Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt Read online

  Quickly she gathered up the quilts and carried them down two flights of stairs to her bedroom suite on the second floor. She placed her treasures on the large chair beside her bed, put on her glasses, and took the journal into her sitting room, where she turned on the bright lamp beside her sewing machine and sat down. She caught her breath, then opened the journal to the first page.

  October 2, 1895

  Autumn has come again to Elm Creek, and I, too, am in the autumn of my years.

  My history has barely begun, and already my pride has bested me, for I know all too well that I have long since passed into winter. If I cannot be honest about such a small matter of vanity, how can I hope to be forthright about the harder truths, which few but I remain alive to remember? Yet I must be honest, not merely for the sake of my own soul, but to honor the memory of those whom I love—those whom I loved even as they betrayed me, and she I came to love as she deserved only after she was betrayed.

  I do not know for whom I write these words. They cannot be for my own eyes, which are failing me, for the memories burn too strongly in my heart for me ever to forget them. They cannot be for my descendants, for I have none living. Even so, the Bergstrom family endures in America, and shall endure, both in name and in truth. Anneke has seen to that.

  If she knew I spoke within these pages, she would beg me to be silent, to protect her children, and their children. She would say the future generations of Bergstroms will not thank me for my frankness, and if others discover the truths we have all pledged to conceal, they would surely destroy us. But I remain hopeful, despite all I have witnessed since coming to this land of freedom, this land of contradictions, and I hold fast to the belief that we owe a greater duty to Truth than to our own earthly comfort. They are not my children or grandchildren who will suffer, so perhaps it is true that I do not fully comprehend the burden my tale will place upon them. But who among us knows how our choices will affect generations yet unborn?

  Reader, if you bear the name Bergstrom, know first that you came from strong, proud people, and that it is for you I write, for if we can bequeath you nothing else, we must make you the heir of our truths, for good or ill. Know this first, and read on.

  Sylvia read the passage again, slowly, underlining it with her finger. The graceful script had faltered near the end, as if written by a hand trembling with fear or anger. Or did she only imagine it so, shocked as she was by the words themselves?

  Anneke could not have written those lines, that much was clear. But who, then, was the author? Surely not Hans; surely he would not have written such things about his beloved wife. The handwriting seemed feminine. Gerda, then? Was this the journal of Hans’s sister? But it seemed more like a memoir than a journal, something written after the outcome of events was known rather than recorded day by day, as they were happening. The author had had time to reflect, to consider the effects of her words, and of her silence.

  Then Sylvia had a disturbing thought: The family histories said little of Gerda after her arrival in America and the laying of the cornerstone of Elm Creek Manor. Was it possible that Gerda was the hypothetical ancestor who had left Elm Creek Manor to become the owner of slaves in the South? Was Margaret Alden’s quilt her handiwork? How, then, did her journal come to be here, in the attic of Elm Creek Manor with Anneke’s quilts, rather than in South Carolina?

  Those whom I loved even as they betrayed me, Gerda had written. Whom did she mean? Not Hans and Anneke. It was incomprehensible that they would have betrayed her, and yet, if they had been on opposite sides of the Civil War . . .

  Future generations of Bergstroms will not thank me for my frankness.

  Sylvia closed the book and set it on her sewing machine. Her pleasure upon finding Anneke’s trunk had transformed in a matter of moments into foreboding.

  Gerda’s words haunted Sylvia as she tried to sleep. She woke at daybreak, restless and troubled, and her gaze fell upon the quilts she had left on the chair beside her bed. She had not even bothered to examine the third quilt, so captivated had she been by the journal.

  She rose and made her bed, then spread the Birds in the Air quilt upon it. In the bright light of day, the deterioration seemed worse than she remembered. Some of the triangular pieces had entirely disintegrated, and the binding around the edges hung loose, where it remained at all. The quilting stitches were straight and even, pleasing though unremarkable in their layout, a simple crosshatch of diagonal lines in each block.

