Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (2 page)

Henry had given up too easily. If he loved her, he would have written back. He would have been waiting for her on the front steps of Elm Creek Manor to demand that she turn down Gerald or Jack or any other fellow who came too close. He would have done something.

He hadn’t, and that told her the truth she did not want to know.

Two days before Christmas Eve, Elizabeth tried to lose herself in the joyful anticipation of the holidays. She played with little cousin Sylvia, threaded needles for Great-Aunt Lucinda as she sewed a green-and-red Feathered Star quilt, and helped Aunt Eleanor and the other Bergstrom women make delicious apple strudel as gifts for neighbors. Perhaps she should offer to take the Nelsons’ to them at Two Bears Farm on the chance that she might see Henry—but what then? How pathetic she would seem, hoping to win him back with pastry. It was very good pastry, but even so. She had her pride.

She was reading a Christmas story to Sylvia when a cousin came running to the nursery to announce that Elizabeth had a visitor. She almost knocked Sylvia out of the rocking chair in her haste to see who had come.

She hurried downstairs to find Henry in the kitchen talking companionably with her father and Uncle Fred. Her heart quickened at the sight of him, taller and more handsome than she remembered, fairer and slighter of frame than the Bergstrom men but with the hardened muscles and callused hands of a farmer. She was pleased to see he had since summer shaved off his seasonal mustache because she had never liked the way it hid the curve of his mouth. He smiled warmly at her, but she was struck by a newfound resolve in his eyes.

She knew at once that he had come to tell her he had fallen in love with someone else.

He invited her to go for a walk. Together they crossed the bridge over Elm Creek, passed the barn, and strolled along the apple grove, the trees bare-limbed and bleak against the gray sky. “What did you think of my last letter?” Elizabeth asked when she could endure exchanging pleasantries no longer. “You never answered, unless your reply was lost in the mail.”

He was silent for a moment; the only sound was the crunching of their boots upon snow and the far-off caw of a crow. “I’m always glad to get your letters. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to write back. I’ve been busy with…some business matters.”

She smiled tightly. December was not usually a busy time around Two Bears Farm. “I asked for your opinion and I was counting on you to offer it.”

“I wasn’t sure what you were asking,” said Henry. “Do I think this friend of yours considers you two a couple? I’d bet on it, if you haven’t told him otherwise. Do I think you should discourage him? That depends.”

“It depends?” Elizabeth stopped and looked up at him. “It depends on what?”

“Do you want him to think you’re his girl or not? I never thought you were the type to marry a fellow because he wore you down, but if you are, maybe you should save him the time and trouble and marry him now.”

“Thank you for the suggestion,” said Elizabeth. She resumed walking, faster now, to put distance between them. “I’ll consider it.”

Henry easily caught up to her. “It wasn’t a suggestion.”

“Then what
do
you think?”

“Do you love him?”

“He asked me to marry him, and I refused, didn’t I?”

Henry caught her by the elbow. “That doesn’t answer my question. Do you love him?”

“No,” Elizabeth burst out. “I don’t love him, but at least I know how he feels about me, which is more than I can say about you.”

She did not expect to see Henry again, but he returned the next afternoon. By that time, most of her anger had abated. Though the memory of her outburst and subsequent flight embarrassed her, she was determined not to apologize. She agreed to another walk, mostly out of curiosity. She had puzzled too long over the mystery of Henry’s feelings to send him away when he had apparently decided to divulge them.

He waited until they had crossed the bridge, out of earshot of both the house and the barn—unless they shouted, which was perhaps not out of the question. “I thought you knew I loved you.”

The gracelessness of his declaration sparked her anger. “How would I know, since you’ve never told me?”

“Would I write to you for five years if I didn’t love you? Would I come to Elm Creek Manor and see you every day you’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said emphatically, and Elizabeth knew it to be true. Another man might, but not Henry.

“Well, say it, then,” she told him.

He hesitated. “Why do I have to say it?”

“Because I need to know. Because you never lie, and if you say you love me straight out, I’ll have no choice but to believe you.”

He shrugged. “All right, then, I love you.”

Elizabeth nearly laughed, incredulous. “Is that the best you can do?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I’ve received four proposals—five, counting yours—and I have to say that this one was by far the least romantic. It might very well be the least romantic proposal of all time.”

“I wasn’t proposing. I was only trying to tell you that I love you.”

“Oh.” All the blood seemed to rush to Elizabeth’s face. “Oh. I didn’t mean—”

“Elizabeth, wait.” His voice was low and gentle, with a trace of embarrassment. “I’m coming to that part.”

She took a deep breath, ducked her chin into the collar of her coat, and waited for him to continue.

Henry took a thick envelope from his overcoat pocket. “I know you want to see the world. I know you wish you had land to call your own the way your aunt and uncle have Elm Creek Manor. I know you’re tired of your father’s hotel and of Harrisburg.” He thrust the envelope into her hand. When she just stared at it, he said, “Go on. Open it.”

