Chapter 13
Maggie stepped into Dr. Holmes’ drugstore, the air cooler than the sultry heat outside, and smelling of antiseptic and sarsaparilla. It had been two days since Mrs. O’Malley had given them her news, and this was the first opportunity she’d had to visit the establishment in search of their father.
Danny was thrilled that Dr. Holmes had answered the advertisement, but Maggie felt a little more cautious, although she couldn’t have said why.
It stood to reason that the druggist knew their father if he’d been working at Jackson Park, as the workman Danny had met had claimed.
The drugstore wasn’t that far away from the construction site, and her father, with his quick wit and laughing ways, had always been a memorable person.
Yet still, the thought of speaking with Dr. Holmes of the bright blue eyes and so very solicitous ways unnerved her for a reason she couldn’t explain.
“You said you’d met Dr. Holmes before?” Brendan asked as he stepped into the store after her.
He’d offered to come with her and Danny to see the druggist, and Maggie was grateful for his steadying presence.
Perhaps Dr. Holmes would be less attentive in that familiar way of his if he saw her husband with her.
Husband.
The word caused an ache to go through Maggie that had nothing to do with the resentment and reluctance she’d once felt at Brendan assuming that role.
Since their discussion two days ago, Brendan had been true to his word and been very much her friend.
The tension and awareness that Maggie had once felt emanating from him—and herself—seemed to have evaporated completely.
Last night at supper, he’d even flirted, ever so subtly, with Sarah Whitman, but Maggie had been able to tell, and she’d burned with an emotion she told herself was not jealousy.
She would not let herself be so capricious as to be jealous of a woman who had the attentions of a man she had quite firmly rejected.
In any case, she was glad he’d offered, for friendship’s sake, to accompany her and Danny today.
“Yes, Danny and I met him a few weeks ago,” Maggie replied, lowering her voice instinctively.
The store was empty, with no one behind the long wooden counter that ran the length of one side, with glass cases of medicine bottles and powders behind it.
She glimpsed a few of the names—Paine’s Celery Compound, Pond’s Extract, Seidlitz Powders—all of them seeming to promise miracle cures, according to the framed advertisements decorating the walls.
Maggie glanced at a colorful poster for Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root, which offered a “Complete Female Remedy,” promising cures for all ailments related to “all vital organs, including the kidney, liver, and bladder,” and also to “purify the blood and tone the nerves.” It seemed quite a lot for one little brown bottle of medicine to do.
“There’s certainly a lot on offer here,” Brendan remarked as he studied the shelves. “I never did sell any medicines myself, back in New York. Half of them are quackery, I fear, although I’m sure, as a licensed professional, Dr. Holmes only contracts the decent ones.”
“I suppose,” Maggie replied. She found she was still whispering.
“Where is he?” Danny demanded, striding forward to ring the bell on the counter.
Its tinny sound echoed through the empty store, and within a few seconds, Dr. Holmes himself appeared, emerging from the back door in a crisp white coat, his hair smoothed back as it had been before, the ends of his large mustache waxed into striking, upward curls.
“Ah, Mrs. O’Donaghue!” he exclaimed without missing a beat. “You’ve come about my response to your advertisement?” He came forward, his hands extended as if he would clasp Maggie’s in his.
“I have,” Maggie agreed. She took a step back before she checked herself. “This is my—my husband, Mr. O’Donaghue,” she said, stumbling slightly over the word. “And my brother Danny, perhaps you remember?”
“Of course I do,” Dr. Holmes replied in the same smooth tone. “How do you do?” He nodded at Brendan, eyeing him appraisingly, while Brendan nodded back.
“You have a very pleasant store here, Dr. Holmes,” Brendan said. “It seems well-stocked.”
“You sound like a man of business yourself, Mr. O’Donaghue?” Holmes replied with alacrity, his eyes alight with interest.
Brendan flushed slightly, whether with pleasure or embarrassment, Maggie couldn’t tell. Perhaps both.
“I was indeed, Dr. Holmes,” he replied. “I owned and operated a small grocery store back in New York. I have yet to find a similar enterprise here.”
“Ah, a man of experience!” the druggist cried. “But how perfect. As it happens, I am looking for a manager for my store.”
“You… are?” Brendan looked surprised, as well as warily pleased.
“You might be just the man.” He glanced at Maggie before turning back to Brendan. “I own this entire building,” he remarked in a casual, offhand way. “A few of my employees have rooms above, for convenience’s sake. If you like, you could do the same. There are a few vacant apartments.”
“Oh, I…” Brendan looked flummoxed by the offer, but still pleased. But Maggie knew instinctively and absolutely she did not want to live in Dr. Holmes’ building, no matter how grand it was. And why was the man being so floridly generous, when he didn’t even know them?
“Thank you kindly for your offer,” she stated firmly, “but we already have a room nearby, as you know, since you stopped in there.” She gave him a hard look, while Dr. Holmes gazed equably back, seeming utterly unfazed by her abrupt refusal of his overblown generosity.
“You mentioned to Mrs. O’Malley that you knew our father? ”
“Indeed, yes,” Dr. Holmes replied, adjusting to the abrupt turn in the conversation with smooth confidence. “He did a few odd jobs for me several months ago, when I needed some repairs on the building.”
“He was working at the Columbian Exposition,” Danny interjected excitedly. “Doing construction.”
