Buried in Quilts

by Sara Hoskinson Frommer

Looking at the slender woman whose head scarcely reached Fred’s shoulder, Joan remembered seeing Mary Sue standing nose to nose with Leon. Kitty was right, she thought. She would have had a hard time hitting Mary Sue with a sadiron. With a poker, maybe. But the old inn’s fireplace was missing all its interesting equipment.

  And all the things Fred had been saying to Kitty could apply to Leon, only more so. She couldn’t keep quiet another minute.

  “Fred, I don’t believe it,” she heard herself saying. “Kitty was sure she wasn’t in Edna’s will. Why would she want to find proof that she wasn’t? The longer they didn’t find it, the longer she could put off having to find a new home.” Fred didn’t answer.

  “But she was in it,” Leon told her.

  “She was?”

  Kitty looked at the floor.

  “It’s true,” Alice said. “Mother left Kitty the house and a cash bequest and an equal share with the rest of us in all her personal possessions.”

  “Including the quilts,” said Harold. “That’s why we came over here.”

  Meanwhile, Rebecca had been studying Edna’s quilts.

  “Here’s a new one nobody has cut into yet,” she said.

  Joan recognized the homely patchwork Ruby and the other woman had been clucking about. Fred went over to Rebecca.

  “Is this the only one?” he asked her.

  “I think so,” she said. “It’s certainly the most likely one. All the others look older. Not just from the fabrics, but from the quilting stitches. The very last quilting Edna did was on that orchestra quilt. These stitches are almost as long as those—nothing like her earlier work. You can see how beautifully even and fine they are on a dozen of the others.”

  “Then let’s get someone up here with scissors,” he said.

  “No!” Kitty cried.

  “Now, Kitty,” Alice said. “If Mother hid something in there, we need to know what it is.”

  “No, you don’t,” Kitty said stubbornly.

  “Maybe there’s another will,” Leon said. You hope, Joan thought.

  “Or maybe Mom’s right,” said Rebecca. “Maybe this thing is hiding the missing quilt. I’ll find some scissors.” She went out.

  “There’s no missing quilt,” Alice said. You’re probably right, Joan thought, sighed, and waited. In what seemed like no time Rebecca was back, with the tall, skinny woman from the Indiana Quilt Project in tow.

  “I’m looking forward to these quilts,” she said. “I hear it’s the first time they’ve been exhibited anywhere.”

  “That’s right,” said Alice. “Mother was very protective of them.”

  “More like secretive,” Leon said.

  “But what’s this about wanting to cut one up?” the woman asked. “Surely you don’t mean it.”

  “Not cut it up,” Alice said. “We just want to look inside it. We’ll be careful not to damage it.”

  The woman looked at the ugly duckling, holding it out and examining the quilting stitches showing through on the back side.

  “Oh,” she said. “I think you ought to be able to do that. This one would be easy to repair.” She pulled a little pair of sharply pointed sewing scissors out of her pocket and held them out.

  “No!” Kitty said again.

  “I couldn’t,” Alice said. Leon and Harold shook their heads. Joan put her hands behind her back, and Rebecca just smiled.

  “I guess that leaves me,” the woman said. “Well, I’m as curious as the next person.” She hardly had to stretch to cut the basting threads and release the quilt from the muslin sleeve on the high pole. But then, cradling it, she looked around.

  “I need a place to spread it out,” she said. “I can’t very well lay it on the floor.”

  Joan remembered how it had looked spread over Mary Sue’s body. It wouldn’t be the first time, she thought gloomily, and wondered who had hung it up again. But Fred spoke up.

  “There’s a table and chairs next door.” So they all trooped past the hall sitter to the next room.

  The quilt project woman slid the tips of the scissors under the seamed edge of the binding, skillfully cutting only the threads that attached it to the edge from which it had been hanging.

  “Don’t,” Kitty whispered, when she quickly nicked several of the sparse lines of running stitches at short intervals. The first threads were just coming loose when Kitty went to pieces, lunging at her and screaming, “Stop it! It’s mine! You have no right!”

