Chapter 5
Maggie practically floated back to the boarding house in Englewood.
She had a job, a real job, working behind the millinery counter in the grand Field & Company, for the princely sum of ten dollars a week.
Mrs. Wentworth had told her that male clerks were paid half again as much, but Maggie could not bring herself to care.
To her, ten dollars a week felt like a fortune.
She was to report to work tomorrow, wearing a plain black dress in muslin or cambric for summer, and wool in winter.
Dresses could be purchased readymade from the fifth floor, and she’d gone there directly to get her own, parting with the rest of Brendan’s money to pay the two dollars fifty for the garment and carrying it carefully back on the cable car.
As she let herself into the boarding house, her heart as light as a feather, Harriet O’Malley came into the hall.
“Well, look at the smile on you!” she exclaimed, sounding not completely approving. “Cat and canary come to mind! What’s happened, then?” She sniffed, turning away so Maggie had no choice but to follow her.
“I’ve been offered a position behind the millinery counter at Field’s,” she said, trying not to sound as delighted as she felt. Her landlady, she feared, would not appreciate her enthusiasm. “I start tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” Harriet sniffed again. “And what are your hours?”
“Seven-thirty till six,” Maggie admitted, sensing already that Harriet would disapprove of her working away from home for so long. And it would be a long day, especially with the travel to the Loop and back, but she knew it would be worth it.
“Seven-thirty till six!” Harriet looked positively scandalized by this information. “And when are you going to be tending to your husband, then?” she demanded. “Sewing his shirts and darning his socks and starching his collars? Being a proper wife is a job in itself, I always thought.”
“I should think Mr. O’Donaghue has ample time to starch his own collars,” Maggie replied tartly before she could think better of it, and Harriet gasped as if she’d been wounded, one hand clutching her chest.
“A married man starching his own collars!” she exclaimed. “Well, I never…”
And I never, Maggie thought savagely. She would not be roped into tending to Brendan’s wardrobe simply because of this damnable ring on her finger, and a marriage that wasn’t even real.
“I only meant,” she explained more mildly, knowing she needed to redeem the situation, “that, at present, he has not yet been able to find work.”
“And I don’t know how he should, without the support of a wife at home,” Harriet fired back, clearly unappeased by Maggie’s explanation.
She shook her head, her tone turning mournful.
“I don’t know, Mrs. O’Donaghue, I really don’t know,” she said.
This morning, she’d been Maggie to her landlady, but clearly things had changed.
“A woman acting like a man…” Harriet said on a sigh, “it never ends well, but maybe I’m old-fashioned.
Heaven knows, you see all sorts of women heading out to work now, but it doesn’t seem to me what the good Lord intended… ”
Maggie had no response to that, at least not one that her landlady would accept. “I suspect the good Lord wants to see us all housed and fed,” she replied at last, her voice weary, and with a nod of farewell, she headed upstairs to her room.
From the sniffs and mutters she heard from behind her, Maggie suspected she had incurred yet more displeasure from Mrs. O’Malley, as she supposed her landlady would now want to be known.
Maggie spent the rest of the afternoon doing exactly what her landlady expected her to—starching Brendan’s collars, darning his socks, and making sure his wardrobe, as well as her own, was in as decent condition as needle and thread would allow.
It was little enough to do, and the only way she could think to thank Brendan for his provision that was in her care.
When he arrived just before suppertime, the light starting to leach from the sky, the air still sultry and warm, he couldn’t hide his surprise at the sight of Maggie sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, a shirt spread over her knees.
“What are you doing?” he asked, bemused.
She snapped a thread before replying, “Sewing a button onto your shirt.”
Brendan stood before her, his look of bemusement turning to something like sorrow. “Maggie, you don’t have to do that—”
“I’m already in Mrs. O’Malley’s black book,” she informed him.
“So I thought I’d try to live up to her exacting standards, at least for today.
And,” she added, gentling her voice and giving him a wry smile, “I don’t have many ways to thank you for all you’ve done for Danny and me.
Sewing a button is the very least I can do. ”
Brendan looked like he wanted to argue that point, but after a moment’s hesitation, he simply shook his head. “Well, it wasn’t necessary, but thank you. I assure you, I appreciate a decent shirt on my back.”
“Any luck today?” Maggie asked, her tone still gentle. She knew how defensive Brendan could be about his lack of success when it came to finding a job.
“As a matter of fact, yes. I start tomorrow at the Armor & Company’s meatpacking plant. I’m working as a pickler for twelve cents an hour.” He smiled grimly. “It’s better than nothing.”
“Oh, Brendan.” Maggie stared at him, and it was clear he was unable to hide his dismay.
