Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt (5 page)

Claudia’s eyes narrowed. “I knew you were too little to find that star all by yourself so fast. You cheated!”

“I did not!”

“You did so. Tell her, Mama. Tell her she and Elizabeth both cheated.”

“We didn’t cheat. It was just helping.”

“Now, girls,” their mother said. “Claudia, you can see your sister is upset. Let’s not make things worse.”

“But it’s not fair.”

“We can discuss that another time.”

Sylvia tugged at her mother’s hand. “Will you tell Elizabeth to wait? Please?”

In reply, Sylvia’s mother shook her head sadly and reached out to console her, but Sylvia broke free of her embrace and ran off to find Great-Aunt Lucinda. Everyone listened to her. If she asked Elizabeth to wait another year, Elizabeth would do it, no matter how Henry complained.

She found Lucinda in the front parlor lost in thought as she worked on her Christmas Quilt. Reluctant to annoy the only member of the family likely to help her, Sylvia crept up to her softly and sat on the floor at her feet, resting her head against the ottoman. Lucinda offered her a brief smile but kept her eyes on her work. Sylvia watched as Lucinda joined one row of star points to others she had already assembled, her needle darting through the bright fabric, in and out, joining the pieces together. Before long she tied a knot at the end of the seam and laid the finished block on her lap, pressing it flat with her palms. Sylvia was struck suddenly by the similarity between the Feathered Star blocks her great-aunt had made and the star on top of their Christmas tree, the star Elizabeth had left beneath her pillow.

Silently she counted the blocks in the pile next to her great-aunt’s sewing basket, remembering to add the one on her lap. “That makes six.”

“Yes, that’s right. Six down, fourteen to go.” With a sigh, Lucinda gathered her sewing tools and returned them to her basket. “But they will have to wait for another day.”

Sylvia’s heart sank, and she had not thought it could go any lower. “Why? Why are you putting it away?”

“I don’t have time to work on my Christmas Quilt now that your cousin is getting married,” said Lucinda. “We have so much to do, and far less than the usual time to do it. I must help your Aunt Millie make the wedding gown, and of course we must have a wedding quilt, as well as a few good, sturdy quilts for every day and all the other things your cousin will need to take with her to California.”

Sylvia chose her words carefully. “Maybe if you told Elizabeth you won’t have enough time to finish all the sewing, she’ll wait until next year to get married.”

Lucinda laughed. “Oh, I see. That’s a very clever plan, but I’m afraid it won’t work. Henry has his heart set on leaving as soon as fair weather arrives. We’ll have a wedding at the end of March whether we like it or not, so you and I will have to make the best of it.”

Sylvia felt a small stirring of hope. Great-Aunt Lucinda wasn’t completely happy about the wedding, either. Perhaps Sylvia had found an ally.

But then Lucinda dashed her hopes. “Don’t worry, Sylvia.

We’ll get to your quilting lessons soon enough.”

Sylvia could not speak for her despair. Great-Aunt Lucinda thought that Sylvia cared only for her quilting lessons, and worse yet, she intended to join in on the work that would hasten cousin Elizabeth’s departure.

Sylvia was on her own.

New Year’s Day came. Most of the relatives returned to their own homes at the close of the Christmas season, but Elizabeth remained at Elm Creek Manor. This would have pleased Sylvia had she not known that she had stayed on for Henry, not for her favorite little cousin. Sylvia kept close to Elizabeth when her fiancé was not around, but as soon as he showed up, Sylvia ran off to the nursery or to the west sitting room, where her mother often sat reading or simply enjoying the afternoon sun and the view of Elm Creek. Her mother had a weak heart, the lingering consequence of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. She often had to rest, but she was never too tired to offer Sylvia a hug or tell her a story.

But as the winter snows melted and buds began to form on the elm trees surrounding the manor, even her mother became so caught up in the preparations for the wedding that she had little time to comfort a sulky daughter.

On one rare occasion when Sylvia and Elizabeth were alone, Sylvia asked her, “Why do you want to go away from home?”

“You’ll understand someday, little Sylvia.” Elizabeth smiled and hugged her, but there were tears in her eyes. “Someday you’ll fall in love, and you’ll know that home is wherever he is.”

“Home is here,” Sylvia insisted. “It will always be here.”

Elizabeth gave a little laugh and held her close. “Yes, Sylvia, you’re right.”

Happily, Sylvia realized that finally her cousin had come to her senses and had decided to stay. But when Elizabeth rose and ran off to the sitting room when Aunt Millie called her to a dress fitting, Sylvia’s joy fled. Elizabeth intended to marry Henry, even though it was obvious she did not really wish to leave home. It was all his fault; Elizabeth wouldn’t be going anywhere if not for him.

