James shouted something to Harold and stopped wrestling with the hatch long enough to gesture frantically for him to help. Harold stared at him, licking his lips nervously, seemingly frozen in place.
The breeze picked up, fanning the flames and carrying some of James’s words to Andrew’s ears. “Come on, Harold, help me!”
“Hang on,” Andrew yelled as he raced by Harold’s tank. “I’m coming! I’m—”
He heard the second plane droning overhead and saw Harold duck back into the tank. Then the explosion knocked the ground out from beneath his feet. Heat seared his eyes and wet soil rained down all around him.
Andrew was sobbing. “I’m so sorry, Sylvia,” he wept, his voice breaking. “He saved me when we were just kids, but I couldn’t save him. I’m so sorry.”
I rocked him back and forth and tried to comfort him as best I could, but I had no words for him. All I knew was that James had died trying to protect my little brother as he had promised me, and Harold had let them both die rather than risk his own neck.
The next day Andrew left, and I never saw him again. I waved good-bye to him as his cab drove off, and turning back inside, I vowed not to tell Claudia and Agnes what I had learned. But still I felt uncertain. Should Claudia, at least, be told? Wouldn’t she want to know this about her husband-to-be? Then I thought about her words on the veranda that terrible day. “Thank God!” she had said. “Thank God! Thank God!” Angry tears sprang into my eyes at the memory. No, Claudia would prefer her blissful ignorance. And Agnes was too fragile for the truth.
I found them in Claudia’s sewing room, giggling like schoolgirls. Agnes stood on a stool in the middle of the room as Claudia fitted her for a dress.
Their conversation broke off when I entered. “Do you—do you like it, Sylvia?” Agnes asked, holding out her skirts and smiling nervously. “It’s my matron of honor dress for Claudia’s wedding.”
Claudia nudged her and flushed.
I started. “But I thought—but you already asked me to—”
Claudia tossed her head. “I changed my mind. After all, you’ve hardly been very helpful with my wedding plans. You’re always too busy. You don’t care about my wedding at all. Agnes does.”
Agnes jumped down from the chair. “Stop it. Please. I won’t listen to any fighting.” She fled from the room.
Claudia threw down her tape measure and glared at me. “Now look what you’ve done. You just can’t leave her alone, can you?”
“What on earth do you mean?” I gasped. “You’re the one who asked me to be your matron of honor and then dropped me behind my back. Claudia, I’m your sister.”
“She’s our sister, too, now,” Claudia snapped. “Can’t you be unselfish for once in your life? My God, Sylvia, she lost her husband.”
My anger swelled. “Have you forgotten? I lost my husband, too. And my brother, and my daughter, and Father. And you know who’s to blame?” And then the truth I had vowed not to reveal burst from my lips. “That cowardly fiancé of yours! He let James and Richard die!”
“How can you blame him for that? It isn’t Harold’s fault he couldn’t get the hatch open.”
“What? He never even tried. Whatever he told you—Claudia, he never left his tank. Andrew was there. He told me everything.”
“You’re just jealous because my man came home and yours didn’t. You’ve always been jealous of me, always—”
“He does not belong in this family!” I screamed. “You will not marry him. I am the head of the Bergstrom family now, and I forbid it!”
“You forbid.” Claudia’s voice was cold, her face pale with rage. “You can forbid nothing. Harold risked his life to protect Richard. How dare you—how dare you speak of him this way. He is as fit as any man to join the Bergstrom family.”
“The Bergstrom family is dead,” I choked out. “Dead!”
“If you can say that, then perhaps you’re the one who doesn’t belong here.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” I turned my back on her then. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I stormed to my room and threw my things into my suitcases. No one tried to stop me.
I left Elm Creek Manor that day and never returned until this spring. I never again spoke to my sister, or to Agnes, or to Harold.
The sitting room was silent for a long time. Sarah could hear birds chirping outside, and farther away, the sound of Matt’s lawn mower.
“Where did you go?” she finally asked.
