Lovelier than Daylight Read online

  “I’m quite good at digging things up.”

  “It is a private matter.”

  “But if I can help, might you share with me just enough to procure what you need? There are many, many shops and establishments in Columbus, and I’m familiar with them from my wanderings in the newspaper business.”

  Her eyes sparked. “What I want cannot be procured from a shop, Mr. Giere,” she said in a tense whisper. “I want my sister, who has disappeared, perhaps harmed by her husband, who is a drunk.” She leaned forward, clutching her handbag against her skirt, almost vibrating with emotion. “And her six children are now at city orphanages, and we aren’t permitted to take them home. Nor do we have the means to do so.” An arc of pain coursed over her face like an electric shock, but she kept her voice low. “Without their intoxicated father’s consent, we can do nothing. And he’s a slave to his drink, which has made him lazy and cruel. There. Now will you do as you said and procure me my sister?” Lips trembling, she turned on her heel and walked to the far side of the store where she faced the bright masses of white and red roses. She crossed her arms over her chest and her shoulders slumped.

  Warmth spread over his cheekbones. No wonder she had been so unpredictable and thorny—she was in real torment, as anyone in her position would be. He walked over and stood close behind her where he would not be overheard by the shopkeeper. “I humbly ask your pardon. I should not have intruded.”

  In profile, she blinked and raised her head, then swallowed.

  “But as I’ve clumsily blundered into your private affairs, I wish to make it up to you by helping. What’s the name of your sister’s husband, and where does he live?”

  “George Leeds.” She did not meet his eyes. “Union Center. He hates our family now—he claims my sister ran away with another man and abandoned her children. But I know she did no such thing!” The contradiction of her fervent talk and delicate beauty was mesmerizing.

  “Union Center is not far,” he said. “Maybe I will go speak to Mr. Leeds. Talk a little, buy him a beer, and see if I can improve his intentions.”

  Her eyes widened and lips tightened, though she did not look his way.

  Before she could chastise him about the beer, he held up his hands. “Wait. You say he hates your family. But a man unrelated to you, a friendly man, can share a glass of lager and talk—Mr. Leeds might be more receptive to good sense and compassion under those circumstances.”

  She took a shallow breath and sighed. A minute went by while she stared at the soft curves of the rose petals. “There may be some merit in what you say.” She looked at him directly, her lashes still damp and dark. “You would go there and speak with him, to help us?”

  “No gentleman could hear your story or see your distress without sympathy.” The words felt stiff—she might think him a fool, but it was true.

  “I thank you for that.” She said it simply, closing her eyes with her face still turned to the flowers. The lowering of her eyelids allowed a flood of pain into her face. He watched with sympathy as she took a breath and let it all drain away, restoring a polite expression. “Thank you.”

  “Then I will find you in Westerville,” he said. “As soon as I have spoken to this man.”

  She laced her fingers together, seeming at a loss. “I must be going.” She walked to the door. He quickly moved to hold it for her.

  “Auf Wiedersehen.” Why had he said it in German? He was off balance for some reason and reflex had taken over. “Till we meet again, Miss Hanby.”

  He nodded to her as she left. The bell rang again and the hunched woman peeped out to see if any new customer had arrived.

  “Are you interested in a bouquet, Mr. Giere?” she said, curiosity perking her withered face.

  “No—wait, yes, I am, if you have a boy who can deliver them immediately.”

  “I do. Edward!” she called into the back, and after a moment, a boy of about ten in plain breeches came through the curtain.

  “Then I’ll take those.” Johann pointed to the ones he wanted.

  “An interesting choice, sir. Like this?” She held up a bunch in her hands.

  When he nodded, she grinned a snaggletoothed smile and began to wrap them. “I’ll put them in damp cloth so they will last till they are vased.”

  “Fine, but hurry please.”

  In only a minute or two, the boy had his instructions. He took the wrapped cone of paper in his arms and ran out the door.

  “Miss, miss!” a young voice called out.

