Jakob glanced down at the hymnal courteously placed in his hands by the young man next to him. Even though it was open to the correct page, all he could do was listen to the strong male voices around him. The songbook was printed in German. His father could read and write the language of their ancestors, but until now Jakob had never had the inclination to learn.
Stealing another irresistible glance across the room, he found it impossible to distinguish Lydia from the field of gray dresses and white bonnets. How would he locate her after the meeting?
The song ended. Every head disappeared as the colonists leaned forward to pray, their noses nearly touching their laps. It was the oddest thing Jakob had ever seen.
When the meeting ended, the colonists gathered around him, introducing themselves and shaking his hand. Over their shoulders, he sought and found Lydia. Jakob gently excused himself and shouldered his way to the door.
Outside, soft female voices blended into one another in the night. He loped ahead and located her on the footpath. "Miss Beker."
Lydia grasped her young sister's hand and swung to face him. "Herr Neubauer."
"Herr Neubauer? To our home will you come?" her lanky young brother offered in eager invitation. "Our grandmother has Kekse."
Jakob understood that word. "What kind of cookies?"
"Oatmeal and raisin," he answered quickly. "I am Nathan."
Jakob extended his hand. Hesitantly the youth shook his hand. Jakob knew nothing of their custom. "Will it be... all right?" he asked Lydia.
Lydia glanced at her younger siblings' eager faces. "Ja. Do join us."
The Bekers' kitchen was meticulously clean and startlingly devoid of any ornamentation, save cut flowers next to the few work surfaces and on the table.
Lydia filled a teakettle and placed it on the narrow stove. One of Lydia's sisters positioned small plates around a table. The smaller children sat at the table awaiting their treat.
"Nathan, ask grandmother to join us, bitte. Be seated, Herr Neubauer."
He took the chair she indicated.
Nathan returned with a small elderly woman. An intricately stitched shawl draped her emaciated shoulders. Her ancient eyes, dark and curious, with deep golden sparks visible in the gaslight, inspected him.
"Ah, the hero." With a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, she seated herself at the corner of the table. "Just like the angels in the fiery furnace, huh?"
Jakob shifted in embarrassment.
"Grandmother." Lydia scolded her softly in German and bent to pour her tea. She served Jakob and herself, then took the last remaining chair—at the opposite end of the table.
Jakob covered his disappointment with conversation. "Where are your parents?"
"Mother is tending a sister who is ill," Lydia answered. "She will be home afterward. Meeting with the Diakon is my father." She passed the plate of cookies.
"Where are you from Herr Neubauer?" Grandmother asked, and selected a cookie.
"I farm over to the north, with my pa and brothers."
"You are German?"
"Yes, ma'am. My grandparents worked as bond servants to pay their passage over. Grandpa took up his watchmaking trade till he staked the farm."
"Quite a legacy," she said with admiration. "I was just a child when my parents came to this country, but I remember the hard years...."
The old woman stared at Jakob for a long moment. He could remember his own grandmother with that same reflective expression on her face. He smiled.
"Ach, well..." She shrugged her bony shoulders. "If something comes too easy, it is probably not worth having."
One of the children tapped Jakob's sleeve and pointed to a silver ornament cinching his black string tie up against his stiff white collar. "What is that?"
"A dollar."
Inquisitive faces turned to Lydia.
"Munze," she explained. "Sein Geld."
Several pairs of eyes widened and stared.
Jakob's last bite of cookie stuck in his throat. He fought the urge to swallow and send the object of their undivided attention bobbing.
Grandmother came to his aid. "Prepare for bed, children. Rachael, tend to the dishes, please. Guten Abend, Meier Neubauer. Sehr erfreut," she said, wishing him a good evening.
He called upon the meager German he'd learned from his grandmother. "Danke, Frau Beker. Auf Wiedersehen."
Rose smiled indulgently at his accent.
Lydia showed him to the door, but he didn't want the evening to end. He needed more time with her. "My horse is stabled on the other side of the common. Will you walk partway with me?"