She withdrew several sheets of thick paper, folded into thirds, and three photographs of an arid landscape of rolling hills dotted with clusters of oaks. She unfolded the papers, and as she scanned the first, Henry said, “Yesterday I told you I couldn’t answer your letter because I was occupied with some business. That’s the title to a cattle ranch in southern California.”

“The Rancho Triunfo,” Elizabeth read aloud. “You bought a ranch?”

“With every cent I’ve earned and saved since I was twelve years old. It’s about forty-five miles north of Los Angeles. They say it’s like paradise, Elizabeth. Summer all year round, orange trees growing in the backyard—”

“It’s so far away.” And he had purchased the ranch without knowing whether she would want to go with him.

“Aren’t you always saying you want to leave Harrisburg?”

“Well, yes, but…” She had wanted to see the world and then come home to Elm Creek Manor. She never meant to stay away forever. “It’s on the other side of the country.”

“That’s the point.” Henry took her hands, crumpling the papers between them. “If you’ll marry me, I want to give you land of your own in the most beautiful part of the country I could find. If you won’t marry me, I want to put a continent between me and the chance I might ever see you in the arms of another man.”

Elizabeth felt breathless, light-headed. As far as she was concerned, the most beautiful part of the country was right here, all around them. “What about Two Bears Farm? What will your parents think?”

“They have my brothers and sister to help them work the place and take it over for them one day. If I go, there will be one less person arguing for a piece of the same pie.”

And what of her family? Her mother and father expected her to marry a nice young man from Harrisburg who would come to work for her father in the family business. That was what her mother had done. Millie had shrieked in outrage when Elizabeth refused Gerald’s proposal. Gerald, who would fit so neatly into Millie’s plans for the hotel—and who drank nearly as much as her father and seemed constitutionally incapable of fidelity.

It was Henry Elizabeth wanted, although when she had imagined them together it had been at Two Bears Ranch, so close to Elm Creek Manor that it was almost as good as coming home. A ranch in southern California might be beautiful, but it would not be home.

But Henry was going, with or without her.

“Yes,” she told him softly. “I’ll marry you.”

He kissed her. The papers and photographs fell to the snowy ground, forgotten.

As Elizabeth had expected, her parents were dismayed to hear of their plans to move so far away. Millie could not disguise her anger that they had come to inform them of a decision already made, and not to seek advice and permission. George did not share his wife’s outrage, but admitted surprise that the prudent, steadfast Henry had acted so impulsively. “If you’re tired of farm life, you can come and work for me,” he offered. “I wanted to open a second hotel, and with you to help me, I could do it. It would be advantageous to both of us. Why go to the ends of the earth when you can make a decent living here?”

“I don’t intend to make only a decent living, sir. I intend to make a fortune.”

Henry spoke in such frank seriousness that Elizabeth could not help but believe him, but her father looked dubious. “A man doesn’t become a farmer to get rich.”

“Your grandfather did, sir.”

Elizabeth’s father smiled grudgingly. “That was a very different time. There are fortunes to be made every day, but not in farming, not anymore. The land isn’t worth what it used to be. My brothers have prospered because they raise prize horses. They cater to wealthy customers, and I can tell you those customers aren’t farmers. The place for an enterprising young man these days is business.”

Henry shook his head. “I intend to raise cattle, sir, not corn, not oats. I’ll be raising beef. All those wealthy businessmen who buy your Bergstrom Thoroughbreds want beef for their tables. Providing it will make me a rich man.”

Elizabeth’s father sighed, knowing the argument was lost before it had begun. “Farming is the only industry I can think of riskier than opening a new hotel across the street from your strongest competitor. If you come work for me, you’ll still make your fortune. It may take time, but you’ll get there.”

“With all due respect, sir,” said Henry carefully, “and I do value your opinion, but I could never live away from the land.”

Elizabeth’s father, who had given up his share of the Bergstrom land for a love that had not flourished with the passing of time, nodded and said no more, except to offer the couple his blessing.

When the family gathered for Christmas Eve supper the next evening, Elizabeth’s father announced their engagement. Everyone but little Sylvia welcomed the news with great joy, which made it more difficult to announce their plans to move away. The family accepted the couple’s decision with surprise, but steadied themselves with the knowledge that most Bergstroms who left the Elm Creek Valley eventually returned.

Henry’s family was far less sanguine. His sister, Rosemary, broke down in tears and begged him to reconsider. His brothers, who had assumed he would always be there to help them run the farm, voiced cautious support, shot through with shock and betrayal. His father was concerned that his ordinarily prudent son had purchased land without examining it firsthand, but after he studied the documents and photographs, he admitted everything looked to be in order. If the land was indeed as the agent had described it, Henry had made a sound investment, a sensible purchase.

But Henry’s mother took Elizabeth aside. “You can still talk him out of this,” she beseeched in a whisper. “Henry adores you. He will stay here if he knows that’s what you want.”