  Startled, the woman stepped back immediately, and the hall sitter stuck her head in. But Fred grabbed Kitty by the shoulders and gestured to the woman to continue while he held Kitty back.

  “We have every right,” he told them both. “It’s evidence found at the scene of a crime. What’s in it?”

  “Just a little more, and we should be able to see,” the woman said, pulling on a thread and peeling back the edge.

  “Oh!” Rebecca exclaimed over her shoulder. “It is here!”

  “What’s here?” Alice asked.

  “I’m not sure,” the quilt project woman said slowly. “But if the rest is anything like this, it’s a treasure.”

  Gift of Love

  A treasure. The dollar signs sparkled in Harold’s lenses, and Leon was grinning openly.

  “I can’t believe it. Burying this in that old thing.” Shaking her head, the quilt project woman snipped longer and longer threads to speed up the work. Rebecca, her eyes wide, helped her pull the threads and peel the top back, gradually revealing an all-white quilt that far surpassed anything Joan had ever seen.

  “Ohhhh,” marveled the hall sitter, clasping her white gloves.

  Kitty was sobbing quietly now. Tears streamed down her face. “You have no right,” she repeated in a whisper. It sounded like an echo—of what?

  “According to the will—” Alice began, but Kitty cut her off.

  “It wasn’t in the will. It was mine!”

  “She’s right,” Joan said. “Look at the label. Edna gave her this quilt—insides and all—before she died.” And she knew why the whispered words had echoed. She had heard them first in this very room, through the vibrant Double Wedding Ring quilt now hanging on the wall. It had to be Kitty who had whispered “You have no right” with such passion. But who was the other whisperer? Who had said “I know what she left me”—Alice? Maybe. But how could Alice be so sure? She hadn’t visited her mother for more than a year before her death. Who would Edna have thought could talk the hind leg off a mule—Leon? Ahh. The shoe fit. Joan knew Leon’s charm all too well. He could probably charm Edna, she thought. But not even Leon could sweet-talk Mary Sue out of anything that mattered. So he killed her to try to get what he wanted—not realizing that it would belong to Kitty after all.

  She caught Fred’s eye over Kitty’s head and pointed to the Double Wedding Ring, hoping he’d remember the rest. He raised a questioning palm.

  Now what? It doesn’t make sense to suggest a private chat—even as quiet as Kitty is now, he can’t very well let go of her. Or can he?

  “Fred, we need to talk.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Right here in front of God and everybody?”

  Fred just smiled at her. Well, all right.

  “You remember I told you about hearing two people whispering up here?” He nodded. “And what they said?” Another nod. “Kitty’s saying it again today. The first one had to be Kitty.”

  “Right.”

  “And the other one …” She tilted her head toward Leon. But the quilt project woman spoke up.

  “Could someone go after the other participants in this afternoon’s panel? They really ought to see this quilt in situ.”

  “In what?” asked the hall sitter.

  “You’ll do,” Fred told her. “Do you know who she means?”

  “Yes, I was there.”

  “Then go get them.” The woman hesitated. “And while you’re at it, bring up the police officer on duty downstairs.”

  “Oh, I will, I will.” Re
assured, she bustled out.

  “So it wasn’t Kitty who was cutting into the quilts at all,” Joan continued doggedly. “She’d never risk damaging this one—she must have known all along it was there. But we know Leon was looking for his mother’s will. Maybe he even found it, and when he saw how much less he’d get than the courts would have given him if she’d died intestate, he burned it in the Franklin stove. Then he pretended there wasn’t any.” Leon shook his head and stared at her with hound-dog eyes.

  “I thought you knew me better than that,” he said. Joan couldn’t meet his eyes. What if she was wrong? After all, Alice and Harold would have had the same motive for destroying Edna’s will. Leon turned his back on her. Confused now, she fell silent and watched the table.

  Sooner than seemed possible, the white-on-white quilt lay entirely exposed, a wonder of hearts, pineapples, and cornucopias overflowing with apples, cherries, and grapes, all connected by twining grapevines. No longer concerned with protecting its outer covering, the quilt project woman had pulled a pair of clear plastic gloves from her pocket and was now spreading it smoothly on the narrow table and examining it section by section.