Mrs. Compson shrugged and wiped at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. “I stayed with James’s family in Maryland for a while. They were happy to have me. Then I returned to college. I studied art education at Carnegie Mellon, where they taught things I had already learned from my mother and great-aunt, though my mother and great-aunt didn’t use words like ‘color theory’ and ‘composition.’ After I received my degree, I taught art in the Pittsburgh area until my retirement. Since then I’ve had my quilting to keep me busy. I think I’ve done all right, but it wasn’t the life I had hoped for.”
“What happened to the others—to Claudia and Agnes?”
“Claudia and Harold married, but they had no children. Several years later Agnes married a professor from the college and moved out of Elm Creek Manor. Claudia and Harold took over Bergstrom Thoroughbreds, and you’ve seen the results of their keen business sense already. But I have no one to blame but myself for the business’s failure. If I had remained here to manage things . . .” She sighed and placed her hand on Sarah’s. “Well? Did my long-winded reminiscing solve any riddles?” Her voice was slightly mocking, but not unkind. “Will that help you think of a way to bring Elm Creek Manor back?”
“I’m not sure. I’m going to try.”
“Well, you do that. I’m counting on your help.” She patted Sarah’s hand and sighed.
Twenty-Five
The next day Sarah interrupted her cleaning to ask Mrs. Compson if she would like to join the Tangled Web Quilters for their meeting that evening. Mrs. Compson thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. Although Sarah persisted, the older woman would neither change her mind nor explain her refusal.
So Sarah drove to Mrs. Emberly’s home alone.
The red-brick colonial house was only a few streets away from Diane’s, in an older part of the Waterford College faculty neighborhood. Sarah was the first to arrive, and Mrs. Emberly took her into the kitchen.
“Help yourself,” Mrs. Emberly said, indicating the counter covered with snacks.
Sarah pushed a bowl of pretzels aside to make room for her plate of cupcakes. “Thanks. Maybe later, when the others get here.”
Mrs. Emberly glanced back toward the front door. “So, you came alone?”
Sarah nodded.
“I thought Sylvia might come with you this time, since she was so friendly with everyone at the quilt festival.”
“You heard about that?”
“Bonnie told Diane, and Diane told me.” Mrs. Emberly sighed. “I suppose she would’ve come if not for me.”
“It’s not that. I don’t think she knows you’re a member.”
“Really?” Mrs. Emberly brightened for a moment, then looked puzzled. “You didn’t tell her?”
“No.” Sarah gave her a wry smile. “Just like you never told me you’re Mrs. Compson’s sister-in-law.”
Mrs. Emberly’s cheeks went pink. “I assumed that you would’ve heard it from one of the others long ago, or from Sylvia herself. I suppose she never mentioned me, then?”
“She did, but she called you Agnes, and I didn’t know you were Agnes. The Tangled Web Quilters always call you Mrs. Emberly.”
“Diane started that. I used to baby-sit her when she was a little girl. She’s always known me as Mrs. Emberly, and I suppose the habit was too strong. The others picked it up from her.”
“I wish I would’ve known.”
“I didn’t mean to deceive you, but I was afraid you’d feel caught in the middle if you knew.” Mrs. Emberly took a seat at the
kitchen table. “Though I suppose there isn’t anything for you to be in the middle of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sylvia and I have no relationship now. Oh, Claudia and I kept tabs on her as best we could through the years, but we had only secondhand information from mutual friends. That’s not enough to hold a family together.”
Sarah took the seat beside her. “I think Mrs. Compson would be glad to see you again.”
“Really?”
“She’s very lonely. She feels like she’s the last Bergstrom.”
“Perhaps she is.” Mrs. Emberly twisted her hands together in her lap. “Claudia was a true sister to me, even after I remarried, but Sylvia—”
“Would you be willing to see her again?”
Mrs. Emberly hesitated. “Yes—that is, if you think she’d welcome me.”
“I know she would.”
