Plum Creek Bride

Cornstarch? Why would she need cornstarch?

As if in answer to her unspoken question, Dr. Callender spoke in a low, controlled voice. “It is much superior to nursery powder.”

Powder! Of course. With an inward sigh of relief, she rolled the wet diaper into a wad and deposited it on an empty corner of the doctor’s desk. She heard Mrs. Benbow’s snort of disapproval and the physician’s quick intake of breath, but she was too distracted to care. Cornstarch must be for the baby’s moist skin. She eyed the huck tea towel.

That was it! She must dry the infant’s tender skin, then dust on the fine white powder. Oh, thank you, God, for showing me how to proceed

She snatched up the wrinkled towel and just as quickly discarded it. “Is soiled,” she said as calmly as she could. “May I have clean one?”

The housekeeper rose and drew herself up with an air of superiority. The stiff bombazine dress rustled in the quiet room, and Erika had a quick vision of a peacock displaying its feathers.

“Certainly,” the woman snapped. The door clicked shut behind her.

Left alone with the doctor, Erika experienced a moment of panic. Would he notice her inexperience?

She kept her back to him as she folded the dry material into what she judged to be a diaper-shaped rectangle. The door opened and in swept Mrs. Benbow, a clean towel in her hand. Erika accepted it, then reached for the dish of cornstarch. She patted the baby’s damp skin with the towel, then dusted on the powder with the cotton ball in the dish cover.

As she lifted the folded diaper she managed a surreptitious glance behind her. Both Dr. Callender and his housekeeper had their attention riveted on her. She could block out one person’s view with her body, but not both. One of them would just have to witness her first fumbling attempt at changing an infant’s diaper. Which one should it be?

She chose the housekeeper. The physician would dismiss her at once if he suspected how inexperienced she was. Mrs. Benbow might disapprove, but she would not complain, since she obviously regarded caring for the infant herself with some distaste.

Keeping her back toward. Dr. Callender, Erika lifted the baby’s tiny legs and slid the material beneath her rump. She wished her hands would stop shaking! Slowly she brought the material up between the kicking limbs. Praying she would not stab the infant with the pin, she forced the point through thicknesses of cotton material and, using her finger as a guide, snapped the device securely in place. When the second pin closed, Erika breathed in relief. She’d done it!

“Humph!” Mrs. Benbow sniffed behind her. “Now I s’pose you’ll need that milk heated up. I’ll have to go poke up my stove.” With a sour look on her face, the woman yanked open the study door.

“Please,” Erika was amazed to hear herself say. “Pour out old milk. Use fresh.”

The housekeeper stiffened, and Erika held her breath.

“Miss Scharf is right,” the doctor said in a low, even voice. “In this hot weather, milk clabbers readily.”

“Harrumph!” The housekeeper huf—fed and swished away, an angry set to her thin, hunched shoulders.

Milk, Erika thought desperately. Babies needed milk, of course, but how much? How warm? And if not from a mother’s breast, how was it to be drunk?

“Boil the nursing flask, too, Mrs. Benbow,” the physician called through the open door.

Ah, that was it-a bottle of some sort! Erika covered her relief by lifting the infant into her arms. Except for a single blanket over the mattress, no other bedding softened the bare wicker.

She stared down at the starkly appointed cradle, then pivoted toward the doctor. “Where is kept baby’s clothes and…bed makings?”

“Tess…” A momentary flash of anguish twisted the physician’s regular features. He swallowed, then continued. “My wife stored the baby’s things in the nursery.”

“Nursery? Where is nursery?”

“Upstairs. Mrs. Benbow cannot manage the stairs, so she moved the cradle into my study until.for the time being.”

“I move back to nursery,” Erika announced. “I can go up and down stairs. I t’ink is why missus send for me.”

Jonathan said nothing. He strode to the laceshrouded window, drew the panel to one side and stared out. He would be glad to have the child ensconced out of earshot in the special room Tess had insisted on when she had finally confessed her pregnancy. Every sound the baby made reminded him of his wife’s untimely death. Even so, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be left alone with himself in the sanctuary of his study.

But life could not stop because Tess was gone. It was time for him to see patients again. He had to resume his practice, or that quack Chilcoate would kill off half the town.

“Yes, move the babe upstairs,” he said, clipping his words short. And as for you, Erika Scharf, stay out of my sight.

To be honest, he wanted nothing to do with Tess’s child, or the young woman she had engaged without telling him. Women, he had learned, were devious and dishonest. Never again, he resolved, would he allow himself to love one. No woman would ever again enchain his heart.

And no child, either.

