The New Year's Quilt (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) (20 page)

Sylvia was in tears by the end of the letter. She wondered if Andrew had sent a similar letter to her at Elm Creek Manor. He would not know that she was not there to receive it.

By the end of summer, Sylvia had made her decision and could no longer conceal it from Mr. and Mrs. Compson. For months they had observed her preparing applications and checking the mail for information from prospective colleges. When the time came to break the news, however, she was unprepared for the depths of their disappointment. Upon hearing that she intended to enroll at Carnegie Mellon, Mrs. Compson became uncharacteristically tearful. “If Waterford College is out of the question, why not attend the University of Maryland?” she implored. “Mary received a wonderful education there, and you’d be close enough to come home for visits now and then. I know you applied; I know you were accepted. I’ve seen the postmarks.”

Sylvia was touched by Mrs. Compson’s heartfelt plea, especially because she had instinctively referred to Compson’s Resolution and not Elm Creek Manor as Sylvia’s home. But Carnegie Mellon suited her interests best, and a lingering fear remained that if she stayed too close to the Compsons, eventually Claudia would come looking for her.

On the morning she departed for Pittsburgh, she embraced her in-laws and thanked them for taking her into their home. “You’re James’s wife,” her father-in-law said. “You’ll always have a place here with us.”

Sylvia promised to come visit them often, and she did, at first. On school holidays and summer vacations, she took the train east to Baltimore, gazing out the windows as they chugged south of the mountains surrounding the Elm Creek Valley, pressing her hand against the cool glass and longing for a glimpse of the land beyond the mountain passes.

After Sylvia graduated and began teaching in the Allegheny Valley School District, her visits to Compson’s Resolution became less frequent. Mrs. Compson honored her promise not to disclose her whereabouts to Claudia, and eventually Claudia’s letters stopped coming.

Whatever word the Compsons received of Elm Creek Manor or Bergstrom Thoroughbreds, they passed along to Sylvia. There were glad tidings for Agnes, Sylvia’s former sister-in-law, for she had married a history professor from Waterford College. Darker rumors swirled that Bergstrom Thoroughbreds was failing, but Sylvia could not believe that even Claudia and Harold would allow the family business to falter so completely and so suddenly. Over time, news from Elm Creek Manor slowed to a trickle, and with Mr. and Mrs. Compson’s passing, it stopped altogether.

As she grew older, Sylvia built lasting friendships with fellow quilters and neighbors near her red brick house on Camp Meeting Road in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. She offered her love for quilting to anyone who wanted to learn, and she was passionate about quilting as a traditional art form even before the “quilting renaissance” began in the 1970s. On every New Year’s Eve, whether she celebrated alone or with friends, Sylvia reflected upon her motherin-law’s toast at Compson’s Resolution. Had Sylvia found peace, contentment, and hope at long last, so far from home? Had she found the courage to overcome her sorrows and seek happiness?

Sylvia thought that she had. This was not the life she had expected, but it was rewarding, and she was thankful.

Fifty years after leaving Elm Creek Manor, she received a phone call from a lawyer, the son of a man she had known as a classmate in Waterford. She was stunned when he told her Claudia had died. “How?” she stammered, shaken. Of course Claudia had aged as she herself had aged, although in her mind’s eye Claudia had been frozen in time exactly as she had been in 1945. People their age died every day, and others called it natural causes.

Harold had preceded Claudia in death and they had no children, so the estate was Sylvia’s. She was not sure she wanted it. She had made a life for herself in Sewickley, and she could not imagine rattling around the manor alone, not at her age, not when none of her friends remained nearby. She hired a private detective to find a more suitable heir—a distant relation, anyone. When the quest proved fruitless—so promptly that Sylvia wondered if the detective had searched as thoroughly as his fees merited—Sylvia returned to Elm Creek Manor as the sole heir of the Bergstrom estate.

It was late September when she made the trip through the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania to the Elm Creek Valley. She almost could not breathe as she turned off the main highway onto the narrow, gravel road that led through a wood encircling the Bergstrom property, ablaze with the hues of autumn. Her heart was in her throat as the taxi rambled over the old stone bridge crossing Elm Creek, curious, but fearing what she would see upon emerging from the woods. The broad, dry front lawn was overgrown, but the gray stone walls of the manor stood proudly above it. The Bergstrom legacy seemed as strong and resilient as ever until the cab pulled to a stop in the circular driveway and Sylvia beheld peeling paint, broken windowpanes, and crumbling mortar.

