The Quilter's Legacy (38 page)

“Goodness, don't they know anything about our family?” asked Mother. Eleanor could see Claudia wanted to assure her that she, at least, knew something, but whatever stories Claudia repeated would only reveal her ignorance of the truth.

When no one answered her, Mother waved her hand impatiently. “Never mind. Now that I am here, I will remedy that. You will learn all I can teach you about the Lockwoods, and my gifts will be a fine start.”

Claudia almost smiled, but Sylvia's expression hardened, a reflection of her father that seemed too old for such a little girl. Eleanor knew at once that Sylvia had resolved never to listen to her grandmother's stories, never to learn about the Lockwood family history. Eleanor felt a twinge of grief, but she had turned her back on the Lockwood family, and she could not expect Sylvia to embrace it.

“Ah.” From her satchel, Mother withdrew a small, white box. “Come, Claudia. This is for you.”

Claudia left her mother's side and took the box from her grandmother. When she lifted the lid, her eyes widened in surprise and admiration.

Mother smiled. “Do you like it?” Claudia nodded and reached tentatively into the box, glancing up at her grandmother for permission. “Of course you may pick it up, silly girl, it's yours.” Eleanor caught a glimpse of silver flashing in her daughter's hand. It was her mother's silver locket, an heirloom passed down to her from her own mother.

Claudia opened the locket. “Who are these people?”

“The woman is my mother, and the man, my father. I will tell you all about them. Would you like to try it on?” When Claudia nodded, Mother fastened the locket about her neck. “There. It suits you.”

Claudia fingered the locket and smiled. “Thank you, Grandmother.” “You're quite welcome.” Mother reached into her satchel and produced a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “Be sure you take good care of it. Sylvia, this is for you.”

When Sylvia did not leave her chair, Mother handed the parcel to Claudia and gestured for her to take it to her sister. Sylvia slowly unwrapped the gift, and when the paper fell away, Eleanor saw a fine porcelain doll with golden hair, dressed in a gown of blue velvet. It was a beautiful doll, but Sylvia did not care for dolls. She never had.

“Thank you, Grandmother,” said Sylvia, solemn, and hugged the doll.

“She was your mother's. They were inseparable until she decided she was too old for dolls. Then she sat on a shelf in the nursery gathering dust, the poor, neglected thing.”

“I didn't neglect it,” said Eleanor. “You're thinking of Abigail. That was her doll, not mine.”

“That's not so,” said Mother. “I recall very clearly giving it to you for Christmas when you were four.” “That was Abigail. She said Santa brought it.” Eleanor could still see Abigail cradling the doll, brushing her fine hair, dressing her in the frocks Miss Langley sewed. “When Abigail no longer wanted her, she gave her to me, but by then I was not interested in dolls, either.”

“You would have liked them still if Abigail had.” Mother turned her gaze on Sylvia. “Well, my dear, it seems I've given you the doll no one wanted. I suppose you, too, will abandon her.”

Sylvia shook her head.

Mother studied her for a moment, assessing her, then frowned and reached into her satchel. “This is for you, Eleanor, if you want it.” Mother placed a black, leather-bound book on the table. “It was to go to Abigail, as the eldest girl …”

She left the sentence unfinished. Eleanor knew what the book was, but she was immobile, unable to rise from her chair. It was Claudia who, unasked, brought it to her.

“What is it, Mama?” asked Sylvia, who always took interest in a new book.

“It's the Lockwood family Bible.” Eleanor traced the gilded letters on the cover, then turned to the first few pages, to the records of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths her father's mother had begun. With a pang of sorrow, she noticed that her mother had not written in either of her daughters' marriages, or Abigail's death.

“I leave it up to you to complete the record,” said Mother. “You are the only one who can.”

She meant, You are my only surviving child. There is no one else. But Eleanor understood that, and what it meant that her mother had given her this inheritance now. “I will not complete it, merely continue it,” she said, closing the Bible. “As Claudia will continue it after me.”

“Why Claudia?” asked Sylvia. She had placed the doll on the table and had leaned closer to her mother for a better look at the Bible, but at the mention of Claudia's name, she sat up.

“That's the tradition,” explained Eleanor. “The family Bible always goes to the eldest daughter.”

She regretted the words when she saw the smug look Claudia gave her sister, and the resentful glare Sylvia gave her in return. She remembered how the unfairness of the custom had stung when she realized the Bible would belong to Abigail one day, and not herself. Now she would give almost anything to be able to place it in her sister's hands, and sit by her side as she wrote down the names of all of their children in her round, girlish script.

“I have no gift for you, Fred,” said Mother. “But I have already given you my daughter, and my children were always my greatest treasures.”

Fred inclined his head, a gesture of respect, of recognition. Eleanor wondered if Mother had prepared her remarks on the train or if she had spoken them as an afterthought, a token of gratitude for Elizabeth's generosity.

The rest of the meal was subdued, but Eleanor was thankful enough that the hostility had passed, and that the girls had apparently forgotten their grandmother's cryptic references to her health. Mother retired immediately afterward, without a good night to anyone, much less the thanks anyone else in her position would have gratefully offered. Elizabeth made the excuse that she was surely exhausted from her long day of traveling, but they all knew better, and Lucinda told Eleanor that her rudeness was the first of many bad habits they would rid her of for the sake of family harmony.