  “I should look as good after a century and a half,” remarked Sylvia, amused at her instinct to critique. This was obviously a utilitarian quilt, well used and no doubt well loved—and by a child, judging by the quilt’s small dimensions. The faded colors had been vibrant once, the worn pieces whole and sound and strong. Sylvia found herself admiring the little quilt, and liking the long-ago quiltmaker whose matter-of-factness and pragmatism appeared in every frugal scrap and solid stitch.

  Compared to the Birds in the Air Quilt, the Log Cabin seemed remarkably well preserved. A few small holes along several seams appeared to be the result of the quiltmaker’s large stitches rather than the consequence of heavy usage, and the blurring of the fabric print seemed due to time rather than frequent washing. Frowning, Sylvia studied the quilt from different angles, wondering if it had ever even covered a bed. Families often set aside a special quilt to be used only infrequently by guests, but those quilts were typically the finest in the household. While this quilt had probably been quite comfortable in its day, it was simply not as elegant or as finely made as one would expect for a quilt reserved for company. Perhaps the quiltmaker had rarely used it because she had been disappointed with it—or perhaps she had used it often but had taken especially good care of it because it was her first effort, and thus had great sentimental value. Sylvia didn’t suppose she would ever know for certain.

  Her curiosity whetted, Sylvia carefully unfolded the third quilt and laid it beside the others. It was slightly larger than the Log Cabin quilt, and Sylvia soon found fabrics identical to those in the Birds in the Air quilt. That suggested the same hands had pieced both, but Sylvia wasn’t convinced. The pattern, four patches in a vertical strip set, seemed no more complex than the Birds in the Air or Log Cabin, but only at first glance. By alternating the background fabric in adjacent rows, the quilter had created dark and light stripes, as well as a more difficult project, one with more seams to match and bias edges that might have stretched out of place if she had not been careful. And while the three layers were held together by simple concentric curves, the stitches themselves were smaller and finer, often seeming to disappear into the surface, as if the quilt had been etched with a feather.

  Perhaps the Log Cabin and Birds in the Air quilts had been made earlier, and the third years later, after the quiltmaker had improved her skills. There was no way to say for certain, unless Gerda had written about the quilts in her journal.

  Behind her, a knock sounded on the door leading to the hallway. “Sylvia?”

  “Just a moment.” Sylvia couldn’t resist a quick glance in the mirror as she pulled on her robe. Her hair needed combing, but Andrew knew what she looked like, and he seemed to like her anyway. She opened the door to find him dressed in neatly pressed slacks and a golf shirt. “Well, don’t you look dapper this morning.”

  The compliment clearly pleased him. “And you look pretty, as always.”

  Sylvia laughed as he kissed her cheek. “You say that because you aren’t wearing your glasses.”

  “I say it because it’s true.” He looked past her to the quilts on her bed. “What’s that you have there?”

  “Anneke’s quilts.” She beckoned him inside. “Or so I believe. I’ll need Grace to examine them before I know for certain.”

  Andrew nodded, studying the quilts. “But she can’t know for sure who made them, right? She’ll only be able to tell you how old they are.”

  “Hmph.” Sylvia gave him a sharp look, which she knew he noticed, although he pretended not to
. “Spoilsport. If I know how old they are, then I’ll know who made them. Why would Anneke keep someone else’s quilts in her attic? Honestly, Andrew.”

  He merely shrugged and grinned, used to her moods and her sharp tongue. Sometimes she suspected he baited her for the enjoyment of watching her temper flare, but she liked him too much to stay indignant long. “I suppose you’re right,” admitted Sylvia. “But perhaps Anneke’s sister-in-law will identify the quilter.”

  She returned to the sitting room for the journal, and as Andrew examined it, her eagerness to read the book rekindled. All her life she had wondered about Hans and Anneke Bergstrom, the first of her ancestors to come to the United States. Now part of their history—Gerda’s thoughts in her own words—had been given to her. She told Andrew how she had found it, and was about to show him the troubling passage she had read the previous night when she noticed the time. She ushered Andrew from the room, promising to meet him downstairs for the Farewell Breakfast.

