“Let’s go to that Louisiana restaurant they just opened in Hamilton and celebrate.”
“Isn’t that a long way to go for dinner?”
“Yes, but I need catfish,” he responded with a silly grin.
Chapter 24
“I can make this real easy for you, Sarah,” Norman said as he walked around the yard, snapping a twig here and there. “You have an excellent base. You have roses climbing up the fence giving you a glorious backdrop, and they’ll still be in bloom in early September. I’d suggest that you mulch the garden along the fence just to give it a nice fresh look, and then I recommend that you simply add pots of flowers here and there.
“What kind of flowers?”
“Whatever you like. Hydrangeas would look nice, and they come in soft colors, like pink, blue, even white. Even pots of colorful asters would be very striking. Or lilies perhaps? Just whatever you like.”
“Should I be potting the plants now?” Sarah asked, dreading the amount of work Norman was suggesting.
“No, no. Absolutely not! Go to the nursery and have them make the pots up for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pile of business cards which he thumbed through quickly, handing Sarah one. “These folks will put them together for you and deliver them just before the wedding. It’ll cost you a few bucks, but it’s much less stressful than planting now and hoping for results later. And they can also provide flowers for your tables. Are you serving a meal?”
“I’m not sure what she wants to do, so I think I’ll just limit my involvement to the garden. She mentioned a simple garden party, but that’s all up to her.” Norman reached into his pocket and handed her a caterer’s card.
“Tell Martha to call me if she has any questions or needs any help, gratis of course,” he said as he handed her his own card as well. “We’re practically family, you know.”
Sarah, now with a handful of business cards, jerked her head up at his words. Practically family? What did he mean by that? I have to get Sophie talking! She tried to catch her friend’s attention, but Sophie was clearly avoiding eye contact. As they were preparing to leave, Sarah said, “By the way Sophie, tonight is quilt club, and I was hoping you’d pick me up. Charles said my car needs some work.” She was intent on getting her friend alone and in the car she’d have a captive audience.
“Sure,” Sophie responded. “I’ll come by for you at the usual time. Do you know what we’re doing tonight?”
“Nothing special. I got an email this morning saying we should bring UFOs to work on.”
“UFOs?” Norman repeated as both eyebrows jumped up his forehead.
Sophie chuckled, and Sarah responded saying, “It stands for unfinished objects. It refers to those projects we’ve all started and never finished.”
“Why wouldn’t a quilter want to finish her project?” Norman asked, unable to conceive of a project he might start and then not finish.
“Well, sometimes we run out of the right fabric for the project, and sometimes we just lose interest. I started a simple wall hanging two years ago, but I ended up packing it away.”
“I remember that project,” Sophie added, “and you stopped because you said there was a mistake in it, and I offered to take it apart for you.”
“Does that offer still go?” Sarah asked, “Because if it does, I’ll bring it tonight along with my new seam ripper.”
“It’s a deal,” Sophie responded. “And I’ll bring a pile of garden path hexagons for you to slip stitch together for me. I’m hoping to put a large section of the quilt together when you come over tomorrow.”
“See you tonight,” Sarah said as she waved to her friend and her curious cohort.
* * *
As they pulled up in front of Stitches, Sarah reached across Sophie and locked the door. “Okay, you are now my prisoner until you give me the straight scoop.”
“Scoop? Scoop about what?” Sophie asked, looking wide-eyed and innocent.
“You know what I’m talking about. Here you are dating a man that you’ve been very vague about, and now he refers to himself as ‘practically family.’ What’s going on and why are you being so secretive?”
Sophie sat without speaking but had a look on her face that Sarah couldn’t interpret. She looked anxious and distraught. “Are you okay, Sophie?”
“I’m okay, Sarah,” Sophie responded taking a deep breath. “I’m just so embarrassed about what happened last year with Higgy, and I was hoping to keep this whole thing under wraps until I learned more about this man. I figured with him being a wedding planner and our kids getting married, he could just be around without anyone realizing we were dating. I just don’t trust my judgment anymore after that fiasco with Higginbottom.” The previous year, Sophie had become involved with a self-professed author who turned out to be simply an unsuccessful writer of atrocious greeting cards. She hadn’t objected to that aspect of the relationship but ended up being devastated when he turned out to be married to a Las Vegas showgirl with whom he ultimately reunited, leaving Sophie with a broken heart and feeling humiliated.
“Sophie, do I have to remind you what friends are for? You need to trust me. I love you no matter what and I want to be there for you whenever you are hurt or scared or happy or whatever you might be feeling, just like you are for me. Now,” she added, with a mischievous grin, “let’s get down to the nitty-gritty here. How do you feel about this man?”
“I love the attention. And he makes me laugh.”
“Two great things!” Sarah replied. “And?”
“And he really seems to care about me. He’s interested in my quilting and my family. He wants to get to know my friends. So far, so good,” she added with a slight blush. Sarah decided not to push it any farther. She also wanted to give her friend the privacy she needed to explore this new relationship and her own feelings.