“I forgot something,” Lucinda added, handing Eleanor an envelope. “This came for you while you were at the station.”

Its postmark read Lowell, Massachusetts, where Miss Langley had resided for the past six years.

May 28, 1927

My Dear Eleanor,

I am so sorry I did not respond sooner, but your letter arrived while I was traveling, and I only just received it. Please accept my heartfelt apologies, but I must decline your kind invitation. I will come to visit you as soon as your mother departs, for New York or the great hereafter, whichever comes first.

All the reasons that delayed my travels in the past seem trivial now that our separation has been extended indefinitely. I regret all the missed opportunities, all the postponements, as I am sure you do, but we must not dwell on them. I am resolved to see you again, Eleanor, or I am not

Your Affectionate Friend,
Amelia

She was not coming. Eleanor crumpled up the letter and put it in her pocket. If Miss Langley would not come now, when Eleanor needed her the most, she would never come.

T
he next morning, Eleanor served her mother a delicious breakfast she barely touched. Eleanor offered to show Mother the estate, but she declined, saying that she would spend the morning finishing her unpacking.

“When do you expect the rest of your things to arrive?” asked Eleanor, accompanying her mother upstairs, fighting to conceal how the effort drained her.

Mother fixed her with a withering glare. “There are no other things.” Eleanor flushed. “I didn't realize—”

“What? That I did not exaggerate when I said we lost everything?” Mother reached the top of the stairs and waited for Eleanor to join her. “You grew up in a beautiful house full of lovely things, and if you had married Edwin Corville, you would have inherited them all one day.”

“Instead I married the man I loved, and now I have my own house full of lovely things.” Eleanor spoke coolly, but felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her mother as she imagined her selling off the accumulated treasures of generations of her family. The sympathy faded, however, when she recalled all that Mother and Father had been prepared to do to hold on to that way of life rather than accept the limits of their fortune and live within their means.

They walked down the hallway in silence. “Obviously your marriage, or this climate, or something out here in the country agrees with you,” Mother said when they reached her door. “You lived much longer than anyone expected.”

Eleanor gave her a tight smile, but would not acknowledge the question in her eyes.

Mother dropped her gaze and reached for the doorknob. “In any event, you are surely more fortunate than Mrs. Edwin Corville. I'm sure you heard how she caught her husband in bed with that opera singer.”

“That is one news clipping you neglected to send me,” said Eleanor. “Are you saying you admit I made the right choice?”

“I will not say that, and I will never say that,” declared Mother. “Abigail certainly did not, for look where it got her. Dead, at the bottom of the sea. You, on the other hand, have done quite well for yourself.”

“Please don't speak of Abigail that way.”

“You always were afraid of the hard truths of life. You know you are more ill than anyone in your family perceives. And that Abigail sealed her own fate by betraying her father and me. And that you resent her for abandoning you to a choice that never should have been yours to make.”

“I don't resent her.”

“Of course you do. That's why you treat your daughters so differently.”

Eleanor stared at her. “What on earth do you mean? I love my daughters equally.”

“I said nothing of how you love them, only how you treat them. You prefer Claudia, and while Sylvia seems to be made of strong enough stuff to bear it—”

“You met them for the first time less than a day ago,” snapped Eleanor. “I don't see how after twenty years you can presume to know anything about me or my children.”

“I simply say what I observe. It is for your own good, and theirs. I do not want you to repeat my mistakes.”

“See to it first that
you
do not repeat them.” Eleanor paused to catch her breath. Her heart was racing. “If you intend to live in this house, you will treat everyone in it with respect, including my husband, including me. If you ever criticize my children again, call my son an urchin or say he is a disgrace, I will put you on the next train east if I have to carry you to the station on my back. Do you understand?”

Mother studied her, mouth pursed. “This is your home, not mine. I assure you I will show you and your family all the respect you showed me when you lived under my roof.”

She went inside her room and shut the door.

M
other did not come down for lunch. Lucinda left a tray outside her door, and half an hour later, she went upstairs to retrieve it. “So she does eat,” she said with satisfaction, placing the empty dishes in the sink. “That will give us some leverage over her.”

“We are not going to starve Eleanor's mother into being more sociable,” scolded Elizabeth. “Be patient. She needs time to adjust to us.”

After Eleanor put Richard down for his afternoon nap, the thought of her own bed tempted her, but she had too much work to do before the girls came home from school, even if her churning thoughts would allow it. Twenty years before, in her mother's house, Eleanor would have sought comfort in the solitude of her study. Now she climbed the stairs to the nursery, but by the time she reached the third floor, she felt light-headed and nauseous from exertion.

Eleanor seated herself in the chair by the window, where she had left the Elms and Lilacs quilt the last time she worked upon it. She had finished the quilting and had begun binding the three layers, but more than half the binding remained to be sewn in place, and tomorrow was their anniversary. If she worked on it for the rest of the day, she might finish by evening, but while Elizabeth and Lucinda would gladly give her that time to work, she did not have the strength to quilt for hours on end as she once had.