Elm Creek Quilts [08] The Christmas Quilt (17 page)

“James,” she said suddenly. “Promise me you’ll never leave me.”

“I promised you that when I married you.”

“Promise me again.”

He stopped and took both her hands in his, amused. “I, James Compson, promise you, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson, my lawfully wedded wife, that nothing on earth could compel me to leave you.”

“Not even a war?”

He hesitated. “If we do get pulled into the war in Europe, I might not have a choice. You know that.”

“Promise me you won’t enlist. Wait until you’re drafted. Promise me you’ll go only if you have no other choice.”

“You’re asking me to make promises about something that might not happen.” No trace of amusement remained in his face. “What if I have no choice but to enlist? What if it’s my duty?”

“Make your duty be to me,” Sylvia implored. “To this family. I lost two uncles to the Great War, and I know how my father’s service haunts him. I don’t want that for you. For us.”

“Sylvia—”

“Please, James.”

He fell silent, gathering up the rope to the toboggan. “All right,” he said quietly. “I won’t enlist unless it’s what I have to do to protect you, to protect this family. What I ask in return is that you allow me to decide when that time has arrived.”

She longed for him to correct his speech, to say that he had meant to say “if” instead of “when,” but he did not. “Very well,” she said. “Let us pray that time never comes.”

He handed her part of the toboggan rope and they continued on.

Soon James halted and indicated a tree a few yards ahead. “How about that one?”

In amazement, Sylvia took in the blue spruce from trunk to highest bow. It was the most magnificent tree she had ever beheld. Their journey had taken them off the usual footpaths into a section of the Bergstrom woods she rarely visited, but still she wondered how she could have missed this tree before. Somehow, she thought, she should have known it was here.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. And it was—strong and full and tall. Perhaps too tall. “It looks about forty feet high.”

“I would have guessed forty-five.”

Sylvia smiled. “We’d never get that back to the house. We’d have to bend it in half to fit it in the ballroom, and even then it might still brush the ceiling.”

James grinned, agreeing. “Pity, though. It’s a beautiful tree.”

“It’s unfortunate we can’t just lop off the top.”

James studied the tree. “Who says we can’t?”

“Common sense. You’d have to climb all that way carrying the ax, and then—” James picked up the coil of rope, shouldered the ax, and headed for the base of the tree.

“James, no.” Sylvia caught him by the sleeve of his coat.

“Have you lost your mind? You could fall and break your neck.”

“I’ve climbed a few trees in my day.”

“But you’re no lumberjack. Don’t be foolish. There are other trees.”

He placed a hand on a lower branch. “Not like this one.”

Sylvia imagined the top of the tree crashing to the ground, her husband close behind. She pictured it falling the wrong way, pinning her beneath its weight. “We could both get very badly hurt; you do realize that, don’t you?”

He brushed her cheek and grinned. “Sweetheart, have a little faith.”

Sylvia threw up her hands and backed away. Even burdened by the rope and ax, James scaled the blue spruce with remarkable speed. Sylvia could not tear her eyes from him as he climbed, as if her line of sight held him aloft, and if she looked away for the barest instant, he would tumble to the ground. Soon only bits of his clothing were visible through the thick branches—the heel of his brown boot, the red wool scarf she had knit him.

Then she heard the chopping sound of metal biting wood and, minutes later, a shout of warning.

Instinctively she flung up an arm to shield her face as the top of the tree seemed to hang suspended in the air for a moment, before it tipped, deceptively slowly, and plummeted to the ground. A smaller shape followed.

Snowdrifts muffled the sound of two impacts.

Sylvia found that she was holding her breath, and that she had looked away. Frantically she searched the tree until she spotted James climbing down, the coil of rope upon his shoulder. The ax. He had tossed down the ax rather than carry it. The height, her worry—all had deceived her into misjudging the size of the second object to fall.

Sylvia ran to him and flung her arms around him just as his feet touched solid ground. “Never do that again, understand? You scared me half to death.”

James regarded her, surprised. “I got you the perfect tree, didn’t I?”

