Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (38 page)

But Mr. Pearson, Mrs. Engle, and their associates were not the only ones to receive the condemnation of the town. Although publicly we Bergstroms were exonerated and defended, privately we were lumped in with our enemies and forced to shoulder the blame for tarnishing the town’s reputation. We were never quite as welcome in society as before, and over time, we accepted that the frost in our fellow citizens’ address would never thaw, and we gradually withdrew into the company of our ever growing family and the warmth of the circle of our most intimate friends, which included the Nelsons, the Wrights, and
the Certain Faction. We stopped attending town events, such as the Harvest Dance, and I once even overheard one gentleman respond to a visitor’s questions about the “rumored scandal of years ago” with the assertion that Elm Creek Farm lay outside the city proper, so its residents were not truly citizens of Water’s Ford. But although our neighbors politely shunned us, the reputation of Hans’s Bergstrom Thoroughbreds had spread far beyond our little valley, and so our fortunes soared. Our prosperity might have impressed the townsfolk and increased their desire for our company if not for the Creek’s Crossing Eight scandal and my ruined reputation, but instead it merely strengthened their enmity.

Jonathan’s reputation, I should add, suffered little from the scandal, and within the span of a year he once again enjoyed the high esteem of his fellow citizens, while I was whispered about until I was gray-haired and stooped with age. One might say Jonathan was forgiven and I was not because he was the town’s highly respected physician while I was merely a spinster of unremarkable social position, but I know it was because he was a man and I was a woman. The woman is always left to carry the burden of shame, while the man is free to go his own way. But I do not begrudge him his reprieve, for although I did not consult him before allowing Mr. Pearson to believe him my lover, Jonathan never publicly denied it, allowing the true heritage of Joanna’s son to remain secret all his life.

For I am sure by now you understand what I have needed this entire history to confess: Joanna’s son never went to Canada, nor did he rejoin his mother elsewhere. Instead he lived as a Bergstrom from the time Anneke first claimed him as her own.

We never intended this to happen. After Joanna’s capture, finding her became my obsession, and when Josiah Chester failed to reply to the scores of letters I sent him, I decided to travel to Wentworth County, Virginia, to speak to him in person. Then war broke out, as we had all feared
and expected it would, and my plans lay in ruins. The conflict forced me to set aside my search and tend to matters closer to home. Hans and Anneke had added to their family, so I had the children to think of, and the obligations and consequences of war to endure. So much I could write of that dark, unforgiving time, but I cannot divert from this history to recount it now, not when I am so near the end. Perhaps I will chronicle those events someday, if I can bring myself to do it, if I live long enough.

After the war, I immediately resumed my search, but my efforts were repeatedly thwarted by one obstacle or another. Despite my frustrations, I clung stubbornly to hope, and often played in my mind’s eye a glorious and triumphant scene of Joanna’s return to Elm Creek Manor and her reunion with her son. So feverishly did I believe this event would take place that I began piecing a quilt, a gift for Joanna, in anticipation of her arrival. I chose a pattern that would be easy to sew, as I had allowed my quilting skills to languish during the war, but one that had special significance: the Log Cabin, named for the interlocking design of its rectangular pieces. The design was invented, or so Dorothea once said, to honor Mr. Abraham Lincoln, and since he had granted Joanna her freedom, I thought it an appropriate choice for her quilt. The square in the center of the block was supposed to be yellow, to signify a light in the cabin window, or red, to signify the hearth, but I cut my central squares from black fabric, to symbolize that an escaped slave had once found sanctuary within our own log cabin.

Time passed, and as my Log Cabin quilt neared completion, the black center squares took on another meaning. Black was also the color of mourning, and as my relentless searches proved fruitless over and over again, I began to mourn my lost friend, who I feared would never see the quilt I had made for her.

My letters finally reached a daughter of Josiah Chester’s, but she claimed to know nothing of what had happened
to Joanna after she ran away. She did note that her father usually brought recaptured slaves to the home plantation for a few days of brutal punishment before selling them to family or acquaintances in Georgia or the Carolinas, to show other slaves what fate awaited them should they run off. She did not remember this happening to Joanna, but she did not know Joanna well and might not have recognized her, or so she claimed.

