Plum Creek Bride

Chapter Four

Erika gave the goat’s lead a determined tug. “Come, Jasmine! Doctor say goat milk good for baby. We will be late for feeding!”

The goat lifted its head from a cluster of pink roses twining over a picket fence and stopped chewing. Two hard black eyes regarded her with curiosity for a full minute before Erika gave another sharp jerk on the rope. The animal trotted after her.

Jubilant, she marched along Chestnut Street with a spring to her step. She had bargained for the goat at the first farm she’d reached on the road out of town, trading the promise of a free consultation with Dr. Callender for the best milk goat of the bemused farmer’s herd. But getting the animal from the farmer’s field to the doctor’s backyard wasn’t so easy.

So far, Jasmine had devoured most of the wild iris blooms scattered along the road back to town, plus a large portion of a purple butterfly bush arching over a neighbor’s fence, and now the roses. Erika sighed. Just a few more blocks, and she could tether the headstrong animal to the plum tree behind Dr. Callender’s stable. With its preference for a diet of flowers, the milk should be extra rich and tasty!

Pleased, she tugged the animal around the corner onto Maple Street and tied it to the plum tree behind the whitewashed barn.

Jonathan lunged into the dusty black buggy, grabbed the reins and flicked them smartly over the mare’s broad back. “Of all the confounded, muddleheaded arrogance,” he muttered. “One of these days, so help me, I will throttle that quack Chilcoate within an inch of his life!”

Daisy leapt forward and trotted down Main Street. When the doctor forgot to signal his intention, the horse turned the corner by habit.

No, Jonathan amended, belatedly pulling on Daisy’s rein. He would not throttle the man. He’d let the fool hang himself with his own rope. Sooner or later it had to happen; one of his noxious elixirs would poison someone. Jonathan prayed nightly for the health of the unwitting townspeople of Plum Creek and carried an extra bottle of ipecac in his medical bag.

Underneath, he knew getting rid of the incompetent old man wasn’t going to change a thing. It was the mayor—that idiot banker, Brumbaugh—and the rest of his town council toadies who were bent on ignoring the situation until it would be too late. An hour ago he’d argued himself blue in the face, ended up shouting at the mayor and telling Rutherford Chilcoate to shut up unless he could speak intelligently or even comprehend the existence of bacteria.

What would it take to convince them he knew what he was talking about? They needed a new water system, one that bypassed contamination sources and had a reservoir and modern filtering equipment. Cholera had been rampant in eastern cities for the past decade; it was only a matter of time before it hit Plum Creek. A sixth sense told him it would be sooner rather than later, since the farms and small ranches upstream continued to let their animal waste matter seep into the town water supply. Summer would be hot. And long.

He flapped the mare’s reins. Unfortunately, new water systems cost money. He’d offered to finance the project himself if they’d just vote on it! Their lack of concern made him so mad he could eat thistles.

He jerked the reins unnecessarily. Daisy had already halted in front of his house. Jonathan raked one hand through his hair, rose to step out of the buggy and stopped short. What in God’s name had happened to the scarlet zinnias Tess had planted a month ago? Every single bloom in the carefully tended border had been nipped off at the crown.

He dropped the reins, bounded out of the buggy and strode up the walkway onto the veranda.

“Mrs. Benbow!” He surged through the front door and headed for the dining room.

The housekeeper poked her head out of the kitchen. “Sir? Why, whatever be the matter?”

“The zinnias! What happened to Tess’s zinnias?”

Mrs. Benbow looked blank. “What’s wrong with them?”

Jonathan strove to calm his breathing. “They’re gone, that’s what. No blooms, just stalks.”

The housekeeper’s eyes widened, then narrowed in comprehension. “Best ask Miss Scharf.”

“Miss Scharf?” He barked the name. “What does Miss Scharf have to do with the zinnias?”

“Well,” the old woman began, “it’s not exactly her, it’s probably.”

Jonathan pivoted and headed for the stairs before the housekeeper could finish her sentence. He went up two at a time and with the knuckle of his fisted hand gave a short, sharp rap on Erika’s closed door.

“Miss Scharf?”

No answer. He knocked again, then edged the door open.

