The Quilter's Legacy

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Eleanor did not care what an ignorant cobbler said or did. She could not bear for her darling husband to sacrifice himself to pride. She begged him not to go; she implored him not to leave her now that their longing for a child seemed likely to be fulfilled at last. But he was resolute. “No one must ever doubt the loyalties of the Bergstrom family,” he had said as he and Louis went off to enlist. “We are not German, but American, and we will fight for America.”

  Louis died within weeks of Richard. The family prayed for Fred's safe return and thanked God that William was too young to fight and that Clara was a girl. These children, at least, could be protected. They would be safe, and so would Claudia, the only Bergstrom grandchild to remain at Elm Creek Manor after Lily took her boys back to her own family and the home of her youth. Eleanor missed Lily's gentle innocence and the laughing, tumbling happiness of her sons. She did not expect they would ever return.

  When Claudia realized her mother no longer held her, she waved her limbs frantically in protest, her face screwing up in scarlet fury. “Hush, my angel,” murmured Eleanor, stroking her downy hair. Clara joined them on the floor and playfully dangled a strip of fabric within the baby's reach, bringing it close and then far. Claudia squealed with delight when she managed to seize the end in her tiny fist.

  Eleanor returned to her chair, hungry for the joy that watching her beloved little girl brought her. Claudia was nearly five months old and had never seen her father—might never see him.

  That was why Eleanor rolled bandages instead of escaping into the solace of quilting. What if Fred were wounded and perished for the lack of a single bandage? What if he faltered from hunger and cold when he most needed strength? She knew, logically, that nothing she did could directly preserve her husband. Her bandages would go to other wounded; the sugar she did not buy would feed other doughboys. And yet she knew, too, there was connection in the greater whole; she sensed it as she doggedly rolled bandages and bought Thrift Stamps and war bonds and conserved every scrap of food and fabric. She could not wield a gun, but she would do all she could to put wind in the sails of the Allied victory and hasten her dear Freddy's safe return home.

  “I think Claudia looks like Fred,” said Clara suddenly, picking her up. “They have the same eyes.”

  Lucinda snorted. “She has the Bergstrom chin, but other than that, she's the very image of her mother.”

  “What did Fred think when he saw her picture?” asked Elizabeth. Like Maude, she was clad all in black, but she had faced the death of her two sons with more resignation than Eleanor thought she could manage in her place.

  “He thought she resembled me,” said Eleanor, and felt heat rising in her cheeks. Along with the photograph of the baby, she had sent a picture of herself holding up her most recent quilt. She had chosen the Ocean Waves pattern for the ocean that separated them, blue and white fabrics for the crashing storm he faced abroad and the churning sea her life seemed without him. “Hurry home and help me use this, darling,” she had written on the back, blushing as she imagined how his buddies would tease him. The photo did not do the quilt justice, but he had written back that it was her most magnificent creation next to the baby. In fact, he liked it so much that when he returned, he might stay beneath it for a month straight, assuming she would keep him company. After all, he had written, they needed to get started making Claudia's baby brother.

  Eleanor had implied that no one would use the quilt until his return, and knowing that the idea held special meaning for Fred, it was difficult to look across the room at Elizabeth without embarrassment. Fred's mother was nursing a head cold, and she sat in her favorite chair with the Ocean Waves quilt draped over her, sipping lemon tea sweetened with honey. To ward off a sore throat, she had wrapped her neck with a poultice of her own invention. It smelled like burnt licorice, but Eleanor had no desire to learn its true ingredients. Lucinda decried Elizabeth's remedy as useless for anything but frightening away unwelcome guests, and David slept in a spare bedroom whenever she wore it, but Elizabeth insisted that it worked.

