The New Year's Quilt (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) Read online

  “They attacked an orphanage?” gasped Sylvia. “Had they no shame?”

  “What happened to the children?” asked Andrew.

  “The building was a total loss,” said Adele. “Somehow the matron, superintendent, and a handful of volunteers managed to get all the children outside unharmed—but the mob was still there, destroying property, attacking and even killing African-Americans unlucky enough to fall into their hands. The superintendent split the children into two groups to try to lead them through the rioting to safety. Two hundred and thirty-three children followed the matron and superintendent to the police station at Thirty-Fifth Street. The remaining twenty-nine made their way here under Harriet Beals Colcraft’s protection.”

  “For five days this house was their sanctuary,” Julius added. “For five days the children were sheltered in these rooms while the worst atrocities you can imagine were carried out in the streets.”

  “I’d prefer to only imagine them, if you please,” said Sylvia, when Julius seemed prepared to describe those horrors with a historian’s eye for detail.

  “While Harriet cared for the children, she must have been out of her mind with worry,” said Adele. “She had led the orphans to an empty house. John had gone out, perhaps to the newspaper office to check on the safety of friends, perhaps to witness the events unfold so he could draw about them later. Only after the rioting subsided did Harriet receive word that her husband was in the hospital. He had been discovered unconscious and badly beaten on the waterfront, where white longshoremen were attacking black dockworkers and sailors. He must have come between the two sides.”

  “Or a political enemy recognized him and took advantage of the uproar and confusion to exact some personal revenge,” said Julius. “That’s my pet theory, anyway.”

  “I think it’s more likely he rushed to a victim’s aid only to fall prey to the attackers himself,” said Adele. “He never fully recovered from his injuries, but suffered pain and difficulty walking for the rest of his life. He considered it a blessing that his attackers had struck him on the back and legs and left his arms unscathed so he could still draw, and therefore could still support his family.”

  “Some blessing,” said Andrew. “If they had tried to hit him but missed, well, that I’d call a blessing.”

  “Adele has been entertaining her guests with stories of the Colcraft family ever since,” said Julius. “Almost every time, at the end of the tale, one of her listeners will say, ‘You should write a book.’ ”

  “I was going to make that suggestion myself,” remarked Sylvia. “The Colcrafts certainly experienced an interesting chapter of New York history, and you have a gift for words.”

  “I thought about it,” said Adele. “Julius has written two books for university presses, and I’ve lost count of how many articles he’s written for academic journals, so I knew something of the publication process. I wanted to tell the Colcrafts’ story, but the thought of writing a book was so daunting. I couldn’t imagine tackling such an enormous project. And what if I couldn’t finish? Or what if I did finish and no one cared? What if every publisher in the world rejected it? What if the writing turned out to be one big waste of time?”

  “She found every logical reason not to try,” said Julius. “I tried to encourage her, but—” He shook his head ruefully. “Why listen to me? I’m just her husband.”

  “Then last Christmas my mother gave me a book on New York history,” said Adele. “It seems like the perfect gift for a history buff, doesn’t it?”

  “It made her miserable,” said Julius.

  “But don’t ever tell my mother,” Adele warned them. “She doesn’t know. Anyway, for a few days after Christmas I alternated between reading chapters of the book and moping around the inn in a brood. Whenever our guests couldn’t overhear, I complained to Julius about relevant historical details omitted from the book, other sources that the author should have consulted, and conclusions that didn’t fit the historical record. Again and again I asked, ‘How can this guy get his book published and I can’t?’

  “Finally, Julius must have heard enough, because he retorted, ‘How? By having the courage to actually sit down and write his book, and send it out into the world so that people like you could stew in jealousy and gripe about how you could have done better.’ ”

  “You said that?” Andrew asked Julius. “How many nights did you have to sleep on the sofa afterward?”

  “Not long,” said Julius. “Less than a week.”

