The Last Runaway. Tracy Chevalier

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      Later Honor admitted to herself that she had not hidden her dismay at her new home well, and Abigail might easily have taken offence. The ramshackle, frontier nature of the house extended to Faithwell itself. When Adam brought her from Wellington, she’d thought the scattering of houses had been just the announcement of a larger settlement nearby. The next morning she discovered otherwise when she and Abigail went for a walk. Though it was raining and the road in front of the house had turned to mud, Abigail insisted on going out. It was as if she dreaded being alone with Honor – Adam had left early for the Oberlin shop. When Honor suggested they might wait until the rain let up, Abigail frowned and continued putting on her bonnet. ‘I hear it rains all the time in England,’ she countered, tying the ribbon tight under her chin. ‘Thee should be used to it. Thee won’t wear that grey and yellow bonnet, will thee? It’s fancy for Faithwell.’

      Honor had already decided to store Belle’s bonnet; she wondered if she would ever find a place to wear it. Grace would have managed to wear it here, she thought.

      She followed Abigail along the track, picking through the mud to planks that had been laid alongside for this purpose, though the mud covered them as well. They passed a few houses, similar in construction to Adam and Abigail’s, but no one else was out. The general store was also empty apart from the owner. He greeted her kindly enough, with the sort of open, honest face she was familiar with among Friends back home. The shop itself was small and basic, the space given over primarily to barrels of flour, cane sugar, cornmeal and molasses. There were also a few shelves carrying a jumble of bits and pieces such as candles and bootlaces, a tablet of writing paper, a dishcloth, a hand broom – as if a pedlar had come along and convinced the shopkeeper he needed one of each in case someone asked for it someday.

      Honor maintained a strained smile as she looked around, trying to mask what she was thinking: that these barrels and shelves represented the limitations of her new life. A metal pail, a packet of needles, a jar of vinegar: these lone items, sad on their shelves, were all there was to Faithwell. There was no additional room full of tempting sweets or beautiful cloth, no corner to turn with another row of shops on a mud-free street, no duck-egg-blue floorboards. Adam’s letters to Grace had not been lies, exactly, but he had made the town out to be thriving. ‘It is small but growing,’ he had written. ‘I am certain it will flourish.’ Perhaps Honor should have paid more attention to Adam’s use of the future tense.

      Back at the house she tried to help Abigail: she washed dishes and scrubbed pots, shook out the oval rag rugs scattered throughout the house, brought in wood for the range and hauled out ash from the stove to dump in the privy – ‘Outhouse,’ she murmured. With every task she asked for instructions so that she would not offend Abigail with different ways of doing things that might imply her hostess was in the wrong. Abigail was the sort of woman who thought that way.

      She made her big mistake while sweeping the kitchen and pantry. ‘Does thee have a cat?’ she asked as the mouse droppings accumulated in the pile of sweepings, thinking this gentle suggestion might solve the mouse problem.

      Abigail dropped the knife she was using to peel potatoes. ‘No! They make me sneeze.’ She disappeared into the pantry and came back with a jar of red powder, which she tapped into bellows and began blowing into the corners, her movements jerky and accompanied by sighs. Honor tried not to stare, but curiosity overtook her, and she picked up the jar. ‘What is this?’

      ‘Red pepper. Gets rid of vermin. Doesn’t thee use it in England?’

      ‘No. We had a cat.’ Honor did not add that their cat, a tortoiseshell called Lizzy, was a good mouser. She used to sit next to Honor while she sewed and purr. The thought of her old cat made her eyes sting, and she turned back to her sweeping so that Abigail would not see her tears.

      In the evening when Adam returned, Honor heard Abigail whispering to him out on the porch. She did not try to listen; from the tone she knew what Abigail was saying: She could not stay. But where could she go?