Chapter 6 #2
Maggie flushed, now seriously alarmed. “I don’t want Mr. Selfridge to take any particular interest in me,” she said rather sharply.
She thought of Theo Stein, the charming only son of her employer back in New York, who had also taken a particular interest. It had led to disaster, and if she ever saw him again, he’d likely turn her in to the police.
She could do without such complications in her new position here at Field’s.
“Oh, he likes to flirt with all the young shopgirls,” Mrs. Wentworth told her with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But it never goes farther than that. Not that he’s a family man, although they do say he is devoted to his wife. But he certainly has an eye for the ladies.”
She stopped abruptly as Mrs. Attlebury appeared once more, sailing by them to check on one of the comfort rooms set up for customers to recover themselves in between purchases.
“I shouldn’t gossip so,” Mrs. Wentworth said in a low voice once their supervisor had moved on.
“It’s the rules you need to know, and the most important one is that the customer is always, always right.
” She gave a little grimace. “No matter what, no matter why. You never question them, and you certainly never annoy or vex them. You make no suggestions unless they ask, and even then only with caution and care, and you do whatever you possibly can to ease and beautify their experience at Field’s in every way. ”
“Give the lady what she wants,” Maggie quoted, remembering what Sarah Whitman had said the other night.
“Exactly. Give the lady whatever she wants, whenever, however, whyever.” Mrs. Wentworth sighed. “It can be aggravating at times, but truly there’s no better place to work at than Field’s. Everyone in Chicago knows that.”
Maggie nodded. It was not the first time she’d heard such a heartily espoused view, and she wanted to believe it. Despite Mrs. Attlebury’s obvious displeasure, she was desperate for her work at Field’s to be both successful and prosperous. And if it was in her power, she vowed, it would be so.
“Ten minutes to opening!” someone called out, and all across the floors salesclerks snapped to attention, running dustcloths over their countertops, smoothing a frock coat, adjusting a hat.
Maggie felt her heart beat a little faster as she imagined the customers who would start arriving in just a few minutes.
“The other rule,” Mrs. Wentworth told her, “is to always act with decorum and grace, whether a customer is present or not. We must never call each other by our Christian names; it’s not allowed.
Mine’s Sally, by the way.” She smiled, and Maggie smiled back, relieved that despite the stricture of the store’s many rules, she still might have found a warmhearted friend.
“And I’m Maggie,” she said.
But then, before her new friend could share any more rules, a bell rang, and the store was officially open for the day. Maggie straightened where she stood, her hands folded neatly at her waist, her heart beating hard as she waited for the first customer to arrive.
Her first day passed in a blur of fetching and carrying, of letting women try this hat or that one, and waiting patiently while a woman who clearly had nothing better to do than while away the day’s many hours trying on hats gazed at her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror, her lips pursed in thought.
For the first few hours, Maggie was as meek and servile as she could possibly be.
She took her cue from Sally—or, as she was addressed, Mrs. Wentworth—and flattered the women who sailed into the shop on waves of violet-scented perfume that was sold on the ground floor.
If she feared she sounded cringingly obsequious to these ladies with her heavy-handed compliments made at every turn, the women did not seem to notice or mind.
There never seemed to be enough flattery to appease them, as far as Maggie could tell, and yet they were wealthy, privileged, and living in luxury. What more could they possibly need?
Apparently a hat, or two, or none at all. Maggie lost count of the number of times a customer tried on a hat, admired her reflection from every angle, sighed and smiled and sighed again, and then decided it did not suit, and she would prefer to try on another.
The hats, Maggie found as she fetched each one, were well-made but in her view uninspired, following the fashions of New York without risking so much as a ribbon.
The selection was wide—from modest boaters for humble shopgirls and servants to more elaborate and ostentatious creations for the upper class that were, at least in her mind, already almost out of date.
One thing she quickly learned was that Field’s treated every customer the same, whether it was a young maid or Mrs. Potter Palmer herself, considered the first lady of Chicago society.
When, in the early afternoon, a woman heavily rouged and decked out in scarlet satin came in, Maggie was shocked to learn from Mrs. Wentworth that she was the madam of one of the city’s most well-known disorderly houses.
She was greeted by Mr. Selfridge himself.
Often throughout the day, Maggie caught Mrs. Attlebury’s beady eye upon her, which she did her best not to notice.
She stood to attention, she kept the counter free of dust, she fawned.
By six o’clock, when the store had finally closed, the customers had left, and it was time to tidy up before going home, she was exhausted in a way she couldn’t remember being before.
It wasn’t hard work, she decided, and yet it was still so very tiring, almost as much as sewing piecework or scrubbing floors had been back in New York, albeit in a different way.
Outside, the summer air was still and hot, the cable car stifling even with the breeze.
As she rode back to Englewood, Maggie wondered how Brendan had fared today, knee-deep in blood and guts, his hands turning red and chapped from the pickling solution.
She hated to think of him lowering himself in such a way, as well as being in any danger.
After all he’d done for both her and Danny, it didn’t feel fair that he felt he had to do this, too.
As Maggie stepped into the boarding house, she saw everyone was already at the dining-room table, tucking into cold ham, salad, and fresh bread rolls, and her stomach grumbled.
She had not had time for coffee and a roll this morning, and lunch had been no more than a sandwich bought in the street and hastily gobbled down.
“Ah, she returns,” Mrs. O’Malley remarked with more than a touch of asperity.
“I’ll just go wash and join you,” Maggie murmured before heading upstairs to the quiet relief of the bedroom.
She was just washing her hands at the basin when the door opened, and she turned around, a blaze of shocked awareness firing through her when Brendan came through the door, a towel slung about his shoulders and wearing nothing but his trousers.