The Last Runaway (6 page)

Wherever they went, the road and the planks laid above the mud were spattered with gobs of spit. Honor and Grace had been astonished when they reached New York at how often American men spat, walking around with a bulge of tobacco in their cheeks and letting fly both outside and in. Equally astonishing was that no one else seemed to notice or mind.

Belle nodded at everyone they passed, and stopped to speak a few words to some of the women. Most were wearing everyday bonnets, but a few wore hats that Honor recognized as Belle’s, with their peculiar combinations of trimmings. Belle confirmed this. “Some of them make their own bonnets, but all the hats are mine. You’ll see more of ’em Sundays, for church. They wouldn’t dare wear a hat from one of them Oberlin milliners—they know I’d never do business with ’em afterward. Nothin’ wrong with Oberlin, but you buy from your own, don’t you?” Belle herself wore a straw hat with a wide orange ribbon around the brim, trimmed with flowers fashioned from pieces of straw.

On one corner of Public Square was the town hotel. For such a small town, it was surprisingly grand: a long, two-story building with a double balcony running all the way along its front on both floors, held up by several pairs of white columns. “Wadsworth Hotel,” Belle remarked. “Only place in town to get a drink—not that you need to know that. You Quakers don’t touch alcohol, do you?”

Honor shook her head.

“Well, I take my whiskey at home. And that’s why.” Belle nodded toward one end of the hotel, which faced the millinery shop across Public Square. Lounging on the porch out front were a cluster of men, bottles at their sides. Donovan was among them, his feet propped up on a table. On seeing Belle and Honor, he raised his bottle at them, then drank.

“Charming.” Belle led her on. As they passed the last pair of columns, Honor noticed a poster tacked on one of them. It was not the
$150 REWARD
in big letters that drew her in, but the silhouette of a man running with a sack over his shoulder. She stopped and studied it.

The description was remarkably specific. She pictured the man she had seen in the lean-to. Now that there were words for what he looked like, adjectives like
chunky
and
African
and
shrewd
, she could picture him, his calculating eyes taking her in, the strength in his shoulders—and his hair, bushy but parted on the side.

Donovan was watching her.

“Walk on,” Belle hissed, taking her arm and marching her around the corner onto Mechanics Street.

When they were out of earshot, Honor said, “Did Donovan put up that poster?”

“Yes. He’s a slave hunter. You worked that out, didn’t you?”

Honor nodded, though she did not know there was a name for what he did.

“There’s slave hunters all over Ohio, come up from Kentucky or Virginia to try and take back Negroes to their owners. See, we got lots of runaways through here on their way to Canada. In fact, a lot of traffic comes through Ohio, one way or another. Hell, you can stand at the crossroads here and watch it. East to west you got settlers moving for more land. South to north you got runaway slaves looking for freedom. Funny how nobody wants to go south or east. It’s north and west that hold out some kind of promise.”

“Why don’t the Negroes remain in Ohio? I thought there was no slavery here.”

“Some do stop in Ohio—you’ll see free blacks in Oberlin—but freedom’s guaranteed in Canada. Different country, different laws, so slave hunters got no power there.

“But Donovan’s interested in you,” Belle continued. “Funny, usually he’s suspicious of Quakers. Likes to quote a politician who said Quakers won’t defend the country when there’s war, but are happy to interfere in people’s business when there’s peace. But it ain’t good to get his attention: once you do it ain’t easy to get rid of him. He’ll bother you over in Faithwell too. He’s a stubborn son of a bitch. I should know.” At Honor’s questioning look, Belle smiled. “He’s my brother.”

She chuckled at the change in Honor’s face. “Two different fathers, so we don’t look much alike. We grew up in Kentucky. But our mother was English—Lincolnshire.”

A piece fitted into place. “Did she make the quilt on my bed?”

