Lover's Knot (18 page)

“Log Cabin seemed appropriate, considering this useless pile of timber you’re calling home now. And we knew you liked friendship quilts.”

“It’s a treasure.” She held it to her cheek.

“Well, all of us know what you did for Reverend Sam and Elisa and that brother of hers. They might not be with us here, if it weren’t for you.”

“I was doing my job.”

“So we did ours, and here it is.”

Kendra rubbed it against her cheek once more, then clutched the quilt to her chest. “Thank you, Helen. I love it.”

“You’ll need it come winter, if you’re still here. Manning Rosslyn’s the best around, but he’s not fast, no matter what he tells you. You’ll need something to snuggle under while they tear this place into matchsticks and reassemble it. I’m counting on watching for entertainment.”

“The show starts tomorrow. They’re delivering the barn logs and starting the foundation.”

With the quilt under her arm, Kendra ushered her guest inside. Reluctantly, she draped the quilt over the armchair and went to get the iced tea she’d prepared. She returned with it, along with some of the cookies Jamie had baked. Helen was already examining the Lover’s Knot quilt that Kendra had folded over the back of the sofa.

“Well now, this surely is something else,” Helen said. “You say Leah Spurlock made this?”

“That’s what we were told.”

“Well, I’ve seen a heap of old quilts in my time, made a heap, too, as you know. But I’ve never quite seen a sight like this one. You’re right about the pattern, but it can be called Rose Dream, too, or True Lover’s Knot. I’ve heard ’em all. Called lots of different things, like a lot of quilts.”

“I’m no expert, but even I can tell the quilting’s not the best—if you compare it to the others I’ve collected.” Kendra picked up the small pile of quilts and set them next to Helen. Then she perched on the sofa beside them and unfolded the top one, a simple two-color pattern of bright pink and white that had twenty-five signatures. “Look how small these stitches are.”

“Yes, indeed. That’s Big Dipper, by the way. Works as a signature quilt, particularly sashed like that. My mama and her friends made one like this when our preacher moved away. That was almost expected, you know, giving a quilt to mark a preacher’s years. Of course, that particular time nobody much liked the man and we were glad to see him go. So the women put together all the scraps they didn’t like, although nobody said as much. But there were some shameful colors mixed together in that quilt, let me tell you.”

Kendra wondered if the poor preacher had realized he was being well and truly dissed by his flock. She smiled as she traced the perfect parallel quilting lines on the Big Dipper.

“I wonder about the women who made the quilt.” She pointed at one name. “Lizzie Hemlock. What do you suppose she thought about while she was signing this? Was she worried about a child who had whooping cough? Was she looking forward to a trip to see her family? Was she married to a man who paid too much attention to somebody else?”

“You got imagination, I can see that for sure. A good thing in a quilter.”

Kendra pretended to ignore that. “I guess that’s part of the reason Isaac’s quilt intrigues me. It must have meant so much to Leah. She left it for Isaac, even though she had no idea where he was or if a quilt was something he’d care about.”

“And does he care about it?”

“No, but I care for him.”

Helen thumbed through the rest. There were only four, two fairly worn but with no large stains or tears, two that looked as if they had been packed in a trunk since the day the last stitch was sewn.

“Well, these others are pretty, all right. This Basket quilt’s a real keeper, even if it’s worn at the edges. The Chimney Sweep’s a classic. And this Churn Dash was a fund-raiser, I’ll just bet you. Too many signatures to be anything else. Some church or school made a little money from this one. But not a one of these is as interesting as Leah’s. Or as odd. And that’s the only word for it, you know. Just plain odd.”

Kendra thought she knew what Helen was referring to, but she waited for her to go on, the student at the feet of the master.

“Now take the Lover’s Knot pattern, for starters.” Helen removed Isaac’s quilt from the sofa back. “It’s true any pattern can be a friendship quilt—that’s what we usually called them when I was growing up. That or album quilt, too. Anyway, no question any old pattern could be used, as long as there’s someplace in the block light enough to sign or embroider. But it’s also true that some just lent themselves to writing on, and those are the ones people signed most of the time. This quilt don’t look like it was made to be signed. The white patches are odd shapes. Signing won’t do a thing for the pattern, if you see what I mean.”

“I do. And there’s no rhyme or reason to the way it’s signed.”

