something wrong with your hearing, Miss Scharf? I said I intend to send the child to Scotland.”
“Nein.” She met his gaze with an unflinching stare of her own. “Hearing good. Seeing also good. Thinking—” she tapped a forefinger against her forehead “—best of all! Baby stay here, with papa.”
He drew himself up to his full height. “Now, look, miss. You may stay the night, and that is all. In my home, I decide what is best.”
Erika tipped her head to meet his gaze. “Ja, of course,” she agreed. “But baby not on Scotland ship now. Later maybe, not now. Now, baby is here. I am here. You—papa—are here. Is for the best, I think. You will see.”
She spun and started dragging the satchel up the stairs. “Which room, please? I put on apron now.”
Erika did not look back at him on purpose. She didn’t want to give the frowning man at the bottom of the stairs one second to open his mouth and stop her ascent to what was surely the closest to heaven she’d ever been in her twenty-four years.
A house! A big, welcoming house, with beautiful furnishings and lace curtains at the windows—and so many windows, the glass sparkling clean, not dingy with soot as in her parents’ tiny cottage at home. Mama would be so happy for her! Mama had always wanted a window.
A house in America! It was almost too good to be true. America. Land of the free, Papa had said. Where people were equal. It was all he’d talked about before he died. In America, even a poor German cobbler could eat.
More than that. An unmarried woman could work hard and save money, could stay respectable even if she did not marry. A young woman in America had a future.
And now that she was finally here, nothing—not fire or flood or Dr. Jonathan Callender—would keep her from starting her new life. It was what Papa had wanted for her. It was what she wanted. In fact, it was the only thing she wanted—to live in America.
She reached the last door in the long hallway and tentatively laid her hand on the polished brass knob. This one? she wondered. The door was smaller than the others.
Now at last she was here, at the home where she was needed. She quailed at her defiance of the formidable-looking physician, but she would never, ever give up her only offer of employment. Or her dream. And, she resolved, she would never, never admit how frightened she was.
She twisted the doorknob and walked in.
Erika stared at the lovely room. A Brussels carpet in tones of rose and burgundy spread over the floor, and on top of it, centered between two tall multipaned windows, stood a narrow bed swathed in ivory lace. There were few other furnishings except for an imposing carved walnut chiffonier and a night table next to the bed. On it sat a white china basin and matching pitcher.
The small, simple room looked comfortable and inviting. It was sumptuous, by Erika’s standards. Surely she must have opened the wrong door! Mrs. Callender had promised she would have her own room, but this—this seemed far too grand for a servant’s quarters. This was luxury indeed, compared with the threadbare boardinghouses and dirty hotels she had occupied this past month of traveling from New York across the plains and mountains to Portland and then south to Plum Creek.
In spite of herself, she took a cautious step onto the richly patterned carpet. Mercy, her travel-stained shoes would surely soil it! Quickly she unhooked the laces, stepped out of the brown canvas shoes and edged onto the patterned carpet in her stocking feet. The thick, soft wool caressed her toes. What heaven!
Yes, it must be the wrong room. But so beautiful. So welcoming, as if waiting just for her. On impulse she slid one bureau drawer open. Empty.
She slid it closed and opened another. Empty, except for a spray of dried lavender scenting the flowered paper lining. If the room belonged to someone, would not the drawers be full? With a gasp of pleasure, she realized Mrs. Callender’s intention: the room was to be Erika’s!
She felt as if she had died and floated up to live with the angels. A room to herself! A private, quiet place where she could be alone! Never in her life had she had a door she could close to keep the world out.
And a bed covered in lace, like a wedding cake! She plunged her hands under the bedclothes. And a real mattress!
Hers! Her throat closed with emotion. Hurriedly she scrabbled in her satchel for the clean, white apron folded at the bottom and dumped the remaining contents into the open bureau drawer. The doctor had to let her stay! He had to!
With shaking hands she removed her straw hat and drew the apron neckband over her head, fashioning the ties into a wide bow at her waist. Smoothing out the sharp creases in the starched material, she surveyed herself in the oval mirror propped on the chiffonier.
She pinched her cheeks with both hands to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, then reinserted a hairpin into the loose bun of honey-colored hair piled on top of her head. Tomorrow she would braid it into a crown as she had in the old country.
Hastily she flicked her cambric pocket handerchief over the dusty shoes and was bending to pull them on when a piercing cry penetrated the quiet.
Erika jerked upright The baby. Casting a quick look at the pristine, feminine bedroom, she bolted for the door and pulled it shut behind her.
A lusty wail rose from below, punctuated by a man’s impatient voice and the thump of footsteps as he apparently paced back and forth. Erika paused at the bottom of the stairs, consciously straightened her spine and drew in a fortifying breath. She was ready.
She moved toward the crying that rose from behind a closed door. Just as she lifted her hand to knock, the door jerked open.
“It’s about time,” the physician barked. “What the devil were you doing up there?”
Erika took an involuntary step backward. Perspiration beaded the doctor’s high, tanned forehead. Tendrils of black hair curled awry, as if he had combed his fingers over his scalp. The penetrating gray eyes narrowed into shards of slate as he awaited her response.
“I was putting on my—”
“I can see that,” he snapped. With a sigh he turned away, gesturing toward a wrinkled wraith of a woman in a severe black dress, seated beside an unadorned white wicker cradle.
“This is Mrs. Benbow, my housekeeper. Erika. what was it again? Ah, yes. Scharf. Erika Scharf.”
The older woman fanned herself with one corner of a tea towel and pinned snapping black eyes on her. “What church are ye?” she demanded over the baby’s cries.
“Church?” Did she dare admit she did not regularly attend church? All she knew was that the service was not conducted in Latin, so she could not be Catholic. “Why, Protestant, I suppose.”
“You suppose? Don’t you know? How were ye raised, if I might ask?”
“I was brought up in Germany,” Erika replied, trying to keep her voice steady. “Papa Catholic. Mama Lutheran.” She did not add that her grandfather, her father’s father, had been a Jew. Papa had converted before he met Mama.
“Well, that’s a fine muddle!” The woman jostled the edge of the wicker crib. “Hush now, child.”
Erika risked a peek into the cradle. A tiny pink mouth stretched open, emitting screams of anguish. At Erika’s touch, the crying stopped abruptly, and two startled, tear-filled blue eyes gazed up at her.
Mrs. Benbow sighed. “The wee thing’s hungry. Again,” she added with a grimace.
Erika glanced at Dr. Callender, who had resumed his pacing. The tall man tramped back and forth before a huge mahogany desk littered with papers and journals.
“The child cries constantly,” he growled. “Likely cannot yet. tolerate cow’s milk. I cannot see patients with all this din and uproar, and Mrs. Benbow cannot cook and clean house and care for a child as well. She must be sent to Scotland, and the sooner the better.”
Mrs.