The Last Runaway

by Tracy Chevalier

  When travelling to Ohio, there is an established network of Friends one may stay with in Pennsylvania. All along the way—in large cities like Harrisburg and Pittsburgh and smaller settlements too—we were welcomed, even when Grace showed the first signs of the yellow fever, two days out from Harrisburg. It begins with a fever and chills and nausea, which could be any number of illnesses, so at first there was little concern except for Grace’s discomfort in the various coaches in which we crossed Pennsylvania.

  We stayed for a few days in Pittsburgh, where she seemed to rally enough to insist that we press on. I am sorry that I listened to her and did not follow my own instinct, which told me she needed more rest, but we were both anxious to reach Faithwell. Unfortunately within a day her fever had returned, this time accompanied by the black vomit and yellow tinge to her skin that I now know confirms yellow fever. It was only with great difficulty that I managed to convince the coachmen not to leave us by the side of the road, but to continue on to Hudson. I am sorry to say that I had to shout at them, though it is not in a Friend’s nature to do so. The other passengers would not allow us to sit inside for fear of contagion, and the coachmen made us perch on the luggage on top of the coach. It was very precarious, but I propped Grace against me and held tight to her so that she would not fall off.

  In Hudson she lasted just a night before God called her home. For much of that time she was delirious, but a few hours before she died she became lucid for a little while, and was able to call out her love to each of you. I would have preferred to take her on to be laid to rest in Faithwell amongst Friends, but she has already been buried today in Hudson, for everyone is fearful of the infection spreading.

  Since I am so close to Faithwell, I am determined to go on. It is only forty miles west of Hudson, which is no distance after the five hundred miles we came from New York and the thousands more across the ocean. It grieves me that Grace was so near to her new home, and now will never see it. I do not know what I will do when I get there. Adam Cox is not yet aware of this sorrowful news.

  Grace suffered much and bore it bravely, but she is at peace now with God. I do know that one day we shall see her again, and that is some comfort.

  Your loving daughter and sister,

  Honor Bright

  Quilt

  IT STILL SURPRISED Honor that she had to rely so completely on strangers to shelter her, feed her, bring her from place to place, even bury her dead. She had not traveled much in England: apart from short trips to neighboring villages, she had been only to Exeter for a Yearly Meeting of Friends, and once to Bristol when her father had business there. She was used to knowing most people she came in contact with, and not having to introduce and explain herself. She was not a great talker, preferring silence, as it gave her the opportunity to notice things, and to think. Grace had been the lively, chattering member of the family, often speaking for her sister so that Honor did not have to herself. Now without her sister Honor was forced to talk more—to describe her circumstances over and over to the various strangers who took charge of her when the coach first dumped the Brights at the hotel in Hudson.

  Once Grace was buried, Honor did not know if she should send word to Adam Cox and wait for him, or find another way to Faithwell herself. She discovered, however, that Americans were practical, resourceful people, and the innkeeper had already found her a lift. An elderly man called Thomas was visiting Hudson, but lived near Wellington, a town seven miles south of Faithwell. He offered to take Honor with him on his way back. From Wellington she could find someone to drive her on to Adam Cox’s, or contact Adam to collect her. “Only we must start early,” Thomas told her, “for I want to get home in one day.”

  They set out for Wellington when it was still dark, her trunk stowed behind them in the wagon. It was heavy with Grace’s clothes, for Honor had left behind her sister’s trunk to keep Thomas’s load lighter. She had also been forced to leave behind the quilt she’d made especially for her sister’s marriage: whole-cloth in white, quilted with a delicate rose medallion in the center and surrounded by intricate geometric borders, the space between filled in with double diamonds. Honor had done all the quilting herself and was pleased with the result. However, the innkeeper at the hotel had insisted they use their own bedding, and afterwards the doctor told her the quilt, along with any clothes Grace had worn when she was ill, must be burned so they wouldn’t spread the fever.