Sylvia realized that the only way to keep Elizabeth close was to drive Henry away.

From that moment on, Sylvia did all she could to prevent the wedding. She hid Aunt Millie’s scissors so that she could not work on the wedding gown, but Aunt Millie simply borrowed Lucinda’s. She stole the keys to Elizabeth’s red steamer trunk and flung them into Elm Creek so that she could not pack her belongings. She refused to try on her flower girl dress no matter how the aunts wheedled and coaxed, until they were forced to make a pattern from the frock she had worn on Christmas. In one last, desperate effort, she told Henry that she hated him, that he was not allowed to sit in her chair at the dinner table ever again, and that everyone in the family including Elizabeth wished he would just go away, but they were too polite to say it.

Her efforts were entirely unsuccessful, of course. In late March, Elizabeth and Henry married and moved to California. Sylvia treasured every letter her beloved cousin sent her, even as they appeared less and less frequently over the years, until they finally stopped coming.

Sylvia never saw Elizabeth again. She often wondered what had become of her, why she had stopped writing. If Claudia had kept in touch with Elizabeth or her descendants, Sylvia had found no record of their correspondence in her sister’s papers.

Sarah interrupted her reverie. “What do you think?” she asked, admiring her arrangement of the various pieces of the Christmas Quilt and looking to Sylvia for approval.

Sylvia dared not look at the quilt blocks for fear of what other memories they would call forth. “I think it’s time to finish decorating.” She rose from her chair and left the room without waiting to see if Sarah followed.

A
FEW MINUTES LATER
, Sarah joined Sylvia in the foyer, where Sylvia had busied herself sorting the dining room linens from decorations that belonged elsewhere in the manor. “I couldn’t reach Matt on the cell phone to remind him to bring home a tree,” said Sarah. “We might have to cut down our own after all.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I’d prefer to suit all of us.”

“Since I don’t care one way or the other, whatever suits you will be fine with me.” Sylvia stooped over to pick up a napkin holder shaped like a sprig of ivy. Once it had belonged to a set of twenty-four, but Sylvia would be satisfied if she could find three, one for each of the current residents of Elm Creek Manor. It was a pity they had decided not to run their quilters’ retreat all year instead of only March through October. A dozen or so quilt campers certainly would liven up the place, and with their help, she and Sarah would make quick work of all the decorating Sarah apparently still had her heart set on, despite the new distraction of the quilt.

“Decorating the entire manor seems too ambitious considering ering our late start,” said Sylvia. “Why don’t we concentrate on only those rooms we use the most?”

Sarah mulled over the suggestion as if uncertain whether it was a practical idea or a plot to keep her from decorating as lavishly as she wished. “I guess that’s a good idea,” she said, clearly reluctant to abandon her original vision. “What rooms do you suggest?”

“The foyer, of course, since we have already begun, and to make a good impression on any visitors.”

“Were you expecting visitors?”

“No, but one never knows at this time of the year.” And one could always hope. Perhaps some of the Elm Creek Quilters might drop by if they found a lull in their family activities. “We could invite your mother.”

“No way. Not a good idea.”

On the contrary, it was a wonderful idea, such a perfect solution that Sylvia could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. “Why on earth not?”

“For one reason, among many, I’m sure she’s made other plans by now.”

Sylvia doubted it. Sarah was Carol Mallory’s only child, and she had sent at least one letter asking Sarah to come home. She had also phoned twice that Sylvia knew of. “If she has made other plans, she’s free to decline our invitation, but at the very least we ought to give her that opportunity.”

“It’s too late,” Sarah insisted. “Even if she could drop everything the moment we call, she would still have to pack and make that long drive. She wouldn’t arrive until late tonight. We’d have Christmas morning together, but she’d have to leave by midafternoon so she can be home at a reasonable hour. She has to get up early for work the next day.”

“How do you know she has to work?”

“She always works the day after Christmas,” said Sarah flatly. “She always takes the early shift at the hospital to give another nurse the chance to take the day off. My mother would rather take the overtime than sleep in. It’s our own family Christmas tradition.”

Thinking of how long Sarah’s widowed mother had been the sole provider for their small family, Sylvia said, “Perhaps it was a matter of needing rather than merely wanting the over-time.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. She could have taken it any other day, though. Why take it the day after Christmas, when I was on school break and all my friends were busy with their families?”

Despite the sympathy evoked by images of a young Sarah left alone at home on the day after Christmas, Sylvia shook her head in disapproval. Sarah seemed incapable of seeing anything from her mother’s point of view. She claimed it was too late to invite Carol to come for Christmas, but anyone with any sense could see she was just making excuses.