Nathan gave Lydia an almost imperceptible nod.
"To the common I will walk," Lydia replied softly.
The town was silent. No dogs barked. No cats yowled. Even the crickets, their chirping muted and distant, seemed to respect the hush blanketing the settlement. No off-key piano tinkled raucously on Main Street. The inhabitants of Accord were all tucked peacefully away in their homes after a tiring day of work.
"I learned a lot tonight. I take it there's another colony like this in Economy?"
"Yes. Father Rapp's granddaughter, Gertrude, lives there with the last of the original Rappites."
"You say 'the last' as if there won't be any more." They had reached the common, where fragrant flowers planted in precise rows and borders edged the footpaths. They stopped beneath the light of a gas lamp, and he faced her.
"Die out they will, if Christ comes not in their lifetime."
"Why?"
She gestured for him to sit on a stone bench. "Father Rapp believed family interests should not be put ahead of the community, that the people shouldn't be distracted from their work and the burden of the community would be less with no children." She regarded him cautiously, as if awaiting his reaction. "No marriage is there between risen saints, the Bible says," she hurried to explain. "They believe children are unnecessary, since Christ is due any second."
She faced the flower bed opposite them. Jakob studied her fetching profile. He absorbed the information, first rearranging her peculiar sentence structures in his mind. Lydia's parents and grandparents were married, and she was one of six children. "I take it you folks don't see, uh... marriage... the way Father Rapp did."
"That difference drew my grandfather away. He and Grandmother started a new colony of married believers."
Seeing her silhouetted against the night sky, he marveled at her unaffected beauty. She probably didn't know how pretty she was, or how her graceful gestures and chaste manners pressed lasting pictures into his memory—pictures that he would review again and again until the next time he saw her.
Wanting to touch her, wanting to pull her against him and smell her soft, feminine fragrance, he rubbed his damp palms on the thighs of his trousers. He balled his hands into fists and resisted the growing desire to reach for her.
Her gaze turned to him. "I must return. It is time for the last bell."
Jakob stood with her. His wants churned his belly into an aching sack of gravel. Don't scare her off, Neubauer. He stuffed his thumbs in the pockets of his trousers and rolled back on his heels. "I like your family."
She smiled. "Gute Nacht,Herr Neubauer."Herr Neubauer."
"Jakob." Her velvet-soft eyes met his, and he wished more than ever that the darkness didn't hide the golden flecks he'd seen earlier.
"Good night." Her voice floated soft and warm on the night breeze, and she disappeared, leaving him aching. He'd have to tread lightly and patiently until she learned he was no threat. He hoped he had the patience.
He wanted her more every time he saw her, every time he allowed himself the indulgence of picturing her as his wife.
Somehow he would find the patience.
At home in his upstairs room, Jakob lit the oil lamp on the chiffonier and surveyed his reflection in the mirror. Did it matter to her that he needed a haircut? Did she notice that his nose was too thin and his jaw too square?
He flopped back on his bed.
Franz and Annette whispered and giggled, tiptoeing to their room. An aggressive heat radiated throughout Jakob's body. He closed his eyes and tortured himself with thoughts of them undressing and snuggling in their bed. He needed a woman.
He loved his family, the farm and the work that pushed him to his limits. He'd been happy here, but he was twenty-eight years old, and he needed a wife.
Watching his brothers with their wives and listening to the sounds from their rooms had become an abrasion he could barely endure. Years of waiting pressed in on him until he wanted to burst. He needed a woman's touch, not just a presence or a memory.
His mother had died eighteen years ago, his grandmother a few years later. Annette was warmhearted and ambitious, and she unquestionably loved his brother. She and Franz had been childhood sweethearts. Jakob couldn't remember a time when Annette hadn't been in their lives.
Emily, on the other hand, was more reserved, hovering on the fringe of activities, watching, listening—rarely participating. Sometimes he wondered if Anton was disappointed in his wife. They didn't seem to share the same connection as Franz and Annette. But both of them lavished affection on Nikolaus and seemed happiest when sharing time with him.
