Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt (3 page)

“Things are shaping up nicely here,” remarked Sylvia, looking about the foyer.

Sarah glanced up from sorting through a box of ornaments and smiled. “Later I’ll call Matt on his cell phone and ask him to bring home a Christmas tree from the lot at the mall.”

“Nonsense. I won’t have him pay ten dollars a foot for a tree when we have plenty to choose from right here on the estate. Besides, you’re supposed to bring in the tree together.”

“He
is
a landscape architect. If he can tend an orchard I’m sure he can pick out a Christmas tree.”

“I’m not questioning his qualifications, but in my family we always …”

When she did not continue, Sarah prompted, “You always what?”

“We always … saved our money for more important things and cut down a tree from our own woods. But you and Matthew may do whatever you like.”

“So you won’t mind having a Christmas tree?”

“Not as long as you sweep up the fallen needles.”

“It’s a deal.” Sarah gave the ornaments one last admiring look, rose, and made a show of checking her watch. “Ten o’clock. I think it’s time for a quilting break.”

“But you just started.”

In reply, Sarah simply picked up the box holding the pieces of the Christmas Quilt.

Clutching her teacup, Sylvia trailed after Sarah, down the hall and through the kitchen to the west sitting room. Frowning, Sylvia sat down in her favorite chair by the window and picked up her book, studiously ignoring Sarah as she spread out the various sections of the incomplete quilt on the sofa and the rug. The younger woman studied the Bergstrom women’s handiwork for several minutes in silence before she spoke. “I think we have enough for a complete quilt right here.”

Sylvia closed her book. “Don’t be ridiculous. It couldn’t possibly be that easy or one of us would have done it years ago.”

Sarah peered closely at the patchwork and appliqué, considering. “Maybe it took an objective outsider to see the possibilities.”

“Young lady, I’ve been quilting much longer than you have. A person can stitch together any two pieces of fabric in any haphazard way they choose and call it a quilt, but unless you’ve lowered your standards, I expect you to strive for something that also pleases the eye. That simply isn’t possible with what you see here. You don’t have enough of any one of the blocks for a complete quilt, and yet you don’t have enough variety for an attractive sampler.”

“No, look,” said Sarah, rearranging two of the appliquéd holly plumes so that they flanked one of Claudia’s Variable Stars. “This could be the center of the quilt. We could set the Feathered Star blocks around them, kind of like a rectangle with the other Variable Stars in the corners. The Feathered Star blocks will be the focus of the quilt, which is perfect because they’re so beautifully made.”

“Indeed they are,” said Sylvia, proud of her great-aunt. “You could always leave out my sister’s Variable Stars rather than risk ruining the quilt. Accuracy was never her strong suit. Some of those blocks don’t look to be true squares.”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving Claudia out of a family quilt. I’m sure her blocks are accurate enough.”

Sylvia was far less certain, and she could cite a wealth of evidence to support her assessment of Claudia’s piecing skills, but she did not feel like arguing—and, she reminded herself, it did not matter to her whether this quilt would ever be finished. So she settled back down with her book and her now lukewarm cup of tea, but after reading a few lines, Sarah’s shuffling of blocks and patches drew her attention. She had arranged Great-Aunt Lucinda’s six Feathered Star blocks in an elongated ring-two on one side, two on the other, and one on each end. Sylvia had to admit the placement would complement the exquisite blocks. Lucinda had pieced all of her quilts by hand and was as precise and exacting in her sewing as she was generous and forgiving in every other aspect of her life. She was Sylvia’s grandfather’s youngest sister, the baby of their family, and perhaps that was why the others teased her so affectionately about her repeated failures to complete the Christmas Quilt. In Sylvia’s earliest childhood memories, Lucinda always appeared as a patient and reassuring figure, calm and wise—and old, although in hindsight Sylvia realized she was probably not yet fifty when she set aside the Christmas Quilt for the last time.