  “Oh, don’t believe him,” said Adele, laughing. “I knew he was right. And yes, I had been duly chastened. But the task of sitting down and writing an entire book was still too overwhelming to contemplate. Then I had a revelation: I didn’t have to write the entire book in one sitting.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “That might seem obvious to you,” said Adele, “and anyone else with common sense, but it wasn’t something I had consciously considered before. Finally I realized that the only way I would ever be a published writer was if I sat down and wrote something.”

  “That is an important part of the process,” said Julius, his mouth quirking in a grin.

  “I had to push thoughts of failure out of my mind,” said Adele. “I told myself that even if I never published my book, it was important to record all I had learned about the Colcrafts and the history of this wonderful brownstone. I was sure our guests would enjoy learning what my research had uncovered, even if no publisher thought the story was worth putting on bookstore shelves. So I made a New Year’s resolution: Every day I had to sit down and write a few sentences. I stopped thinking about writing an entire book and instead just focused on those few sentences each day.”

  “Did you keep your resolution?” asked Sylvia.

  “Even on weekends and holidays,” said Julius proudly, with an affectionate smile for his wife.

  “Running the B&B was still my first love, and I have high standards, so it wasn’t easy to find writing time,” said Adele. “But I managed. As the weeks passed, I accumulated more and more pages, I wrote for longer stretches of time, and my confidence increased. I was doing it. I was actually writing my book, something I feared I could never do.”

  “She printed out one copy for each guest room in the inn and had them spiral bound,” said Julius. “Our guests read the book, and loved it, and some even asked for autographed copies to take home.”

  “I had Julius read through the manuscript before I made the guests’ copies,” Adele hastened to add. “I wanted some editorial oversight, at least. I do have my pride.”

  “One day, one of our guests asked Adele if she minded if he showed her book to a friend who worked for a publisher,” said Julius. “By that time Adele had been sending the manuscript around to literary agents, and had even submitted it to a few contests, but received only rejection letters in reply.”

  “That was a fun time,” said Adele dryly. “Our guest’s offer was the first real glimmer of hope I’d seen. Did I mind if he showed it to his friend? Was he crazy? I would have driven him to his friend’s office and watched him personally deliver the manuscript if I hadn’t thought that would seem too desperate. If I had known that his friend was a senior editor at New York University Press, I might have been too terrified to let him do it, so it’s a good thing he didn’t mention that until he was on his way out the door with the manuscript in his briefcase.”

  “Please do tell me that this story has a happy ending,” said Sylvia, remembering how upon meeting her friend at the restaurant, she had strongly suspected that Adele was concealing a secret. Now Sylvia was certain she knew why.

  A smile lit up Adele’s face. “My book is coming out next fall.”

  Sylvia and Andrew cheered and embraced her, offering their congratulations and promising to buy copies for all of their friends. “It’s not going to be a best-seller,” warned Adele. “I’m just hoping it will do well locally and in academic bookstores and libraries.”

  “Don’t downplay
your success,” Sylvia admonished her. “What a wonderful achievement. I’m sure the Colcrafts would be proud.”

  “All this came about because of a New Year’s resolution,” Andrew marveled.

  “A New Year’s resolution that I kept,” Adele emphasized. “Anyone can make promises. The challenge is in following through.”

  They peppered Adele with questions about her forthcoming book until Julius glanced at the clock and reminded them of the time. With a start, Sylvia remembered their theater tickets. She and Andrew hurried off to the Garden Room to dress, and before long, they were on their way.

  Sylvia gazed out of the cab window, drinking in the beauty of the city at night and reflecting upon all that Adele had shared with them. Sylvia admired her resolve and her determination to put aside her fears and find a more fulfilling path. Sylvia had made a similar choice not long ago, when she accepted a challenge from a young friend, Sarah McClure, and transformed her family estate into a quilters’ retreat. Embarking upon that journey had been a risk, the most significant chance she had taken in decades, but at that point in her life, she’d had very little to lose. She wondered how her life might have been different if, like Adele, she had taken measures to change her life years earlier, and not waited for her sister’s death to return home to Elm Creek Manor. If only on one lonely New Year’s Eve she had made a resolution as Adele had done, and had come home to ask forgiveness instead of waiting for Claudia to apologize first.

