Honeyville by Daisy Waugh Page A

trigger-happy than your Union friends.’
    ‘I know that !Actually, I was going to ask Lawrence if you might come with us,’ she said. ‘For the sake of …’ She stopped, frowned – and melted into that merry laugh of hers. ‘Well, I was going to say, “for respectability”, but it’s not quite what I mean, is it? It can’t be.’
    ‘Nothing respectable about me,’ I smiled. ‘Why don’t you visit Cokedale with your aunt instead?’ I said. ‘Leave Lawrence O’Neill and his Union well out of it. And me,’ I added. ‘It would be far safer. Didn’t you say she helped at the school?’
    She shook her head. ‘Uncle Richard won’t allow it any more. Not now it’s finally gotten interesting.’
    I wanted to tell her, it’s not a game . But she kept talking.
    ‘Anyhow, it would be more educational with Mr O’Neill. Don’t you think so? Plus, he’s absolutely right. I can’t be living here all this time, with bullets flying and people marching and everyone absolutely itching for a fight and still have not the slightest idea what they’re complaining about.’
    ‘Well I can tell you what they’re complaining about,’ I said. ‘If that’s what you want. You don’t have to go all the way out to the company towns to find out.’
    ‘But I want to go out there.’
    It sounded plaintive. Standing on the spot where Lippiatt died, and almost – very nearly – stamping her little foot, her innocence and sweetness seemed less delightful suddenly; her open-minded curiosity not ad- mirable, but heartless and effete. ‘So you can look at the miners and their families like they’re zoo animals, I suppose,’ I said. ‘And risk getting shot. What would your aunt and uncle think?’
    ‘Why, I certainly don’t think they’re zoo animals,’ she replied. ‘And really what my aunt and uncle might think about it is hardly any concern …’
    ‘There’s plenty for the miners to complain about, I assure you.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure there is,’ she said. She began to retreat. ‘Well … Dora … Miss …’ It occurred to me I had never told her my second name – my married name. I didn’t offer it then. ‘Miss … whatever your name is. Have a good day.’
    She turned away from me, clumsy with hurt and surprise, and I felt ashamed. Ten minutes earlier, I’d have expected her to walk right past me with her nose in the air. Now here she was, greeting me like an old friend. She wanted to drive out to the towns and see for herself what the fight was about. It was more than I had done.
    ‘Inez!’ I moved to catch up with her again. ‘Wait!’ She didn’t hesitate. She reeled around at once, her face absolutely beaming. ‘ Oh, and thank goodness for that! ’ she said. She put an arm on my shoulder. ‘I was dreading going in that place on my own. Shall we go in together?’
    ‘Didn’t your aunt and uncle have something to say,’ I asked, as we fell into step, ‘about the company you were keeping the other night? You could hardly stand up when last I saw you. What did they make of it?’
    ‘ Oh, them! ’ she shrugged. ‘They’re out of town in any case. Thank goodness. So don’t let’s worry about them! Anyway, it wasn’t you they were worried about. In fact I don’t think Mr Browning quite registered you. It was the saloon that upset them, and the gentlemen company, and the fact that I was unable to walk in a straight line.’ She giggled. ‘They worry about me constantly. Either I haven’t found a husband or it’s something else. Poor darlings,’ she added. ‘I can’t do anything to please them. So I might as well please myself. Besides. If I’m clever about it, which I am, Dora , they really needn’t have the faintest idea – I mean, not about anything I ever get up to.’
    We stepped into the Union office – two rooms on the ground floor with nothing much inside them: a handful of untidy desks, some metal chairs scattered about and, on the front counter, quantities of printed