Lovelier than Daylight Read online

  “I don’t like your American saloons, you see,” he said in a confidential tone. “They are places for men to sneak away and rebel against their lives and their work, a place to toss down drinks and escape from family. No wonder they have caused such heartbreak.” He looked pensive. “But a Biergarten is a place for the whole family, for brotherly and sisterly fellowship, gemuetlichkeit, we call it. It is not a place to run from one’s duties, but a place to open to laughter and music and family and appreciate the good things God has provided.”

  Several couples stood up and headed to the open space where the children were twirling.

  “You see?” He nodded toward the dancers. “They do not have to be young to love the dance.” It was true, the women and men first on the floor were older, some even stout, but wreathed in smiles and good nature as they moved to the sweeping rhythm of the waltz, their steps lighter, wives more graceful, husbands more gallant. The lanterns had begun to glow in the dusk.

  “My father,” he said. “You must come meet him!” He escorted them over to one of the tables, where a genial man with ashy hair was seated next to his wife, a fairer blonde with apple cheeks and a dimple to make her round face and figure sweet even in middle age.

  “Father,” the young man said. “I would like you to meet my guests, Mrs. Hanby”—he nodded to her—“and her niece, Miss Hanby.”

  The older man rose to his feet. “A pleasure to meet you.” He spoke with a much thicker accent than his son but with appealing verve. “Johann had told us he was expecting some guests, but kept very mysterious about them.” He pursed his lips and looked sideways comically. “I see you were hiding the beautiful women, son.”

  The younger Mr. Giere smiled, but his mother lost her warmth and looked with a trace of wariness at Susanna. She tried not to squirm under the assessing regard. Why was his mother so interested? He should have told her there was no romantic intent, only an argument to be won. But then there was the matter of the flowers.

  Susanna blushed as her aunt carried on polite conversation. So Mr. Giere the younger bore the Christian name Johann? It suited him, made him less formal than the “mister” she had known until now. Johann. He was a likeable man, and he had been kind to her, but he would not win this debate.

  A maid brought over a tray of steins and set them on the table in front of each of them. Susanna stared at the foamy liquid. “I won’t drink it,” she whispered to her aunt. Her aunt also made no move to take it by its white handle.

  Johann beckoned to the maid. “Birga, will you bring some lemonade for my guests?” She nodded and whisked the steins off to the kitchen. “Will you try some of the bread?” he asked Susanna. “Or this, the Weisswurst?” He glanced at her aunt.

  “It smells delicious.” Aunt Ann skewered a piece of sausage with the wooden fork on the table and tried it. “Oh, it is.”

  Susanna hesitantly tasted it and had to admit to herself it was excellent, with its smooth, creamy consistency. The dark bread was sweet, and she ate it in a few bites.

  Johann was looking at her. Had she been gobbling it? Her ears tingled.

  But he looked pleased, not repulsed. “You see the good things God gives us,” he murmured so no one else could hear. “We are made to enjoy them.”

  The yellow liquid that appeared in the steins this time when the maid brought them was paler and thinner. Still, Susanna felt odd drinking lemonade out of a beer stein. For a moment she relaxed and let herself enjoy the pulse of the music, the stars coming out through the trees overhead, the lantern light, and the delicious food. But the people were drinking intoxicants. How long would it be before they were raging drunk? Well, Johann would not do such a thing—she knew him better than that. But others would. Her shoulders tensed and the fabric pulled tight across them.

  “You are enjoying yourself?” he asked, his expression hopeful in the lantern light.

  She did not want to give him the satisfaction. He might use it as a debate point later.

  “Come,” he said in the face of her silence. “Would you like to dance?” His expression was curious.

  “No,” she said firmly.

  He looked disappointed.

  “I would like to dance,” her aunt said, surprising her.

  “Do you know how to polka?” he asked. “It’s easy.” The people on the floor had started a sashay step like a slow, elegant skip.

