The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier Page B

breakfast—more eggs and ham, along with hominy grits, a white, thin sort of porridge Belle said she’d grown up with in Kentucky—Honor wondered if the milliner would go to church. But Belle made no move to leave; after clearing up the kitchen she sat out on the back porch reading the Cleveland Plain Dealer that a customer had left behind the day before. Honor hesitated, then got her Bible out of her trunk and went to join her.
    The moment she sat down she knew the man was gone from the lean-to. There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere, and in Belle, who seemed more relaxed. She glanced over at the book in Honor’s lap. “I don’t go to church much myself,” she remarked. “Me and the minister don’t agree on most things. But I’ll take you if you want. You got a choice of Congregationalist, Presbyterian or Methodist. I’d go for Congregationalist myself—better singers. I’ve heard ’em from outside.”
    “There is no need.”
    Belle rocked in her chair while Honor opened her Bible, trying to remember what she had last read, with her sister on her deathbed, a lifetime ago. She read a passage here and there, but could not concentrate on the words.
    Belle was rocking faster. “Somethin’ I want to know about Quakers,” she announced, lowering the newspaper.
    Honor looked up.
    “You sit in silence, don’t you? No hymns, no prayers, no preacher to make you think. Why’s that?”
    “We are listening.”
    “For what?”
    “For God.”
    “Can’t you hear God in a sermon or a hymn?”
    Honor was reminded of standing outside St. Mary’s Church in Bridport, just across the street from the Meeting House. The congregation had been singing, and she had been briefly envious of the sound.
    “It is less distracting in the silence,” she said. “Sustained silence allows one truly to listen to what is deep inside. We call it waiting in expectation.”
    “Don’t you just think about what you’re having for dinner, or what someone said about someone else? I’d think about the next hat I’m gonna make.”
    Honor smiled. “Sometimes I think about the quilt I am working on. It takes time to clear the mind of everyday thoughts. It helps to be with others also waiting, and to close one’s eyes.” She tried to think of words to explain what she felt at Meeting. “When the mind is clear, one turns inward and sinks into a deep stillness. There is peace there, and a strong sense of being held by what we call the Inner Spirit, or the Inner Light.” She paused. “I have not yet felt that in America.”
    “You been to many Meetings in America?”
    “Only one. Grace and I went to a Meeting in Philadelphia. It was—not the same as England.”
    “Ain’t silence the same everywhere?”
    “There are different kinds of silence. Some are deeper and more productive than others. In Philadelphia I was distracted and did not find the peace I was looking for that day.”
    “I thought Philadelphia Quakers are supposed to be the best there is. Top-quality Quakers.”
    “We do not think like that. But . . .” Honor hesitated. She did not like to be critical of Friends in front of non-Quakers. But she had started, so she must continue. “Arch Street is a big Meeting, for there are many Friends in Philadelphia, and when Grace and I entered the room, there were not many benches still free. We sat on one that was, and were asked to move, for they said it was the Negro pew.”
    “What’s that?”
    “For black Members.”
    Belle raised her eyebrows. “There’s colored Quakers?”
    “Yes. I had not known there were. None came that day to Meeting, and the bench remained empty, even though the other benches grew crowded and uncomfortable.”
    Belle said nothing, but waited.
    “I was surprised that Friends would separate black Members in that way.”
    “So that’s what kept you from God that day.”
    “Perhaps.”
    Belle grunted. “Honor Bright, you are one delicate flower. You think just ’cause Quakers say