Honeyville (16 page)

Inez sat silently among the women, bolt upright, wide eyes shining, hat and hair and clothes awry. There were fifteen or twenty women squeezed into the cell along with her, most of them deep in conversation. They paused when they heard their jailor’s keys clank, looked briefly from the sergeant to me, and turned back to one another. Inez rose quickly to her feet.

‘Dora!’ she cried. There was a thick gash on her cheek and a smear of blood running from the gash to the collar of her shirtwaist. Her hair had been wrenched from its knot, her hat was crumpled, and her face was alive. Perhaps in the light of what happened afterwards, my memory exaggerates. But I know that when she stood and called my name (beneath the bitter blow that it was I, not Lawrence, who had come to fetch her), she shone with a wildness, an excitement at her surroundings that I might have envied, if her surroundings had been more conducive. As it was, I felt a jolt of horror. She looked half crazy with life.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked stupidly. ‘I have come to fetch you out.’

‘Have you paid my bail?’ she asked. ‘Or did—’

‘I paid it,’ I interrupted, to shut her up. (I would explain later.)

‘You?’ She seemed to shrink. And then, like a flower reaching out for sunlight wherever she might find it, she asked: ‘But does he know I am here? Perhaps he doesn’t realize—’

‘I have come to fetch you out. That’s all I know. I’m sorry to find you here. That’s a deep cut,’ I added. ‘You need to clean it.’

She touched it, vaguely, and looked about her at the other women, some of whom had paused again and were watching us. ‘But what about the others? What about my sisters here? I can’t simply abandon them.’

Those who were nearest to her, and whose grasp of English was strong enough to understand, patted Inez on the back, not much concerned. Inez might look on them as sisters, but there was no doubt that they looked upon her as a stranger; a woman from another planet, where women didn’t live out the winter under canvas tents, but slept in warm beds and woke to breakfasts served to them by maids, of hot tea and griddled toast and fresh eggs and honeycake.

‘Aw now, don’t you vorry about us,’ one of them said, in an accent I couldn’t place. ‘Git going, now. Git yerself out of har vhile you can.’

Inez looked to the other women, most of whom were already half turned away. ‘I want you all to know,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘that when I leave this place, I am not leaving
you
, whose bravery humbles me.
You
are always in my heart. And I will fight for you. For your rights as women, and wives, and mothers …’

The women looked at her with dead-eyed bemusement. She had forgotten, perhaps, that the majority of them didn’t speak English.

‘And I want you to know,’ she continued, a little louder, ‘what an
honour
it is—’

‘Inez,’ I snapped. ‘Come along. Come with me.’

A couple of the women pushed her, not quite so gently. ‘We shall keep up the fight!’ she cried as she half tripped through the cell door. ‘As Mother Jones tells us we must, so we shall. We shall fight until there is no life left in our bodies! Until Mr Rockefeller himself comes before our great Union on his knees and he surely begs us to negotiate with him!’

‘Fer heck’s sake,’ came a weary voice from the back of that dank cell, ‘git her outta here.’

We turned to the police sergeant. His gaze flicked between us, resting briefly on Inez with lazy dislike, before leading the way back up the dark corridor. Behind us, the cacophony of mother tongues returned to its earlier volume, our intrusion forgotten. Beside me, Inez limped a little. She took my arm and pulled at me to slow down. And over the noise, she whispered:

‘Where is Lawrence, Dora? Why didn’t he come?’

‘I have come,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘No!’

‘Let’s discuss it when you’re home.’

But she only clutched my elbow, so hard that I yelped in pain and snatched my arm away. ‘What in hell’s the
matter
with you?’ I snapped, rubbing my arm. She shook her head. ‘Let’s just get you home,’ I said impatiently. ‘You need some rest. And I have work this evening.’

‘But I can’t go to the cottage,’ she whispered fran- tically. ‘
I can’t!
’

As we waited, and the sergeant completed his paperwork, he remarked several times on his disbelief that a young woman, ‘and a hooker to boot’, would want to be involving herself in such matters. I waited for Inez to launch into one of her tirades but she said nothing. Her hands were shaking as she sat, waiting for permission to leave, and I wondered if the experience in the cells might, after all, have frightened her to silence at last.