In fair weather Lucinda enjoyed sewing on the front veranda, but the approach of autumn beckoned her inside to the front parlor, which looked out upon the veranda and the broad, sweeping lawn that separated the house from the forest. Sylvia, who had not yet learned to quilt, often watched her aunt drawing templates for a new quilt with a freshly sharpened pencil, carefully tracing their shapes on the wrong side of brightly colored fabrics, and cutting out the pieces with brisk snips of her shears. Sylvia hung on to the arm of her chair as she sewed, watching and pestering Lucinda with questions as she stitched four small, cream-colored triangles to a larger octagon cut from cheerful red fabric. Eager to help, she paired green triangles with white so they would be ready for her great-aunt’s needle. Sylvia admired the intricate blocks, which she thought resembled green snowflakes with red tips. As the fifth Feathered Star took shape, Sylvia begged Lucinda to teach her how to make one. “I will teach you to quilt someday,” promised Lucinda, “but this pattern is too difficult for a little girl’s first project. Let’s make a Log Cabin quilt instead.”

“When?” persisted Sylvia. “When can we start?”

With a nod, Lucinda indicated the Feathered Star pieces spread on her lap. “After I finish my Christmas Quilt, we will begin yours.”

Thrilled, Sylvia raced off to tell her older sister the news, secretly pleased when Claudia tossed her brown curls and declared that she was too busy helping Mother to quilt with Great-Aunt Lucinda, a sure sign that she was sick with jealousy. Then Claudia added, “Everyone says she’ll never finish that quilt, anyway.”

“She will so,” snapped Sylvia and marched back to the parlor to help. She had heard the teasing remarks, too, but they had never been a cause for worry until now.

To Sylvia’s relief, her great-aunt kept up an industrious pace and showed no signs of abandoning her quilt. As Christmas approached, Sylvia forgot her worries in the excitement of the season. She and Claudia were both chosen to participate in the Christmas pageant at school—Claudia as an angel, Sylvia as a lamb. Between rehearsing for the pageant and practicing with the children’s choir at church, helping Grandma with the baking and secretly working on Christmas gifts for the family, Sylvia had little time to spare for observing the Christmas Quilt. Still, Great-Aunt Lucinda made good progress despite Sylvia’s absence from her side every hour of the day. Although she did take time away from her sewing to bake Christmas cookies, she always returned to her Feathered Stars by evening. Sylvia’s quilting lessons would surely begin before the end of winter.

The approach of Christmas brought visitors to Elm Creek Manor, friends and relatives from near and far. Best of all was the day Sylvia’s beloved second cousin Elizabeth returned, accompanied by her parents. For the past five summers, she had come to Elm Creek Manor to help care for the children and, as she said, “enjoy the fresh country air.” Sometimes she went riding with a boy her age from a neighboring farm, but except for those annoying interruptions, she was Sylvia’s nearly constant companion, favorite playmate, and most trusted confidante. Sylvia could not help but adore her; Elizabeth was kind and funny and smart and beautiful—all the things Sylvia hoped to be when she grew up.

Elizabeth was barely in the door before Sylvia was tugging off her coat and seizing her hand to lead her off on some secret adventure. Elizabeth laughingly obliged, shaking snow from her hair and handing off her mittens to her mother, but she seemed distracted and quiet. When Sylvia asked her what was wrong, Elizabeth looked surprised. “Nothing,” she said. “Everything is wonderful.” Then she tickled Sylvia and acted like the old Elizabeth so convincingly that Sylvia decided to believe her.

Great-Aunt Lucinda finished her fifth Feathered Star block on the morning of Christmas Eve. “Only fifteen more to go,” she told Sylvia at breakfast, and Sylvia’s heart sank in despair. So many blocks stood between her and her lessons! But she brightened up when Elizabeth came to the table, breathless and apologizing for her tardiness, her long golden hair tied back in a grosgrain ribbon the color of the winter sky. Sylvia had a ribbon almost the exact same hue, and if Elizabeth helped Sylvia fix her hair the same way, they could be twins—except that Sylvia’s hair was dark brown.

After breakfast, Uncle William and his wife went out to find the Christmas tree, sent on their way with teasing and laughter and strange remarks from the other grown-ups that Sylvia suspected she only partially understood. The couple had been married less than a year, and Sylvia overheard her grandmother say that it would be a very bad sign if they were gone more than two hours.

