Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (16 page)

But Mrs. Diegel was right. How long could they get by washing up at the kitchen sink? How would Elizabeth cook for them on Sundays, their day off?

“I suppose I could sell some of our things,” she said reluctantly. She dragged one of the trunks into the open. There was a faint, musical chime of china delicately clinking.

“Is that china?” asked Mrs. Diegel.

Elizabeth nodded, unfastened the lock, and opened the trunk. She reached within the folds of the quilt and withdrew a cup and saucer. “It’s our Blue Willow china,” she said steadily. “Twelve five-piece place settings and several serving dishes. It was a gift from my grandparents.”

“You certainly expected to entertain in high style, didn’t you?” said Mrs. Diegel, admiring the china. “Well. I don’t think you’ll find much of a market for fine china in the Arboles Valley, but perhaps…” She glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen, and her gaze lingered on her own china closet before she turned back to Elizabeth. “I’d be willing to trade you some more practical necessities for the china service. You can try to sell them elsewhere first if you like; I’m in no hurry.”

But Elizabeth was, and she would have no idea where to begin trying to sell her things. “What would you be willing to offer?”

Mrs. Diegel wanted to inspect the entire service first, so Elizabeth carefully unpacked the plates and cups and casseroles and placed them on the table. Not a single piece had broken, and as Mrs. Diegel held up a dinner plate to the light to admire the design, she proposed a trade: a mattress—rarely used, as it had been her grown daughter’s before she moved to San Francisco and not for hotel guests—two feather pillows, a simple pewter table service for four, and three kerosene lamps for all of the china. Elizabeth pointed out that the china was new, whereas Mrs. Diegel’s things were not. Mrs. Diegel added two scuttles of coal and a large copper stockpot to the deal, and since Elizabeth doubted she would go any higher, she agreed.

“What else do you have in there?” asked Mrs. Diegel, eying the remaining trunks eagerly.

With a twinge of regret, Elizabeth opened the rest of the trunks. She traded away the silver plate for a set of used flatware, a teakettle, and five pieces of cast-iron cookware. A pair of elegant candlesticks went for sacks of sugar, coffee, and flour. Mrs. Diegel tried to talk her into parting with all of the bedsheets, but Elizabeth insisted upon keeping one set for her and Henry. One by one she parted with her beautiful things, acquiring the practical necessities of everyday life in return.

When the last trunk had been emptied, Mrs. Diegel seemed sorry to end their bargaining, but Elizabeth felt drained, bereft. While she repacked the trunks with the secondhand goods, Mrs. Diegel instructed the porter to take the mattress from the spare bedroom in the family wing of the hotel and load it into Lars’s wagon. Humming merrily, Mrs. Diegel carefully arranged the Blue Willow pieces in her china closet. “You brought this all the way from Pennsylvania bouncing and jolting in trains and wagons, and not one broken teacup, not one single chipped plate,” she marveled.

And now it seemed all for nothing. “I suppose the quilts protected them.”

“Quilts? What quilts?”

Elizabeth gestured. “In the first trunk. You saw them when I took out the china.”

“I saw muslin sheets, not quilts.” Mrs. Diegel put away the last saucer and hurried over. “Well, bring them out. Let’s have a look at them.”

“My aunts wrapped the quilts in muslin sheets to keep them clean,” Elizabeth explained as she withdrew the bundles from the trunk. She unfolded the wedding quilt and spread it upon her lap, pride a warm glow in her chest as Mrs. Diegel exclaimed in awe and delight over the Bergstrom women’s handiwork. Great-Aunt Lucinda’s homespun scrap Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt evoked a more subdued reaction than the elegant Double Wedding Ring, but Elizabeth was pleased and comforted by Mrs. Diegel’s declaration that they were the two most beautiful and well-made quilts she had ever seen.

“The women of your family clearly take pride in their work,” she said. As Elizabeth thanked her and folded the quilts, Mrs. Diegel added, “What will you take for them?”

Elizabeth let out a small laugh of surprise. “Sorry, nothing. I couldn’t part with them.”

