The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier

      The milliner’s was on the end of a row of buildings that included a grocery, a harness shop, a confectionary and a drug store. The back yards of these establishments were underused, though one had a vegetable garden, and in another there was laundry hanging out. Belle’s yard had nothing in it but a pile of planed wood and a goat tethered in the weeds. ‘Don’t go near the wood,’ Belle warned. ‘Snakes there. And leave that goat be. It belongs to the neighbours, and it’s evil.’ There was also an outhouse, and a lean-to along the side of the house for storing wood, but clearly Belle’s energy went into her shop.

      Honor sat and opened her sewing box to lay out her things. This ritual, at least, was familiar. The sewing box had belonged to her grandmother, who, when her sight began to fail, handed it on to the best stitcher among her granddaughters. Made of walnut wood, it had a padded needlepoint cover of lilies of the valley in green and yellow and white. This was an image Honor had known from an early age; eyes shut, she could perfectly recreate it in her mind, as she had often done to distract herself during her seasickness. The upper tray contained a needlecase Grace had made, embroidered with lilies of the valley similar to the box lid; a wire needle threader; a porcelain thimble her mother had given her, decorated with yellow roses; a beaded pin cushion her friend Biddy had made for her; packets of pins wrapped in green paper; a small tin holding a lump of beeswax she used on her quilting thread; and her grandmother’s pair of small sewing scissors with green and yellow enamelled handles, sheathed in a soft leather case.

      Belle Mills leaned forward to inspect. ‘Nice. What are these?’ She picked up pieces of metal cut into different shapes: hexagons, diamonds, squares, triangles.

      ‘Templates for cutting patchwork. My father had them made for me.’

      ‘Quilter, eh?’

      Honor nodded.

      ‘What’s underneath?’

      Honor lifted the tray to reveal spools of different coloured thread, each slotted into its place.

      Belle nodded her approval, then reached between the spools to pick out a small silver thimble. ‘Don’t you want this in the top section with the other things?’

      ‘No.’ Samuel had given her the thimble when their feelings for each other were ripe. She would not use it now, but could not quite give it up.

      Belle raised her eyebrows. When Honor did not elaborate, she dropped the thimble back into the spools to ruin their perfect order. ‘All right, Honor Bright,’ she chuckled, ‘everybody’s entitled to their secrets. Now, let’s get you started. You sewed much on straw before?’

      Honor shook her head. ‘I have not made hats, only bonnets.’

      ‘Bet you only got two bonnets – winter and summer. You Quakers don’t go in for fancy clothes, do you? Well, then, let’s start you on cloth. I got a sun bonnet for Mrs Bradley needs finishing. That’s easy – no straw structure, just corded. Most women make their own, but Mrs Bradley’s got a fancy notion she don’t ever need to pick up a needle. Think you can manage this? Here’s the thread. I been using a size six needle.’ She handed Honor a soft bonnet that had been cut and tacked together with loose stitches, and only needed sewing; it was a simple enough design, with a long, wide bavolet of cloth to cover the neck from the sun. The fabric was a light blue plaid crisscrossed with thin yellow and white stripes. It was not a style Honor was familiar with – no English woman would be willing to let so much fabric flap around her neck – but the sun was stronger here, so perhaps such covering was needed. At any rate, it would be easy to sew.

      Honor reached for a spool and her needle threader and quickly threaded six needles, poking them into the pin cushion in readiness. Though Belle’s scrutiny made her self-conscious, in the sewing realm at least she was confident of what she was doing. She began to sew the crown on to the brim using a back stitch for strength, and gathering the crown cloth into little pleats as she made her way around. Honor was a fast, accurate seamstress, though she went more slowly on this bonnet, to make sure she was doing what Belle wanted.

      Belle sat in the rocker next to her and sewed cream silk over the top of the straw, oval-shaped brim of a bonnet. Every so often she glanced over at Honor’s work. ‘I can see I don’t have to look after you,’ she remarked when Honor had finished the sun bonnet. ‘Now, watch the pleats I’m makin’ to get this cloth to lay flat around the brim. See, like this. Think you can do that? Here, try it. Use this – it’s a milliner’s needle – better for straw.’

      When Honor had sewn enough to Belle’s satisfaction, the milliner stood and stretched. ‘Guess I got lucky with you comin’. When you finish that you can work on these.’ She patted a pile of bonnets in various stages of construction that she had placed on a table between them. ‘I’ll trim ’em later. You got any questions I’ll be in the shop. Got to open for the afternoon.’

      It had grown warm, with the sun high in the sky and the porch less shaded. Honor had not been alone much since landing in America, and was glad to sit still on a bright spring afternoon with familiar work to do but nothing more expected of her. She would have liked a cottage garden to look at, with drifting borders of flowers such as her mother grew – lupins and delphiniums and columbine and love-in-a-mist and forget-me-nots. She didn’t know if any of these flowers even grew in America, or if Americans cultivated that sort of garden. She suspected not – it was not practical, especially here, where society was still being hewn from the wilderness, and energy was directed towards survival rather than decoration. Mind you – she surveyed the pile of bonnets Belle had left her – Ohio women did allow themselves some frivolity in their headwear: the bonnets were in brightly coloured ginghams and chintz.

      She finished the cream bonnet and picked up another, of pale green fabric dotted with tiny daisies, and a brim that could be folded back to reveal another colour – tan in this case. Honor would have expected pink, but she was not about to suggest so. As she worked on the second bonnet, the steady, familiar rhythm of sewing took over, its repetition meditative, freeing her to her thoughts rather as Meeting for Worship did. She felt her shoulders begin to sink, the tension she had been carrying with her since leaving England easing a little. Reaching the end of the thread, she let her hands rest on the bonnet in her lap and closed her eyes. That calm, and her solitude, gave her the space in which to think: of Samuel telling her he loved someone else, and her decision to unmoor herself from Dorset; of her sister’s death leaving her so alone in a strange place. Honor at last began to cry, painful sobs reminiscent of the heaves she had suffered on board the Adventurer.

      The relief of her tears did not last,