The room was empty. The lacy coverlet had been neatly drawn up on the bed, the single window propped wide open. A fresh, sweet-scented breeze ruffled the lace curtains. Jonathan paused, his hand resting on the doorknob.

Something felt different. The room was serene. Straightforward. No perfume atomizers or jewel boxes or other fripperies adorned the chest of drawers, no petticoats or discarded wrappers were tossed carelessly across the chair or the narrow bed. The faint smell of lemon oil made him lift his nose and sniff the air. For a moment he forgot the anger that had propelled him up the stairs.

Something about the room slammed a fist into his solar plexus. It was neat, well-ordered, purposeful, like its occupant—the single-minded young woman Tess had engaged as a helper.

Tess had never returned a garment to her capacious wardrobe or polished a single piece of furniture in her short married life.

That was it! The room seemed strange because it was not like Tess. In the next instant an ache laced his heart into a knot of anguish.

She’s gone, you fool! Let her rest in peace.

His anger returned threefold. Someone had decimated the zinnia border Tess had wanted. Each morning for a week she had supervised the digging and planting undertaken by their neighbor, Theodore Zabersky. Each morning for a week Tess had smiled at Jonathan instead of complaining about the long hours he spent seeing patients or all-night ordeals delivering babies on remote farms throughout the county.

It had been a sweet time for the two of them; he damn well wasn’t going to let this reminder of it be destroyed!

He banged the door shut. “Miss Scharf?” He shouted her name louder than he’d intended. “Answer me!”

“Here,” a muffled voice sounded. “In library.”

Library? He didn’t have a library. She must mean the upstairs sitting room. It was the only room in the house besides his study where Tess had allowed his books. What in God’s name was an uneducated immigrant girl doing in there? He strode down the hallway and threw open the door.

Erika looked up from the desk—his desk, he noted with annoyance—and gave him a shy smile. The curve of her mouth faltered as he loomed over her.

“I—I hope you not mind,” she said with a slight stammer. “I find quiet place for study.” She indicated the notebook spread before her, flanked by a dictionary and a worn-looking textbook. “I pronounce new American words and write many times to remember.”

Reading upside down, he made out a row of carefully penciled words. Tureen. Another line began with unerring and ended with congratulate.

“Miss Scharf, what happened to the zinnia border?”

Her blue eyes widened. “Zinnia? What is zinnia, please?” She lifted her pencil, poised it over the notebook.

Jonathan clenched his jaw and counted to fifteen before he trusted himself to speak. “Zinnias, my dear young woman, are the flowers that grow along the front path. Or did. Come here and take a look!” He tramped over to the window.

When she joined him, he pulled aside the curtain and directed her gaze to the walkway below.

“Flowers gone,” she observed. She looked at him expectantly.

“I’ll say they’re gone. The question, Miss Scharf, is where have they gone? And why? In this household, you do not pick flowers without permission.”

“But I do not pick!” she protested. “Maybe Mrs. Ben—”

She halted, clapped one hand over her mouth for a moment. “Oh! It was Jasmine! The goat.”

“Goat!” Jonathan stared at her. “I don’t have a—”

But Erika was already heading for the doorway. “Must have got loose, maybe eat rope!”

She flew ahead of him down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door. Mrs. Benbow, stirring soup at the stove, paused with her spoon in midair.

“Excuse us,” Jonathan panted as he strode past her.

Erika disappeared around the corner of the barn. By the time he caught up with her, she was yanking a small white goat with a frayed rope around its neck toward the plum tree. When she had secured the animal, she turned to face him.

“Goat bad for flowers, maybe. But is good for milk.”

“Where did that animal come from?” he demanded.

“From farmer. Mr. Peck. He give.”

“He gave it to you?” At her nod, he jammed his hands into his trouser pockets to keep from hitting something. “I don’t believe it. Cyrus Peck never gave away anything free in his life.”

“Not for free,” Erika protested. “For—how you say—ex…ex…for trade.”

Incredulous, Jonathan stared at her. “Trade for what?” he snapped.

‘Trade one goat for one doctor visit. We get milk for baby, he get leg fixed.”