  “He seems to be calling for you, Susanna.” Her uncle raised one finger to point behind them at the boy running up, out of breath, with a parcel in his arms.

  Aunt Ann looked a little startled. “Do you know him?” she murmured as the boy hopped up to the courthouse steps where they stood.

  “No,” Susanna said, puzzled.

  He stopped, puffing, and carefully held out his bundle. “With the compliments of the gentleman, if you please, miss.”

  Wrapped in pretty green paper, five perfect wood lilies seemed impossibly fragile, their orange bright and exotic against the street’s grays and browns.

  Lilies. Orange. The meaning of it seeped through her mind as a hot blush suffused her face and neck. “I should not take them,” she said to her aunt.

  “Who sent them?” Aunt Ann asked, her eyebrows tilting to her snowy hairline.

  “Mr. Giere.” Her face burned like fire.

  “You should not turn away such beautiful flowers. I think you should accept them,” her aunt said.

  “Do you think so?”

  At her aunt’s considered nod, Susanna held out her arms and accepted the bundle. Auntie was too kind to want to see a gift rejected, but still . . .

  She could not believe Mr. Giere had sent them, and still more shocking, that her aunt had told her to accept them. Surely Aunt Ann knew the meaning of this gift, as all lady readers of Godey’s magazine would know.

  In the language of flowers, orange lilies spoke only one word: passion.

  Fifteen

  THE ENVELOPE HAD NO RETURN ADDRESS. SUSANNA’S name was on the front, care of her uncle, Westerville, Ohio. She did not recognize the handwriting.

  Susanna slid a finger beneath the flap and broke the seal, careful not to rip it despite the racing of her pulse. Was it from the Hannah Neil Mission? Or heaven forbid, the Hare Home? No letter from there could bring good news. But the housekeeper there would not write to the Hanbys anyway, so it could not be her. She bolstered her nerve to unfold the letter.

  How odd. It was not written in the same hand as the address. It looked as if it has been printed, but imperfectly, the letters sometimes lighter and sometimes heavier, not always in a completely straight line. And it was all struck in capitals.

  Susanna, i am well but cannot meet you. do not look for me. Your Sister.

  She snatched up the envelope and turned it to the light. A Columbus postmark. She stared at it for a long moment, then laid it down on her desk and dropped her head in her hands.

  What was it? Did it really come from Rachel? It seemed to be made on one of those new machines she had seen in the papers, a Type Writer. But why would Rachel use one, and whose handwriting was on the envelope?

  She raised her head and looked at it again. It seemed like a trick, as if a stool had been kicked out from under her and she hung in the air for the space of time before she hit the ground. If George had hurt Rachel—or worse—he could have such a letter created on a Type Writer and feign it was from her. Sickened, Susanna closed her eyes. He did not seem that intelligent or calculating, but the threat of prison might spur a man to many deeds. And there seemed no reasonable explanation that could require her sister to use a Type Writer, or even worse, to have an envelope addressed in a hand not her own. She would have to pray the Lord in his goodness would grant that this letter was real, and that she would find Rachel through it somehow.

  Mr. Giere was going to find George, or so he had said. She looked up at the orange li
lies in the plain glass vase on her windowsill. Several times she had started to throw them away, unsettled by their gorgeous perfume and lush petals as a reminder of him. But she could not make herself destroy them—they were also a memory of Rachel, and the blond German might only have bought them because he saw Susanna admiring them when he entered the florist’s shop. He could not have known what they would symbolize—it would be practically a declaration of some kind, and he could not have intended that. His gesture was a kindness only, probably prompted by pity for her story. He could not be all bad, if his heart could be touched by Rachel and her children. Still, no feat of chivalry would soften her toward his father’s profession. She would tolerate his assistance only because he intended to leave the brewing business.