She had heard from Sarah Whitman how awful the conditions in the meatpacking plants were—the floors swimming with blood and filth, and all manner of diseases brewing in the stinking, unventilated rooms. Brendan’s experience and ability were certainly wasted in such a place as that.
“Surely you could find something better?” she protested, and he shrugged, an angry twitch of his shoulders.
“We need the money. My savings won’t last forever.”
Maggie hesitated, sensing instinctively that this was most likely not the best time to admit she had, in the course of a single morning, secured a better-paying job in far more amenable circumstances than Brendan had after four days of tramping the streets.
And yet if it kept him from having to work in such a place as that…
“I found a job,” she told him hesitantly. “I start tomorrow. I’ll earn ten dollars a week—it’s enough to cover our rent—”
“You found a job?” Brendan sounded incredulous but also admiring, which filled Maggie with relief. She should have known he would not be so petty as to resent her own work. He was a decent, honorable man. “Where? At one of the department stores?”
“At Marshall Field & Company.” Maggie couldn’t keep a hint of excitement and pride from her voice. “In the millinery department.”
“Oh, Maggie!” Brendan’s voice was warm, even tender, in a way that made Maggie flush with pleasure. “That’s wonderful! And exactly what you wanted.”
“Yes… it was a moment of good fortune, really.” She felt an inexplicable need to downplay her own part in the affair. “I was asking at the counter and one of the directors happened by and decided to hire me on the spot. Pure luck.”
“You must have had something to do with the matter,” Brendan replied lightly. “If I know you, you certainly did.”
“Well… desperation led to boldness.” Maggie smiled, both touched and encouraged by his pleased response.
“But what I mean to say is… you don’t have to take this job, Brendan.
We can manage on what I bring home, at least for a little while, so you can look for something better. Something more suited to you.”
If she’d been hoping that her offer would please him, Maggie knew instantly that she’d been mistaken. Brendan stilled, his expression darkening before turning composed, but also stubborn.
“That is a very kind offer,” he stated politely, “but I must decline. I will not be kept by a woman. I must earn my own way.”
“And yet you had no compunction in doing so for me and Danny,” Maggie pointed out, riled even though she knew she shouldn’t be.
Every man she’d ever met would have felt the same way.
The world might have been changing to allow women to work, but at its core it was still very much the same.
Men were the providers, women the fawning recipients of their generosity.
So it had been, and perhaps would always be, and she was daft to think it could—or should—be otherwise.
“That is completely different, and well you know it,” Brendan replied levelly. “Any man is expected to provide for his wife. And I suppose this is why Mrs. O’Malley is out of sorts with you?”
“She disapproves,” Maggie admitted. “But, Brendan… I am not your wife!” He flinched slightly, and exasperation warred with guilt within her.
She was stating the obvious, and yet somehow it still needed to be said.
“All I mean is,” Maggie continued in a quieter tone, “my work should have no reflection or bearing on you.”
“But since everyone in this boarding house thinks we are wed,” Brendan pointed out, “it does.”
Maggie sat back, her needle and thread forgotten, as she stared at him. “And do the opinions of others—of strangers—matter so much to you?” she asked. “I didn’t think that they did.”
“No,” Brendan said after a moment, swinging away from her as he drove one hand through his hair.
“I am not as shallow as that, I hope. But… your opinion matters to me, Maggie.” His voice thickened and choked, and Maggie found she had, quite suddenly, to blink back tears.
“And do you suppose you could look at me the same way if you had to pay my way?” he asked, an ache in his voice.
He turned back to face her, his tone now turning fierce.
“I know for a fact that you wouldn’t,” he declared.
“Right now, you resent me, I understand that as much as I wish it wasn’t so, but I can stomach that emotion far better than your disdain, which is how you would regard me if I was utterly dependent on your generosity.
” He shook his head slowly. “Once you feel contempt for me, there is no going back.”
Maggie swallowed hard as she brushed at her damp eyes.
“I do not look at you with disdain or contempt,” she whispered.
“And I wouldn’t. As for resentment… I know it’s unfair of me, Brendan, and, truth be told, having this job makes me resent this situation far less!
I’m sorry for it, and the way I feel… I know it hasn’t been fair to you.
But this job is my path to freedom. Can’t you see that? ”
“Freedom?” Brendan repeated tonelessly. “Freedom from me, you mean.”
“Freedom from dependence, from having to be indebted to me in a way you despise but I am not allowed to! You know what I am like, you once said you admired my ambition.” Maggie’s voice rose in a ragged cry.
“Yet, despite all this, at every turn I feel as though you are thwarting me.” She fell silent, feeling as if she should apologize, yet knowing not what for.
Brendan stared at her for a long, level moment, neither of them saying a word.
“Well, I am not thwarting you now,” he finally replied, and walked out of the room, leaving Maggie staring after him, more despondent than angry.