Lovelier than Daylight Page 19

  “Who is it?” he called.

  “Arthur Pippen,” came the reply.

  Uncle Will raised his eyebrows and turned to look at Aunt Ann, who hurried up behind him. He unlocked the door and opened it. “Good afternoon.”

  “Hello, Mr. Pippen.” Aunt Ann gave him a smile so loving that Susanna thought it could have lifted a heart of pure lead.

  And he was not immune, for he smiled back at her even though his eyes looked bruised and his cheeks hollow. “Hello, Bishop Hanby, Mrs. Hanby.”

  “Won’t you come in?” Uncle Will said.

  He shuffled in, looking around as if he didn’t dare take a seat.

  “Sit down.” Uncle Will indicated his own comfortable chair.

  “I’ll just sit here, sir,” Mr. Pippen said, taking one of the slat-back chairs.

  “Would you like some tea?” Aunt Ann asked.

  “No, thank you.” He looked haunted. “I’m here to express my gratitude for what you’ve done for my family, Mrs. Hanby.”

  Aunt Ann pulled up a chair next to him and sat down, minding her bustle. “You’re a good man, Mr. Pippen.”

  He said nothing. How many people had her aunt helped with her kind words? Mr. Pippen seemed so broken—Susanna’s heart ached for him.

  She put a kettle on, listening from the kitchen so as not to intrude. He would probably like a cup of tea, whether he admitted it or not.

  She listened to murmured words about temptation and sickness, and the power of God to remove guilt and to heal, from both her uncle and her aunt. She felt very young and callow. They seemed to know exactly what to say, where she would have been stumbling and inept. Her faith was still so immature compared to theirs. Perhaps in another fifty years she would be as full of love and wisdom as they. She hoped so. She probably would have talked to him about rightness and responsibility had she been in their place. That would not have been the best approach, and she could see that now.

  “I’m thinking of moving my family, if they’ll forgive me and come with me,” Mr. Pippen said. “Out where there’s no saloon nearby.”

  “If it’s too much temptation, much better to move. But how will you escape other saloons?” her aunt asked.

  “Farming,” he said. “Just me and my wife and children, out with the animals and crops under a big sky. Where I can work hard and be a good father and husband. It’s all I really want.” His voice caught.

  “Some may mock it as running away, Arthur,” her uncle said, “but don’t listen to them. We must all choose the life that allows us to walk with God. If the saloon is too much, right down the street from you, then I applaud you for your willingness to do what it takes to get away from it. And don’t let anyone make you feel small. They haven’t walked in your shoes. Or perhaps they have, but they’re not strong enough to choose a different way.”

  Mr. Pippen held out his hand and shook her uncle’s. “I’m going to choose it, sir. And I pray the Lord will help me love my family more than anything but him.”

  “You already do,” her uncle said, and clasped his hand.

  Twenty-Six

  “HE ATTEMPTED TO BLACKMAIL HER. FOR A THOUsand dollars. He demanded it as his fee to retrieve his children from the homes and give them to her.” Johann poked the fork at his breakfast cutlet as his mother attempted to shove more eggs on his plate. “No, thank you, Mutter.”

  “How awful,” his sister said, her blue eyes huge. “Poor woman.”

  He liked Maria’s soft heart—she could never hear a sad story without sympathy.

  “Yes,” his father murmured, gazing out the window with the unseeing eyes of a man struck by memory. Johann knew he must be thinking of Louis at five. How hard it would be to have a brother so young vanish at the height of his innocence and never return.

  Maria swallowed a mouthful of egg and put her fork down. “I thought she seemed very nice at the Hosters’ dance.” She grinned, her dimple flashing. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t come over and pester you?”

  “Yes.” Johann smiled despite his preoccupation. Maria could always amuse him.

  Veta, his younger sister, was ash blond like his grandmother and just as practical, or so his father always said. “Are you courting that girl?” She seized the butter from beside him and took a pat to slather on a roll.

