Lynna Banning (14 page)

This was different.

Erika was different.

He had done the right thing. He had chosen well. With no effort at all, he thought with an inward
smile, he already heeded the admonition Reverend Yard had spoken during the wedding service. He honored the young woman who sat beside him.

What would follow from this night he could not begin to guess, but of one thing he was assured. He was glad Erika belonged to him, glad she would now be safe and protected in his household and in his life.

She stirred beside him, rose to her feet and gathered up the long veil in one hand. “I see to baby.”

“Erika, wait. Mrs. Benbow can—”

“Mrs. Benbow not mama,” she said quietly. “I am mama now.”

Jonathan heard the pride in her voice, the little tremor as she spoke the simple words. I
am mama.

She turned away from him and moved toward the front door. Inside the screen, she paused, a glimmer of ivory through the dark mesh.

“I thank you for everything, from bottom of my heart. I work hard, make good mama. Good wife.”

Long after she had glided into the darkened interior of the house, Jonathan stared at the screen. With a twinge of conscience, he acknowledged at last what he had struggled with ever since he had laid eyes on Erika Scharf. Now more than ever, he wanted to follow Reverend Yard’s additional wedding service directive. He longed to worship her body with his own.

God forgive him, but he wanted Erika as he’d
wanted no other woman—not even his deceased wife.

What in heaven’s name had ever possessed him to propose a marriage in name only?

E
rika patted the baby dry with a clean towel, dusted the silky pink skin with cornstarch and wrapped her in a light flannel blanket. “Now we are all clean,” she crooned to the wriggling bundle. “And nice and cool for afternoon nap.” After an hour in the stifling kitchen, she wished she could strip off her percale work dress and plunge into a tub of cool water as well.

How, she wondered, did Mrs. Benbow stand the oppressive heat in that black bombazine? To say nothing of drinking hot, hot tea on this scorching September day. At least the housekeeper lay down for a rest each afternoon, which was why Erika was alone in the kitchen at this moment. She lifted Marian Elizabeth onto her shoulder and pressed her nose against the baby’s soft neck.

“Ah, my
Liebchen,
you smell sweet as a rose.
Come, we will sit in the parlor. Your papa has gone out to make someone well and will not be back until evening, so you and I, we will have the house to ourselves.”

She chatted on as she walked through the dining room, skirting the big walnut table where the supper place settings were already laid, and plopped down in the front parlor, next to the harp. She had a lesson with Mr. Zabersky in an hour, but it was too hot to practice.

In the two short weeks since her marriage to Jonathan Callender she had found little time to play her exercises and work on the arpeggios her teacher assigned each week. Being a doctor’s wife brought a whole new set of challenges and things to learn. They had twice been invited for dinner in the homes of Plum Creek’s leading citizens, and Erika knew that soon she faced being hostess at her own dinner party.

Her heart quailed at the prospect. She would have to make conversation in English! Wear one of the low-cut, overflounced silk gowns Mrs. Benbow had insisted she select from Bloomingdale’s mail order catalog. Worse, she would have to stand next to Jonathan greeting guests and later bidding them goodnight. Being close to him sent her thoughts spinning.

In fact, she admitted, being anywhere near him made her heart sing and her body thrum with need.
She loved him. But she would not come to him until he needed her, too. Until he asked.

To cope with her wanting, she busied herself with the laundry, ironed the doctor’s starched shirts, put up dozens of jars of thick plum jam, even dusted the upstairs rooms when the housekeeper’s rheumatism prevented her from climbing the stairs. To those tasks she had lately added greeting the endless parade of patients who rang the front bell at all hours of the day and night and trooped in to consult the doctor about sore throats and dislocated shoulders and other, more private ailments.

Erika smiled in satisfaction. She was tired much of the time, but it was a good sort of fatigue. She was learning! Her elation at her progress made the daily burdens seem light. Even Mrs. Benbow expressed surprise at her accomplishments.

She was a good wife. In all ways but one.

Jonathan had said little these past two weeks. People came from as far as Gold Hill and Mill Creek City to seek the doctor’s advice, and days passed when he was so busy with patients he missed both the noon meal and supper. She admired his dedication, his dogged perseverance in the face of what he described as “farm-family ignorance.”

He worked hard. Too hard. Erika often found him seated at his desk, exhausted, his head in his hands and an untouched glass of brandy sitting at his elbow.