“Surely there’s something else you need.”

“Not more than I need these quilts.”

“I have a copper bathtub left over from before we had indoor plumbing. It’s been in storage in the carriage house for years. Polish it up a bit and it will be as good as new.”

Elizabeth hesitated, but shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no.”

“Oh, come now,” said Mrs. Diegel. “A young girl like yourself, a new bride no less, and you’re willing to go without a good soak in the tub at the end of a long day?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes, the quilts a soft, comforting weight in her arms. She could almost feel the steam rise from the hot bath, feel the water enveloping her, bubbles tickling her toes. Then she opened her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s not enough.”

“We’ll see how you feel after a month without a proper bath. We’ll see how your husband feels.”

Elizabeth felt a lump in her throat. She shook her head and returned the folded quilts to the trunk.

“What are these two quilts compared to a hot bath?” persisted Mrs. Diegel. “You’ve seen my needlework. I could never make anything so lovely, but you could always make others to replace these.”

“Not like these, I couldn’t. Not with only a needle and thread.”

“I have a sewing machine.”

“Our cabin doesn’t have electricity.”

“This runs by a treadle.”

Elizabeth paused, her hand on the latch of the trunk.

Mrs. Diegel leaned forward conspiratorially. “The bathtub, the treadle sewing machine with enough thread and fabric to get you started, and I’ll throw in ten dollars. There’s bound to be something else you need, something you aren’t thinking of at the moment. Or maybe you’ll want to buy something nice for your husband. What do you say?”

Elizabeth knew what answer she wanted to give, and she knew what the only sensible reply could be. A bathtub was not only a luxury for soaking her cares away. Henry would want it, too, perhaps more than the beautiful quilts. And how long, indeed, would he continue to find her beautiful if she had to make do with the pump at the kitchen sink? Already her nails had become ragged, the skin of her hands red and rough. Already she was not the lovely young bride he had married.

“Someday,” said Elizabeth. “Someday, when our circumstances have improved, will you allow me to buy the quilts back from you?”

Mrs. Diegel considered. “I suppose that’s reasonable, but I can’t guarantee their condition. I intend to use them in the hotel guest rooms.”

Pained by the admission, Elizabeth said, “But you will allow me to buy them back, at a fair price, when I am able?”

“Very well.” Mrs. Diegel extended a hand. “It’s a deal.”

Elizabeth shook on it, her heart aching. It was not much of a deal. They had not agreed on a price, and the quilts might be well worn by the time she had saved up enough money to buy them back. But without that agreement, without the glimmer of hope that she might one day have the quilts restored to her, she never could have parted with them.

Outside, Lars and the porter finished loading the wagon as Elizabeth climbed back onto the seat. She knew she had done the right thing, the only sensible thing, given their circumstances, but she felt hollow inside from longing. For months she had watched as her mother, aunts, and grandmother labored over her bridal quilt, each leaving her unique imprint upon the cloth. For months she had dreamed of sleeping beneath it in the arms of her adoring husband. In her mind’s eye she could still see Great-Aunt Lucinda explaining the symbolism of the Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt to little cousin Sylvia, how the quilt carried with it the love and the stead-fastness of her family, a reminder that no matter how far she journeyed from them, she would always be welcomed home to a loving embrace. But now the beautiful quilts to which the Bergstrom women had contributed their finest handiwork would grace the beds of itinerant strangers, who might admire their beauty but would never suspect what they truly represented.

She blinked back tears and rested her hand upon the letters from home in her pocket. She could not cry over quilts and china when Henry had lost his life savings and his dream. The last thing he needed was the burden of his wife’s childish grief. He would be proud of her when he discovered what she had acquired to make the cabin more comfortable. She would make it as cozy a home as the farmhouse of Triumph Ranch would have been.

