The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier
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trip on that rug – it needs tacking down, doesn’t it, Adam?’ ‘This lamp does not usually smoke – I was such in a fluster about thy coming so unexpectedly that I didn’t have time to trim it properly.’ ‘I would have swept, but knew thee and thy trunk would bring in dust I would have to sweep away again.’ Abigail had a way of making the faults of the household seem the result of everyone but herself. Honor began to feel guilty for being there at all.
As a child she had been taught that everyone has a measure of the Light in them, and though the amount can vary, all must try to live up to their measure. It seemed to her now that Abigail’s measure was small, and she was not living up to it. Of course she had recently nursed and then lost a husband, and so could be forgiven for being sombre. But Honor suspected her unfriendliness was part of her nature.
Adam Cox did not try to defend Honor or make her feel welcome, but sank further into himself, sober and quiet – stunned by the double loss of his brother and his fiancée, Honor suspected. Though their courtship had been conducted almost entirely through letters, he must have looked forward to the arrival of a lively, beautiful wife. Now he was stuck with the quiet sister and a difficult sister-in-law.
He only became animated as they were sitting on the front porch after supper and Abigail brought up Honor’s decision to come to Ohio. ‘Adam told me about Grace’s family,’ she said, rocking vigorously in her chair, her hands idle, for it was too dark to sew. ‘He said thee was to be married. Why is thee here instead?’
Adam sat up, as if he had been waiting for Abigail to bring up the difficult topic. ‘Yes, Honor, what happened with Samuel? I thought thee had an understanding with him.’
Honor winced, though she knew eventually this question would have to be answered. She tried to do so in as few words as possible. ‘He met someone else.’
Adam frowned. ‘Who?’
‘A – a woman from Exeter.’
‘But I am from there and know most of the Friends there. Who is it?’
Honor swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. ‘She is not a Friend.’
‘What, he married out of the faith?’ Abigail practically shouted.
‘Yes.’
‘I assume Bridport Meeting disowned him?’ Adam asked.
‘Yes. He has gone to live in Exeter, and joined the Church of England.’ That was what was hardest: Honor could almost manage the thought of Samuel no longer loving her, but for him willingly to leave the faith that was the very foundation of her life was a blow she did not think she could recover from. That, and the embarrassment in Samuel’s parents’ eyes whenever she ran into them, and the pity in everyone else’s, had made her say yes to Grace’s suggestion to emigrate.
Thinking of this, she found she was gripping her hands in her lap. She took a deep breath and tried to relax her fingers, but her knuckles were still white from being forced to think of Samuel.
Abigail shook her head. ‘That’s just terrible.’ She sounded almost gleeful, but then frowned, perhaps recalling it was those circumstances that brought her this unwelcome guest. Something hard and cruel in her sidelong glance gave Honor the guilty feeling that, once again, she was at fault.
Though it was warm, that night she huddled under the signature quilt in the tiny bedroom, seeking solace.
Later Honor admitted to herself that she had not hidden her dismay at her new home well, and Abigail might easily have taken offence. The ramshackle, frontier nature of the house extended to Faithwell itself. When Adam brought her from Wellington, she’d thought the scattering of houses had been just the announcement of a larger settlement nearby. The next morning she discovered otherwise when she and Abigail went for a walk. Though it was raining and the road in front of the house had turned to mud, Abigail insisted on going out. It was as if she dreaded being alone with Honor – Adam had left early for the Oberlin shop. When Honor suggested they might wait until the rain let up, Abigail frowned and continued putting on her bonnet. ‘I hear it rains all the time in England,’ she countered, tying the ribbon tight under her chin. ‘Thee should be used to it. Thee won’t wear that grey and yellow bonnet, will thee? It’s fancy for Faithwell.’
Honor had already decided to store Belle’s bonnet; she wondered if she would ever find a place to wear it. Grace would have managed to wear it here, she thought.
She followed Abigail along the track, picking through the mud to planks that had been laid alongside for this purpose, though the mud covered them as well. They passed a few houses, similar in construction to Adam and Abigail’s, but no one else was out. The general store was also empty apart from the owner. He greeted her kindly enough, with the sort of open, honest face she was familiar with among Friends back home. The shop itself was small and basic, the space given over primarily to barrels of flour, cane sugar, cornmeal and molasses. There were also a few shelves carrying a jumble of bits and pieces such as candles and bootlaces, a tablet of writing paper, a dishcloth, a hand broom – as if a pedlar had come along and convinced the shopkeeper he needed one of each in case someone asked for it someday.
Honor maintained a strained smile as she looked around, trying to mask what she was thinking: that these barrels and shelves represented the limitations of her new life. A metal pail, a packet of needles, a jar of vinegar: these lone items, sad on their shelves, were all there was to Faithwell. There was no additional room full of tempting sweets or beautiful cloth, no corner to turn with another row of shops on a mud-free street, no duck-egg-blue floorboards. Adam’s letters to Grace had not been lies, exactly, but he had made the town out to be thriving. ‘It is small but growing,’ he had written. ‘I am certain it will flourish.’ Perhaps Honor should have paid more attention to Adam’s use of the future tense.
Back at the house she tried to help Abigail: she washed dishes and scrubbed pots, shook out the oval rag rugs scattered throughout the house, brought in wood for the range and hauled out ash from the stove to dump in the privy – ‘Outhouse,’ she murmured. With every task she asked for instructions so that she would not offend Abigail with different ways of doing things that might imply her hostess was in the wrong. Abigail was the sort of woman who thought that way.
She made her big mistake while sweeping the kitchen and pantry. ‘Does thee have a cat?’ she asked as the mouse droppings accumulated in the pile of sweepings, thinking this gentle suggestion might solve the mouse problem.
Abigail dropped the knife she was using to peel potatoes. ‘No! They make me sneeze.’ She disappeared into the pantry and came back with a jar of red powder, which she tapped into bellows and began blowing into the corners, her movements jerky and accompanied by sighs. Honor tried not to stare, but curiosity overtook her, and she picked up the jar. ‘What is this?’
‘Red pepper. Gets rid of vermin. Doesn’t thee use it in England?’
‘No. We had a cat.’ Honor did not add that their cat, a tortoiseshell called Lizzy, was a good mouser. She used to sit next to Honor while she sewed and purr. The thought of her old cat made her eyes sting, and she turned back to her sweeping so that Abigail would not see her tears.
In the evening when Adam returned, Honor heard Abigail whispering to him out on the porch. She did not try to listen; from the tone she knew what Abigail was saying: She could not stay. But where could she go?
The next afternoon, when Abigail decided they had done enough housework for the day, she settled into the rocker on the front porch with a quilt she was working on and a bowl of new cherries from a tree behind the house. Honor had picked them so the blue jays wouldn’t eat them all. Fetching her sewing box, she joined Abigail. She had not worked on a quilt since being on board the Adventurer – her journey since then had been too disjointed, and her sewing time at Belle’s was spent on bonnets.
Though