Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (19 page)

Andrew followed Sylvia upstairs to the second floor and down the hallway to the library, where, always the gentleman, he quickened his pace so he could open one of the double doors for her. “So this Bible kept a record of the Bergstrom family milestones—births and deaths and what have you?”

“Births and deaths, marriages and baptisms, all the usual things,” said Sylvia. “But as it was my mother’s family Bible, the records preceding her marriage to my father are for her family, the Lockwoods.”

“Then how will it help?”

“It might not,” admitted Sylvia. “But my mother was a conscientious
woman, and she would have wanted us to know about our father’s ancestors as well as her own. I trust she would have left some record of them.”

Sylvia went to the center of the room, which spanned the width of the far end of the south wing. Bright morning sunlight streamed in through the tall windows on the south and east walls, while those on the west wall still had curtains drawn over them. Between the windows stood oak bookcases, their shelves lined with books. Not long after Sylvia’s return to Elm Creek Manor, she had hired Sarah to help her prepare the estate for auction. Sarah’s first assignment—aside from sweeping the veranda, which didn’t really count—was to clean this very room. Sylvia had told her to save what looked worthwhile and toss the rest, dismissing Sarah’s hesitant suggestion that Sylvia ought to decide that for herself rather than risk her discarding something important out of ignorance. Surely Sarah would have known to save a Bible, a fine, leather-bound Bible. But there had been so many books, and the library had been so cluttered then, and Sylvia so hard-hearted and uncaring about anything to do with the estate . . .

She went to the first bookcase. “It had a black leather cover,” she told Andrew, who had gone to a bookcase on the opposite wall. “Old, but not worn.”

“We’ll find it,” said Andrew reassuringly, as if he sensed her apprehensions. Which, of course, he almost certainly did. Sylvia paused to watch him fondly as he studied the spines of the books before him, head tilted slightly, brow furrowed in concentration. Then she set herself to work.

Minutes passed in silence as they scanned the shelves, occasionally removing a thick volume with no markings on the cover in order to examine the pages. When one bookcase was finished, they moved on to the next, working down their opposite walls
toward the fireplace at the far end of the room. When only one bookcase remained on her side, Sylvia heard Andrew say, “I think I’ve found it.”

She quickly joined him. “Where?”

He nodded to the top shelf. “Up there.”

Sylvia followed the line of his gaze to find a black leather book embellished with two thin gold lines above and below the words “Holy Bible.” The sight called forth a distant memory, and she suspected they had found it, although it looked much smaller than she remembered.

“I believe that’s the one,” she said. “Would you get it down for me, please?”

Andrew reached for the book, then hesitated and let his arm fall to his side. “No.”

Sylvia stared at him. “No?”

“Not unless you say you’ll marry me.”

“Andrew, please. I’m in no mood for games.”

“This is no game. I mean it.”

Sylvia scowled at him and strained to reach the book, but her fingertips only brushed the leather cover. “Stop teasing me and get the Bible down. Please,” she remembered to add.

But Andrew merely folded his arms. “You can stretch all you want, but we both know you’re not tall enough.”

“I’m plenty tall,” she retorted, straining for the top shelf once more, hating to admit Andrew was right. “Well, Matthew is taller than you. I’ll get him to help me, if you’re going to be difficult.”

She began to march out of the library, but Andrew called after her, “Don’t bother. When Matt gets up here, I’ll talk him out of it.”

“And what makes you think he’ll listen to you instead of me?”

Andrew shrugged. “I think most folks around here would like to see us get married.”

“Well,
I
think most folks would agree you’ve finally lost your marbles.”

Andrew allowed a smile. “Maybe I have. Or maybe I’m just taking a lesson from Hans. When he wanted something, he took charge, didn’t he? Look how he got Anneke to marry him.”

Sylvia cast her gaze to heaven. “Oh, certainly, he’s a fine example to follow.”

“I love you at least as much as he loved Anneke, and we’ve known each other much longer than they did.” He reached for her hands, and grudgingly, she allowed him to take them. “Come on, Sylvia, say yes.”

“I can get the book down myself, you know. All I need to do is fetch a chair.”

“I know. But I hope you won’t.”

“You wouldn’t really want me to accept under these circumstances, would you? Knowing you had to blackmail me into marrying you?”

“At this point, I’ll take what I can get.”

“Andrew . . .” She studied him, dismayed to see that he was in earnest. “What if I promise that I won’t marry anyone but you?”

He was silent for a long moment, but then he asked, “Is that the best you can do?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to settle for that.” Abruptly he released her hands, then reached up for the Bible. Without meeting her gaze, he handed it to her and strode quickly from the room.

Sylvia watched him go. He ought to know better; he
did
know better. Why would he ask her again, when he had agreed not to,
when he knew she would refuse? Had he been dishonest with her when he had made that promise, and had he been hoping all along that she would change her mind, or had he simply found his promise impossible to keep?

What would she do if he decided he could no longer continue as they had been? If the alternative was to lose him, something she did not think she could bear . . .

“I would manage,” she said, determined. She had managed alone for decades, and now, with Elm Creek Quilts and her friends, she would not be alone even if Andrew drove away in his motor home and never returned. She would not marry him out of fear or guilt. If he was willing to take her on those terms, then he was no man she wanted as a husband, or even as a friend.

