The Last Runaway

by Tracy Chevalier

* * *

  Comfort woke twice more that night to feed, and each time the girl was asleep. When the rising sun at last woke Honor, the girl had gone.

  Down in the kitchen, Belle was frying griddle cakes and bacon—far more than the two of them could eat. She nodded toward the hole. “Little girl’s doing better. She almost smiled at me.” She piled the griddle cakes and bacon onto a plate and pushed it through the hole.

  After breakfast Belle went out without saying where she was going, leaving Honor to mind the shop. On her return she handed Honor a wine-colored dress. “Customer wants the hem and sleeves let out.”

  All day, as Honor sewed—first the dress, then a child’s skirt—she thought about the three runaways crammed into the small space behind the woodpile. It would be dark and uncomfortable, the wood offering little other than splinters and mice. Yet perhaps it was better than hiding in the cold woods.

  Belle was in an overbright mood, displaying a nervous energy as she helped customers try on bonnets, removed flowers that were too summery for the growing cold, added tartan ribbons or feathers, measured for winter linings. When it was quiet, she worked at the table in the corner, sewing yellow netting onto the brown felt hat she had been stretching. Now and then she went to the window to glance out.

  When Honor handed her the altered clothes, she noticed Belle was holding a familiar gray bonnet: she had replaced the worn yellow ribbons with a much wider gray ribbon that went round the crown and when tied pulled the brim close around the face. She had also added a row of white lace to the brim, hiding the yellow lining. It was now far too fancy for Honor to wear—or indeed Virginie. No black woman wore something so decorative.

  Honor widened her eyes. Belle shrugged and hummed under her breath; Honor recognized it as the tune Virginie had sung to Comfort the night before. “Is that a hymn?”

  “No, just a song you hear in the fields in the South. Negroes sing it to keep themselves goin’.”

  Late in the day, when Belle was lighting lamps, three women came into the shop, accompanied by several young girls. “Look after ’em, Honor,” Belle said, heading to the kitchen. “I’ll be back.”

  Honor stared after her, surprised that she would hurry away from such a large group. The women and girls were lively, trying on so many different hats and bonnets that she could not keep up with replacing them. In the middle of it, Comfort began to cry in her cradle. Before Honor could get to her one of the older girls had picked her up and went jigging around the shop. Comfort stopped crying with the novelty of it all, and the other girls gathered around the baby. There seemed to be more of them now, and they clattered and laughed and played around Honor’s daughter.

  In the distance the train whistle sounded, cutting through the noise. “C’mon, girls, time to go,” one of the women called. Immediately the girl handed Comfort over and grabbed the hand of one of the younger ones. The others found partners and linked arms. As they passed through the door one of the smaller girls wearing a wide-brimmed bonnet and a shawl around her neck and chin turned to peek at Honor. It was one of Virginie’s twins, though only a strip of her dark skin was showing. In the dusk outside, her arm linked through another’s, she would be indistinguishable. Honor smiled at her, but the girl looked too terrified to speak.

  The other twin left as well, bundled along with the rest of the group, and suddenly it was quiet. Only a woman remained behind. Then Belle was back in the room, pulling Virginie behind her. The runaway was transformed by the burgundy dress and a shawl, the gray and yellow bonnet tied tight under her chin so that from the side her face was hidden. You could only see her if you looked head-on.

  “No time to wait,” Belle said. “Town’s out to meet the train. Go out and cry, ‘Wait up, ladies!’ and run after ’em. Act like you goin’ to see the train. He’s across the street, watchin’, so you got to be bold.”

  Virginie squeezed Belle’s arm. “Thankee.”

  Belle laughed. “All in a day’s work, honey. Off you go, now. If you’re lucky I won’t see you again!”

  “God go with thee, Virginie,” Honor added. “And thy girls.”

  Virginie nodded, then ducked out of the door after the other woman.

  “Come back away from the window,” Belle commanded. “Can’t have Donovan see us takin’ an interest or he’ll get suspicious.”

  The door opened then and another Wellington woman entered. “I ain’t too late, am I?” she asked. “I just need a new ribbon for my bonnet.”