“Leg fixed! There’s nothing wrong with Cyrus Peck’s leg that a little hard work wouldn’t remedy.” The anger he’d tamped down inside him leapt to life. Cold fury washed through his veins.

“Do you mean to tell me you took it upon yourself to bring a goat, a destructive, messy animal, onto my property? Let it eat my wife’s zinnia border? Let it—”

“I not let eat!” Erika’s eyes blazed the color of a hot summer sky. “Goat get loose, eat rope. Eat. zinnias,” she admitted. “I am sorry for flowers, but goat give good milk. I feed baby and not one crying. So is good,” she announced. She raised her chin in defiance.

Jonathan didn’t know whether to laugh or swear. Rage and amusement battled his brain to a standstill. Part of him wanted to strangle the young woman who stood before him.

She twisted her blue work skirt in both hands, then suddenly straightened her spine and drew herself up to her full height. The top of her head just reached his chin.

“Milk more important than flowers,” she said in a determined voice. She tipped her head up and gave him a level look. “As papa, you want good for baby. As doctor, you say not cow’s milk but goat milk good for her, so I get goat. I want good for baby, too!”

“Then keep the damn thing tied up!”

“Ja, I will,” she said quietly. “Will also fix flowers.”

“Everything has been topsy-turvy since you set foot in the door,” Jonathan grumbled. “I ought to send you back to New York or Hamburg or wherever it is you came from.”

Erika lifted her chin and surveyed him with steady blue eyes. “I stay in America. I stay here in Plum Creek, America, to help. I stay for baby. And,” she finished, her voice trembling, “for me.”

Try as he might, Jonathan could think of nothing to say. God in heaven, he was cursed. Tess was dead, leaving an infant he couldn’t bear to touch or even look at because it reminded him so much of her. Mayor Brumbaugh was stumbling blindly toward disaster, and now Cyrus Peck would descend on him with another tirade about his “bad leg.” This time he’d give the crotchety old farmer some fifty-dollar advice: Work an hour a day and mind his own business!

On top of this, he had Miss Erika Scharf to contend with. A more determined, maddening young woman he had never encountered. What god had he offended that such furies pursued him?

More to the point, what should he do about them?

About her.

He contemplated the crown of honey-colored braids wound on top of her head. He would be civil, he decided. He would swallow his anger and accept the goat. It was a good-hearted deed, after all. And she was right about the milk.

He would overlook the incident this time. Let her stay. But one more disaster—just one more unsettling event in his already unraveling world—and that would be that.

Baby or no baby, he would send Erika Scharf on her way.

Chapter Five

Erika watched the doctor tramp onto the back porch and stalk through the kitchen door. The screened panel swung shut behind him with a resounding thwap.

She knew she had overstepped. She had “taken too much upon herself,” Mrs. Benbow had warned when Erika appeared with the goat. Worse than disturbing the housekeeper, she had angered Dr. Callender, made him so furious his eyes burned like smoldering coals when he spoke to her.

Surely he knew she meant no harm to him, or to his flowers? His wife’s flowers, she amended. Why could he not see that zinnias were not as important as milk for his child?

Unless. Erika paused at the top porch step. Unless the child did not matter to him. Thoughtful, she moved into the kitchen and approached the ramrodstraight figure of Adeline Benbow, swishing an oversize iron spoon back and forth in the stockpot.

“Excuse, please, Mrs. Benbow.”

“Overstepped, ye did, traipsing out to bargain on your own,” the housekeeper snapped. “Told you so this morning. Got no more sense than a butterfly.” She banged the spoon against the side of the pot for emphasis.

“Ja,” Erika said in a low voice.

“Use English, girl! You will never learn, otherwise.”

“Yes,” Erika repeated. “You are correct.”

“And just who’s going to milk that animal, I ask you?” the housekeeper demanded.

“I will. And feed it, too. Papa had a goat back in old country.”

“Hmmph. It’s just too much for the doctor after all that’s happened,” the housekeeper huffed. “Losing Miss Tess when they’d just begun their life together. well, it knocked him plumb sideways. Days he’d spend just staring at the bed where she had lain during her torment. Nights, too, staring and staring and seeing nothing. I’m surprised he drove the buggy to town today. Hasn’t set foot outside these walls since the funeral three weeks ago.”