“I’m not so certain. Sylvia holds on to a grudge with both hands.”
Sarah couldn’t argue with that. “What if we—”
Just then Summer burst into the room. “Hey, I’m the second one here. That must be like a new record for me or something.”
Mrs. Emberly laughed and pushed her chair away from the table. “Then come on over here and celebrate with one of Sarah’s cupcakes.” She avoided Sarah’s eyes.
The moment was over, and as the rest of the group arrived Sarah knew she wouldn’t get another chance that evening to talk to Mrs. Emberly alone.
As the others quilted, Sarah made templates for her latest block, Hands All Around. Her conversation with Mrs. Emberly and Mrs. Compson’s stories played over and over in her mind. Somewhere in their stories there had to be a solution.
Diane’s voice broke in on her thoughts. “Isn’t that a Hands All Around, Sarah? You’re smart to hand stitch all those curved seams and set-in pieces.”
Sarah hid a smile. “Actually, I’ve been machine piecing for several days now.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Welcome to the twentieth century, Sarah,” Gwen said.
The others laughed, but Diane glared at them. “You guys are a bad influence.” That just made them laugh harder, and even Diane had to smile.
Sarah looked around the circle of friends. This was what Mrs. Compson needed. This was what Elm Creek Manor used to have and had lost.
Maybe Gwen was right, and Mrs. Compson and Mrs. Emberly should be forced into seeing each other again. They were both lonely, especially Mrs. Compson; they both needed to forgive each other. And if Mrs. Compson felt that she had family in Waterford, she might be willing to stay at Elm Creek Manor.
Or the first sight of each other might rekindle all of those smoldering resentments until any hope of reconciliation burned to ashes.
Sarah wished she could figure out what to do. If only she had more time.
By the middle of the next week, Sarah had finished the Hands All Around block and another block, the Ohio Star. Then she had only one block left to piece.
The next day, Mrs. Compson held the book open to the page so that Sarah could see the picture. “Here it is,” the older woman said. “It’s not the most difficult block, but it’s a good one for using up scraps, so I saved it for last.”
Sarah carried the book to the table and studied the diagram. The block resembled the Log Cabin pattern, but instead of only one center square, there were seven arranged in a diagonal row across the block. The strips of fabric on one side of the row were dark, and the strips on the other side were light. She looked to the title for the block’s name. “Chimneys and Cornerstones,” she read aloud, and smiled. “It’s a Log Cabin variation, and its name also alludes to houses. That’s appropriate, don’t you think?”
Mrs. Compson was fingering her glasses and staring into space.
“Mrs. Compson?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, the name is quite fitting.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just remembered something I hadn’t thought about in a long time.” Mrs. Compson sighed and eased herself onto the sofa. “My great-aunt made a Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt for my cousin when she left Elm Creek Manor as a young bride. She and her husband were moving to California, and we didn’t know when—or if—we would see them again. It wasn’t like today, when you can hop on a plane any time you like.”
I was a very young child then. This happened before my mother passed away, before Richard was born, even before my first quilt lesson.
I admired my cousin Elizabeth very much. She was the eldest of the cousins, and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. How confused and sad I was when she told me that she would be going away. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to live anywhere but Elm Creek Manor.
“Why do you want to go away when home is right here?” I asked her.
“You’ll understand someday, little Sylvia,” she told me. She smiled and hugged me, but there were tears in her eyes. “Someday you’ll fall in love, and you’ll know that home is wherever he is.”
That didn’t make any sense to me. I pictured Elm Creek Manor sprouting wings and flying along after my cousin and her husband, settling back down to earth wherever they stopped. “Home is here,” I insisted. “It will always be here.”
She laughed then and hugged me harder. “Yes, Sylvia, you’re right.”
I was happy to see her laugh and thought that meant she wouldn’t be leaving. But the wedding preparations continued, and I knew my dear cousin was going away.