Sarah had turned away and had busied herself with sorting through a box of Christmas stocking hangers the Bergstroms had once lined up on the fireplace mantel each St. Nicholas Day. “After the foyer, where else should we decorate?”

Sylvia muffled a sigh, recognizing Sarah’s attempt to change the subject but unwilling to pursue the matter. “The west sitting room. Perhaps we can move the armchair and set up the tree in the corner.”

“Is that where your family usually put it up?”

“No, we used the ballroom, but in those days we needed the extra space to accommodate family and guests. The west sitting room would be much cozier for the three of us.” The ballroom had been subdivided into classrooms for the quilt camp, too, and Sylvia didn’t relish moving all of the partitions.

Sarah nodded and gestured toward the red-and-green tartan table linens. “What about the dining room?”

“Oh, let’s decorate the kitchen and eat there as we always do. The tablecloth will look just as festive on our usual table.”

Sarah agreed, and as she gathered up the linens, Sylvia collected three of the holly napkin rings and picked up the Santa Claus cookie jar. They carried everything to the kitchen, one of the few rooms in the older wing of the house that Claudia had kept up with the times, more or less. The spacious room was painted a maple sugar hue that made the most of the afternoon sunlight, with the help of a copper light fixture that reminded Sylvia of an old-fashioned carriage lantern. It was suspended over the long wooden table and benches that filled the space between the doorway and the kitchen proper. Cupboards and appliances lined the walls except for the window over the sink, the door to the pantry in the southwest corner, and the open doorway that led to the west sitting room. A small microwave sat on the countertop beside the old gas oven Sylvia had cooked upon even before her abrupt departure so many years ago; it was a marvel of pre—World War II technology that it still worked at all. The refrigerator on the opposite wall appeared fairly new, perhaps less than ten years old, but the printed curtains had last been in style in the 1970s. The dishwasher Sarah had insisted they install stood out proudly, its gleaming stainless-steel finish intimidating every other appliance in the room. The kitchen was such a mishmash of old and new that Sylvia couldn’t bear to change any of it, even though she knew it was not up to the standards of a professional kitchen and would prove hopelessly inadequate if their quilt camp grew at the pace Sarah predicted.

Sarah wiped off the long wooden table and draped the redand green tartan tablecloth over it. She placed two candlesticks in the center as Sylvia took clean cloth napkins from a drawer and tucked them into the holly wreath rings. Then Sylvia put the Santa Claus cookie jar between the candlesticks and declared that it made a fine centerpiece.

“Too bad it isn’t full,” remarked Sarah, lifting the lid to be sure.

“Even your sweet tooth couldn’t handle fifty-year-old cook-ies,” teased Sylvia, easing herself onto one of the benches. Images filled her mind, she and Claudia and her cousins swinging their feet as they sat on the bench dunking cookies into milk and leaving scuffmarks on the wooden floor with their shoes. A quick glance told her that time had worn away most of those marks, but some remained. She resisted the impulse to trace them with her fingertips.

“Maybe we should drive out to the bakery and fill it up with Christmas cookies,” suggested Sarah.

“If you could find a bakery open on Christmas Eve, and if I thought you could do it without sending my great-aunt Lucinda spinning in her grave. Store-bought cookies in her favorite cookie jar? My dear, that’s close to sacrilege in this house.”

Sarah sat down on the opposite bench, amused. “I suppose you Bergstroms insisted upon homemade cookies.”

“When you had a baker like Great-Aunt Lucinda in the family, you couldn’t tolerate anything less. She made all the good German Christmas cookies precisely the way her mother had taught her. Lebkuchen—that’s gingerbread; she made hers with grated almonds and candied orange peel. Aniseed cookies called anisplätzchen, and zimtsterne, cinnamon stars. She tried to keep that cookie jar filled from St. Nicholas Day through the Feast of the Three Kings, but we children ate them as fast as she could bake. It’s no wonder she left the apple strudel to the other bakers in the family.”

“I made apple strudel once,” remarked Sarah. “You take the phyllo dough out of the box and place it on a cookie sheet, open up a can of apple pie filling, spread it all around, roll it up and bake it.”

Sylvia cast her gaze to heaven. “Your generation will be forever remembered for its culinary ignorance.”

“It was delicious,” protested Sarah. “Especially with a little vanilla frosting on top.”

“That is not strudel,” said Sylvia. “Not real strudel, at any rate. If you had ever tasted my mother’s, even your damaged taste buds would perceive the difference.”

“I’m willing to learn. Teach me how to make the real thing.”

Sylvia waved a hand, dismissing the notion. “I haven’t made it since the war—the Second World War, before you get the idea that it was more recent. I would need at least a day to try to re-create the recipe from memory.”

“You mean it isn’t written down?”

