The Last Runaway (31 page)

I try to help with household chores, when Comfort lets me. Belle hardly cooks, for she eats little. She says she likes the smell of my cooking but then she only has a bite or two. Clothes hang off her. Her skin and eyes have a yellow cast, and I suspect jaundice, though she has said nothing about it.

Biddy, I feel very confused now. I am in a part of the country where there is much movement, and yet I do not know where to move myself. And America is such a peculiar country. It is young and untested, its foundations uncertain. I think back to the Bridport Friends Meeting House, which has stood for almost two hundred years. When I sat in silence there I felt the strength of that history, the thousands of people who have also sat there over the years, shoring me up and making me feel part of a greater whole. There was an easiness—though some might call it a complacency, I suppose—of knowing where one comes from.

The Meeting at Faithwell does not have that permanence. It is not just that the building is new, and made of wood rather than stone. There is also a flimsiness of community, a feeling that no one has been there long, and no one may remain long. Many talk of moving west. That is always an option in America. If crops fail, or there is a dispute with neighbours, or one feels hemmed in, one can always simply pick up and move on. It means that family is even more important. But my family here is not strong; I do not feel I belong. So I must choose whether to move—but I do not know in which direction.

It is best for now, then, if thee writes to me at Belle’s. I do not know where I will be in four months by the time this letter reaches thee and thee writes back. But Belle will know where I am.

Be patient with me, Biddy. With God’s will may we meet again.

Thy faithful friend,

Honor

Ohio Star

ONE MORNING AN
older woman Honor had not seen before came into the shop. “Thomas is making a delivery tomorrow afternoon,” she told Belle. “Big one. Make sure you got the space.”

Belle nodded. “Thankee, Mary,” she said around the pins in her mouth, for she was attaching ruffles to a burgundy bonnet.

“Got both logs and kindling for you. That all right?”

“Course. How’s that li’l granddaughter o’ yours? Go on, take one o’ them ribbons for her hair. Girl always likes a new ribbon.”

“Thankee. You mind if I take two?” The woman chose two red ribbons from a basket on the counter. She hesitated at the door. “You all right, Belle? You’re mighty thin these days.”

“Tapeworm. It’ll pass.”

Honor looked up from her usual position, in the rocker feeding Comfort. The bones in Belle’s triangular face were even more pronounced, so that her hazel eyes blazed above the balls of her cheekbones.

“Belle—” she began when the woman had left.

“No questions,” Belle interrupted. “Usually I can count on you to keep quiet. Stick to that now. You done there?”

Honor nodded.

“Good. You mind the shop a little while—I got to make room for the wood coming.” She disappeared before Honor could be sure Comfort would not wake when she transferred her from her arms to the cradle. Perhaps Comfort sensed Belle’s no-nonsense attitude, for she remained asleep. Honor was able to serve the string of customers who appeared over the next hour while Belle was rearranging the wood still left in the lean-to. She also made several trips upstairs, which surprised Honor, though she knew better than to ask why.

Late the next afternoon, as it was growing dark and Belle was lighting lamps, a man appeared with a wagon full of wood. When he came in to greet Belle, he nodded at Honor, and she recognized him as the old man who had brought her from Hudson over a year ago. “Got yourself a little one, I hear,” Thomas said. “That’s good.”

Honor smiled. “Yes, it is.”

Belle took Thomas out back while Honor remained with the two customers in the store: a young woman and her mother dithering over wool linings for their winter bonnets. Finally they chose and paid. The moment they left, Thomas came back out and went to run his wagon around the back.

“I’ll just be helping with the wood,” Belle said. “Any customers come, you look after them. Keep ’em occupied.” She held Honor’s gaze a moment, then turned and hurried through the kitchen and out of the back door.

She had hardly gone before Donovan’s horse was heard trotting up the street. Then Honor understood. She closed her eyes and prayed that he would not stop.

He did. She watched from the window as he threw his reins over the hitching post. “Where’s Belle?” he demanded as he entered, his eyes flicking over Comfort in her cradle before they settled on Honor.

“She is out back, seeing to a delivery of wood.”