  “How old would you say it is?” Rebecca folded the outer patchwork down at one end. Its backing protected the white quilt from the table.

  “At least a hundred, but probably much older. It’s superb.”

  “Is it a bride’s quilt, do you think?”

  “Almost certainly. And it comes from a family well enough off that the young woman could devote many hours and many yards of fabric to a white cover that was never intended for much real use. Even so, you can see signs of wear here—and here. All in all, it’s remarkably well preserved.”

  “It’s mine,” Kitty whispered.

  “How very fortunate you are, my dear,” the woman said, stroking a padded heart. “Do you know its history? Did it come down in your family?”

  How can you ask her that? Joan thought. Haven’t you heard a thing? But maybe not—you’ve been so intent on what you were uncovering.

  The rest of the afternoon’s speakers arrived then and began poring over every inch of the discovery. Fred stepped back and let them protect it. He posted the uniformed officer—a woman—outside the door and stood quietly just inside it. With no one challenging her claim, Kitty calmed down. She actually seemed to be enjoying the attention her treasure was receiving and the questions the experts were asking her.

  “Edna Ellett and my mother were first cousins on the Berry side—my mother was a Berry,” she explained. “Old Rachel Berry—the one they tell the war story about—was their great-great-grandmother, our great-great-great-grandmother. She passed it down to Edna, who gave it to me. Edna always said she wanted it to stay in the family.” She looked daggers at Alice and Harold.

  “This is outrageous!” Alice said. “You must have used undue influence on Mother. Everyone knows she wasn’t clear in her mind these last few years.”

  “She didn’t know what she was doing,” said Harold.

  “She knew exactly what she was doing,” Kitty said sharply. “You would have sold it to the highest bidder, and she knew I wouldn’t.” Joan wondered how many thousands it could bring on the open market.

  “You wouldn’t?” Alice said. “Just what are you planning to live on?”

  “I don’t need much. Maybe I’ll do for other old people whose families aren’t up to it. Edna was always grateful for the least little kindness.”

  If Mary Sue ever said anything that saccharine it would have been to slam Alice, Joan thought. From Kitty, I believe it. But how were things really between Kitty and Edna? Alice might be right—a grateful old lady would be easy pickings for an unscrupulous caretaker, especially after she was no longer herself. I wish I’d seen more of Edna in those last months. I wonder how long ago she hid this antique. Not at the very last—even quilting that simple patchwork by herself must have taken a long time. Besides, if Rebecca’s right about those stitches she’s just been taking out, they were better than what Edna was able to do by then. But knowing when she hid it away doesn’t tell us when she gave it away. Leon said his mother played her cards close to her chest. Looks as if she trusted Kitty more than she did her own children. Was she right?

  Kitty was starting the tale of how Rachel rescued Abner from the pile of corpses. Leon couldn’t resist a story, and soon the whole family was adding details as if nothing had happened.

  “Wonderful!” said the historical society woman. “I wonder whether this quilt goes back that far. Did Rachel make any others?”

  “We don’t know that she made this one,” Alice said. “But Mother always said several of her old ones came from Rachel.”

  “This one is special,” Rebecca said. “Look at the detail, and the trapunto.” She tilted her head to one side to get the full impact of the padding. “Oh, look,” she said. “Down here in the border. There’s writing in the quilting, very small.”

  “Does it say Rachel Berry?” Alice asked.

  “I can’t really see. It looks like a couple of names and a date.” Rebecca stepped back, yielding her view to the experts.

  “SARAH BERRY, 1805,” the Indiana Quilt Project woman read aloud. “I knew it was old, but this is wonderful. No wonder your mother wanted it to stay in the family.”

  “And the other name?” Alice asked. There was a long pause.

  “I don’t believe it,” said the Indiana woman finally. She held up the corner of the quilt to the raking light. “It’s mighty little. You look,” she said to the Kentucky woman.

  “N. Hanks,” the Kentucky woman read. “N. Hanks in 1805? Nancy Hanks? It could be.”

