The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier

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      THE LAST RUNAWAY

      Tracy Chevalier

      This book is dedicated to Catoctin Quaker Camp

      and Oberlin College:

      two places that shaped and guided my younger self

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Map

Horizon

Quilt

Bonnets

Silence

Appliqué

       Dandelions

       Woods

       Corn

       Fever

       Blackberries

       Pole Star

       Sugaring

       Milk

       Onions

       Straw

       Water

       Comfort

       Ohio Star

       Author’s Note

       The Underground Railroad

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Also by Tracy Chevalier

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Horizon

      SHE COULD NOT GO back. When Honor Bright abruptly announced to her family that she would accompany her sister Grace to America – when she sorted through her belongings, keeping only the most necessary, when she gave away all of her quilts, when she said goodbye to her uncles and aunts, and kissed her cousins and nieces and nephews, when she got into the coach that would take them from Bridport, when she and Grace linked arms and walked up the gangplank at Bristol – she did all of these things with the unspoken thought: I can always come back. Layered beneath those words, however, was the suspicion that the moment her feet left English soil, Honor’s life would be permanently altered.

      At least the idea of returning drew the sting from her actions in the weeks leading up to their departure, like the pinch of sugar secretly added to a sauce to tame its acid. It allowed her to remain calm, and not cry as her friend Biddy did when Honor gave her the quilt she had just finished: a patchwork of brown, yellow and cream diamonds pieced into an eight-point Star of Bethlehem, then quilted with harps and the running feather border she was known for. The community had given her a signature quilt – each square made and signed by a different friend or family member – and there was not room for both quilts in her trunk. The signature quilt was not so well made as her own, but of course she must take it. ‘’Tis best left with thee, to remember me by,’ she insisted as her weeping friend tried to push the Star of Bethlehem quilt back at her. ‘I will make more quilts in Ohio.’

      Jumping over thoughts of the journey itself, Honor tried to fix her mind instead on its end at the clapboard house her future brother-in-law had sketched for Grace in his letters from Ohio. ‘It is a solid house, even if not of the stone thee is accustomed to,’ Adam Cox had written. ‘Most houses here are made of wood. Only when a family is established and unlikely to move do they build a brick house.

      ‘It is situated at the end of Main Street on the edge of the town,’ he had continued. ‘Faithwell is still small, with fifteen families of Friends. But it will grow, by the grace of God. My brother’s shop is in Oberlin, a larger town three miles away. He and I hope to move it when Faithwell has grown large enough to support a draper’s. Here we call it “dry goods”. There are many new words to learn in America.’

      Honor could not imagine living in a house made of wood, that burned so quickly, warped easily, creaked and groaned and gave no feeling of permanence the way brick or stone did.

      Though she tried to keep her worries confined to the notion of living in a wooden house, she could not stop her mind straying to thoughts of the voyage on the Adventurer, the ship that would take them across the Atlantic. Honor was familiar with ships, as any Bridport resident would be. She sometimes accompanied her father to the harbour when a shipment of hemp arrived. She had even gone on board, and watched the sailors furling sails and coiling ropes and mopping decks. But she had never set sail in one. Once when she was ten her father took them to nearby Eype for the day, and Honor and Grace and her brothers had gone out in a rowing boat. Grace had loved being on the water, and had shrieked and laughed and pretended to fall in. Honor, however, had gripped the side of the boat while her brothers rowed, and tried not to appear alarmed at the rocking, and the curious and unpleasant sensation of no longer having stable footing. She had watched her mother walking up and down the beach in her dark dress and white bonnet, waiting for her children to come back safely. Honor avoided going out in a boat again.

      She had heard stories of bad crossings but hoped she would cope with such a thing as she did any other hardship, with steady patience. But she did not have sea legs. That was what the sailors said. Perhaps she should have realised this from her encounter with water