“Genug,”
she murmured, rocking Marian Elizabeth against her breast. More than enough. Jonathan was so busy being a physician he had no time to be a papa. “Not good for baby,” she murmured.

She lifted her head as a rebellious thought crossed her mind. “Is not good,” she repeated. And so it must change!

She would do just that, she resolved. Change things. She would start this very evening, the minute her husband walked in the door.

“Me!” Erika clenched her hands in her lap and stared at Mr. Zabersky. “You want me to—”

“Accompany the violin at the charity musicale,” the professor finished for her. “Yes, my dear. On your harp.”

“Oh, no. I could not possibly. I—I can play only chords, all broken up. Not real music. Not in front of people!”

Theodore Zabersky laid his weathered hand gently over her knotted fingers. “It is a simple song I have chosen. You have only to play your chords, ‘all broken up,’ to keep me company.”

Erika looked away from the old man’s expectant face. “Why not your daughter Mary,” Erika pleaded. “Piano sounds beautiful when at night I listen through the window.”

The professor shook his head. “Mary has outgrown
me. She is playing a duet with her intended, Mr. Vahl.”

Whitman Vahl, Erika remembered, had played reels and waltzes at her wedding reception two weeks ago. “He plays only guitar, is that it? Is an instrument for dancing.”

“Exactly.” Mr. Zabersky coughed and cleared his throat. “You can imagine my distress at Mary’s choice of.partner.”

Aghast, Erika stared at him. It had never occurred to her Mr. Zabersky did not approve of his daughter’s engagement. “You can forbid?”

“Ah, no. This is America,” he reminded her.

Erika was silent.
America.
There was a price for freedom in her new country, she was learning. The Indians, occupants of the land before the settlers came, were no longer allowed to live on their ancestors’ land. Instead, they were shunned, sent to reservations. And, she knew from her own experience, those who protested an Indian’s treatment were misunderstood. Or worse.

And there were other things that puzzled her. In America daughters could marry whom they wished, even if it made the papas unhappy, yet wives were still expected to obey husbands? It made no sense.

Her insides clenched. At this very moment she was planning a very unwifelike rebellion.

What had happened to her these past weeks? Ever
since she had pledged her life as Jonathan Callender’s wife, she’d felt different. Elevated in social status, of course, but that mattered little to her. More important, she was accepted, her company sought out at church and on social occasions. She was becoming one of them. An American.

And yet.there was more. It was as if she had in some way grown larger inside the confines of her corset stays and the soft challis wrappers and walking gowns she now wore in addition to her serviceable navy work skirt and white waists. Larger and at the same time more
herself.

And that brought its own obligation. Suddenly she knew she had to perform with Mr. Zabersky at the musicale. She wanted to prove herself, be accepted on her own merits, not simply because she was the respected Dr. Callender’s wife.

I am my own person,
she thought. She was a free woman in a free country. Only now was she beginning to realize what obligations that envied state carried. She must try all her life to be two persons—Mrs. Dr. Callender and herself, plain Erika Scharffenberger.

“Yes,” she announced to her music teacher. “I will do it.”

Jonathan fought to keep his eyes open. The buggy bounced along the town road, hardened by a summer’s
relentless sun and rutted by three generations of horses, wagons and leather boot heels. He’d come from the Ellis place, where eleven-year-old Timmy complained of leg cramps. When Martha Ellis described her son’s other symptoms—diarrhea and copious vomiting—Jonathan’s heart sank.

Cholera. The Ellises drew their water directly from the polluted creek.

He flapped the reins, urging the tired mare home at a faster pace. After instructing Martha in the only possible treatment for her sick son—large amounts of boiled water to offset dehydration—he’d made the rounds of all the outlying farms along the creek and the Devitt and Rukavin spreads in the surrounding valley, as well. “Boil your drinking water and scrub your hands,” he’d ordered.

Everyone had scoffed at him but Abe Rukavin. Abe had listened attentively. “We will do,” the rangy farmer had promised.

Jonathan would visit the Ellis boy again in the morning, but now there was work to be done. Rutherford Chilcoate had agreed to rent him the warehouse next to the bank, and Jonathan intended to turn the building into a hospital. With any luck at all, he could get it cleaned and organized before an epidemic struck the town.

He grabbed the whip from its socket and flicked it over Daisy’s head, something he rarely did. He’d
have to scrub and disinfect the plank floor and dusty walls, round up some cots and clean bedding. If he worked hard all night, his hospital could be ready by sunup.