  Resolving to start a New Year with a vow to mend broken ties with her sister never occurred to her, Sylvia thought ruefully as their cab pulled on to Broadway. Even if it had, Claudia would not have responded well to the gesture. The sisters had a fractious history when it came to New Year’s resolutions, and as much as Sylvia wanted to blame Claudia for that particular conflict, at her ruthlessly honest core, she knew she was at fault.

  Sylvia was six years old when her mother and father announced that a new baby brother or sister would be joining the family in the coming winter. Sylvia was torn between delight over the exciting news and worry for her mother’s health. On more than one occasion, she had heard her father gently admonish her mother for overexerting herself. He was always encouraging her to rest, to sit down with some quilting or a book instead of chasing around after her daughters. Her mother tried to accept his suggestions graciously, but Sylvia saw her mouth tighten even as she allowed her husband to help her into an overstuffed chair. Sylvia knew that a baby meant sleepless nights and busy days, and she resolved to help her mother care for the baby so that she could get the rest Sylvia’s father and old Dr. Granger insisted she needed.

  Sylvia would even willingly change diapers, something Claudia had already confided that she would never do. “Babies are stinky and noisy and they cry all the time,” Claudia warned. “Mama and Father will spend all their time with the baby and we’ll only get what’s left over. You wait and see.”

  Her sister’s warnings filled Sylvia with apprehension, but she brushed them aside when she realized that no one else in the family said such things and that Claudia delivered her dire pronouncements only when she and Sylvia were alone. When the adults of the family were around, Claudia was all smiles and cheerfulness and eagerness to help care for the precious little newborn. The aunts and uncles praised her and called her a good girl whenever she went on in that way, but Sylvia, who secretly hoped for a brother, knew what her sister was up to. Claudia wanted to be the best big sister the Bergstrom family had ever seen only because she had to be the best at everything, not because she really wanted to help, and definitely not because she liked babies. As far as Sylvia could tell, Claudia couldn’t stand them.

  That was one reason why Sylvia was especially annoyed when Claudia suggested they make a quilt for the baby. Sylvia agreed, wishing she had thought of it first. Sylvia was the better quilter, but Claudia was two years older, so she declared herself in charge of the project. When Sylvia balked, Claudia threw up her hands in frustration. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll make my own quilt for the baby.”

  Not about to be outdone, Sylvia announced that she would make her own quilt for the baby, too. The argument escalated as they fought over whose quilt the baby would use first, until their voices became so loud that Mama came to investigate. “It’s lovely that you want to make a quilt to welcome the baby,” she said, short of breath, settling herself carefully into a chair. “But you don’t have much time. You’ll have to work together if you hope to finish before the baby comes.”

  She smiled to conceal her weariness, but a stab of guilt reminded Sylvia that their mother needed peace and quiet. Only for her sake did Sylvia agree to work with her sister on a single quilt. At their mother’s prompting, they agreed that Sylvia could select the block pattern and Claudia the colors. Sylvia chose the Bear’s Paw, a pretty block that even Claudia could not mess up too badly, since it had no curves or set-in pieces. She imagined cuddling Mama’s new baby within its soft folds, but Claudia’s next words spoiled her contentment: “For colors, I want pink and white, with a little bit of green.”

  Sylvia protested that those colors would do fine for a baby sister but not for a little boy. “It’s a baby. It won’t care,” said Claudia, rolling her eyes at her sister’s ignorance.

  “If he’s a boy he’ll care. Let’s pick something else.”

  “You picked the pattern. I get to pick the colors. You can’t pick everything.”

  Mama broke in before the argument could become heated. “Compromise, girls.”

  One glance at her mother’s beloved face, tired and disappointed, compelled Sylvia to swallow her pride. “Okay,” she told her sister. “You pick the pattern and I’ll pick the colors.”

  Claudia considered only a moment. “Then I pick Turkey Tracks.”

