Lynna Banning (12 page)

He was separated from himself in some way, grieving for a wife not many months in her grave. More important, he seemed to care little for his own child, Marian Elizabeth. What kind of man was he on the
inside?

She didn’t know. But the truth was, she acknowledged, she would not in the least mind spending the next twenty years finding out.

“In the Methodist church!” the housekeeper spluttered. “Now, how are ye goin’ to get that man to set one foot inside the place, even if it is for his own weddin’?”

Erika plopped her teacup onto the china saucer. She liked talking over her plans with Mrs. Benbow. The older woman shared her honest reactions, and Erika found invaluable the advice of someone who had managed the doctor’s household in Plum Creek for twelve years.

“He will come, I think. Only way to sign records of marriage!”

Mrs. Benbow’s lined face crumpled into a grin. “You’re a canny lass, you are. Now, about your wardrobe.”

“Wardrobe? What means wardrobe?”

“Why, your day dresses and gowns. Your trousseau, your night clothes and pretties.”

“Trousseau,” Erika breathed. “Such a fine-sounding word!”

The housekeeper sniffed. “Nothing fine-sounding or high quality to be found at Valey’s Mercantile, I’m sure. That means a trip to the city or mail order from back East ‘Course, if you send away for your
things, they won’t arrive till after the weddin’. Which’ll it be, my dear? Doctor’s a generous man. He said to spare no expense.”

“Oh, I could not leave baby for travel!”

“Mail order, then. Except for your weddin’ dress. That’s got to be special.”

Erika rose to clear away the tea things. “I have only my black travel dress.
Is
silk, but so dark a color.”

“‘Twon’t do at all,” Mrs. Benbow snapped. “Mind you, I said special. And I happen to have just the thing in my trunk. Just you wait one minute.”

She bustled past Erika and disappeared through the Dutch doors, her bombazine skirt swishing down the lower hall. In a few moments she returned, an ivory lace dress folded over her arm. The old woman’s face beamed. “Just you look at this, lass!”

She spread the gown over the back of the tall kitchen chair she had vacated, and Erika gasped. The dress was a confection of ivory silk and lace, with wide flared sleeves, a simple square neckline and a voluminous gored and gathered skirt with a deep ruffle at the hem.

“Oh,” she whispered. She brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she said again. “Is so beautiful!”

“‘Course it is. I wore it at my own wedding twenty years ago.”

“Oh, but I—I couldn’t wear your dress!”

“And why not? I’ve saved it all these years, wishin’ I had a daughter who’d wear it one day. Take it, lass. We can alter it here ‘n there, narrow the sleeves, maybe add some lace here—” she moved her veined hand from the neckline to the hem “—and here. I saw one in Godey’s almost identical except for the bustle. Didn’t much wear ‘em in those days, but we could add—”

“No!” Erika protested. “You are so kind to offer, but I could not change such a lovely dress.”

“Well, suit yourself. You’ll look a picture with your coloring. After your wedding you can put it away for
your
daughter.”

Erika’s mouth dropped open. “My daughter?”

“The baby, lass,” Mrs. Benbow gently reminded her. “Marian Elizabeth. After next Sunday, you’ll be her real and true mama.”

Erika’s heart took wings.
Marian Elizabeth Callender will be my daughter?
With reverence she caressed the soft ivory silk.

In three short days she would say some words, sign her name in the registry book and become the baby’s mother!

She sat down suddenly.
And become Jonathan Callender’s lawful wedded wife.

“Why, what is it, lass?”

She couldn’t speak, could only shake her head in joy and bewilderment. Tears stung her eyes. It was
too much. Happiness such as she had never known coursed through her. She had wished for the moon, and it had been granted!

“Ah, wedding nerves, o’course.” The housekeeper gave Erika’s shoulders a squeeze. “Don’t you worry, child. It’ll all come right in the end. Just you put on this dress come Sunday, and let your heart take you the rest of the way.”

Her heart.
Her heart had already flown two or three times about the world since Dr. Callender—Jonathan—had proposed marriage. Shortly it would float earthward and settle forever in the large, gracious house on Maple Street in Plum Creek, America.

And there, God, if You are willing, it will stay forever.

