Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Perhaps this was the side of Agnes that had won Richard’s heart.

  Two days before Christmas, Sylvia’s longing for her husband became almost too much to endure. She sat in the front parlor with Claudia and Agnes, stroking her swelling abdomen and dreaming of James holding their baby. Claudia cut templates for her wedding quilt and mused about her gown, while Agnes’s knitting needles provided accompaniment to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on the radio.

  Sylvia couldn’t bear it. “Turn that off,” she ordered. Claudia paused in the middle of a description of possible bodice designs and stared at her. Sylvia hauled herself from her chair and snapped off the radio. “I can’t listen to that anymore. They aren’t coming home for Christmas, so what’s the use of dreaming about it?”

  “Sometimes dreams are all we have,” said Agnes softly.

  It was exactly the sort of thing Sylvia might have expected her to say. Sylvia needed more than dreams. She needed James beside her. She needed Richard home and safe.

  “What we need is a Christmas miracle,” said Claudia. “For the war to end. If ever we ought to pray for peace on earth, this is the time.”

  “The war will end when we win,” said Sylvia tiredly. However long it takes, however many lives it takes.

  They fell silent. Embarrassed by her outburst, Sylvia was about to turn the radio back on when Claudia spoke. “We haven’t done anything to prepare for Christmas.”

  “We sent the boys their packages,” said Agnes.

  “Yes, but we’ve done nothing around here.” Claudia gathered up her quilt pieces and set them aside. “We should make cookies from some of Great-Aunt Lucinda’s old recipes.”

  “We don’t have enough sugar rations,” Sylvia pointed out.

  “Then at least we should decorate.” Claudia rose and reached for Agnes’s hand. “Come on. We need something to remind us of the joy and hope of the season. Let’s get those boxes out of the attic. Not you, Sylvia. You shouldn’t carry anything heavy in your condition. Sit and rest.”

  “I’ve been sitting and resting all day,” Sylvia grumbled, but her interest had been kindled. When Claudia and Agnes did not immediately return with the decorations, she went to the kitchen and checked the pantry for flour, sugar, and spices. She already knew they had plenty of apples down in the cellar. The ample harvest that year had been a mixed blessing, for with the men away, their abundant crop had been too much for the four remaining Bergstroms to harvest on their own. Rather than allow the apples to rot on the ground, they took enough for themselves and sent word throughout the town that anyone willing to pick the apples was welcome to take away whatever he could carry. Friends and neighbors as well as townsfolk they scarcely knew accepted the offer, and some left gifts of surplus produce from their own gardens in trade. One sunny afternoon, an entire Boy Scout troop arrived and harvested bushel after bushel of the ripe fruit. Each boy took some home to his family, but most were delivered to hospitals and soup kitchens throughout the state. Many more were sent to VA hospitals or USO outfits, nourishing wounded soldiers as well as those who had not yet seen battle.

  Apples the Bergstroms had in abundance, and they had enough of the remaining ingredients to spare for one strudel. Tomorrow, Sylvia resolved, she and Claudia would make one. Perhaps Agnes would like to learn.

  She returned to the foyer just as Claudia and Agnes began unpacking the decorations. She joined them, stopping by the parlor first to open the door and turn on the radio so they could listen as they worked. A quiet happiness filled her as she unwrapped the familiar trappings of the holiday—Richard’s soldier nutcracker, the paper angels she and Claudia had made in Sunday school, Great-Aunt Lucinda’s Santa Claus cookie jar. They had never found the ruby-and-gold glass star for the top of the tree; the highest bough had remained bare every year since it went missing. Sylvia had been sorry to see the traditional search for the star go, but this year, there were no children in the house to hunt for it anyway—unless, she thought saucily, they counted Agnes.

  “Look what I found,” said Agnes, peering into a white cotton pillowcase, plumped full as if a lumpy pillow were inside. For a moment, Sylvia thought she had discovered the star, but the colorful pieces she took from the pillowcase were fabric, not glass. “Is this a quilt?”