Dr. Holmes’ turned his bright blue gaze on her brother. “Yes, he mentioned something about that,” he replied with a kindly smile. “He seemed the sort of man to turn his hand to all manner of things, and quite charming, besides.”
“That sounds just like him!” Danny exclaimed, but Dr. Holmes’ smile drooped slightly as he spread his hands in a gesture of apology.
“Alas, I don’t know where he is now,” he told them. “He left my employ some months ago, although I offered him further work. I have no way of communicating with him, but I do know he lived locally. I hope that is able to help you?”
“It does, it does,” Danny said quickly. He turned to Maggie. “To think Da’s been living as our neighbor, or as near as!”
“But we don’t know where he is now,” Maggie felt compelled to remind her brother. “He might have left Englewood, or even Chicago.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Dr. Holmes interjected smoothly. “The last time I saw him—two, three months ago?—he spoke of some business plans he had right here in the city. I can’t remember exactly what they were, but he seemed fairly settled.”
“And yet he stopped working for you,” Maggie observed, her tone just a little too sharp.
Dr. Holmes turned his electric gaze on her as he raised his eyebrows. “He seemed an enterprising gentleman, Mrs. O’Donaghue. I would not have expected him to continue with odd jobs forever. And, of course, if I see him again, I will let him know where you are and that you are looking for him.”
“Oh, would you?” Danny cried. “Thank you!”
The druggist gave her brother a beneficent smile. “Of course,” he said, and then turned to Brendan once again. “And if you would like to consider the position of manager, perhaps we can talk privately on another occasion about such a matter?”
“Oh. I…” Brendan laughed nervously, running a hand over his head in a gesture that had become familiar to Maggie, and made her heart ache in a way she didn’t want it to. “Thank you. Yes, I’d be delighted to discuss the matter on another occasion.”
“Say tomorrow evening, eight o’clock?” Dr. Holmes suggested swiftly. “Over a drink, perhaps?”
Brendan looked surprised, but he nodded. “Yes, that suits very well.”
Then, with a murmur of farewells and Dr. Holmes holding the door open for them all, ever the gentleman, they left the drugstore, heading back out into the heat of the day.
“What do you think about that!” Danny exclaimed in satisfaction, his hands planted on his hips, as they stood outside the store. “To think Da was working just down the block from us. What are the chances?”
“Yes, what are the chances,” Maggie murmured dryly.
Brendan gave her a curious look. “You seem suspicious,” he remarked.
“Not suspicious,” Maggie protested. She wouldn’t go that far. “It’s only that something about Dr. Holmes makes me… uneasy.”
“Uneasy,” Brendan repeated as they started down the street, back to their boarding house. “I admit, he does have a certain… manner… about him. A flourish.”
“Yes, a flourish,” Maggie agreed. “It doesn’t feel genuine.”
“Such affectations rarely are,” Brendan pointed out reasonably. “But a man’s way of being isn’t necessarily a reason to be suspicious of him.”
“And how quickly he offered you the job?” Maggie pressed. “Doesn’t that seem… strange to you?”
Brendan frowned. “Considering my experience? No, it does not,” he told her a little sharply. “Was it odd when you were hired at Field’s after a few minutes’ discussion?”
Maggie blushed, realizing how she’d sounded.
“I didn’t mean that you don’t deserve the job,” she said quickly.
“Of course I didn’t mean that! Because you do!
” She shook her head, impatient with herself as well as him.
“I don’t know what it is,” she admitted.
“Maybe only that something about it feels too good to be true.”
“I think,” Danny told her, “we could use a little too-good-to-be-true. We’ve had the opposite for long enough!”
Maggie managed a laugh at that. “I suppose you’re right,” she said.
Why shouldn’t she believe Dr. Holmes, she thought, and even be charmed by him as everyone else was?
The three of them had surely had enough ill fortune to last a lifetime.
Perhaps the tide really had turned. It had for her, after all—or was about to, she hoped, with the hat she was designing for Mrs. Stein.
With her savings returned to her, she’d been able to purchase materials and fabric from Field’s and had spent last evening sketching several possible designs. She’d told Brendan about it all, and he’d been pleased for her, as well as relieved that she was no longer a wanted woman in New York.
“So now there really is no reason to pretended to be married,” he’d said with a decisive nod. “As soon as we can afford separate lodgings, we’ll arrange it and you’ll be free.” He’d smiled wryly. “We both will.”
Which had not made Maggie as pleased as she would have expected it to.
But, in any case, her fortunes were on the rise, and so should Brendan’s be, as well. Impulsively, she put her hand on his arm.
“I’m pleased for you,” she told him. “I think managing the most popular drugstore in all of Englewood, and maybe even Chicago, is a wonderful idea. And I’m sure, come tomorrow, you’ll have the job.”
Brendan smiled at her and then kept walking, so Maggie’s hand fell from his arm.
“We’ll see,” he replied. “And if it all comes to pass, perhaps tomorrow we can celebrate all of our good fortune.”
“Can we?” Danny asked eagerly. “Can we go out to eat somewhere? Lots of the fellows at work go to Daley’s. They say their oysters are fizzing.”
“Fizzing?” Maggie repeated with a laugh. Her brother was certainly learning some new American slang.
“Of course,” Brendan replied, clapping a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “If I get the job tomorrow, it’s oysters for everyone at Daley’s, and champagne besides!”