B
y the following Sunday afternoon, Erika was so nervous she felt she would jump right out of her skin. The slightest sound sent her heart racing; even the soft
whip-whap
of the Dutch doors into the kitchen set her nerves on edge.

Her wedding dress, freshly aired, pressed and scented with rose petals, lay on the bed upstairs in her room while in the kitchen Mrs. Benbow fussed over Erika’s hair with a heated curling iron.

“Such waves ye’ve got!” the older woman said. “And they’ve a mind of their own, for sure. It’s like tryin’ to curl crimped silk!”

Erika squirmed on the hard wooden chair. “I shouldn’t have braided it this morning.”

“More like you shouldn’t have gotten up and milked that goat, my girl! The dry air’s what’s done it. Why, it must have been ninety degrees by breakfast
time, and on this day of all days.” The housekeeper continued to mutter as she fussed with the hot iron.

“The baby need milk,” Erika replied matter-offactly.
“Needed,”
she amended. And then she added,
“The
milk. Needed
the
milk.” English, she reflected for the thousandth time that week, was full of pitfalls.

Like life,
a voice added.

Erika felt the heat of the afternoon press in on her. Even at dawn, the air had hung heavy and still. The finches that usually twittered among the branches of the plum tree outside her window were silent, as if the first searing rays of the sun warned of the scorching day to come. The house, especially the kitchen, seemed to wilt into sleepy torpor as the day progressed.

She practiced out loud the various phrases Mrs. Benbow had suggested she might need today, especially at the reception that would follow the wedding ceremony. “Thank you very much.so happy to meet.to make your acquaintance.”

Tithonia Brumbaugh had insisted on the reception, had commandeered the Presbyterian church hall, across the street from the Methodist church where the ceremony would be held, and had volunteered the quilting circle ladies to serve refreshments. Erika could not envision a social gathering at which she and Jonathan were the guests of honor. The thought
of being on display, watching her English pronunciation, her manners, the hem of the delicate lace dress, gave her stomach the flutters.

“Sit still, lass! You’re a basket of twitches!”

Erika groaned. By five o’clock, when she would go to church with Dr. Callender—Jonathan, she reminded herself—it would be worse. Never in her entire life had she felt such fear, not even the day she boarded ship at Bremerhaven to sail to America.

Of what was she frightened? Surely not the great good fortune that had befallen her. She was blessed, truly blessed, to be marrying a man she cared for, a man honored in his community. A man who, she fervently prayed, could grow to care for her. At least up to a point Erika recognized Jonathan’s grief over his first wife; that would take time to ease.

“There, now,” Mrs. Benbow pronounced with satisfaction. She laid the metal curling iron aside. “Let’s have our tea, and then ye’d best don your petticoats, lass. ‘Tis almost four.”

But when the tea was brewed and poured out and a plate of the sticky buns Erika loved sat before her, she found she could not swallow a single bite. She took a few sips of her tea and watched Mrs. Benbow devour a bun.

The old woman gave her an appraising look. “More wedding jitters, have ye?”

Erika nodded, her throat suddenly tight.

“Well now, my girl. Since ye’ve no mother here, perhaps you’d like to talk a bit, about the wedding and all. And.afterward.”

Erika’s entire frame jerked to attention. Afterward! In her dazed state of mind, she hadn’t gotten as far as
afterward.
Despite Jonathan’s assurance of the continued privacy of her own small bedroom upstairs next to the baby’s nursery, what would he expect on their wedding night? Even if it was to be a marriage in name only, would he want her in his bed?

She knew about coupling. But the questions she had were too complicated, too—what was the English word?—subtle to ask Mrs. Benbow. Besides, no one, not even the trusted housekeeper, would ever know the private agreement she and the doctor had made on the matter of intimacy.

“Thank you, no,” she said, patting Mrs. Benbow’s wrinkled hand where it rested on the tea cozy. “I am country girl—
a
country girl,” she corrected. “I know all about such things as mating.”

Such relief shone in Mrs. Benbow’s face that Erika stifled a giggle.

“So be it, lass. Considering all those flowers you’re always plantin’, and milkin’ that goat every morning, I should have guessed.”