  A lump formed in Sylvia’s throat and she looked to Claudia, who stood frozen in place. “Pieces of one, anyway,” said Sylvia, when her sister did not reply.

  Agnes laid the Feathered Star blocks on the marble floor. “These are lovely.”

  “Our great-aunt made them,” said Claudia quietly. She resumed setting candles into brass holders on the windowsills.

  Agnes reached into the pillowcase again. “This appliqué is lovely,” she said, admiring the holly plumes. “If I thought I could make something so beautiful, I might be tempted to learn to quilt.”

  “It’s not as easy as it looks,” said Sylvia.

  Agnes regarded her mildly. “I didn’t say it looked easy.”

  “I could teach you to quilt,” offered Claudia.

  “No, thank you.” Agnes gave the quilt blocks one last admiring look before returning them to the pillowcase. Sylvia was disappointed that Agnes had not emptied the makeshift bag. Claudia might not offer quilting lessons so freely after Agnes gave her opinion of those Variable Star blocks. “Why didn’t your great-aunt finish?”

  “She wasn’t the only one to work on it,” said Sylvia. “My mother did the appliqué, and Claudia pieced five other stars. They’re probably still in the case if you want to look.”

  “Didn’t you make anything for the quilt?”

  “Why, no.” Sylvia glanced at Claudia, who was feigning disinterest as she unpacked ornaments from the green trunk. “Claudia said she wanted to finish it herself, so I—”

  “You may complete it if you like,” said Claudia. “I have too much sewing for my wedding to spend time on another project. It was never that important to me anyway. I haven’t touched it in ten years.”

  Sylvia knew she had not; Sylvia had not seen one thread of the quilt since Claudia put the fragments away on that Christmas Day so long ago. How the pieces had ended up in a pillowcase in the trunk with the Christmas decorations, she had no idea.

  Uncertain, Sylvia studied her sister. “You honestly wouldn’t mind? You said you never wanted to see any part of this quilt again. You said you couldn’t bear to be reminded of the worst Christmas ever.”

  Claudia laughed shortly. “I think we would all agree thatthat Christmas hardly deserves that title anymore.”

  “Don’t say such things.” Agnes rose, holding the pillowcase carefully, as if it contained something precious and fragile. “This may be a lonely Christmas, but it is still Christmas. Sylvia, I agree that you should finish the quilt. It will help put us all in the holiday spirit.”

  Agnes held out the pillowcase, and when it seemed that she would stand there with her arm outstretched forever unless Sylvia took it, she did so. “I couldn’t possibly finish it by Christmas Day.”

  “I might not know how to quilt, but I do know that much.” Agnes smiled and returned to the blue trunk. “Why not set yourself a goal of finishing it before next Christmas so that you and James can play with the baby upon it beneath the Christmas tree?”

  Sylvia’s heart warmed at the image that played in her mind’s eye. The Christmas tree, blooming with light and color. James, home and safe, beaming proudly at their child. Their precious son or daughter, with bright eyes, a rosebud mouth, sitting up or crawling—goodness, what would the baby be doing at this time next year? The Christmas Quilt, a soft comfort beneath them all.

  Sylvia ached to begin, but she hesitated. “The decorations—” “We can finish without you,” Agnes assured her.

  “You should be sitting with your feet up anyway,” remarked Claudia, without looking up from her work.

  Sylvia was about to retort that she wasn’t an invalid, but she reconsidered. It was, after all, the perfect excuse. “I’ll be in the sit
ting room,” she said, and went off with the pillowcase in hand to find her sewing basket.

  In her favorite room just off the kitchen, Sylvia spread out the blocks on the floor and studied them. The fabrics remarkably had not faded through the years; the colors were as bright and merry as the day Great-Aunt Lucinda chose them so long ago. The Feathered Star blocks and holly plumes were as lovely as she remembered, and since Claudia’s Variable Stars used many of the same fabrics, it might be possible to scatter them among the finer handiwork so that their flaws would not be apparent. But what should Sylvia’s contribution be? What could she add to help bring the disparate pieces together harmoniously?