“Of course not, dear. In those days, an accomplished cook didn’t measure cups and teaspoonfuls; it was a heaping handful of flour here, a dash of salt there, bake in a hot oven until done. The instructions were never as specific as cooks require today.”

And yet somehow food had always tasted better then, when recipes were handed down from mother to daughter and stored in one’s memory rather than in a card file or on a computer.

From down the hall, she heard the back door slam; a moment later, Sarah’s husband appeared in the doorway carrying two paper grocery sacks. “Looks nice,” he remarked, admiring the festive table. “Does this mean Christmas isn’t canceled after all?”

“Not even Sylvia can cancel Christmas,” said Sarah. “No one can.”

“Oliver Cromwell did,” remarked Sylvia, rising and taking one of the bags from Matt. “In the 1640s, when he came to power in England. He thought it was too decadent. But I’m no Oliver Cromwell, and Christmas at Elm Creek Manor was never canceled. You shouldn’t make assumptions based upon the lack of paper snowflakes and strings of colored lights. One doesn’t need decorations to have Christmas.”

“But it helps.” To Matt, Sarah added, “Let’s go out soon and get a tree. To me, it doesn’t feel like Christmas unless it looks like Christmas.”

“And sounds like Christmas,” replied Matt. “We need to put on some carols.”

“I left my CD player in the foyer,” Sarah told him. He left the second bag of groceries on the counter and went to retrieve it, his curly blond head just clearing the doorframe. While they waited, Sylvia and Sarah put away the groceries Matt had purchased for their Christmas dinner, including sweet potatoes, cranberries, corn, apples, flour, onions, celery, and a contraband can of gravy Sylvia had deliberately crossed off the shopping list. Honestly. Canned gravy at Elm Creek Manor for Christmas dinner. When Sarah was not looking, Sylvia hid the gravy in a back corner of the pantry so that she would have no choice but to allow Sylvia to make theirs from scratch. Everything else they needed, they already had on hand. A turkey breast was defrosting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, and Sylvia had already torn a loaf of bread into cubes for the stuffing. She had made a pumpkin pie earlier that morning, before the young people came down for breakfast.

Sarah and Matt were quite right to attribute the holiday feeling to the sights and sounds of the season, but it was the smells and tastes of Christmas that flooded Sylvia with memories, transporting her to Christmases past as if she had lived those moments only yesterday and not decades ago. When Sylvia caught the scent of aniseed, no matter where she was or what the season, her thoughts immediately turned to Great Aunt Lucinda, turning out batches of savory cookies for her eager nieces and nephews. The smell of baking apples and cinnamon and pastry called to mind her mother, and her grandmother, and even her great-grandfather’s sister, Gerda Bergstrom, the first to make strudel in the kitchen of the farmhouse that would one day become Elm Creek Manor.

Gerda Bergstrom had brought the strudel recipe over from Germany when she emigrated in the 1850s; all of the family stories agreed upon that. Whether she had created it herself or learned it from her mother, no one knew. Either way, everyone who tasted Gerda’s strudel affirmed that it was the most delicious they had ever tasted: the apples perfectly sliced and flavored with sugar and cinnamon, the pastry flaky and as light as air. Only a privileged few were ever treated to her strudel, and only at yuletide. All year she scrimped and saved her butter and egg money so that come December, she would have enough to purchase all the ingredients for the number of strudel she intended to make that year. She always made two for the family, which were devoured in a matter of minutes at breakfast Christmas morning. The others, sometimes as many as two dozen, she gave as gifts to her friends and to others whom she did not know as well, but who had earned her gratitude for a particular kindness they had shown her in the past year. Only one family other than her own received two strudels without fail every season: Dr. Jonathan Granger’s, most likely because his services were so necessary and his friendship so valuable in a town with only one doctor. “I give you simply the joy and hope of the season,” she would say as she offered a strudel to the lucky recipient, but neither the act nor the gift was as simple as she professed. Come Christmas Eve, when Gerda drove her brother’s horse and wagon from farm to farm and through the streets of their small town distributing her gifts, everyone knew exactly where they stood with her. Some were pleasantly surprised; others ruefully resolved to be friendlier toward the outspoken spinster in the year to come.

As an unmarried woman living in her brother’s household, Gerda would have been determined not to become a burden. By all accounts she was a hard worker, cooking for the family and tending her brother’s children so her sister-in-law, a skilled seamstress, could earn extra money taking in sewing. Her strudel was already famous throughout the Elm Creek Valley by the time her nieces were old enough to learn her secrets. Later, when her nephews married, she taught their wives. Still, while every Bergstrom woman followed her instructions to the letter with results that would have been applauded in any other family, everyone agreed that Gerda’s strudel remained unmatched in every regard.