Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (22 page)

Henry refused to return to Pennsylvania until he had earned back all he had lost. Well, Elizabeth had lost things, too, and she was just as determined to recover them. When they finally did go home to the Elm Creek Valley, it would be with her bridal quilt and the Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt tucked safely in their trunk with two newly restored antique quilts beside them. The Bergstrom women would marvel at her fortunate discovery and praise her for her skill when she described how she had restored the worn pieces and replaced the broken threads. Elizabeth’s heart sank a little when she realized that she could never tell her mother and aunts the whole truth of how the quilts had come to her, not if she meant to spare Henry from shame.

She would tell them as much as she could. She had already written about the Jorgensens, so she would not be divulging too much to say that she believed the quilts had been made by one of the first women of their family to come to the Arboles Valley. She could say that she had stumbled over the quilts in an old, abandoned cabin on the ranch property without adding that she and Henry had made the ramshackle place their home. The Bergstrom women would be more interested in the quilts themselves, anyway—the remarkable patterns, the exceptional handiwork, the charming fabrics. They would not think to ask the questions she least wanted to answer.

The Bergstrom women need never know how she and Henry had lived while they were far from home, nor that Elizabeth had ever parted with the precious quilts they had so lovingly sewn for her.

1910

Isabel had dreamed of Rosa finishing school and going off to college to become something important, perhaps a teacher like her aunt, but when the time came, Rosa did not want to go. She loved the Arboles Valley, she told her parents passionately, and her soul would wither away to dust if she had to leave it.

Miguel accepted her dramatic declaration, but Isabel grieved, not only to watch her daughter throw away an opportunity her parents had never had, but to hear another lie pass her lips. It was indeed love that kept her in the Arboles Valley, but not love for the land.

Rosa, who had always excelled at math, obtained a job as a clerk and bookkeeper at the Grand Union Hotel. For two years she balanced accounts and paid bills for Mrs. Diegel, the young widow who had returned to the Arboles Valley from Los Angeles to assume responsibility for the hotel when her father’s health failed. For two years Rosa was, by all appearances, a good and obedient daughter. After working all day at the hotel, she returned home and helped her mother with the housework. She gave half of her earnings to her parents for household necessities and saved the rest, except for the little she spent on sensible clothes suitable for work. She went to Mass with her family every Sunday morning, helped her brother with his homework, and spent Saturday afternoons in the company of friends, young women from good families with whom Isabel could find no fault.

But there were also mornings when Isabel went to the kitchen to find Rosa already awake, breathless and bright-eyed, preparing breakfast for the family, overly solicitous of her mother—squeezing her a glass of orange juice, asking if she had slept well. There were afternoons when Isabel passed through the Arboles Valley on her housecleaning route and crossed paths with the friend Rosa had said she planned to spend the day with—but Rosa was nowhere in sight. There were rumors passed along to Isabel by observant friends claiming that a young man stopped by the hotel on Rosa’s lunch hour nearly every day, and that he and Rosa had been spotted in the citrus grove holding hands or in the Arboles Grocery buying food for a picnic. Isabel did not trust the rumors entirely because some described the young man as black-haired and others as blond, but she knew the tales must have sprouted from some seed of truth.

When Isabel shared her worries with her husband, Miguel spread his hands helplessly and said there was little they could do. It was disappointing to think that their daughter might be keeping a secret romance from them, but she was twenty years old, a woman grown, and it was hardly surprising that she had fallen in love. They had done their best to raise her properly, and they had to trust that she would use good judgment and not stray into anything that might ruin her reputation.

“With all the rumors flying about, she may have already ruined her reputation,” retorted Isabel. “If she has such good judgment, why keep this romance secret? If she’s in love with a decent young man, why hasn’t she told us about him? If his intentions are good, why hasn’t he asked to meet us?”

Miguel had no answer for her except to say that perhaps an introduction would come in time. He did not like to argue, and he could not believe that his beautiful daughter could do any wrong. Isabel reluctantly dropped the subject. Without Miguel’s support, she could not bear to confront the daughter she adored with accusations that might have no merit. Perhaps Miguel was right. Perhaps Rosa was not sure how she felt about her admirer, and she was waiting until she knew her own heart before bringing the young man home.

Then one afternoon Miguel came home from work, beaming. He took Isabel aside and quietly told her that he believed he had discovered the identity of Rosa’s young man. Earlier that day he had stopped by the feed store on an errand for his employer, and while he was making his purchases, a young man struck up a conversation with him. “He knew a lot about Rosa,” Miguel said. “Things only someone who spoke with her often would know. Who her best friends are, what she thinks of her job, that your father’s tamales were the best in the valley—”

“Everyone knows that,” Isabel broke in. Her father’s cooking had become the stuff of local legend. She always regretted not forcing him into the kitchen sooner.

“The point is,” said Miguel, amused, “that since he felt confident enough to approach me in the feed store instead of ducking into another aisle, Rosa might intend to tell us about him soon. I almost invited him over for dinner, but I thought Rosa would never forgive me.”

“But who is he?” demanded Isabel in a whisper, peering over her shoulder to be sure Rosa was not within earshot.

“John Barclay. You remember. Donald and Evelyn’s son.”

“But he’s four years older than Rosa.”

“And maybe that’s why she hasn’t told us about him.”