“That would be the next thing. See, most friendship quilts—” Helen pointed to the four folded beside them “—the signatures are in the same place in each block. Oh, maybe not every block gets signed, but there’s a plan to the pattern. Maybe every other one. Or the signed ones make a cross through the center of the quilt. Or the signed ones are placed inside the border or smack in the middle. Depended on how many blocks and how many people signing. But likely there was a plan and a purpose.”

Helen held up the Lover’s Knot. “Now see, on this one? Signatures scattered all over it. And some of them are over the colored pieces.”

The quilt was a mixture of white muslin and a variety of prints that twined throughout like knotted ribbons. And Helen was right. There were places where the embroidered names lapped over into the prints.

“See what this means,” Helen went on, “is that when Leah made this top, there weren’t no signatures. And that’s not the way it’s usually done. Most of the time people sign blocks, then they get laid out in some pattern or other and sewn together. But that didn’t happen here. Look at this.” She pointed to several different areas. “Do you see that? The signatures go across one block and into another? So the top was made first.”

“And that’s unusual?”

“Some. And just as unusual, there wasn’t a bit of thought given toward making the signatures look like they belong together. Some are turned this way, some that. This one here’s practically upside down. It’s higgledy-piggledy. And you know what else? Every single one of these signatures is in the same handwriting. Now, what do you think of that?”

Kendra had noticed that all the embroidery thread outlining the names was the same color, but she hadn’t really noticed that all the letters looked the same. Now she saw that Helen was right. “They used to teach penmanship in schools, and handwriting was more uniform. I thought that’s why they looked so similar. But you’re right, one person probably did them all. And that would be odd. Because why would one person scatter names across a quilt top that way?”

“And you know, don’t you, what’s just about oddest of all?”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know a one of these names. I was right here in Toms Brook the whole time Leah Spurlock lived here, and I can tell you I knew almost every single person in this county, one way or t’other. But I don’t know a single one of these folks.” She squinted over the names. “Not a single one.”

Kendra sat back. “So the names come from somewhere else.”

“Or she made ’em up—and what would be the point of that?” Helen was turning the Lover’s Knot quilt around and around. “You know most of the colored fabrics are feedsacks, don’t you?”

From her reading, Kendra knew that feed, flour and other staples had once come in colored cotton sacks so that women could take them apart and use them for household needs and clothing. She hadn’t been certain how to identify them, though. Helen clearly was.

“This here’s what they call a conversation print,” Helen said. “See the little houses, the animals? Some good old prints in this quilt. And there was an eye for color. A lot of trouble went into choosing them. See the way the colors fan out? Reds in the center, purples moving into blues, until we get these greens at the border? Scrap quilt, yes, but planning went into it.”

“You don’t think Leah made it?”

“She wasn’t much good with a needle.”

“I can relate.”

“Not for long you won’t. But Leah, well, my mama said she was pretty much hopeless. And see the way every single seam matches? Takes a bit of doing to make that happen.”

Kendra could only imagine.

“But the quilting.” Helen shook her head. “No, Leah did the quilting. I’d believe that. Never saw such a job of quilting in my life.”

“I noticed it’s uneven.”

“Uneven don’t do it justice. There’s not a bit of thought to where the lines are going. Some lines that ought to be parallel cross, and everybody knows that’s not the way it’s done. Quilt’s lumpy ’cause here there’s a mess of quilting. Here there’s hardly any. So I’d say from what I know of her skills that Leah did quilt this, even if someone else pieced it.”

“That’s what my quilting would look like.”

“I’m aiming to fix that, only I won’t be around for the next week or so to do it. Going down to Richmond to see my daughter, then we’re coming up through Harrisonburg and stopping by the quilt museum to have a look at a few things.”

“You’ve got a quilt there, don’t you? Your Shenandoah Album quilt?”

“Never have figured out why they’re so excited about it. But they want to interview me on videotape. The way some people spend their time…” Helen picked up her tea and took a long sip.

“I’m looking forward to seeing that quilt myself.”

“I got to go in a minute,” Helen said, “but we didn’t tackle the biggest question this quilt of your husband’s brings to light.”

Kendra knew what Helen meant. “Why Leah left this quilt to Isaac?”

“That would be the one.”

“Why did she, do you suppose? Because it was the only one she ever finished and she was proud of it?”

