Chapter 9
Maggie had been working at Field’s for three weeks before she finally worked up the courage to offer a suggestion to a customer.
The woman in question, Mrs. Pendlehurst, was florid and rotund, the silk bodice of her dress straining at its seams, and after seeing a small boater on the far daintier Mrs. Salliday at a garden party the previous week, she was insistent a similar miniature-style hat with a cluster of bluebells and a whisper of white netting would be just the thing.
With the delicate hat in question balanced on the top of her block-like head, she looked utterly ridiculous, and yet neither Mrs. Attlebury nor Mrs. Wentworth seemed to suffer any crisis of conscience in letting the woman walk out of the store looking like a bumbling clown with a far too small hat perched precariously on top of her head.
“It’s not too small?” Mrs. Pendlehurst asked anxiously as she twisted this way and that to get a better angle on the hat, which could barely be seen amidst the brassy waves of her overly arranged dyed hair.
“No, madam,” Mrs. Attlebury replied smoothly. She stood behind the woman, hands clasped staidly at her waist, her expression blank and composed. “Not at all.”
Mrs. Pendlehurst nibbled her lip, clearly uncertain.
Although entirely different in stature and looks, the woman reminded Maggie of her old employer, Mrs. Cater.
She had the same self-doubt, as well as an unsettling vulnerability caused by the incontrovertible fact that she’d clearly married beyond her own background. “I’m not sure…”
“Of course, if madam wishes to try another hat,” Mrs. Attlebury said, “then she must. But this one certainly suits.” She lifted her hard, dark gaze to Maggie. “Miss O’Halloran, why don’t you fetch the boater with the spray of cherry blossoms?”
That hat, Maggie knew, was even smaller, and would make Mrs. Pendlehurst look even more ridiculous.
Slowly, she walked across the millinery department to fetch the appropriate hat.
It was a dainty creation, if uninspired, and on a young, slender girl it would look fetching.
But on Mrs. Pendlehurst it would look… absurd.
Maggie took the hat from its case, holding it in her hands, hesitating to commit what felt like not just an act of deceit, but a crime against nature.
Hats could make—or ruin—a woman. They could complete an ensemble, show her at her best to the world, or…
make her look like she was either trying too hard or not at all, like she didn’t even know how to.
The hat with the spray of cherry blossoms, just like that with the bluebells, was not the right sort of hat for Mrs. Pendlehurst. It would make her look like a potato with a cherry balanced on top.
“Miss O’Halloran!” Mrs. Attlebury barked. “At once, please.”
Hesitantly, Maggie walked back toward the little group assembled in front of the gilt-edged mirror where customers stood to admire their reflections, the hat in her hands.
Her steps slowed while Mrs. Attlebury clucked impatiently, and then impulsively Maggie whirled around and hurried back to the glass-fronted case and took another hat from within—this one also of straw, with a wide brim and a large, bright carnation its only decoration.
It was far less girlish, and its size would better suit Mrs. Pendlehurst’s broad frame.
“Here we are, madam,” Maggie said as cheerfully as she could, although inside she quailed at the thunderous look her supervisor was giving her from behind Mrs. Pendlehurst. “And,” she added, before she lost her nerve, “I brought another, in a different style, in case madam thought that might suit.”
“Another style?” Mrs. Pendlehurst sounded confused. “Oh, I don’t know…”
“Of course, madam may wear any hat she wishes,” Mrs. Attlebury interjected smoothly.
“It is not for our staff to make suggestions.” She gave Maggie a significant look, and with a lurch of dismay she wondered if suggesting another hat would be enough to get her dismissed. In her supervisor’s eyes, it seemed so.
And yet… the other hat suited the customer better, she knew it, and she suspected Mrs. Attlebury did, too.
The store rule not to offer suggestions to customers seemed ridiculous to Maggie, as well as bad service, and even worse advertising.
Give the lady what she wants—but what if what she wanted would be a disaster?
Surely sending Mrs. Pendlehurst out in an unflattering hat was not a good advertisement for Field’s?
And she knew how much Mr. Selfridge cared about good advertising.
Mrs. Pendlehurst gazed at her reflection unhappily. Maggie suspected she knew the small boater did not suit her.
“What is the other hat, then?” she asked, taking off the first. Mrs. Attlebury took it back while Maggie handed her the larger hat.
“A wider brim,” Maggie explained as she helped her adjust it, “and a more… sophisticated… look, perhaps?” She dared not look at Mrs. Attlebury. “For a woman of discernment and… stature.”
“Hmm.” Mrs. Pendlehurst fingered the brim thoughtfully as she met Maggie’s gaze in the mirror. “You thought the other hat made me look like mutton dressed as lamb, I suppose?”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Attlebury replied swiftly. She gave Maggie another quelling glare that she tried to ignore. “The first hat suited you admirably, madam. If it’s your choice—”
“No, I think I prefer this one,” Mrs. Pendlehurst interjected with a nod of decision.
“The other hat was too small. In truth, I feared it looked ridiculous on a woman of my age and… stature.” She smiled conspiratorially at Maggie before glancing at Mrs. Attlebury with pointed humor that was touched with asperity.
“But you wouldn’t tell me if it did, would you? ”
A mottled flush swept up Mrs. Attlebury’s pale face, while Maggie inwardly cringed at the veiled criticism. She feared Mrs. Pendlehurst’s honesty would only make things worse for her… maybe even much worse.
“Madam must wear the hat she prefers,” Maggie’s supervisor replied in a voice that sounded as if it was being squeezed through her throat. “Whichever it is.”
