The Quilter's Legacy

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Sylvia felt a catch in her throat. “You would let me buy it?”

  Mona appeared to consider it for a moment, and then she shrugged. “For what I paid for it, and oh, perhaps a little something extra.”

  “I expect you to make a fair profit, of course.” Sylvia worried far less that the price would be out of her reach than that Mona might change her mind.

  “That's not what I mean,” said Mona. “Did I mention my daughter in law is a quilter?”

  Sylvia and Andrew began the last leg of their journey home, their spirits light. Sylvia rarely let the quilt out of her hands. She could still hardly believe that Mona had been willing to part with it for the few hundred dollars she had spent at the Landenhurst auction and the promise of a free week at camp for her daughter-in-law. “I hope you offer classes in making Crazy Quilts,” said Mona wistfully as they parted. “Perhaps you can encourage her to make me a replacement.”

  “I'll do my best,” promised Sylvia, although they both knew nothing could replace this particular quilt.

  As they drove east to Pennsylvania and Elm Creek Manor, the precious quilt on Sylvia's lap, she could laugh at all her worries of the past few weeks. Her disappointment over the earlier false leads suddenly seemed insignificant. Even Bob's and Cathy's lack of enthusiasm for the news of their engagement no longer troubled her quite as much as before.

  Cradling her mother's legacy in her arms, she renewed her resolve to search out the remaining four quilts wherever the trail would take her. Now that she had found one, nothing could dissuade her from pursuing every lead. Nothing could diminish her high hopes, not after the impossible had come to pass.

  Nothing, she thought, until they arrived home at Elm Creek Manor and found Andrew's daughter waiting for them.

  Chapter Six

  1912

  Eleanor sat alone in her study on the third floor of Elm Creek Manor. The unfinished quilt in her lap was too small to warm her, but she scarcely noticed the chill. If she acknowledged a discomfort as trivial as the cold, she would then have to feel all the other pain. Far better to allow her fingers to grow numb in the draft from the open window. Far better for her to grow numb everywhere.

  She stroked the quilt, though she barely felt the soft cotton beneath her hands. She should have set it aside, as she had two years earlier when her hopes had last been shattered. This time, although her morning nausea had almost certainly revealed her secret weeks before she and Fred had told the family, she had waited until nearly halfway through her time before taking up the quilt again. Within a month she had quilted nearly every feathered plume, every wreath of elm leaves, every crosshatched heart, every delicate ribbon in the quilt's pure, unbroken white surface before she lost the child she had so longed to cuddle within its soft embrace.

  She would set the quilt aside again, and complete it when she again had reason to do so. If she ever again had reason.

  She heard the door open. “I felt a draft all the way down the hall,” said Lucinda. “Why on earth is that window open?”

  Because Eleanor longed for some scent of spring on the air to remind her of the promise of life. Because she no longer had any reason to take extra precautions regarding her health. Because she might see Fred, and he always reminded her that although God had denied her a child, he had given her a husband who loved and cherished her. He had brought her into a loving family, and that ought to be enough.

  Instead she said, “I wanted some air.”

  “Then you should have accepted Fred's invitation to walk outside with him this morning rather than let all this winter chill into the house.”

  “Winter's over, Aunt Lucinda.”

  Lucinda was her father-in-law's youngest sister, only four years older than Eleanor herself, but the Bergstrom family firmly believed in using the honorific. In the five years she had been married to Fred, Eleanor had grown accustomed to their habits.

  “In Pennsylvania, April does not necessarily mean the end of winter.” Lucinda crossed the room and shut the window firmly, then grasped Eleanor's hands, warming them in her own. “We've had snowstorms in April that rival any in the heart of winter.”

  “I know. All the more reason to stay indoors.” Eleanor tucked her hands into the folds of the quilt. “You forget how long I've lived here.”

  “No, you forget.” Lucinda's voice was gentle, but resolute. “You could not be more a part of this family than if you had been born into it. You do not grieve alone. Don't shut yourself away up here, away from everyone who loves you.”

  Eleanor choked back the threat of tears. “To think, in my parents' home, I was so eager to turn the nursery into a study. Now I would give anything to turn this study into a nursery.”

  “If you mean to stay up here until such a need arises, you will be waiting a very long time. That sofa is much too narrow for both you and Fred.”

  Eleanor was so shocked she forgot to stifle a giggle. “Only you would joke at a time like this.”

  “It's a pity more people don't realize that jokes are most necessary precisely at times like this.” Lucinda took Eleanor's hands again and pulled her to her feet. Eleanor felt only the slightest dull ache in her abdomen. “Come downstairs and quilt with us. If not for you, then for Clara.”

  Eleanor gently folded the little quilt and nodded. For reasons she could only guess, Fred's seven-year-old sister admired her and imitated her in nearly everything. Eleanor knew that all she did in these dark days would teach Clara how to respond when, inevitably, her own life was touched by sorrow.

  She was about to leave the quilt behind when Lucinda said, “Bring it. It's too beautiful to go unfinished.”