Of course Annette had been around longer, while Emily had arrived as a stranger. Jakob didn't want to make any mistakes in marrying the right person. Once he'd thought his future was planned, but fate had another idea.
Sylvie Schelling, only daughter of Butler's Methodist Episcopal preacher, had been Jakob's girl. They'd planned to marry, but at the tender age of seventeen, she'd died.
Jakob no longer had a childhood sweetheart, and he'd always balked at the idea of advertising for a mate. But since he'd met the young woman in Accord, the thought of a wife had taken on a more pleasant aspect. Lydia Beker had ignited something volatile... a longing that smoldered and spread and seared his formerly contained yearning into a blazing, all-consuming need.
He knew what he wanted. He knew who he wanted.
The ways and means of surmounting obstacles in his path didn't daunt him, especially after the old woman's encouraging words that evening: If something comes too easy, it is probably not worth having.
Lydia looked forward to Jakob's visits. It rained mercilessly that month, which afforded the young farmer time to travel into town for baked goods. At least twice a week he attended a Society meeting and walked her to the common afterward. Her family was aware of the attention he paid her, and Etham invited Jakob to the Diakon meeting, where the Society leaders introduced themselves and enlightened him on the Scriptures.
It was only a mild shock to Lydia when Jakob touched upon the subject of marriage one evening as they sat, a proper distance apart, on a rough-hewn bench in the town common.
"Do you have suitors, Lydia?"
"Suitors?" she repeated without comprehension.
"You know, men callin' on you? A beau?"
"It is not the custom."
"What is the custom?"
"If a man finds a woman suitable, he requests of her father a union. If her father approves, they are married."
Jakob absently ran a thumbnail along the crease of his trousers. "How do they know if they're suitable?"
Lydia watched his hand and remembered him drawing his finger across her chin. The thought of him touching her supplied enough jitters that she was hard-pressed to keep her own lands still in her lap.
"In Accord we are familiar with one another. Most of the young men are my second or third cousins. The older men are mostly widowers."
In a habit she now found charmingly familiar, Jakob mauled his hat, curling the brim in a thoughtless gesture that revealed a worn leather band.
"Would you marry me if your father approved?"
Lydia's heart pounded erratically. She hadn't allowed the possibility to take shape in her mind. It was preposterous to think of marrying a man she'd known for only a short number of weeks... it was against the Society's nature.
But there was no one else she would rather marry. She couldn't visualize marriage to a colonist, especially not after meeting Jakob.
She flicked her gaze over his earnest face, then to her lap. He was like no one else she knew or could ever hope to know. He was from an exciting world she'd never seen, and he had a wealth of experiences of which she knew nothing. She conjured up a vision of Jakob joining the colony and becoming her husband. A giddy bubble inflated her chest, and she fought to keep from laughing out loud, lest he think her insane.
"Ja. I would marry you if my father approved."
They gazed at one another openly, exchanging mutual looks of surprise and uncertain hope.
"And if he doesn't?"
"Why would he not? You are a fellow German. To the Diakon he welcomed you." Excitement knotted her stomach. "Will you ask him?"
"Tomorrow." He noticed the beating his hat had taken, and attempted to straighten it. "I'll talk to him. I'd be a good, faithful husband. I can provide for you. I'd do everything in my power to see you were never sorry."
"I believe you would." She turned her gaze up to his face and heard him catch his breath.
His firm hand took hers from her lap and urged her to stand. His broad form blocked the moon. The vivid memory of clinging to his strong arms and shoulders assailed her. Lydia's fingers trembled in his callused palm.
"Tomorrow I'll ask him." He lifted her fingers to his mouth and pressed his warm lips against her knuckles. Heart racing, she allowed the intimacy.
"Tomorrow," she whispered.
Emily perched on the porch rail while below Jakob scraped mud from his boots. He knelt in the dooryard, grass poking through his bare toes. "You went to Accord again last night, Jakob?"
