A New Home for the Irish Daughter (Maggie O’Halloran #2)
Chapter 1
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
As the train pulled into Chicago’s Grand Passenger Station with a long exhale of steam, Maggie O’Halloran rose from her seat and threw her shoulders back, preparing to enter this new city as a wanted criminal—and the pretend wife of Brendan O’Donaghue.
She gazed down at the brass ring on her fourth finger, where it had rested heavily for the day and a half of their journey.
Only a week ago, Maggie had had to escape from New York City, abandoning her fledgling dreams of a career in millinery, when her younger brother Danny had fallen into terrible trouble with the violent Whyo gang.
Danny’s involvement with those treacherous thieves and murderers had forced Maggie to flee the opulent mansion on the Upper East Side of the city, where she’d worked for the wealthy Stein family, seeing to Mrs. Stein’s wardrobe and just beginning to design her hats.
It had also led to their friend Brendan’s small grocery being burned to the ground, and the three of them boarding a train to Chicago with nothing but the clothes on their backs and Brendan’s modest savings, to start a new life, whatever that looked like.
Whatever it could look like, for the ruins of Maggie’s dreams felt as if they were scattered all around her, nothing but dust and ash.
“Shall we?” Brendan asked, resting his hand briefly on the small of her back.
Maggie tensed instinctively, acutely conscious of these small gestures of chivalry and affection Brendan had shown her in their brief time masquerading as man and wife.
They were not entirely unwelcome, for Brendan was a kind as well as handsome man, but Maggie resented them all the same.
They were tangible signs that she was beholden to this man, both for rescuing her in the past and for whatever her future might hold.
Last night, when they’d taken their supper in the elegant dining car—a luxury Maggie feared Brendan could not truly afford—he had seemed to take great pleasure in introducing her as his wife to the other diners.
His hand had been on the small of her back, just as it was now, the words “my wife” slipping so easily from his smiling mouth…
And no one had for a moment doubted the truth of their relationship.
Neither had they questioned the other lies that Brendan had spoken so swiftly and smoothly—that they were traveling with Maggie’s brother to join her father; that Brendan intended to start a new business venture; that they looked forward to exploring such a raw and energetic city.
“There is so much opportunity in Chicago,” Brendan had remarked, sitting back in his seat as he’d sipped his glass of Bordeaux. “An ordinary man may go far in a way he cannot back east.”
The other diners, a mix of stolidly middle-class travelers and the wealthier elite, had nodded and smiled in return, seemingly pleased for this young couple.
They approved of the way Brendan was so attentive both to Maggie and her younger brother, the plans they had of the life they intended to build in the great city of Chicago.
Maggie couldn’t fault him for any of it, of course, and everything he’d said was true, in a way.
They were hoping to find Maggie’s father in Chicago, even if they had no fixed address for him.
And Brendan intended to find work, if not necessarily start a new venture, and Maggie supposed she would enjoy discovering this new city, even if she knew precious little about it, save that it had been built on a swamp on the shores of Lake Michigan, and was looked down upon by the upper echelons of New York society, or so one gossipy matron had told her over her coddled eggs this morning.
Now Maggie was about to find out for herself.
She glanced at her fifteen-year-old brother Danny, who had thrown off the guilt of his part in the destruction of their lives with remarkable—and somewhat irritating—ease, and was now craning his neck to get a view of the magnificent station from the train car’s window.
“I thought we’d look in Englewood for lodgings,” Brendan told her, his hand once more on her back as he guided her down the railway car’s narrow corridor. “Mr. Eastman told me it was an up-and-coming neighborhood with plenty of space, just a few miles from downtown by cable car.”
Mr. and Mrs. Eastman had been their dinner companions last night, a shoe salesman and his wife who were joining her parents in Chicago. They’d had plenty to say about the city that was to become Maggie and her brother’s new home—all of it positive, save for the stink.
“It’s the Union stockyards,” Mr. Eastman had explained. “They process up to three thousand steer a day, and three times that of hogs and sheep, as well.”