  She readied herself quickly, unwilling to be late for one of her favorite parts of quilt camp. Since Sunday afternoon, the latest group of quilters had enjoyed classes, lectures, and fellowship with new friends and old, and it wouldn’t do to simply send them packing when the week of camp concluded. Instead the campers and staff gathered on the cornerstone patio for one last meal together. After breakfast, they would sit in a circle, as they had seven days earlier for the Candlelight welcome ceremony. This time, each quilter would show off a project she had worked on that week and share a favorite memory of her stay at Elm Creek Manor. For Sylvia, their stories were one of the most gratifying rewards of the business. The campers’ stories never failed to amuse or surprise her, and she was pleased to discover anew how much Elm Creek Quilt Camp meant to her guests.

  Listening to their stories out on the gray stone patio made Sylvia treasure them even more. Surrounded by evergreens and perennials, the patio lay just outside what had once been the main entrance to Elm Creek Manor, back in the days of Hans and Anneke. Tree branches hid the cornerstone engraved “Bergstrom 1858” that had given the patio its name, but Sylvia thought of the marker each time she came there, and remembered how the patio had been her mother’s favorite place on the estate.

  By the time she arrived, the fifty campers and some of her teachers and other staff had already begun breakfast, laughing and chatting one last time together. One of these years we’re going to outgrow the patio, reflected Sylvia as she returned the quilters’ greetings. They might have to move to the north gardens or eat in shifts. The business had grown more rapidly than any of the Elm Creek Quilters had imagined, and what once had been a small camp operated by eight friends had become a thriving company with more than twice the employees and four times the campers of their inaugural year. Sylvia had retired from the day-to-day operations after her stroke nearly two years before, but she knew Sarah and her codirector, Summer Sullivan, valued her opinion and would continue to include her in the major decisions the company encountered.

  Sylvia valued their opinions as well, which was why she couldn’t explain her reluctance to tell them she had found Anneke’s hope chest. Instead she joined in the Farewell Breakfast activities and later bid the campers good-bye as if her only concern was that they had enjoyed themselves, would tell all their friends about Elm Creek Quilt Camp, and would return next year.

  When the manor was empty of all but its permanent residents, Sylvia returned to her room and studied the quilts. Then, abruptly, she decided to put them away, making the excuse that it was to minimize their exposure to light. She carefully refolded the quilts along different lines rather than return the stress to the seams and patches that had borne the burden for more than a century.

  She then placed the quilts and the journal deep in the back of her closet and shut the door on them as if she could blot Gerda’s words from her memory.

  That evening, Sylvia had an unsettling dream about Lucinda. In it, she was a little girl again, sitting on the footstool beside her great-aunt’s chair as Lucinda pieced a LeMoyne Star block.

  “Your great-grandmother Anneke wanted the fugitives to know they would be safe here,” said Lucinda as her needle darted in and out of the fabric, joining two diamond-shaped scraps. “They needed a signal, one that the escaping slaves would recognize but the slave catchers would ignore.”

  “So she made a quilt?” prompted Sylvia, who had heard the story many times.

  Lucinda nodded. “A Log Cabin quilt with black squares where the red or yellow squares belonged. You see, slave catchers thought they knew what signals to look for, so they paid no attention to a quilt hanging out to dry. But the escaping slaves did. They would cross Elm Creek to throw the dogs off their scent, and hide in the woods until Great-Grandmother Anneke hung this special quilt on the clothesline. That told them it was safe to come inside.”

  Suddenly Lucinda set down her quilting and said, “I have something to show you.” She took an object from her pocket and lifted Sylvia onto her lap. “Something secret, something you mustn’t share with anyone, not even your sister or your cousins. Will you promise?”

  Sylvia quickly did, and Lucinda placed a slender brass key in her hands. “Somewhere up in the attic,” said Lucinda, “in the hope chest she brought over from Germany, Great-Grand-mother Anneke hid her Log Cabin quilt. This key opens the trunk.”

