“Hardly bigger than a prairie hen,” Mrs. Scott agreed.
Caroline’s passion flared. Mrs. Scott’s every word about this child seemed too vibrant with meaning, but Caroline checked herself before speaking. Least said, soonest mended. “She will soon be big enough for you to play with,” she assured her daughters instead.
“We’ll call her Caroline, for you,” Charles said. “Carrie for short.”
Caroline recalled how this baby had twirled inside her that night on the prairie, the night Laura told her the stars were singing. Her spine tingled with the memory. “Caroline Celestia,” she said.
“Carrie can have my beads,” Mary said.
Before Caroline could ask, Charles reached into his pocket and drew out his handkerchief, knotted at both ends. Two pools of Indian beads glittered inside.
Laura stirred her portion slowly with her finger. “And mine too,” she offered, not taking her eyes from them.
“That’s my unselfish, good little girls,” Caroline praised them, though her chest blossomed with sympathy for Laura. Mary was always so quick to show off her goodness. It was hardly fair to expect such a little girl to keep up. But Laura must learn. “Give them a strong thread, Charles, and they may string them.” She touched Laura’s cheek and felt the burn of the child’s disappointment. “There are enough to make a little string of beads for Carrie to wear around her neck,” she said. Laura was not consoled, but she nodded politely and went to join Mary.
Caroline closed her eyes, veiling herself from all of them as best she could. Not one fleck of emotion had entered the cabin without leaving its print upon her, and she thirsted for a space out of reach. Beside her in the bed, the soft movements of Carrie’s breaths shifted and settled like whispering embers. In her newness, and her nearness, Carrie did not yet seem a separate creature unto herself, and Caroline welcomed the small animal comfort of her.
Caroline waited for the sounds of the cabin to carry her toward sleep—the plick-plick of the girls stringing their beads, Charles whistling “Daisy Deane” as he went to tend the stock, the jingle of Jack’s chain. Mrs. Scott’s tempo with spoon and mixing bowl was quick and steady. Beneath it all, Caroline silently strummed the notes of Carrie’s name.
The smell of Mrs. Scott’s good supper was still in the air when Caroline woke. The baby lay curled up tight as a bud beside her; Mary and Laura were already tucked into their small bed, their freshly combed hair lustrous against the white pillow cases. Her body felt loose, open. There was nothing taut and pressing inside, though she could feel where the weight and the pressure and the pain had been. Every inch of it hurt yet, but the remnants of the pain were so subdued as to be almost pleasurable. Caroline took a deep, languorous breath, treating her lungs to their first leisurely stretch in months. There was not a thing in the world that she wanted.
“I’ll sleep in the stable,” Charles was saying. He looked around the room. “Where’s the gray blanket?”
Mrs. Scott grimaced. “It wants washing,” she said.
Charles colored a little. Then he knelt down by the bed and fitted his hand like a bonnet over Carrie’s head. His thumb roved over the baby’s black hair as if it were a grain of wood finer than any he had touched. The look in his eyes was still too rich to meet; even with all the newfound space inside her, there was not room in Caroline’s chest for the affection he was stirring. Without a word, he squeezed Caroline’s hand and kissed her knuckles.
“Come wake me if you need for anything at all,” he said to Mrs. Scott. The door shut behind him. Mrs. Scott did not pull in the latch string.
Caroline closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of Mrs. Scott undressing: the creak of shoe leather as she eased her feet free, her loosed corset strings sighing through the eyelets, the click of the metal busk unfastening. Then Caroline felt Mrs. Scott crawl up over the foot of the bed, settling into Charles’s accustomed place by the wall.
They lay alongside each other, politely still. Only Mrs. Scott’s voice moved toward her, softer yet than Caroline had heard her speak. “My Robert . . . he told me how you helped Mr. Ingalls pull him from the well,” she said. “My family and I—we’re much obliged.”
Guilt sliced through Caroline like a scythe as her own panicked voice reverberated in her memory: No, no, Charles! I can’t let you. Get on Patty and go for help. If I can’t pull you up—if you keel over down there and I can’t pull you up . . . She could not bear to hold such selfishness alongside Mrs. Scott’s gratitude. “Please,” she started. “It wasn’t—”
“Don’t say a thing,” Mrs. Scott said. “Please. I don’t have words deep enough to thank you as it is.”
The words Mrs. Scott would not let her speak bulged Caroline’s throat so that she could not swallow. Silently she prayed for forgiveness, though she knew it could not come swiftly enough to keep the guilt roiling behind her breasts from tainting her milk.
Caroline smiled grimly at the ceiling. If Mrs. Scott would not allow her to beg pardon, there was no choice but to make do with the consolation of penance. Tired as she was, she must lie awake and make certain her shame had wholly subsided before the child next woke to feed. Suckling on such agitated passions would likely give a newborn convulsions. A fitting punishment, Caroline thought with rueful admiration. The more she fretted over what she might have cost Mrs. Scott and her family, the longer she endangered the blameless babe asleep beside her.
Mrs. Scott stayed for two days.