Lovelier than Daylight Page 15

  Nineteen

  THE WATER WAS ALREADY DR AINING INTO THE THIRSTY ground. It wasn’t so bad along this side of the street, though on the other side a wagon driver had stuck fast and was swearing loudly until he saw Susanna and moderated his tone.

  She picked her way along the edge of the morass, her boots well-edged with mud but her skirt lifted above it. If she could get a chest remedy from the apothecary, she would be able to bring it to Daniel in only three more days. The thought quickened her pace. The store was another block along, closer to the train station.

  As she neared the drugstore, a man came out of the general store, almost running into her. It was Mr. Giere, his gaze fixed on something far away. He stopped as he took in her presence and tipped his hat. “Pardon me, Miss Hanby.”

  “Good morning.” She noticed the crystalline quality of his eyes, even in the dreary morning light. She wondered if he had sent the flowers out of pity, or if— She needed to address the essential subject. “I went to visit the Pippen family, Mr. Giere.”

  “Indeed?” A shadow fell over his face.

  “They are in dire circumstances. Mrs. Pippen has almost given up hope.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.” He seemed truly sad.

  “Then might I impose upon you to do something for me?”

  “With pleasure.” His expression brightened.

  “Ask your father to stop supplying beer to Mr. Corbin’s saloon.”

  His eyebrows knitted together, light brown, a shade darker than his hair. “Miss Hanby, I would do much to oblige you”— his tone was intimate, and a shiver went through her—“but not that. I can’t ask my father to sacrifice his business. And it wouldn’t prevent Mr. Corbin from operating his saloon.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. She had the unsettling thought that he might take her gently by the arms to convince her, and that would be very strange, especially because it wasn’t completely repellent. Some nameless impulse urged her closer, as if she, too, could persuade by proximity.

  She took a step back instead. “Anything might help. Even the slightest show of resistance might discourage Corbin and make him move away. You should have seen the Pippens!”

  “I can imagine their plight, I assure you. I understand why you are so disturbed by the saloon. I don’t like the effects of habitual drunkenness any more than you do.”

  “Then tell your father to stop causing it.”

  “He’s not causing it.” He said it with feeling, then paused. She noticed the healthy color his light skin had taken in the summer. His fair hair could use a trim, as it brushed over his ears and touched his collar in a disheveled poet’s style, streaked with light and dark gold.

  He regained his calm. “My father’s business is not the cause of drunkenness, any more than Christ making wine at the wedding at Cana.”

  Her thoughts ground to a halt. What did he mean? She had never heard someone speak as if the Lord himself were a wine merchant—and was Mr. Giere well versed in the Bible, like a true believer? Maybe he had just learned to argue with Christians.

  “Are you being irreverent?” she asked. A flicker of indignation made her stab a finger at his top button.

  “Not at all.” He smiled, took her hand, and wrapped it in his. “Stop pointing and listen to me.”

  Her nerves vibrated. She should not let him do it—he was holding her hand. The memory of the flowers spun in her mind and she could not meet his gaze.

  “You’re a compassionate woman, Miss Hanby. I know you are greatly troubled by the suffering of others, which is an admirable trait in this often hard-hearted world. But you don’t understand the correct use of lager—”

  “There is no such thing!”

  “Wait. I’ll prove to you there is. Are you going back to see your nieces and nephews soon?”

  “In three days.”

  “Perfect—a Friday. Then I would like you to come with me that evening to a German gathering, with your aunt as a companion, of course. You won’t understand unless you see it with your own eyes.”

  He was still holding her hand. Her knees felt unsteady and she pulled away. “I shouldn’t go.”

  “Are you afraid to have your prejudices unseated?” His lips curved. They were fuller than she had noticed before, but strong in their contours like a man’s should be. She sought another object for her attention. She was coming apart inside, not acting like herself.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Then I dare you.” He smiled outright.

  “I accept your challenge.” She took a deep breath and looked him full in the face, but found him too close and had to blink and gaze sideways at the storefront again.