  “I can do it,” Aunt Ann said, watching closely. “I did much harder steps in my day.” She smiled.

  He held out his hand to her with a mock courtly bow and they strolled to the floor. He seemed very solicitous. She liked how he guided Auntie, protecting her from the energetic youthful dancers if they came too close. It was sweet to see an elderly woman treated so kindly by a very handsome young man who could have his pick of partners. In fact, one blond girl over by the entrance did not seem to be able to take her eyes off Johann Giere, drinking in the sight of him as deeply as the men pulled at their steins after a good dance.

  He brought her aunt back. She was puffing a little for breath, but Johann was not winded at all from the gentle pace of their dance.

  “Now you see how easy it is,” he said to Susanna. “Will you try it?”

  As there was no open drunkenness yet, the music was so transporting and the night so inviting, maybe she would try. She was unlikely ever to repeat such a scene with an unusually charming man and the opportunity to dance under the stars by lantern light. These things did not happen at church, where dancing was condemned by many.

  She took his hand. It was warmer than her own nervous, chilly fingers. He folded her smaller hand in his own while they stepped onto the brick dance floor. Gently he placed her left hand on his shoulder. She stared at his shirt buttons, then raised her eyes to his. If she had ever thought they were an attractive blue before, she had underestimated their hypnotic effect by the glow of lamplight. The intimate, inquiring look he gave her made her feel as if she were too close to breathe. He circled his hand around her and held it against her back. Her body felt light and her skin warmed at his touch. No wonder some of the church folk objected to dancing. But, at the same time, she did not want to leave the floor.

  He guided her into the flow of the dance. She concentrated hard on the steps at first, afraid to make a mistake, staring over his shoulder and counting silently. But it was so easy that she was soon able to stop her counting and simply follow his lead. She looked up to see his gaze fixed on her, then flushed and looked down, then at him again. Like a moth to a flame, she thought, I must be careful. But it was hard to keep up her guard after the kindness he had shown her, even in response to her rudeness. There was a great deal about Johann Giere that was heavenly, whatever his opinion about drinking.

  When the dance ended, they stood together, still in the dance position, at the far edge of the crowded floor where they were shielded from the watching eyes of the spectators. Something had shifted and changed. She did not want to let go of his hand.

  “Johann!” A woman’s voice startled her and she let go with a guilty flinch. Johann looked taken aback at whatever he saw over her shoulder.

  She turned to see that the pretty blond girl from the other table stood right behind them.

  “Johann, I thought you were out of town.”

  He looked at Susanna, then back at the blond girl. “Lotte, this is a friend of mine, Miss Hanby. Miss Hanby, Miss Thalberg.”

  “I have lacked for a partner these past two dances.” She eyed him with a flirtatious pout.

  “Then I must have the next dance,” he said, as any gentleman would under such open coercion. “Allow me to escort Miss Hanby back to her seat, and then I will come for you.”

  He led Susanna back with a subtle glance of apology, but as she prepared to sit, his father stood and offered her his hand. “Miss Hanby, may I have this dance?”

  “Thank you.” She took the older Mr. Giere’s hand. It sounded like another polka, so she thought she could do it. And then she would not have to sit an
d watch Johann dance with the blond girl who made her oddly twitchy. No young woman should be as forward as the blonde, but then, maybe Johann liked it or was accustomed to it. They might even be sweethearts. She didn’t look back at him as she walked out to the floor again with his father.

  After a few steps of the dance, Mr. Giere spoke. “My son likes you.”

  Were all Germans so blunt? Well, she could be equally direct. “But we differ in our opinions, sir, which is why I’m here this evening.” There, that would place the discussion on more familiar turf.

  “Indeed?” One eyebrow quirked. “And what are those differing opinions?”

  “I do not think gentlemen should drink.”

  “How about ladies?”

  Of course no woman should drink—no one ever even discussed such a thing. But that was not the point. “I’ve seen too many families destroyed.” Could he tell how deeply it hurt to say it aloud?