But her fear seemed to intensify as we reached the street. She didn’t thank me for fetching her. We scurried silently through the cold streets and, as we were passing the spot where, only hours before, anarchy had reigned, the fat general had lost his seat and poor Mrs Drayton had lost her ear, Inez stood still. There were puddles of muddied, bloodied snow at her feet, and tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘Stop!’ she said, but I was cold, and frightened to be out in the town so close to dusk. Any men not at home by now would soon be drunk, if they weren’t already, and feeling trigger-happy. I wanted to get back to Plum Street. I kept walking and ignored her.

‘You have to
listen
,’she said. She tugged me back towards her, forcing me to halt. Her eyes darted left and right, she leaned into my ear and whispered:

‘
There are guns, Dora.
’

‘What?
Guns?
Where?’

‘Shhh! For heaven’s sake.’ She sounded frantic.

I sighed. ‘Honey, let’s not stand here in the street. Let me take you home. Better still, let me take you to your aunt and uncle. You’re in a state. I don’t want to leave you alone.’

‘
But you have to help me
,’ she whispered vehemently. ‘You have to tell Lawrence … it wasn’t my fault.’ She shook her head, correcting herself. ‘I should never have joined the march. Is he very angry with me?’

‘He’s not happy.’

‘Oh God!’ she cried. And then, like a tragedy queen: ‘It’s all so
pointless
, isn’t it?’

‘
What
is pointless?’

‘I can’t go back to the cottage. Not until he’s cleared it.’

‘Cleared what? What are you talking about Inez?’

But she wouldn’t say. She just shook her head and began to weep. ‘He will be so angry with me. I know it.’

She refused to return to the cottage, refused to go to her aunt, and I could hardly leave her standing alone in the cold night. I had no choice but to take her back with me to Plum Street. She would have to hide in my little dressing room, I told her. On no account was anyone to know she was there.

And somehow, in spite of everything – her terror, her sadness, the seeping, swelling gash on her cheek, she began to giggle. ‘Shall I hear you at work then?’ she asked. ‘I can make noises if it helps. Perhaps I can hide under your bed?’ she continued to laugh, but she was half hysterical. I wanted to shake her. Knock some sense into her. She stopped laughing as abruptly as she began. ‘Anyway, I can’t go home,’ she said, ‘because I have allowed the Union to use my cellar as a storeroom.’ Another stupid laugh, ‘I should think there are more guns in my cellar than in the rest of Southern Colorado altogether.’

I had known she was in love. I had known she was reckless, too – and unimaginably foolish. But
this
seemed to me to be stupid beyond all comprehension. She saw the look on my face.

‘But they had to use it, Dora. You know as well I do – the general’s men confiscate our guns wherever they find them, and then they hand them over to the other side. How could I refuse? Well, I couldn’t. That’s all. And the police are bound to come now, aren’t they? And Lawrence – I shan’t see him for the dust. Will I …?’ A feeble note of hope lingered. ‘I just wanted to help him,’ she said.

‘
Help
him?’ I laughed. ‘You wanted to
fuck
him.’

She sighed. Didn’t argue. ‘Well, what does it matter now, anyway?’

20

We continued our journey in silence. When we arrived at Plum Street, I gave her something to clean the wound and told her to hide in my dressing room until she heard from me again. I sent a message to Phoebe that I was sick and would not be working that night, and set out in search of Lawrence.

They’d not seen him at the Union office. Nor was he at the Toltec, nor at any of the Union’s preferred saloons. It seemed obvious to me that I should return via the cottage, if not to venture inside (I had no wish to be implicated in her trouble), then at least to inspect the place from afar, and take note of any activity within.

I approached it with trepidation, intending only to glance at the house as I strolled on by, preferably without even turning my head. But as drew up beside it, I noticed the front door hanging open and, in the hall, the electric lights were on. I stopped and waited, fiddled with my coat and then my hat, and then made a show of looking for something I had dropped on the sidewalk – but no one came or went. There was no sign of life inside. I couldn’t bring myself to walk on by, simply leave the place with the door wide open for all to see, so – with heart in my throat and legs trembling – I walked through the front gate and up the few steps to the porch.