“You’re more important to me than any tree.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Sylvia was still trembling, but she followed James to the fallen treetop and helped him raise it. It was undamaged, as full and perfectly shaped as it had seemed from far below. They loaded it on the toboggan and tied it down with the rope.

“We’ll take this part back for everyone else to see,” said James as they pulled the toboggan toward home. “We’ll know what it really is—just a small part of something greater than anyone else can imagine.”

“And the tree will keep growing,” Sylvia added. They were not leaving only a stump behind. Their tree would continue to grow and if all went well, it would one day regain its former height. In twenty years, perhaps, they could return to the same tree—but surely they would no longer be the most recently married couple by then. If someone chose that tree again, it would have to be another pair of newlyweds passing on the Bergstrom traditions.

Together they pulled on the towrope and brought back their first Christmas tree to the family awaiting them inside in the warmth and light.

Sylvia and James chose the Bergstrom Christmas tree for three more seasons.

By their fourth Christmas as husband and wife, the anticipated additions to the family—a baby, Claudia’s beau Harold—had not come, but otherwise the family’s fortunes had prospered since their wedding day. Through the years, Richard’s wanderlust had grown, and when he was sixteen, he finally persuaded their father to allow him to attend a young men’s academy in Philadelphia. A few days after the term began, he wired home with the astonishing news that he had found Andrew and that they had resumed their close friendship. Sylvia was delighted that her brother had a friend at school, especially one who knew the city well, but she missed Richard terribly. Still, she usually kept her lonely worries to herself. It was the autumn of 1943, and with so many families losing brothers and sons every day, she had no right to complain when her brother was merely away at school.

That year she looked forward to Christmas with greater anticipation than ever before. On the day Richard was expected home for the school holidays, the manor buzzed with expectation and excitement. All day Sylvia paced around, taking care of last-minute preparations but rarely far from a window, looking out through the falling snow for her brother. Suddenly one of the cousins ran downstairs from the nursery shouting that a car was coming up the drive. Sylvia ran to the foyer, threw open the front door—and discovered that Richard had not come alone. She would not have minded if Andrew had accompanied him, but instead she found herself gaping at a small figure standing so shyly behind Richard that she might have been attempting to hide. The biggest blue eyes Sylvia had ever seen peered up at her from beneath a white fur hood, but nearly all of the rest of a small, pale face was hidden behind a thick woolen muffler.

Richard laughed, kissed his sister on the cheek, and guided his companion indoors.

That was how Sylvia met the love of her little brother’s life.

Agnes Chevalier easily surpassed Claudia in beauty, her skin so fair and features so delicately perfect that she reminded Sylvia of a dark-haired version of the porcelain doll she had given to Andrew’s sister years before. Aside from her loveliness, though, Sylvia concluded within hours of her arrival that it was impossible to understand what her brother saw in the girl. He must have lost his mind, because why else would he have brought her, without a chaperone, all the way from Philadelphia to disrupt the Bergstroms’ Christmas? Didn’t her own family want her?

Soon Sylvia discovered why they indeed might not, for as surely as she was the prettiest girl Sylvia had ever seen, she was also the silliest and most spoiled creature ever to set foot in Elm Creek Manor. Worst of all, Richard was obviously besotted with her and indulged her every whim. When she asked for coffee after supper just as Sylvia appeared with the tea service, Richard raced into the kitchen to put on the coffeepot. Even after Richard showed her the estate and explained to her about the business he would run someday, she still referred to the stable as a “barn” and a young horse as a “calf.” At eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve, she came downstairs dressed for Midnight Mass—and without missing a beat, Richard escorted her to church even though all his life he had attended Christmas morning services like every other Bergstrom. At breakfast Christmas morning, she insisted that the legendary Gerda Bergstrom’s strudel could not possibly taste as delicious as the one Sylvia and Claudia made, which was an entirely ridiculous assertion given that she had absolutely no proof one way or the other.

