After dinner was served, Uncle George rose and cleared his throat. “I know it’s customary for Father to make the first toast on Christmas Eve,” he said, with a nod to Grandpa, “but tonight I have a very special announcement, and I think Millie might burst if we don’t share our secret with you at once.”
Sylvia looked at her aunt and saw to her surprise that her face shone with happiness, though her eyes brimmed with tears. Aunt Millie reached for Elizabeth’s hand and held it tightly. An expectant murmur went up from the table, but Sylvia’s eyes were fixed on Elizabeth as she leaned over to speak encouragingly in her mother’s ear, then, with a quick smile for her friend, turned her attention to her father.
“Many of you have known Henry longer than I have since he grew up around here, and I’m sure you’re all aware of what a fine young man he is.” He cleared his throat. Sylvia stared. Was he going to cry? “What you may not know is that he has become like a son to me. He tells me he loves my daughter, and my daughter assures me the feeling is mutual. It must be, because he asked her to marry him and she said she would. So please join me in wishing health and happiness to the beautiful bride-to-be and the luckiest man in the world.”
The joyous clamor that followed was so deafening that Sylvia stuffed her fingers in her ears. She felt ill. If Henry came to live at Elm Creek Manor, Sylvia would never have her cousin to herself. Everyone else seemed so happy, even Aunt Millie, who was crying, but Sylvia could not imagine anything worse than allowing Henry to join the family.
A few days after Christmas—a hollow, anxious day in which the joy of the season was unbearable and even the presents Santa had left beneath the tree could not lighten her heart—Sylvia discovered that there was more to Elizabeth’s wedding than she could have imagined.
She was playing with her toy horses and stable, a gift from Santa, when Elizabeth came to the nursery. “Hello, Sylvia,” she said, tucking her skirt beneath her as she sat on the floor beside her. “Why have you been hiding up here all alone?”
“I’m not hiding, just playing,” said Sylvia. “Where’s Henry?”
“He’s in the stable with your father and Uncle George, looking after the horses.”
Sylvia knew what that meant. If her father and uncles were willing to share the secrets of Bergstrom Thoroughbreds with Henry, they already considered him part of the family. “I don’t think the horses like strangers in their stables. He should go home.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, Sylvia. You don’t like Henry very much, do you?”
Sylvia shook her head.
“Well, I do. He’s my very best friend in the world, and it would make me very happy if you could learn to like him, too.
Do you think you could try?”
“I don’t think so.”
Elizabeth sighed and drew Sylvia onto her lap. “Please? As a special wedding present to me?”
Sylvia thought about it. “If he promises to let me sit by you sometimes at dinner. And even after he comes to live here he should go away for a little while sometimes and let us play alone the way we always do.”
Elizabeth went still. “Henry isn’t coming to live here,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”
Sylvia shook her head, suddenly hopeful. If Henry wasn’t moving in, then maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all. Sylvia could pretend he and Elizabeth weren’t even married.
“But the day after Christmas we explained—” Elizabeth inhaled deeply. “But maybe you were too angry to listen. Darling, Henry and I won’t be living at Elm Creek Manor after the wedding.”
Sylvia twisted her head to peer into her cousin’s face. She knew at once that Elizabeth was not teasing her. “Where are you going to live? Close?” If Elizabeth told her they were going to live with Uncle George and Aunt Millie, Sylvia thought she might burst into tears. They lived in Pennsylvania, too, but many miles away, in Erie.
Elizabeth held her tightly. “Henry bought a ranch out in California. We’ll be leaving the day after the wedding, in the spring.”
Sylvia’s throat closed up around her grief. She scrambled out of Elizabeth’s lap and fled the room, ignoring her cousin’s pleas.
Sylvia didn’t want to believe that Elizabeth was telling the truth, but the other grown-ups soon confirmed it. Worse yet, the wedding was not going to take place next spring, but this coming spring, barely three months away. After discovering this, Sylvia ran to her mother and begged her to make Elizabeth change her mind.
“I couldn’t even if I wished to,” Sylvia’s mother told her gently. “Henry and Elizabeth want to make a life for themselves out in California. We will all miss them very much, but they’ve made their decision.”