  He let go of her hand and rummaged in his inside pocket. “Good.” He pulled out a small journaling book and a stub of a pencil and scrawled a few words. “Meet me at this address, with your aunt and also your uncle if he wishes—it will all be quite correct.” There was a teasing look in his eye that made her stomach turn over. “At six o’clock in the evening. It will be a party. And then we’ll have a proper debate. And if I don’t change your mind, I’ll offer this forfeit: to persuade my father to stop supplying Corbin.”

  “You will lose, Mr. Giere.” She knew she sounded haughty, but he needed to be put in his place. “Done.” She extended a hand like a man would, and he shook it with a smile, clearly humoring her.

  “Good-bye.” She kept her tone cool.

  “Until then.” He put on his hat and strode away, humming something.

  He was a shade too sure of himself—it was provoking. Never mind. When Aunt Ann heard about the mission, she would be happy to come along and show him the error of his ways. And what a prize—to cut off Corbin’s supply of lager and withdraw the Gieres’ support! It was too good to pass up.

  Twenty

  THE THREE DAYS HAD CRAWLED BY, BUT SHE HAD finally made it to the orphanages and even managed to keep her composure through the meetings with the children. Seeing them had been as upsetting as the last time. But nothing compared to the shock of seeing Rachel.

  She was sure it was her sister, that woman who walked around the corner of a large warehouse, toward the docking basin for the canal boats. Her exact posture, her auburn hair, the soft line of her neck and her profile. This was it—the entire reason Susanna had insisted on walking this way. She had found her.

  Susanna broke into a halting run, hampered by the luxurious fabric and bustle of her borrowed dress. Behind her, Aunt Ann called something inaudible.

  But by the time Susanna turned the corner, there was nothing to be seen on the dock, only a couple of freight wagons unloading. Sweating river men in rolled-up sleeves worked by the squat, many-windowed boats that lay moored in a line down the canal’s edge. She stood, scanning the crowd. Was it Rachel? Or was it a hallucination of wishful eyes?

  “What is it?” Aunt Ann caught up, panting for breath.

  Maybe she shouldn’t even confess it. “I thought I saw Rachel.”

  The flicker of shock in her aunt’s brown eyes dissolved to pure sympathy. “Did you?” she asked softly.

  “Yes. It was so like her I can’t have been mistaken. And the matron at the orphanage said that Rachel had mentioned boats.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I lost sight of her.” Her voice trailed away.

  “I’m sorry, my dear.”

  She could not give up. “Let’s go to the dock office and ask if a woman answering to that description frequents this area.”

  Her aunt considered. “I don’t know—I have a responsibility to keep you out of unsavory places.”

  “We should be safe together.” Susanna’s heart lifted and she turned toward the small shack on the wharf below them, where a man seemed to be regulating boat traffic. “How do we get down there?” The brick levee wall dropped a sheer ten feet from where they stood to the water level.

  Aunt Ann pointed back down the waterfront. “There’s a set of stairs.”

  A minute’s wa
lk brought them to the stairs in question, and another minute’s navigating past coal, stacked lumber, and refuse brought them to the office. A mustached man yelled instructions to the boat at the head of the line, which was hitching to the horses that would draw it up the canal.

  He paused. “Excuse me, sir,” Susanna said. “We’re looking for a missing woman, auburn-haired, about my height, in a gray dress?”

  “Sorry, miss,” he said. “Ain’t seen anyone like that.”

  “Not today, or not in the last few days?”

  “Not at all.” He raised a hand at the second boat in line. “All clear!” he shouted.

  Susanna glanced at her aunt. They were dismissed, and there was nothing more she could do now about the woman. It was maddening to be so close and not find her. She peeped through the office window. There! Her notice was on the wall—she saw the headline she had given the errand boy: “YOUR CHILDREN NEED YOU.” Had this notice prompted the letter she received? Or was it all foolishness to think so?

  “Let’s go,” Aunt Ann said. “We’ll ask on the upper level if anyone saw her pass. And then we must go to meet Mr. Giere. It’s almost six.” The light was fading and purpling into evening—it would not be wise to stay by the docks any longer.

