The Last Runaway

Silence

HONOR WOKE EARLY on Sunday. Adam Cox would not come to pick her up until afternoon, after Meeting for Worship in Faithwell had finished, but anxiety made her lie awake in bed, listening to the dawn chorus of unfamiliar American birds, running her fingers over the outline of the Star of Bethlehem in the center of the quilt, and waiting for the changes to come.

Despite staying up much of the night with a bottle, Belle was also up early. As they ate breakfast-more eggs and ham, along with hominy grits, a white, thin sort of porridge Belle said she’d grown up with in Kentucky-Honor wondered if the milliner would go to church. But Belle made no move to leave; after clearing up the kitchen she sat out on the back porch reading the Cleveland Plain Dealer that a customer had left behind the day before. Honor hesitated, then got her Bible out of her trunk and went to join her.

The moment she sat down she knew the man was gone from the lean-to. There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere, and in Belle, who seemed more relaxed. She glanced over at the book in Honor’s lap. “I don’t go to church much myself,” she remarked. “Me and the minister don’t agree on most things. But I’ll take you if you want. You got a choice of Congregationalist, Presbyterian or Methodist. I’d go for Congregationalist myself-better singers. I’ve heard ’em from outside.”

“There is no need.”

Belle rocked in her chair while Honor opened her Bible, trying to remember what she had last read, with her sister on her deathbed, a lifetime ago. She read a passage here and there, but could not concentrate on the words.

Belle was rocking faster. “Somethin’ I want to know about Quakers,” she announced, lowering the newspaper.

Honor looked up.

“You sit in silence, don’t you? No hymns, no prayers, no preacher to make you think. Why’s that?”

“We are listening.”

“For what?”

“For God.”

“Can’t you hear God in a sermon or a hymn?”

Honor was reminded of standing outside St. Mary’s Church in Bridport, just across the street from the Meeting House. The congregation had been singing, and she had been briefly envious of the sound.

“It is less distracting in the silence,” she said. “Sustained silence allows one truly to listen to what is deep inside. We call it waiting in expectation.”

“Don’t you just think about what you’re having for dinner, or what someone said about someone else? I’d think about the next hat I’m gonna make.”

Honor smiled. “Sometimes I think about the quilt I am working on. It takes time to clear the mind of everyday thoughts. It helps to be with others also waiting, and to close one’s eyes.” She tried to think of words to explain what she felt at Meeting. “When the mind is clear, one turns inward and sinks into a deep stillness. There is peace there, and a strong sense of being held by what we call the Inner Spirit, or the Inner Light.” She paused. “I have not yet felt that in America.”

“You been to many Meetings in America?”

“Only one. Grace and I went to a Meeting in Philadelphia. It was-not the same as England.”

“Ain’t silence the same everywhere?”

“There are different kinds of silence. Some are deeper and more productive than others. In Philadelphia I was distracted and did not find the peace I was looking for that day.”

“I thought Philadelphia Quakers are supposed to be the best there is. Top-quality Quakers.”

“We do not think like that. But…” Honor hesitated. She did not like to be critical of Friends in front of non-Quakers. But she had started, so she must continue. “Arch Street is a big Meeting, for there are many Friends in Philadelphia, and when Grace and I entered the room, there were not many benches still free. We sat on one that was, and were asked to move, for they said it was the Negro pew.”

“What’s that?”

“For black Members.”

Belle raised her eyebrows. “There’s colored Quakers?”

“Yes. I had not known there were. None came that day to Meeting, and the bench remained empty, even though the other benches grew crowded and uncomfortable.”

Belle said nothing, but waited.

“I was surprised that Friends would separate black Members in that way.”

“So that’s what kept you from God that day.”

“Perhaps.”

Belle grunted. “Honor Bright, you are one delicate flower. You think just ’cause Quakers say everyone is equal in God’s eyes, that means they’ll be equal in each other’s?”

Honor bowed her head.

Belle shrugged and took up her newspaper again. “Anyway, I like me a good hymn. Give me that over silence any day.” She began to hum, rocking in time to the simple, repetitive melody.