  “You’re talking about Abe Lincoln’s mother?” Joan could hardly believe her ears. “This is signed by Abe Lincoln’s mother?”

  “You’re very lucky,” the historical society woman said to Kitty. “If this is genuine, it’s priceless.”

  Joan remembered hearing something about a Lincoln letter in the Ellett family. Maybe it wasn’t a letter at all, she thought.

  “So that’s how the Kentucky Berrys ended up with something to do with Lincoln,” she said. “It had nothing to do with the war.”

  “Kentucky Berrys—of course,” said the Kentucky woman.

  “Then it can’t be the right Nancy Hanks,” said the Indiana woman.

  “Yes, it can,” said the Kentucky woman. “She lived with the Berry family in Washington County, Kentucky, before she married Tom Lincoln there in 1806—as I live and breathe, it is.”

  “Not according to Herndon. He said she lived with the Swallows.”

  They stared at each other. Joan wondered whom they were talking about.

  “These days most scholars agree that she grew up with her wealthy Berry cousins in Washington County,” the historical society woman said. “Herndon was neither her contemporary nor a scholar—I never did believe him. But even Herndon agrees with everyone else that she excelled at needlework. Now here’s a Berry name linked with hers, and the date’s right. And people wonder what historical value quilts have!”

  “Not to mention its monetary value,” said Harold. “We really must ask you to assess that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kitty said. “It’s mine, and it’s not for sale.”

  “If you can prove that Edna really did give it to you before she died,” he said. “We have only your word for that.”

  For once, the Elletts were united.

  “That’s it,” Leon said to Kitty. “It wasn’t Mom who hid the Hanks quilt—it was you!”

  “You made that patchwork top,” Alice said. “You knew no one would want it if it didn’t look like much. You gave it to yourself.”

  Bull’s Eye

  It made a certain sense. Kitty had had ample opportunity to slap together an undistinguished top and back and quilt it poorly, so that no one would challenge her claim to Edna’s greatest treasure. But why had she bothered to mention Edna at all? If she had just said, “I made this one,” no one would h
ave paid any attention to it.

  Oh sure, Joan answered herself. And how would she have accounted for the Berry/Hanks quilt when she later “discovered” it? I suppose she could have claimed that it came to her through her own mother, if she really was a Berry. The Elletts haven’t questioned the part about her mother—that must be right. So why not do that in the first place? Why this convoluted pretense about a gift from Edna, unless it’s not a pretense at all, but the truth?

  Around the table the quilt people, apparently oblivious to the confrontation between Kitty and the Elletts, were concerned with establishing the authenticity of the N. Hanks signature.

  “Who was Sarah Berry?” asked the Indiana woman. “I never heard of her.”

  “Sarah was Nancy’s best friend,” said the Kentucky woman. “Maid of honor at her wedding. Nancy named Abe’s older sister Sarah after her.”

  “Wrong Sarah,” said the historical society woman. “That was her cousin Sarah Shipley, who also lived with the Berrys. I think there was a Sarah in the Berry family, but I don’t remember anything about her descendants.”

  “Maybe she never married.”

  “Maybe that’s why her wedding quilt stayed with the Berrys.”

  “It doesn’t have a red-and-green Kentucky binding.”

  “Those came later.”

  And on and on. Joan’s head swam. She wondered what Fred was making of all this as he stood back and let it flow. Rebecca, at first fascinated, soon left the table and came over to her.

  “Mom,” Rebecca said quietly. “You and I know it’s not true.”

  “Huh?” What did Rebecca know about Nancy Hanks?

  “I’m going to tell Fred that Kitty didn’t hide that quilt.”

  Her voice was soft, but Fred’s antennae must have been out. “What was that?” he said, and came over to them.

  “Kitty didn’t hide it,” Rebecca said. “Only we’ve just destroyed the evidence.”

  “You’d better explain,” he said.

  For the second time that day, Rebecca sped him through a concise explanation of long and short quilting stitches.

  “Kitty couldn’t possibly have done the work we just pulled out of the patchwork,” she ended. “Ordinary as it was, it was so far beyond hers that there’s no doubt. I can show you her work downstairs.”