I might have believed her, had Joanna not told me she was a house slave and did all the sewing for the family. At the very least, Josiah Chester’s daughter would have seen Joanna every time she was fitted for a new dress, and likely more often than that.

The years went by. Joanna’s son grew tall and strong never knowing his real mother, and my hopes, which I had clung to fiercely throughout the war, gradually slipped from my grasp. I did not give up because I loved Joanna any less; on the contrary, I loved her more, seeing the fine young man my nephew had become, and knowing how Joanna’s courage and sacrifice had brought him into our lives. No, I finally stopped searching because I believed Joanna dead. Surely if she had lived, she would have returned to Elm Creek Manor for her child. She had found her way here once as a hunted fugitive; as a free woman, she could have done so again, and certainly would have, knowing her son awaited her return. Only death could have prevented her sending word to us. I am certain of it.

But if you are a Bergstrom, Reader, you already know her son was not awaiting her return.

You may wonder why we never told him the truth about his heritage. You may question our judgment; I know I have many times over the years, ever more so as I feel my own death lurking just beyond my sight, and I know it will not be long before I must account for my life before my Creator.

At first we did not tell him because he was too
young and would not understand. Then we did not tell him because we feared he might reveal the secret to strangers in an innocent remark, as children sometimes do. Later we said nothing because Joanna’s return seemed increasingly unlikely, and Anneke had forbidden us to tell him. She would not see his heart broken in mourning a mother he had never known, and she did not want him to feel loved any less than his brothers and sisters. Even when he became a man, fully capable of bearing and accepting the truth, still we did not tell him, for we had discovered that granting a people freedom did not bring them equality, and we were reminded daily of the brutality of ignorant folk who would love our precious boy today but despise him tomorrow if they knew the truth. Right or wrong, we could not do this to him.

When he was still a child, Anneke pleaded with me to swear never to tell her son—for that is how she thought of him, no less her child than if she had truly borne him—about Joanna, about himself. I complied, but not without misgivings. Indeed, all my life I have wondered if in protecting my nephew from prejudice and malice we did not inadvertently perpetuate those very evils. Perhaps we should have announced the truth from the rooftops and dared anyone to treat him differently than any other Bergstrom—but we loved him, and may God forgive us if it was wrong, but we put his safety before our principles. In our defense, if we had not done so, it would not have brought Joanna back to us.

But since I did so swear, I never told my nephew the truth, nor will I ever tell him. Since I cannot tell him, I instead tell you, not only because this is part of your legacy, your rightful inheritance, but also because I could not bear to have Joanna forgotten.

Anneke has been gone these past fifteen years, and yet I think I hear her reproach me for divulging our family secrets so long and so carefully hidden. Perhaps she is correct, and whoever reads these words will despise me for what I have done. That
is a risk I shall willingly take, for I do not believe, as Anneke did, that this truth will destroy us. It is the missing chapter of our family history that must be restored if we are to be whole, and if we are to truly know ourselves. Guard this, your legacy, closely, and treasure it in the quiet of your own heart.

I offer these words in memory of Joanna, whom I loved, and whom I pray found in the Kingdom of Heaven the peace, freedom, and joy she was denied in this world.

Elm Creek Manor, Pennsylvania
November 28, 1895

Sylvia closed the book and brushed the tears from her eyes.

Andrew had held her left hand in both of his as she read the last pages of the memoir aloud. Now he squeezed it and brought it to his lips. The compassion in his eyes threatened to bring forth more tears.

Sylvia cleared her throat and straightened in her chair, composing herself. “Well, I don’t know quite what to think.” And then her voice failed her, because her emotions refused to be translated into words. Her heart ached for Joanna, who had lost both her child and her dream of freedom. She was sickened and shamed that Anneke had betrayed her own family, and in so doing had ruined the lives and happiness of those dearest to her. But most of all, she was stunned. She felt as if the foundation of her universe had caved in upon itself.