  “Girls, leave him alone,” their mother said, very stern as she sliced her pork.

  Johann reached across and stole the butter back. “How about you, Maria? I saw you with Peter Adler. Kissy, kissy.”

  She smacked his arm lightly with her hand. “Don’t be so silly.”

  His father grinned, but it faded. “Are you finished eating, son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come with me to the garden.”

  Johann stood. There was always a good reason if his father requested his company. “Kissy kissy,” he said over his shoulder at Maria, making Veta giggle.

  They went out through the kitchen in back to the little flagstone area where his father had ordered several large decorative boulders hauled in from a nearby quarry. His father took a seat on one and felt in his pocket for a cigar. Johann sat on the boulder nearest him and looked up at the morning haze over the high wooden fence. The green ivy climbed up the wood and softened its outlines, as did the dark-green shrubs around the courtyard.

  “One thousand dollars he wanted?” His father put the cigar in his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “A worker’s wages for a year.” He struck a match and puffed several times.

  Johann didn’t say anything but waited for his father to continue.

  “Perhaps we should offer to give this man the money.”

  “What?” That was not what he had expected. “But it’s extortion.”

  “It’s also the lives of six children at stake.”

  Johann let out an exasperated breath. “But I think Miss Hanby is correct that he will continue to try to extort money from her—or anyone in her vicinity.”

  “But time is short now, and once the children are gone, it will be too late. Why not get them out of the home and then worry about their worthless father later?”

  Johann rubbed the rough granite beneath him as if he could uncover an answer. “I would have to ask her, put the situation to her again in those terms.”

  “I think you should.” His father lit another match and puffed. It was only an occasional indulgence for him, the cigar, and a sure sign that something was weighing on his mind.

  “Let me consider it,” Johann said. “I’ll go work on the accounts this morning and think about it.”

  “Good.” His father looked relieved. “And then, after you have thought about it, you can decide you agree with me and go to Westerville.”

  His family was so endearingly blunt. Ordinarily he would have joked back at such a statement, but he would not today. Too much was at stake. And his father was probably right that he would end up in Westerville tonight. If he finished the accounts, he could make the last train and stay over at the Commercial House Hotel to speak with the Hanbys in the morning.

  The crickets chirped in the darkness of the hot summer night. Susanna stood outside the barn door looking in at Uncle Will, working late as he had many times since she arrived. It was past midnight and here he was, his white head bent over a saddle in the light of a lantern. All because of the children. She must help him more, try to learn some additional leatherworking skills.

  She leaned against the door frame to watch, but he looked up. “Hello, Susanna.”

  “Hello.” She slipped in and sat on the stool a few feet away, her dressing gown much easier to arrange than a bustled dress.

  “You’re up late.” He peered at his stitching and inserted the double needles again, one after the other.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Because of your sister?”

  “And the children. Only ten days left until they leave the Hannah Neil Mission.”

  He silently continued his stitching. He was so quiet s
he wondered if he was praying, with that intense, faraway look in his dark eyes.

  “Perhaps we should go back to Columbus tomorrow,” she said, hesitant. “And ask more about the red-haired woman—”

  Something boomed like a cannon, so loud it shook the air and hurt her ears. She started as the ground vibrated under her feet. Uncle Will stood too, dropping his needles.

  “Good heavens.” He swung his leg over the bench, unhooked the lantern, and took his cane. He hitched quickly toward the barn door.

  She was afraid he might lose his balance, rushing so. “Let me take that.” He paused and she took the lantern to free at least one of his hands.

  “It’s the saloon,” Susanna said. “It must be.” She had never heard anything like it.

  “Let’s get your aunt,” he said. She had never seen him walk with such quick and jerky strides. She raised the lantern to light their way back to the house.

  Aunt Ann flung open the kitchen door, holding another lantern, and held herself back when she saw them coming. “Oh, Will—it can’t be good.”

  “No,” he said. “Come, we must see if we are needed.”