“She was a smart woman. She wouldn’t be proud of this. She might not sew well, but she had eyes.”

“Because she wanted her grandchild to have something she’d made for him?”

“A signature quilt? With signatures that make no sense to anybody else?”

“Do you suppose these are names from Isaac’s family?”

“Don’t see no Spurlocks here—do you?”

Kendra had considered that already. “Spurlock was probably her married name. We don’t know a thing about her before she arrived here, and we don’t know her maiden name.”

“Seems like you could dig that up somewhere. State’s got to have records of a Leah Spurlock someplace.”

“I can look into it.” Kendra felt the thrill of a reporter tracking down the first real lead on a story. She was more than curious about Leah Spurlock. She was determined now to find answers. Leah’s was a life she wanted to understand.

“Well, you got to promise to keep me up to date.” Helen stood. “You got the quilt bug, you know, only you’re looking at things from the outside in. I’m fixing to change that.”

Kendra was afraid that before too long, despite all her protests, she was going to be buying Cash Rosslyn a very expensive six-pack.

O
ut of respect for Leah’s parents, Leah and Jesse waited until Thanksgiving to marry. Even so, the news traveled quickly, and women from the hollow and beyond came to visit before the wedding, bringing small presents for the bride-to-be. Sauerkraut carefully fermented in oak barrels, wild muscadine jelly, pickles as sweet as candy. All were cherished at a time when money was scarce and food a family didn’t need was exchanged for due bills at Grayling’s General Store.

Leah received a Bible from Jesse’s oldest sister and snow-white petticoats from his youngest. His middle sister embroidered a nightdress of filmy white cotton with bits of lace at the neck and sleeves. Ginny Collins, Jesse’s mother, brought Leah a brand-new featherbed she and her own sisters had made from goose down and feathers. Best of all, Birdie stayed up late every night quilting, and finishing one of the two Lover’s Knot tops for their marriage bed.

On Thanksgiving morning, Leah awoke with the knowledge that today her life would change forever. She could hardly wait.

Birdie was still sleeping, so Leah was careful not to shake the bed when she slipped out from under the pile of quilts. She tiptoed barefoot into the kitchen and reignited the fire in the cookstove. Then she lit the woodstove that sat on the hearth of the old stone fireplace. It began to warm the room immediately, but she hugged herself as she waited, dancing from foot to foot.

New brides usually moved from their family homes, but to Leah it seemed right to be staying here. She loved this house, particularly this cozy room where she had spent so many evenings. The logs were newly chinked and whitewashed. The roomy loft where she and Jesse would sleep looked down on the fireplace, but there was a railing for privacy and a window beside their bed to let in the light. She wanted a window in the roof. She wanted to lie with her husband and ponder who lived on the moon and stars, and what they thought about when they looked down at her. She planned to see if Jesse could add such a thing. She thought if anyone could, it would be her Jesse.

The kitchen was large enough for eight at the table and more if people kept elbows to their sides. When more came to dinner, her mother and father had pulled in a work table from the porch and set it in front of the black walnut china cupboard. Of course, Mama had been sure to remove whatever dishes she needed first. There was no getting them after the table came inside.

Now Leah would be the one to bring out Mama’s dishes. They were not elegant, but many a good meal had been eaten on those chipped surfaces. Memories lived in every spidery scar.

She had tried to talk to Birdie about the dishes, about who would take them out, who would decide when to invite neighbors for meals and where they would sit. Birdie was the older, of course, and it seemed right that she should have a say. But Birdie only laughed.

“If I wanted the things that come with marriage, I would have found myself a man to have me. Maybe you get some of the good things as come with being wedded, but me, I get the things that don’t. Like not having to decide who best to pamper and cultivate. Now you and Jesse, you’ll have to make those decisions and leave me alone to do whatever I like.”

What her sister liked, Leah knew, was cooking meals, baking whatever the cupboard allowed, sewing clothes and making quilts. Birdie also liked listening at night when Leah read aloud from whatever book she managed to get from Aubrey Grayling, Jesse’s best friend and the son of the man who owned the general store. Aubrey, who these days did most of the work there, kept two shelves with books to borrow, as long as borrowers left something precious behind as ransom. Her grandmother’s seed-pearl brooch resided behind a counter at Grayling’s more often than it resided in Leah’s own dresser.