  Before bundling up the clothes for burning, Honor defied the doctor: she got out her scissors and cut a piece of material from Grace’s chestnut-brown dress. One day she would use the cloth for part of a quilt. And if it was infected with fever and killed her, then that was God’s will.

  Though she had not cried when her sister passed—Grace was in such a state at the end that Honor prayed for God to release her—once she’d handed over the clothes and the quilt, she hid in her room and wept.

  Thomas seemed to prefer silence as much as Honor did; he asked no questions, and for the first time since reaching land in America she was able to sit and look about without other passengers or the worry over her sister to distract her. Though they drove into darkness, soon the sun rose behind them, tinting the surrounding woods in a soft light. Birdsong intensified until it became a frenetic chatter, most of the sounds unfamiliar to her. She was startled too by the vivid plumage, in particular a tufted scarlet bird with a black face and a blue bird with black and white striped wings, their raucous screams scattering smaller, duller birds. She wanted to ask what they were, but did not like to disturb Thomas. Her companion sat so still that she would have thought he was asleep except that every few miles he stamped his foot twice and shook the reins, seeming to remind the fat gray mare pulling them that he was there. The horse was not fast but she was steady.

  They were on a much smaller road than any Honor had ridden along in the stagecoaches through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There she and her sister had followed well-traveled routes, where the roads were wide and sprinkled with houses and towns as well as inns for changing horses and eating and sleeping. Here it was more a track of dry, rutted mud cutting through dense trees. There were few houses, or clearings, or anything other than woods. After several miles driving through the same forest without any sign of people nearby, Honor began to wonder why such a road existed. Most roads where she was from had a clear destination. Here the destination was much farther away and less obvious.

  But she mustn’t compare Ohio to Dorset. It did not help.

  Occasionally they passed a house carved out of the woods alongside the road, and Honor found herself letting out a breath, then taking in another and holding it as the woods closed in on them once more. Not that the houses were much in themselves: hardly more than log cabins, many of them, surrounded by stumps. Sometimes a boy was outside chopping wood, or a woman was hanging out a quilt to air it, or a girl was hoeing a vegetable patch. They stared as Thomas and Honor passed and did not respond to Thomas’s raised hand. He did not seem to mind.

  An hour into the journey they descended a shallow valley to a bridge crossing a river. “The Cuyahoga,” Thomas murmured. “Indian name.” Honor was not listening, however, nor looking into the river. Instead she was staring above her, for the straight wooden bridge they rumbled across had a roof. Thomas must have noticed her bewilderment. “Covered bridge,” he said. “You’ve not seen one before?”

  Honor shook her head.

  “Keeps the snow off, and the bridge from freezing.”

  The bridges crossing streams and rivers from her childhood were stone and humped. Honor had not thought that something as fundamental as a bridge would be so different in America.

  They stopped after a few hours to give the horse water and oats, and to eat the cold corn mush Ohioans liked for breakfast. Afterwards Thomas disappeared into the woods. While he was gone Honor stood by the wagon and studied the trees on the other side of the track. They too were unfamiliar. Even trees like oaks and chestnuts she knew from before seemed different, the
oak leaves more pointed and less curly, the chestnut leaves not in the fanned cluster she was accustomed to. The undergrowth looked foreign, dense and primitive, designed to keep people out.

  On his return Thomas nodded at the woods. “You’ll want relief.”

  “I—” Honor had been about to protest, but something in his manner made it clear she should obey him, the way one does a grandfather. Besides, she could not admit she was frightened of Ohio woods. She would have to get used to them at some point.

  She stepped off the track and into the trees, placing each foot with care onto dead leaves, mossy rocks and fallen branches. All around there was a raw, earthy smell of ferns and decay; rustling too, which Honor tried to ignore, reasoning that the noises must be made by mice or gray squirrels or the small brown rodents with furry tails and black and white stripes down their backs she had learned were called chipmunks. She had heard that the woods were home to wolves, panthers, porcupines, skunks, possums, raccoons and other animals that did not exist in England. Most she would not even recognize if she saw them—which in a way made them even more frightening. Apparently there were many snakes as well. She could only hope that none was in this patch of forest on this particular morning. When she was thirty feet or so from the road, Honor took a deep breath and forced herself to turn around so that she was facing the wagon, her back to the endless ranks of trees potentially hiding animals. Finding a place where she was shielded from Thomas, she lifted her skirts and squatted.