  She hurried down the steps, dress bunched in hand, and they rounded the house to State Street. Others ran past them, lanterns swinging. A woman was screaming and male shouts carried through the darkness. Susanna grew cold and had to force herself to keep to a pace slow enough for Uncle Will to match. An overpowering smell of sulphur and charcoal filled the air, hazy with smoke. Her eyes stung.

  When she caught sight of the corner of State and College, she gasped. The Clymer building lay in ruins, collapsed on itself. The roof had come down and the second story crushed the first beneath it. In the front the building was completely annihilated. Only a shaky pile of wood and brick survived in back. Men rushed toward it with buckets, throwing them on several small fires burning in front.

  Where were the children? The screaming came from behind, seemingly out of the wreckage itself. The fear and pain in the woman’s voice brought a knot to her throat. Only a mother could sound like that—a mother calling for her children. Susanna took a shuddering breath and prayed the only words she could summon. Lord, spare them, Lord, please spare them.

  The blast had removed all debate and conflict like a layer of skin, leaving people’s hearts exposed. The men throwing water on the fires looked stricken and determined, even as they coughed from the floating smoke. Women stood with hands pressed to their mouths, still in their dressing gowns, some heads bowed. In the back, the heartiest and most courageous of the men edged their way into the building, soaked kerchiefs tied over their faces. After a minute, two emerged carrying the older girl Susanna had seen on the street when they came to town. Her face was covered in black dust, but she was conscious and sat upright in their chair grasp. Behind her stumbled first one boy, then another, coughing and rubbing their eyes.

  Now she saw Mrs. Corbin, whose anguished calls had been coming from behind the building, not under it. The woman flung herself forward to embrace her three children, her black hair tumbling in a braid over her shoulder all the way to the ground where she knelt and hugged them, sobbing out loud to the men. “Please, please,” even as she held the children close. “Where is Oralie? Where is Henry?”

  No one answered—only the ominous crackle of flame and thudding of boots from the men fighting the fires, the splash of a bucket of water, which was lost as soon as it flew into the fire and soot.

  The men headed back into the building.

  Uncle Will made his way toward Mrs. Corbin around the pieces of glass and blackened wood. Aunt Ann and Susanna followed. Someone must be with her for whatever came next. It was a terrible vision—hypnotic flames reeking of sulphur. Something knocked against her shoe and she looked down. She had almost stepped on a daguerreotype of the Corbins flung this far from the building by the blast—perhaps an engagement portrait. Their serious faces were obscured behind a maze of cracks in the glass.

  A groaning went up from tortured timbers. Several onlookers cried out, “Get out! Watch the wall!”

  Would the building collapse in the haze and flame?

  A burly man picked his way out from behind the rubble, straining under the weight of the tall body of Henry Corbin flung over his shoulder. Several people rushed over to help, including a man in a black coat. Thank heavens Dr. Amos was here.

  Another man, the last of them, emerged cradling the little girl in his arms. Her eyes were closed and she was blackened with soot, her streaked white nightdress making her look like a ruined doll.

  They laid both Corbin and his youngest daughter out on the ground. Mrs. Corbin released her other children and staggered through the debris toward the prone figures. She almost tripped on splintered sticks and pieces of fabric—the sad remains of what must have been a family chair.

  Aunt Ann touched the shoulder of the one of the boys. Uncle Will took the hand of the other as if by unspoken agreement. “Stay here, sweet,” her aunt said to the older girl in a firm tone. The girl looked uncertain but obeyed.

  Susanna did not know what to do—the girl looked so shattered and scared. She walked over and put an arm around her. It did not matter whether it felt strange. She had to show what human kindness she could. The girl began to shake as the doctor laid his fingers to the necks of the unconscious forms. Even the small pool of lantern light showed Mr. Corbin’s head wet with blood.

  “They’re alive,” the doctor said. “Bring them to my office, and be careful.” He led the way, and the other men took up their burdens again to follow him.