  “Why would she hide her quilt?” asked Sylvia, turning the key over in her hands.

  “To keep its secrets safe.”

  “From who? The slave catchers?”

  “From whoever might use them to hurt the people she loved.” Her great-aunt fell silent for a moment. “One day it will be safe to tell those secrets. Maybe you will be the one to tell. Or maybe your granddaughter. I don’t think my mother wanted those secrets kept forever.”

  “Do you know what the secrets are?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  But Lucinda merely smiled and busied herself with her sewing.

  That was where the dream ended, the dream that was really a memory. But the memory had never unsettled Sylvia until she read the troubling words in Gerda’s book. Sylvia had assumed the secrets were about the Underground Railroad, but now she suspected something more lay behind Gerda’s decision to hide the quilts away and to record her secrets in a journal. Why had Lucinda trusted only Sylvia with the key to the trunk? And why had Gerda’s journal not found its way into Lucinda’s stories?

  She woke several hours before dawn, brooding and unable to fall back asleep.

  She dragged herself downstairs to breakfast in the kitchen, for on Sunday mornings, in the absence of the campers, they preferred the more intimate space to the banquet hall. She seated herself, bidding good morning to Sarah, Matt, and her own dear Andrew, who knew at a glance something troubled her. She patted his hand, a silent message that she was all right and would explain later, and fixed a smile to disguise her inner turmoil.

  But she couldn’t fool Sarah. “What’s wrong?” asked the younger woman in an undertone as they left the kitchen after the meal. “You seem upset.”

  Sylvia regarded her fondly. In the years Sylvia had known her, Sarah had changed so much, but that core of compassion and frankness had always been present, and had grown with the passing of time. It was difficult now to remember that when they first met, Sylvia had found Sarah self-absorbed and unduly dissatisfied with her life. Elm Creek Quilts had been good for Sarah, allowing her to truly shine, to learn the great extent of her gifts. Ever since Sylvia’s stroke, when Sarah had been forced to shoulder the greatest burden of day-to-day camp operations, she had transformed from an awkward, somewhat flighty girl into a confident, self-possessed woman.

  Sylvia loved Sarah like a daughter. She owed her nothing less, as Sarah had befriended her after her long, self-imposed exile from her family home, and had saved Elm Creek Manor by proposing they create a quilters’ retreat there. But she had come to love her fellow Elm Creek Quilter Summer Sul
livan, too, and when Sylvia compared the two young women—which she knew she shouldn’t do—she couldn’t help thinking of herself and her elder sister. Claudia, the prettier and more pleasant of the two, had been admired and adored by all, unlike Sylvia, with her moods and tempers. Recalling her and Claudia’s bitter sibling rivalry, Sylvia had feared jealousy might ruin the friendship between Sarah and Summer, especially when Summer had assumed a position nearly equal to Sarah’s with Elm Creek Quilts. To her relief, Sarah and Summer proved themselves to be of stronger character than the two Bergstrom daughters. Sarah preferred to operate behind the scenes, working tirelessly on countless financial and managerial tasks, and never minded that Summer, with her more public role directing the teachers and activities, became the appealing face for the company. Neither envied the other her role or thought her own—or herself—superior.

  “I’m not upset,” answered Sylvia finally, regretting, as she had for most of her life, that she and her sister had not been friends. Gerda’s cryptic remark in the journal hinted that Anneke had known her share of familial conflicts, too, although all the family tales of her and Hans portrayed them with virtues bordering on heroism. It would not be easy to relinquish those golden tales for the truth, but Sylvia wanted her real family, not idealized heroes.

  The longer the ideal remained, the easier it would be to let it linger.

  “What’s bothering you, then?” asked Sarah.

  “Come upstairs with me,” said Sylvia. “I have something to show you.”

  2

  Once Sarah got over her surprise, she berated Sylvia for not telling her about the discovery immediately. Sylvia endured the complaints, figuring she had earned them, but as soon as Sarah paused to catch her breath, Sylvia said, “Are you going to scold me all day, or would you prefer to see the quilts?”