“Thank you, Sophie. I was feeling very left out.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to leave you out, Sarah. I’m sorry. I’m just new at all this, you know. I was married to Timmy’s father for nearly fifty years, even though he didn’t know me the last five of those years. Then there was the Higginbottom disaster. I’m just a little hesitant…and then there’s this whole wedding planner thing.”
“What wedding planner thing?”
“Well, don’t you think it’s a little odd for a man to be a wedding planner? My hairdresser was surprised when I told her I was seeing a wedding planner. She said most wedding planners are gay.”
“Sophie, that’s ridiculous. That’s just some silly stereotype. He told us why he chose his career, and I think it said a great deal about him. He loves to make people happy and be with them on special occasions. He seems like a very extraordinary person and an artist of a sort.”
“That’s the way I feel about him too, but I don’t want to rush into anything. I must admit that I’ve been very happy with my life the past years, being free to do what I want, and I love the feeling of being independent and able to take care of myself. It’s just that sometimes I see you and Charles together, and a part of me thinks it would be nice to be part of a couple. I just don’t know…”
“Say no more, my friend. I totally understand. Take your time and keep doing exactly what you’re doing. I just appreciate that you’ve told me what’s going on. Now I won’t be worried about you. Let get to those UFOs,” and they got out of the car and headed into the shop.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Paula wants us to come to her house tomorrow afternoon. She has some information for us.”
Sophie squealed with excitement. “I’ll bring my cards!”
Chapter 25
The next afternoon, Sarah and Sophie arrived at Paula’s full of excitement. Paula was kneeling in her flower bed when they arrived, and she stood and waved. “Come on in,” she called as she headed for the door. “I’m going to wash up, and I’ll meet you two in the kitchen. There’s iced tea in the fridge and glasses are chilling in the freezer. Help yourself to pastries.”
“Take your time,” Sarah called as she stopped to look at the begonias her friend was planting. “Sophie, we need to go to the nursery and begin making arrangements for the pots of flowers. I want the garden to look perfect for the wedding reception.” Correcting herself, she said, “Actually Martha is calling it a garden party and they’ve requested no gifts.”
“Well, they can just forget that one. They are getting at least two gifts, our quilt and your honeymoon trip. Have you and Charles decided where to send them?”
“Charles is working on that one. He has found several excellent packages to the Caribbean. We talked about a cruise, but they don’t want to be away very long. We’re thinking four or five days in the islands, perhaps.”
“Perfect!” Sophie replied.
By the time Paula came into the kitchen dressed in fresh shorts and a tee shirt, Sarah had the tea poured. Paula had prepared the table ahead of time with dessert dishes, napkins, and a plate of assorted pastries covered in plastic wrap. Sophie had already helped herself to a pastry. “Hope you don’t mind,” she mumbled apologetically with a full mouth. Paula gave her a thumbs up and grabbed one for herself before she sat down.
After the three had socialized for a few minutes, Paula reached for her legal pad saying, “I know you’re eager to see what I’ve found. I hope you aren’t going to be disappointed.
Paula glanced at her notes, then looked up at the two women and said, “If Agatha referred to the quilt as a family heirloom, it’s most likely an heirloom from her side of the family. Agatha’s husband, John Tarkington, immigrated to this country from England. He was listed as traveling alone in the 1920s, and I think it’s unlikely that the quilt came from his side of the family.”
“I agree, and we neglected to mention that Harry Wilkinson, the man who told us about Agatha in the first place, thought that she had inherited it from her mother. Did you find anything about Agatha’s side of the family?”
“I did. I was able to find Agatha’s parents, Elizabeth Bell and George Hayes. They were married in 1901 and had one child, Agatha, who was born the next year and died in 1965. By the way, I confirmed that Agatha had no children or siblings. She married John Tarkington when she was twenty, and they were divorced a few years later.”
“Harry told us she died of cancer in her sixties.”
“She did. So then I went back a generation and looked into Agatha’s grandparents. Her grandmother was Annie Dean, born in 1850. Annie married a William Bell in 1870, and they had three babies right away, all stillborn. Then Elizabeth, Agatha’s mother, was born in 1877.”
“None of this tells us anything about who made the quilt,” Sophie interjected sounding discouraged.
“Well, we’re getting there…not necessarily to the quilt, but I was able to go back one more step, and I found one interesting thing that might help you.”
“What’s that?”
Annie’s parents, Agatha’s great-grandparents were Madeline Rainey and John Dean. They were both born in 1820, married in 1842, and had four children. The oldest were twin boys, Nathan and Matthew born in 1844. Then there was Annie who was born in 1850, and there was a baby boy Nicholas who died at age two.
“So this gets us back to just prior to the Civil War, but what about the quilt?” Sophie asked again. “I don’t see how this helps.”
“None of this directly helps, but let me tell you the one thing I found of interest in the 1850’s census. The Dean household which by then included Madeline and John, the twin boys, and baby girl Annie, also included a twenty-two-year-old woman named Mabel who was listed as Madeline’s sister. It wasn’t uncommon for unmarried women to be living either with their parents or their siblings at that time. Also, Madeline died young, and Mabel may have been helping with the children.
“And how does this help us?” Sophie asked, but then noticed that Sarah seemed to have caught on.