“Maybe he visit the grave?” Erika ventured.

Mrs. Benbow shot her an odd look. “Maybe.” The corners of her thin mouth turned down, and her stirring arm slowed to a stop. An unfocused look came into her eyes.

Erika seized her chance. “What was lady like?”

“Miss Tess?” The stirring resumed, rhythmic figure eights accompanying her words. “Miss Tess was. Her people were from Savannah. Well-to-do they were, before the war. Miss Tess, she had most everything she ever wanted, and that included the doctor. One day he came to call on her father, Colonel Rowell, and the next day he and Miss Tess were engaged.”

“Why did doctor go to that place, Savannah?”

“Colonel Rowell was a surgeon during the war. He found a new way to set broken bones, and—”

“And doctor want to learn?” Erika finished for her.

“Saints, no! Doctor knows all about such things from his training in Scotland, you see. He went to Savannah to thank Colonel Rowell for saving his own father’s life after the battle of Shiloh.”

“And he meet Miss Tess and marry her? She was very beautiful?”

“Oh my, yes,” the housekeeper murmured. “Hair like black silk, she had. And eyes so green they looked like emeralds.”

“And?” Erika prompted. An insatiable curiosity about the woman who had been mistress of this fine house, and the doctor’s affection for her, gnawed at her insides. She wanted to know all about the woman Dr. Callender had loved so much his child—even his own life—seemed unimportant now that she was gone.

“Well,” the housekeeper continued, “Miss Tess was cultured in the Southern way. She had a lovely voice, and she accompanied herself on the harp. She had fine taste in gowns, too—always wore the latest styles from Paris.”

Erika glanced down at her plain blue denim work skirt and the toes of her sensible shoes peeking from beneath the hem. She could never be a lady because her feet were too big and her tastes too simple. She was a working girl through and through, a poor shoemaker’s daughter with rough English speech and untutored manners. Such things could be learned, she supposed. But even if one had a quick mind, it required generations of breeding and practice in manners to make a real lady.

The housekeeper sighed and slid the lid onto the simmering soup kettle. “But for all that, Miss Tess didn’t—” She broke off and turned toward the sink.

Erika pricked up her ears. But? Miss Tess didn’t what? “Yes?” she invited.

She wanted to know about Mrs. Callender as a person. What kind of woman planted brilliant scarlet flowers in a thin, straight line like carefully spaced soldiers marching toward the front steps? Had Mrs. Callender been a kind woman? Did she like to laugh? Was she warm and caring as well as beautiful?

“Miss Tess never cared much for. Ah, well, never you mind. The bairn’s beginnin’ to wail, do ye hear? You’d best warm that milk you set such store by. I put your bucket in the pantry cooler. After that, you can help me with the ironing. I got too much starch in the doctor’s shirts again, and they scorch easy.”

Tess never cared for what? Erika wanted to shout, but Mrs. Benbow dismissed her with a wave. She pondered the unanswered question all the way up the stairs to the nursery. Perhaps later. She would spend all afternoon in the sweltering kitchen, helping the housekeeper with the ironing. Maybe then the old woman would finish that intriguing sentence.

But she did not Erika labored for hours over the starched white shirts as the baby slept in the nursery upstairs. By late afternoon her hands ached from lifting the heavy, nickel-plated sadiron and guiding it over the pleated shirtfronts. The six-mile walk out to Cyrus Peck’s farm and back early this morning hadn’t bothered Erika’s strong legs a bit, but pushing the heavy iron back and forth over acres of white linen made her shoulders ache.

The housekeeper smoothed sheets and pillowcases with a second iron until she plopped exhausted into the single chair next to the stove. “Teatime,” she announced in her raspy voice.

The thought of drinking a cup of scalding tea made Erika groan out loud. The kitchen was stifling, the air hot and heavy with moisture, the smell of scorch and tomato puree suffocating. She longed for a cool drink of spring water.

“You have a complaint, missy?” Mrs. Benbow queried, an unpleasant edge to her voice.

“Nein. No. Is very hot. I warm easy.”

