The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier

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 towards the millinery shop. ‘Jesus H. Christ, I’m glad I’m not a Quaker. No whisky, no colour, 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 whisky 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 colourful 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 criticised 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 labour. 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 off-hand, 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 judgement, 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 colours 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 of 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 grey bonnet almost plain enough for a Quaker to wear. The lining was a pale primrose yellow, and she was to sew mustard-coloured ribbons on to 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 colour combination, by the time she’d finished it, she had to acknowledge that the yellow lifted the grey, yet was pale enough not to make the bonnet gaudy, though the ribbon colour was more insistent