“So there may be another line of family members we could be considering,” Sarah announced, “assuming this Mabel married at some point.”
“That’s exactly it. I started going in the other direction and tracked Mabel back down the line and found that she has a great-great-great-granddaughter living right here in Middletown.”
“If Agatha had family here in town, wouldn’t she have known about her?” Sophie asked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Paula responded. “Strange things happen within families. They were a small family and may have never known about one another. Agatha would have been much younger. At any rate, I have her name and address for you if you’d like to contact her. There’s always the chance that she knows something about the family. She would be a distant cousin of Agatha Tarkington, but she’s in her nineties and apparently, from what you’ve told me, never met Agatha.”
“It sounds pretty unlikely that she’ll have any information about an obscure cousin’s family history, but it’s worth a try,” Sarah responded with a hint of disappointment.
Paula wrote out the contact information for her friend and said she hoped it would lead to something. “I know how badly you want to find out about your quilt, but this is the kind of information that gets lost over time. We’re talking about more than 150 years.”
Sarah thanked Paula profusely for all her help and Sophie gathered up her 3x5 cards which she had brought in order to record all the new information.
“What next?” Sophie asked as they were getting into the car. She pulled the 3x5 card out of her bundle where she had transcribed the woman’s name and address.
“Virginia Binning,” she read. “1300 Oakmont Drive. Isn’t that just on the other side of Ruth’s quilt shop? Like three or four streets toward town?”
“I think you’re right. I don’t want to just stop by, but let’s drive by there on our way home. I need some batting for my hexagon table topper so we can stop by Running Stitches while we’re over there.”
The house was a small white frame with a large maple tree in the front yard. There was neatly trimmed ivy planted under the tree and a garden bench beneath the far-reaching limbs. The front porch extended the width of the house and was decorated with potted coleus and geraniums. A petite, gray-haired woman was sitting in the porch swing apparently concentrating on some sort of handwork.
“Should we stop?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t feel comfortable just stopping by, Sophie. I don’t want to catch the woman totally off guard. I’ll call her later this afternoon and perhaps we can see her tomorrow.” She turned around at the next intersection and drove up the street to the fabric shop.”
“Virginia Binning? Of course I know Virginia,” Ruth responded with a warm smile. “She’s been a customer of mine for years, in fact, as long as I’ve been open. She was one of my first customers. Why do you ask?”
“Her name has come up in my search for the history of the Memories quilt.” Sarah decided not to share any more of the story until she spoke with Virginia personally. “She’s a quilter?”
“She sure is. She pieces and quilts by hand and does gorgeous work. When I first opened, she did classes for me in hand piecing, but over time there seemed to be less and less demand. Everyone wanted to work by machine so they could get things made quickly. Virginia always wanted to take her time and quilt the way her family had before her.”
Sarah’s ears perked up at that, hoping that this woman was going to have some information for her. She headed home to make the call.
Chapter 26
“Why sure,” the woman responded enthusiastically after Sarah explained that she was trying to track down the history of an old quilt. She hadn’t gone into the family connections, saving that for when they got together. “I’d be happy to have you and your friend come by.”
“When would be a good time?” Sarah asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon would work best for me. I have a few doctor appointments this week, but I’m free tomorrow. Could you come around three in the afternoon? I try to take a short nap after lunch.”
�
�That sounds fine. We’ll bring the quilt and see you then.”
“Now, I don’t want to get your hopes up,” Virginia added. “I don’t know much about vintage quilts, although I have a few here you might like to see. I’ll get them out before you come.”
* * *
The next afternoon, Sarah arrived alone. Sophie had made plans with Norman that she offered to cancel, but Sarah encouraged her to go on out with Norman, and she’d fill her in on everything she learned. “I don’t expect much,” Sarah had said, knowing it was unlikely this distant relative would know anything about the quilt.
Virginia had iced tea ready when Sarah arrived, and she apologized about the lack of air conditioning. “This old house usually stays pretty cool, but it’s unusually hot this week.” They chatted for a while, mostly about quilting and about Virginia’s long relationship with Ruth and Running Stitches. Finally Virginia said, “Let’s see that quilt of yours.
When Sarah pulled the quilt out of the bag, Virginia gasped, placing her hand over her heart as the color drained from her face.
“Are you okay?” Sarah exclaimed, hurrying to her side. “Should I call someone?”
“No, I’m okay. It was just a shock to see that quilt.”
“Why is that?” Sarah asked, leading Virginia to the couch and placing a pillow behind her and reaching for her glass of tea.
“Hand me that box please,” Virginia said once she caught her breath. “I have something to show you.”
“Are you sure you can handle this?” Sarah asked, still very concerned about the frail woman.
“Yes, I’ll be fine. You’ll understand in a minute.”
Sarah placed the box on the couch next to Virginia, wiping away some of the dust with her hand.
“Sorry. It’s been in the attic for years,” Virginia explained. “I went up for it last night. I couldn’t believe the number of old things up there I should have gotten rid of years ago…” but she stopped talking and turned her attention to the box. She removed the string which held it closed. “After my mother died, I found this box in the back of her closet. It was dust covered as if it had been there for many years. Apparently, it had been passed down to her as well.”
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