  Sylvia thought back to the Christmas when Lucinda had set aside the quilt for the last time in order to help with the sewing for cousin Elizabeth’s wedding. The Bergstrom women had made Elizabeth a beautiful gown and a Double Wedding Ring bridal quilt embellished with floral appliqués. A few weeks before the wedding, little Sylvia found Great-Aunt Lucinda working on a new quilt, a pattern of concentric rectangles and squares, one half of the block light colors, the other dark. It resembled the Log Cabin block so closely that at first Sylvia mistakenly believed them to be practice blocks for her quilting lessons.

  But Great-Aunt Lucinda told her that this was another quilt for cousin Elizabeth, a sturdy scrap quilt for everyday use, something to remember her great-aunt by. “This pattern is called Chimneys and Cornerstones,” she explained. “Whenever Elizabeth sees it, she’ll remember our home and all the people in it. We Bergstroms have been blessed to have a home filled with love from the chimneys to the cornerstone. This quilt will help Elizabeth take some of that love with her.”

  Sylvia nodded to show she understood. It did not matter that these were not Log Cabin blocks. The upcoming wedding had left her so morose that the further postponement of her quilting lessons had lost the power to disappoint her.

  Great-Aunt Lucinda traced a diagonal row of red squares, from one corner of the block to the opposite. “Do you see these red squares? Each is a fire burning in the fireplace to warm Elizabeth after a weary journey home.”

  “You made too many,” said Sylvia, counting. “We don’t have so many fireplaces.”

  She laughed. “I know. It’s just a fancy. Elizabeth will understand. But there’s more to the story. Do you see how one half of the block is dark fabric, and the other is light? The dark half represents the sorrows in a life, and the light colors represent the joys.”

  “Then why don’t you give her a quilt with all light fabric?”

  “I suppose I could, but then she wouldn’t be able to see the pattern. The design appears only if you have both dark and light fabric.”

  “But I don’t want Elizabeth to have any sorrows.”

  “I don’t either, love, but sorrows come to us all. But don’t worry. Remember these?” Great-Aunt Lucinda touched several red squares in a row. “As long as these home fires keep burning, Elizabeth will always have more joys than sorrows.”

  The meaning of the quilt had comforted Sylvia as a child, and now, the memory of Great-Aunt Lucinda’s love warmed her heart once again. Cousin Elizabeth had journeyed so far that none of the Bergstroms expected to see her again. God willing, Sylvia would see her husband and brother, and Andrew and Harold. Until then, the Bergstrom women would keep the home fires burning. They would keep a candle in the window to welcome their loved ones home.

  And while they waited, Sylvia would stitch her joys and sorrows into the Christmas Quilt, using the fabrics of the women who had gone before her to make the Log Cabin blocks she had never had the chance to make with her great-aunt.

  She chose red scraps for the center of the Log Cabin blocks and sewed rectangles of evergreen and snowy white around them, alternating the colors so that one half of the block was light and the other dark, divided along the diagonal. Sometimes the greens were so dark they appeared almost black, and often an ivory or muslin scrap slipped in among the white. The variations added depth and dimension to her work, subtle nuances that enhanced the beauty of the clearer hues.

  Lost in reminiscences of Christmases past and the Christmas future she yearned for, Sylvia passed the day in sewing and reflection. Later, when hunger beckoned her from the sitting room, she discovered her home transformed by the loving attention of her sister and sister-in-law. All the old familiar decorations adorned the foyer, the ballroom, the other nooks and corners where so many memories lingered. Candles glowed softly in the windows; wreaths of holly and ivy graced the doors.

  “We need a tree,” said Agnes as they prepared a simple dinner for themselves and Sylvia’s father, who was in bed recovering from a bout of the flu and needed his meal brought up to him on a tray.

  Claudia glanced out the window. The sun touched the horizon, and the elm trees along the creek cast long shadows that stretched across the snowy ground and brushed the manor as if longing to come inside into the warmth. “We can’t look for a tree tonight,” she said. “It’s too late. It will be dark by the time we finish dinner.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” said Agnes cheerfully. “That’s the proper day, isn’t it? Richard told me your family always chooses the tree on Christmas Eve.”