  “By whiskey, gin, rum, yes. By lager, not so often.”

  “That is what your son says.”

  “What can I say? He is my son.” The self-deprecating charm was clearly a family trait. She could not help but like him, just like his son. So wrong, but not bad at heart.

  “But if even one family is destroyed by your business, Mr. Giere”—her eyelids prickled and she blinked—“is it worth it?”

  He looked sober, even as he carefully kept her from having her toes trodden on by a burly young man and his dance partner. “I pray about my business, Miss Hanby. Does that surprise you?” He asked it as a simple question, without rancor.

  “Yes.”

  “I consider my duty before God every day, and I do see the articles in the paper about the drunks and their poor families. But though drunkenness is sinful, so is gluttony. Will you prevent all merchants from selling bread and meat because some take too much of it and place their stomachs before God and all else?”

  She fell silent for a moment. “I mean no disrespect, sir.” She followed his step, one-two-three, two-two-three.

  “Of course not. I can tell you are a sweet woman and you mean what you say. And I am glad you say it straight out, to let a man answer to your charges.” He smiled again and spun her around with an expert hand so that before she knew it she had done a neat turn step.

  She smiled at the unexpected pleasure. “I have never been accused of a failure to speak plainly, sir.”

  He laughed out loud. “And I admire that in a woman.” The music flourished to an end in a run of violins, and he released her and bowed. “Thank you.”

  When they headed back to the table, Johann had also just returned from escorting the blond girl to her seat. He looked harried.

  “We mustn’t stay much longer,” Aunt Ann said. “The trains will stop.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go.” He looked straight at Susanna.

  She noticed his mother had walked to the blond girl’s table to speak with another older woman. Both matrons were watching them with a keen eye.

  “I should take you to the station,” Johann said.

  “I will have Heinrich do it,” his father said. “He hates dancing.” He beckoned to a one-armed man who came over, listened to his whisper and nodded with no apparent resentment, then headed out the exit. “He can take you in the carriage,” Mr. Giere said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Aunt Ann said. Her natural refinement reminded Susanna of the stories she used to tell about Pittsburgh and its fine houses and dinner parties, the manners and wealth. Her aunt knew how to speak in the finest circles when necessary, but was just as gracious here in the German part of town where no one needed to stand on pretense.

  “But I didn’t show you the fountain,” Johann said. “Why don’t we walk to it while Heinrich gets the buggy?”

  Susanna and her aunt took his arms again and this time walked the other way around the hedges, where the buzz of the people faded, a gentle whisper of water started, and the lanterns lit a quieter path by more rosebushes. Another corner brought them face-to-face with the source of the trickling rush: a stone fountain that sprayed water to all points of the compass from the mouths of four leaping fish.

  “It’s beautiful,” Aunt Ann said, and let go of Johann’s arm to go inspect it more closely. “I will throw in a penny and make a wish.” She dug in her handbag.

  Her aunt must be almost giddy—Susanna had never seen her so girlish. Johann turned his head toward her, the lamplight shining in a streak across his gold and brown hair. “Have I changed your mind, Miss Hanby?”

  “No,” she said, stubborn. “I must think on it.”

  “A good enough response,” he said. “We will call it a draw, until we next meet.” He put his free hand on top of her hand, where it lay on his arm. She looked at him in wonder. What was all this? He seemed equally drawn by some nameless force between them, a power not their own at work. She wanted him to embrace her and hold her. She thought of kissing him where the line of his jaw made a shadowed hollow on his neck.

  She had never thought such a thing. She pulled away just as her aunt threw her penny in the fountain and looked up at them. “A wish, so silly.” Aunt Ann’s laugh made her look very young, as if her white hair were just blond, silvered by the moonlight.

  That was it. Susanna’s head had been turned by the moonlight, just as her aunt was acting in a way she had never seen. They must get back to Westerville.