Ah, yes,
Erika’s inner voice spoke.
Plants I know about, and goats and making cheese and kneading
bread, and animals mating and bearing young. But what do I know about men?

And what, above all, did she know about this man in particular?

The butterflies in her belly fluttered against her rib cage, teased her spine. With shaking hands she gathered up the full skirt of her muslin chemise and scooted off the chair. “I dress—
will
dress now.” She hugged the bosomy housekeeper until the stiff boning of the old lady’s corset pressed hard against her breast. “Thank you for everything,” she whispered.

“I’ll come help you with your corset, lass.”

Puzzling over the choked huskiness in the housekeeper’s voice, Erika headed for the stairs and the second-floor room where her wedding dress—and the start of her new adventure as Jonathan Callender’s wife—waited.

Jonathan pulled Daisy up before the large, graceful house and stared at it as if he’d never seen it before. It wasn’t the same house he had brought Tess home to after their hurried union and long train trip from Savannah. It looked different. Brighter. As if someone had scrubbed the exterior with a stiff brush. The colors looked sharper. Certainly the garden looked different, but that, he knew, was because Erika spent many afternoons on her hands and knees planting things in the rich, black soil. Such an apparently artless
blending of shades and shapes that it looked like one of those Impressionist paintings he’d seen once in Paris.

Daisy shook her head with impatience, and he released the reins. Descending from the buggy, he absently rubbed his shirtsleeve over the shiny black finish. He’d spent hours waxing and polishing it this morning, had skipped breakfast and noon dinner, in fact. Young Timmy Ellis had offered to do it for him, but Jonathan had refused. He’d flipped the boy a dime and said the task was a labor of love. Timmy had sent him a look of utter disbelief and skipped away, no doubt to spend his fortune at Valey’s candy counter.

Ordinarily he would have hired the lad, but today he needed to keep his hands busy. Otherwise, he noted, they shook like the yellowing leaves of Ted Zabersky’s quaking aspen tree. For some reason, smoothing the soft flannel rag over the buggy’s paint calmed his nerves.

The last time he’d been so uneasy was before his first surgery at medical college in Edinburgh. “Here,” the head surgeon had said. “You do it, Callender. Make a clean incision and remove this boy’s appendix.”

Odd that he hadn’t felt this fear when he’d married Tess. But then, he’d scarcely had time to get his bag unpacked in Savannah before he was repacking it and
heading west with a wife. Tess was always in a hurry.

Well, he wasn’t hurried now. Far from it! He’d spent the long morning hours laboring over the buggy in which he would drive Erika to the church, and part of the afternoon tramping in the woods west of town. Whatever the outcome of this day, and the life that would follow, for better or worse, he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing he had provided a proper conveyance. In a way it was like sterilizing his instruments before beginning a surgery; proper preparation ensured at least a fighting chance for success.

By three o’clock he couldn’t stand it any longer. He slipped in the front door and up the stairs to the master bedroom to dress for the wedding.

A single thought nagged at him. More than offering protection and a safe, comfortable home, he wanted to please Erika. He liked the woman. Wanted her, even. When she passed close enough that her scent reached his nostrils, he ached with desire. She smelled of lilacs and some subtle, musky spice. His head swam when she was near him.

The truth was, he wanted her to like him. Be content with him, with what he was and was not. Tess had been dissatisfied in some way he could never fathom. He did not want to disappoint Erika.

His terror at the prospect of another failure held in
rigid control, Jonathan entered his bedroom and began to unbutton his rumpled day shirt.

Dressed and ready at last, Erika sat by the open bedroom window, hoping a late-afternoon breeze would stir the hot, still air. The house was quiet. After lacing up Erika’s corset, Mrs. Benbow had left for the church on the arm of Mr. Zabersky, who had extended the invitation after Erika’s music lesson last week. In a single breath he had exclaimed over the housekeeper’s sticky buns and offered his sevices as escort.

Erika smiled at the sight of the elderly couple, arm in arm on the street below, pushing the white wicker baby carriage ahead of them.

It seemed a miracle, all of it. She was to marry Dr. Jonathan Callender, and her baby daughter would be present at her new mama’s wedding! Most miraculous was the way she felt deep down inside, beneath the folds of ivory silk and the stiff laced corset.