“Can’t we make them wait?” cried Sylvia. “Why do they have to get married so soon? Can’t they wait until next year?”
“Why should they wait?” interrupted Claudia. “They love each other, and weddings are so beautiful. Didn’t you hear, Sylvia? Elizabeth said we could be flower girls.”
“I don’t want to be a flower girl!”
“Well, I do, and I won’t let you spoil it.” Claudia tossed her head. “You’re just jealous because Elizabeth likes Henry more than you.”
“She does not,” shouted Sylvia. “I’m her favorite. She hid the Christmas star especially for me! She put it under my pillow where no one else would find it.”
Claudia’s eyes narrowed. “I knew you were too little to find that star all by yourself so fast. You cheated!”
“I did not!”
“You did so. Tell her, Mama. Tell her she and Elizabeth both cheated.”
“We didn’t cheat. It was just helping.”
“Now, girls,” their mother said. “Claudia, you can see your sister is upset. Let’s not make things worse.”
“But it’s not fair.”
“We can discuss that another time.”
Sylvia tugged at her mother’s hand. “Will you tell Elizabeth to wait? Please?”
In reply, Sylvia’s mother shook her head sadly and reached out to console her, but Sylvia broke free of her embrace and ran off to find Great-Aunt Lucinda. Everyone listened to her. If she asked Elizabeth to wait another year, Elizabeth would do it, no matter how Henry complained.
She found Lucinda in the front parlor lost in thought as she worked on her Christmas Quilt. Reluctant to annoy the only member of the family likely to help her, Sylvia crept up to her softly and sat on the floor at her feet, resting her head against the ottoman. Lucinda offered her a brief smile but kept her eyes on her work. Sylvia watched as Lucinda joined one row of star points to others she had already assembled, her needle darting through the bright fabric, in and out, joining the pieces together. Before long she tied a knot at the end of the seam and laid the finished block on her lap, pressing it flat with her palms. Sylvia was struck suddenly by the similarity between the Feathered Star blocks her great-aunt had made and the star on top of their Christmas tree, the star Elizabeth had left beneath her pillow.
Silently she counted the blocks in the pile next to her great-aunt’s sewing basket, remembering to add the one on her lap. “That makes six.”
“Yes, that’s right. Six down, fourteen to go.” With a sigh, Lucinda gathered her sewing tools and returned them to her basket. “But they will have to wait for another day.”
Sylvia’s heart sank, and she had not thought it could go any lower. “Why? Why are you putting it away?”
“I don’t have time to work on my Christmas Quilt now that your cousin is getting married,” said Lucinda. “We have so much to do, and far less than the usual time to do it. I must help your Aunt Millie make the wedding gown, and of course we must have a wedding quilt, as well as a few good, sturdy quilts for every day and all the other things your cousin will need to take with her to California.”
Sylvia chose her words carefully. “Maybe if you told Elizabeth you won’t have enough time to finish all the sewing, she’ll wait until next year to get married.”
Lucinda laughed. “Oh,
I see. That’s a very clever plan, but I’m afraid it won’t work. Henry has his heart set on leaving as soon as fair weather arrives. We’ll have a wedding at the end of March whether we like it or not, so you and I will have to make the best of it.”
Sylvia felt a small stirring of hope. Great-Aunt Lucinda wasn’t completely happy about the wedding, either. Perhaps Sylvia had found an ally.
But then Lucinda dashed her hopes. “Don’t worry, Sylvia.
We’ll get to your quilting lessons soon enough.”
Sylvia could not speak for her despair. Great-Aunt Lucinda thought that Sylvia cared only for her quilting lessons, and worse yet, she intended to join in on the work that would hasten cousin Elizabeth’s departure.
Sylvia was on her own.