Lars drove the wagon back to the Jorgensen farm in silence, sparing her questions about the unexpected change in their cargo. He bypassed the farmhouse and went straight to the cabin, where he helped her unload the wagon and carry things inside. They worked quickly, mindful of the chores awaiting them. Together they wrestled the old mattress out of the cabin and replaced it with the newer one. The trunks and smaller parcels they left in the middle of the front room for Elizabeth to sort out later. Lars set up the sewing machine inside in the front room between the window and the fireplace, but he hesitated at the sight of the old copper bathtub. “Where do you want this?” he asked.

“Let’s put it in the second bedroom for now,” said Elizabeth, pushing open the door. Her nose wrinkled at the stale, musty-sweet odor. She should have left the door open to allow the room to air out rather than vainly try to conceal the mess. “If we get that crate out of the way, we’ll have enough space.”

She crossed the room to the large wooden crate beneath the window, but Lars brushed past her and took hold of it first. “I can get it.”

“It looks heavy,” said Elizabeth, placing a hand on the lid. “Let me help.”

“No need.” Lars pushed himself between Elizabeth and the crate, jostling the lid aside a few inches, enough for Elizabeth to glimpse dozens and dozens of empty glass liquor bottles piled inside.

As the sticky-sweet odor wafted forth, Elizabeth stepped back, waving her hand in front of her face. “So that’s what that smell was,” she said. “It must be someone’s pre-Prohibition stash.”

“Some fool drank away a lot of years in this place,” said Lars.

“It can’t be anyone in your family, or you’d know,” said Elizabeth. “Drinkers think they’re keeping it a secret, they think they’re fooling everyone just because they get up and go to work every day, but everybody knows. They’re just afraid to say anything. As long as everyone pretends everything’s fine, they can pretend he’s different from that drunken bum on the street corner. The only real difference is that no one’s afraid to tell the bum he’s a drunk. As for the other kind—well, no one thanks the person who pops the bubble of the family’s collective delusion, let me tell you.”

Lars was staring at her.

“I’m not talking about Henry,” she hastened to add. “My father. My father’s the drinker of the family.”

Lars regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and surprise. “Seems like every family’s got one.”

Elizabeth shrugged, feeling suddenly ashamed of her spiteful, disloyal words. “I suppose so. I—I don’t want you to misunderstand. He’s a good man. But—you just don’t know what it’s like, loving someone, wanting to believe in him, and knowing that sooner or later, he’s going to let you down. That’s one of the reasons I agreed to move so far from home. I just don’t want to see him that way anymore.”

“You didn’t think you’d end up in a place like this or you wouldn’t have come.” Lars glanced around the room. “This cabin should be torn down, every last board and nail.”

“Is that any way to talk about my lovely new home?” When Lars did not respond to her attempt at levity, she said, “You know our circumstances. You know we’re lucky to have a roof over our heads.”

“I know Mrs. Diegel is a shrewd businesswoman and you left that hotel a far cry more miserable than you walked in.” Lars hefted the crate, ropes of muscles visible through his shirtsleeves. “You should have held out for more, both from her and my mother.”

He hauled the crate from the room, glass clattering. Elizabeth sighed and rested a hand upon the copper bathtub, worn out from unloading the wagon, from disappointment and uncertainty. She had done the best she could. She did not know how to haggle over prices. At her father’s hotel, he decided what to charge for a night’s stay, for a meal, for any service a guest could imagine. He stuck a price tag on things and accepted that amount from the guest in cash or credit. Nothing in her life had prepared her for what she had faced today. Henry could do the work he had signed on for, but Elizabeth had no idea how to be a poor farmhand’s wife.

She thought then of Mrs. Jorgensen, of the work Elizabeth needed to finish that day before she could return to the cabin and the tasks awaiting her there. She roused herself, left the letters from home on the chair in the front room, and joined Lars in the wagon, empty now except for the crate of bottles.

“I wonder what your brother will think when he sees those,” said Elizabeth. “Will he suspect the farmhands?”

“By the look of them, those bottles have been empty for years,” said Lars shortly. “I don’t see what’s to be gained by letting my brother know about them.”

“Agreed,” said Elizabeth. She saw no point in getting anyone in trouble. It was not as if she and Lars had discovered an illicit still, the farmhands gathered around filling flasks and hollow canes.