A woman passed along the boards outside, slowing to study the bonnets in the window. Please come in, Honor thought. Please. But she moved on; darkness was not the time for a woman to be out.

“Is she, now? Well, darlin’, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just have a look, make sure she ain’t gettin’ a load o’ green wood.” Donovan stepped around her and strode toward the kitchen.

“Donovan—”

He stopped. “What?”

She had to keep him with her somehow, so that he would not go back to the lean-to.

“I have always—I have always wanted to thank thee for helping me that night. In the woods, with the black man.”

Donovan snorted. “Didn’t help none—nigger was dead, wasn’t he? Not much use to you
or
me.”

“But thee found me when I was on the road, in the dark. I do not know what I would have done if thee had not come.” Though she did not speak of it, she was making herself remember the feeling she’d had with him that night, that brief moment when they’d shared a closeness. By recalling it she hoped he would too, and break off his focus on what was happening at the back of the house. “I wish,” she added, “thee would change thy ways.”

“Would that make any difference?”

Before Honor could answer, Comfort let out the little cry that signaled she would soon wake.

Donovan grimaced. “It wouldn’t, would it? Not now.” He turned and headed back to Belle.

Honor rocked the cradle, hoping the movement might send Comfort back to sleep. It did not, however, and she picked up the baby and put her over her shoulder, walking around the room and patting her back. At the same time she listened out for what might be taking place by the wood.

A few minutes later Belle reappeared, her arms full of logs, which she dropped in the box by the stove. Donovan was following her. “Donovan, no brother should let his sister bring in wood without carrying some himself. What the hell’s the matter with you? People like Honor here got a low enough opinion of you without you makin’ it worse by bein’ so ungentlemanly.” She squatted and began arranging the wood. “You gonna bring in another load or do I have to do all the work myself?”

Donovan frowned, then went back the way he’d come. He must be younger than Belle, Honor thought, reminded of the natural authority her older brothers had held over her and Grace.

Belle opened the stove and added another log, though the fire didn’t need it: there would be no more customers for the day and they would move to the kitchen fire. It was this unnecessary action that told Honor Belle was nervous.

Donovan came back with a stack of wood, Thomas behind him.

“That should see you up to Christmas, Belle,” Thomas said. “Though I’ll top it up when I’m in town, if you like.”

“Thankee, Thomas. What do I owe you?” While Belle and Thomas went over to the counter to settle up, Donovan began stacking the wood on top of what his sister had brought in. Comfort’s eyes had begun to focus and she followed his movements over Honor’s shoulder. This seemed to bother Donovan, and he hurried to finish. As Thomas was leaving through the kitchen to go back to his wagon, Donovan stood up and made a move toward the front door.

“You want some coffee before you go, Donovan?” Belle said, sounding amused.

“I’ll just scare off your customers. You watch yourself, Belle, Honor. I ain’t through here.” He banged the door behind him.

Belle chuckled. “That baby sure spooks him more’n anything else can. She should stay here all the time. That would keep him away, like a lucky charm.” She kissed the top of Comfort’s head, dusted with wispy white-blond hair. It was rare for her to show the baby affection.

They listened to Donovan’s horse clop away. “Honor, go to the window and check he’s ridin’ it,” Belle said. “He’s tried that one before.”

Honor looked, and recognized his tall silhouette slumped in the saddle. She watched till he was out of sight. “He’s gone.”

“Good. Now, you stay there, and make sure he don’t come back.” Belle hurried to the back of the house. A few minutes later Honor saw Thomas’s wagon go past, rattling now it was empty of its load of wood.

She and Comfort stood on in the window, the baby quiet, balanced on her mother’s shoulder and reaching her hand out toward the darkness. In the last few days she had stopped flailing so much, her movements more controlled.

Soon Belle was back. “All right. I’m gonna fix supper.” When Honor opened her mouth to speak, Belle interrupted her. “Don’t ask. If you don’t know, then you won’t have nothin’ to tell Donovan when he comes back. ’Cause he will come back tonight. He’ll be back for another look.” She was talking as if Honor knew what was happening. She did know. She just did not let herself think openly about it. Some things should remain hidden.