It irked Sylvia that her father seemed to find the fifteenyear old child charming, and that James and Claudia seemed unaware of the flaws that were so obvious to Sylvia. James even warned Sylvia that she had better get used to Agnes because she might become a permanent addition to the family. Sylvia shuddered at the very thought, but she resolved to conceal her feelings for Richard’s sake. Surely time would prove Richard’s interest to be nothing more than a passing fancy, and next Christmas, they would celebrate with just the Bergstrom clan again—and Harold, who always joined them. But that was fine with Sylvia, as he had been Claudia’s beau so long he might as well be family.

Sylvia’s prediction could not have been more wrong.

In the following spring, Richard responded to the increasing anti-German sentiment in the country by deciding to lie about his age and enlist to prove his patriotism and loyalty. His best friend, Andrew, planned to join up with him. Alerted to their intentions, James and Harold raced to Philadelphia, but arrived too late to stop them—too late as well to prevent Richard and Agnes from marrying. They were no different from so many other young couples faced with separation who married in haste, but Agnes’s parents must have consented only reluctantly because she was no longer welcome in their home.

Richard and Andrew were given two weeks before they were due to report for basic training, so Richard accompanied his bride when James and Harold brought her back to Elm Creek Manor. It was only then that Sylvia learned that James and Harold had enlisted, too, because if they did so immediately they were promised that they could remain together.

“It was the only way, Sylvia,” James insisted as she reeled from shock. “It was the only way. I’ll look after him. I promise you that. I promise we’ll all come home safe to you.”

There was nothing she could do. He had enlisted; he could not take it back. Nor could she rage at him for breaking the promise he had made to her that Christmas Eve. He had enlisted in order to look after her beloved younger brother. He believed he was doing what was necessary to protect her, to protect their family.

The men’s last days at Elm Creek Manor flew swiftly by. Harold asked Claudia to marry him, and she accepted. Sylvia half expected them to wed at the county courthouse before Harold departed, but Claudia said they would marry after he came home. Harold did not seem pleased by the delay, but he could hardly complain considering that it was his fault they had not married years earlier.

Before Sylvia could come to terms with the men’s imminent departure, they left for eight weeks of basic training. Sylvia saw her husband one last time before he shipped out, spending more than she could reasonably afford on train fare and a boarding house because she could not bear to stay away. Though James was the only one of them granted overnight leave, she managed to see the other three men at the base before they shipped out. Richard and Andrew were proud and excited about their deployment, while Harold was reticent and wary and wore his fatigues uncomfortably. Only James seemed unchanged, the same beloved man but for the uniform.

She was not the only wife or sweetheart who had come to bid a lover farewell. When it was time to part, she stood behind a chain link fence with other women as the men marched back to their barracks, some shouting encouragement to the soldiers, others waving and promising to write, many weeping. Sylvia held the men in her sight as long as she could, wanting James and Richard’s last glimpse of her to be a comfort to them while they were away. They needed to know she would be strong, that she would hold the family and the business together in their absence. She wanted their last memory of her to be a source of courage and pride.

But Harold ruined it. At the last moment, he sprinted back and linked his fingers with hers through the chain link fence. “Will you give Claudia a message?”

Sylvia nodded. “Of course. Anything.”

“Will you ask her to wait for me?”

At first Sylvia was confused. “I thought she accepted your proposal.”

“Yes, but—” He hesitated. “I may be gone a long time, and she’s a beautiful girl …”

Sylvia’s heart hardened. “My sister has loved you since she was seventeen years old,” she snapped. “It’s outrageous that you would doubt her loyalty now. You’ve had every opportunity to marry her. It’s not her fault you squandered your time.”

She turned from his startled, wounded face and strode away as quickly as she could. She did not turn around to see if James had witnessed the exchange, if his last memory of her would be of anger and spite.

Within weeks of the men’s deployment, Sylvia discovered she was pregnant.

*  *  *

Months passed. Letters from the men were infrequent and cherished, though sometimes they were censored so thoroughly Sylvia could hardly make sense of them. Sylvia threw herself into sustaining her household, volunteering for the war effort however she could, organizing scrap metal drives, and buying war bonds—anything. She would have joined the WACs or moved to Pittsburgh and taken a job in one of the factories that had been turned over to war production if she had not been needed at home to manage Bergstrom Thoroughbreds. And if she had not thought it might endanger the baby.