  “It may not have been Rachel,” Susanna said, defeated.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” her aunt said. “I did see men in crowds who looked so like Ben a few times in the month after he passed. But I don’t mean to discourage you.” She looked stricken, a deep wrinkle appearing in her forehead under her white fringe of hair.

  “It’s all right, Auntie,” Susanna said, though a sharp pain felt like a blade through the ribs. “I mustn’t give way to fancy.”

  “Neither should you give up hope. Come, let’s go back and ask a few of the wagon drivers if they saw her.”

  But the three men in their rough work aprons—the laundry man, the fish man, and the coalman—had not noticed the auburn-haired woman either.

  “I’m sorry,” Susanna said to her aunt. “I shouldn’t have insisted we walk past here. It put ideas in my head.”

  “It was on the way. No need to apologize, dear. Let’s tell Mr. Giere about it and see what he thinks we should do.”

  That was a comforting thought. Mr. Giere specialized in this city, as a journalist. He would know whom to ask about the riverboats and their traffic.

  She would be sure to ask him about it before she crushed his arguments about temperance, just in case he decided to hold a grudge.

  “Hoster Biergarten” read the arched sign over the pathway, painted in pretty calligraphy. On either side were flickering lamps, their flames still ghostly in the evening light.

  “Oh,” Susanna said, looking at the address on the paper in her hand.

  “Let’s go in.”

  “I don’t think I can.” Susanna fought back revulsion. A Biergarten was a German version of a saloon, and she couldn’t patronize such a place.

  “You can’t win your prize without entering the battle.” Her petite aunt sallied ahead, her light-blue gown trailing over the green lawn.

  Susanna followed reluctantly. Inside the walled enclosure were trees and bushes, some of the bushes forming a hedge so tall it created a second wall inside the first. Which way should they turn. Along the hedge or around it into the center?

  Her aunt continued straight in. On the other side of the green bushes, a large number of wooden picnic-style tables formed a perfectly ordered grid of rectangles. About ten of the tables were already taken by large families, grandmothers with grandchildren, husbands and wives holding babies, young women talking in girlish secrecy to one another. Lanterns on posts stood waiting to be lit all around the garden. Flowering plants bloomed at intervals, mostly roses in white, red, and pink, carefully tended and trimmed.

  On a raised wooden platform at the other end of the space, beyond the tables, musicians were setting up next to lanterns and music stands. A cellist plucked his strings, a double bassist lifted his massive wooden instrument from the ground. Two violinists tuned up. They were all dressed in elegant light coats, as if to play for a ball. Susanna was glad, now, that she had worn a borrowed dress, nicer than her everyday yellow one.

  “Mrs. Hanby. Miss Hanby.”

  Mr. Giere walked up behind them, smiling in welcome, his usually disheveled hair combed perfectly into place. His eyes looked even brighter against the black of his coat and his white collar. “Thank you for coming.” He took her aunt’s hand and made a slight bow over it, then did the same for Susanna. “A pleasure.”

  “We shall see about that,” she said.

  He chuckled. “Yes, we shall. Mr. Hanby could not come?”

  “He is speaking to the men at a town meeting this evening,” her aunt said, “but sends his regards.”

  “What’s his subject?”

  “He cautions them against rash and unchristian action against Corbin.” Her aunt said it with wifely pride, but a hint of anxiety lurked in her eyes.

  “A good idea, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Unless he makes the aggressive ones so angry that he incites such action.” Aunt Ann sighed.

  “But he’s a persuasive man,” Mr. Giere said. “I don’t think that likely.”

  Her aunt assumed a discreet quiet, her lips sealed together. “Some of them are easily angered,” Susanna said. “We’ve had proof.”

  “Susanna.” Her aunt crossed her arms over her bodice. “Let’s speak of more pleasant things.”

