The Quilter's Legacy (4 page)

Andrew smiled and patted her shoulder. “I think this is important enough to delay our trip a day or two.”

Sylvia placed her hand over his and thanked him with a smile.

A
t first Sylvia wanted to concentrate on her mother's wedding quilt, but Summer soon persuaded her that by broadening their search, they increased their chances of finding at least one. While Summer produced an illustration of the burgundy, green, black, and white New York Beauty quilt from notes she jotted as Sylvia described it, Sylvia carried a pad of paper and a pen to a chair beside the fireplace and tried to coax memories of the quilts to the forefront of her mind. Eventually the clattering of Summer's fingers on the keyboard became a distraction, so Sylvia went outside to the cornerstone patio where she could be alone.

She was glad for her sweater. The day was sunny but cool, and the leaves on the trees surrounding the gray stone patio had already begun to turn. The cornerstone patio had been her mother's favorite place on the estate, but Sylvia's memories almost always placed her there in spring, when the lilacs were in bloom. The door leading to the patio had once been the main entrance, back in the day of Sylvia's great-grandparents. The patio's name came from the cornerstone Hans, Anneke, and Gerda had laid in 1858, when the west wing of the manor was built. Sylvia's grandfather added the south wing when her father was just a boy, after the hard work of their immigrant forebears had paid off and the family prospered. Now evergreens and perennials hid the cornerstone from view, but every time Sylvia visited the patio, she recalled the passage from Gerda's memoir that described how her ancestors had built their home upon it.

Sylvia seated herself on a teak armchair, pen in hand, and let her mind wander. Her mother had made so many quilts over the years, most of them simple utility quilts pieced from scraps. Some she had given away to charities sponsored by her church; others had kept Sylvia and her siblings warm throughout the cold Pennsylvania winters. Her mother's skill truly shone, however, in her five “fancy quilts,” as Sylvia had always called them. Mother devoted years to their making, and often purchased fabric especially for them rather than selecting from her scrap bag.

The first, the oldest of the five, was a Crazy Quilt of silks, wools, brocades, and velvets, heavily embroidered and appliquéd. Mother had displayed it draped over a small table beside her bed, but since Sylvia was only rarely permitted to enter her parents' bedroom, she remembered little except its dark, formal colors and its heaviness. She closed her eyes and concentrated, willing the vague impressions to clarify.

She wrote down all she remembered: the diamond-shaped blocks covered with crazy patchwork; the appliquéd horseshoe, chess piece, and the silhouette of a woman; the embroidered spider-web and initials; the one block cut from a single piece of fabric, a linen handkerchief monogrammed with the monogram ALC. The L surely stood for Lockwood, but Sylvia had no idea what the A and C represented, since she had found no A. C. Lockwood listed in the family Bible. Although she could not recall her mother telling her so, she knew, somehow, that while the Crazy Quilt appeared to be the work of an accomplished, experienced quilter, it was one of the first her mother had completed. Her grandmother had disapproved of it.

Sylvia sat stock-still. The idea had sprung into her head from heaven knew where, but Sylvia was certain it was true, albeit mystifying. Why would Grandmother Lockwood have disapproved of such a beautiful piece? It was impossible to believe she had found fault with her daughter's handiwork. Crazy Quilts by their nature were more for show than for warmth or comfort; had Grandmother Lockwood thought her daughter's efforts would be better spent on a more practical project?

Sylvia frowned and tapped the pen on the arm of her chair, wishing she knew.

Eventually Sylvia decided to set that puzzle aside for another time. She turned to a fresh page on the pad, and, although she had already told Summer most of what she knew, she jotted a few additional notes about her mother's wedding quilt. Given the complexity of the pattern and the length of time Mother typically devoted to her showpiece quilts, she had probably begun the New York Beauty by 1904 in order to have it finished for her wedding in 1907. But had she even known her future husband then? She would have been only fourteen. Sylvia wished she knew for certain. She wondered if her mother had dreamed about her wedding day as she hand-pieced the hundreds of narrow fabric triangles into arcs. As she set the quarter-circles into the arcs, she might have imagined embracing her husband beneath the finished quilt. Perhaps she hoped the quilt would grace their wedding bed throughout the years, as she and her husband grew old together.

