But Honor herself had changed. Her mind was on her baby, the responsibility for another pushing away everything that was not essential to Comfort’s survival. When she saw Donovan, she felt as if she were looking on a distant shore of a place she had once loved but no longer felt such an urgency to get to. Donovan had become like England.
She was still concerned for him, however. Later, as she sat up with Belle, Honor brought him up again. “Does thee think thy brother could change?”
Belle was stretching a hat of chocolate brown felt, dampening it and then putting it over a wooden block cut in half and bisected by a metal screw with a handle on the end. Turning the handle expanded the block so that it stretched the felt. “My brother is a bad man,” she said. “He ain’t got your ways, and never will. He thinks Negroes are barely more than animals. It’s how we was brought up to think in Kentucky, and nothin’ you say or do is gonna change that, whatever you think with your forgiving Quaker ways.”
“But thee changed thy thinking. Why can’t he?”
“Some people are born bad.” Belle turned the handle till the felt would stretch no further. “I think deep down, most southerners have always known slavery ain’t right, but they built up layers of ideas to justify what they were doin’. Those layers just solidified over the years. Hard to break out of that thinking, to find the guts to say, ‘This is wrong.’ I had to come to Ohio before I could do that. You can, in Ohio-it’s that sort of place. I’m kinda fond of it now.” She patted the felt hat as if she were patting the whole state. “But Donovan… he’s too hard to shift. I help runaways in part to balance out the bad in him-and to punish him for running off my husband. But listen, honey, you shouldn’t be wasting your thoughts on lost causes. Everything you do should be what’s best for her.” She nodded at the cradle where Comfort lay asleep, her arms thrown above her head like the victor in a race.
Belle Mills’s Millinery
Main St
Wellington, Ohio
10th Month 1st 1851
Dearest Biddy,
It has been so long since I have written, thee must wonder what has happened to thy friend to be so neglectful. I am sorry. Silence took me over completely for several months, so that I could not speak to anyone, nor write. I hope that thee can forgive me. I am now speaking again, though sparingly.
First thee must note the address from which I am writing, and where I have been staying for the last month. I have told thee in the past of Belle Mills the milliner, who was so kind to me when I first arrived in Ohio. It was Belle’s kindness that has drawn me back to her when I could have gone another way.
My parents will have given thee the news that I now have a daughter, Comfort, born just as I arrived at Belle’s. She is a beautiful baby, with a head of light hair and wide blue eyes and an intent expression, as if she knows her mind and will make herself heard. She cries often, for she is small yet-she arrived earlier than expected-and hungry, but she is also growing quickly. Already I cannot imagine my life without her in it.
Of course thee must be surprised that I am not in Faithwell with my husband and his family. It is hard to explain why, but I could not go on living there. They were not unkind to me, but we do not see the world in the same way. I left the farm, helped by a runaway slave who was going south, back to get her children and bring them north. I know I had little cause to, but I envied her the certainty of what she was doing. I have not felt certainty since Samuel released me from our engagement. It is hard to live untethered for so long.
Jack has been to see Comfort and me several times, and each time asks when I am coming back. I do not know what to answer.
Judith Haymaker has come twice, and that was harder, as she is so much more rigid than Jack, and less loving or forgiving. She sees me as an embarrassment to the Haymakers, and said unkind things one would not expect from a Friend-out of frustration, I expect. ‘I should not have allowed Jack to marry thee,’ she said the other day. ‘Thee brings nothing to this family but English ways that are not our ways.’ Then she told me the Elders of the Meeting have decided that I must return to Faithwell by the 1st of the 11th Month or they will disown me, and take Comfort away. It made me reluctant to allow Judith to hold Comfort, for I feared she might not give her back. Comfort herself did not take to her grandmother-though she did not cry, she lay stiff in her arms, frowning the whole while. It was altogether an upsetting visit, though, like my daughter, I did not cry.
The most helpful visit has been from Dorcas Haymaker, who managed to come once on her own, with the help of a willing Faithwell farmer who gave her a lift. It was surprising as she and I did not always get on well. She at least was practical, bringing me clothes and my sewing box and work basket, and the signature quilt thee and others made for me. She also brought baby clothes I had made, asking me not to let Jack or Judith know about them, as giving them to me implies she believes I am not coming back. She asked this with great reluctance, for it is dishonest of us both to conceal the purpose of her visit.
Best of all, Dorcas brought thy letter, which I was delighted to receive, especially with its news that thee will be married at the beginning of next year. Truly I wish I were there to share thy happiness and meet the Friend from Sherborne who has captured thy heart. I feel very guilty to have still the Star of Bethlehem quilt thee sent to me for my marriage. I promise that when I can get it, I will send it back-though perhaps the Sherborne family is not so exacting as the Haymakers about the number of quilts thee should have when thee marries.
Belle has been very good to me. She does not ask many questions, but lets me speak when I will. And she does not judge, nor ask how long I intend to stay. She simply gives me work. She is very pleased with my sewing, as are many of the ladies in Wellington. Belle does not normally make dresses, but I have begun doing alterations and repairs when customers bring them in. She has also taught me much about hat making during this month, though of course they are not for me to wear, being too fancy for a Friend. I do admire them, however, though I know I should not, as the feathers and flowers are so frivolous.
I try to help with household chores, when Comfort lets me. Belle hardly cooks, for she eats little. She says she likes the smell of my cooking but then she only has a bite or two. Clothes hang off her. Her skin and eyes have a yellow cast, and I suspect jaundice, though she has said nothing about it.
Biddy, I feel very confused now. I am in a part of the country where there is much movement, and yet I do not know where to move myself. And America is such a peculiar country. It is young and untested, its foundations uncertain. I think back to the Bridport Friends Meeting House, which has stood for almost two hundred years. When I sat in silence there I felt the strength of that history, the thousands of people who have also sat there over the years, shoring me up and making me feel part of a greater whole. There was an easiness-though some might call it a complacency, I suppose-of knowing where one comes from.
The Meeting at Faithwell does not have that permanence. It is not just that the building is new, and made of wood rather than stone. There is also a flimsiness of community, a feeling that no one has been there long, and no one may remain long. Many talk of moving west. That is always an option in America. If crops fail, or there is a dispute with neighbours, or one feels hemmed in, one can always simply pick up and move on. It means that family is even more important. But my family here is not strong; I do not feel I belong. So I must choose whether to move-but I do not know in which direction.