  “I’m sorry to miss Mr. Hanby this evening.” He held out an arm to her aunt, who took it with grace, and then he offered the other to Susanna, who accepted with significantly less warmth. “Did you see the grounds yet? This is the largest Biergarten in the South End. The Hosters are our hosts this evening. I’m sure you’re familiar with the name.”

  “Yes,” Susanna said stiffly, thinking of the brewer’s name on several lager wagons they had seen in the streets.

  “Allow me to show you.” They strolled around the hedge, past more beautiful rose bushes, to the end of the garden. Here a pond reflected the oblique light of the setting sun, its silver surface broken by scores of green lily pads like polka dots across the surface.

  “It’s very pretty, Mr. Giere,” her aunt said. She raised a fragile hand toward the pond. “The lilies have closed up for the evening, I see.”

  The water lilies had tightened from their open lotus-shapes into small bunches of green and white. Susanna thought of the flower clock. “They’ll open again tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes,” the young man said. “They’re lovely in the daylight. Like God’s grace notes on the water.”

  She looked at him, surprised. She had not heard many men speak with such eloquence—perhaps only her uncle, when he spoke about spiritual matters. And Uncle Will did not count, as preachers were known for that sort of beauty of speech. But this was a brewer’s son.

  “Are you a musician, Mr. Giere?” her aunt asked. “You speak of grace notes as if you know such things.” She could not disguise a look of pinched grief well enough to evade Susanna’s notice. Yes, a musician would remind her of Ben—poor Auntie. Bad enough to lose a son, but to lose a son like Ben, who struck everyone who met him as extraordinary and had changed the hearts of the nation about slavery . . . and then Auntie lost Cyrus too.

  “I’m not much of a musician.” He looked a little shy. “I don’t play an instrument or even read music very well. I only sing in the chorus.”

  A singer. She wondered how his voice would sound. “It’s peaceful here,” Susanna said.

  “Yes,” he said, giving her a deeper look until she turned her head away, stirred and uncomfortable. What did he think he saw in her?

  “Most Biergartens are not so garden-like, especially here in America.” He folded his arms across his coat. “From what my father tells me, though, there are beautiful ones in Bavaria, sometimes with acres of land.”

  “Your father’s homeland,” Aunt Ann said. “Would you li
ke to go there someday?”

  He paused. “Of course I would like to go.” His accent gave melody to his inflection. “But I love this country. I’m American. My family has shed its blood for America, and we belong here now.”

  Susanna held her tongue. She did not know him well enough to ask who had died in the War, though she was sorry for the loss evident in his distant look.

  He focused again on them. “And I don’t want to spend my life talking of Bismarck and the Kaiser like some of the old men in their Lederhosen.” He grinned.

  She was glad she knew who Bismarck and the Kaiser were, but then anyone would who read the paper even once a month.

  “Let’s go find a seat,” he said. “The music will be starting, and I don’t want you to miss it.”

  Susanna’s chest tightened. Now he would want to prove to her that drink was acceptable. He could never do it. As soon as all the German men started reeling around drunk, singing their beer songs, waving their steins, she would have to leave. All the other women would as well. The German women were probably accustomed to it—Susanna could take her cue from when they left the Biergarten.

  Dusk was falling over the garden and the tables like a gauzy mist. The chamber ensemble struck up a waltz. Susanna’s heart began to soften—it was calming to listen to such beautiful music in the open air, surrounded by families.

  She mustn’t let her guard down. This was only the early part. Ah, see, several maids had come out with trays loaded with steins and began to pass them out to those at the tables. This evening could turn into a very sad spectacle. The smiles on the men’s faces as they drank and talked and watched their children twirl on the brick floor were the smiles of the unwitting lured to their fate, like the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin—that was German, wasn’t it?

  “It’s not so bad, is it?” Mr. Giere said. “Shall we sit down?”

  “No, thank you. The night is young,” she said in an ominous tone.

  He laughed. “It will be much the same, all night long. It’s not like an American saloon, Miss Hanby. Lager is taken with food and among family.” And, indeed, out came the maids again with trays of sausages and breads piled high.