  Elizabeth made no such testimonials for Eleanor's Ocean Waves quilt, but she seemed to place at least as much faith in its curative powers. She asked for it whenever she felt unwell, and had done so ever since she had fallen asleep beneath the unfinished quilt as Eleanor sewed on the binding and woke released from a day-long headache. To believe that a quilt could heal the sick was ridiculous, maybe even blasphemous, and perhaps Elizabeth realized this, for she never proclaimed the powers of the quilt as she did her various poultices and charms.

  Ordinarily, Eleanor tried to humor Elizabeth's superstitions, especially now, with the war and the losses of Richard and Louis to put her harmless eccentricities in perspective. But what if Elizabeth fell ill in the night and came to Eleanor's and Fred's bedchamber for the quilt at the very moment they were beneath it endeavoring to give Claudia a baby brother? Elizabeth might not be deterred by a locked door if she thought her health was at stake.

  Heat rose in Eleanor's cheeks that had less to do with embarrassment than with the scene she imagined Elizabeth interrupting. She lowered her head and tried to appear focused on the bandage she was rolling, but Lucinda's sharp eyes missed nothing. Lucinda appeared about to speak, but at that moment, the front bell rang. “I'll get it,” said Eleanor, rising and hurrying from the room with only one quick glance over her shoulder to reassure herself that Claudia was content playing with Clara. By the time she returned, Lucinda would have found someone else to tease.

  As she had hoped, Frank Schaeffer, the postman, stood at the front door. “You should not have come so far out of your way,” Eleanor scolded him cheerfully. “One of us would have come to the post office eventually.”

  “It's no trouble at all,” Frank assured her, as he always did. “By the time you got around to it, the pile would have been so deep I would have had to help you haul it home anyway.”

  He handed her two letters, but even before she scanned the envelopes, his sympathetic look told her neither had come from Fred. Despite his thick shock of gray hair, Frank was barely a year older than Fred and widely regarded as the best marksman in the Elm Creek Valley. His greatest shame was that, as a sleepwalker, he had been declared unfit for military service. Privately, his wife Gloria had told Eleanor that she never imagined she would praise God for her husband's most irritating habit.

  “I'm sure you'll hear from Fred soon,” said Frank. “He's probably too busy to write much.”

  “I'm sure that's it,” said Eleanor, though her stomach clenched when she thought of all the horrors that could prevent him from writing. She bid Frank good-bye with a forced smile and a reminder for his wife that their blocks for the guild's charity quilt were due in two weeks.

  She read the return addresses on her way back to the west sitting room, her pace quickening in delight. The first letter was from Lily; the family would be overjoyed to hear from her. The second was from Miss Langley.

  She gave Lily's letter to Elizabeth to read aloud, but months had passed since she had last heard from her former nanny, and she was impatient to learn the reason for her silence. Promising herself she would read Lily's letter later, she quietly tore open Miss Langley's envelope and withdrew two sheets of ivory writing paper.

  September 6, 1918

  My Dear Eleanor,

  Please accept my apologies for my long delay in responding to your letter, but as you will learn, my recent circumstances have rarely been conducive to the sort of quiet contemplation required for thoughtful writing, and when they were, I chanced to be bereft of paper and ink.

  I do fear my confession will shock you. Eleanor dear, please do sit down and hand the baby to someone else.

  I did not write to you sooner because I was in prison.

  You will assume my arrest resulted from my activities organizing the union among the mill workers. A sensible deduction, since the factory owners often use their influence with local law enforcement to harass those who strive for the liberation
of the laborer, but incorrect. Instead I was prosecuted for a more villainous crime: speaking my mind too frankly where unsympathetic listeners could overhear.

  You are aware, of course, of the law making seditious utterances a crime. I, too, could not claim ignorance of the law as an excuse, although the passionate enthusiasm of the crowd at a labor rally did make me forget it for a moment. It seemed natural to me to divert from denouncing one great wrong to demanding an end to a second, but evidently some among my audience will more readily decry a greedy factory owner than a cruel war.