  “We’ll stay open for you,” Belle said. “Honor, you put all these bonnets back, will you? Those girls just now made the biggest mess.”

  Honor stacked bonnets one-handed, bouncing Comfort with the other. Her heart was pounding. She ached to look out and see whether Donovan had followed the women, but knew she could not.

  Ten minutes later Belle showed the customer to the door, then she turned the lock and began shuttering the windows. “He’s gone,” she announced, “though whether he’s gone after the women I just don’t know. Could’ve gone inside the bar for an evening whiskey. God knows I could use one. In fact . . .” Belle made her way to the kitchen, where she poured out a fingerful of whiskey and drank it in one gulp.

  Honor watched from the doorway. “Is it always this difficult?”

  “Naw.” Belle slammed down the glass. “Lot of times he don’t even know they’re passin’ through. And he prefers to catch ’em in the open. He’s more at home out in the woods or on the roads than in a hat shop. But now you’re here he’s sniffin’ ’round more, even if he ain’t ridin’ up and down the street in front of the shop like he did before. Can’t hide people so easily with all that happenin’.”

  “I am putting the runaways in more danger.” Honor stated what was now so obvious she should have realized it weeks ago.

  Belle shrugged. “I sent word they shouldn’t come this way for a time, so we ain’t had any while you’ve been here, ’cept Virginie, and she been here before.”

  Honor shuddered. Virginie and her daughters could have been caught because she remained at Belle’s, frozen with indecision. Indeed, other runaways could be caught because they were taking other routes to avoid Wellington. Belle had not complained about Honor staying with her, but clearly it had consequences.

  The next day a boy came by to say that the runaways had left town safely, and were on their way to Oberlin. Belle celebrated with another whiskey.

  * * *

  It was the last First Day before Honor must return to the Haymakers or be disowned by Faithwell Friends. The shop was closed, and Belle was sleeping in, having stayed up much of the night with a whiskey bottle. In that way she resembled her brother. Like the first time Honor stayed with her, Belle was not going to church. “God and I gonna have a long talk when I meet Him,” she said. “Set things right then.” She made it sound as if such a meeting would not be long in coming. Honor’s stomach tightened at the thought.

  She looked in on Belle now. Her friend was sleeping on her back, her bony frame outlined under a ragged quilt in an Ohio Star pattern, with squares and triangles making up eight-pointed stars in red and brown. Honor had offered to repair the tears in the seams, but Belle had shrugged. “Waste of time,” she’d said, without explaining further. In sleep her face was sunken even more, leaving her cheekbones exposed, the skin pulled over bone that seemed almost visible. Her yellow skin had gone gray. She could be lying in a coffin. Honor caught back a sob, and backed out of the room.

  She went down to the kitchen and stood at the range, staring into the corn mush she had made for their breakfast. She had been up three hours already, roused by Comfort, and was waiting for Belle to wake and eat. Though Belle ate even less these days, Honor liked to have the company. Now, though, having seen the state of her companion, she was no longer hungry. She pushed the pot to the back of the range and placed a plate over it to keep it warm.

  Comfort was asleep in her cradle. For once Honor wished her daughter were awake so that she could hold her. Instead sh
e sat down on one of the straight chairs in the middle of the quiet kitchen and closed her eyes. Since staying with Belle she had not often had the opportunity to sit in silence. It was always harder to do so without the strength and focus of a community. Collective silence contained a purposeful anticipation. Now, alone, her silence felt empty, as if she were not searching hard enough or in the right place.

  She sat for a long time, taken out of the sinking feeling she sought by the interruption of sounds she would not normally notice: the crumbling of embers in the stove; the tapping of wood drying somewhere in the house; the clopping of a horse and turning of wagon wheels in the street in front of the shop. Honor found herself thinking about the cot quilt she was going to start and whether the rosettes she had made all summer would really suit Comfort. They seemed very English, and Comfort was not.

  Then she heard scratching at the back door and opened her eyes. Through the small window in the upper half of the door she could see the crown of a brown felt hat trimmed with red and orange maple leaves.

  Honor hurried to open the door. “Quick, now, let me in,” Mrs. Reed said. “Don’t want people to see.” She stepped past Honor into the kitchen. “Shut the door,” she instructed, for Honor was so surprised she was standing still with her hand on the latch.