The lawyer’s warnings had not adequately prepared her for what she discovered inside. Claudia had sold off many family heirlooms to make ends meet after the business failed, but the empty spaces once occupied by valuable antique furniture and fine art startled her at every turn. As if to make up for ridding the manor of its treasures, Claudia had stuffed rooms full of worthless clutter—junk mail, yellowing newspapers, meat trays from the supermarket, burned out light bulbs, quart jars that had once held spaghetti sauce. Sylvia could not fathom why her sister had hoarded so much useless rubbish. What had she intended to do with it all? How many empty mason jars did one woman need, especially a woman who had let the garden run wild and had nothing to can? Was it nothing more than one last spiteful jab at her estranged sister, whom Claudia must have suspected would be responsible for cleaning up the mess?

Sylvia tackled the kitchen first, but hours of labor made little headway. Exhausted, she made up a bed on the sofa in the west sitting room, for the thought of spending the night in the room she and James had once shared was unbearable. When she woke the next morning in the empty house, she felt pinned to the bed by the sheer weight of the enormous task awaiting her. The manor was hers, now, as well as the remaining lands that Claudia had failed to or forgotten to sell off. She had to meet with the lawyer and pay her sister’s debts. Every room had to be cleared, the rubbish sorted from items worth keeping. There were details and entanglements to sort out, papers to sign, accounts to close. It would take her at least a month, and she had packed for only a few days. She would have to make a trip into Waterford for groceries and pray that the old stove and icebox still worked.

Waterford had changed since she had seen it last—progress, she supposed some people would call it—and it seemed both familiar and strange. The college had expanded; a few buildings downtown had been demolished and replaced. There was a new quilt shop on Main Street, so she stopped in to browse for a while and chatted with the friendly owner. At least if she was forced to extend her stay, she needn’t fear running out of quilting supplies.

Spending a solitary Christmas at Elm Creek Manor was out of the question. Bygone seasons of warmth and laughter now seemed shrouded in perpetual mourning. Every room, every possession reminded her of faces she would never see again, voices she would never hear. She closed up the old house and returned to Sewickley to spend the holiday in the company of friends. As dear as they were to her, they knew little of her past before she came to Sewickley as a young widow. Some believed she had lived all her life in Sewickley and were surprised to learn of a long-lost sister and family estate in the Elm Creek Valley. They offered condolences for her loss and assistance in tying up the loose ends of Claudia’s estate, but Sylvia knew the task was hers alone—and a more arduous task than they suspected. Not wanting to boast, she had not been completely honest about the size of the estate or its former elegance. She certainly hadn’t referred to it as a “manor.”

“You won’t be leaving us for your old family home in the country, will you, Sylvia?” asked one friend, half in worry, half in jest.

“There’s little chance of that,” said Sylvia. “I left home fifty years ago. Nothing remains for me there.”

Later, another friend took Sylvia aside and urged her not to make any hasty decisions. “When my husband died last year, I couldn’t bear to see any of his things,” Alice confided. “I told my sons to take anything they wanted, and I gave everything else to Goodwill. I saved only photographs, his war medals, and his wedding ring. Now my house is clean and tidy, and there are days when I miss him so much I want nothing more than to slip into one of his old flannel shirts and read a book by the fire and pretend he’s there with me. And I can’t.”

“Oh, Alice.” Sylvia embraced her. “I’m so sorry.”

“Who would have thought that what I’d miss most would turn out to be his favorite flannel shirt?” said Alice wistfully. “If I had waited another month for the weather to turn colder, I’m sure I would have known. Sylvia, I understand you can’t sit on that old place forever, especially since it’s so far away, but please don’t make my mistake. Don’t get rid of everything until you’ve had time to carefully reflect upon what it might mean to you later. I can guess that you and your sister didn’t get along, but there must be a few mementos you’d like to keep. If not your sister’s belongings, then perhaps your parents’.” Alice pressed her arm. “There’s no rush. Promise yourself you won’t do anything you can’t undo.”

