Belle looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t.
Various customers mentioned cradles as they watched Honor struggle to get Comfort to sleep. “Pretty baby. Where’s her cradle?” “Don’t that baby have a cradle to sleep in?” “You need to get yourself a cradle, young lady.” Then one morning a customer’s son brought in an old cradle carved from hickory, with faded cherries painted on the tiny bedboard. “I slept in this when I was a baby,” he said. “Now Ma’s holdin’ on to it for her grandchildren. But I’m headin’ west and don’t need no cradle yet. Can make one out there. So you can have it.” He left before Honor could even thank him.
The cradle was old and rickety, but it rocked, and Comfort immediately fell asleep in it. Then Honor could move it with her foot and still sew.
When Judith and Dorcas Haymaker visited, bringing with them a basket each of cheese and apples, Judith frowned at the old cradle. But her face softened and her smile was genuine as she took her first grandchild into her arms. Fighting the urge to snatch Comfort back, Honor sat very straight and clutched her hands in her lap. The baby flailed her tiny arms and moved her head from side to side, searching for her mother’s breast, blue eyes blurred and unable yet to focus.
Honor was more at ease when Dorcas took the baby. Rocking Comfort in her arms, Dorcas appeared more content than Honor had ever seen her. “A new family has moved to Faithwell,” she remarked. “From Pennsylvania. They’re dairy farmers too.”
Judith grunted. “They are restless at Meeting. The father speaks as if preaching.”
They were sitting in the tiny back kitchen, and Honor caught the amused looks of customers at the three Quaker women in their sober dress, contrasting with the bright feathers and flowers of the shop.
Then Comfort began to cry, and Honor reached for her daughter.
That evening, when the Haymaker women had left and the baby was sleeping, the two women worked, Honor sewing white rabbit fur around a green bonnet for winter, Belle lining a gray bonnet with light blue silk.
“How old is Dorcas?” Belle asked, holding up the bonnet and frowning at the rim. “Is this lopsided?”
“No. She is the same age as me.”
“It is lopsided. Damn.” Belle began to unpick the seam. “Why’d she mention the new family in Faithwell, do you think?”
Honor did not pause in her rhythmic stitching. “People often fill silence with words.”
“No, honey, these were pointing at something. You just didn’t notice ’cause you were fussing over the baby, but Dorcas was smiling to herself after she talked about ’em. And it made your mother-in-law look like she’d eaten a sour apple.”
Honor stopped sewing, looked at Belle, and waited for her to explain what she had clearly already thought through.
“There’ll be a husband in there somewhere for her,” Belle declared.
Honor began stitching again. She did not want to indulge in speculation. She was glad, though, that she had finished the quilts she owed Dorcas. She had five more quilts to make for her marriage, but before that she thought she would sew a quick cot quilt for Comfort. She did not yet know what the design would be; she would need to get to know her daughter first.
* * *
Once she was stronger she took Comfort out for short walks around Wellington. Since most of the townswomen bought their bonnets and hats at Belle’s, and went there often to browse if not to buy, Honor found she was already acquainted with many of them, and they nodded and said hello as she passed. She suspected they spoke about her afterward, for a Quaker with a quarrel with her husband’s family was gossip few could resist. However, Honor would not let herself turn around to witness the heads leaning toward each other, the lowered voices, the gleeful, horrified looks. To her face the women of Wellington remained pleasant, and that was the best she could hope for.
Often she took Comfort down to see the train pass through Wellington on its way to Columbus or Cleveland. At first she could not bear the size and noise of the metal monster puffing and panting into the depot, and it made Comfort scream. However, she could not deny that it was thrilling to see all the different people getting on and off, the goods being unloaded, the simple possibility of movement and change, of going away and of coming back. Eventually both mother and daughter grew used to the disruption, and looked forward to it.
Occasionally Honor ran into Donovan, coming from the town stables or talking to other men in the street. He tipped his hat at her but did not speak. The sight of Comfort clearly made him uneasy.
“Thy brother does not like babies,” she remarked to Belle as they passed him one day, sitting outside Wadsworth Hotel.
Belle chuckled. “Most men don’t—babies scare ’em, and take all the mother’s attention they don’t get. It’s more than that with Donovan, though: that baby reminds him you’re married. He’s been havin’ fun this past year pretending you don’t have any attachments. Now he’s got a real live reminder that a man’s already been where he wanted to be.”
Honor flushed.
“Got yourself a family now, honey, not just one you married into. Donovan knows he can’t compete. He don’t like that much. Notice how he’s stayed away since you’ve been here?”
It was true that, when her waters had broken, after Donovan had roused Belle and helped to get Honor inside, he’d backed off and left her alone. He did not ride up and down the street in front of the millinery shop as he had when she’d last stayed—though one evening when he was drunk, he sat at the Wadsworth Hotel bar across the street and stared through the window at Honor while she was rocking Comfort. Then he spat out his plug of tobacco, an action he knew Honor did not like. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, he was gone.
But Honor herself had changed. Her mind was on her baby, the responsibility for another pushing away everything that was not essential to Comfort’s survival. When she saw Donovan, she felt as if she were looking on a distant shore of a place she had once loved but no longer felt such an urgency to get to. Donovan had become like England.