Dizzy with happiness, she rose to secure the diaphanous floor-length veil Mrs. Benbow had given her. It drifted to the toes of her simple buff-colored shoes, and the gentle tug of its weight tightened the combs securing the small circlet of Mr. Zabersky’s white roses that crowned her head. She couldn’t see her entire form in the small dresser mirror, but Mrs. Benbow had pronounced her “just perfect” before
she left. Erika decided she would trust the older woman’s judgment.

It was time to make her way down the staircase to the buggy waiting outside. She moved toward the hallway, but just as she reached the door, she turned back. For a long moment she surveyed the tiny room.

Then, lifting her chin, she stepped resolutely into the hall and moved forward to meet her new life.

Jonathan spoke in low tones to calm the restive mare. As always, Daisy was anxious to be off. “Just a few more minutes, girl, and then you can—” He broke off at the sight of a vision in ivory lace floating across his veranda and down the front steps. Unconsciously he straightened on the leather seat and swallowed hard.

Erika. My God, she was so beautiful it made his throat ache.

She moved toward him, a bouquet of white roses and purple-blue woods irises in one hand, her long veil caught up in the other. Her hair was loose. Shiny honey-gold waves swept past her shoulders.

Jonathan lifted the reins, and the buggy rolled forward to meet her at the edge of the walk.

She stopped at the fence and bent to unlatch the gate, but Jonathan leapt down and opened it for her. Her smile set his heart galloping. When he closed the gate behind her and offered his arm, the touch of her
fingers through the sleeve of his summer frock coat sent a tremor through him.

She said nothing but climbed into the buggy and settled her skirts with an air of calm he envied. Regal as a fairy princess, she waited for him to join her on the tufted seat.

The mare started off with a jerk, and Jonathan swore under his breath. As Erika grabbed her bouquet, a small black book slipped from beneath the blooms and tumbled to the floor.

He retrieved it. The edges of the leather cover were rounded with use, and the volume fell open to the page marked by a worn purple ribbon. A Bible. The words were in German. He tucked it into her hand.

He tried to concentrate on guiding Daisy down Maple Street, remember to turn the corner at Chestnut and proceed toward the church, but he found his gaze pulled again and again to the small book she carried. He wondered what text she had chosen for today.

They were the last to arrive. A space had been left for his buggy in front of the steepled, white-painted structure, and Jonathan maneuvered the vehicle close to the street edge.

Erika had not spoken one single word. Now, as he helped her down, he voiced the only question that
came to mind. “Is there anything you need before we go in?”

She met his gaze with unnerving candor. “Yes! Some brandy!”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said without thinking. Before he could retract the words, she laughed, a low, musical trill of amusement bubbling out of her mouth. The sound cleared his brain and sent a rush of thankfulness through his consciousness.

A woman who can laugh on her wedding day. What a prize I’ve captured!

He resisted a sudden impulse to shout “Hallelujah.” Then he remembered where he was on this scorching afternoon in September, recalled the circumstances leading up to this day and the events that would follow. It was not a laughing matter. His pervasive fear of failure hung over him like a pall.

“Come, Erika. We must be married before we can have the brandy.”

“Then,” she whispered as they turned toward the open church doors, “let us hurry!”

The entire population of Plum Creek crowded the wooden pews inside the small Methodist church. Erika kept her eyes on the simple altar, where Reverend Yard waited, but as she passed slowly down the aisle on Jonathan’s arm, she heard gasps and a few whispers.

“Exquisite gown…I wonder where she…damned handsome woman.Doc’s a lucky.”

Lydia Valey’s four-year-old daughter convulsed the congregation by piping “Pretty lady!” at the top of her lungs.

Under her fingers, Erika felt the muscles of Jonathan’s arm flex and relax. She tightened her hand. The net veil billowed behind her, tugging on her headpiece. She was glad of it. It reminded her she was earthbound, and that this afternoon, this wedding ceremony, was real and not something she was dreaming.

At the altar they stopped and stood in silence before the minister.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together to join this man and this woman.”

Erika felt her body begin to tremble. Glancing down, she saw the lace outlining the low, square neckline of her dress flutter with each thudding beat of her heart. At the minister’s request, she took Jonathan’s offered hand.