“I choose this one,” Mrs. Pendlehurst declared. “And thank you, Miss…?” She glanced inquiringly at Maggie.
“O’Halloran,” Maggie said quickly. “Miss O’Halloran.”
“Miss O’Halloran,” Mrs. Pendlehurst repeated with satisfaction. “I shall remember you.” And with a smile, she handed Mrs. Attlebury the hat to be boxed, while Maggie went to the counter to summon the cashboy.
Mrs. Attlebury wrote up the receipt and the cashboy was sent back to the office for change, and then Maggie took the hatbox to escort Mrs. Pendlehurst to her carriage.
“I’ve always preferred plain speaking to flattery,” the older woman confided as they walked down the grand staircase. “I’d rather know the truth of a thing. Now, tell me honestly.” She glanced at Maggie with open friendliness. “Did I or did I not look ridiculous in that little boater?”
Maggie hesitated, recalling another situation much like this one, only a few months ago.
Upon their first meeting, Mrs. Stein had asked her for her opinion on her hat, which had been hideous, and Mrs. Cater had dismissed her for her honesty.
It had worked out well enough in the end, since Mrs. Stein had hired her instead, but Maggie had had a fraught few days wondering if telling the truth would mean she was to be utterly destitute.
And then, of course, it had all gone terribly wrong…
A pang of guilt cramped her stomach at the memory.
Mrs. Stein had been so good to her, and Maggie had most certainly not repaid her in kind.
Her former employer might be hoping for her arrest even now, but at least she was far enough away not to worry about such a thing. She hoped so, anyway.
In any case, it might be that Mrs. Attlebury was already set to dismiss her for taking matters into her own hands today. A little more truth wouldn’t change matters. “The boater in question was a girlish hat,” Maggie said carefully. “And not for a woman of experience and taste.”
“Oh, you have a way with words, don’t you?
” Mrs. Pendlehurst exclaimed with a chuckle.
“Well, I don’t mind. Heaven knows there are enough of us ladies who didn’t grow up with money, and taste can be aggravatingly hard to acquire.
A little plain speaking would help us all, I’ve no doubt.
” At the front doors of the store, she reached for Maggie’s hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you, dearie. I appreciate your good sense, and I’ll be sure to say so. ”
“Thank you,” Maggie replied. Perhaps Mrs. Pendlehurst’s recommendation could keep her from getting dismissed.
After seeing the woman off in her carriage, Maggie turned back into the store, her steps slowing as dread swirled in her stomach. Even if she wasn’t dismissed, she was likely to get a serious scolding.
A sigh escaped her at the thought. She did not relish the sharp edge of Mrs. Attlebury’s tongue, and that was a best-case scenario. If she was dismissed… Maggie shuddered to think what she would do then.
At least her landlady would be pleased, she thought wryly, although, in truth, Mrs. O’Malley had thawed a little toward her since Brendan had expressed his approval of her position at Field’s over supper one evening.
It was the most warmth he’d shown toward her since they’d almost kissed…
it had been three weeks, and they’d barely spoken at all, never mind about that.
Sometimes Maggie wondered if it had even happened, but then she felt the tension twanging silently between them at night, as she lay in the bed and Brendan remained on the floor, and she knew it had.
She just didn’t know how she should feel about it.
It felt as if her life was in something of a stasis, in so many ways.
As she’d told Danny she would, she’d put an advertisement in the Chicago Tribune, but there had been no replies, and her brother had had no luck finding out more about their father at the construction site.
Maggie had written Kathleen O’Shaughnessy back in New York, giving her their address in case she might forward any letters from their father, but she had little hope that Kathleen would trouble herself in such a way, or that there would even be any letters to forward.
More depressing than any of that, however, was the fact that she and Brendan were still barely speaking.
They treated each other like polite strangers, and Maggie missed the conversation they’d used to have.
She’d discovered that as an allegedly married woman it was difficult to make other friendships.
She’d spoken to Sarah Whitman a few times in the evening, but she felt as if her sham marriage was a barrier between them.
After all, Sarah had a freedom that Maggie did not.
In addition, the atmosphere at work precluded friendships, since Field’s insisted on a certain formality between employees, and chatting during work hours was forbidden.
As a result, Maggie felt lonely in a way she hadn’t since her first weeks in New York.
She felt even lonelier, because she couldn’t confess to anyone at the boarding house that she and Brendan weren’t actually married, and she couldn’t tell anyone at work of her unconventional living arrangements.
It made her feel as if she were living a half-life, neither one thing nor the other.
Her only hope was that she would be able to save enough money to find separate living arrangements for her and Danny, but the prospect which had once seemed to promise freedom now felt filled with sorrow.
She did not want to be so separate, especially after everything they’d already been through together, and yet neither could she bear keeping on as they were.
It seemed nothing, she thought on a rueful sigh, could satisfy her.
She had just reached the bottom of the grand staircase, steeling herself for Mrs. Attlebury’s wrath, when she felt a prickling on the back of her neck, an awareness she could not explain.
She turned, her gaze sweeping Field’s ground floor, with its many counters and display cases, women of all varieties and backgrounds browsing its elegantly displayed wares.
Why did she feel suddenly as if someone was staring at her?
Her gaze moved slowly back over the ground floor, and then suddenly stopped.
There, by the glove counter, stood a woman in a striking ensemble of chartreuse satin, her hair dressed in an elegant, if overblown, style.
Her dark eyes were wide, and her mouth had dropped open, and she was staring right at Maggie.
Mrs. Stein herself, all the way from New York.