  I was arrested the day after the rally and charged with criticizing the war policies of the United States government. I was convicted, as was to be expected given the current climate of this nation, and was sentenced to a year in prison and deportation. That was the worst part of it, that I should be exiled from my adopted land when so much work remains to be done.

  So that my mind would not grow despondent and dull in idleness, I endeavoured to make the best of my confinement by establishing a law library within the prison and organizing a literacy program. Perhaps my imprisonment was a blessing in disguise, for I had not understood the shameful state of the penal system until I was myself subjected to it. I resolved that if I were somehow able to remain in this country after my release, I would fight to reform the prisons as I had fought to improve its factories.

  You are a bright young woman, and I am sure you have already perceived some ostensible contradictions in this account. Clearly this letter was posted in Boston, while I ought to be either in prison or in England. As it happens, I did not serve out my year-long sentence, nor was I deported.

  These remarkable consequences came about through the agency of Charles Davis, who has been my dear friend and comrade for years, almost ever since I departed the Lock-wood household. Faced with the prospect of never seeing me again, he proposed marriage, and once assured that unlike many of his sex he would remember we would remain equals after we wed, I consented.

  The parole board was greatly impressed by this apparent reformation and domestication of my character, and as I had been a model prisoner, and as no one had been injured nor any property damaged by my speech, I was released after only six months. Moreover, now that I am married to an American, I cannot be so easily deported.

  The parole board admonished me to be on my best behavior, which I agreed to do, although I am sure we would define that differently. Thus, upon regaining my freedom, I resumed my union activities. I now forgo criticism of the war except among friends, though I hate to see our Freedom of Speech so abused. I did not forget the promises I made to myself during my incarceration, either, and I have returned to that same prison as a teacher. When I see my students struggling proudly with their lessons, I cannot help wondering how they may have never seen the inside of a prison if only they had been granted a solid education in their youth. I do not romanticize these inmates; many of them have committed abhorrent, unspeakable crimes. Yet while living among them I learned that desperation and fear drove them to these terrible acts far more often than greed or rage did, and they might have chosen another path if it had been made clear for them.

  Unfortunately, my enlightenment came with a price, and I do not speak of my temporary loss of freedom. Eleanor dear, I am so sorry I could not be present at the birth of your daughter as I had promised. My only consolation is knowing that you were surrounded by women who love you, and I am sure they were a great comfort. I am pleased little Claudia likes the quilt, and I am very glad I finished it early and sent it to you before the tumultuous events of the past few months could have interfered.

  I so longed to see you, and still do, which makes this next part the most difficult to write. Eleanor, you must not come to Boston. There is an illness spreading throughout the city, and although the authorities claim the matter is well in hand, I have my suspicions that the situation will worsen before it improves. Apparently the sickness first appeared in the Navy barracks at Commonwealth Pier, and even now it seems to afflict primarily sailors and soldiers, but yesterday, a friend who is a nurse at Boston City Hospital told me they have admitted civilians afflicted with the same disease. The bewilderment and fear in her expression when she confided the details of her cases filled me with considerable alarm. The onset of the illness is sudden, intense, and cruel; I will spare you a description of the symptoms, as my friend's yet haunts my nightmares and I do not wish to burden you with it.

  I do not tell you this to alarm you, only to convince you to stay away until this illness has run its course. Perhaps you will still be able to visit this autumn, before the weather worsens, or perhaps I could visit you. That might be better in any case; I am sure my husband and my pupils can spare me, and I would so enjoy seeing the places and people you have described in your letters. Otherwise we will have to wait until spring. Chin up! We have waited nineteen years; we shall survive another few months.

  Please take good care of yourself and give sweet Claudia a kiss from

  Your Affectionate Friend, Amelia Langley Davis

  “Eleanor?” said Clara.

  Eleanor looked up from the letter, startled. “What is it?”

  The others were watching her, concerned. “You're as white as a sheet,” said Elizabeth, and coughed into her handkerchief. “Is it bad news?”

