Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (20 page)

As the hours passed under the hot sun, DiCarlo and his assistants gradually uncovered the rest of the first log and another that met at the corner Andrew had discovered the first day. Then, as the light was beginning to fade, one of the graduate students announced that she had found another log directly beneath the first one.

DiCarlo decided it would be best to end for the day on a high note, so after they secured the site, Sylvia invited everyone inside for supper. Gwen alone begged off. “I’m going home to bed,” she said with a groan. “I’m too tired even to lift a fork to my mouth.”

“I’ve never seen you that tired,” teased Sylvia, but Gwen bid them all good night and walked—slowly and stiffly—back to her car. The others followed Sylvia inside, then upstairs to the rooms she had prepared for them to shower and change. By the time they returned downstairs and joined her in the banquet hall, she and the cook had set a table with a delicious fried chicken dinner with all the trimmings, pitchers of lemonade and iced tea, and a steaming pot of coffee made from fancy beans Sarah had purchased at a café downtown. It seemed too hot for coffee to Sylvia, but Sarah had insisted that graduate students drank pots and pots of the stuff at all hours of the day, in any weather, so Sylvia permitted it.

As they ate, relaxing and enjoying the satisfaction of a day’s work well done, DiCarlo entertained them with stories of other archaeological digs they had undertaken. His projects had taken him to so many exotic locales, investigating sites of such historical importance that Sylvia was taken aback, embarrassed that such important research had been set aside for Mr. L.’s humble shack. She tried to apologize, but DiCarlo assured her he was
glad to assist. “This is good training for my students,” he said, then grinned and added, “Besides, I owe Gwen a favor.”

“Well, I feel I owe you a favor,” said Sylvia, nodding to his students to indicate she included them, too. “And to think you’re doing all this work for what might be nothing more than a pile of old firewood.”

The others laughed, and DiCarlo added, “But that’s the mystery that makes this job so exciting. You never know what you’re going to turn up. Maybe treasure—”

“Maybe trash,” interrupted Sylvia.

The two students exchanged a quick look. “Don’t get him started,” the one seated beside Matt begged, too late, as DiCarlo launched into an earnest description of what could be learned about a culture by studying its long-buried garbage dumps. Some of the details Sylvia would have preferred to hear another time, preferably when she was not eating, but she was fascinated nonetheless.

“If we could find where your ancestors disposed of their trash,” DiCarlo concluded, “you’d learn more about them than you ever dreamed possible.”

Sylvia winced. “I don’t know if I want to know them
that
well.”

The others laughed, and Sylvia joined in, pleased to have such enthusiastic new friends to help her uncover the Bergstroms’ past—and equally glad that the next morning they would return to unearthing the cabin, not a landfill.

Unfortunately, by noon Sylvia began to suspect that the archaeology team had exhausted all their good luck the previous day. No amount of searching revealed any adjacent logs that might have formed the third and fourth walls of the cabin, nor did there appear to be anything beneath the logs they had already uncovered. DiCarlo thought he found evidence of a fire, but could not say for certain if it was the cabin itself, some object
it contained, or merely logs in a fireplace that had burned. One of the graduate students found a tin spoon and what appeared to be a shard from a teacup, which Sylvia cradled in her hands, wondering who had last used them. Aside from those small treasures, the day ended with nothing new to show for their efforts.

“I almost wish we could find the Bergstroms’ garbage heap after all,” said Sylvia to Sarah as they helped stow DiCarlo’s tools in the back of his truck. “But I couldn’t imagine where to look for it.”

Sarah shrugged and brushed dirt from her hands. “If Matt had been with them, they would have made a compost pile near the garden.”

“The garden,” gasped Sylvia. “Sarah, you’re a genius.” Quickly she returned to the dig, where DiCarlo and his students were securing the remains of the cabin. “Professor, it seems I have another archaeological find to show you.”

Mindful of the fading light, she led the excavation team back across Elm Creek, past the manor, and into a thick grove of trees to the north. If Sarah had not prompted her memory, Sylvia would have forgotten entirely to show the professor Hans’s gazebo.