Later Belle had the neighbors’ boys bring down Honor’s trunk so that it was ready for Adam Cox’s arrival. After dinner they sat together in the shop to wait for him. Though the other shops were also closed, people strolled up and down, looking in the windows.

“Thankee for your help,” Belle said as they waited. “I’m caught up now. Won’t be so busy again till September when they bring me their winter bonnets to be retrimmed.”

“I am very grateful to thee for having me.”

Belle waved her hand. “Honey, it’s nothing. Funny, normally I don’t take to company, but you’re all right. You don’t talk too much, for one thing. Are all Quakers as quiet as you?”

“My sister was not quiet.” Honor gripped her hands so they would not tremble.

“Anyway,” Belle said after a pause, “you can come here any time. Next visit I’ll show you how to make hats. Now, I got somethin’ for you.” Belle went behind the counter and took down from a shelf the gray and yellow bonnet Honor had worked on the day before. “A new life needs a new bonnet. And this bonnet needs an adventure.” When Honor did not take it, Belle pushed it into her hands. “It’s the least I can do, as pay for all that work you did. And it’ll suit you. Go on and try it.”

Honor reluctantly took off her old bonnet. Though she liked the dove gray of the body of the bonnet, she didn’t think the yellow rim would suit her. Yet when she looked in the mirror on the wall of the shop, she was startled to discover Belle was right. The yellow brim was like a soft halo that lit up her face.

“There you go,” Belle remarked, satisfied. “You’ll go to Faithwell lookin’ smart, and maybe just a little more up-to-date. And here’s a bit of the yellow left over-not enough for a lining so it’s not much use to me. I know you quilters like your scraps.”

Though she accepted that it was a silly thought, Honor wondered at first if Adam Cox was so cold with her because he didn’t like the new bonnet.

When they heard a wagon approach from the north, Honor and Belle went out to the front of the shop to meet him, Honor’s stomach twisting. Though she dreaded having to go through the details of Grace’s death with him, to witness his grief and reignite her own, she was also looking forward to seeing a familiar face. When he drew up in front of the shop, slow and careful, she stepped forward eagerly, and was stopped short by his stiff gaze, as if he were far away and not engaged in what he was looking at. He could not seem to meet her eye. Nonetheless she said, “Adam, I am glad to see thee.”

Adam Cox climbed down from the wagon. Honor had always been surprised that Grace chose to marry him. A tall man with the sloped shoulders of a shopkeeper, whiskers along his jaw, sober clothes and a broad-brimmed hat, he nodded at her as he approached the porch, but did not embrace her as a family member would. He looked uncomfortable, and it was confirmed to Honor even before he’d said a word that this would be a difficult reunion. There was no tie of blood or love to bind them, only circumstances and the memory of Grace. She felt tears welling, and struggled to keep them under control.

“I am glad to see thee too, Honor,” Adam said. He did not sound glad.

“I thank thee for coming for me.” Honor’s voice emerged strangled.

Belle had been watching them, crossing her arms over her chest as she made up her mind about Adam Cox. But she was civil. “I’m real sorry about your intended’s death, sir,” she said. “God gives us a hard life, that’s for sure. You look after Honor, now. She’s had one hell of a time.”

Adam stared at her.

“She’s also got the finest sewing hand in town,” Belle added. “I got a lot of work out of her. Well, now, Honor, I guess I won’t see much of you-Faithwell’s closer to Oberlin than to here, so you’ll be goin’ that way for your provisions. You watch out for them Oberlinites-they got opinions about everything and they’ll be glad to tell you of ’em. You ever get tired of it over that way, come back-there’s always work for you here. There, now, what’s this?” For Honor was crying. Belle put her arms around her and gave her a hard, bony hug. For a thin woman she was very strong.

The road north from Wellington was wider and more established than the route Honor and Thomas had taken from Hudson. The trees had been cut further back so that the forest was less oppressive, and there were farms and fields of corn and oats along the way, as well as pastures where cows grazed. There was little traffic, though, it being Sunday.

Within a mile, Honor understood a little better Adam Cox’s awkwardness: in terse words he told her that his brother Matthew had died three weeks before, of the consumption that brought Adam to Ohio to help with the business.

“I am so sorry,” Honor said.

“It was expected. I did not want to burden Grace with the prognosis in my letters.”