  Apart from the wind rustling the leaves and the birds singing, it was quiet. Honor heard Thomas open the hinged seat they had been sitting on, where there must be storage space. She heard his low voice, probably talking to the horse, reassuring it as Honor herself needed reassurance that wolves and panthers were not hovering. The horse replied in a low nicker.

  Honor stood up and rearranged her skirts. She could not relieve herself: being so exposed in the woods made her too tense. She looked around. This is as far from home as I can be, she thought, and I am alone. She shuddered, and ran back to the safety of the wagon.

  When she had climbed onto her seat, Thomas stamped his foot twice and they started again. Breakfast seemed to have awakened him. Though he did not speak, he began to hum a tune Honor did not recognize, probably a hymn of some sort. After a while the humming, the rattle of the wagon and jangling of the horse’s bridle, the wind, the birds—this ensemble of sounds lulled her, as did the track extending straight out of sight ahead of them, and the trees rippling by. She did not fall asleep, but settled into the familiar meditative state she knew from Meeting. It was as if she were having a two-person Meeting with Thomas right on the wagon—though Friends did not normally hum during it. Honor closed her eyes and allowed her body to sway naturally, harnessed to the rhythm of the wagon’s movement. Steady and comfortable at last, she sank down inside herself to wait for the Inner Light.

  It was all too easy to be distracted during Meeting for Worship. Sometimes her mind would be crowded with thoughts about a cramp in her leg, or remembering that she had forgotten to run an errand for her mother, or noticing a mark on a neighbor’s white bonnet. It took discipline to quieten the mind. Honor often found a kind of peace, but the true depth of the Inner Light, that feeling that God accompanied her, was harder to reach. She would not expect to find it in the middle of Ohio woods with an old man humming hymns beside her.

  Now, as she sat in the wagon that was taking her west, Honor began to feel a presence, as if she were not alone. Of course Thomas was with her, but it was more than that: there was almost a buzz in the air, a knowledge that she was being accompanied on her journey into the depths of Ohio. Honor had never felt this so tangibly before, and for the first time in a lifetime of Meetings, she was moved to speak.

  She opened her mouth, and then she heard it. From far behind them there came a kind of scratching sound. After a moment it separated into a rhythm of hoofbeats, pounding fast.

  “Someone’s coming,” Honor said—the first words she had spoken to Thomas all day. It was not what she had intended to say.

  Thomas turned his head and listened, his eyes expressionless until he too picked up the sound. Then his gaze seemed to intensify, revealing some meaning Honor could not decode. He looked at her as if wanting to acknowledge something without saying it, but she did not know what it was.

  She pulled her eyes from his and looked back. A dot had appeared on the road.

  Thomas stamped his foot three times. “Tell me about your sister,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Tell me about your sister—the one who died. What was her name?”

  Honor frowned. She did not want to talk about her sister now, with someone else appearing and a new tension in the air. But Thomas had not asked her many questions on the trip, and so she obliged. “Grace. She was two years older than me.”

  “She was to marry a man from Faithwell?”

  The sound was clearer now: one horse, ridden at a gallop, with a thick shoe that made a distinctive thud. It was hard not to be distracted. “He—he is English. Adam Cox. From our village. He emigrated to Ohio to help his brother run a shop in Oberlin.”

  “What kind of shop?”

  “A draper’s.”

  When Thomas looked puzzled, Honor thought back to Adam’s letter. “Dry goods.”

  Thomas brightened. “Cox’s Dry Goods? I know it. On Main Street, south of College. One of them’s been poorly.” He stamped his foot three times again.