  Wordlessly, Eleanor tucked the quilt under her arm and followed Lucinda from the room. Lucinda would not raise her hopes with false promises that someday her quilt would cuddle a little one, and Eleanor found her frankness reassuring in its familiarity. She would take her comfort wherever she could find it, for she now knew that while she had defied her childhood doctors by living far beyond their estimates, their predictions about her ability to withstand the rigors of pregnancy had thus far proven all too true.

  Lucinda slowed her steps so Eleanor could easily keep pace with her as they descended the carved oak staircase in the front foyer of the manor. Her home for the past five years was nearly as grand in its own way as anything she had seen in New York, and its pastoral setting and German flavor only enhanced its beauty. It seemed ages ago that she had assumed her Freddy lived on a humble horse farm. Her parents still believed it, based on what Eleanor could interpret from her mother's brusque responses to the letters Eleanor still dutifully sent them.

  They had just reached the bottom of the stairs when Eleanor heard rapid footsteps coming from the west wing. Clara burst into the foyer and dashed across the black marble floor. “Louis went for the mail,” she said, breathless, and to Eleanor, added, “You have two letters. One is from New York and the other's from France!”

  Eleanor would have been delighted to hear of the second letter had the first not filled her with foreboding. The letter from France must be Abigail's; she and her husband had been touring the Continent for the past month. The letter from New York was equally as certain to be from her mother, and almost as certain not to be a letter at all, but a news clipping—a society page account of a gala event where Edwin Corville and his wife had danced and dined with foreign royalty, a business report of Corville's lucrative expansion throughout the Eastern seaboard. Mother rarely added anything in her own hand except in spite and unless the article discussed Drury-Lockwood, Incorporated, which was, if Mother's caustic notes were to be believed, a misnomer.

  “We'll meet you in the west sitting room,” said Lucinda, drawing a disappointed Clara away. The girl had never ventured farther from home than Philadelphia, and she loved to hear stories from far-off places. She seemed to believe Eleanor had visited the locales she had only learned about from books, no matter how often Eleanor told her the truth.

  Alone, Ele
anor sat down on the bottom step and decided to open her mother's envelope first, to dispense with whatever insult it contained. Fred said she ought to discard them unopened, but Eleanor could not bear to risk destroying a letter of forgiveness, should it one day come.

  She withdrew a newspaper clipping and read only enough of the article to learn that Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Corville had been blessed with a baby boy. Her heart pounded as she read what her mother had appended to the bottom with bold strokes of black ink: “What has your husband given you but shame and grief? What have you given him?”

  Eleanor crumpled paper and envelope and, resisting the urge to fling them aside, tucked them into her pocket. She would put them on the fire at the earliest opportunity. She would not have Fred see them for the world.

  How foolish she had been to hope that her mother's anger would lessen with the years. Did she send the same hateful letters to Abigail? Abigail had never mentioned any, but of course, Mother had no need of letters when she could make her anger apparent in person. Abigail had written of at least a dozen society engagements where Mother and Father had departed as soon as she and Mr. Drury arrived. Abigail wrote little more of their parents, even when Eleanor asked for news, filling her letters instead with tales of her life as mistress of the Drury household.

  April 2, 1912

  Dear Eleanor,

  By the time you receive this letter, Herbert and I may be on our way home. Do not worry; my health and that of your niece or nephew is quite good, but my condition is becoming too noticeable for me to enjoy our tour of the Continent much longer. I do not mind cutting our trip short as much as you might think, as I will find much to console me in decorating the nursery.

  Paris was beautiful, as lovely as I remembered. I can almost hear you laugh at that, since my last visit occurred in the height of spring, a season that, as I write this, has only just begun to appear. You will say that my view of this romantic city has been colored by my delight in my husband and my anticipation of our child. Well, all I have to say to that is … you are absolutely correct. I find more joy in a sky full of rain now than I ever did on the balmiest summer day before I married. I have no doubt you know exactly what I mean. You are the only person in the world who understands what it was like to live in that cold house. If not for you, I never could have borne it. And this may sound contradictory, but if not for you, I also could not bear being shut out of it forever.

  If you had any idea how much I worried about you and ached to hear from you when you left home, you would forgive me every thoughtless thing I ever did to you. I know you have long ago forgiven me for abandoning you when I left home. I suppose that came easily to you, since if I had married Edwin, you probably never would have married Fred! If only Mother and Father would follow your example. Father gets a good living from Herbert. One would think he would be grateful, but of course that is not Father's way.

  Please promise me you will come to see me when the child is born. Five years is too long for sisters to be apart when modern conveniences have made travel so safe and comfortable. Bring Fred if you like; Herbert is fond of him, and I would like to know him better. If you wish to avoid Mother and Father, that is easily done; our parents avoid engagements they suspect I might attend. Will gifts tempt you? If so, know that I have a liberal allowance and spent it freely on the Champs-Elysées. If you want your gifts, I insist that you collect them from me yourself.

  I have so much to tell you about our travels that I have no patience to put it into a letter, so you must come to me so I can tell you everything. There is one incident I must share now, however, because it amused and yet so affronted me that I hardly know what to make of it. In Germany we attended a ball to honor a certain count who had been awarded a great honor by the Kaiser—I do not recall the name of either the count or the honor, and I make no apology for my ignorance because both were in German. I do not believe even you comprehend a word of that language, although on second thought, perhaps you have acquired fluency living with Fred's family.