  Mrs. Corbin sat blinking on the ground, as if unable to move. Aunt Ann released the boy she was holding to Uncle Will, so he held both of the boys’ hands. They seemed as stunned as their mother and made no effort to resist.

  “Mrs. Corbin,” Aunt Ann said. “I want to take your children to a safe place where we can care for them. May I take them to Professor Hayworth’s house?” The professor lived only yards away from the intersection where they stood.

  Mrs. Corbin nodded, silent.

  “And will you come with us? We should give you a cup of tea, something to wear—” Mrs. Corbin’s clothing was only a night gown, which was torn. But the black-haired woman shook her head and stayed where she was.

  Aunt Ann darted a worried glance at Uncle Will.

  “I’ll stay with her,” he said. “Susanna, will you go with your aunt and help?”

  “Of course.”

  They took the boys and walked a few paces away, the girl following.

  “Don’t touch me!” Mrs. Corbin shrieked at the top of her lungs. Susanna whirled around to see that Mrs. Corbin had risen to her feet and was screaming at Uncle Will, who did not appear to have touched her and stepped back, alarmed. She waved her fist in his face like a madwoman. “It’s you and the others who caused this! You’re full of hate. You claim to be good Christians but what have you done? We did nothing to earn this! Look at what you’ve done! Look!”

  She rushed at Uncle Will. He raised one arm in defense, the other still braced on his cane. She landed one furious blow on his lifted arm before two men ran in and grabbed her. She collapsed from the elbows, hanging in their grasp, sobbing and shouting at them.

  Aunt Ann had stiffened and looked as if she would go to him, but Uncle Will waved a hand in an unmistakable signal that she should take the children away. The boys had started to cry, but the girl looked too frightened to move.

  Susanna turned back to her. “Will you come?” she asked gently. “We must let you sit down and have some tea.”

  “I want to stay.” Her wide eyes would not leave her shouting mother, who was running out of strength and breath.

  “Then I’ll stay with you.” She remained with her arm around the girl while Aunt Ann walked away with the boys and Uncle Will. What would it be like, to see your mother reduced to screaming rage and hysteria, after your home had been blown to rubble? A pain burrowed deep in her heart at the sight of the girl’s stricken face. The haze
floated on around them, making it difficult to see figures clearly more than twenty feet away, turning men into hazy gray shapes slipping through the night, throwing the water on the still-burning pyres.

  After a minute Mrs. Corbin fell silent. The men murmured to her and she answered more calmly, though still with hatred in her voice. They let her go and she rushed to her daughter and yanked her away from Susanna.

  “Don’t try to act like a saint,” Mrs. Corbin said between her teeth. “The time for help was before, not now.” The light in her eyes was pure fury. She marched away with her daughter toward the doctor’s office.

  Mrs. Corbin might be right. Her words had stripped to the bone, as if Susanna could see herself clearly for the first time. What had she said to Abel Wilson?—her words could have contributed to this awful scene. The horror in the children’s eyes, the memories that would never leave them, and the real chance that they might lose their father or sister, or both.

  She could not avoid it, though she wanted to rip away the knowledge and stuff it in a hole. It burned like the fires of the saloon had scorched her inside. She bore some of the blame for this breath of destruction, exhaled over Westerville like a demon’s laughter.

  Johann wearily set down his bucket and wiped his sleeve across his face. One fire out, though it was hard to feel it an accomplishment in the rubble of the Clymer building. He picked it up again and walked out from behind the building. It was his first venture away from his firefighting spot since he had run to the scene from the hotel.

  Susanna stood in the midst of the soot and scattered debris that had once been a parlor. The expression on her face mirrored his own state—sick at heart, her eyes full of sorrow. What evil mind had done this and claimed it as righteousness? And Johann had failed, after all his satisfaction in finding and destroying that gunpowder. He should have done more. The little girl might die, and he had not acted as he should. He should have told more people about the veiled threats, the stash of gunpowder.

  He stepped over to her. “Susanna.”