The Quilter's Legacy (9 page)

Eleanor did not think that was such a terrible thing. Even Mother wanted to vote. Eleanor had heard her confess as much to Harriet, although she would never mention such a shocking thing to Father or Mrs. Newcombe. But she did not understand the rest of it.

She took a deep breath. “You're not the one trying to get a union at Father's store, are you?”

“Eleanor, listen to me.” Miss Langley took her hands. “Unions are important and just. Only when all the workers speak with one voice can they hold any leverage against the owners. The influence of power and money are too great otherwise.” She gave Eleanor a wistful smile. “But I am not organizing at your father's store. I would be recognized.”

“Somewhere else, then.”

“Yes, somewhere else.”

Miss Langley settled back into her seat, and Eleanor rested her head in her lap. They rode in companionable silence until they reached the station nearest to home. The carriage waited for them outside, and the driver's eyes grew wide at the sight of Eleanor.

“There's a lot of trouble for you at home, miss,” he said to Eleanor, then removed his cap and addressed Miss Langley. “The missus has her eye on you. You best pretend we found Miss Eleanor on the way home.”

“Thank you, but I shall not lie.” Miss Langley smiled kindly at the driver and helped Eleanor into the carriage.

“Maybe he's right,” said Eleanor as the carriage began to move. “I could get out a block away and walk home. I could say I was hiding. I could say I was mad about the luncheon.”

Miss Langley shook her head. “We will tell the truth and accept whatever comes of it.”

M
other met them at the door, frantic. When Miss Langley tried to explain, Mother waved her to silence, ordered the nanny from her sight, and told Harriet to take Eleanor to her room. “You should be ashamed of yourself, giving your poor mother such a fright,” scolded Harriet as she seized Eleanor's arm and steered her upstairs. “We thought you had been kidnapped or worse.”

“I was fine.”

“Ungrateful, disobedient child. It's that Langley woman's influence, I know it.”

“Leave me alone,” shouted Eleanor, pulling free from Harriet's grasp. She ran to her room and slammed the door. She stretched out on the bed and squeezed her eyes shut against tears. She listened for Miss Langley on the other side of the wall until fatigue overcame her.

She woke with a jolt as the first shafts of pale sunlight touched her window. She ran to Miss Langley's room. The nanny opened at Eleanor's knock, and in a glance Eleanor took in the bulging satchel, the stripped bed, the missing quilts.

Eleanor flung her arms around her. “Please don't go.”

“I have no choice.”

“I hate her. I hate them both.”

“Don't hate them on my account.” Miss Langley hugged her tightly, then held her at arm's length. “I knew their rules and deliberately broke them. I made a choice, and I am prepared to accept the consequences. Remember that.”

Eleanor nodded, gulping air to hold back the tears. “Where are you going?”

“I have a friend in the city who will take me in for a while, until I can find a new situation. Maybe I'll stay in New York. Perhaps I'll return to England.”

“I thought you couldn't go back to England because of the baby.”

“What baby?”

“Yours. Your baby.”

Miss Langley regarded her oddly. “I never had a baby. Whatever gave you that idea?”

Eleanor couldn't bear to repeat Abigail's tale. “The baby footprints on your Crazy Quilt. I thought you traced your baby's footprints and embroidered them.”

“Eleanor.” Miss Langley cupped Eleanor's cheek with her hand. “Those are your footprints, silly girl.”

Eleanor took a deep breath and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Miss Langley sighed, reached into her satchel, and handed her a handkerchief. Eleanor wiped her face and tried to compose herself. “Will I ever see you again?”

“That's up to you.” Miss Langley closed her satchel. “When you're a woman grown and free to make your own decisions, I would be very pleased if you called on me.”

“I will. As soon as I'm able.”

Father's carriage was waiting outside, the rest of Miss Langley's belongings already inside. At first Eleanor was surprised to see it, but naturally Mother would also not have it said that the Lockwoods allowed a woman, even one discharged in disgrace, to struggle on foot into the city, unescorted and encumbered by baggage.

“I'll write as soon as I'm settled,” said Miss Langley as she put her satchel into the carriage and climbed up beside it. “Take care of Wildrose.”

“I will.”

Miss Langley closed the door, and the carriage gave a lurch and moved off. Eleanor followed in her bare feet, waving and shouting good-bye. Miss Langley leaned out the window to blow her a kiss, but then she withdrew from sight, and Eleanor could do nothing but watch as the carriage took her through the front gates and away.

“Come inside,” called Mother from the doorway. “Goodness, Eleanor, you're still in your nightgown.”

“You should not have sent her away.”

“On the contrary, I should have done so long ago. You're too old for a nanny, especially one with no regard for your safety.”

Without another word, Eleanor went inside and upstairs to the nursery, where she flung herself on the sofa, aching with loneliness. Only anger kept her from bursting into tears. Every part of this room held a memory of Miss Langley, but they would make no more memories here.

After a long while, Eleanor sat up, and only then did she realize she still clutched Miss Langley's handkerchief. She opened it and traced the embroidered monogram with her finger: An A and an C flanked a larger L. She knew the A stood for Amelia, but she did not know what the C was for.

She was tucking the handkerchief into the pocket of her nightgown when her gaze fell upon the window seat. Less than a day before, she and Miss Langley had concealed her Crazy Quilt diamond beneath it. Eleanor had been correct to suspect they would not continue their quilting lessons, but she never could have imagined the reason why.

