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 woman 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.
Donovan opened the lid and lifted out the quilt Honor had brought to America. She expected him to set it aside, but instead he shook it out and draped it over the wagon bed. “What’s this?” he asked, squinting at it. “I never seen writing on a quilt.”
“It is a signature quilt,” Honor explained. “Friends and family made squares and signed them. It was a gift to mark my move to America. To say good-bye.”
Each square consisted of brown and green and cream squares and triangles, with a white patch in the middle signed by the maker. Originally begun for Grace, when Honor decided at the last minute to go to America as well, the makers rearranged the configuration of names so that hers was in the central square, with family members in the squares around it, and friends beyond those. Quilted in a simple diamond pattern, it was not especially beautiful, for the work varied according to the skill of each maker, and it was not designed the way Honor would have chosen. But she could never give it to anyone else: it had been made for her to remember her community by.
Donovan squatted in the wagon bed and studied the quilt for so long that Honor began to wonder if she had said something wrong. She glanced at Thomas: he remained impassive.
“My mother made comforts,” Donovan said at last, running his fingers over a name-Rachel Bright, an aunt of Honor’s. “Nothin’ like this, though. Hers had a big star in the center made out of lots of little diamonds.”
“That pattern is called a Star of Bethlehem.”
“Is it, now?” Donovan looked at her; his brown eyes had thawed a little.
“I have made that pattern myself,” she added, thinking of the quilt she had left behind with Biddy. “They are not easy, because it is difficult to fit together the points of the diamonds. The sewing must be very accurate. Thy mother must have been skilled with her needle.”
Donovan nodded, then grabbed the quilt and stuffed it back in the trunk. Locking it, he jumped down from the wagon. “You can go.”
Without a word, Thomas flicked the reins and the gray mare sprang into life. A minute later Donovan rode up alongside them. “You settlin’ in Wellington?”
“No,” Honor answered. “Faithwell, near Oberlin. My late sister’s fiancé is there.”
“Oberlin!” Donovan spat, then pressed his heels into the stallion’s belly and flew past them. Honor was relieved, for she had wondered how she would tolerate him riding alongside them all the way to Wellington.
His horse’s hoofbeats remained in the air, quieter and quieter, for many minutes, until at last they faded away. “All right, now,” Thomas said softly. Stamping twice, he flicked the reins over the mare’s back again. He did not hum, however, for the rest of the journey.
It was only miles later that Honor realized Donovan had not given her back the key to her trunk.
Belle Mills’s Millinery
Main St.
Wellington, Ohio
May 30, 1850
Dear Mr. Cox,
I got your fiancée’s sister, Honor Bright, here with me. Sorry to tell you your intended passed. Yellow fever.
Honor needs to rest up here a few days, so could you come pick her up this Sunday afternoon, please.
Yours ever faithful,
Belle Mills
Bonnets
HONOR HAD SLEPT in so many beds by the time she got to Wellington that when she woke she did not remember where she was. Her dress and shawl were hanging over a chair, but she could not recall undressing or putting them there. She sat up, certain that it was not early morning, when she usually rose. She was wearing an unfamiliar cotton nightgown that was too long for her, and covered with a light quilt.
Wherever she was, there was no doubt that this was America. The quality of the sunlight was different-yellower and fiercer, biting through the air to warm her. Indeed, it was going to be a hot day, though at the moment it was fresh enough for her to be grateful for the quilt. She ran her hand over it: unlike most American quilts she had seen so far, this one was not appliquéd or pieced squares, but proper English patchwork, well made, so that while the cloth was faded, there were no tears or loose seams. The design was of orange and yellow and red diamonds that made up a star in the center of the quilt-a Star of Bethlehem like Biddy’s quilt, and what Donovan had described his mother making. Recalling her encounter with him the day before, Honor shuddered.
Though of a good size, and containing the bed she had slept in, the room was not a bedroom so much as a storeroom. Bolts of cloth leaned against the walls, many of them white but also solid colors, plaids and floral prints. Spilling out of open chests of drawers were gloves, ribbons, wire, lace and feathers dyed in bright colors. In one corner, dominating the room, smooth blocks of wood in oval and cylindrical shapes were precariously stacked, as well as peculiar oval and circular bands like wheels or doughnuts, some of wood, others made of a hard white material Honor did not recognize. She leaned forward to study them more closely. The blocks reminded her of heads. When Thomas had left her off late the evening before, she’d entered a shop of some kind. While at the time she had been too tired to take note of it, now she understood: she was in a milliner’s storeroom.