Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt (18 page)

She thanked God for the baby, for a piece of James she carried with her always. His child gave her hope, a future to look forward to. By late autumn, her morning sickness had eased, but no one looking at her would have guessed she was expecting. Claudia told her to count her blessings, but Sylvia longed for a round belly, proof that the child was real and alive and growing. Once, when the last brown leaves had fallen from the trees in the winds of early winter, Sylvia confided to her sister that she would be devastated if James did not return home in time to hold his newborn child. Claudia told her not to worry. She had heard on the radio that the Allies had made so many gains in Europe that the war would be over by Christmas. Sylvia prayed she was right.

December came, with no sign that the war would end soon. Sylvia devoted herself to managing the business and the household—and her young sister-in-law, who tested Sylvia’s patience with her tearfulness and need for consolation. Sylvia feared for her husband and brother too, but she did not pace frantically on the veranda if the postman were late, or dissolve into sobs if a wistful romantic song played on the radio. She knew they had to be strong, to accept without complaint their hardships and loneliness. Nothing they faced at Elm Creek Manor could compare to what their men endured.

Sylvia would have thought a girl as anxious as Agnes would have avoided stories from the front lines, but she dragged Sylvia and Claudia to the theater in Waterford at least once a week to watch the newsreels. The tension in the audience mirrored Sylvia’s own as scenes of battles flashed upon the screen; she scanned every soldier’s face for James and Richard and Andrew—even Harold. She worried about his safety, too, for Claudia’s sake. She had not passed on his last message to her sister. What good would it have done them? What he had meant as a profession of love seemed to question her fidelity. Sylvia thought it a kindness to forget he had ever spoken.

Watching the newsreels provided the Bergstrom women with an odd sort of comfort, allowing them a glimpse into their men’s lives and, in knowing what they endured, helping to share their burden. Newsreels of other women’s husbands and sweethearts sufficed when they had no word from their own. Letters were their lifeline, but weeks often passed between letters from the Pacific, then several would arrive at once, their dates often spanning several weeks.

If Claudia were in an especially pensive mood, she would skip the news and arrive only in time for the feature, but Agnes studied the newsreels as unflinchingly as Sylvia. Over time, Sylvia began to develop a grudging respect for the girl. She had stolen a peek at several of Agnes’s letters to Richard, and was surprised to find not one word of complaint, only loving encouragement and amusing descriptions of how she spent her days. Agnes joined Sylvia in all of her volunteer activities, and although she couldn’t sew to save her life, she could knit with impressive speed and never dropped a stitch. Although her clothes, her speech, and her general unfamiliarity with all things practical indicated that she had led a life of privilege before marrying Richard, she had somehow learned frugality along the way, for she darned socks and mended torn sweaters so well that her repairs were nearly invisible. If she came upon a garment that had been outgrown or could not be mended, she unraveled the stitches, wound the yarn into balls, and knit socks and washcloths for the Red Cross to give to soldiers.

Perhaps this was the side of Agnes that had won Richard’s heart.

Two days before Christmas, Sylvia’s longing for her husband became almost too much to endure. She sat in the front parlor with Claudia and Agnes, stroking her swelling abdomen and dreaming of James holding their baby. Claudia cut templates for her wedding quilt and mused about her gown, while Agnes’s knitting needles provided accompaniment to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on the radio.

Sylvia couldn’t bear it. “Turn that off,” she ordered. Claudia paused in the middle of a description of possible bodice designs and stared at her. Sylvia hauled herself from her chair and snapped off the radio. “I can’t listen to that anymore. They aren’t coming home for Christmas, so what’s the use of dreaming about it?”

“Sometimes dreams are all we have,” said Agnes softly.

It was exactly the sort of thing Sylvia might have expected her to say. Sylvia needed more than dreams. She needed James beside her. She needed Richard home and safe.

“What we need is a Christmas miracle,” said Claudia. “For the war to end. If ever we ought to pray for peace on earth, this is the time.”

“The war will end when we win,” said Sylvia tiredly. However long it takes, however many lives it takes.

They fell silent. Embarrassed by her outburst, Sylvia was about to turn the radio back on when Claudia spoke. “We haven’t done anything to prepare for Christmas.”

“We sent the boys their packages,” said Agnes.

