Lynna Banning (7 page)

“You are not telling truth,” she said quietly.

Desperately, Jonathan fought to pull himself together. “No, I’m not,” he said at last. And then he laughed at the understatement. He was lying, not only to her, but to himself. He knew it. And she knew it.

Tension arced between them, palpable as a hot wind.

“I wish.” Jonathan closed his eyes to shut out the figure before him. He was afraid to trust his
tongue, his voice, afraid they would spill words from his mouth he could not condone.

“I wish not to hear the harp,” he pronounced with care.

“Very well. I will not disturb—”

“I mean,” Jonathan interrupted, his voice rising, “now that Tess. No one is to play it.”

“Ah,” she breathed. “It reminds you.”

Jonathan groaned. It wasn’t so much that it reminded him of Tess. Her playing was skilled but cold, somehow. Lifeless. The truth was the sonorous sound of the vibrating strings made him—his body, his soul—ache.

“No, not exactly,” he replied. He worked to lower his voice.

Erika regarded him with an open look. “But you do not want—”

The blue of her eyes was so intense it hurt him. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he dropped his gaze.

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I do not want anyone, anyone else, to play that harp.”

The light went out of her eyes. “But surely, perhaps in time.”

“Never.” He growled the word.

It was true. He wanted never again to feel the hunger he felt at this moment, to battle the keen, rich awareness of her as a woman and himself as a man.

She clasped her hands together at her waist. Jonathan watched her knuckles whiten as her fingers interlocked. It was a cowardly act, forbidding something only because he feared it. He disliked himself for it And yet some buried, shadow self took a perverse pleasure in shielding himself, even at her expense.
Good God, how far a man sinks to escape his animal nature.

Erika remained silent, her expression changing from dumbfounded to merely puzzled. She took a single step backward. “Is wrong thing,” she said at last. “You need beautiful things. Music. Sunlight. Things of life.”

Jonathan nodded. She was right, of course. She had no idea how much he desired such things, and how terrifying it was. It was frightening to be moved by a lovely sound. The moment had touched his heart, quickened his blood. He was aware that he fought it. With all his strength he resisted coming to life.

To every thing there is a season,
Reverend Thomas had intoned at Tess’s burial.
A time to love.a time to die.
His time for joy in a woman had passed with Tess’s death, and now his heart was sealed tight. He wanted to keep it that way.

Erika squared her shoulders. “Is wrong,” she repeated in a low, controlled voice.

Something in her tone gave him pause, as if she
were issuing a subtle challenge. “Not wrong, Miss Scharf,” he said wearily. “Merely.” He hesitated. “Unwise.”

He could not turn the wheel of seasons. He hadn’t the courage.

Erika lifted her chin. “Is wrong,” she said again. She stepped past him, moved slowly across the front hall and up the staircase without looking back.

Jonathan inhaled the subtle scent that wafted after her and closed his eyes. The pain in his temples pounded with relentless fury.

W
ith trembling hands Erika pulled a damask-covered chair close to the harp and sat down to wait for Mr. Zabersky. Thank goodness Dr. Callender was out for the afternoon! While he was gone, her nextdoor neighbor would give Erika her first harp lesson. Oh, her insides were so fluttery!

Mrs. Benbow had issued an unbelievable ultimatum during the tea break they had shared in the kitchen yesterday.

“Of course ye must learn to play, my girl! How else will that fitful babe be soothed asleep? And later, it’ll help ye get on in this new world.”

At the time, Erika wondered what playing a harp had to do with her future success in America, but later, when the sound of young Mary Zabersky’s piano playing floated over the lawn separating their adjacent houses, she made the connection.

Making music was a required social art among the ladies of Plum Creek. If she were to belong in America—and she wanted to so much her heart ached!—she must cultivate at least one refined skill. At least, that’s what Mrs. Benbow said. Besides, the sweet, ethereal sound of the instrument spoke to her soul, made her spirit sing. When she heard the music made by plucking just a single string, she felt closer to heaven than at any other time in her twenty-four years.

Methodically, Erika prepared for her quiet defiance of Dr. Callender’s order. She had dusted the harp and picked a bouquet of indigo iris and purplered cosmos to arrange in a vase on the side table. Mrs. Benbow had baked a dozen fresh honey-sugar buns and laid them in the warming oven for tea later. Now, as four o’clock drew near, Erika poked at the flowers and confronted her conflicting thoughts.

Dr. Callender would be furious if he discovered what she was doing. But Marian Elizabeth slumbered peacefully in the wicker cradle, and the baby’s appetite had perked up since yesterday. Clearly, music was beneficial for the child. That alone would be reason enough to pursue her course of action.

Her hand smoothed the warm burled wood of the harp, tentatively touched the strings. What if she proved to be not gifted in music? What if she simply wasted Mr. Zabersky’s valuable time?

After a long moment of pensive thought, she straightened her spine. No matter what, Mr. Zabersky would surely enjoy the pot of tea and Mrs. Benbow’s sticky buns. Would it matter so much if she struggled with the instrument and failed?