“Sentimental nonsense,” scoffed Sylvia, ignoring a twinge of guilt that perhaps she had wronged Andrew by not indulging in such romantic daydreaming. She reassured herself by noting that her mother probably hadn't, either. Most likely, the New York Beauty was already in progress before Father proposed. Knowing she would not have enough time to start a new quilt from scratch, Mother had simply decided to make the New York Beauty her wedding quilt. It was an option Sylvia would do well to consider.

Sylvia's notes on the New York Beauty filled only half a page, but Summer's computer illustration would supplement them. Summer would need better drawing skills than Sylvia possessed to create a picture that would do justice to Mother's third quilt, a white whole cloth quilt. A masterpiece of intricate quilting, it was so much smaller than the others that Sylvia might have assumed it was a crib quilt except that no infant had ever slept beneath it. Sylvia's memory and the quilt's pristine condition concurred on that point. It could have been intended for a fourth child wished for but never conceived, or even a grandchild, but Mother had completed it several years before Claudia had been born. Sylvia had always wondered why Mother had not given that beautiful quilt to her eldest child, and why she had not embroidered her initials and date on the back, the last, finishing touch she had added to all her other quilts. Perhaps it was not a crib quilt at all, but a stitch sampler where Mother had practiced her hand-quilting and auditioned new patterns. If that were true, Mother might have thought a practice quilt too humble to commemorate the birth of her first child, despite its beauty. Claudia certainly would have been offended if she had learned of it, so perhaps Mother made the right choice.

At the top of a fresh page, Sylvia started to write “Sick Quilt” before she caught herself and wrote “Ocean Waves.” Better to call it by its traditional title, since no one else would be able to identify her mother's blue-and-white quilt with the nickname Sylvia and Claudia had given it. Sylvia was not sure how the family custom developed, but whenever children in the family fell ill, Mother would take the Ocean Waves quilt from her cedar chest and allow them to use it on their beds until they felt better. In hindsight, Sylvia assumed the privilege of using the special quilt was supposed to boost the sick child's spirits and thereby hasten recovery, but she recalled that when she was particularly queasy, the arrangement of blue and white triangles resembled an ocean's undulating surface enough to make her feel worse rather than better. She would kick off the quilt rather than look at it, but Grandmother Bergstrom, her father's mother, would replace it while Sylvia slept. Grandmother Bergstrom never admitted it aloud, but she seemed to believe the quilt had miraculous curative powers. Sylvia once asked her mother if this were true. Mother said that Grandmother's ideas were merely harmless superstitions, and Sylvia shouldn't let them trouble her. Then her eyes had taken on a faraway look, and she said that she had prayed for the safety of her family every moment she worked on that quilt, and perhaps an answer to her prayers lingered in the cloth.

Sylvia turned to a new sheet and sketched the Elms and Lilacs quilt, smiling as she worked. The Elms and Lilacs quilt was Sylvia's favorite of all her mother's quilts; indeed, it was quite possibly her favorite out of all the quilts she had ever seen. A masterpiece of appliqué and intricate, feathery quilting, the Elms and Lilacs quilt displayed her mother's skills at their finest. The circular wreath of appliquéd elm leaves, lilacs, and vines in the center gave the quilt its name; a graceful, curving double line of pink and lavender framed it. The outermost border carried on the floral theme with elm leaves tumbling amid lilacs and other foliage, and intertwining pink and lavender ribbons finished the scalloped edge. The medallion style allowed for open areas, which Mother had quilted in elaborate feathered plumes over a delicate background crosshatch. Then an image flashed in Sylvia's thoughts: her mother quilting the Elms and Lilacs quilt in the nursery while Sylvia, Claudia, and baby Richard played nearby.

