The Quilter's Legacy (20 page)

Sylvia and Andrew exchanged bemused looks, but Andrew shrugged and piled several sandwiches on a plate. Sylvia knew she was too nervous to hold a teacup, so she merely sat fidgeting in her chair, watching the children play. “No, the engine goes in here,” the little boy told the girl, handing her a small wooden block, but what sort of vehicle the engine was meant to propel, Sylvia had no idea.

Before long they heard footsteps again, and then Mona returned with something draped over her arm. “This is the quilt I contacted you about,” she said, unfolding it carefully. “I hope it's the right one. It would be a shame if you came all this way for nothing.”

“We were passing by on our way home from California anyway,” Andrew said, but Sylvia merely nodded. Involuntarily, she straightened in her chair and held her breath.

Mona held up the quilt, and Sylvia was struck speechless.

“As you can see, it definitely is a Crazy Quilt.” Mona regarded Sylvia inquisitively, awaiting a response. “And it has the identifying marks you listed on the Web site. Although some of the stitches have come out, you can still see an embroidered spiderweb in this corner. Here is the appliquéd horseshoe, and if I'm not mistaken, this patch here is from a linen handkerchief. Do you see the monogrammed ALC?”

“Sylvia?” prompted Andrew.

“That's it,” said Sylvia. “That's my mother's quilt.”

“How wonderful,” exclaimed Mona. She draped the quilt over Sylvia's lap. “I hoped it would be. You must be thrilled.”

Sylvia hesitated before touching the delicate fabrics, as if they would dissolve like the memory of a dream. She had not seen her mother's Crazy Quilt in more than fifty years. The colors were not as bright as she remembered, and some of the fabrics had unraveled so that only the embroidery stitches held the quilt together, but she did not remember when she had ever seen anything so lovely.

“Mona,” she said, “I am so far beyond thrilled that I don't think they've invented a word to describe how I'm feeling.”

Mona clasped her hands together and beamed. “I couldn't be happier for you. And to think, I never would have known to contact you except for my daughter-in-law.” She indicated the children with a proud nod. “Their mother.”

“She's a dentist,” the boy piped up. “Grandma plays with us when she works.”

“Yes, and we have a lovely time, don't we?” Mona turned back to Sylvia. “She's a quilter, and she heard about the Missing Quilts Home Page at her guild meeting. When she read the description of your lost Crazy Quilt, she immediately recognized mine.”

Sylvia felt a pang at Mona's last word, though she was right to use it. The quilt did belong to Mona. “I'm very grateful you contacted me,” she said. “I'm also quite curious. How did you come to own it?”

“By a very circuitous route,” said Mona with a laugh. “This quilt has had an eventful life since leaving your household.

“On your way through town, you passed a lovely old brownstone called the Landenhurst Center. It was refurbished into an office building during the eighties, but back in the sixties and seventies, it was a theater for the performing arts. A lovely place, too—velvet curtains, ornate paintings and carvings, two balconies, and private boxes for the local gentry—but the acoustics were far from ideal and the roof leaked, and after the new civic center opened, its time had passed.

“The founders of this theater, Arthur and Christine Landenhurst, were rising stars in vaudeville at a time when vaudeville was going the way of the buggy whip. They traveled from town to town performing their comedy act on a variety of stages—nothing terribly grand, of course, but fame and fortune seemed only the next performance away. They had both been married to other people, people who were not performers and thus did not understand them at all, or so Arthur and Christine thought. They fell passionately in love with each other, and one night, after a particularly successful performance in front of a scout from a New York theater who promised them they could be headliners, they ran off to New York, where they divorced their spouses, married each other, and eagerly anticipated their coming stardom.

“Not long after their arrival, they discovered that the theater this scout worked for was not one of the most prestigious. According to the story, it was one of the seediest in the city. Christine and Arthur needed a year to get out of their contract, and almost another year to find a better one, but that, too, was short-lived. Both tried to find work on Broadway, never managing to get more than bit parts, but they persisted, until one day they realized they were ten years older and not one step closer to becoming headliners than the day they had arrived in New York.

“They must have realized their big breaks might never come, for when Christine was offered a role in a traveling production, she took it, and Arthur accompanied her. Eventually he won a part in the cast, too, and together they toured throughout the East Coast and parts of the Midwest, enjoying every minute on stage, but hating the travel and the unpredictability of their profession.

“They were heading West after a performance in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when the train was delayed for repairs. The entire company found themselves stranded in a small town with nothing to do but wait and try to enjoy the unexpected time off. Arthur and Christine decided to explore the quaint shops downtown, which is where they found your mother's quilt.”

Mona reached for the quilt, and Sylvia reluctantly allowed her to take hold of one edge. “They bought it, of course,” said Mona, regarding the quilt with amused fondness. She nodded to the patch cut from a linen handkerchief. “Actors are notoriously superstitious, and when they saw the monogram—the same as their own, ALC for Arthur and Christine Landenhurst—they saw it as an omen of change. I imagine they were ready to give up the road anyway, but finding this quilt gave them the push they needed. So they resumed their journey with the company and waited for another sign.

“The production was in its final week in South Bend when the sign finally came. A childhood friend of Arthur's had driven all the way from Fort Wayne, where he was a college professor, to see the couple's performance. As it happened, this friend was in a position to offer Arthur a job as a drama teacher. Arthur accepted, and so he and Christine moved to Fort Wayne.”

“Arthur became a drama professor at the college?” asked Andrew.

“Well, not exactly. The job was at the local high school. But there Arthur discovered a love for teaching, as did Christine, who became a music instructor and vocal coach. Eventually they joined the college faculty, and wouldn't you know it, their acting careers finally took off. They both made numerous appearances in university theater productions, and later, they became quite popular hosts of a local television variety show. They founded the Landenhurst Theater here in Silver River, where they made their home, and they were very well regarded as patrons of the arts and pillars of the community.”