“How fares Matthew’s widow?”

“Abigail is resigned to God’s will. She is of strong character and will cope. But tell me of Grace.”

Honor gave a brief account of her sister’s illness and death. Then they lapsed into silence, and she could feel in its density the weight of unasked questions and unspoken comments. Chief among them, she was sure, was: “What is the sister to me now that the wife is gone?” Adam Cox was of course an honest and honorable man, and would accept responsibility for his would-be sister-in-law. But it was not easy for either.

Adam glanced over at Honor. “Is that bonnet new?”

Startled that he would show any interest in her wardrobe, Honor stuttered, “It-it was a gift, from Belle.”

“I see. Thee did not make it.”

“Is there something wrong with it?”

“Not-wrong. It is different from what thee normally wears-what a Friend would wear. But no, not wrong.” It was strange to hear his Dorset accent so far from home. Adam cleared his throat. “Abigail-Matthew’s widow-was not expecting thee. Indeed, I was not expecting thee either. We did not know thee was coming to Ohio until the milliner wrote the other day to say thee was with her.”

“Thee did not get Grace’s letter? She wrote the moment I decided to come. She sent it immediately-within a day.” Honor kept adding information, as if by saying enough, the letter would appear.

“Honor, letters do not always arrive, or they arrive late-sometimes later than the person they announce. And by the time the letter arrives, the news is months old. Thee has written to thy parents about Grace, yes?”

“Of course.”

“They will not know of her death for six weeks at the earliest. In the meantime thee will receive letters still asking after her. Thee must be prepared for that, upsetting as it is. The gap between letters can be disturbing. Things change before those affected are fully aware.”

Honor was only half listening, for threaded through his words was the sound she had been expecting since leaving Wellington: the uneven hoofbeats of Donovan’s horse approaching from behind.

He drew up alongside them, smelling of whiskey and stale smoke. “Honor Bright,” he said, “you didn’t think you could leave town without a good-bye, did you? That wouldn’t be polite, after all. Wouldn’t be friendly.”

Adam Cox pulled on the reins to stop the wagon. “Hello, friend. Thee knows Honor?”

“This is Mr. Donovan, Adam,” Honor broke in. “I met him on the road to Wellington.” She did not add that he was Belle’s brother: that would not help Adam’s opinion of the milliner.

“I see. I thank thee for any kindness thee has showed Honor during this difficult time.”

Donovan chuckled. “Oh, Honor’s been quite the fixture in town, ain’t you, darlin’?”

Adam frowned at the coarse familiarity. However, he knew no other way to be than honest. “I am taking her to live in Faithwell. If thee has finished, we will continue.” He held up the reins expectantly.

“What, you gonna marry her now the sister’s gone?”

Honor and Adam flinched and leaned away from each other. Honor felt physically ill.

“I have a responsibility to look after Honor,” Adam said. “She is like a sister to me, and will live with my sister-in-law and me as family.”

Donovan raised his eyebrows. “Two sisters-in-law and no wife? Sounds cozy for you.”

“That’s enough, Donovan.” Honor’s sharp tone was almost as surprising as her dropping of “Mr.” Adam blinked.

“Ah, got your claws out! All right, all right, my apologies.” Donovan half bowed from his saddle, then dismounted. “Now, I’ll just have a look in your wagon. Down you get.”

“What reason could thee have to search our things?” Adam demanded, the color rising in his face. “We have nothing to conceal.”

“Adam, allow him,” Honor whispered as she climbed down. “It is easier that way.”

Adam remained on the seat. “No man has the right to search another’s possessions without cause.”

The violence when it came was so swift Honor caught her breath. One moment Adam was sitting hunched but defiant on the seat of the wagon; the next, he was lying in the dust of the road, crying out and holding his wrist while blood spurted from his nose. Honor ran and knelt by him, holding his head in her lap and mopping the blood with a handkerchief.

In the meantime, Donovan had opened her trunk once again, pawing through the contents and scattering them about on the wagon bed; he did not remark on the signature quilt. Then he lifted the seat they had been perched on and rummaged about. Satisfied at last, he jumped down and stood over them. “Where’s the nigger, Honor? You know you can’t lie to me, Quaker gal.”

