The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier
my move to America. To say goodbye.’
Each square consisted of brown and green and cream squares and triangles, with a white patch in the middle signed by the maker. Originally begun for Grace, when Honor decided at the last minute to go to America as well, the makers rearranged the configuration of names so that hers was in the central square, with family members in the squares around them, and friends beyond those. Quilted in a simple diamond pattern, it was not especially beautiful, for the work varied according to the skill of each maker, and it was not designed the way Honor would have chosen. But she could never give it to anyone else: it had been made for her to remember her community by.
Donovan squatted in the wagon bed and studied the quilt for so long that Honor began to wonder if she had said something wrong. She glanced at Thomas: he remained impassive.
‘My mother made comforts,’ Donovan said at last, running his fingers over a name – Rachel Bright, an aunt of Honor’s. ‘Nothin’ like this, though. Hers had a big star in the centre made out of lots of little diamonds.’
‘That pattern is called a Star of Bethlehem.’
‘Is it, now?’ Donovan looked at her; his brown eyes had thawed a little.
‘I have made that pattern myself,’ she added, thinking of the quilt she had left behind with Biddy. ‘They are not easy, because it is difficult to fit together the points of the diamonds. The sewing must be very accurate. Thy mother must have been skilled with her needle.’
Donovan nodded, then grabbed the quilt and stuffed it back in the trunk. Locking it, he jumped down from the wagon. ‘You can go.’
Without a word, Thomas flicked the reins and the grey mare sprang into life. A minute later Donovan rode up alongside them. ‘You settlin’ in Wellington?’
‘No,’ Honor answered. ‘Faithwell, near Oberlin. My late sister’s fiancé is there.’
‘Oberlin!’ Donovan spat, then pressed his heels into the stallion’s belly and flew past them. Honor was relieved, for she had wondered how she would tolerate him riding alongside them all the way to Wellington.
His horse’s hoofbeats remained in the air, quieter and quieter, for many minutes, until at last they faded away. ‘All right, now,’ Thomas said softly. Stamping twice, he flicked the reins over the mare’s back again. He did not hum, however, for the rest of the journey.
It was only miles later that Honor realised Donovan had not given her back the key to her trunk.
Belle Mills’s Millinery
Main St
Wellington, Ohio
May 30, 1850
Dear Mr Cox,
I got your fiancée’s sister, Honor Bright, here with me. Sorry to tell you your intended passed. Yellow fever.
Honor needs to rest up here a few days, so could you come pick her up this Sunday afternoon, please.
Yours ever faithful,
Belle Mills
HONOR HAD SLEPT IN so many beds by the time she got to Wellington that when she woke she did not remember where she was. Her dress and shawl were hanging over a chair, but she could not recall undressing or putting them there. She sat up, certain that it was not early morning, when she usually rose. She was wearing an unfamiliar cotton nightgown that was too long for her, and covered with a light quilt.
Wherever she was, there was no doubt that this was America. The quality of the sunlight was different – yellower and fiercer, biting through the air to warm her. Indeed, it was going to be a hot day, though at the moment it was fresh enough for her to be grateful for the quilt. She ran her hand over it: unlike most American quilts she had seen so far, this one was not appliquéd or pieced squares, but proper English patchwork, well made, so that while the cloth was faded, there were no tears or loose seams. The design was of orange and yellow and red diamonds that made up a star in the centre of the quilt – a Star of Bethlehem like Biddy’s quilt, and what Donovan had described his mother making. Recalling her encounter with him the day before, Honor shuddered.
Though of a good size, and containing the bed she had slept in, the room was not a bedroom so much as a storeroom. Bolts of cloth leaned against the walls, many of them white but also solid colours, plaids and floral prints. Spilling out of open chests of drawers were gloves, ribbons, wire, lace and feathers dyed in bright colours. In one corner, dominating the room, smooth blocks of wood in oval and cylindrical shapes were precariously stacked, as well as peculiar oval and circular bands like wheels or doughnuts, some of wood, others made of a hard white material Honor did not recognise. She leaned forward to study them more closely. The blocks reminded her of heads. When Thomas had left her off late the evening before, she’d entered a shop of some kind. While at the time she had been too tired to take note of it, now she understood: she was in a milliner’s storeroom.
Quaker women did not wear hats, but plain caps and bonnets, and usually made their own. Honor had only been into the milliner’s in Bridport a few times to buy ribbon. She had often peeked in the window, however, to admire the latest creations displayed on their stands. It had been a tidy, feminine space, with floorboards painted duck-egg blue and long shelves along the walls filled with hats.
On top of the dresser full of trimmings was a china jug decorated with pink roses sitting in a matching basin, the same Honor had seen in homes all across Pennsylvania. She used them now to wash, then dressed and smoothed her dark hair, noting as she put on her cap that her bonnet was missing. Before she went down, she glanced out of the window, which overlooked a street busy with pedestrians and horses and wagons. It was a relief to see people again after a day on the empty road through the woods.
Honor crept down the stairs and entered a small kitchen with a fire and range, a table and chairs, and a sideboard sparse with dishes. The room felt underused, as if little food were prepared there. The back door was open, bringing in a breeze that passed through the kitchen and into the front room. Honor followed it to the heart of the house.
In many respects the shop was like the Bridport milliner’s: hats on shelves lining the walls, hats and bonnets on stands on tables around the room, glass cases along the sides displaying gloves and combs and hat pins. A large mirror hung on one wall, and two front windows made the room light and airy. The floorboards were not painted but worn smooth and shiny from customers’ feet. In one corner on a work table were hats in various stages of construction: layers of straw moulded around carved wood hat blocks, drying into shape; brims sewn into ovals and awaiting their crowns; hats banded with ribbon, a pile of silk flowers waiting to be attached among a tangle of ribbons and wire. There was little order on the table; the order lay in the finished hats.
In another way the room was completely different, as so many things about America felt to Honor. Where the Bridport shop was orderly by design, the Wellington milliner’s felt as if it had come about its order by accident. Some of the shelves were crammed with hats while others were bare. The room was bright but the windows dusty. Though the floor looked as if it had been swept clean, Honor suspected the corners housed dustballs. It felt as if the shop had sprung up suddenly, whereas Honor knew that her great-grandmother would have bought plain ribbons from the Bridport milliner’s.
The hats and bonnets too were peculiar. Though no expert in trimmings since she wore none herself, Honor was startled by some of the things she saw. A straw hat with a shallow crown pinned with a huge bunch of plaid roses. Another flat hat rimmed with a cascade of coloured ribbons bound together with lace. A cottage bonnet with a deep crown much like Honor’s own, but with white feathers