Mrs Connor and Mrs Whithers came for a visit today, but I asked Charlotte to please turn them away, tell them only that I am ill and will try to see them soon.
I am so undone as to not be fit for company. When Charlotte brings me a basin of warm water to wash, I tremble and cannot stand long enough to see to it. The girl is kind enough to help me wash my face and neck, but I know I must look a fright.
A sickening lethargy affects me. It is the remnants of the sedative, I think, but also all these hours in bed. The sun shines through the curtains, and I lie here like a helpless invalid. It is tedious and fills me with shame, even if Dr Randall has ordered it. I no longer take the opium, as I cannot imagine it is any more wholesome for my child than it is for me, and the surgeon has agreed only because the bleeding has stopped. He takes it as good sign but says the danger is far from passed.
There is some relief in being allowed to sit in a chair at the window for a short while each day. The nuthatches come now and then, and I caught glimpse of a hawk of some sort but could not see it clearly enough to identify. And always the chickadees find their way to our yard.
Ridiculous it may be, but I am glad to not see that raven again.
At last some small entertainment to report. I had moved to the front room to rest on the sofa for a change of scenery, when out in the yard, I spied two chipmunks scampering about. They chased each other, then both would be up on their hind legs, facing each other like boxers, one would hop over the other and they’d run up a fir tree, down again for another tussle on the ground. It was an amusing scene, and I thought Charlotte might enjoy seeing them. I called for her, and when she didn’t respond, I called more loudly, and I am afraid I must have sounded the alarm, for when Charlotte appeared, she had some kind of weapon in hand!
“Good heavens, don’t shoot,” I said, only partly in jest.
“Sorry ma’am,” she said. “Thought something was amiss.”
I asked about the contraption, a Y-shaped piece of wood with a length of rubber tubing stretched between. She called it a “sling-shot” and with it she can shoot pebbles or small pieces of metal. And why would she possess such a weapon? Charlotte understood it was part of her employment.
“Your Colonel wanted a girl who could cook, clean, and aim straight, just in case there was ever a need.”
“But have you shot anything with it before?”
“Nothing out of order,” she replied, “just a squirrel or game bird for supper now and then. But my brother Tom says it’ll drop a man at forty paces if your aim is good.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Nothing out of order indeed. Perhaps this West remains wild yet.
We watched the chipmunks for some time out the window, but then the men could be heard going through their drills on the parade ground, and the animals were startled back into the woods.
“I cannot tell you how much I long for the out of doors,” I said. “To feel fresh air on my face and hear birdsong.”
True to her nature, Charlotte said nothing. I told her she had best put up her weapon, as there was no need for it now.
Later in the day, however, she came to knock quietly at my bedroom door. When I called her in, she said in the smallest of voices, “Ma’am, I swear I didn’t tell Mrs Connor a thing. I don’t say two words to her ever.”
It was clear she spoke the truth, and I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before?—?of course it was Evelyn who told the women! It is just the kind of thoughtless thing she would do.
I thanked Charlotte, and apologized profusely for losing my temper over the matter.
“I never seen you lose your temper, ma’am. You don’t even holler or throw any pots.” (Such a comment made me wonder about her home.)
I teased that next time I call for her to come look out the window with me, she need not come shooting, but she remained serious and unsmiling, so I reassured her I was glad to be under her protection.
April 15
I exist in a suspended state between sleep and wakefulness, where nothing at all happens, yet all manner of possibilities exist. I wait to hear word of Allen. I wait to feel the quickening of life within me. I try not to dwell on the future, which seems a vast and unknown territory, but I cannot help but wonder?—?by this time next year, will I hold a plump, happy baby in my arms, and will dear Allen again be at my side?
April 16
How sharply it returns, even after all these years, that old familiar horror. Heat that roars like a cyclone through the trees, throwing embers up toward the night sky. The hellish glow. And always, always that animal cry from within the flames. In my dream, I shouted to Father, only to wake myself with my own cry.
For a fleeting moment I thought to turn to Allen in our bed and seek his comfort as I had in nights before, but it is the middle of the day, and I am alone.