“Now here’s the bride turning as white as a snowstorm,” Birdie said from the doorway. “If you want to call off this wedding, I reckon you just have to say so. But you’re fixing to make yourself sick.”

In a rare moment of open affection, Leah ran to her sister and wrapped her arms around her. “Birdie girl, I was just warming the house for you. The last time it’ll be me doing it.”

Birdie felt as fragile as a young sapling, but she put her arms around Leah for a quick hug before she pushed her away. “Me, I don’t see nothing to be sad about. I’ll have a whole bed to myself, and you can sleep a mite longer every morning, because Jesse will be the first up to get the fire started.”

“Well,
I
won’t have a bed to myself.” Even all these weeks after Jesse had proposed marriage, Leah was still pondering that. Sleeping with Birdie, who never moved and took up only a fraction of the space, was one thing. But sleeping in a bed with Jesse, who took up room just by breathing or smiling? It was something to consider.

“No need to dwell on that,” Birdie said. “It will happen soon enough.”

Leah wondered exactly how much sleeping she and Jesse would do, and the thought pleased her. “You still aim to go and stay with Etta after the dinner?”

“You’re no help to me with my quilting. Etta’ll help me finish two tops I promised I’d put in Grayling’s before Christmas.”

Leah felt such fondness for her sister. Although it was painful for her to travel, Birdie was leaving for the rest of the week to give Leah time alone with Jesse. Of course, Birdie had found a way to pretend spending time with their cousin Etta was exactly what she wanted.

From the moment Leah had told her sister she and Jesse were going to be married, Birdie had been particularly thoughtful, as if she felt she needed to take their mother’s place. In her sweet distracted way, she had made Leah look at all the ways life would change. And when Leah had firmly declared her intentions, Birdie had promised to welcome Jesse into their family. There had been no talk of her moving away for good, though. Even if they had wanted it that way, there was no place for Birdie to go.

“I’ll make us some coffee,” Birdie said. “It’ll chase away the cobwebs in my head. They’re thicker than snow clouds in a blizzard.”

Leah walked with her toward the kitchen. The house was already growing pleasantly warm. “Didn’t you sleep, Birdie?”

“I did.”

“Did you have good dreams?”

Birdie shook her head. “I saw terrible things.”

“What kind of things?”

Birdie considered. “Maybe I shouldn’t say.” She paused. “Or maybe I
should
. Etta says if you tell a bad dream before breakfast, it cain’t come true.”

Leah laughed. “You’re a goose. Go ahead, then, tell me.”

“I dreamed you was running down the mountain, just as fast as your legs would carry you, Leah. So fast that before I could call to you, you were gone. Then I heared you falling. And falling…”

Leah shivered. “You only dreamed such a thing because I’m getting married today. Just remember, I’m not running away from
you
.”

“Jesse was trying to run after you, and he couldn’t catch up.”

“Well, see? Now we know for sure how foolish a dream it was. There’s nowhere I could ever run that Jesse Spurlock couldn’t run faster.”

“Well, I’m glad I told you, just so’s it won’t come to pass.”

Leah was glad, too. Today she wanted Birdie to be as happy as she was. If it made her sister feel better, it was a small thing to listen to some of her worries.

Leah gently squeezed Birdie’s arm. “I’m going to dress and do the chores. Then I’ll come inside and we’ll eat breakfast.”

“Don’t dawdle,” Birdie said. “We have pies to bake for dinner. And Jesse’ll be over to get us midday.”

“I’ll have a lot to be thankful for today.” Leah paused. “I wish Mama and Daddy were here.”

“I’ll be there,” Birdie said. “You just remember that. I’ll be there for you. And from this day on, I’ll be there for Jesse, too.”

The Spurlock house was larger than the Blackburns’, the first story built of carefully mortared stones, the second of logs that fit together so perfectly there was little need for chinking. The house was the finest in the hollow. The front porch was wide enough for chairs against the rail and walls, and the paneled door had been deeply carved with scrolls by Jesse’s father, who had been the hollow’s most talented woodworker. In the summer, yellow roses bloomed along the front, accompanied by bridal wreath and snowball bushes. Mountain laurel and flame azalea preened on the shadiest side of the house.