Sylvia laughed, remembering how her father and Uncle William had struggled to disassemble the quilt frame and carry it up the stairs. The Elms and Lilacs quilt had been a gift for Father on her parents' twentieth anniversary, and Mother had brought it to the nursery so she could work on it unobserved. It was a wonder she finished it in time with Sylvia at her elbow begging to be allowed to contribute a stitch or two. Sylvia hesitated, her pen frozen in mid-stroke. She vaguely remembered that Mother had, in fact, allowed her to work on the quilt, and Claudia, as well, but something had brought their work to an abrupt halt. Perhaps it was an argument; many a quilting lesson had ended prematurely thanks to the sisters' rivalry. Or perhaps their mother had been too ill to continue for a time. Mother's slow decline had already begun by then, and she had been forced to set aside many of her favorite pastimes. Quilting had been among the last she relinquished. She had quilted until the very end, when she could do little more than sit outside on the cornerstone patio and admire the garden Father had made for her.

Sylvia finished her notes on the Elms and Lilacs quilt with a description of its colors and fabrics and an estimate of its size. She wrote down all she remembered. She had her doubts about Summer's Internet, but the tiniest detail might prove to be the key to locating the quilts and determining their identity. And if, through some fortunate turn of events, the quilts could be restored to her, Sylvia might learn more about the woman who had made them.

Chapter Two

1899

E
leanor stole down the hallway past her sister's room, where Abigail and Mother struggled to open Abigail's trunk. Eleanor heard Mother wonder aloud how the latch had acquired that peculiar dent, but she did not hear what excuse her sister invented. She doubted Abigail would admit she had kicked the trunk when she could not close the latch. Eleanor had been standing on the trunk at the time, helping her sister compress her clothing enough to squeeze in one more dress, more than willing to postpone her own packing and delay their return home.

She raced down the stairs to the front door and darted outside, picking up speed as she ran down the length of the porch. She scrambled over the railing and leapt the short distance to the lawn. The grass was damp on her stocking feet; it must have rained that morning. At the summer house, the morning had dawned clear and breezy, with no hint of autumn.

Eleanor felt a pang that had nothing to do with her bad heart. She missed the summer house already, and it was only their first day back in the city. Mother permitted things in summer she allowed at no other time—dancing, brief games of badminton or croquet, long strolls outdoors. The previous three months would have been perfect if Eleanor had been allowed to learn to ride horseback. Abigail had learned when she was two years younger than Eleanor was now, and Eleanor had hoped and prayed that this would be the year Mother and Father would relent. Every Friday evening when Father joined them at the summer house, Miss Langley had tried to persuade him, but he returned to the city each Sunday without overruling Mother's decision.

A cramp pinched her side. Eleanor dropped into a walk, gasping for air, sweat trickling down her back. Her stockings itched; her long-sleeved sailor dress felt as if it had been woven from lead. Mother dressed her daughters by the calendar, not the weather—“Or common sense,” Miss Langley had murmured as she tied the navy blue bow at the small of Eleanor's back—and September meant wool. Her short sprint had left her faint; she blamed the sultry air and her heavy, uncomfortable clothing. She refused to blame her heart.

Everyone knew Eleanor had a bad heart. They called her delicate and fragile and, when they thought she wasn't listening, spoke of her uncertain future in hushed, tragic voices. Eleanor did not remember the rheumatic fever she had suffered as a baby and did not understand how her heart differed from any other. It seemed to beat steadily enough, even when she woke up in the night fighting for breath. If it pounded too fiercely when she ran, it was only because she was unaccustomed to exerting herself. Sometimes she placed her head on Miss Langley's chest and listened, wondering how her own flawed heart would compare to her nanny's. Her imagination superimposed the wheezing of steam pipes and the clanging of gears.