  “I'm afraid so,” said Eleanor, quickly composing herself as she returned the letter to its envelope. “Miss Langley—or I should say, Mrs. Davis, for she has married—has asked us not to come.”

  “Why not?” asked Maude. “Not that I ever thought you should go. The baby is much too young to travel so far.”

  “There has been an outbreak of illness in Boston.” Eleanor fingered the envelope, a fist clenching in her belly. “It sounds a great deal like the three-day fever Fred said afflicted the soldiers overseas in the spring, but …”

  “But what?” asked Lucinda sharply.

  Eleanor smiled and shrugged. “I was going to say more virulent, but you know how Miss Langley exaggerates.”

  Miss Langley did not exaggerate, and Lucinda had heard enough stories about Eleanor's nanny to know that. Lucinda gave her a long, steady look before glancing down on the floor where Clara played with Claudia. “Mrs. Davis, you mean,” Lucinda said, taking up another strip of cloth.

  “Mrs. Davis. I must remember that, although it will be difficult after so many years of calling her Miss Langley.”

  Eleanor scooped up Claudia and held her close.

  A week passed with no more visits from Frank Schaeffer, which meant no letters from Fred. Eleanor wrote to her husband nearly every night, a few paragraphs telling him about her day, about Claudia. Maude scolded her for wasting paper and postage on so many letters instead of writing one longer letter once a week, but when Eleanor thought of the hazards her fragile letters would pass through, she decided that sending many separate envelopes would increase the chances that at least one would reach Fred.

  Frank still had not returned to Elm Creek Manor by the following Saturday afternoon, the date of the Waterford Quilting Guild's monthly meeting. Eleanor drove into town with Lucinda and Clara, who at thirteen was too young to be an official member but had been granted special permission to attend meetings. Eleanor and Lucinda were two of the four founders of the guild, after all, and even the fussiest members tolerated Clara's presence rather than offend Elizabeth and risk being excluded from the quilting bees at Elm Creek Manor, which were a welcome diversion during the long Pennsylvania winters.

  Eleanor had made sure they left home early so she could mail her letters before the meeting. Clara had filled an entire book of Thrift Stamps and was eager to exchange it for a War Bond, so while Eleanor ran her errand, Clara and Lucinda went to the bank.

  At the post office, Eleanor joined the line to buy stamps, her thoughts drifting to Fred. She wondered if he was still in France. It was not like him to be silent so long between letters. He must not be able to send mail from wherever he was. If he had been killed, she would hav
e been notified by now.

  As she waited, she was at first only distantly aware of the hushed, worried voices around her until snatches of conversation broke through her reverie:

  “… hundreds by now, and more dying every day …”

  “… dropped dead, right on the street corner …”

  “… Spanish flu, but I say it's German in origin …”

  “I beg your pardon.” Eleanor touched the shoulder of in the man in front of her in line. “What did you say?”

  “It's nothing, miss,” the man said, and the man with whom he had been speaking nodded. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “You said people are dying.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose I did.” The man hesitated. “They're calling it the Spanish flu.”

  “Influenza?” Eleanor was not quite sure she believed him. She and Elizabeth had both had influenza in the spring. Only the very old and the very young died from it. “Hundreds are dead from influenza?”

  “Yes, miss, but as I said, you shouldn't worry. It's all happening very far away from here.”

  By force of habit, Eleanor placed a hand on her heart to still its pounding. “Boston isn't that far away.”

  A long look passed between the two men before the first said, “I was speaking of Philadelphia.”

  “You could have been speaking of any city east of here,” a sharp voice broke in from behind them. Eleanor turned to find a stout woman with her arms full of parcels. “My daughters in New York City say the undertakers are running out of coffins.”

  Eleanor's heart leapt in alarm; the two men exchanged uneasy glances. “It's true,” the woman insisted. “That why I'm sending my girls my best remedies as quick as can be. Wish I could go there and tend to them myself, but this time of year my rheumatism troubles me terribly when I travel.”