  “I’m sure your friend—Heinrich?” Susanna could not quite remember if that was the right name in her distracted state. “He must be waiting for us.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Let me take you to him.” He put her hand through the crook of his elbow, and they went to collect her aunt and walk back out of the garden.

  He stopped them by the hedge. “We’ll wait out here on the road.” He pointed to the exit under the sign. And as he said it, a clatter of hoofs announced Heinrich’s arrival in a stylish black four-seater buggy.

  Aunt Ann headed out the gate with a quick good night.

  Johann slipped both of his hands around Susanna’s as if he shook it on a business deal, but much more gently, which sent a tingle up her arms. “Auf Wiedersehen.” The look he gave her was intense, as if the thought of a kiss had passed through his mind as well.

  Her breath caught. “Good-bye.” She turned to follow her aunt.

  She climbed into the carriage with Heinrich’s help.

  What was she doing? She was supposed to win an argument, and instead she had begun to imagine kisses.

  She had known it might happen from the start. But she no longer seemed to be able to stop whatever had begun, and her skin still warmed from the pressure of his fingers.

  Well, no matter what his personal charms, she would not forget that he and his family sold beer. She would not give up her principles, no matter how he made her heart pound. She was a woman of her convictions, and she could resist.

  But wait—why was she thinking of him at all, or dancing in a garden as if she had not a care in the world? The purpose of this evening was to stop the beer to Mr. Corbin’s saloon. Her convictions were no good if they didn’t help others, especially the children.

  She must do better. The next time she saw Johann Giere, she would tell him that he had lost his bet.

  Twenty-One

  THE PRESSES CLACKED AWAY, AND EVEN AS HE SAT IN the back room with his article, the rhythm was like her name, Susanna, Susanna . . . He could not get her out of his mind. Her heated fervor for her ideals wrapped in her soft, womanly skin was a contradiction that drew his thoughts back to her again and again.

  “Giere.” Mr. Reinhardt poked his head around the door frame, peering from behind his glasses. “I need to show you something.”

  “Yes, sir.” He laid down his pen.

  Mr. Reinhardt came and stood in front of him, practically bursting with some news. “You see?” He thrust out a piece of paper.

  “I can’t see it, sir.”

  Mr. Reinhardt stepped beside him and handed the paper to him.

/>   Giere is our man. Tell him to finish series on saloon and then we will expect him in New York by end of September. Terms to follow.

  “They will give you a good salary, by newsmen’s standards,” Mr. Reinhardt said. “What did I tell you?” He looked as if he would skip around the newsroom and burst into triumphant song at any moment—Beethoven’s Ninth.

  Johann read it, then read it again. He had received a job offer from a New York paper. He could go off to the adventure of his greatest dreams. He had to blink and clear his throat. “Thank you, Mr. Reinhardt. Thank you for recommending me.”

  “And you will take it, yes?” Mr. Reinhardt leaned over him as if holding his breath.

  “I don’t see how I could refuse such an opportunity.” Johann heard the ambivalence in his own voice, but his editor either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  There was his family to consider—and then he would hate to think of leaving Susanna alone in her plight, especially if she lost her nieces and nephews. But he could not let that stop the move, if Mr. Reinhardt was correct and God himself had opened the door for this career he loved.

  “You must tell your father, then,” the editor said.

  “That will be hard.” Could he even do it? He would have to if he wished to take this unforeseen opportunity, which did seem like a gift from heaven.

  “Don’t delay too long. Give your father time to adjust before you leave. He has Heinrich, he’ll be fine.”

  Johann nodded, but he didn’t think Mr. Reinhardt understood. His editor had five sons. His father had only one.

  And because of that, he must go home and consider carefully how to break the news and when.

  “Son?” his father peeped around the frame of the bedroom door. “Are you writing?”

  “Yes. But it can wait if you need something.” His father was always so polite and encouraging about the newspaper, which made it all the worse to think about telling him.

  His father came in and sat at the end of the bed on the handmade blue-and-white quilt, wearing a preoccupied, hesitant expression.