She was still concerned for him, however. Later, as she sat up with Belle, Honor brought him up again. “Does thee think thy brother could change?”
Belle was stretching a hat of chocolate brown felt, dampening it and then putting it over a wooden block cut in half and bisected by a metal screw with a handle on the end. Turning the handle expanded the block so that it stretched the felt. “My brother is a bad man,” she said. “He ain’t got your ways, and never will. He thinks Negroes are barely more than animals. It’s how we was brought up to think in Kentucky, and nothin’ you say or do is gonna change that, whatever you think with your forgiving Quaker ways.”
“But thee changed thy thinking. Why can’t he?”
“Some people are born bad.” Belle turned the handle till the felt would stretch no further. “I think deep down, most southerners have always known slavery ain’t right, but they built up layers of ideas to justify what they were doin’. Those layers just solidified over the years. Hard to break out of that thinking, to find the guts to say, ‘This is wrong.’ I had to come to Ohio before I could do that. You can, in Ohio—it’s that sort of place. I’m kinda fond of it now.” She patted the felt hat as if she were patting the whole state. “But Donovan . . . he’s too hard to shift. I help runaways in part to balance out the bad in him—and to punish him for running off my husband. But listen, honey, you shouldn’t be wasting your thoughts on lost causes. Everything you do should be what’s best for her.” She nodded at the cradle where Comfort lay asleep, her arms thrown above her head like the victor in a race.
Belle Mills’s Millinery
Main St
Wellington, Ohio
10th Month 1st 1851
Dearest Biddy,
It has been so long since I have written, thee must wonder what has happened to thy friend to be so neglectful. I am sorry. Silence took me over completely for several months, so that I could not speak to anyone, nor write. I hope that t
hee can forgive me. I am now speaking again, though sparingly.
First thee must note the address from which I am writing, and where I have been staying for the last month. I have told thee in the past of Belle Mills the milliner, who was so kind to me when I first arrived in Ohio. It was Belle’s kindness that has drawn me back to her when I could have gone another way.
My parents will have given thee the news that I now have a daughter, Comfort, born just as I arrived at Belle’s. She is a beautiful baby, with a head of light hair and wide blue eyes and an intent expression, as if she knows her mind and will make herself heard. She cries often, for she is small yet—she arrived earlier than expected—and hungry, but she is also growing quickly. Already I cannot imagine my life without her in it.
Of course thee must be surprised that I am not in Faithwell with my husband and his family. It is hard to explain why, but I could not go on living there. They were not unkind to me, but we do not see the world in the same way. I left the farm, helped by a runaway slave who was going south, back to get her children and bring them north. I know I had little cause to, but I envied her the certainty of what she was doing. I have not felt certainty since Samuel released me from our engagement. It is hard to live untethered for so long.
Jack has been to see Comfort and me several times, and each time asks when I am coming back. I do not know what to answer.
Judith Haymaker has come twice, and that was harder, as she is so much more rigid than Jack, and less loving or forgiving. She sees me as an embarrassment to the Haymakers, and said unkind things one would not expect from a Friend—out of frustration, I expect. ‘I should not have allowed Jack to marry thee,’ she said the other day. ‘Thee brings nothing to this family but English ways that are not our ways.’ Then she told me the Elders of the Meeting have decided that I must return to Faithwell by the 1st of the 11th Month or they will disown me, and take Comfort away. It made me reluctant to allow Judith to hold Comfort, for I feared she might not give her back. Comfort herself did not take to her grandmother—though she did not cry, she lay stiff in her arms, frowning the whole while. It was altogether an upsetting visit, though, like my daughter, I did not cry.
The most helpful visit has been from Dorcas Haymaker, who managed to come once on her own, with the help of a willing Faithwell farmer who gave her a lift. It was surprising as she and I did not always get on well. She at least was practical, bringing me clothes and my sewing box and work basket, and the signature quilt thee and others made for me. She also brought baby clothes I had made, asking me not to let Jack or Judith know about them, as giving them to me implies she believes I am not coming back. She asked this with great reluctance, for it is dishonest of us both to conceal the purpose of her visit.
Best of all, Dorcas brought thy letter, which I was delighted to receive, especially with its news that thee will be married at the beginning of next year. Truly I wish I were there to share thy happiness and meet the Friend from Sherborne who has captured thy heart. I feel very guilty to have still the Star of Bethlehem quilt thee sent to me for my marriage. I promise that when I can get it, I will send it back—though perhaps the Sherborne family is not so exacting as the Haymakers about the number of quilts thee should have when thee marries.
Belle has been very good to me. She does not ask many questions, but lets me speak when I will. And she does not judge, nor ask how long I intend to stay. She simply gives me work. She is very pleased with my sewing, as are many of the ladies in Wellington. Belle does not normally make dresses, but I have begun doing alterations and repairs when customers bring them in. She has also taught me much about hat making during this month, though of course they are not for me to wear, being too fancy for a Friend. I do admire them, however, though I know I should not, as the feathers and flowers are so frivolous.
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.
The Last Runaway Page 23