“Yes, but we’ve done nothing around here.” Claudia gathered up her quilt pieces and set them aside. “We should make cookies from some of Great-Aunt Lucinda’s old recipes.”

“We don’t have enough sugar rations,” Sylvia pointed out.

“Then at least we should decorate.” Claudia rose and reached for Agnes’s hand. “Come on. We need something to remind us of the joy and hope of the season. Let’s get those boxes out of the attic. Not you, Sylvia. You shouldn’t carry anything heavy in your condition. Sit and rest.”

“I’ve been sitting and resting all day,” Sylvia grumbled, but her interest had been kindled. When Claudia and Agnes did not immediately return with the decorations, she went to the kitchen and checked the pantry for flour, sugar, and spices. She already knew they had plenty of apples down in the cellar. The ample harvest that year had been a mixed blessing, for with the men away, their abundant crop had been too much for the four remaining Bergstroms to harvest on their own. Rather than allow the apples to rot on the ground, they took enough for themselves and sent word throughout the town that anyone willing to pick the apples was welcome to take away whatever he could carry. Friends and neighbors as well as townsfolk they scarcely knew accepted the offer, and some left gifts of surplus produce from their own gardens in trade. One sunny afternoon, an entire Boy Scout troop arrived and harvested bushel after bushel of the ripe fruit. Each boy took some home to his family, but most were delivered to hospitals and soup kitchens throughout the state. Many more were sent to VA hospitals or USO outfits, nourishing wounded soldiers as well as those who had not yet seen battle.

Apples the Bergstroms had in abundance, and they had enough of the remaining ingredients to spare for one strudel. Tomorrow, Sylvia resolved, she and Claudia would make one. Perhaps Agnes would like to learn.

She returned to the foyer just as Claudia and Agnes began unpacking the decorations. She joined them, stopping by the parlor first to open the door and turn on the radio so they could listen as they worked. A quiet happiness filled her as she unwrapped the familiar trappings of the holiday—Richard’s soldier nutcracker, the paper angels she and Claudia had made in Sunday school, Great-Aunt Lucinda’s Santa Claus cookie jar. They had never found the ruby-and-gold glass star for the top of the tree; the highest bough had remained bare every year since it went missing. Sylvia had been sorry to see the traditional search for the star go, but this year, there were no children in the house to hunt for it anyway—unless, she thought saucily, they counted Agnes.

“Look what I found,” said Agnes, peering into a white cotton pillowcase, plumped full as if a lumpy pillow were inside. For a moment, Sylvia thought she had discovered the star, but the colorful pieces she took from the pillowcase were fabric, not glass. “Is this a quilt?”

A lump formed in Sylvia’s throat and she looked to Claudia, who stood frozen in place. “Pieces of one, anyway,” said Sylvia, when her sister did not reply.

Agnes laid the Feathered Star blocks on the marble floor. “These are lovely.”

“Our great-aunt made them,” said Claudia quietly. She resumed setting candles into brass holders on the windowsills.

Agnes reached into the pillowcase again. “This appliqué is lovely,” she said, admiring the holly plumes. “If I thought I could make something so beautiful, I might be tempted to learn to quilt.”

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” said Sylvia.

Agnes regarded her mildly. “I didn’t say it looked easy.”

“I could teach you to quilt,” offered Claudia.

“No, thank you.” Agnes gave the quilt blocks one last admiring look before returning them to the pillowcase. Sylvia was disappointed that Agnes had not emptied the makeshift bag. Claudia might not offer quilting lessons so freely after Agnes gave her opinion of those Variable Star blocks. “Why didn’t your great-aunt finish?”

“She wasn’t the only one to work on it,” said Sylvia. “My mother did the appliqué, and Claudia pieced five other stars. They’re probably still in the case if you want to look.”

“Didn’t you make anything for the quilt?”

“Why, no.” Sylvia glanced at Claudia, who was feigning disinterest as she unpacked ornaments from the green trunk. “Claudia said she wanted to finish it herself, so I—”

“You may complete it if you like,” said Claudia. “I have too much sewing for my wedding to spend time on another project. It was never that important to me anyway. I haven’t touched it in ten years.”

