Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (4 page)

She studied the quilt for a long moment before carefully folding it and setting it on top of the Log Cabin. Then, with great deliberation, she reached into the trunk for the third bundle. Slowly, as if to prepare herself for yet another unsettling surprise, she unwrapped the muslin sheet, unfolded the quilt within—

—and stared in astonishment at what fell from the folds and tumbled to the attic floor.

“My goodness.” It was a book, its unmarked brown leather cover cracked with age. Mystified, she carefully opened the slim volume, wary of worsening the damage, only to discover pages covered in graceful script.

Without her glasses, and in the dim light of the attic, she could not make out the words so elegantly written, but the shorter lines and numerals heading some of the pages suggested dates.
A journal. It had to be. A journal, most likely Great-Grand-mother Anneke’s, hidden away within the folds of her most precious quilt. Sylvia clasped the book to her chest, forgetting her concerns about the Birds in the Air pattern in the growing awareness of her good fortune, and feared, for just a moment, that she was dreaming.

Quickly she gathered up the quilts and carried them down two flights of stairs to her bedroom suite on the second floor. She placed her treasures on the large chair beside her bed, put on her glasses, and took the journal into her sitting room, where she turned on the bright lamp beside her sewing machine and sat down. She caught her breath, then opened the journal to the first page.

October 2, 1895

Autumn has come again to Elm Creek, and I, too, am in the autumn of my years.

My history has barely begun, and already my pride has bested me, for I know all too well that I have long since passed into winter. If I cannot be honest about such a small matter of vanity, how can I hope to be forthright about the harder truths, which few but I remain alive to remember? Yet I must be honest, not merely for the sake of my own soul, but to honor the memory of those whom I love—those whom I loved even as they betrayed me, and she I came to love as she deserved only after she was betrayed.

I do not know for whom I write these words. They cannot be for my own eyes, which are failing me, for the memories burn too strongly in my heart for me ever to forget them. They cannot be for my descendants, for I have none living. Even so, the Bergstrom family endures in America, and shall endure, both in name and in truth. Anneke has seen to that.

If she knew I spoke within these pages, she would beg me to be silent, to protect her children, and their children. She would say the future generations of Bergstroms will not thank me for my frankness, and if others discover the truths we have all pledged to conceal, they would surely destroy us. But I remain hopeful, despite all I have witnessed since coming to this land of freedom, this land of contradictions, and I hold fast to the belief that we owe a greater duty to Truth than to our own earthly comfort. They are not my children or grandchildren who will suffer, so perhaps it is true that I do not fully comprehend the burden my tale will place upon them. But who among us knows how our choices will affect generations yet unborn?

Reader, if you bear the name Bergstrom, know first that you came from strong, proud people, and that it is for you I write, for if we can bequeath you nothing else, we must make you the heir of our truths, for good or ill. Know this first, and read on.

Sylvia read the passage again, slowly, underlining it with her finger. The graceful script had faltered near the end, as if written by a hand trembling with fear or anger. Or did she only imagine it so, shocked as she was by the words themselves?

Anneke could not have written those lines, that much was clear. But who, then, was the author? Surely not Hans; surely he would not have written such things about his beloved wife. The handwriting seemed feminine. Gerda, then? Was this the journal of Hans’s sister? But it seemed more like a memoir than a journal, something written after the outcome of events was known rather than recorded day by day, as they were happening. The author had had time to reflect, to consider the effects of her words, and of her silence.

Then Sylvia had a disturbing thought: The family histories
said little of Gerda after her arrival in America and the laying of the cornerstone of Elm Creek Manor. Was it possible that Gerda was the hypothetical ancestor who had left Elm Creek Manor to become the owner of slaves in the South? Was Margaret Alden’s quilt her handiwork? How, then, did her journal come to be here, in the attic of Elm Creek Manor with Anneke’s quilts, rather than in South Carolina?

Those whom I loved even as they betrayed me,
Gerda had written. Whom did she mean? Not Hans and Anneke. It was incomprehensible that they would have betrayed her, and yet, if they had been on opposite sides of the Civil War . . .

Future generations of Bergstroms will not thank me for my frankness.

Sylvia closed the book and set it on her sewing machine. Her pleasure upon finding Anneke’s trunk had transformed in a matter of moments into foreboding.

Gerda’s words haunted Sylvia as she tried to sleep. She woke at daybreak, restless and troubled, and her gaze fell upon the quilts she had left on the chair beside her bed. She had not even bothered to examine the third quilt, so captivated had she been by the journal.

She rose and made her bed, then spread the Birds in the Air quilt upon it. In the bright light of day, the deterioration seemed worse than she remembered. Some of the triangular pieces had entirely disintegrated, and the binding around the edges hung loose, where it remained at all. The quilting stitches were straight and even, pleasing though unremarkable in their layout, a simple crosshatch of diagonal lines in each block.

“I should look as good after a century and a half,” remarked Sylvia, amused at her instinct to critique. This was obviously a utilitarian quilt, well used and no doubt well loved—and by a
child, judging by the quilt’s small dimensions. The faded colors had been vibrant once, the worn pieces whole and sound and strong. Sylvia found herself admiring the little quilt, and liking the long-ago quiltmaker whose matter-of-factness and pragmatism appeared in every frugal scrap and solid stitch.