“The yards are enormous,” Mrs. Eastman had agreed, one slender hand resting on the barely-there bump that, out of politeness, no one had acknowledged, but was surely the reason for their desire to move back closer to family.
“And if ever you’re downwind… well, the smell of blood and waste and other such noxious things…
it can be pungent, to be sure.” She had laughed lightly.
“If you’re from Chicago, you get used to it, of course! ”
Maggie wondered now if she ever would. How could she get used to anything about this strange city, when she’d only just come to grips with the city she’d left after only a year, the dreams she’d nurtured all the way back in Ireland that she’d been forced to abandon, just when they’d been about to take flight?
There was no use, she knew, in feeding her own resentment.
Danny might have taken up with the Whyos, but she’d had her own sorry part to play in the wretched affair.
If she hadn’t agreed to the gang’s demand to leave her employer’s study unlocked so they could take some incriminating papers…
It had been a nefarious business, and one she didn’t really understand, but she feared she would feel the brutal reality of its consequences for a long time to come.
“Here we are,” Brendan said cheerily, and took her gloved hand in his own as he helped her onto the platform.
Maggie slipped her hand from his as soon as her feet touched the ground, not wanting to encourage him any more than she’d already had to, thanks to the nature of their traveling arrangements.
Back in New York, Brendan had insisted that she would be safer traveling as husband and wife, and Maggie had been too weary and disheartened to disagree.
When they’d left the city, the papers had been telling lurid tales of the “grasping Bridget”—a derogatory term for female Irish servants—who had let the city’s most reprehensible gang into one of its grandest mansions, a collision of worlds that no New Yorker ever wanted to see.
Her name hadn’t been mentioned, thank goodness, but it was likely to come out eventually, and an Irishwoman travelling from New York on her own would have been sure to cause suspicion.
It all made sense, but Maggie still hated how trapped she felt now… in so many ways.
“Isn’t it grand!” Danny exclaimed as he looked around in wonder at the magnificent Beaux Arts station, built just ten years ago, with a central hall whose ceiling soared upwards, seagulls fluttering about its rafters.
They had heard from the Eastmans how Chicago’s population had exploded in recent years, turning this former fur trading post from just fifty years ago into the country’s second greatest city.
“Although Philadelphia might have something to say about that,” Mr. Eastman had laughed as he’d smoothed the waxed ends of his mustache.
“But the difference is, Chicago is still growing and changing. The Columbian Exposition is going to be hosted here next year—then the world will really see what we’re made of! ”
“The Columbian Exposition?” Maggie had asked politely. She had not heard of it.
“The World’s Fair,” Mrs. Eastman had explained.
“It was in Paris two years ago, and everyone said the United States didn’t give the showing there that it should have, especially when the French showed off the Eiffel Tower.
” She’d smiled at her husband, her eyes sparkling. “Well, we’ll show them now!”
Maggie had admired and envied the couple’s enthusiasm, both for their life together and the city they called home. She felt such enthusiasm for neither—the future she had to forge all over again, in a city that felt only strange.
“I believe we can get a cable car to Englewood out on Canal Street,” Brendan said, taking her hand once more as they began to walk from the platform into the central hall of the station.
“There will be plenty of boarding houses there where we can find lodgings. Mr. Eastman mentioned it’s an Irish and German neighborhood, mostly. ”
Just like the Lower East Side had been, before the newest wave of immigrants had come upon the city from Eastern Europe.
Maggie thought of Tovah Moshkowitz back in New York, a seamstress with a ready smile and quick wit, whom she’d counted as a good friend.
She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to her before leaving for Chicago.
She needed to write her to explain everything that had happened, a task that made her wilt inside.
How could she explain the sudden and complete destruction of everything she’d been working toward?
Maggie let Brendan take her hand, too weary to keep resisting, and, in truth, the station was bustling and crowded, filled with people walking with purpose, their long strides eating up the polished floor, as porters pushed trunks and suitcases in two-wheeled wooden luggage carts.
Danny strode ahead, eager to explore, while Brendan carried their one case—unlike the many travelers who had multiple trunks and valises, they only had a small case between them, which carried the sad, sum total of all their belongings.