New Year’s Day came. Most of the relatives returned to their own homes at the close of the Christmas season, but Elizabeth remained at Elm Creek Manor. This would have pleased Sylvia had she not known that she had stayed on for Henry, not for her favorite little cousin. Sylvia kept close to Elizabeth when her fiancé was not around, but as soon as he showed up, Sylvia ran off to the nursery or to the west sitting room, where her mother often sat reading or simply enjoying the afternoon sun and the view of Elm Creek. Her mother had a weak heart, the lingering consequence of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. She often had to rest, but she was never too tired to offer Sylvia a hug or tell her a story.
But as the winter snows melted and buds began to form on the elm trees surrounding the manor, even her mother became so caught up in the preparations for the wedding that she had little time to comfort a sulky daughter.
On one rare occasion when Sylvia and Elizabeth were alone, Sylvia asked her, “Why do you want to go away from home?”
“You’ll understand someday, little Sylvia.” Elizabeth smiled and hugged her, but there were tears in her eyes. “Someday you’ll fall in love, and you’ll know that home is wherever he is.”
“Home is here,” Sylvia insisted. “It will always be here.”
Elizabeth gave a little laugh and held her close. “Yes, Sylvia, you’re right.”
Happily, Sylvia realized that finally her cousin had come to her senses and had decided to stay. But when Elizabeth rose and ran off to the sitting room when Aunt Millie called her to a dress fitting, Sylvia’s joy fled. Elizabeth intended to marry Henry, even though it was obvious she did not really wish to leave home. It was all his fault; Elizabeth wouldn’t be going anywhere if not for him.
Sylvia realized that the only way to keep Elizabeth close was to drive Henry away.
From that moment on, Sylvia did all she could to prevent the wedding. She hid Aunt Millie’s scissors so that she could not work on the wedding gown, but Aunt Millie simply borrowed Lucinda’s. She stole the keys to Elizabeth’s red steamer trunk and flung them into Elm Creek so that she could not pack her belongings. She refused to try on her flower girl dress no matter how the aunts wheedled and coaxed, until they were forced to make a pattern from the frock she had worn on Christmas. In one last, desperate effort, she told Henry that she hated him, that he was not allowed to sit in her chair at the dinner table ever again, and that everyone in the family including Elizabeth wished he would just go away, but they were too polite to say it.
Her efforts were entirely unsuccessful, of course. In late March, Elizabeth and Henry married and moved to California. Sylvia treasured every letter her beloved cousin sent her, even as they appeared less and less frequently over the years, until they finally stopped coming.
Sylvia never saw Elizabeth again. She often wondered what had become of her, why she had stopped writing. If Claudia had kept in touch with Elizabeth or her descendants, Sylvia had found no record of their correspondence in her sister’s papers.
Sarah interrupted her reverie. “What do you think?” she asked, admiring her arrangement of the various pieces of the Christmas Quilt and looking to Sylvia for approval.
Sylvia dared not look at the quilt blocks for fear of what other memories they would call forth. “I think it’s time to finish decorating.” She rose from her chair and left the room without waiting to see if Sarah followed.
Chapter Two
AFEW MINUTES LATER, Sarah joined Sylvia in the foyer, where Sylvia had busied herself sorting the dining room linens from decorations that belonged elsewhere in the manor. “I couldn’t reach Matt on the cell phone to remind him to bring home a tree,” said Sarah. “We might have to cut down our own after all.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I’d prefer to suit all of us.”
“Since I don’t care one way or the other, whatever suits you will be fine with me.” Sylvia stooped over to pick up a napkin holder shaped like a sprig of ivy. Once it had belonged to a set of twenty-four, but Sylvia would be satisfied if she could find three, one for each of the current residents of Elm Creek Manor. It was a pity they had decided not to run their quilters’ retreat all year instead of only March through October. A dozen or so quilt campers certainly would liven up the place, and with their help, she and Sarah would make quick work of all the decorating Sarah apparently still had her heart set on, despite the new distraction of the quilt.
“Decorating the entire manor seems too ambitious considering ering our late start,” said Sylvia. “Why don’t we concentrate on only those rooms we use the most?”
Sarah mulled over the suggestion as if uncertain whether it was a practical idea or a plot to keep her from decorating as lavishly as she wished. “I guess that’s a good idea,” she said, clearly reluctant to abandon her original vision. “What rooms do you suggest?”
