Lovelier than Daylight Read online

  “You do not seem to wish to hear an explanation,” he said, his own temper rising like stirred coals. “Do you? Because perhaps there is something you’re overlooking.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. It’s all clear.” The rain was harder now, covering her straw hat in a net of tiny droplets.

  “You are very hard in your judgment. Perhaps you should ask more questions and make fewer—”

  “I don’t want to see you again, Mr. Giere.” Her words were quick and cold, but as she turned to walk away, her severe expression cracked into pieces. She hid her face as she hurried away, her bustled skirt brushing over the rapidly dampening yard.

  He watched her leave. What had happened? She had judged and sentenced him without a single question, without an atom of grace to lessen her fury.

  It was too much. Her outburst was so unexpected, as if she had ambushed him, hacked away, and left him bleeding in the dust. Her temper was no excuse for a lack of compassion or mercy for a friend.

  He could have wept at the injustice of it, at how badly he still wanted to go after her and embrace her and make everything right and kiss her again. But nothing he did could make her heart right—it was poisoned against him.

  He was still holding the paper, rolled up. He muttered an oath and slapped it against his palm so hard it stung. He stormed back inside.

  “May I come in?” His father stood at the bedroom door.

  “Please do,” he said. The telegram offering him the New York job lay facedown on his desk—he shoved it in the desk drawer as his father approached and sat on the bed.

  “Have the Hanbys decided whether they wish to give the money to George Leeds?”

  Johann hesitated. He picked up his pen and doodled on the blotting paper. “They have not told me.”

  “But there are only two days left, correct? And then the man leaves town?”

  “Correct.”

  “And they are aware of this?”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t told them?” His father’s brows were raised, Johann knew it without even looking around.

  “A problem has arisen,” Johann said.

  “Of what nature? No matter what, you must tell them.”

  “Miss Hanby and I have fallen out. Did you read the article in the Dispatch today about Westerville?”

  “No. Only yours in the Westbote.”

  “Well, here’s the Dispatch version.” He handed it over.

  Silence followed for three or four minutes. His father did not read quickly in English. Johann wanted to drop his head on the desk and close his eyes, but he would not give in. He kept doodling.

  At last his father made a harrumphing noise. “And the writer credits you.”

  “Or discredits, in this case.”

  “I can see why your friend is hurt.”

  “She is furious.”

  “It’s all the same.” The bed creaked as his father stood up. He walked around to stand at the side of Johann’s desk, his back against the wall. “This does not change the fact that you must tell her about George Leeds before the opportunity is gone.”

  “You seem eager to spend your one thousand dollars.” Johann sounded gruff. He did not mean it—he wanted to rescue those children even more than his father did. But what would his father think if he gave the Hanbys the money and soon after, Johann informed him he would be leaving for New York? His father would feel deceived as well as abandoned. It made Johann feel sick at heart.

  If Susanna ever recovered from this attack of unjust hatred, could they marry and move to New York together?

  No, though a reporter’s salary would support a small family, it wouldn’t support all of her nieces and nephews. And it was a logistical impossibility—she would never leave Ohio while her sister’s children were here. But he really wouldn’t have her any other way. Her deep love for her family was one of her best qualities.

  His father stood up straight. “The future is too important to risk on a lover’s quarrel. For that’s what this is, yes?”

  He felt himself blushing. “No, it’s more serious—she won’t listen to reason or even ask for my explanation. She won’t forgive this article.”

  “That is always what lovers think.” His father’s look was astute. “And you are in love with her.”

  Johann’s ears grew hot and he looked down at the page in front of him. “I will ensure that she knows about Leeds.”

  “Danke. You will not regret it—I have faith that the Hanbys will choose to accept the money. No one will let children go if there is any choice.”

  “Except George Leeds.”

  “Yes. But Miss Hanby is a decent woman who loves her nieces and nephews. Time heals all, regardless of what bitterness she feels now. They will take the money and get the children. After a few months—perhaps even a few weeks—the two of you will be as before, and you can bring her back to another dance. I did like her.” He patted Johann on the shoulder and walked out.

  After a few months I will be gone, and you will be one thousand dollars the poorer, all for a woman who now sees me as an enemy.

  To stay or to go—it was an impossible choice.

  Thirty

  THICK, DARK SMOKE HUNG EVERYWHERE, CHOKING her as she ran through it.

  Susanna awoke in the darkness of her bedroom, faint moonlight glowing behind the curtain. She lay there with her heart hammering. It was a dream, nothing more.

  But she smelled smoke. She rubbed her nose and inhaled again. Was it her imagination? No. She swung her feet out of bed and slipped into her dressing gown. Alarm prickled over her shoulders as she padded down the stairs.

  There was nothing amiss downstairs. The stove was cold. A faint hissing came from the back door. She walked over and opened it to look out.

  A column of smoke billowed up from the barn and a light danced behind the small window.

  “Uncle! Auntie!” She ran to the door of their room to see them sitting up, eyes wide, scrambling to their feet. “The barn is on fire!”

  She ran back into the kitchen and grabbed a bucket, then flung herself out the door. She barely felt the kitchen steps fly by as she bolted for the barn, the empty bucket swinging.

