Free Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini Page A

can,” said I. “I cannot imagine why you thought we were well suited for each other.”
    “You’re both unmarried.”
    “True enough, but I would hope to base my future happiness on something more substantial than that.”
    “I agree,” said Hans. “But I thought it would be easier for Mr. Pearson, and for our friendship with his family, if he realized on his own that you would not make him a good wife rather than hearing it in your refusal.”
    Only then did I understand that my brother had deliberately prodded Mr. Pearson into revealing his weaknesses as a husband for me so that I might better reveal my inadequacies as a wife for him. All the while I had thought Hans oblivious to the drama of manners playing out before him, he had been directing the action from behind the scenes. I studied him with new respect. Hans Bergstrom of Baden-Baden was not known for subtle calculation, but this man was Hans Bergstrom of America. I resolved not to underestimate him again.
    “Mr. Pearson might not make Gerda a proper husband,” declared Anneke, “but someone will.”
    Thus I learned, to my dismay, that Anneke was not easily daunted, and that despite the evening’s failure, she was resolved to see me happily wed.
    “The more things change,” said Sylvia, “the more they remain the same.”
    Andrew looked up from his newspaper. “What’s that?”
    “Gerda’s sister-in-law wants to marry her off.” Sylvia slipped off her glasses and stretched her neck, which had an painful kink in it, so intently had she been reading. “Honestly. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman without a husband is eager to find one, no matter what she says to the contrary, and that all her married friends and acquaintancesare obligated to help her nab some poor fellow before he knows what hit him.”
    Andrew peered at her over his bifocals. “You know, not everyone is as opposed to marriage as you are.”
    “I’m not opposed to marriage in principle. I was very happily married myself once, I’ll remind you. Marriage is fine for youngsters with their whole lives ahead of them, who want to build a future with the one they love. I have no objection to that, if that’s what they want.”
    Andrew returned his gaze to the newspaper and said, “If you ask me, people ought to build their futures with the ones they love no matter how old they are, even if that won’t add up to as many years as the young folks get.”
    Sylvia was about to concur, but she thought better of it and said nothing. If she agreed with his principles, one of these days she might find herself accidentally agreeing to a proposal.
Winter 1856 into summer 1857—
in which we complete our first year at Elm Creek Farm and begin a second
    I had not told Anneke about E., and although Hans might have told her I had been disappointed in love, I was certain he had not explained the intensity of my sorrow. He could not have, since I do not believe he thought his sensible elder sister capable of such depth of feeling. How could either of them, entranced as they were with each other upon first sight, know what it was to have a love slowly blossom over time, only to have it crushed beneath the heel of parents who cared more for class distinctions than for the happiness of their son?
    In those years, I wanted to believe E. the cruel victim of his parents’ contempt for my family’s lack of rank. Now I realize that if he had truly wanted to be my husband, he wouldhave followed me to America. That would have meant abandoning the wealth and social position that had prevented us from marrying, and apparently he had no wish to do so, or the thought never occurred to him. Either way, his inaction proved that either our love was not true, or it was, but he was unworthy of it.
    Time, hard work, and the newness of my life in America eased the pain of my grief, and I reconciled myself to being no more—and no less—than Hans Bergstrom’s spinster sister. As our first autumn