The housekeeper sniffed. “A hothouse girl. But you work hard, I’ll say that for ye.”

“Papa used to say I do everything ‘hard.’ I do not like halfway things.”

Mrs. Benbow glanced up. “Your father is dead?”

Erika nodded. “Mama, too. Of fever, last year. We do not have doctor in my village.”

A curious look crossed the housekeeper’s face. “You mean you came to America alone? All by yourself?”

“Ja. No other way. No one in village want to leave, even though things there very bad. So I come alone.”

“Were…weren’t you frightened?”

“Oh, yes. I come anyway. Nobody see how I shake on inside.”

The housekeeper rose and set the teakettle on the stove. “I came with my Donald. I didna want to leave my home, but Donald wanted to build ships in America. Men are like that. They want to do things.”

“I also want,” Erika replied. “I want to speak good American, and be able to write, so I can become citizen. Maybe someday vote.”

“Vote! My stars, girl, are ye daft?”

Erika fished in her apron pocket for her notebook. “How spell ‘daft,’ please?”

“Never you mind. All a woman ought to want is a husband and babes of her own. All I wanted was my Donald, but he up and died in Philadelphia three years after we were married. I have been with the Callender family ever since.”

The kettle began to sing. Erika lifted it off the hot stove and poured the steaming water into a flowered china teapot. “I am sad you lose husband,” she said in a soft voice. “But glad you are here in Plum Creek.”

Mrs. Benbow jerked upright. “Are you, now? Then it’s daft you are for sure! I haven’t been—” She broke off. “Why in the world are ye glad?”

Erika handed the older woman a mug of tea. “Because,” she said slowly, “you learn—I mean, teach me things.”

“I do? You’ve been here just three days, missy! Just what is it I’ve taught you?”

Erika cradled the warm mug of tea in her hands. “You do not like me, but you care for doctor. I learn is possible to ‘get along.’ And I watch at dinner. You show me what spoon to eat soup with, which glass for water.”

She purposely avoided mentioning how she learned the difference between the blue flowered vegetable dish and the ceramic washbowl she now used for bathing the baby.

Mrs. Benbow gaped at her, her snapping black eyes widening as she peered over the rim of her mug.

“And I learn also about doctor’s wife,” Erika continued.

“Miss Tess? Now, why on earth.” The older woman’s voice trailed away.

“Tomorrow I replace flowers. Want to do what is proper, like real lady would.”

The housekeeper’s thin gray eyebrows went straight up. “If you don’t mind some advice, child, I’d leave well enough alone about those flowers. You’ve done enough for one week.”

She plunked her mug down on the table and rose. “Now, let’s just finish up these few pieces of linen before I have to start supper.”

A fluttery Tithonia Brumbaugh swept open the front door of the mayor’s two-story house on Chestnut Street. “Why, good afternoon, Dr. Callender,” she warbled. “I didn’t expect a call so soon after—”

Jonathan cut the plump woman off with a curt nod. The mayor’s wife had an unerring knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. “Is the mayor in?” he inquired, his tone brusque.

“Why, no. Plotinus is over at the bank, where he spends most Tuesdays. Won’t you come in?” She peered at his face. “Forgive me, Jonathan, but you look dreadful. Is anything wrong?”

Jonathan ground his teeth. Everything was wrong.

“Thank you, no. I’ll drop in at the bank.” He tipped his hat and retreated to the buggy. Daisy jerked forward before the whip snapped over her head.

So he looked “dreadful,” did he? And he’d forgotten again what day of the week it was. At this rate, he would never regain his equilibrium.

Damn Tess, anyway. It had been an uphill struggle ever since the day he laid eyes on her, all ruffles and furbelows, in Colonel Rowell’s Savannah drawing room. She’d torn up his heart and tossed it away as casually as she poured tea and ordered the servants about.

When he reached Main Street, he slowed the mare to a walk. By the time he stopped the buggy in front of the bank, Jonathan had calmed himself and tried to forgive Tess for the hundredth time for setting her cap for him and then dying.

“Summon Mr. Brumbaugh,” he ordered the young man behind the wire cage. “Tell him it’s urgent.”