Suddenly Rosa’s secrecy made perfect sense. Isabel and Miguel certainly would not have approved of an eighteen-year-old man giving their fourteen-
year-old daughter a Valentine’s Day carnation so many years ago. But Rosa was twenty now, and no longer had any excuse not to reveal the truth to her parents. If John Barclay truly loved their daughter, why did he not insist upon it? Unless he wanted to, but had promised to abide by Rosa’s wishes. Perhaps her secrecy had become a habit she had forgotten to break, even after the need for it had passed.

Isabel sighed. Apparently they would still have to wait and see. When Rosa was ready, she would tell them everything. In the meantime, Rosa’s circumstances were not as bad as Isabel had feared. While her prolonged secrecy was insufferable, at least she had chosen well. John Barclay was Catholic, thank goodness, although he did not attend Mass as regularly as Isabel would have liked. He owned his own land, a small farm near the Salto Canyon that he had inherited upon his father’s death and had run almost single-handedly ever since his mother moved to Oxnard to live with John’s only living sibling, an elder sister. If John could at twenty-four run his own thriving farm, he surely was hardworking and industrious and would be a good provider. If Rosa married him, she would have land of her own, very near the old Rancho Triunfo, the land that should have been her inheritance.

Isabel waited for Rosa to confide in her, but the days passed as they always had, with the customary routine occasionally broken by those strange early mornings when Rosa was up before the sun rose, bustling about the kitchen with bright eyes and flushed cheeks. Then one night Isabel started from an unpleasant dream and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. On a sudden impulse, she quietly peeked into Rosa’s bedroom and found the quilt turned back and the curtains swaying in the open window. Rosa was nowhere to be seen.

Her heart sinking, Isabel returned to bed and lay awake until morning. She left her room only after she heard someone opening cupboards and turning on a tap in the kitchen. There she found Rosa preparing breakfast, smiling to herself and humming. She looked up in surprise when her mother entered. “You’re up early,” she said, offering Isabel a cup of coffee.

Isabel took it with a murmur of thanks. She did not point out the obvious, that Rosa had risen even earlier, if she had slept at all.

Isabel brooded throughout the morning as she worked, scrubbing bathtubs with angry vigor. By midday she had resolved to confront Rosa with the truth. If she and John were in love and his intentions honorable, they had nothing to hide. If not, Isabel had a mother’s duty to demand they break off their relationship without delay.

Between stops on her housecleaning route, Isabel went to the Grand Union Hotel, unwilling to wait until after supper to speak to her daughter, when her resolve might weaken beneath Miguel’s constant reassurances and calls for patience. As she crossed the front porch, she passed one of the Jorgensen boys on his way out. He greeted her politely, but she pretended not to see him. If she had her way, she would never lay eyes on any Jorgensen. She caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath and she recoiled in disdain and disgust. Drinking at one o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday, when he ought to be working! He had inherited one-half of what had once been the Rancho Triunfo upon his father’s death, and this was how he respected that legacy. She should have expected as much from that family, but the unfairness of fate wrenched at her. It was a disgrace, and she would not be surprised if that Jorgensen boy drank those precious acres away.

It was a pity the hotel had a bar. Isabel did not care for the sort of person it brought into her daughter’s workplace.

Inside, she found Rosa at her desk in the small office off the lobby. She was just sitting down after finishing her lunch, but she jumped to her feet at the sight of Isabel. “Mother,” she exclaimed, coming around the desk to kiss her on the cheek. Her hand upon Isabel’s shoulder trembled. “What a surprise! Is everything all right?”

“No, in fact, something is very wrong.” Isabel regarded her sternly, but her resolve melted when Rosa sank into her chair, blanching from alarm. “I didn’t mean to worry you, but
mija,
I am very troubled by your secrecy. I know—your father and I know—that you are in love. We think we know why you’ve been hiding this from us, but the time has come for you to tell the truth.”

Rosa clenched her hands in her lap, her dark, lovely eyes wide and apprehensive. “How long have you known?”

Since Rosa was fourteen. “We waited as long as we could, hoping you would tell us on your own.”

“You aren’t angry?”

“Because you have deceived us, yes, very. Because you have fallen in love, no. Never.” Isabel managed a small smile. “You’re a beautiful, loving young woman, Rosa. If you’ve found the love of a good man, we’re happy for you. We want to share in your happiness.”

“I—” Rosa hesitated. “I didn’t think you would approve. And I love him, but—I’m still not sure. He’s a good man, but—it’s just so hard to know what to do. There are things about him I wish he would change. I pray for him to change. Can I really love him if I want him to be different?”

“Oh, Rosa.” Isabel embraced her. “Why did you keep your troubles to yourself for so long? I’m your mother. You can always talk to me about anything. You know I will always love you.”

“And I will always love you.” Tears welled up in Rosa’s eyes. “And I will always love him. I know I will. But that doesn’t mean I should marry him.”

Isabel was surprised—and proud—to hear Rosa express such wisdom in the midst of her uncertainty. Most young women her age would think only of the passion of first love and not of the hard, practical realities of building a strong, enduring marriage. “Has he asked you to marry him?”

Rosa nodded.

“He should not have done that without speaking to your father.”

“You’re right. I know that. But it’s—well, you know how things are.” Tentatively, Rosa added, “I’m surprised you’re taking it so well yourself.”

“It’s your deception that troubles me, not your feelings for this man, or his for you.”

Rosa’s cheeks flushed. “It seemed best to keep it to ourselves.”

“There’s no need for secrecy any longer,” Isabel assured her. “Invite John to join us for Sunday dinner. We need to get to know the man who wants to marry our daughter.”