“My family,” said Sylvia, slowly, “was not what I believed it to be.”

This time she did not mean merely that reality had failed to live up to the family legends.

“You see . . .” She sat lost in thought for a long moment. “I know David was my grandfather. And
my mother’s Bible indicates he had a twin brother.”

Andrew nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“But Gerda does not say whether Anneke bore David or Stephen.”

Andrew’s voice was quiet. “I noticed.”

“In fact, she quite deliberately avoids saying whose child was whose.” Suddenly Sylvia remembered that odd crossed-out line earlier in the memoir, the one she and Sarah had tried in vain to decipher. They had supposed that Gerda had written the name of Joanna’s child there, and now she understood why Gerda might have wished to blot it out. It was not an error, but a purposeful obscuring of the truth.

Sylvia’s mind reeled. She felt as if she were swirling down a drain, faster and faster, moments away from tumbling from her safe, certain world into an ocean of unfathomable uncertainty. “Why?” she said, her voice shaking. “Why confess so much, yet hold back that last detail?”

“Maybe she was trying to protect you—you, or whoever found her book.”

“Protect me?”

“She didn’t know you. She didn’t know how strong you are. It’s quite a blow, finding out you’ve been lied to all your life.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.” Sylvia felt the first faint stirrings of anger. “Then why write at all? Merely to unburden herself?”

Andrew shrugged, silent.

“She did not trust me,” said Sylvia, bitter. “She did not trust me with the whole truth, so she gave me only enough to make me doubt everything I ever believed about myself, only enough to throw my entire identity into question.” Even as she spoke, she felt rents appearing in the fabric of her history.

Andrew’s hand was warm and strong around hers. “Your family isn’t your entire
identity. You’re still Sylvia Bergstrom—a strong, capable woman. A quilter, a teacher, a friend, and the woman I love. What you learned from that book doesn’t change any of that.”

“But it changes nearly everything else.” All her life Sylvia had prided herself on being descended from Hans and Anneke Bergstrom—courageous pioneers, valiant Abolitionists, founders of a family and a fortune. She had long since come to terms with Gerda’s revelations that her ancestors were not the heroes she had believed them to be, but now her ancestors might not even be her ancestors.

Sylvia corrected herself. Her parents were still her parents; their parents were still her grandparents. It was the link to Hans and Anneke that was in question, nothing more. But that was so much.

“Would it be so bad to be Joanna’s great-granddaughter?” asked Andrew gently.

“No.” Sylvia had responded automatically, but then she forced herself to consider the question more thoroughly. Gradually, within the dizzying mix of emotions flooding her, she recognized wonder, intrigue, and awe. “I would be proud to be that brave woman’s descendant.” Then, in a painful flash of insight, she realized who else she would be related to, if Joanna were her great-grandmother.

“I had not wanted to believe we had slave owners in the family.” She paused, her throat constricted with emotion. “And now I discover I might be the great-granddaughter of a monster who not only owned slaves but raped and tortured them as well.”

“Don’t think about him,” urged Andrew. “Joanna didn’t when she held her son. She only thought of how much she loved him.”

“I would like very much to forget Josiah Chester, but if I am going to accept part of my heritage, I must accept all of it.”

“Let’s not forget, you don’t know for certain whether it
is
your heritage. We’re jumping to conclusions a bit, don’t you think? Anneke could have been David’s mother, just as you’ve always believed.”

Sylvia was about to retort that Gerda would have had little need to expose the family secret in that case, but then she reconsidered. There were other branches of the family besides her own; perhaps they were the ones Gerda had sought to protect. And there was Gerda’s desire to make known Joanna’s story, since the vow Anneke had exacted had nearly banished her from memory. It was entirely possible—in fact, even likely—that Sylvia’s heritage was exactly what she had always believed it to be.

She didn’t suppose she would ever know for certain.

Sylvia spent two days contemplating how much she would reveal about Gerda’s revelations and to whom. Her friends knew only that she had finished the memoir and that something she had read there troubled her, but thankfully, rather than pester her with questions, they allowed her time alone to think.