  Honor glanced back again. The rider was visible now: a man riding a bay stallion.

  “Why did you come with your sister?”

  “I—” Honor could not answer. She did not want to explain to a stranger about Samuel.

  “What are you going to do now you’re here without her?”

  “I—I don’t know.” Thomas’s questions were direct and cutting, and the last was like a needle pricking a boil. It burst, and Honor began to cry.

  Thomas nodded. “I beg your pardon, miss,” he whispered. “We may need those tears.”

  Then the rider was upon them. He pulled up next to the wagon, and Thomas stopped the gray mare. The stallion whinnied at her, but she stood solidly, with no apparent interest in this new companion.

  Honor wiped her eyes and glanced at the man before folding her hands in her lap and fixing her gaze on them. Even sitting on a horse it was clear that he was very tall, with the leathery tanned skin of a man who spends his life outside. Light brown eyes stood out of his square, weathered face. He would have been handsome if there were any warmth to his expression, but his eyes were flat in a way that sent a chill through her. She was suddenly very aware of their isolation on this road. She doubted too that Thomas carried a gun like the one prominent on the man’s hip.

  If Thomas had similar thoughts he did not reveal them. “Afternoon, Donovan,” he said to the newcomer.

  The man smiled, a gesture that did not affect his face. “Old Thomas, and a Quaker girl, is it?” He reached over and pulled at the rim of Honor’s bonnet. As she jerked her head away he laughed. “Just checkin’. You can tell the other Quakers you know not to bother dressin’ niggers up in Quaker clothes. I’m on to that one. That trick’s old.”

  He removed his battered hat and nodded at Honor, who stared at him, bewildered by his words, for they made no sense to her.

  “You don’t have to take your hat off to Quakers,” Thomas said. “They don’t believe in it.”

  The man snorted. “I ain’t gonna change my good manners just ’cause a Quaker girl thinks different. You don’t mind if I take off my hat to you, do you, miss?”

  Honor ducked her head.

  “See? She don’t mind.” The man stretched. Under a brown waistcoat his collarless white shirt was stained with sweat.

  “Can we help you with something?” Thomas said. “If not, we have to get along—we’ve a long road ahead.”

  “You in a rush, are you? Where you headed?”

  “I’m taking this young wom
an with me back to Wellington,” Thomas said. “She has come to Ohio from England, but lost her sister in Hudson to yellow fever. You can see from her tears that she is in mourning.”

  “You from England?” the man said.

  Honor nodded.

  “Say something, then. I always liked the accent.”

  When Honor hesitated, the man said, “Go on, say something. What, you too proud to talk to me? Say, ‘How do you do, Donovan.’”

  Rather than remain silent and risk his insistence turning to anger, Honor looked into his amused eyes and said, “How does thee, Mr. Donovan?”

  Donovan snorted. “How does I? I does just fine, thankee. Nobody’s called me Mr. Donovan in years. You Quakers make me laugh. What’s your name, girl?”

  “Honor Bright.”

  “You gonna live up to your name, Honor Bright?”

  “A little kindness to a girl who has just buried her sister in a strange land,” Thomas intervened.

  “What’s in that?” Donovan switched his tone suddenly, gesturing to Honor’s trunk in the wagon bed.

  “Miss Bright’s things.”

  “I’ll just have a look in it. That trunk’s the perfect size for a hidden nigger.”

  Thomas frowned. “It’s not right for a man to look in a young lady’s trunk. Miss Bright will tell you herself what’s in it. Don’t you know that Quakers don’t lie?”

  Donovan looked expectantly at her. Honor shook her head, puzzled. She was still recovering from Donovan pulling at her bonnet and could barely keep up with their conversation.

  Then, faster than she could have imagined, Donovan jumped from his horse and onto the wagon. Honor felt a dart of fear in her gut, for he was so much bigger, faster and stronger than her and Thomas. When Donovan discovered the trunk was locked, that fear made her pass over the key, which she’d kept on a thin green ribbon around her neck during the long journey.