Leah, in her best print dress, the palest of blues sprinkled with tiny red roses, was greeted enthusiastically by Jesse’s mother, Ginny, and stepfather, Luther Collins, as well as all the family and neighbors who had been invited to share Thanksgiving dinner and witness the wedding. She wore her grandmother’s seed-pearl brooch, ransomed back for the occasion, and carried an embroidered handkerchief her mother had carried on her own wedding day.

Because the afternoon was unseasonably warm, tables had been placed outside to take advantage of the extra space. Three turkeys raised in a pen on corn and cheerful anticipation had met their fate. Now they fed the Thanksgiving gathering, along with platters of harvest vegetables, dried beans cooked with sausage and ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, hot bread, cornpone and pies made from every type of fruit growing in the mountains. Mrs. Collins had made three apple spice cakes with boiled frosting. The preacher blessed the food and reminded them how lucky they were in a time of want to have such bounty before them.

As the afternoon passed, children finished quickly and chased one another around the tables. Babies cried and were taken inside to be fed. The oldest men and women napped in the sunshine.

Leah and Jesse were put at opposite ends of the largest table. She ignored the quips of the old men, the way they poked Jesse in the ribs and wiggled their eyebrows when they looked at her. The women were just as bad, although Jesse’s sisters took pity and placed the preacher beside her so she would have someone sensible to talk to.

When the meal ended, homemade peach brandy was served, and although no one in Lock Hollow paid much attention to Prohibition, the fact that the twenty-first amendment might soon be repealed pleased them all.

The preacher, a beefy man who fed his brood by chopping trees and hauling them down the mountain, was as pleased to see brandy as anyone at the table. Pipes were lit, more brandy was poured and the women began to clear. When Leah and Birdie tried to help, they were told to stay put.

In truth, Leah was sorry to be the honored guest. Though they were still sitting outside, the smoke of Virginia’s own tobacco made her eyes water.

“So what do you hear, Aubrey,” one of the men asked, “about this here park they’re trying to shove down our gullets?”

Aubrey Grayling was not as handsome as Leah’s husband-to-be, but he was easy to look at, with chestnut-colored hair and bright blue eyes. He was slight, befitting a storekeeper, and not as strong as a man who fed his family by laboring in the fields. But Leah knew looks were deceptive. In a fight, any man in Lock Hollow was glad to have Aubrey Grayling on his side.

Aubrey sat back in his chair, happy to be the center of attention. Since sooner or later everyone visited Grayling’s and stayed to swap stories, Aubrey always knew the most recent news, far and near. “I reckon they want to move us out of our houses, all right, but nobody in charge has got the time or money to do it.”

“Took the government more than a decade to figure that Prohibition wasn’t gonna stop men from drinkin’,” one of Jesse’s cousins said. “Give the men in charge a cane pole and a washtub of trout and they still wouldn’t know enough to put a worm on the hook.”

Leah knew too well what the men were discussing. For many years there had been talk that the United States government was going to build a park in Virginia’s mountains. Laws had passed; officials had appeared and disappeared; boundaries had been discussed, drawn and redrawn. The federal government couldn’t buy the land, but the State of Virginia seemed willing to buy it or steal it for them. A condemnation order had been issued. Landowners had sued and sued again, tying up the process in courts.

But the prospect of the government taking over what the mountain people had worked so hard to attain was still just a topic for discussion. Remote Lock Hollow was on the fringes of the acreage to be set aside, and as yet no one had come knocking on their doors. Like most residents, Leah didn’t think a park would come to pass in her lifetime.

Of course, one year ago ground had been broken for Skyline Drive, a road that would wind along the highest ridges and let travellers view Virginia’s scenic beauty. The first section was due to open in two years, bringing with it a host of strangers. And no one had thought that would come to pass, either.

“We’re boring the ladies,” the preacher said. “And there ain’t no call to have this discussion on a day when we come together to give thanks.” He paused long enough to stir a little guilt; then he grinned. “So who’s got a coon-hound that can beat my old redbone?”

By the time the dishes were cleared and the tables returned to the house, the sun was on the wane and the air had grown cooler. Leah still wanted to be married outside, but she knew they had to get to it soon. Some of the men had brought instruments, and furniture had been moved to the sides of the rooms so people could dance. She and Jesse would slip away when no one was paying attention. She was pretty sure no one would follow them and try to disturb their first night together, not with death such a recent visitor to the Blackburn home.