  Sylvia wondered what else Richard had told her.

  After dinner, she returned to the sitting room to work on the quilt. Claudia and Agnes joined her, each tending to her own work, but not so absorbed that they did not pause from time to time to admire Sylvia’s progress.

  The next morning, Sylvia returned to the Log Cabin blocks after breakfast and sewed until Claudia suggested they make strudel. The sisters set Agnes to peeling apples while they mixed and kneaded the dough, then took up their paring knives to assist her while the dough rested.

  “In Philadelphia, my parents employed a chef who had trained in Paris,” Agnes said as they sliced the peeled apples into uniform pieces. “Every year he made the same dessert, a rolled cake decorated to resemble a yule log.”

  “Bûche de noël,”said Sylvia, her mother’s words suddenly rising to the forefront of her memory.

  “Yes, that’s what he called it.” Agnes gave her a curious look. “Have you ever made one?”

  “Never, but my mother’s family served it every year when she was a child.”

  Agnes nodded thoughtfully, and Sylvia suddenly wondered what her mother would have thought of the young woman. They might have more in common than Sylvia had ever suspected.

  When the apple filling was prepared and the dough had rested, Sylvia and Claudia demonstrated how to stretch it. Agnes was impressed, but too worried about ruining the dough to try her hand at it. Sylvia was willing to let her be, but Claudia would not tolerate such reluctance. “You’re a Bergstrom woman, and Bergstrom women need to learn this recipe,” she insisted. “Besides, Sylvia really ought to get off her feet and I can’t finish on my own.”

  Sylvia knew her sister could manage perfectly well, but she said nothing because the fib finally convinced Agnes to roll up her sleeves and try. Standing opposite Claudia, she reached beneath the dough and pulled it toward her with the backs of her hands, mirroring her sister-in-law. At first her efforts were so timid that she made no difference at all, but with encouragement from Claudia and teasing from Sylvia, she grew bolder. The dough had nearly doubled in area when Agnes’s wedding ring snagged on the dough, tearing it.

  “You should have removed your jewelry first,” said Sylvia, leaving her stool to help Claudia seal the gap.

  “Never,” said Agnes. She closed her right hand around her left fingers so fiercely that Sylvia and Claudia laughed. Agnes worked more carefully after that, but she still tore the dough twice more before it reached the edges of the table.

  Before long the strudel was in the oven baking, filling the kitchen with the enticing aroma of apples and cinnamon. “It smells divine,” said Agnes, inhaling deeply as she swept up apple peelings from the floor.

  “It does,” Claudia agreed, “but it doesn’t smell half as wonderful as Gerda Bergstrom
’s did.”

  “How would you know?” demanded Sylvia.

  Claudia looked at her, surprised. “I suppose I don’t,” she said. “I’ve heard it repeated so often I assumed it was true.”

  Sylvia laughed.

  “Now that we’ve finished the strudel, should we set out to find a tree?” asked Agnes.

  Sylvia’s mirth vanished. “We can’t leave the house while the strudel’s baking. It might burn.”

  “We don’t all have to go,” said Claudia. “One of us could stay behind.”

  “It would take all our combined strength to bring in a tree,” countered Sylvia. “You’ve never done it, so you don’t know. It’s a heavy load to haul on the toboggan, even with a strong man at your side.”

  Agnes shrugged. “So we’ll pick a smaller tree. We can’t have Christmas without a tree.”

  Sylvia thought back to the four Christmases of her marriage, to the four times she and James had ventured out into the woods to search for the perfect Christmas tree. None of the later searches had been as dramatic as the first, but each had been memorable in its own right. Each blessed them with a revelation about their marriage—how they worked together, made decisions, showed respect, disagreed—some facet of their relationship that had been present all along, brought to the surface for them to accept with joy, or to resolve to change. After sharing so much with James every Christmas Eve of her married life, she could not bear to have anyone else take his place at her side, not even a sister.