“The foyer, of course, since we have already begun, and to make a good impression on any visitors.”
“Were you expecting visitors?”
“No, but one never knows at this time of the year.” And one could always hope. Perhaps some of the Elm Creek Quilters might drop by if they found a lull in their family activities. “We could invite your mother.”
“No way. Not a good idea.”
On the contrary, it was a wonderful idea, such a perfect solution that Sylvia could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. “Why on earth not?”
“For one reason, among many, I’m sure she’s made other plans by now.”
Sylvia doubted it. Sarah was Carol Mallory’s only child, and she had sent at least one letter asking Sarah to come home. She had also phoned twice that Sylvia knew of. “If she has made other plans, she’s free to decline our invitation, but at the very least we ought to give her that opportunity.”
“It’s too late,” Sarah insisted. “Even if she could drop everything the moment we call, she would still have to pack and make that long drive. She wouldn’t arrive until late tonight. We’d have Christmas morning together, but she’d have to leave by midafternoon so she can be home at a reasonable hour. She has to get up early for work the next day.”
“How do you know she has to work?”
“She always works the day after Christmas,” said Sarah flatly. “She always takes the early shift at the hospital to give another nurse the chance to take the day off. My mother would rather take the overtime than sleep in. It’s our own family Christmas tradition.”
Thinking of how long Sarah’s widowed mother had been the sole provider for their small family, Sylvia said, “Perhaps it was a matter of needing rather than merely wanting the over-time.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. She could have taken it any other day, though. Why take it the day after Christmas, when I was on school break and all my friends were busy with their families?”
Despite the sympathy evoked by images of a young Sarah left alone at home on the day after Christmas, Sylvia shook her head in disapproval. Sarah seemed incapable of seeing anything from her mother’s point of view. She claimed it was too late to invite Carol to come for Christmas, but anyone with any sense could see she was just making excuses.
Sarah had turned away and had busied herself with sorting through a box of Chris
tmas stocking hangers the Bergstroms had once lined up on the fireplace mantel each St. Nicholas Day. “After the foyer, where else should we decorate?”
Sylvia muffled a sigh, recognizing Sarah’s attempt to change the subject but unwilling to pursue the matter. “The west sitting room. Perhaps we can move the armchair and set up the tree in the corner.”
“Is that where your family usually put it up?”
“No, we used the ballroom, but in those days we needed the extra space to accommodate family and guests. The west sitting room would be much cozier for the three of us.” The ballroom had been subdivided into classrooms for the quilt camp, too, and Sylvia didn’t relish moving all of the partitions.
Sarah nodded and gestured toward the red-and-green tartan table linens. “What about the dining room?”
“Oh, let’s decorate the kitchen and eat there as we always do. The tablecloth will look just as festive on our usual table.”
Sarah agreed, and as she gathered up the linens, Sylvia collected three of the holly napkin rings and picked up the Santa Claus cookie jar. They carried everything to the kitchen, one of the few rooms in the older wing of the house that Claudia had kept up with the times, more or less. The spacious room was painted a maple sugar hue that made the most of the afternoon sunlight, with the help of a copper light fixture that reminded Sylvia of an old-fashioned carriage lantern. It was suspended over the long wooden table and benches that filled the space between the doorway and the kitchen proper. Cupboards and appliances lined the walls except for the window over the sink, the door to the pantry in the southwest corner, and the open doorway that led to the west sitting room. A small microwave sat on the countertop beside the old gas oven Sylvia had cooked upon even before her abrupt departure so many years ago; it was a marvel of pre—World War II technology that it still worked at all. The refrigerator on the opposite wall appeared fairly new, perhaps less than ten years old, but the printed curtains had last been in style in the 1970s. The dishwasher Sarah had insisted they install stood out proudly, its gleaming stainless-steel finish intimidating every other appliance in the room. The kitchen was such a mishmash of old and new that Sylvia couldn’t bear to change any of it, even though she knew it was not up to the standards of a professional kitchen and would prove hopelessly inadequate if their quilt camp grew at the pace Sarah predicted.
Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt Page 4