Honor looked up at him. “I do not know,” she was able to say honestly.

Donovan held her gaze for a long moment. Though weary from his Saturday night carousing, his eyes were still lit with interest, and Honor found them mesmerizing, for in the clear brown were little flecks of black like pieces of bark. He was still wearing her key under his shirt-she could see its outline.

“All right. Don’t know why, but I believe you. Don’t you ever lie to me, though. I’m gonna keep my eye on you. I’ll be paying you a visit over in Faithwell soon.” He swung up onto his bay horse. Turning its head back toward Wellington, he paused. “My sister’s bonnet suits you, Honor Bright. Them colors are from a blanket we had when we was little.” He clucked his tongue and the horse sprang away into a gallop.

Honor wished he would not tell her such things.

In the distance another wagon was coming. Honor helped Adam to his feet so that he would not be further shamed lying in the dirt in front of strangers. He clutched at his wrist.

“Break or sprain?” she asked.

“Sprain, I think, thanks be to God. It just needs binding.” Adam shook his head at the mess of Honor’s things in the wagon. “What did he think he would find? He knows we won’t have any liquor or tobacco, and or indeed anything of value.” He turned his bewildered eyes on Honor, who had retrieved his hat from the side of the road and was dusting it off.

She handed it to him. “He is looking for a runaway slave.”

Adam stared at her until he had to move to make way for the approaching wagon. He said nothing until they were seated again, his wrist bound with one of Honor’s neck cloths, and heading once more toward Faithwell. Then he cleared his throat. “It seems thee is quickly learning the ways of Americans.” He did not sound pleased.

Faithwell, Ohio

6th Month 5th 1850

Dear Mother and Father,

It has been a very long journey from Bridport to Faithwell. The best part of my arrival was not lying down in a bed I knew I would not have to leave the next day, but seeing your letter awaiting me. Adam Cox told me it has been here two weeks: how can it have arrived so long before me when it had to make the same journey? I cried when I saw thy hand, Mother. Even though it was written just a week after I left, I relished every bit of news, because it made me feel I was still at home, taking part in all the daily events of the community. I had to remind myself by looking at the date of the letter that thy words and the things thee describes are two months old. Such a delay is so disorienting.

I am sorry to have to tell you that Matthew Cox has passed: the consumption he suffered from overtook him four weeks ago. This means the Faithwell household I have joined is now very different from what was anticipated. Instead of two married couples and me, there are just three of us, with tenuous ties to one another. It is awkward, though it is early days yet and I hope to feel more settled eventually, rather than a visitor, as I do now. Adam and Abigail, Matthew’s widow, have been welcoming. But Grace’s death has been a great shock to Adam, who of course had been looking forward to marrying and settling his wife into a new life in Ohio. My appearance was also a surprise, for the letter informing him that I had decided to accompany Grace to America never arrived.

I often find myself thinking of how Grace would have coped, how she would have smoothed the rough edges of the circumstances with her laughter and good humour. I try to emulate her, but it is not easy.

Adam’s house in Faithwell-or Abigail’s house, perhaps I should say, for she owned it with Matthew-is so different from what I am used to. I feel when I am in it as if the air around me has shifted and is not the same air I breathed and moved in back in England, but is some other substance. Can a building do such a thing? It is a new house, built about three years ago, of rough pine boards that smell of resin. The wood makes me think of a doll’s house: it lacks the solidity of stone that made our own home on East Street feel so safe. The house creaks constantly, with the wood responding to the wind and the moisture in the air-it is very humid here, and they say it will get worse later in the summer. Apart from my bedroom it is spacious, for one thing America has is much land on which to build. There are two floors, and everyone knows when others go from one to the other, as the boards squeak so. The downstairs comprises a parlour, kitchen and what Americans call the sick room-a bedroom off the kitchen where whoever is ill at the time stays to be looked after. Apparently Americans get fever so often that they need such a room set aside for them-which is troubling, given what I have just witnessed with Grace.