Sylvia knew she had not; Sylvia had not seen one thread of the quilt since Claudia put the fragments away on that Christmas Day so long ago. How the pieces had ended up in a pillowcase in the trunk with the Christmas decorations, she had no idea.

Uncertain, Sylvia studied her sister. “You honestly wouldn’t mind? You said you never wanted to see any part of this quilt again. You said you couldn’t bear to be reminded of the worst Christmas ever.”

Claudia laughed shortly. “I think we would all agree that
that
Christmas hardly deserves that title anymore.”

“Don’t say such things.” Agnes rose, holding the pillowcase carefully, as if it contained something precious and fragile. “This may be a lonely Christmas, but it is still Christmas. Sylvia, I agree that you should finish the quilt. It will help put us all in the holiday spirit.”

Agnes held out the pillowcase, and when it seemed that she would stand there with her arm outstretched forever unless Sylvia took it, she did so. “I couldn’t possibly finish it by Christmas Day.”

“I might not know how to quilt, but I do know that much.” Agnes smiled and returned to the blue trunk. “Why not set yourself a goal of finishing it before next Christmas so that you and James can play with the baby upon it beneath the Christmas tree?”

Sylvia’s heart warmed at the image that played in her mind’s eye. The Christmas tree, blooming with light and color. James, home and safe, beaming proudly at their child. Their precious son or daughter, with bright eyes, a rosebud mouth, sitting up or crawling—goodness, what would the baby be doing at this time next year? The Christmas Quilt, a soft comfort beneath them all.

Sylvia ached to begin, but she hesitated. “The decorations—” “We can finish without you,” Agnes assured her.

“You should be sitting with your feet up anyway,” remarked Claudia, without looking up from her work.

Sylvia was about to retort that she wasn’t an invalid, but she reconsidered. It was, after all, the perfect excuse. “I’ll be in the sitting room,” she said, and went off with the pillowcase in hand to find her sewing basket.

In her favorite room just off the kitchen, Sylvia spread out the blocks on the floor and studied them. The fabrics remarkably had not faded through the years; the colors were as bright and merry as the day Great-Aunt Lucinda chose them so long ago. The Feathered Star blocks and holly plumes were as lovely as she remembered, and since Claudia’s Variable Stars used many of the same fabrics, it might be possible to scatter them among the finer handiwork so that their flaws would not be apparent. But what should Sylvia’s contribution be? What could she add to help bring the disparate pieces together harmoniously?

Sylvia thought back to the Christmas when Lucinda had set aside the quilt for the last time in order to help with the sewing for cousin Elizabeth’s wedding. The Bergstrom women had made Elizabeth a beautiful gown and a Double Wedding Ring bridal quilt embellished with floral appliqués. A few weeks before the wedding, little Sylvia found Great-Aunt Lucinda working on a new quilt, a pattern of concentric rectangles and squares, one half of the block light colors, the other dark. It resembled the Log Cabin block so closely that at first Sylvia mistakenly believed them to be practice blocks for her quilting lessons.

But Great-Aunt Lucinda told her that this was another quilt for cousin Elizabeth, a sturdy scrap quilt for everyday use, something to remember her great-aunt by. “This pattern is called Chimneys and Cornerstones,” she explained. “Whenever Elizabeth sees it, she’ll remember our home and all the people in it. We Bergstroms have been blessed to have a home filled with love from the chimneys to the cornerstone. This quilt will help Elizabeth take some of that love with her.”

Sylvia nodded to show she understood. It did not matter that these were not Log Cabin blocks. The upcoming wedding had left her so morose that the further postponement of her quilting lessons had lost the power to disappoint her.

Great-Aunt Lucinda traced a diagonal row of red squares, from one corner of the block to the opposite. “Do you see these red squares? Each is a fire burning in the fireplace to warm Elizabeth after a weary journey home.”

“You made too many,” said Sylvia, counting. “We don’t have so many fireplaces.”

She laughed. “I know. It’s just a fancy. Elizabeth will understand. But there’s more to the story. Do you see how one half of the block is dark fabric, and the other is light? The dark half represents the sorrows in a life, and the light colors represent the joys.”

“Then why don’t you give her a quilt with all light fabric?”

“I suppose I could, but then she wouldn’t be able to see the pattern. The design appears only if you have both dark and light fabric.”

“But I don’t want Elizabeth to have any sorrows.”