  Mrs. Reed was wearing a man’s coat with a brown shawl over it. Her mouth was set in its habitual downturn, her lower lip protruding. She wiped her glasses with the end of her shawl, then looked around the kitchen. Spotting the cradle, she brightened, as she had with her own granddaughter when Honor had visited her. This was a woman who liked babies. She might be grim and suspicious with others, but babies got her unconditional smile. She leaned over and put her face right in Comfort’s. “Hello, baby girl, sleepin’ like a li’l angel. Bet you don’t always. I done heard ’bout you. Expect I’ll hear those lungs soon. Comfort to your mama, that’s what you are.”

  “Will thee sit?” Honor offered the rocking chair, hoping Mrs. Reed would not wake her daughter. It was always harder to talk when Comfort was awake.

  Mrs. Reed sat in one of the straight-backed chairs rather than the rocker. Clearly she was here on business instead of a leisurely visit; a rocking chair would muddle the two. However, she did accept a cup of coffee, sweetened with brown sugar.

  “What in the name of our good Lord are you doin’ here, Honor Bright?” Mrs. Reed demanded after she’d tasted the coffee, grimaced, and reached for more sugar. “Apart from burning the coffee, that is. I didn’t even know you was here till Virginie told me. I asked Adam Cox ’bout the baby and he told me you’d had it, but didn’t say nothin’ ’bout you bein’ in Wellington.”

  “How is Virginie’s little girl?” Honor deflected the subject from herself.

  “The one who was ill? She fine now. A little chili pepper chased away that cold. They stayed with me a few days, then was off to Sandusky. Should be there by now, waitin’ for a boat, with any luck. But don’t change the subject. This visit ain’t about them, it about you. Why are you here and not with your husband?” Mrs. Reed watched Honor steadily, her eyes now clear through the glasses. It was a straight look: not angry, or sad, or frustrated, or any of the other things Honor had seen in others’ eyes while she had been at Belle’s. That straightforwardness made her feel she too should be direct.

  “I don’t agree with the Haymakers about not helping runaways,” she said. “That makes me feel I am not a part of the family and never will be.”

  Mrs. Reed nodded. “Virginie done told me that part. That the only reason? ’Cause if it is, it ain’t enough.”

  Honor stared at her visitor.

  “Honor, you think you singlehandedly savin’ all the runaways? You think that one meal you give ’em or the sleep they get in your barn is goin’ to make all the difference? They already come hundreds o’ miles by the time they get to you. They been through some terrible times. You jes’ one small link in a big chain. Sure, we grateful for what you done, but we managed before you come along last year, and we’ll manage without you. Someone will step into the gap, or the Railroad will shift, is all. We been doin’ this a long time, and will be a long time more. You know how many slaves there are in the South?”

  Honor shook her head, lowering her eyes to her hands in her lap so that Mrs. Reed would not see the tears welling.

  “Millions! Millions. And how many you helped in the last year—maybe twenty? We got us a long way to go. It surely ain’t somethin’ you need to break your marriage over. That’s jes’ foolishness. Any runaway would tell you that. All they want is the freedom to make the kind of life you got. You go and throw that away for their sake, you jes’ mockin’ they own dreams.”

  Honor gave up trying to hide her tears and let them roll freely down her face.

  “I don’t know what Belle here been sayin’ to you, but someone got to say somethin’, ’cause you ain’t thinkin’ straight.”

  “It ain’t so easy sayin’ those things to ’em when they’re livin’ with you, ’cause you got to go on livin’ with ’em.” Belle was leaning in the doorway, startling the women. Now that she was up, her face had regained some of its color, though the gray had not entirely disappeared. “Glad to hear you talkin’ some sense to her.” She gazed at Mrs. Reed, who stared back. The women nodded simultaneously. Their interest in each other gave Honor the chance to wipe her eyes and take a shaky breath.

  “Good to meet you at last, Belle,” Mrs. Reed said.

  “And you, Elsie.”

  “You have never met?” Honor was astonished.

  “Better not to—don’t want to draw attention,” Belle replied. “But we know ’bout each other.” She turned back to Mrs. Reed. “Anybody see you come in?”