Oh, yes, it would! She resolved she would not fail. Papa always said if you wanted something enough, God would make it possible. It had happened with Marian Elizabeth. Within Erika’s first hour in the spacious Callender home, she had felt the tiny motherless creature capture her heart, wrapping delicate fingers about her sensibilities until she was as besotted as a young girl on midsummer’s eve.

And it was happening with Mrs. Benbow. At first the crusty housekeeper could find no good in anything Erika did. According to her, Erika clattered the dishes, neglected to help her polish the silver, lagged at the ironing. But when Erika had begun to share her hopes and dreams about becoming an American, little by little the stiff-backed woman had started to soften.

Mrs. Benbow encouraged Erika to learn not only English conversation but refined table manners and household account keeping. Then just last week, the housekeeper had entrusted her with the grocery shopping at Valey’s Mercantile.

And today, here were a dozen sugar buns for Mr. Zabersky!

Oh, she wanted so much to learn how to make music! All she needed was one quiet afternoon each week when Dr. Callender would be out.

At the knock on the front door, Erika’s heart leapt. “I will receive!” she called to the housekeeper as she skimmed over the polished oak floor. The
whapwhap
of the Dutch doors between the hall and the kitchen told Erika Mrs. Benbow had retreated.

In the front parlor everything was ready—the harp shiny with polish, the padded chair drawn close, the flowers rearranged for the fourth time as the baby slept.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Zabersky. Please to come in.”

The old man removed his hat and clicked his heels in a formal bow. “Well, my dear, are you ready to begin?” He gave her a smile and followed her into the parlor.

The professor showed her how to place her hands on the harp strings, how to strum one note at a time without moving the other fingers or making a buzzing noise. She surprised herself by learning quickly, and she begged for more.

When the hour drew to a close, the gray-bearded music teacher showed Erika two additional exercises to practice during the week. As he demonstrated, he sniffed the air appreciatively.

“Sugar buns,” Erika volunteered. “I promise, remember? I will fetch the tea.”

Just as she rose from her chair, Mrs. Benbow appeared with a huge silver tray on which teetered her good china teapot, cups and saucers, and a plate heaped with fragrant buns.

Professor Zabersky shot to his feet. Lifting the heavy tray out of the housekeeper’s hands, he beamed at her. “This is most kind of you, madam,” he said as he settled the tray on the side table.

Mrs. Benbow’s eyebrows drew together. “Tea and biscuits is all,” she snapped.

“Ah, but what biscuits!” Mr. Zabersky inhaled deeply. “Food for the gods. Ambrosia.”

Mrs. Benbow sniffed. But as she swept toward the doorway, her black bombazine skirt swishing at each resolute step, Erika thought the housekeeper’s cheeks looked a little pink. Perhaps it was only the heat in the kitchen.

Mr. Zabersky’s gaze slowly refocused on Erika as she poured out the tea. “I think you will make a fine musician, Erika.”

Erika’s hand wobbled. “Oh, do you really think so? How can you already know?”

The old gentleman helped himself to a bun. “Because, my dear, you have the gift.” He bit into the honeyed confection. “And I, Theodore Zabersky,
have the knowledge. I will give you lessons twice a week.”

“Twice! Oh, but I cannot—”

He held up a cautionary finger. “If,” he interjected, “your Mrs. Benbow will make these heavenly morsels once in a while. That, and your eyes shining as they are now, will be payment enough for a restless old teacher hungry to share music with a kindred soul.”

Tears stung behind Erika’s eyelids. Why, the dear old man was lonely! Her heart swelled until it hurt. She wanted music instruction; he wanted company. “Is fair trade,” she said.

“Ah, such a businesswoman,” he teased. “But you are right. Such hands—” He lifted her fingers from the teapot handle. “Perfect for the harp. And such baking.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Perfect for the harp teacher!”

Perfect,
Erika echoed in her mind. She could hardly believe her good fortune. From that fateful day when she’d climbed off the stagecoach and rapped on Dr. Callender’s front door until this past exhilarating hour spent stroking the strings of this beautiful instrument, her life seemed like a lovely dream, full of new and exciting things. American things. And such wonderful things: her small private bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall, a whole library full of books, the baby.

And now the harp, and the exquisite sounds she could make on it. She resisted an impulse to pinch herself. Surely she would wake up suddenly to find herself back in the dark, oppressive streets of her village in Schleswig. Nothing this wonderful could really be true. Nothing like this could last.

The door closed quietly behind the professor, and Erika leaned her forehead against the wood and closed her eyes. Oh, so much to do! Learn the English. Save her money to buy more books. Study hard, and.and one day soon she would be a real citizen of America! If she worked hard, God would surely make it possible.

She darted into the parlor, carefully stacked the cups and saucers on the tea tray and headed for the kitchen.

Jonathan lifted the rotting underbrush away from the creek bank with his walking stick and inspected the spongy ground underneath. He sank one end of the sturdy oak cane into the mud, withdrew it and watched the hole fill with slimy green ooze.

He knew what it would look like under the microscope—
Vibrio cholerae.
Cholera bacillus. He’d already taken samples from a dozen similar Plum Creek sites that lay downstream from the privies and livestock pens on farms outside town. Today he’d spent all afternoon talking to the property owners,
trying to get them to understand. If only he could convince them to move their animals away from the creek drainage basin. The waste matter was contaminating the drinking water.

