The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier

I do not mind. When I shut the door it is mine. The furnishings are adequate, though, as in many other American houses where I have stayed, they too have a temporary feel about them, as if they have been knocked together until there is time to build something more permanent. I always sit carefully in chairs, for fear they may break. The table legs often have splinters because they have not been properly sanded and finished. They are mostly made of maple or ash, which makes me miss the timelessness of our oak furniture.

       The kitchen is not so different in principle from that on East Street: there is a hearth, a range, a long table and chairs, a sideboard for crockery and pots, a larder – called a pantry here – for storage. Yet the feeling is entirely different from the East Street kitchen. Partly it is that Abigail is not so well organised as thee, Mother. She does not seem to have ‘a place for everything, and everything in its place’, as thee taught me. She stacks wood haphazardly so that it does not dry out, leaves the broom blocking the slops bucket rather than out of the way in the corner, doesn’t wipe up crumbs and so attracts mice, leaves dishes in a jumble on the sideboard rather neatly than stacked. Then too, the range and fireplace take wood instead of coal, so the kitchen smells of wood smoke rather than the deeper earthiness of burning coal. We don’t have to clean up coal dust, but the wood ash can be just as trying, especially when Abigail is clumsy.

       It is unfortunate that Abigail and I did not get off to a good start. The first meal she served on my arrival was a steak pie: the meat was tough and the pastry hard. I said nothing, of course, and chewed away at it as best I could, but Abigail was embarrassed – and was made more so by giving me sour milk the next morning. I am hoping to be helpful to her, using gentle persuasion over time.

       I have ventured out into town a little – though ‘town’ is perhaps an ambitious word for a row of buildings along a rutted track. Bridport must be a hundred times its size. There is a general store – what we would call a chandler – a smithy, the Meeting House, and ten houses, with farms in the surrounding fields. The community comprises some fifteen families, most of whom moved from North Carolina to get away from the slavery that is engrained in society there. I have not yet been to Meeting here, but the people I have met are friendly, though absorbed in their own concerns, as many Americans I have met seem to be. They do not practise the art of conversation in quite the way the English do, but are straightforward to the point of bluntness. Perhaps this will change when I have got to know the community better.

       Beyond us the road extends into forest, except where farms have been hacked out of the trees. I had no idea before coming to America just how hard it is to create farmland out of woods. There are stumps everywhere. England is very ordered, with the feeling that God has put trees in their place, and meadows in theirs, and that the fields have always been there rather than needing to be created. I look at the woods here from the window of my little room and it feels as if they are creeping towards the town, and axes will only temporarily keep them back. You know I have always loved trees, but here they are so overwhelmingly abundant that they feel threatening rather than welcoming.

       The general store is sparsely stocked with everyday items. For everything that the general store doesn’t carry, we must go to Oberlin, three miles away. It is much larger, with a population of two thousand as well as a collegiate institute full of students. I have not yet visited, though Adam’s shop is there and he goes most days. Eventually if Faithwell grows large enough he would like to move the shop and sell primarily to Friends, but that may take some time. He has said I can help at the shop when they are busy. I shall be glad to be useful.

       Daily life here feels more precarious than it did at home. What Bridport did not have Dorchester or Weymouth was sure to. In the American towns I have visited on my way here, and especially now in Faithwell, I sense that we must be self-sufficient, that we cannot rely on others because they are not always there to be depended upon. Most here grow their own vegetables, as we did, but there is no one selling lettuces should one’s own be eaten by rabbits, as Abigail’s have – here one simply goes without. Many keep their own cow as well. Abigail and Adam do not have a cow, though they do keep chickens; we buy milk and cheese from one of the outlying farms.

       I have painted only a very brief portrait of Faithwell. I do not yet have a place here, but with God’s help and the support of Friends, I hope to find one. Please be reassured that I am safely arrived, and am well looked after. I have a bed and enough to eat and kind people about me. God is still with me. For these things I am grateful and have no reason to complain. Yet I think of you all often. Though it is too warm to use it now, I have laid the signature quilt across the end of my bed, and at the beginning and end of the day I touch the signatures of all who are dear to me.

       Your loving daughter,

       Honor Bright

       Appliqué

      SHE COULD NOT STAY. Honor knew this within half an hour of arriving at Adam and Abigail’s in Faithwell. It was not the messy kitchen, where dishes left over from dinner were still piled in the sink, or the mud that had not been swept from the hallway, or the inedible supper, or the smokiness from a stove that did not draw well. It was not the mouse droppings she spied in the pantry, or the tatters of cobwebs fluttering in corners, or the tiny room Adam showed her that held no more than a bed, so that her trunk had to sit in the hallway. None of these things would have put her off.

      She could not stay because Abigail clearly did not want her there. A tall woman with a wide forehead and dark, staring eyes, she had broad shoulders and thick ankles and wrists. On meeting Honor she hugged her, but there was no warmth in the contact. Defensive after the unpalatable meal she served, she rattled off a list of excuses as she showed Honor around the house. ‘Watch thee doesn’t 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