  Handsome is as handsome does. Reflecting on his physical appearance was not a good idea—nor should she admire the charm of his faint accent that only surfaced when he was flustered. These things were all deceptive, just like the initial cheer an alcoholic drink brought to men. One must look beyond surfaces to essences, beyond the frivolous things and into the moral principles, and Mr. Giere’s principles were as yet undetermined.

  She stood and plucked her crocheted shawl off the peg on the side of the plain wardrobe, tying its strings quickly. She could not stand to show the letter yet to her aunt and uncle. It seemed too menacing, too questionable. Her head ached and she could not think of all this constantly or she would lose her mind. She would go to the one place she had discovered for silence and healing—the library of the Philalethean Literary Society, in Towers Hall. No one was there in these summer

  months. It was her own private library—her refuge.

  The quiet welcomed her to the soft, muted light of the Philalethean Room. Several comfortable upholstered chairs waited for her like friends. Her heels clicked on the wooden floor as she walked to the tall shelves and sought the book she had been reading with such pleasure. It was the only thing that took her away from this horrible, anxious mess and stopped the constant tumbling of her thoughts with George, Rachel, the children—oh, she could not think of them one more time or she would break down. Just half an hour of peace through reading.

  There—the book she sought. She grasped its leather-ridged spine and slid it out from the shelf, then went to the chair by the window and nestled into it sideways so her bustle would not be so uncomfortable. She drew her knees up under her skirt, like a girl, but then there was no one to see. Book cradled in her lap, she leaned against the back of the chair. The light fell on the title page from outside, diffused by the gauzy curtain.

  The Sagacity and Morality of Plants: A Sketch of the Life and Conduct of the Vegetable Kingdom. Even the title made her smile. Somewhere in the world there were authors who thought even more of plants and flowers than Susanna did. She turned to her bookmark.

  It cannot fail to be noticed that the central Apple-blossom is often the only one which bears an apple. All the rest “take their chance,” so that every cluster of such blossoms preaches the precious doctrine of altruism.

  That might be overstating the case just a bit. But she enjoyed the author’s parables of the plant kingdom, even if the real miracle was in the design, in the way that every flower was governed by a number, three or five—sometimes four or two—and the number manifested itself again and again in that flower, God’s own pattern of perfection.

  A knock at the door broke in on her reverie. She hastily adjusted her seat, lowering her feet to the floor and straightening in the chair.

  The door opened and a freckled face showed at its edge. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, Miss—”

  He came in and his eyes widened. “Miss Hanby! I didn’t know it was you.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Wilson.” She stood, closing her book with hidden regret.

  The young man closed his mouth over his prominent teeth and swallowed. “It’s a pleasure to run into you here, miss.” His eyes were starry above his freckled cheeks.

  “What brings you to the college today?” She had to make polite conversation, though her mind was still on the book hanging in her left hand.

  “I’ll tell you, Miss Hanby, if you promise not to tell a soul.”

  “Very well,” she said, wishing him to hurry it up so she could get back to the chapter.

  “I know of some folks who are going to ensure that Mr. Corbin strongly considers leaving town.” He raised an eyebrow in confidential delight.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “How will they do it? He already refused the leading citizens’ offer to buy him out.”

  “Everyone heard. So these folks are going to be a little more . . . emphatic.”

  “Should I ask what you mean by that?”

  “Perhaps not.” He grinned.

  It gave her a queasy feeling, this innuendo, but she thought of the Pippen children. No wonder people were up in arms, with the history of what they had endured. And what about Otterbein? It had almost collapsed four years ago. Townspeople had given their own hard-earned money to save the college, but now Corbin threatened its precarious stability with this saloon that would make recruitment more difficult. It could truly bankrupt the college, which was never wealthy at the best of times.

  “People will do what they have to do, Mr. Wilson.”

  “Yes, miss. Someone has to make sure that virtue triumphs and the innocent are protected.”

  The gleam in his eye had turned a little fanatical. “Yes,” she agreed, uncomfortable, “innocents must be protected.” That was true, whether he was over-excitable or not.