Claudia helped the grown-ups as best she could, but I resented anyone who did anything to hasten my cousin’s departure. I hid my aunt’s scissors so that she couldn’t work on the wedding gown; I took the keys to Elizabeth’s trunk and flung them into Elm Creek so that she couldn’t pack her things. I earned myself a spanking when I told her fiancé that I hated him and that he should go away.
“If you aren’t going to help, then just keep out of the way and stay out of trouble,” my father warned me.
I pouted and sulked, but no one paid me any attention. Eventually I pouted and sulked my way into the west parlor, where my great-aunt sat quilting. She was my grandfather’s sister, the daughter of Hans and Anneke, and the oldest member of the family.
I stood in the doorway watching as she worked, my lower lip thrust out, my eyes full of angry tears.
My great-aunt looked up and hid a smile. “So, there’s the little troublemaker herself.”
I looked at the floor and said nothing.
“Come here, Sylvia.”
In those days, when a grown-up called you, you went. She pulled me up onto her lap and spread the quilt over us. We sat there, not speaking, as she sewed. I watched as she took a long strip of fabric and sewed it to the edge of the quilt. The softness of her lap and the way she hummed as she worked comforted me.
Finally my curiosity got the better of me. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m sewing the binding onto your cousin’s quilt. See here? This long strip of fabric will cover the raw edges so the batting doesn’t fall out.”
Raw edges? I thought. I didn’t know quilts had to be cooked. Not wanting to reveal my ignorance, I asked a different question. “Is this her wedding quilt?”
“No. This is an extra quilt, one to remember her old great-aunt by. A young wife can never have too many quilts, even in California.” She pushed her needle into her pincushion for safekeeping, then spread the quilt wide so that I could see the pattern.
“Pretty,” I said, tracing the strips with my finger.
“It’s called Chimneys and Cornerstones,” she told me. “Whenever she looks at it, she’ll remember our home and all the people in it. We Bergstroms have been blessed to have a home filled with love, filled with love from the chimneys to the cornerstone. This quilt will help her take a little of that love with her.”
I nodded to show her I understood.
“Each of these red squares is a fire burning in the fireplace to warm her after a weary journey
home.”
I took in all the red squares on the quilt. “There’s too many. We don’t have so many fireplaces.”
She laughed. “I know. It’s just a fancy. Elizabeth will understand.”
I nodded. Elizabeth was older than I and understood a great many things.
“There’s more to the story. Do you see how one half of the block is dark fabric, and the other is light? The dark half represents the sorrows in a life, and the light colors represent the joys.”
I thought about that. “Then why don’t you give her a quilt with all light fabric?”
“Well, I could, but then she wouldn’t be able to see the pattern. The design only appears if you have both dark and light fabric.”
“But I don’t want Elizabeth to have any sorrows.”
“I don’t either, love, but sorrows come to us all. But don’t worry. Remember these?” She touched several red squares in a row and smiled. “As long as these home fires keep burning, Elizabeth will always have more joys than sorrows.”
I studied the pattern. “The red squares are keeping the sorrow part away from the light part.”
“That’s exactly right,” my great-aunt exclaimed. “What a bright little girl you are.”
Pleased, I snuggled up to her. “I still don’t like the sorrow part.”
“None of us do. Let’s hope that Elizabeth finds all the joy she deserves, and only enough sorrow to nurture an empathetic heart.”
“What’s emp—empa—”
“Empathetic. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“When I’m old like Claudia?”
She laughed and hugged me. “Yes. Perhaps as soon as that.”
Mrs. Compson fell silent, and her gaze traveled around the room. “That’s how I feel about Elm Creek Manor,” she said. “I love every inch of it, from the chimneys to the cornerstone. I always have. How could I have stayed away so long? Why did I let my pride keep me away from everyone and everything I loved? When I think of how much time I’ve wasted, it breaks my heart.”
Sarah took Mrs. Compson’s hand. “Don’t give up hope.”
“Hope? Hmph. If I had any hope left, it died with Claudia.”
The Quilter's Apprentice Page 22
