Authors: Plum Creek Bride
Lynna Banning (19 page)
J
onathan pulled the harp to Erika’s bedside and brushed his fingers over the strings. The silvery sound bloomed and faded. He strummed it again, more slowly, made the sound last longer. The notes shimmered in the still room, bringing an odd sense of peace.
Gently he sat down beside his wife and tipped the harp onto his shoulder as he had seen her do. He plucked a single string, then another. The ethereal sounds fed his ravaged soul. He prayed they would ease her passage.
He played notes at random, letting an inner spirit guide him. A minute, an hour, he didn’t know. Time had no meaning anymore. All he knew was that he had to reach her, had to be with her at the end. Such intangible gifts were the only things that mattered in life.
He felt something rip inside his chest, and suddenly time seemed to slow. What mattered was that he loved Erika, just as she was—caring, industrious, independent-minded, annoyingly outspoken. She was herself. An original. He did not need to understand her, he needed only to love her.
A weight lifted from his heart It was all clear now. He loved Erika, but he did not own her. She would never belong to him in that sense, and it no longer mattered. Erika would belong to him because she freely chose to spend her life—her frustratingly independent life—with him.
His fingers stilled on the strings, and he felt Erika stir beside him.
* * * * *
“Jonathan?”
He started at the sound of her voice. “Erika? Can you hear me?”
“Jonathan?” she murmured again. “Hold me.”
He released the harp and gathered her close. “Erika,” he whispered. “Erika.” She smelled faintly of vanilla.
Quickly he felt for her pulse, rested his palm on her brow. He must be dreaming. Hallucinating, even. Her skin felt cool and dry. Her heart thumped against his chest.
“Erika, are you in pain? Do your legs hurt? Your stomach?”
She was silent for a long moment. “No. But I am thirsty.”
Thirsty!
She was thirsty?
She was thirsty!
Next she would be hungry, and then.
He wrapped his arms tight about her.
God in heaven! His wife was warm and alive in his arms.
He pressed his face into her hair and wept.
By Christmas Eve, Erika was well enough to attend the debut of Tithonia Brumbaugh’s new Dramatic Arts Society, followed by supper and dancing. Bundled in a thick fur robe, Erika allowed Jonathan to fuss and hover over her. She didn’t need such cosseting, but she knew it made him happy.
She had been wheeling Marian Elizabeth’s baby carriage to Valey’s Mercantile and back for a week now; she had just not told Jonathan. Since he was out on calls or closeted in his study with patients most of the daylight hours, he rarely noticed her absences. Besides, walking was good for her now.
Tithonia’s dramatic presentations were highlighted by a pageant depicting scenes from
Ivanhoe.
Erika thought she recognized the draperies she had donated to the Methodist church bazaar in October, but she couldn’t be sure. Royal blue and crimson dye covered the identifying damask rose pattern.
Privately she thought Tithonia a little buxom as Rowena, but dark-haired Susan Ransom was an elegant
Rebecca, and Plotinus played the Templar knight to perfection.
When the final act was over, Jonathan leaned toward her. “Would you like to go home now and rest?”
“No,” she whispered. “Now we will have dancing and after that the Presbyterian ladies are to serve supper.”
Scarcely able to believe his ears, Jonathan stared at her. “I thought you didn’t enjoy dancing, Erika? At our wedding, as I recall, you preferred brandy to waltzes.”
His teasing tone masked his surprise. He would never be able to keep up with Erika. Never.
“I have learned much since then,” she said. “I like now the dancing. With you,” she murmured. “I like very much.”
A shy smile touched her lips, and his heart constricted.
“I ask you, Jonathan. Dance me.”
Jonathan shook his head to clear the cobwebs from his brain. He was sure a deeper meaning was attached to her words. “It’s not dancing we’re talking about, is it?”
She turned a speculative gaze on him. “No. Is not.” She rose, stretched her arms to his shoulders. “Please. Dance me. I want to be close with you.”
Jonathan stood up. “Yes,” he said in a voice shaking
with emotion. “I will dance you. Any time, any place you say. For the rest of my life.”
She moved into his arms. “Jonathan,” she murmured against his cheek. “You will remember, I.warm easy.”
For a moment his brain went blank. I
warm easy?
What was she really telling him?
He stared down into his wife’s luminous blue eyes, and the answer came in a flash. She meant for him not to crush her own life, her own self. Not to keep her spirit imprisoned in the large gray house on Maple Street. That’s what she’d wanted him to understand all along.
“Yes, my darling, I remember.”
She settled her slim hand on his shoulder. “Then we will begin,” she whispered. “Dance me.”
He caught her in his arms. Their voices blended as they spoke together one final word.
“Loose.”
I
n the spring, Brumbaugh Hospital admitted its first patient when eleven-year-old Sally Sinclair broke her collarbone playing Ivanhoe in a tournament with the Rukavin boys.
Rutherford Waterworks elected Jonathan Callender chairman of the board and Rutherford Chilcoate as executive director.
In June, Whitman Vahl married Mary Zabersky in the rose arbor at her father’s home. Erika and Mr. Zabersky performed during the garden reception.
The following Sunday at the Presbyterian church, Theodore Zabersky claimed Adeline Benbow as his bride.
Two weeks later, on a day when the cloudless sky arched like a blue bowl over Plum Creek, Erika Callender gave birth to a baby girl. They named her Jonna Adeline.
That evening, through the lighted windows of the large gray house on Maple Street, Dr. Jonathan Callender could be seen lifting his wife in his arms and slowly turning around and around in the graceful steps of a waltz.
I
t is a popular myth that women of the West, particularly those in towns and cities, were delicate creatures who hid themselves away keeping house and raising families. Women of all ages and walks of life were one of the most stabilizing, civilizing elements of nineteenth-century American society, contributing their time, organizational ability and creative talents to numerous projects of educational, cultural, social and political importance.
Tight-laced corsets, bustles, starched petticoats and feathered hats did not prevent our intrepid grandmothers and great-grandmothers from rolling up their sleeves and polishing whatever part of the West they found themselves in. To such women we owe an incalculable debt of gratitude for a heritage of vision and courage.
eISBN 978-14592-5089-5
Plum Creek Bride
Copyright © 1999 by Carolyn Woolston
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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