She crossed the room and lifted the window seat. There, under a faded flannel blanket, she found her Crazy Quilt diamond—but something else lay beneath it. Wrapped in a bundle of muslin were the rest of the fabrics Eleanor had used the previous day, the two crazy patch diamonds Miss Langley had made, and her favorite sewing shears, the silverplated, heron-shaped scissors.

Eleanor held them in her lap a long while before she closed the window seat, seated herself upon it, and cut a diamond foundation from the muslin. She appliquéd a green silk triangle to the center, then added another patch. She added a second patch, and a third, working toward the edges as Miss Langley had showed her.

Then Harriet entered. “Your mother wants you to get dressed and come to breakfast.”

“I'm not hungry.”

Harriet waited as if hoping to receive some other reply, but Eleanor did not look up from her work. Eventually Harriet left.

Within a few minutes, Abigail replaced her. “Mother and Father want you to come to breakfast,” she said. “So do I. Won't you please come down?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“But you didn't have any supper.”

“I said I'm not hungry.”

“All right. I'll tell them,” said Abigail. “I'm sorry about Miss Langley.”

Eleanor snipped a dangling thread and said nothing.

Soon after Abigail left, Mother herself appeared. “You're too old to hide in the nursery and sulk. Come down to breakfast this instant.” She watched Eleanor sew. “What are you doing?”

“I'm making a Crazy Quilt.” Eleanor embroidered a seam of velvet and wool with a twining chain stitch. “I will eat breakfast when I'm hungry, and after that, I'm going outside to ride Wildrose.”

“Absolutely not. It's not safe. You know nothing about riding.”

“Abigail will show me.”

“She will not. I will forbid her. I forbid
you
.”

Eleanor smiled to herself and worked her needle through the fabric, embellishing the dark velvet and wool with a chain of white silk thread, each stitch another link.

Chapter Three

T
heir suitcases and supplies were stowed away in the motor home, Sylvia had the map spread out on her lap, and Andrew had just put the key in the ignition when Sarah ran out the back door waving at them. Agnes had just called and was on her way over with something she insisted she must show Sylvia before they departed.

Andrew pocketed the keys, and he and Sylvia returned inside, where Sylvia put on a fresh pot of coffee. Agnes usually sought rides from Diane, who would likely crave a cup or two this early in the morning.

Sure enough, when Agnes and Diane arrived, Diane barely mumbled a greeting on her way to the coffeepot. Agnes, on the other hand, was bright-eyed and pink-cheeked with excitement. “I found it,” she said, waving a thick, battered notebook in triumph. “It was with my old tax returns. Thank goodness I remembered the year.”

“Found what?” asked Andrew.

“Nothing that couldn't have waited an hour,” groused Diane, heaping sugar into her cup. “Even if it does mention your mother's quilt.”

“What?” exclaimed Sylvia.

Agnes beckoned Sylvia and Andrew to the table. “I had forgotten all about this notebook. I started it when Richard went off to war, to keep track of news from home to include in my letters. After he was killed, I continued it for myself, as a place to put down reminders, appointments, and so forth.”

Agnes opened the notebook to a page marked with a scrap of blue gingham fabric. “The entry for Thursday, March twentieth, 1947, includes my mother's birthday, reminders to write letters to two creditors, and the name and address of a caller who had come to buy a certain quilt,” she said. “Claudia was out, and when I told the woman I had no idea which quilt she meant, she left in a huff and ordered me to have Claudia contact her promptly if she didn't want to lose a sale. I assumed Claudia planned to sell her own quilts. If I'd had any idea she meant to sell your mother's, I never would have given her the message.”

“I know you wouldn't have,” Sylvia reassured her.

“Wait just a second,” said Diane, reading over Agnes's shoulder. “Is that who bought the quilts? Esther Thorpe? From right here in Waterford?”

“Not all of the quilts,” said Agnes. “Just the appliqué quilt.”

“The Elms and Lilacs quilt?” gasped Sylvia. It was impossible to believe she would ever see any of the missing quilts again, but if Agnes's recollection of her notes was correct, the Elms and Lilacs quilt had been sold to a neighbor.

Then Sylvia noticed Diane shaking her head in dismay, or maybe disgust. “Just my luck. It had to be Esther Thorpe.”

“What's wrong with Esther Thorpe?” asked Andrew.

“Nothing's wrong with her, not anymore. It's her family I'm worried about, the people who would have inherited her quilts after her death. Esther had a daughter named Nancy Thorpe Miles, and Nancy had a daughter—”

“Oh, dear,” said Agnes. “I see.”

“I don't,” said Sylvia. “Would someone care to enlighten me?”

“Esther Thorpe was the grandmother of Mary Beth Callahan.”

Andrew looked around the table, baffled. “And Mary Beth Callahan is …?”

“My next-door neighbor,” said Diane. “And my nemesis.”

“Oh yes, of course,” said Sylvia. “The one who turned you in to the Waterford Zoning Commission when you built that skateboard ramp in your backyard.”

“I didn't build it; my husband did,” Diane shot back, then nodded, chagrined. “Yes, that's Mary Beth. The one who has been president of the Waterford Quilting Guild for going on fifteen years now.”

“She must be doing a fine job, or the guild members wouldn't elect her each year,” Agnes pointed out.

“No, they're just intimidated. She has an incumbent's power plus the grace and subtlety of a bulldozer. If she has your mother's quilt, you'll be lucky if she lets you look at it through the window.”

The others laughed. Sylvia knew Diane had her own personal grudges against Mary Beth, and she couldn't deny that Mary Beth might have earned every bit of Diane's enmity, but she did not see any cause for alarm. “We'll stop by and see her on our way out of town,” she said. “It's our only lead, and I won't pass it up simply because you two don't get along.”