The story of the gazebo in the north gardens was one of the first she had shared with Sarah about the history of Elm Creek Manor, as they were taking their first tentative steps toward friendship. The octagonal gazebo with the gingerbread molding had been in near ruins then, but the Log Cabin blocks fashioned from wood veneers fitted into its seats were still visible. One of those seats had a block with a black center square, and if pushed in just the right way, the wooden slats folded into a hidden recess beneath the bench like a rolltop desk, revealing a hiding place beneath the gazebo. According to family lore, fugitive slaves would conceal themselves in the hiding place until nightfall,
when one of the Bergstroms would escort them into the safety of the manor.

Sylvia repeated the tale to her companions as they walked, but when the gazebo came into view, DiCarlo’s expression shifted from intrigue to polite interest. She showed him the Log Cabin blocks and enlisted Matthew’s help in pushing back the top to the secret bench, hoping to whet his eagerness again, but before long DiCarlo shook his head.

“I don’t know anything about quilt blocks,” said DiCarlo. “But I can tell you this gazebo couldn’t have been built in your great-grandfather’s day. It’s far more recent.”

“How recent?” asked Sylvia.

Carefully, as if reluctant to disappoint her, he indicated several features that helped him date the structure, including everything from the good condition of the wood to the type of concrete in the foundation to the bolts holding the benches together. “In my estimation, the gazebo doesn’t predate the twentieth century.”

“It’s been refurbished,” said Sylvia, unwilling to believe him. “Matthew, tell the professor how you repaired it so he can focus on the original structure.”

Matthew complied, but as he listed his alterations, Sylvia realized that DiCarlo had detected the recent work and had accounted for it in his evaluation.

“I don’t understand,” said Sarah. “If the story about the gazebo isn’t true, then—” She broke off at a warning look from Matthew.

“No, go on. You might as well finish the thought.” Sylvia sank heavily onto the nearest bench. “If that story isn’t true, how can we believe anything my great-aunt Lucinda told me?”

“She described the trunk accurately and gave you the key,” said Andrew.

“There is that. Pity. Now I can’t simply dismiss her as a pathological
liar,” said Sylvia dryly. “Then at least I would know everything she told me was false. Now she forces me to sift through her stories, hoping the lies slip through my fingers and the truth remains in my hands.”

“I can’t believe she would be so malicious as to deliberately deceive you,” said Sarah. “Maybe she thought the story about the gazebo was true.”

“I suppose.” Sylvia sighed and rose. “But that means someone lied to her.”

“Or they told her the truth, but she misunderstood,” said Andrew.

Despite her disappointment, Sylvia had to laugh. She reached up and patted Andrew’s cheek, then smiled at her friends. “You all do try to keep my spirits up, don’t you? I appreciate your loyalty to my ancestors, but you don’t need to defend them so ardently.” She caught Andrew’s eye. “I’ve accepted that the Bergstroms were mere mortals after all.”

And one of them had built the gazebo with a hiding place indicated by a Log Cabin block with a black center square—but who, and more puzzling still, since it could not have been done to conceal fugitive slaves, why?

After supper—a more subdued affair than the previous night’s meal—DiCarlo and his students vacated their rooms and loaded their belongings into DiCarlo’s truck. Before they left, DiCarlo told Sylvia how to properly preserve the site. “You might want to continue the excavation on your own,” he suggested. “You might find something we missed.”

“Such as a garbage heap?” said Sylvia. “Thank you, Professor, but if you and your students couldn’t find anything, I doubt we amateurs will have any better success.”

“I know you’re disappointed we didn’t find more, but don’t forget, you did find a cabin exactly where that journal of yours said it would be.”

As DiCarlo and his companions drove away, her pride in their discovery rekindled. The professor was right. It did not matter how much of the cabin they had found, only that they now knew with confidence that they
had
found it, and not some mere woodpile or fallen tree. It was enough to know she had found Gerda’s first home in America, the first home on Bergstrom land.