“Yep. Donovan’s always tryin’ to take it back from me. He’s a mean son of a bitch. We gone in different directions, ain’t we, even if we both come north. Now, we better get back.” Belle stopped in front of Honor. “Look, honey, I know you seen things goin’ on at my house, but it’s best if you don’t actually know anything. Then if Donovan asks, you don’t have to lie. Quakers ain’t supposed to lie, are they?”

Honor shook her head.

Belle took her arm and turned around to walk back toward the millinery shop. “Jesus H. Christ, I’m glad I’m not a Quaker. No whiskey, no color, no feathers, no lies. What is there left?”

“No swearing either,” Honor added.

Belle burst out laughing.

Honor smiled. “We do call ourselves ‘the peculiar people,’ for we know we must seem so to others.”

Belle was still chuckling, but stopped when they reached the hotel bar. Donovan was no longer there.

* * *

The next two days Honor sewed all day, first in the corner of the shop by the window during the morning, and on the back porch in the afternoon.

Belle had Honor work on bonnets again, finishing off some that customers were due to pick up that day. She edged one with lace, another with a double row of ruffles, then sewed clusters of cloth pansies to the inside rim of a stiff green bonnet and attached wide, pale green ribbons for tying under the chin. “Can you make more of them flowers if I give you the petals?” Belle asked when Honor had finished.

Honor nodded: though she had never made flowers, since Quakers did not wear them, she knew they could not be harder than some of the intricate patchwork she had sewn for quilts.

Belle handed her a box full of petals and leaves. “I already cut out the petals after you went to bed last night. Just me and the whiskey and the scissors. I like it that way.” She showed Honor how to construct the pansies, then violets, roses, clover and little clusters of lace made to resemble baby’s breath. Honor wished Grace were there to see the things she was making: creations more and more colorful and elaborate.

Belle’s customers continued to comment on Honor’s presence, even those who had been to the shop the day before and already discussed her. “Goodness, look at that Quaker girl’s lap full of flowers!” they cried. “Isn’t that the funniest thing! You’ll turn her, Belle, you will!”

Honor was only a short distraction, however, perhaps to be mulled over later. For now, once they’d made their remarks, the customers went on to the more important task of inspecting the latest goods and getting a bargain. Trying on the various hats and bonnets displayed on stands, they questioned Belle’s designs and criticized the shape and trim in order to drive down the price. Belle was equally determined to maintain her price, and a battle of words followed.

Honor was unnerved by the haggling, with its underlying assumption that the value of something could change depending on how badly someone wanted to buy or sell it. The lack of a fixed price made Belle’s hats take on a temporary quality. Quakers never haggled, but set what they felt was a fair price for materials and labor. Each product had what was thought of as its own intrinsic merit, be it a carrot or a horseshoe or a quilt, and that did not change simply because many people needed a horseshoe. Honor knew of merchants in Bridport who haggled, but they didn’t when she went into their shops or to their market stalls. The haggling she’d witnessed was offhand, even embarrassed, as if the participants were only doing it in jest, because it was expected of them. Here the haggling seemed fiercer, as if both sides were adamant that they were right and the other not simply wrong, but morally suspect. Some of the women in Belle’s shop became so indignant as they argued with Belle that Honor wondered if they would ever return.

Belle, however, seemed entertained by the haggling, and unbothered when, more often than not, it reached a stalemate and the hat remained unsold. “They’ll be back,” she said. “Where else can they go? I’m the only hat maker in town.”

Indeed, despite not managing to knock the price down, many women placed orders. Belle rarely measured their heads—most she knew already, and she could gauge a newcomer at a glance. “Twenty inches, most of ’em,” she told Honor. “German heads a little bigger, but everybody else is pretty well the same, no matter how much or how little they got up there.”