“It will be a far worse sign if they’re back within thirty min-utes,” Sylvia’s father replied. The uncles grinned and the aunts nodded thoughtfully. Sylvia looked around at the faces of her family, puzzled. If they found a perfect tree right away and brought it home as quickly as they could cut it down, what could be wrong with that? They could begin trimming the tree sooner, and Sylvia couldn’t wait. The previous day, she and Claudia had helped Elizabeth and their grandmother unpack the two trunks of Christmas ornaments. They’d had a wonderful time admiring their favorite pieces, singing carols, and munching on Great-Aunt Lucinda’s lebkuchen still warm from the oven—until a cousin appeared in the doorway and called Elizabeth away to meet a visitor. Elizabeth rushed off with barely a word of good-bye, but Sylvia had not minded until dinnertime, when she discovered that the visitor was that man Elizabeth used to go riding with in the summers, and that he had taken the seat beside Elizabeth Sylvia usually reserved for herself. She scowled at him from across the table, but he merely smiled pleasantly back, so he was obviously not smart enough to understand when someone was angry with him.

The newlyweds returned with a tree not quite two hours after they had departed. “That’s just about right,” Sylvia’s grandmother told Lucinda as they trailed after the rest of the family to the ballroom, where the tree would be raised. Her voice was so soft that Sylvia knew she was not meant to overhear. “Any sooner and I’d worry that she wouldn’t be strong enough for him.”

“William can be stubborn,” said Lucinda. “I suspect he gave in quickly rather than displease his lovely bride. That contrary behavior can’t possibly last. We’ll see how long it takes them next year, and whether they’re still speaking when they return home.”

“
If
they’ll be eligible to choose the tree next year,” said Grandmother archly. “I suspect they may not be allowed a second turn.”

The women exchanged knowing smiles and disappeared into the ballroom. Sylvia stopped in the foyer, frowning as she mulled over their words. Why shouldn’t Uncle William and his wife be allowed to pick the tree again? There wasn’t anything wrong with the one they had chosen. Was Great-Aunt Lucinda jealous because she had never been allowed a turn? Sylvia searched her memory but could not recall any other time when her great-aunt had seemed envious. Well, if Great-Aunt Lucinda wanted to pick the Christmas tree, she would just have to get married. That’s what the rules said, and Sylvia strongly disapproved of anyone—even Great-Aunt Lucinda—thinking she could simply toss out the family’s rules when it suited.

Noise and laughter beckoned her from her worries, and she hurried into the ballroom rather than miss all the fun. As young and old adorned the branches of Uncle William’s tree with their favorite ornaments, Great-Aunt Lucinda told them stories of long-ago Christmases when her mother, Sylvia’s great-grandmother Anneke, was a little girl in Germany. Sylvia was surprised to learn that her great-grandmother had not been allowed to help decorate the Christmas tree. “None of the children were,” explained Great-Aunt Lucinda. “The adults of the family decorated the tree while the children waited in another room. On Christmas Eve, her mother would ring a bell and all the children would come running in to admire the tree and eat delicious treats—cookies and nuts and fruits. My mother and the other girls and boys would search the branches of the tree, and whoever found the lucky pickle would win a prize.”

“A pickle?” said Sylvia. “How did a pickle get in their tree?”

“Not a real pickle, dear. A glass pickle, an ornament. Her mother or father would hide it there before the children came in.” Great-Aunt Lucinda paused thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s where our tradition of hiding the Christmas star came from.”

“Did Santa bring her presents?” asked Claudia.

“Not on Christmas,” said Lucinda. “Of course you know that Santa Claus is really St. Nicholas, and that we celebrate his day on December 6. On the night before, Great-Grandmother Anneke and her brothers and sisters would each leave a shoe by the fireplace, just as you children hang stockings. If they had been good children all year, when they woke in the morning, they would find their shoes filled with candy, nuts, and fruit. If they had been naughty, they might find coal or twigs. One year, my uncle found an onion. I always wondered what he had done to deserve that.”

“But we get St. Nicholas Day and Christmas,” said Sylvia. It didn’t seem fair that her great-grandmother had not.

“You are very lucky children,” Great-Aunt Lucinda pronounced. “You’re fortunate in another regard, too. In your great-grandmother’s day, St. Nicholas traveled with a helper named Knecht Ruprecht. He carried St. Nicholas’s bag of treats for him, and it was he who went up and down the chimneys filling the children’s shoes. But he also carried a sack and a stick. He used the stick to beat the naughty little children, and if a child was very, very bad, Knecht Ruprecht would stuff him in the sack and carry him off, never to see his family again.”

Sylvia shivered.

“Aunt Lucinda, you’re frightening the children,” said Sylvia’s mother.

“Why should these children be scared?” protested Great Aunt Lucinda. She looked around the circle of worried young faces, brow furrowing in concern. “None of you children were naughty this year, were you?”