* * *

But they did not remain hidden. Honor and Belle were eating in the kitchen, the baby asleep in the cradle at Honor’s feet, when she heard a whimper. It was not Comfort—Honor was so attuned to her child’s noises that she did not even glance down at the cradle. She froze, her knife stopped in the groove it was carving into a pork chop, and listened.

Belle, however, clattered her cutlery onto her plate and stood up, pushing her chair back so that the legs scraped along the wood floor. “You know what I feel like with supper?” she said. “Tea. The English drink tea anytime, don’t they? I’m gonna boil some water.” She picked up a jug of water and filled the kettle. “Makes a change from coffee or whiskey, don’t it?” Belle banged the kettle on the range. “You ain’t never touched a drop o’ liquor, though, have you? No whiskey or beer or nothin’. Poor Quaker.”

Even under Belle’s valiant effort to make noise, Honor heard another whimper, then the low murmur of a woman’s voice. Not just any voice: it was a mother’s, shushing her child. Now that Honor herself was a mother, she was much more sensitive to the sorts of tones a mother needed to use.

“Where are they?” she said in a pause among Belle’s clatter.

Belle looked almost relieved, and smiled as if to apologize for thinking Honor would be fooled by her clumsy attempt at concealment. “If I show you,” she said, “you gotta think about what you’ll say if Donovan asks you ’bout ’em. I know you Quakers ain’t supposed to lie, but ain’t a small lie that helps a bigger truth all right? God ain’t gonna judge you for lying to my brother, is He? And if the Haymakers judge you for it, well . . .” She did not bother to fill in her thoughts about Honor’s in-laws.

Honor thought. “I have heard of Friends blindfolding themselves so that they do not see those they’re helping. That way they can honestly answer no if asked whether they have seen them.”

Belle snorted. “That’s just a game that God’s gonna see right through anyway. Ain’t playin’ with the truth like that worse than lyin’ outright for the greater good?”

“Perhaps.” The child was no longer whimpering, but crying outright, the sound coming from the hole by the range that led into the lean-to. Belle could reach in through the hole for wood without having to go outside. Though covered with a thick cloth to keep out drafts, it did not completely muffle the sounds. Honor could not bear the crying. She let out a deep breath she did not realize she had been holding. “Please bring in the child,” she said. “I would not have it freeze because of me. I will lie to Donovan if I must.”

Belle nodded. Pulling aside the cloth, she called through the hole. “It’s all right, Virginie, bring ’em in for a little while.”

After a moment a pair of brown hands pushed first one, then a second girl through the hole and into Belle’s arms. She set them on their feet, side by side. They were twins, identical, about five years old, with wide dark eyes, their hair plaited and tied with the red ribbons Thomas’s wife had taken the day before. They stood solemn and mute in front of Belle and Honor, the only difference between them being the runny nose and wheezy cough of the one who had been crying.

Belle pulled them aside as a gray bonnet pushed through the hole. Honor caught a flash of its pale yellow lining and started.

Belle smiled. “So that’s where that bonnet got to. Didn’t recognize it in the dark before. I thought you’d left it with the Haymakers—though Lord knows what they would do with it. Make it into a milk bucket, maybe.” She gave a hand to the runaway woman so that she could stand. Honor recalled her slender height, her sallow skin, her steady gaze.

The woman looked back at Honor and nodded. “I see you still here. Got your baby now. Well, I got my babies too.” She put her arms around the girls. Now that she was out in the open, her mother beside her, the girl with the cold felt confident enough to begin crying freely.

“Honor, get her some raspberry jam in hot water,” Belle commanded. “Kettle’s boiled. Add a drop o’ whiskey to it. Don’t you frown at me—it’ll do her good. I’ll make up a poultice for her chest.” She glanced at the window, which had a heavy curtain pulled across it, and at the door between the kitchen and shop, which she had pulled shut. “Can’t be out like this for long—Donovan’ll be back. We fooled him once—he thinks you ain’t here yet. But he’ll come round again soon enough.”