Compared to the Birds in the Air Quilt, the Log Cabin seemed remarkably well preserved. A few small holes along several seams appeared to be the result of the quiltmaker’s large stitches rather than the consequence of heavy usage, and the blurring of the fabric print seemed due to time rather than frequent washing. Frowning, Sylvia studied the quilt from different angles, wondering if it had ever even covered a bed. Families often set aside a special quilt to be used only infrequently by guests, but those quilts were typically the finest in the household. While this quilt had probably been quite comfortable in its day, it was simply not as elegant or as finely made as one would expect for a quilt reserved for company. Perhaps the quiltmaker had rarely used it because she had been disappointed with it—or perhaps she had used it often but had taken especially good care of it because it was her first effort, and thus had great sentimental value. Sylvia didn’t suppose she would ever know for certain.

Her curiosity whetted, Sylvia carefully unfolded the third quilt and laid it beside the others. It was slightly larger than the Log Cabin quilt, and Sylvia soon found fabrics identical to those in the Birds in the Air quilt. That suggested the same hands had pieced both, but Sylvia wasn’t convinced. The pattern, four patches in a vertical strip set, seemed no more complex than the Birds in the Air or Log Cabin, but only at first glance. By alternating the background fabric in adjacent rows, the quilter had created dark and light stripes, as well as a more difficult project, one with more seams to match and bias edges that might have stretched out of place if she had not been careful. And while the
three layers were held together by simple concentric curves, the stitches themselves were smaller and finer, often seeming to disappear into the surface, as if the quilt had been etched with a feather.

Perhaps the Log Cabin and Birds in the Air quilts had been made earlier, and the third years later, after the quiltmaker had improved her skills. There was no way to say for certain, unless Gerda had written about the quilts in her journal.

Behind her, a knock sounded on the door leading to the hallway. “Sylvia?”

“Just a moment.” Sylvia couldn’t resist a quick glance in the mirror as she pulled on her robe. Her hair needed combing, but Andrew knew what she looked like, and he seemed to like her anyway. She opened the door to find him dressed in neatly pressed slacks and a golf shirt. “Well, don’t you look dapper this morning.”

The compliment clearly pleased him. “And you look pretty, as always.”

Sylvia laughed as he kissed her cheek. “You say that because you aren’t wearing your glasses.”

“I say it because it’s true.” He looked past her to the quilts on her bed. “What’s that you have there?”

“Anneke’s quilts.” She beckoned him inside. “Or so I believe. I’ll need Grace to examine them before I know for certain.”

Andrew nodded, studying the quilts. “But she can’t know for sure who made them, right? She’ll only be able to tell you how old they are.”

“Hmph.” Sylvia gave him a sharp look, which she knew he noticed, although he pretended not to. “Spoilsport. If I know how old they are, then I’ll know who made them. Why would Anneke keep someone else’s quilts in her attic? Honestly, Andrew.”

He merely shrugged and grinned, used to her moods and her
sharp tongue. Sometimes she suspected he baited her for the enjoyment of watching her temper flare, but she liked him too much to stay indignant long. “I suppose you’re right,” admitted Sylvia. “But perhaps Anneke’s sister-in-law will identify the quilter.”

She returned to the sitting room for the journal, and as Andrew examined it, her eagerness to read the book rekindled. All her life she had wondered about Hans and Anneke Bergstrom, the first of her ancestors to come to the United States. Now part of their history—Gerda’s thoughts in her own words—had been given to her. She told Andrew how she had found it, and was about to show him the troubling passage she had read the previous night when she noticed the time. She ushered Andrew from the room, promising to meet him downstairs for the Farewell Breakfast.

She readied herself quickly, unwilling to be late for one of her favorite parts of quilt camp. Since Sunday afternoon, the latest group of quilters had enjoyed classes, lectures, and fellowship with new friends and old, and it wouldn’t do to simply send them packing when the week of camp concluded. Instead the campers and staff gathered on the cornerstone patio for one last meal together. After breakfast, they would sit in a circle, as they had seven days earlier for the Candlelight welcome ceremony. This time, each quilter would show off a project she had worked on that week and share a favorite memory of her stay at Elm Creek Manor. For Sylvia, their stories were one of the most gratifying rewards of the business. The campers’ stories never failed to amuse or surprise her, and she was pleased to discover anew how much Elm Creek Quilt Camp meant to her guests.

Listening to their stories out on the gray stone patio made Sylvia treasure them even more. Surrounded by evergreens and perennials, the patio lay just outside what had once been the
main entrance to Elm Creek Manor, back in the days of Hans and Anneke. Tree branches hid the cornerstone engraved “Bergstrom 1858” that had given the patio its name, but Sylvia thought of the marker each time she came there, and remembered how the patio had been her mother’s favorite place on the estate.

By the time she arrived, the fifty campers and some of her teachers and other staff had already begun breakfast, laughing and chatting one last time together.
One of these years we’re going to outgrow the patio,
reflected Sylvia as she returned the quilters’ greetings. They might have to move to the north gardens or eat in shifts. The business had grown more rapidly than any of the Elm Creek Quilters had imagined, and what once had been a small camp operated by eight friends had become a thriving company with more than twice the employees and four times the campers of their inaugural year. Sylvia had retired from the day-to-day operations after her stroke nearly two years before, but she knew Sarah and her codirector, Summer Sullivan, valued her opinion and would continue to include her in the major decisions the company encountered.

Sylvia valued their opinions as well, which was why she couldn’t explain her reluctance to tell them she had found Anneke’s hope chest. Instead she joined in the Farewell Breakfast activities and later bid the campers good-bye as if her only concern was that they had enjoyed themselves, would tell all their friends about Elm Creek Quilt Camp, and would return next year.

When the manor was empty of all but its permanent residents, Sylvia returned to her room and studied the quilts. Then, abruptly, she decided to put them away, making the excuse that it was to minimize their exposure to light. She carefully refolded the quilts along different lines rather than return the stress to the seams and patches that had borne the burden for more than a century.