  “I’m so glad you think so.” He looked as if he might go to his knees in knightly gratitude. She hoped he would not—it was 1875, not 1475, and though that gesture might be romantic from another, it would only embarrass her from Mr. Wilson.

  “If you will excuse me, I must get back to my studies,” she said gently.

  “Of course.” He walked backward and inclined his head a few times on his way out the door.

  She sighed and wished for a fleeting moment that he looked like Johann Giere. It would be so much better if Mr. Giere were the ardent temperance man.

  She sat down again in her comforting chair and opened her book once more. She had lost her place and squinted at the chapter title, holding the book up to the light.

  Robbery and Murder.

  Oh. That did not sound as nice. But this author had been so humorous that she would find out what he meant—another witty comparison, no doubt. She bent to the page.

  There is one kind of tree called the Sipo Matador, or Murderer Liana. It springs up close to the tree on which it intends to fix itself, and the wood of its stem grows by spreading itself like a plastic mould over the trunk of its supporter. In the course of time, it kills its victim by stopping the flow of its sap. The strange spectacle then remains of the selfish parasite clasping in its arms the lifeless and decaying body of its victim. . .

  She slammed the book closed, shaken. George.

  Where were her universal principles, beauty, and altruism? Her botany book had brought her right back to the disturbing letter from the Type Writer.

  This was not what she wished to study today.

  “George Leeds is in there?” Johann asked the cart boy.

  The saloon ahead of them seemed stuck together with tacks and old lumber, all crisscrossed planks. Its rough-sawn windows boasted rickety shutters open to the hot afternoon.

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. “Mr. Leeds is in there all the time.” He flapped the reins of his tall pony and drove away down the town’s sparse version of a Main Street, including a general store, a doctor’s office, and the inevitable saloon.

  Johann restrained a grimace and shoved open the door of the shack. It was gloomy inside. Weak light from small windows fell on a makeshift bar, which was just another plank propped up with minimal carpentry skills. A saloonkeeper stood behind the plank and a lone customer sat on a stool. Not surprising, as it was two in the afternoon and only a shiftless man would b
e drinking at this time. At least it made identification easy.

  “Mr. Leeds?” he said as the black-haired man turned around, revealing a sparsely bearded face and an unwashed appearance, from his oily skin to his rumpled clothing.

  “That’s me,” the man said. “What do you want?”

  The frontier still lingered in the small towns of Ohio, where people were suspicious of strangers. And drunks were even more suspicious.

  “I’m here to talk and perhaps buy you a beer.” Johann took the stool next to him.

  “A whiskey would be welcome.”

  Ugh—he did not want to do it. No decent man liked to buy a glass of rotgut for a drunk. But the welfare of six innocent children came before this derelict’s health. He signaled the bartender to provide the whiskey for George. “And a beer for me, please.” He looked at George but did not offer his hand—it was too much. “I’m Johann Giere.”

  George jerked his chin at him.

  When the two glasses thumped before them on the counter, George picked his up and tasted the amber liquid, letting out a raspy sigh. Johann repressed a shudder. He did not want to drink with the man, but he must create the warmth of gemuetlichkeit if he wished to be persuasive. He raised his own glass and sipped it. Hoster lager. He could always tell.

  “Mighty decent of you to buy a man a drink,” George said. “You came here looking for me?” The glint in his eye made it clear he was hoping there was more where that first drink came from. Not if Johann could help it. He would have to get to the point.

  “I’m here to talk to you about your children,” he said.

  George’s face grew hard and pugnacious. “What about ’em?”

  “Nothing to inconvenience you. I realize you’ve suffered a great shock, with the disappearance of their mother.” He tried to sound sympathetic, and it appeared to work, for George lost some of his defensive posture and took another sip of his drink.

  “It was shocking, yes it was.” His words slurred. “She left with another man, no reason given, and took ’em all away. With that kind of mother, I think they’re better off where they are. If anyone wants ’em, they can ask her to go get ’em.”