He’d talked himself into a lather at each farmstead and run into a brick wall of ignorance every time. “If you don’t want your children to sicken, keep your outhouses and your goats—or cows or sheep or horses—at least one hundred yards from the creek.”

“Bull chips, Doc,” Cyrus Peck had countered. “Doc Chilcoate says there ain’t no such thing as back-teer-uh. ‘Sides, he can cure most anything with that Health Elixir of his.”

Jonathan ground his teeth. It did no good to point out that “Doc” Chilcoate was the furthest thing imaginable from a trained physician. The man was a slick charlatan with a gift for gab and a medicine factory in his cellar. He’d purchased two buildings on Main Street with the profits from his tincture of ground chili peppers, molasses and watered applejack.

Jonathan’s temples pounded with the familiar late-afternoon headache. Just one more mile and he’d go home and drink some strong coffee.

How many miles had he walked this summer? Fifty? A hundred? And for what? He’d started in midspring, after he read the journal article about cholera epidemics in the East After Tess’s death,
he’d increased his woods rambling just to keep himself from going to pieces. He tried to put his anguish, his restlessness, to good purpose—preventing disease from decimating Plum Creek.

But he was failing. At least the antagonists in this battle were himself and Rutherford Chilcoate, not himself and God, as he had felt when he fought to save Tess’s life.

Pain zigzagged across his forehead. He had lost the battle for Tess, and he was losing this one, too.

He pivoted and reversed direction. By the time he tramped back into town it would be dusk. In the cloying heat, sounds were magnified, his nerves stretched taut. His body pulsed with pain. With fear.

And with need.

He halted.
That was it,
he realized. That was the real reason he was reluctant to return home. He was afraid to see the light, quick movements of the young woman who inhabited his house and, lately, his unwilling thoughts. Afraid to watch her hands smoothing her apron or fluttering against the baby’s soft, rumpled blanket. Afraid to hear her voice humming a low, breathy melody as she dusted the library books and shook out the nursery bedding in the morning sunshine.

Afraid to want her.

It will pass,
he said to himself.
It is but the body’s hunger, and it will pass.

He set off again, retracing his path back to town. His head pounded at every step.
Soon,
he promised himself. Like the headaches that afflicted him with such regularity, his longing for Erika would ease, one way or the other. If all else failed, he would send her away and put the baby on a ship bound for Scotland, as he’d originally planned.

And likely sooner than later. He hadn’t been sleeping, couldn’t seem to keep the slim girl with the crown of honey-colored braids out of his mind.

Clenching his jaw against the relentless, racking ache in his skull, Jonathan quickened his pace. It was only a matter of time before he would reach the breaking point.

By the time he returned to town, the sun had drooped behind the purple hills, leaving the hazy, suffocating, still air of summer twilight. The streets of Plum Creek, even the shadowed lanes between buildings, shimmered with heat waves. He loosened another button of his linen shirt and rolled up the sleeves.

A low, droning sound, like the buzzing of bees, reached his ears as he stepped onto Chestnut Street. A block ahead the roadway seethed with townspeople.

The crowd moved away from him, turning down
Maple, and Jonathan quickened his pace. They were following something.

The voices, as he drew closer, rose in angry, strident tones. “Don’t let the bastard get away,” someone yelled.

My God! It looked like a lynch mob!

Jonathan began to run.

Erika drew back the lace curtain to see what all the noise was about. Townspeople crowded through the gate and onto the lawn, pushing up the porch steps. She gasped and drew back.

An irregular pounding noise on the veranda made her peek out again. Silhouetted against the glow of the setting sun was a slim form, bent almost double over a sturdy oak stick he used to support his weight He dragged up the last step and hobbled toward the door. Blood soaked his trouser leg.

Erika yanked the door open. The boy was about fourteen with straight, dark hair that hung to the shoulders of his ragged flannel shirt. A braided deerhide belt held up his pants—many sizes too large for his slight frame. An Indian boy, she thought. And he was hurt.

His wary black eyes met hers. “Need doctor,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I am sorry. Doctor is not here.”

“Need bad.”

Erika could see that. His lips twisted in pain and his eyes glittered. It was plain he was in agony.

“Why are these people here?”

“They follow me,” the boy said. Sweat stood out on the olive skin of his forehead.

“Why?” she pursued.

“Say I steal horse. Not true.”

Erika looked past the boy to the crowd milling on the walkway, the men’s boots trampling her irises. She stepped out the doorway.

A needle of fear pricked her belly. “Go in,” she said to
him.
“Go! Quick!”

She moved past him to face the crowd. In the front rank she recognized the mayor’s wife, Tithonia Brumbaugh, puffed up like an angry hen. At her side hovered Mary Zabersky from next door and some of the other ladies she’d seen leaving the Presbyterian Church after Sunday services.

The short, burly man next to Tithonia was the mayor, she guessed. Behind him, eight or ten men milled about talking loudly among themselves and leaving huge footprints in the garden bed.