  She snatched the side door open, grateful for its wooden handle. Dear Lord, help us. Flames engulfed the hay and storage area above the saddlery at the far end of the barn. A large stick of wood in the middle of the hay pile burned with an unnatural ferocity, like a torch.

  A terrified whinny went up from the other side of the barn. Thank heaven for the partition between the saddlery and the stalls: it might have saved the horse and cow. She dropped the bucket and ran to open the front door of the barn. Inside, she snatched the halter and lead rope from its nail. The smoke stung her eyes.

  The roan gelding showed the whites of his eyes as he plunged around his stall. Haltering was out of the question—if she went in the stall, he would crush her. She slid back the bolt, stepped out of the way, and swung the door wide. He shot out at top speed and vanished into the night.

  In the other stall, the cow was standing in the back, her wide nose to the wall as if she could hide. Susanna threw the horse’s halter aside and grabbed the cow’s. But when she had slipped it on and buckled it, the cow stood with her feet planted and would not move no matter how Susanna tugged at the rope. She whirled around, searching wildly for anything to help.

  The slim figure of her aunt hurried through the barn door. “I’ll get her.” She slowed as she neared the cow, put on the appearance of calm, and took the rope. Susanna retreated out of the stall—animals responded best to those they trusted most. Sure enough, at her aunt’s urging, the cow pivoted and followed on its rope. Susanna rushed out the wide door ahead of them. Her aunt turned toward the house—she would take the cow to safety on the other side. “Go help Will!” Aunt Ann called back to her. “I’ll get the neighbors!”

  Susanna raced back toward the burning saddlery. She almost collided with her uncle coming out the door, coughing. He h
ad picked up two buckets.

  “The water trough,” he said. She took one of the buckets from his grasp and hurried toward the trough in the small paddock behind the barn.

  She plunged her bucket deep into the trough and pulled it out with both hands, bracing her knees. She staggered back to the barn carrying it, some of it sloshing on her toes. There was so much flame, and so little water. The heat was so fierce she could no longer enter the barn, and the flames began to lick up the outside wall close to her. She emptied her water on the wall—at least it smoldered out in that one small patch. Another bucketful of water from Uncle Will hit the wall.

  The faint shouts of neighbors meant they were running up to the house. But sprouts of flame grew into long tendrils up the walls. It was too late to save the barn. Their battle would be to hold the line and make sure the fire did not take the house as well.

  An hour after dawn the house had fallen quiet, the neighbors gone, the condolences given for the loss of the barn, the meat, bread, and pie left for them in the pantry or on the shelf. Uncle Will was sleeping in the back room, exhausted. Aunt Ann had gone to Mrs. Hayworth’s house just to escape the scene for an hour or two.

  Susanna was worn thin as cheesecloth, but she could not sleep. Pressing her fingers into her sore temples, she breathed deeply but the air was saturated with the odor of smoke. She hunched on the back stoop, her dazed mind still refusing to accept the reality of what she saw.

  The ruin of the barn was like a half-shell. Even the surviving side was blackened in streaks. She stood and walked to the destroyed end. The saddlery was covered in soot and what had been the storage room beside it was barely a skeleton of itself. Glass lay all over the floor from stored jars of food that had exploded in the heat. Sacks and sacks of supplies had burned beyond recognition. Even her uncle’s tool bench and racks had not been spared: most of the tools had wooden handles that had blackened to charcoal.

  What would they do? All the church’s collected food, which would have supported the children. And the very means of his livelihood, his tools, all taken away. Was this what the threatening notes had meant when they arrived on the doormat for her uncle? Did this unknown enemy even know what it had cost them, the burning of the barn? Or was it simply the easiest act of destruction? The arsonist had stolen their last hope for the children.

  She walked through the ebony bones of the building, covered in flakes of ash that stirred in the slightest hint of breeze.

  Her uncle had also seen the torch lying in the center of the hay pile last night, its oily burn so different from the lighter flame of wood.

  And this morning the neighbors had started wondering, once the smoldering had stopped.

  “I know Corbin had something to do with it,” one had said. “Tit for tat.”

  Another man she did not know rested, arms weary from lifting buckets on top of the paddock fence. “Seems unlikely to me,” he said. “But Mr. Hanby was pretty strong in denouncing the bombing of the saloon. What if it was them, the same folks who used gunpowder the first time?”

  The angry, indignant whispering went on. But Uncle Will stayed quiet and did not contribute to the discussion, his face craggy with fatigue.

  She should go see if he had awakened. At least she could take care of him, bring him some of the food the neighbors had brought. She retraced her steps to the house, walked through the kitchen, and rounded the corner, moving quietly so as not to disturb him. She turned the handle of the door and knocked lightly as she pushed it open just enough to see if he was sleeping.

  Uncle Will was sitting in the chair in the far corner, his head leaned back, his feet propped on the footstool. Had he fallen asleep in the chair? Or else—a stab of fear went through her and she glided toward him on tiptoe. Thank the Lord—his chest rose and fell gently with his breath. He was cradling something in his hands where they lay in his lap. She looked closer. It was a picture of her uncle and aunt and their children, in a simple wooden frame. It must have been taken years ago, before she was even born. Uncle Will was in the prime of life then, his hair still dark, as was her aunt’s.