There are three bedrooms upstairs: the largest, which Abigail would have shared with her husband, a medium-sized that Adam was expecting to share with Grace, and a tiny room that would have been for the baby if there were one. They have put me there, for now; the arrangement feels temporary, though what would be more permanent, I cannot say. Although there is room for little other than a bed, I do not mind. When I shut the door it is mine. The furnishings are adequate, though, as in many other American houses where I have stayed, they too have a temporary feel about them, as if they have been knocked together until there is time to build something more permanent. I always sit carefully in chairs, for fear they may break. The table legs often have splinters because they have not been properly sanded and finished. They are mostly made of maple or ash, which makes me miss the timelessness of our oak furniture.

The kitchen is not so different in principle from that on East Street: there is a hearth, a range, a long table and chairs, a sideboard for crockery and pots, a larder-called a pantry here-for storage. Yet the feeling is entirely different from the East Street kitchen. Partly it is that Abigail is not so well organised as thee, Mother. She does not seem to have “a place for everything, and everything in its place,” as thee taught me. She stacks wood haphazardly so that it does not dry out, leaves the broom blocking the slops bucket rather than out of the way in the corner, doesn’t wipe up crumbs and so attracts mice, leaves dishes in a jumble on the sideboard rather than neatly stacked. Then too, the range and fireplace take wood instead of coal, so the kitchen smells of wood smoke rather than the deeper earthiness of burning coal. We don’t have to clean up coal dust, but the wood ash can be just as trying, especially when Abigail is clumsy.

It is unfortunate that Abigail and I did not get off to a good start. The first meal she served on my arrival was a steak pie: the meat was tough and the pastry hard. I said nothing, of course, and chewed away at it as best I could, but Abigail was embarrassed-and was made more so by giving me sour milk the next morning. I am hoping to be helpful to her, using gentle persuasion over time.

I have ventured out into town a little-though ‘town’ is perhaps an ambitious word for a row of buildings along a rutted track. Bridport must be a hundred times its size. There is a general store-what we would call a chandler-a smithy, the Meeting House, and ten houses, with farms in the surrounding fields. The community comprises some fifteen families, most of whom moved from North Carolina to get away from the slavery that is engrained in society there. I have not yet been to Meeting here, but the people I have met are friendly, though absorbed in their own concerns, as many Americans I have met seem to be. They do not practise the art of conversation in quite the way the English do, but are straightforward to the point of bluntness. Perhaps this will change when I have got to know the community better.

Beyond us the road extends into forest, except where farms have been hacked out of the trees. I had no idea before coming to America just how hard it is to create farmland out of woods. There are stumps everywhere. England is very ordered, with the feeling that God has put trees in their place, and meadows in theirs, and that the fields have always been there rather than needing to be created. I look at the woods here from the window of my little room and it feels as if they are creeping towards the town, and axes will only temporarily keep them back. You know I have always loved trees, but here they are so overwhelmingly abundant that they feel threatening rather than welcoming.

The general store is sparsely stocked with everyday items. For everything that the general store doesn’t carry, we must go to Oberlin, three miles away. It is much larger, with a population of two thousand as well as a collegiate institute full of students. I have not yet visited, though Adam’s shop is there and he goes most days. Eventually if Faithwell grows large enough he would like to move the shop and sell primarily to Friends, but that may take some time. He has said I can help at the shop when they are busy. I shall be glad to be useful.

Daily life here feels more precarious than it did at home. What Bridport did not have Dorchester or Weymouth was sure to. In the American towns I have visited on my way here, and especially now in Faithwell, I sense that we must be self-sufficient, that we cannot rely on others because they are not always there to be depended upon. Most here grow their own vegetables, as we did, but there is no one selling lettuces should one’s own be eaten by rabbits, as Abigail’s were-here one simply goes without. Many keep their own cow as well. Abigail and Adam do not have a cow, though they do keep chickens; we buy milk and cheese from one of the outlying farms.

I have painted only a very brief portrait of Faithwell. I do not yet have a place here, but with God’s help and the support of Friends, I hope to find one. Please be reassured that I am safely arrived, and am well looked after. I have a bed and enough to eat and kind people about me. God is still with me. For these things I am grateful and have no reason to complain. Yet I think of you all often. Though it is too warm to use it now, I have laid the signature quilt across the end of my bed, and at the beginning and end of the day I touch the signatures of all who are dear to me.

Your loving daughter,

Honor Bright