Late autumn through December 1858—
in which I reap a bitter harvest

The first crisp evenings of autumn meant that harvesttime would soon be upon us, and Elm Creek Farm bustled with activity as we prepared for the coming winter. Anneke offered to make me another dress for the annual Harvest Dance, and this year I promptly accepted, determined to look as lovely as a plain woman could. Jonathan and I had known each other for more than two years, and there was no mistaking his growing affection for me, nor mine for him, although we never spoke of it. I thought any day he might ask me to become his wife, and when he did, I planned to accept with all my heart. The days when I ached for the loss of E. seemed dim and far away.

Anneke sewed me a gown of beautiful lavender silk brocade, and when I tried it on, even Anneke was amazed by my transformation. I felt myself blushing like a young girl as I envisioned the pleasure in Jonathan’s eyes when he first beheld me, and when I drifted off to sleep at night, I imagined his hand at the small of my back as he pulled me close to him in a dance. It would not be long, I knew, I hoped, until I would call him husband.

But a week before the Harvest Dance, when I met Anneke at the door of Mrs. Engle’s dressmaker’s shop, my sister-in-law seemed troubled. “Gerda,” said she as she climbed onto the wagon seat beside me. “I have dreadful news.”

“Mrs. Engle and Mr. Pearson are finally moving South?”

“This is not a joking matter.”

Only then did I see how pale she had become, and how reluctant she was to speak. “Tell me,” said I. “Whatever it is, it cannot be that bad.”

Anneke took two deep breaths and placed a hand to her stomach before speaking. “Charlotte Claverton came to be fitted for a dress today.”

“Did she, indeed?” I had not forgotten the beautiful, dark-haired girl who had been Jonathan’s dance partner far too often for my taste the previous autumn, but Jonathan and I had become such intimate friends that I no longer feared her as a rival. “I suppose she wants to cut a fine figure at the Harvest Dance, like the rest of us.” Perhaps a tiny spark of jealousy remained. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to sew a few crooked seams just this once?”

“Gerda. It wasn’t a dress for the dance. It was her wedding gown.”

“She’s getting married? How delightful for her.”

“She’s marrying Jonathan.”

Through the ringing in my ears I heard the steady clop, clop, clop of the horse’s hooves on the road. I heard wind rustling in the trees as we passed, and the splash of water in Elm Creek.

“Gerda, did you hear me?”

“You must be mistaken.” My voice sounded high and thin in my ears, falsely nonchalant. “She can’t be marrying Jonathan. Not . . .”
Not my Jonathan,
I almost said.

“She is. I heard her tell Mrs. Engle. They will have a Christmas wedding.”

“You must have heard wrong.” It took every bit of my strength to get the words out. “Jonathan would have told me himself. He, or Dorothea.”

“Gerda—”

“It cannot be true.” I shook the reins and urged the horses onward at a faster pace, overcome by the need for home. “I refuse to listen to such nonsense.”

Anneke said nothing more, but I could sense her fighting back tears. My mind was a blur of confusion and worry. Anneke believed what she told me; that was certain. She could have been mistaken—but that seemed unlikely. What was there to misinterpret about a woman being fitted for her wedding gown?

At home I began to prepare our supper without a word for Anneke or my brother. She must have told Hans the news when I was outside in the kitchen garden, for all evening he spoke to me with gentle kindness rather than the brotherly teasing to which I was accustomed. I retired early, but I was too sick at heart to sleep. Never in all my conversations with Jonathan had he even hinted that he planned to marry Charlotte Claverton. However, I was forced to admit that neither had he said he wished to marry me.

As the night passed and my apprehensions grew, I subjected my memories to unflinching scrutiny. Had I read too much into Jonathan’s attentions? Had I perceived love where there was only friendship? But as I reviewed the past two years once, and again, and again, I could not believe that he did not care for me as much as I cared for him. His words, his actions, the smiles that lit up his face when we greeted each other—no, I concluded, I had not deluded myself. It was improbable that Anneke had misunderstood Charlotte Claverton, but equally so was the idea that Jonathan was in love with someone other than myself.