Her choice of hat shapes and trim was often unusual, but most customers accepted her judgment, saving their arguments for the price rather than the style. From what Honor could see of the customers who came to pick up their hats, Belle usually
was
right, often choosing colors and styles for them that were different from what they normally wore. “Hats can go stale on you,” she said to a woman she had just convinced to buy a hat dyed green and trimmed with straw folded and tucked to resemble heads of wheat. “You always want to surprise people with something new, so they see you different. A woman who always wears a blue bonnet with lace trim will start to look like that bonnet, even when she’s not wearing it. She needs some flowers near her eyes, or a red ribbon, or a brim that sets off her face.” She inspected Honor’s plain cap so frankly that Honor ducked her head.

“But
you
wear the same thing every day, Belle,” the woman pointed out.

Belle patted her cap, which was almost as plain as Honor’s, though with a limp frill around the edge and a cord at the back that when pulled made a little pleat in the fabric. “It don’t do for me to wear anything fancy in the store,” she said. “Don’t want to compete with my customers—you’re the ones got to look good. I wear my hats outside, for advertising.”

Despite the haggling, the frivolous trimmings, the feeling at times that she was an entertainment for the hat wearers of Wellington, Honor liked working for Belle. Whatever she was making, she was at least kept busy, with no time to think about the traumas of the past, the uncertainty she was living in, or what lay ahead.

As she sat by the open window, Honor twice heard the thudding shoe of Donovan’s horse and saw him ride past. One afternoon he stationed himself at the hotel bar across the square, leaning against the railing, his eyes on the millinery shop and, it seemed, on her. She shrank back in her seat, but could not avoid his gaze, and soon moved to the back porch, away from his scrutiny.

Belle had given Honor another pile of bonnets to work on, but before she began she sat for a few minutes, listening. There were no sounds from the woodshed, but Honor could feel that someone was there. Now that she knew who, and could even name and describe him, she felt a little less frightened. After all, it was he who would be frightened of her.

Belle had been so matter-of-fact about slaves before, but the idea was still new and shocking to Honor. Bridport Friends had discussed the shame of American slavery, but it had merely been indignant words; no one had ever seen a slave in person. Honor was astonished that one was now hiding fifteen feet from her.

She picked up a gray bonnet almost plain enough for a Quaker to wear. The lining was a pale primrose yellow, and she was to sew mustard-colored ribbons onto it, and add a yellow cord drawstring to the bavolet at the back of the neck where the cloth could be tightened and create a small ruff. Though at first Honor was doubtful of the color combination, by the time she’d finished it, she had to acknowledge that the yellow lifted the gray, yet was pale enough not to make the bonnet gaudy, though the ribbon color was more insistent than she would have chosen. Belle had unorthodox taste, but she knew how to use it to good effect.

During a lull in the shop, Belle brought out a tin mug of water. Leaning against the railing while Honor drank, she squinted into the yard. “There’s a snake sunning itself on the lumber,” she announced. “Copperhead. You got copperheads in England? No? Keep away from ’em—you don’t want to get bit by one, it’ll kill you, and it ain’t a pretty death either.” She disappeared inside, and came back out with a shotgun. Without warning, she aimed at the snake and fired. Honor started and squeezed her eyes shut, dropping the mug. When she dared to open them again, she saw the headless body of the snake lying in the grass, several feet from the planks. “There,” Belle declared, satisfied. “Probably a nest, though. I’ll get some boys in there to kill ’em all. Don’t want snakes gettin’ into the woodshed.”

Honor thought about the man hiding there, almost three days now cramped in the heat and dark, and hearing the gunshot. She wondered how Belle came to be involved in hiding him. When her ears had stopped ringing, she said, “Thee mentioned that Kentucky is a slave state. Did thy family own slaves?” It was the most direct question she had dared to ask.

Belle regarded her with yellowed eyes, leaning against the porch railing and still holding the shotgun, her dress hanging off her. It occurred to Honor that the milliner must have an underlying illness to make her so thin and discolored. “Our family was too poor to own slaves. That’s why Donovan does what he does. Poor white people hate Negroes more’n anyone.”