Resolute, she seated herself at the large oak desk on the east side of the room and examined the cover of the book Andrew had handed her. Yes, it was certainly her mother’s Bible, and it looked almost exactly the way she remembered it, little changed despite the passage of time. She turned to the first page, to the records of births and deaths and marriages written in several different hands. The last entries were her mother’s.

Sylvia’s heart welled up with sadness as she gently ran a finger over the lines her mother had written so many years before. The last entry recorded the birth of Sylvia’s brother, Richard; no one had thought to record her mother’s own death a few months later. If she had lived seventeen more years, she would have written of her son’s passing, and that of her husband, her son-in-law, and her only grandchild, born too early to survive.

Sylvia sighed and closed her eyes. Too many of her memories were of people she loved dying too soon. Perhaps that was why she cultivated so many friendships among the young; she was hedging her bets that she’d be the one mourned rather than the mourner for a change.

It was a morbid thought, but she couldn’t help a wry chuckle. She opened her eyes and turned the page, promising herself she would return to study her mother’s side of the family more carefully another time. Neglecting the Lockwoods’ history in favor of the Bergstroms’ had been an inevitable consequence of growing up at Elm Creek Manor, but Sylvia could and would remedy that situation.

Today, however, she had another mission. She turned several pages of blank lines where her mother had expected her descendants to continue the family record, until she came to the last space. The facing page would have been blank, except for a few words written in her mother’s careful script at the bottom. Between the two pages was a folded sheet of paper.

Sylvia slipped on her reading and quilting glasses, which hung by a fine chain around her neck, and scanned the page. The first words were her parents’ names and birthdates; beneath them and connected to the line above by a vertical line were Sylvia’s own name and birthdate and her sister’s.

A family tree, Sylvia realized, except her mother had never completed it.

She carefully unfolded the piece of paper inserted between the book’s pages. Again her mother’s handwriting caught her eye, but this time the script seemed less precise, as if the words had been hastily written:

My Freddy (the eldest), his younger brothers Richard, Louis, (both killed in Great War) and William, sister Clara (died age thirteen in influenza epidemic).

Their parents: David Bergstrom, Elizabeth Reece (Reese?) Bergstrom

David’s siblings: Stephen, Albert, Lydia, George, Lucinda (definitely youngest), David the eldest or 2nd? Was Stephen or Albert his twin?

Their parents: Hans Bergstrom and Anneke (maiden name?) Bergstrom

Anneke’s family?

Hans Bergstrom’s siblings: Gerda Bergstrom (married name?) Others? Freddy unsure—ask Lucinda.

“Didn’t you ask?” exclaimed Sylvia in dismay, turning over the page in case the list continued on the other side. It was blank, leaving Sylvia with a brief list of names that failed to provide her with the information she had sought, and also posed new questions. How was it that the names of David’s five brothers and sisters were known, but not their birth order? Did the parenthetical remark after Gerda’s name indicate she had eventually married—and had she married Jonathan? And what was this about David—Sylvia’s grandfather—having a twin?

No wonder her mother had not completed the Bergstrom family tree, when so little was known of its branches. Sylvia leafed through the rest of the Bible, hoping in vain to find another page of notes or some other clue, but she found nothing more. Sighing, she closed the Bible and was about to return it to the shelf, but she couldn’t resist one more look at her mother’s handwriting.

My Freddy (the eldest),
her mother had written, and later,
Freddy unsure.

Tears filled her eyes, but Sylvia smiled. She did not remember ever hearing anyone call her father Freddy instead of the more dignified Frederick. It warmed her heart to think of her mother using the endearment, and for a moment she could imagine her parents a young couple in love, celebrating the intertwining of their two family histories in the births of their children. How her mother must have delighted in each detail of her Freddy’s heritage, hungering, as young people in love have always done, to know the child her beloved had been, and wishing that they had
met as children, so that their love, which she hoped would extend many years into the future, could also be extended into the past, and thus enjoy an even greater duration.

For a lifetime with the man you loved was never long enough—and a mere few years without him, interminable.

Sylvia slowly closed the Bible upon her mother’s notes again and returned the book to its shelf.

7

After the Farewell Breakfast the following Saturday, Gwen Sullivan brought her
friend from Penn State’s archaeology department to Elm Creek Manor to investigate the half-buried log that Sylvia and her friends hoped had been a part of the Bergstrom cabin. Dr. Frank DiCarlo and the two graduate students who had accompanied him examined the site and, to Sylvia’s relief, did not criticize them for uncovering it. Instead, the students photographed the log from several angles while DiCarlo quizzed Sylvia about the cabin. She told him the little she knew, pleased to see his interest pique when she mentioned Gerda’s memoir.

The students had brought enough tools for themselves and several helpers, so Matt and Sarah offered their services as work began to unearth the rest of the log. Before long Gwen joined in, and when Andrew took a break from working on the motor home’s engine and wandered over to check on their progress, he, too, took up a short-handled brush and began sweeping away at the base of the log. Sylvia doubted her back and knees were up to all that crawling around on the ground, so she contented her
self with supervising and keeping the archaeology team supplied with water and lemonade, and seeing to it that they took breaks for meals.