“They sound like very interesting people,” said Sylvia. Suddenly she didn't mind quite so much that they had owned her mother's quilt. They had purchased it honestly enough, and by its appearance, they had cared for it properly.

“That explains how it ended up in Silver River, Indiana,” said Andrew, “but not how you became its owner.”

“Oh yes. Please go on,” said Sylvia. “Are you related to the Landenhursts?”

“No, but my husband was acquainted with them. Arthur Landenhurst died in 1984, and Christine passed away two years later. They had no children, and except for a modest percentage for the general scholarship fund at the college, they left their estate to a trust to help fund the Landenhurst Theater in perpetuity. Most of their possessions were sold to establish this trust, but others—their substantial collection of costumes and musical scores, for example, autographed photos and scripts from actors they had met, various items that seemed to have little fiscal worth but could be used as distinctive stage props—those remained in the theater, in the safekeeping of the theater board.

“Regrettably, after some time, the theater ran into financial problems, which were augmented, I'm sad to say, by the board's poor management of their finances. The board held an auction of the Landenhurst's remarkable collections in an attempt to shore up the trust, but they held off their troubles for only a few more years.” Mona sighed and gathered up the quilt, and Sylvia forced herself not to cling to it. “The theater sold to a business development group. At first there were some sporadic protests from local preservationists who wanted the building to remain a theater, but even they realized it would cost a fortune to bring it up to modern standards.” Mona stroked the quilt. “I have wonderful memories of that theater. Now all that remains is its name, most of its original exterior, and those belongings of the Landenhursts that were sold at auction.”

“The Crazy Quilt was one of those?” asked Sylvia.

Mona smiled. “Yes. It was a prop in numerous plays over the years—
Little Women
and
Arsenic and Old Lace
, among others. It was also used in
You Can't Take It with You
, in which my eldest son appeared. He went on to become a theater major at Yale, and now he's a director.”

“I can see why you wanted to keep this quilt as a memento,” remarked Andrew.

“Well, everyone around here knows the legend of how the Landenhursts came to Silver River, but only a few know the story of this particular quilt, or I suspect the bidding would have gone far beyond my reach.”

“How did you happen to hear the story?” asked Sylvia, with a sudden fear that Mona's tale might be no more than hearsay.

“My late husband was a lawyer,” said Mona. “He was also, at one time, a member of the theater board. When Arthur and Christine updated their will to create the Landenhurst Trust, my husband met frequently with them and their counsel. They shared quite a few stories of how they came by certain items of great sentimental value.” She gave Sylvia a long look of understanding. “I suppose the only person who valued this quilt more than they did would be you.”

Sylvia tried to smile. “In my case, ‘sentimental value’ would be an extreme understatement.”

“That's why although I might own it, it truly belongs to you. To me it will never be more than a beautiful object d'art, a fond remembrance of pleasant occasions and two people I greatly admired. To you, every piece of fabric, every stitch, every thread contains a memory of your family, of your mother. This quilt is a part of you in a way it will never be a part of me, however attached to it I might have become.” She smiled. “That's why you are the only person I could conceivably sell it to.”

Sylvia felt a catch in her throat. “You would let me buy it?”

Mona appeared to consider it for a moment, and then she shrugged. “For what I paid for it, and oh, perhaps a little something extra.”

“I expect you to make a fair profit, of course.” Sylvia worried far less that the price would be out of her reach than that Mona might change her mind.

“That's not what I mean,” said Mona. “Did I mention my daughter in law is a quilter?”

S
ylvia and Andrew began the last leg of their journey home, their spirits light. Sylvia rarely let the quilt out of her hands. She could still hardly believe that Mona had been willing to part with it for the few hundred dollars she had spent at the Landenhurst auction and the promise of a free week at camp for her daughter-in-law. “I hope you offer classes in making Crazy Quilts,” said Mona wistfully as they parted. “Perhaps you can encourage her to make me a replacement.”

“I'll do my best,” promised Sylvia, although they both knew nothing could replace this particular quilt.

As they drove east to Pennsylvania and Elm Creek Manor, the precious quilt on Sylvia's lap, she could laugh at all her worries of the past few weeks. Her disappointment over the earlier false leads suddenly seemed insignificant. Even Bob's and Cathy's lack of enthusiasm for the news of their engagement no longer troubled her quite as much as before.

Cradling her mother's legacy in her arms, she renewed her resolve to search out the remaining four quilts wherever the trail would take her. Now that she had found one, nothing could dissuade her from pursuing every lead. Nothing could diminish her high hopes, not after the impossible had come to pass.

Nothing, she thought, until they arrived home at Elm Creek Manor and found Andrew's daughter waiting for them.

Chapter Six

1912

E
leanor sat alone in her study on the third floor of Elm Creek Manor. The unfinished quilt in her lap was too small to warm her, but she scarcely noticed the chill. If she acknowledged a discomfort as trivial as the cold, she would then have to feel all the other pain. Far better to allow her fingers to grow numb in the draft from the open window. Far better for her to grow numb everywhere.

She stroked the quilt, though she barely felt the soft cotton beneath her hands. She should have set it aside, as she had two years earlier when her hopes had last been shattered. This time, although her morning nausea had almost certainly revealed her secret weeks before she and Fred had told the family, she had waited until nearly halfway through her time before taking up the quilt again. Within a month she had quilted nearly every feathered plume, every wreath of elm leaves, every crosshatched heart, every delicate ribbon in the quilt's pure, unbroken white surface before she lost the child she had so longed to cuddle within its soft embrace.