I could see that the door lock had been forced. The latch was hanging from a single nail. Other than that, however, the house appeared to be in order. There was ash in the hearth, and a couple of empty glasses balanced on the ottoman, but (I reasoned) they had no doubt been left there by Inez, since the house-girl only visited in the mornings.

I called out. No answer came. There had been men passing through, though, I felt certain of it – and not many moments before. I could smell them in the cold air: sweat, tobacco and a mix of colognes. It was not an unpleasant smell. I checked the bedroom, the bathroom – and finally, though I dreaded what might be lurking, I ventured, along the short dark corridor at the back of the parlour, into the scullery and kitchen.

I had never seen the cellar – was unaware, until Inez informed me there were munitions stored inside it, that the property even possessed such a thing. It didn’t take me long to find it. There was a hatch on the scullery floor, with steps leading down and in their haste, whoever had been there had not paused to close it. A single electric lightbulb still burned from the ceiling. The cellar was empty. There was no sign of Lawrence. No sign of any living thing.

I switched off the light. I reattached the screw on the front lock as best I could so that the door would at least stay closed behind me, and headed home to Plum Street again.

21

Inez had removed herself from her hiding place in my dressing room and was lying limp as a doll on my bed. She looked sick: there was a waxy film about her – her cheeks and neck had taken a whitish glow against the angry red gash – and there was an oily gleam behind the eyes, detached and yet frantic. It alarmed me.

‘Your cut is worse. It’s swelling up.’ I said. ‘We should call a doctor.’

She pulled herself up, or halfway up, before the effort sent her tumbling back on the pillows again. ‘Did you find him?’ she asked. She had wrapped my green silk kimono around her torn clothes, and though there was a fire burning in the grate and the room was warm, her body was shaking. ‘What did he say? Is he terribly angry? Oh God –you didn’t tell him I told you? Please Dora, tell me you didn’t tell him you knew about the cellar.’

‘Honey. You need a doctor,’ I said.

‘
Dora
,
Did you tell him?
’

I shook my head. ‘I didn’t find him. But I went to the cottage and, whatever it is you were keeping down there, it’s gone. The trap door was left open and I think someone had only just that moment left. So you’re safe. It’s safe. The guns are gone. You can go home whenever you’re ready.’

She hardly seemed to hear me. ‘But Lawrence?’

‘Forget Lawrence,’ I snapped. ‘A man who asks to store illegal weapons in your house – in this town, at this time in our history – is no friend for you, Inez. No friend for anyone.’

‘But he said …’ Her thin shoulders seemed to fold in on themselves, and she began to sob. ‘Now the guns are gone, do you suppose he will ever come back?’

She cut a pitiful figure among the silks and satins of my ludicrous, opulent bed. I longed to hoist her out of it. Send her home. I needed to get back to work. But she was sick – too sick to move, and too crazy to be left on her own.

From my small parlour behind me, there came a tap on the outer, far door. I gritted my teeth. ‘Give me a half-hour,’ I shouted through. ‘Tell Phoebe I’ll be down in a half-hour.’

But it was Phoebe who was knocking. She didn’t wait to be given permission to come in. The door between my bedroom and my parlour was wide open and, in my bed, Inez languished, centre stage, perfectly framed. Phoebe – short, round, trussed and perfumed, and as beady as any woman anyone ever met – stepped through the threshold, from parlour to bedroom. Her busy eyes flicked from Inez to me and then back to Inez again and I could hear her mind rattling:
a body in the bed. Clothed. A body unknown to Phoebe. Was I cheating her of commission? Yes? No? Who was this clothed woman? Not a pro. A sick woman. With a gash on her face. Why was she lying in one of Phoebe’s beds without Phoebe’s permission? Was Phoebe being cheated in some way, not immediately obvious? WERE THERE DOLLARS OWED?

I said: ‘Phoebe, this is Inez. Inez, Phoebe. My friend Inez is unwell. I was just arranging—’

‘She needs a doctor,’ Phoebe said. ‘I can see that. But you’ll need to get her out of here. There’s a gentleman downstairs, wants to see you …’ She eyed Inez, taking in the sickness, the torn hat, the delicate features. ‘Get her out of here,’ Phoebe said. ‘For all I know her husband is sitting downstairs.’ She turned to Inez. ‘What’s your name, missie? What are you doing here? What in the hell’s the matter with you, Dora, inviting trouble in?’