The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier

say how, that the presence she felt now, and had felt on the road, was human.

      Honor had never thought of herself as a brave person. Until coming to America, her mettle had not really been tested. Now, however, she resisted the urge to fetch Belle. Instead she put the bonnet aside, rose from her chair, and crept down the back steps. Hesitating would not help, she knew. She took a breath, held it, and walked over to the lean-to to look in.

      The light reached only a foot or two inside the woodshed; then it was dim, leading to darkness. For a moment Honor could see nothing as her eyes tried to adjust. Then she made out wood stacked neat and high on the right; on the left there was a narrow gap between wood and wall, for access to the stack. In that gap stood a black man. Honor sucked in a shocked breath on top of the one she was holding, then let it out in a sudden exhalation. She stared at him. He was of medium height and build, with fuzzy hair and wide cheeks. He was barefoot, his clothes worn and dirty. That was all she could take in, or knew how to take in, for she was not familiar enough with Negro features to be able to gauge and compare and describe them. She did not know if he was frightened or angry or resigned. To her he simply looked black.

      She did not know what to say, or if she should speak, so she did not, but stepped backwards. Then she hurried to the porch, and began putting her sewing things back into her box. Piling the bonnets on top, she picked up everything and took it inside.

      Belle did not seem surprised to see her. ‘Heat got to you?’ she said as she adjusted a hat on a customer, sharpening the angle before sticking in a hat pin. Both women studied the effect in the mirror. ‘That’s better, ain’t it? Suits you.’

      ‘Dunno,’ the woman answered. ‘You’ve skimped on the violets.’

      ‘Think so? I can make you some more, now I got me an assistant. Penny a violet all right?’ Belle winked at Honor. ‘You finished Miss Adams’s bonnet? The green one. Yes? Good. You can work in the corner by the window – that’s the best light.’ Before Honor could speak, Belle turned back to her customer to discuss violets.

      She worked all afternoon on the bonnets, and gradually her hands stopped shaking. After a while she even wondered if she had imagined the man. Perhaps the heat and light and her own recent trauma had made her turn a dog or a raccoon into a man. She decided then to say nothing to Belle.

      The shop had a steady stream of customers; all of them gazed on Honor as a curiosity worth commenting on, though they directed their questions to Belle rather than her. ‘What you got a Quaker in the window for, Belle?’ they asked. ‘Where’s she from? Where’s she going? Why’s she here?’ Belle answered over and over again. By the end of the day every woman in Wellington must know that Honor was from England and on her way to Faithwell, but had stopped with Belle and was helping her out with sewing for a few days. She even made Honor into a feature of the shop. ‘She’s got a fine hand – better than mine, even. You order a bonnet today and I’ll get her to sew it for you. Last you a lifetime, her stitching’s that strong, or till you’re sick of it and want a new one. Then you’ll regret buyin’ one o’ Honor Bright’s bonnets – it just won’t fall apart and give you the excuse for a new one.’

      Later, when the light was fading, Belle closed shop for the day and took Honor on a walk around Wellington. Little more than a cluster of shops and houses around a crossroads, its few streets were wide and laid out in a grid oriented north and south, east and west. Main Street had been widened so that there was a rectangular Public Square with a town hall, a church, a hotel and shops – one of them Belle’s – arranged around it. Shops in the surrounding streets included several general stores, as well as a cobbler, a tailor, a blacksmith, a cabinet maker, a brick yard and a carriage maker. Most were two storeys high and made of wood, with awnings and large windows displaying goods. A school had been built, and a train depot was almost finished for the railroad due to begin running to Wellington later in the summer. ‘This town’s gonna explode when that train comes through,’ Belle declared. ‘Good for business. Good for hats.’

      As they strolled, Honor had the familiar uneasy feeling she had experienced when passing through American towns on her way to Ohio: that they had been built quickly, and could be destroyed just as quickly, by a fire or the extreme American weather she had heard about, hurricanes and tornadoes and blizzards. The storefronts might be relatively new but they had already been ravaged by sun and snow. The road was both dry and wet, dusty and muddy.

      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 recognised 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 afterwards. 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-storey 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 whisky at home. And that’s why.’ Belle nodded towards 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 $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 on to 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