bibles, and decided to give them to children in school so they would have a book at home to practice reading. The pamphlets would be put in the rubbish, and Ellen had a feeling they’d find their way to a few neighborhood privies.