Sylvia thanked Alice for her wise advice and promised to take heed.

Two days after Christmas, she returned to Elm Creek Manor with a renewed sense of purpose. The details of Claudia’s estate were nearly resolved, and a decision loomed before her. As she deliberated over the fate of the manor, she chose a precious few family keepsakes to treasure always. Her friends assumed she would follow the most sensible course—sell the property and return to Sewickley. Still, Sylvia had been away from the manor so long that she didn’t care to hasten her final leavetaking. It troubled her, too, to think of selling the estate to a stranger when it had belonged to the Bergstroms since the day Hans, Anneke, and Gerda Bergstrom had set the cornerstone in place.

In the kitchen she discovered her Great-Aunt Lucinda’s cookie cutters. She set those aside in the west sitting room, along with photograph albums and her father’s watch. She wanted one of her mother’s quilts, perhaps her New York Beauty wedding quilt or the Elms and Lilacs anniversary quilt, but she did not find either spread on any of the beds. They were such exquisite quilts that very likely they had been put away for safekeeping, so she decided to continue her search for them later. To her surprise she found a Featherweight sewing machine in the parlor; Agnes or Claudia must have purchased it after Sylvia’s departure.

Suddenly Sylvia remembered Great-Grandmother Anneke’s sewing machine in the west sitting room. Sylvia spent part of every day there, and it was strange she had not thought of it before. When she reached the doorway, she understood why: It had been pushed into the corner away from its customary spot and draped with a graying bedsheet.

“Customary spot,” Sylvia said with a derisive sniff. More than fifty years had passed since she had known what was “customary” around Elm Creek Manor.

She tugged off the sheet and sneezed as a cloud of dust encircled her. Waving the motes away, Sylvia blinked her watering eyes and sighed with relief at the sight of the priceless treadle sewing machine Anneke had brought with her to America. Family stories handed down through the generations claimed that she had helped support the family by taking in sewing from a dressmaker in town. Her skills with a needle and thread were as legendary as Gerda’s reputation as a cook.

Then Sylvia peered closer. Wedged between the foot pedal and the sewing machine cabinet were two overstuffed laundry bags. Curious, Sylvia carefully extricated them from their hiding spot and untied the drawstrings of one of the bags. Inside, she discovered the Bergstrom women’s scrap collection, as well as folded yardage of more recent acquisitions.

Sylvia settled down on the floor, her heart pounding with anticipation. Gazing into the bag, she quickly recognized strips of bright calico her Great-Aunt Lucinda had cut for cousin Elizabeth’s Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt. She found pretty florals from which she and Claudia had carefully cut squares for the Nine-Patch quilt they had sewn for a newborn cousin. Pastel scraps left over from her mother’s Elms and Lilacs anniversary quilt mingled with red patches from Agnes’s failed attempt to make a Double Wedding Ring quilt for Richard. Fabrics familiar and unknown kept a jumbled account of landmark moments in the Bergstrom women’s lives, occasions they had marked with the creation of a quilt. Births and celebrations, times of learning and times of teaching others—Sylvia could find a memento of each within the soft cotton scraps so long forgotten.

Blue and yellow had always been her lucky colors. As if she could feel the Bergstrom women gathering nearby, urging her on, Sylvia searched through the bags and withdrew all the blue and yellow-gold scraps she could find.

It was New Year’s Eve, the time for reflection. As Sylvia cut fabric and traced templates, she thought back upon all the New Year’s Eves she had spent sheltered within the gray stone walls of the manor and within the even stronger circle of love of her family. As she sewed a Good Fortune block into the center of a Mother’s Favorite pattern, memories of decades of New Years greeted far from home cast melancholy shadows upon the seasons past, but she did not flinch. If she were to take an honest look at her life and her choices, she could not pick and choose what to remember. The New Year had not always fulfilled its promise of good fortune, and when it had not, it had been up to her to make the most of what was given, to learn and to grow, and in so doing, to turn ill fortune into good. In the stillness of her heart, she knew she had sometimes stumbled along the way, had allowed fear or anger or resentment to prevent her from living as fully as she could have. She could not change the mistakes of the past, but she could learn from them.