  At this ball, I was introduced to an old dear from a very respected and influential English family, good friends of the Drurys, who told me she was very pleased to see me again. I knew we had never met, but rather than offend her by saying so, I merely smiled and steered the conversation elsewhere. She spoke to me quite kindly whenever our paths crossed that evening, and when Herbert and I were about to depart, she clasped my hand and said, “I was so sorry to hear your mother passed. I was very fond of her.”

  You can imagine my shock upon discovering in this manner that our mother had perished—and now I realize that I may have given you that same fright! Eleanor, dear, our own mother is alive if not well; the “mother” the Englishwoman mourned was Herbert's first wife. The dear lady thought I was his daughter! I wanted to laugh although I was mortified, for my condition was apparent then if not so obvious as now, and since she did not know Herbert was my husband, she must have wondered if I had one at all! Still, her remark was innocent and not offensive, unlike those of many Americans we have encountered in our travels, who seem to find my condition scandalous even when they know full well Herbert and I are man and wife.

  How much more I would enjoy confiding these secrets to you in person than through the post. Do promise you will come and see me when the baby's arrival is imminent. If gifts will not tempt you, then perhaps you will think instead of what a coward I am and how I dread the travail that awaits. If you could be by my side, lending me your strength as you always have, I think I shall be able to endure it. You may think me cruel to play to your sympathetic heart so, but if guilt shall speed you to my side, then I must be cruel!

  I am not accustomed to writing such long letters, and my hand has grown weary, so I must close. Tomorrow we are off to England, where I shall be certain to collect a vial of earth from the home of Jane Austen, as you requested. You do ask for such silly things. I think I shall buy you a tea service as well, though you did not ask for it. You will never see it, of course, unless you return to New York. Please do ask Fred if you might come.

  So tomorrow to England, and after a week, from Southampton to home. Would you be so kind to have a letter waiting there for

  Your Loving Sister,

  Abigail

  Eleanor smiled as she returned the letter to its envelope, warmed by Abigail's happiness but well aware of how it cast her own sorrow into greater relief. She wished she could unburden herself to her sister, but Abigail had scolded her after she lost the first two babies and would certainly be even more vehement if she learned Eleanor had not abandoned her hopes for a child. In Abigail's opinion, Eleanor knew the doctors' warnings and ought to heed them. “If Fred loves you as much as you say,” she had written, “I cannot believe he would demand a child of you if it might cost you your life.”

  Eleanor had hastened to assure her that Fred had never made any such demand, but the news of her first pregnancy had so delighted him that she knew he longed for a child as much as she did. He had responded to her subsequent pregnancies with guarded optimism and comforted her tenderly when they ended in grief. This time, however, he had also gently suggested that they resign themselves to their childless state rather than risk her health again.

  She wondered if she could ever resign herself. She longed for a sympathetic friend in whom she could confide, someone who might advise her. She would have turned to Miss Langley, but her former nanny agreed with Abigail regarding Eleanor's yearning for a child. Moreover, she was not especially receptive to any talk of Fred, since although she approved of Eleanor's decision to flee her parents' home, she could not hide her disappointment that Eleanor had married instead of pursued her education. The only other women Eleanor knew well enough to confide in were members of Fred's family, and somehow, even sharing her worries with Lucinda seemed a breach of his confidence.

  She gathered up the unfinished quilt, slipped Abigail's letter into her pocket, and tried to close off her grief in a distant corner of her mind as she went to join Lucinda
and the others. She passed through the kitchen on her way to the west sitting room, and Mother's news clipping quickly turned to ash on the fire.

  Fred's mother, Elizabeth, looked up and smiled encouragingly as Eleanor took her usual chair by the window. Maude and Lily broke off their conversation and studied their needlework intently, giving Eleanor only quick nods of welcome. In a surge of bitterness, Eleanor wondered if her sisters-in-law feared they might suffer her same unhappy fate if they acknowledged it. Even Elizabeth, the most superstitious woman Eleanor had ever met, did not believe that.

  Clara left her mother's side and seated herself on Eleanor's footstool. “Would you like me to thread a needle for you?”

  Eleanor smiled and thanked her. She let Clara borrow the heron-shaped shears Miss Langley had given her and slipped her thimble on her finger.

  “I'm pleased you're going to finish your quilt,” said Maude. She had married the second eldest of the Bergstrom sons, Louis, the previous spring, and with her first anniversary approaching, she had decided to learn to quilt to make an anniversary gift for her husband. Elizabeth had encouraged her to choose a simple Nine-Patch, but after seeing a picture in the Ladies' Home Journal, Maude had fallen in love with a stunning appliquéd Sunflower quilt designed by renowned quilter Marie Webster. Privately, the other women of the family agreed she would be lucky to finish even a small fraction of it in time, but no one wanted to discourage her newfound interest in their beloved craft, and since Maude did not want to settle for a simpler block, they decided to let her go her own way.