  “Not that I saw. I got a man waitin’ with a horse in the woods out o’ town, took me that far. Then I walked in. Really I shouldn’t be down here—ain’t safe for me these days. I’ve stayed closer to home ever since the new law come in last year. But I made an exception for this one.” Mrs. Reed nodded at Honor. “Ask myself why, though.”

  Belle chuckled. “She sure has that effect on people, don’t she?”

  Honor looked from one woman to the other, her eyes wide.

  “Guess I got to help a runaway when I see one, whatever they color. It’s in my nature.” Mrs. Reed shifted her gaze onto Honor. “Now, I don’t want you usin’ the runaways as the excuse for you to run away. You got a problem with your husband’s family, you stay and sort it out. Or do you have a problem with him?”

  Honor considered the question.

  Belle joined in. “Does he provide for you? Does he hit you? Is he gentle in bed?”

  Honor nodded or shook her head with answers the women already knew.

  “Course he’s a Quaker, so he don’t smoke or drink or spit,” Belle continued. “That’s something. What in hell’s name is the matter with him, then? Apart from his mother.” She and Mrs. Reed waited for an answer.

  For once Honor wished Comfort would wake to distract them. “There is nothing wrong with Jack,” she said at last. “It is with me. I don’t belong in this country.”

  As Belle and Mrs. Reed smiled the same skeptical smile, Honor knew she sounded ridiculous to a woman facing death and a woman whose freedom was precarious. “I am of course grateful to have been taken in by the Haymakers,” she continued, “but I do not feel settled. It is as if—as if I am floating just above the ground, with my feet not touching. Back in England I knew where I was, and felt tied to my place.”

  To her surprise—for Honor did not expect them to understand—both women nodded. “That jes’ Ohio,” Mrs. Reed said. “Lots o’ people say that.”

  “Everyone’s just passin’ through Ohio to get to somewhere else,” Belle added. “Runaways goin’ north; settlers headin’ west. You meet someone, you never can be sure you’ll see ’em the next day. Next day or next month or next year they may be off. Elsie and I are the veterans. How long you been in Oberlin?” she asked Mrs. Reed.

  �
��Twelve years.”

  “I been here fifteen. That’s ancient for most. Wellington was only settled in 1818, and it ain’t even been officially incorporated yet. And Oberlin’s newer than that.”

  “The town I am from is a thousand years old,” Honor said.

  Mrs. Reed and Belle chuckled. “Well then, honey, we’re just little children to you,” Belle said.

  “That what you want, Honor Bright?” Mrs. Reed said. “A town with a thousand-year history, and people who live there all they lives? You in the wrong state for that.”

  “You want that rooted-down feeling, you go to Boston or Philadelphia,” Belle added. “But they’re only a couple hundred years old. Really you’re in the wrong country. Maybe you should go back to England. What’s stoppin’ you?”

  Honor thought of the penetrating nausea on board the Adventurer, of the weeks with no solid footing. But had she ever found her feet in America? Her stomach might be settled, but her legs still felt unsteady.

  “Why you leave England in the first place?” Mrs. Reed asked. If she closed her eyes, Honor could not always tell who was asking the questions.

  “My sister came here to marry, but died on the way.”

  “I didn’t ask about your sister, I asked about you. You got family back in England?”

  Honor nodded.

  “Why didn’t you stay with them? You didn’t have to come with your sister.”

  Honor’s mouth filled with a bitter taste, but she knew she must answer. “I was meant to marry, but he met another. He left the Society of Friends to be with her.” Thinking of Samuel reminded Honor that soon she too would no longer be a Friend.

  “So? That don’t mean you couldn’t stay.”

  Honor took a breath and forced herself to voice what she had never said aloud, or even allowed herself to think clearly. “Back home there was a slot in which my life was meant to fit. Then it was taken away and it felt as if there was no place for me. I thought it better to go and start somewhere new. So I thought.”

  “That’s a very American notion, leaving problems behind and movin’ on,” Belle said. “If you thought that, maybe you’re not so English after all. Maybe you got it in you to start over. Now, name me some things you like about Ohio.”