  Their children stood and sat around them—all eight of her cousins. Amanda, Anna, and Jenny stood on the back row, Amanda looking off to one side with a genuine smile on her face as if someone had made her laugh. That someone was probably Ben, who stood there between his sisters perfectly straight-faced, as he often did after saying something funny. He was handsome, dark, and intense as she remembered him, but even younger, and healthy and strong, probably not yet plagued by the cough that she remembered when he laughed. This portrait must have been made just before he married Kate.

  In the middle of the photo, her cousin Cyrus looked miffed with his arms crossed, envious of Ben’s quip, no doubt. There were so many funny stories about Cyrus and Ben. A pang struck, sharp and keen, for what her uncle had lost, and her eyes filled. She blinked the tears away. She should remove the picture from his hands and put it somewhere safe so he would not accidentally drop it when he woke up.

  As she leaned down and reached for it, she glanced at his face to be sure she was not waking him. His cheeks shone in the diffused light from the window. They were wet—he was weeping. Could people shed tears in their sleep?

  “Uncle,” she murmured.

  His eyes opened, too aware for one who had been dreaming. He had been awake the whole time.

  How she ached for him. She had never seen him weep, and it wrung her heart. “Are you in pain? Can I get something for you?”

  He turned his head to the window. Perhaps he was embarrassed by his emotion.

  She wished she had not disturbed him in such a private moment of grief. “Anyone would mourn, Uncle. It’s no shame.” She knelt on the rug beside him and laid her hand on his.

  “I’m not weeping for what I’ve lost, Susanna,” he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear. “I’m just grateful to the Lord, grateful that he gave me so much.” He wiped his tears with the back of his hand, though they continued to flow. “I could have died at eighteen on the floor of my master’s barn. I would never have known the love of my wife, or the joy of my sons and daughters. Praise the Almighty God for what he gave me, for such love and such joy.”

  The lump in her throat deprived her of speech. She got to her feet and bent to kiss him on his cheek, weathered and rugged beneath his white beard. Life had engraved such beauty in those lines of age and wisdom, more graceful than even the designs of his saddles.

  She had so much to learn.

  Thirty-One

  JOHANN WALKED PAST THE CONFECTIONER’S SHOP AS the blasted heap of the saloon rose ahead of him on State Street. Little wonder Susanna was discouraged and quick to anger, with such a disturbing scene facing her every time she ventured from the house of her aunt and uncle.

  He felt for the letter in his pocket. It was there, all set in writing about George Leeds and his demands in case Susanna would not see him at all. He said a quick prayer that this would go well. But even if it did, New York still awaited, with all its messy allure.

  This was no time to let that distract him—the children had to come first, then he would sort out the rest.

  There was the Hanbys’ home. He could not think of anything else but the opening of the front door and whether it would be her face behind it.

  It was. She looked even more tired than when he had last seen her, her face drawn. Instead of the anger he expected, hurt filled her eyes as she looked into his. It was worse—he would rather she had raged at him or slammed the door. Despite the unfairness of her conviction about him, he still hated to see a beautiful and spirited woman beaten down by her circumstances to helpless pain.

  He took a deep breath. “I have something I must tell you. About the children.”

  “What is it?” She stood halfway behind the door as if she could hardly stand to look at him. A lock of her light-brown hair trickled down her neck to touch her collar.

  “George Leeds has told me that we have only two more days to a
ccept his reprehensible offer, as he is leaving town. My father urges you again to accept his assistance.”

  Her lips closed and her eyelids lowered. “Mr. Giere. . .”

  An extra stab of regret that she would not call him by his first name.

  “Even if we wished to accept your father’s offer”—she stressed father as if to make it clear she would not accept help from Johann himself—“we’ve found that we’re no longer in a position to even consider taking the children.” Her face twitched and gave away the pain she was trying so hard to hide.

  “What do you mean?”

  Without responding, she opened the door farther and stepped out onto the doorsill. He gave way to let her pass him.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  He followed her around the end of the house.

  The barn was a burnt wreck, at least the back half, the saddlery they had shown him before. It took his breath away. What else could happen to this family?

  “We can’t take the children.” Her tone was final. “Because as you can see, my uncle and aunt have been left with hardly anything but the clothes on their backs and the food in the pantry. With the barn’s stores, we might have done it. Now it would be foolish. And my parents are in no position to help. My cousins are either off on missions or struggling to make ends meet. None of us escaped the recession with any significant means.” She had no pride; her confession was simple and honest.

  It tore at him. He laid a hand on her shoulder.

  She stiffened, then pulled away and put a few steps between them. “Now you have your answer about George. Please take your leave.” Her shoulders had tensed.

  It stung, and he struggled with a moment of anger. But he must be patient. She had taken such blows, one after the other, that he must grant her time to recover, as his father had said.

  He nodded to her. “Then good afternoon.” Was that flicker in her eyes regret or longing? He turned away and walked up State Street again with his head up and shoulders squared. He was innocent of her accusation and would not slink away like a guilty Judas.