"Yup."
"Whatever is so interesting there?"
At her teasing, he glanced up, pausing to thumb his hat back on his head. "Oh..." He returned his attention to his boots. "They're fascinating people."
"All of them? Or one person in particular?"
He flipped his buck knife closed and straightened. "I talked with some of the men, and I plan to use their ideas when I build my house. Stone footings, cellars with a tunnel for cooling..."
Emily tapped her fingers on the rail distractedly. "My, my..."
"They insulate with slabs of wood wrapped in straw and mud. They call 'em 'Dutch biscuits.'"
"You're thinking about a future with the colonist girl?"
Jakob stood taller, glanced at the knife in his hand, then back to her. "I am."
"And your differences?"
"That doesn't matter to me."
"You don't know each other. I'll doubt you've ever been alone with her. What about a courtship?"
"What would you know about proper courtin'?"
She looked away. His teasing words hit a bruised spot on her ego. Jakob had never said anything unkind to her. He was always kind, always offered a caring pat on the hand or shoulder and had accepted her. "Of course you're right. I don't. I only want the best for you. And for the young woman."
He stepped to the rail beneath her. "Thanks for your concern, but I know what I'm doing."
"It's a challenge to adapt to this life, Jakob. She's never been outside that church town, never seen what the world and men are like."
Jakob backed away and settled his hat over his forehead. "I won't mislead her about what this life is like. Whether or not she wants to come will be up to her. I can't make Lydia do anything she doesn't want to do."
Of course Jakob had at least met this person, seen her and spoken with her. He knew what he was getting. Anton had picked Emily sight unseen. "Why her, Jakob?"
Jakob picked up his boots and shrugged his broad shoulders. "I'm not sure." He looked at his boots. "These need a good polishing before I meet with her father."
She watched him go. The colonist was indeed fortunate that a man wanted her the way Jakob seemed to. Emily's chest ached. If only Anton wanted her that same way. Discontentment gnawed inside her. She'd escaped one life for another she stil
l wasn't sure about.
Lydia hurried along Church Street, her head swimming with imagined scenes of the life she and Herr Neubauer would have together. She thanked God for sending Jakob. Her prayers were not the serene praises and petitions they had been a month ago—she even thanked God for the fire, a trial turned blessing.
Men's voices came from behind the heavy closed door at the rear of the church. She knocked.
"Enter." Her father sat behind his massive cherrywood desk, and in a chair before him sat Jakob. Jakob stood when she entered.
"Sit, Lydia," her father said. "I thought you should be present. You have spent time with Herr Neubauer, and I think he has made a decision."
Lydia and Jakob exchanged confused glances. He remained standing until she took the straight-backed chair next to his.
Jakob cleared his throat. "I thought we could talk alone, Vater Beker." He gave Lydia an apologetic glance.
"There is nothing to hide. This is not the church of Germany. You need not confess your sins to me." Etham smiled benevolently through his neat black beard.
Jakob hung his hat on his knee and spread his palms on his denim-clad thighs. Lydia wiped the dampness from her own hands beneath the concealment of her gray skirt.
"I want to marry your daughter, and I'd like your approval. I'm a sober man. I can take care of her—"
"Marry my daughter!" Black eyes swung to her. "Lydia, did you know of this?"
She nodded mutely. It had seemed so logical, so preferable, when she spoke with Jakob alone, when she dreamed of their future together. Here, in her father's study, years of bending to his will and fearing to do anything else crowded in.
"This was... not what I anticipated." Etham ran a hand through his hair. "I assumed your interest in the colony led you here to join. You must give me a moment."
Jakob nodded.
Lydia sat meekly, twisting her skirt in both fists.
Her father's obsidian gaze lifted to hers. "What is your wish?"
Her wish? She willed surprise from her expression. Coaxing her voice from her constricted throat, she lowered her gaze. "I wish to marry Jakob. I believe the Lord allowed the fire to bring us together."
Cheryl St.John - [Neubauer Brothers 01] Page 3