By the time he reined up in front of his house, he wondered if he had the strength to disembark, let alone work efficiently.

The front door stood open to catch what evening breeze there might be. Jonathan sat staring at it for a long minute before he gathered up his black medical bag and his jacket, discarded earlier as he made his rounds. He plodded through the gate and up the porch steps.

The sound of Erika’s harp floated through the screen door. For a moment he stood rooted, drinking in the silvery notes and fighting off the hunger he always felt when he came near her. One night when he’d been unable to sleep, he’d stumbled on her in the library, poring over her dictionary. At the sight of her unbound hair, her small bare toes peeking beneath the blue nightrobe, he’d been unable to speak. He felt the same way now as the music washed over him.

He let the screen slam shut behind him, masking his desire with anger in a way he only half understood. He relished the startled cry that came from the front parlor. A baby’s wail followed, and Jonathan
groaned. The last thing he needed was a squalling infant.

Erika took one look at him and rose to her feet. “Have you eaten?”

“Haven’t had time. Wake Mrs. Benbow, would you? Tell her I need a lantern and a bucket and a scrub brush. And hot water—lots of it.”

She sent him an assessing look, picked up the baby and thrust her into his arms. “Watch baby. I will heat water.” She swished past him.

He stared at the blanketed lump in his arms. “Erika!”

She halted in the doorway.

“Take the baby. I’ll get the water.”

“No. Baby needs papa sometimes. Rock her. Maybe sing to her.”

“Sing! I don’t have time to—”

“You have time for bucket and water,” she snapped. “You have time for baby. Baby needs to be with you. Besides,” she added, raising one eyebrow in a challenging look,
“you
need it!” She pronounced the words with deliberate care, then marched into the hall.

Dumbstruck, Jonathan stared after her. She acted for all the world like a wife of twenty years! Where was the quiet, serene creature he’d wed?

The baby wriggled and began to scream. In desperation, he laid the thrashing body against his chest
and began to hum. By the time he’d finished the second verse of “Rock of Ages,” Erika reappeared, a work apron tied over her muslin dress, a tin bucket in each hand. “Take baby to Mrs. Benbow and bring the teakettle and the lantern by the door. I will help.”

“You! Erika, you needn’t—”

“I need,” she said quietly. “You are tired, hungry. I bring sandwiches. Two can work faster than one.”

“Don’t you want to change your dress? It’s a filthy warehouse. I’ve got to get it clean, set up an infirmary, but you—”

“In-firm-ary,” she repeated. He half expected her to set the buckets down and pull a notepad and pencil from her apron pocket.

“It’s a kind of hospital.”

She nodded, and without another word moved to the front door.

“Erika, I—” His throat closed over the words. Gratitude and something else—pride—brought tears stinging into his eyes.

“Come,” she said. “If we do not hurry, you will miss your breakfast, too.”

Side by side they worked all night scrubbing lye soap over the splintery planks of the rough pine floor. By dawn the place was clean and aired out, the windows washed until they sparkled, the six cots loaned
by the Methodist church set up and in place. Too tired to talk, they made up the beds together. Jonathan made neat army corners in the sheets. Erika snapped the folds square the way her mother had taught her.

When the last blanket lay folded in place at the foot of each bed, Erika faced him with a tired but triumphant smile. “Is ready.”

She arched her back, rubbed her palms against her aching muscles. Her skirt was filthy with cobwebs and dust, the front splotched with scrub water. She’d unbuttoned her shirtwaist to the throat and rolled up the sleeves, revealing red, water-shriveled hands. Hair straggled from her once-tidy braids.

Jonathan stared at her. Dirty and disheveled as she was, she had never been more appealing. With difficulty he kept himself from pulling her into his arms.

Later. Later he would tell her how beautiful she was at this moment, tell her of his growing feelings for her.

She moved toward him, lifted his hand from the bucket handle. “Let us go home, eat breakfast” Stretching on tiptoe, she brushed her lips against his stubble-rough cheek.

“You are good man, Jonathan,” she whispered. “Good doctor, also. And soon.” She stepped back and lifted her gaze to meet his. “Soon you will be good papa, too.”

She sent him a smile that dazzled his heart with its warmth.

But as they walked together out of the new warehouse-hospital and climbed wearily into the waiting buggy, Jonathan noted what she had
not
said, and an odd twinge of regret tugged at him.

She had said nothing at all about his being a good husband.