Erika frowned as she inspected the nursery. The small, stifling room next to her own chamber smelled of dust and dried lavender and obviously had never been used. A stack of clean diapers filled the laceruffled bassinet; on top of the broad, waist-high chest on the opposite wall lay a folded blue knit shawl. A cobweb looped from the garment to one drawer pull.

A rocking chair stood next to the single window. Erika noticed the layer of dust between the dark walnut slats. It looked as if no one had ever sat in it.

She lifted the diapers off the striped ticking mattress and set them on top of the chest. God in heaven, the infant’s bed had not even been made up!

Erika cocked her head to one side. The untouched state of the room answered her questions about the odd situation she’d stepped into. From birth, the child had evidently been cared for by the housekeeperfed and tended to in the wicker cradle downstairs in the doctor’s study. Considering Mrs. Benbow’s spare, bent frame, her inability to climb the stairs and her obvious reticence about picking up the baby even when it wailed, Erika surmised the child had received attention only out of duty. Even the papa, Dr. Callender, seemed uninterested. Remote.

Had he delivered the infant and immediately relegated her to the care of his dour housekeeper as his wife lay dying? Poor man.

And the poor Liebchen! What a sad beginning for a child. No one to hold or comfort her, no warm mama’s body to nestle against, no breast to suckle. Erika knew instinctively what the child needed. Love.

And that silent, enigmatic man whose house this was planned to send his own child to Scotland? Erika would die first. The instant those tiny, perfect pink fingers had curled around her thumb, Erika’s heart had contracted. Now the child lay downstairs, looked after but not loved. It was not good enough.

She plucked the handerchief from her apron pocket and whisked it over the dusty chair and bureau top, shook out the shawl and folded the mound of diapers and laid them in an empty drawer. In the middle drawer she found a set of infant-sized sheets and a tiny pillowcase with embroidered pink and gold flowers twining around the edge. She made up the bassinet, laid a rose-edged crocheted baby blanket over the top sheet and opened the window to air the room. A warm, sweet-scented breeze washed over her perspiring face.

Erika pressed her forefinger against the smooth rocker back, setting it in motion. Forgive me if I not know everything, Mrs. Callender, but I learn quick. I will take good care of your beautiful baby girl.

She watched the chair tip slowly forward and then back on its long, curved runners, as if nodding in silent agreement.

Chapter Three (#ulink_1b4b98f5-d438-5b1d-b094-e5a302bf40bd)

Erika slipped the cambric sacque over the baby’s head and cradled the tiny form in the crook of her arm. In the single day since her arrival in Plum Creek, she had mastered not only changing diapers but dressing and feeding Marian Elizabeth Callender. Now, alone in the kitchen on Sunday morning while Mrs. Benbow attended church, Erika planned to bathe the child for the first time.

Grateful not to have the housekeeper’s sharp eyes assessing her every motion, she moved about the spotless, meticulously arranged pantry searching for a vessel to serve as the baby’s bathtub. The teakettle on the stove hissed as she scanned the cabinets and long, painted shelves for a basin of the appropriate size.

Skillets, cooking pots of various sizes, three sets of china. What riches! She gazed about her in awe. So many beautiful things! The blue-flowered plates she recognized from last night’s dinner, eaten in haste on the small kitchen table while Mrs. Benbow grudgingly rocked the baby in the wicker cradle.

Aside from her own bedroom upstairs, the wellkept kitchen with its ornate, nickel-trimmed iron stove and the wealth of utensils and china and glassware was her favorite room.

Ah, there! On the top shelf! Her gaze fell upon a large white china bowl with a matching cover. Just the right shape for a baby to sit in, and the cover so clever—to keep the water warm until bath time! Shifting the infant to her other arm, Erika reached over her head to retrieve the basin.

Zu hoch. Too high up, she amended in English. She must remember to speak the language of America! She would never become a citizen of this great country if she could not.

Undaunted, she settled the infant on a folded towel in the oblong porcelained iron sink and dragged a stool over to the shelf. She climbed onto the stool and with care lifted down the curious dish, cover and all. At the same instant the tall figure of Dr. Callender filled the doorway.

His white shirt was rumpled, his eyes red rimmed, as if he had not slept. The tumble of unruly coalblack curls over his forehead gave him an almost jaunty, boyish look. But his pale, strained face told her otherwise.

“Good day, Miss Scharf. I thought I would brew myself a cup of tea before Mrs. Benbow.” He turned somber gray eyes up at her, perched on the stool, and his brows rose. “.returns from her weekly religious indulgence,” he finished after a moment’s hesitation.