  Sylvia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Could there be any worse choice for a baby quilt? Not only was it unlikely that Claudia could manage the difficult pattern, but every Bergstrom quilter had heard Grandma’s foreboding stories about the pattern once better known as Wandering Foot. A boy given a Wandering Foot quilt would never be content to stay in one place, but would forever be restless, roaming the world, never settling down; a girl would be doomed to an even worse fate, so bleak that Grandma refused to elaborate. “Some people think that by changing a block’s name, you get rid of the bad luck,” Grandma had once said, watching over Sylvia as she practiced quilting a Nine-Patch. “I know that bad luck isn’t so easily fooled.”

  Sylvia knew it would be far better to give a boy a pink quilt than to give any baby a quilt full of bad luck, but her mother and sister dismissed her concerns and told her not to be upset by foolish superstitions. Against the two of them, united, there was nothing Sylvia could do but select her lucky colors, blue and yellow, and hope for the best.

  If anything proved that Claudia was not a responsible, loving elder sister, her insistence upon that quilt pattern should have done so. Why had Claudia insisted upon that bad-luck block instead of choosing from among her favorites? Was she only trying to annoy Sylvia, as she so often did, or was she deliberately wishing her new sibling misfortune?

  Despite Sylvia’s reluctance, they finished the quilt in two months. Her mother’s proud smile as she draped the blue-and-yellow quilt over the cradle filled Sylvia with warmth and happiness, easing her worries. If Mama said everything was all right, if Mama thought the quilt was not to be feared, then surely it must be so.

  The weeks passed and their mother’s slight figure grew rounder, but only around her tummy. Her limbs were thin and pale, her face shadowed. Sylvia woke one morning to find that Dr. Granger had been summoned in the night. Mama was all right, Great-Aunt Lucinda assured her, but the doctor had ordered her to remain in bed until the baby was born. Great-Aunt Lucinda made the girls promise not to play loudly in the house, and not to trouble their mother with any unpleasantness. “If ever we needed you two girls to get along, this would be the time,” she said with a sigh. “Try not to argue, but if you must,
please do it in whispers. Outside.”

  “What if it’s snowing?” asked Claudia. “What if it’s dark?”

  “I don’t care if it’s a blizzard at midnight. If you’re so angry at your sister that you must express it or burst, take it outside to the barn.”

  After Great-Aunt Lucinda hurried away to their mother’s bedroom, Claudia whirled upon Sylvia. “Did you hear that? You’d better behave yourself.” She trotted off after Great-Aunt Lucinda without waiting for a reply.

  Sylvia gritted her teeth, balled her hands into fists, and stalked upstairs to the nursery, sick with anger and worry. The baby was not supposed to come until the middle of January, which meant that Mama had to stay in bed a whole month. She would miss Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Sylvia did not know what might happen if Mama disobeyed the doctor’s orders—she dared not ask—but she could imagine the worst. This time Mama must listen to Father and rest.

  No matter how Claudia provoked her, Sylvia would not shout and argue. She would let Claudia have her way and the last word in every discussion if she had to hold her own mouth shut with her hands. Until the baby was born and Mama was allowed out of bed, Sylvia would be the perfect daughter her mother deserved.

  For the first few days, Sylvia stuck to her vow so diligently that her father asked her if she felt all right and Great-Aunt Lydia often frowned and felt her forehead as if she believed only illness could subdue Sylvia’s naughtiness. Claudia glared at her, suspicious, but was apparently unwilling to be the one to break the tentative truce. Sylvia tried to make her newfound obedience less obvious, but she couldn’t help feeling annoyed by the attention her good behavior drew. Did everyone really believe she was ordinarily so naughty that a few quiet days made such a difference?

  At first Sylvia’s mother submitted to the doctor’s orders without complaint, but after a week, she grew restless and bored. One morning, Sylvia passed by her parents’ bedroom door and overheard her mother telling her father that she felt strong enough to leave bed. She longed to sit on the front porch, watch the snow fall, and breathe deeply of cold, fresh winter air. “As long as I rest, it shouldn’t matter if I’m in bed or in a chair,” she said. “Dr. Granger didn’t mean for us to take his suggestion so literally.”