Chapter 16
As July sweltered on, the heat didn’t break, the days hazy and hot, and the nights even worse and very nearly unbearable.
By the time Maggie arrived to work in the morning, she was already sweaty and uncomfortable, her dress sticking to her back and shoulder blades, and at night there was little comfort in the hot, airless room she and Brendan still shared.
Worse than any of that, however, was the deeply disappointing lack of response from Mrs. Stein.
She had not sent so much as a note to let Maggie know how her hat had fared at the tea party, and neither did she communicate about any other hats she might wish to have designed.
As the weeks passed, Maggie feared her kindly benefactress had forgotten her completely, and her fledgling hopes that she’d believed had just been about to take flight—of success and independence, and a new life apart from her complicated feelings for Brendan—seemed as if they were crashing to the ground.
It didn’t help matters that Danny didn’t even want to move, and Brendan was so clearly ready to move into his own set of rooms above Dr. Holmes’ drugstore and, gentleman that he was, was simply waiting for Maggie to have sufficient funds to similarly relocate herself so they could begin their lives apart.
After that unbearably uncomfortable episode at the beach, Maggie had taken pains to keep herself as separate from Brendan as possible.
They exchanged only pleasantries at supper and she spent the evenings in the parlor with Sarah and Teddy and sometimes the dour Horace, sketching designs as she listened to their idle conversation; Teddy always eager to hear the carefully chosen wry word from Sarah, Horace watching on, silent and glum.
Brendan joined them on occasion, but eventually he excused himself and sat outside with Danny, where it was cooler, their low voices a distant hum and rumble on the still night air.
Maggie always made sure to head upstairs to bed well before Brendan, and she would huddle beneath the sheets, pretending to be asleep as he came into their room as quietly as he could.
With her eyes clenched shut and her back to him, she was achingly aware of the sound of him undressing—the snick of his suspenders, the whisper of each button slipping from its hole.
When he finally lay down, she listened to the steady sound of his breathing and tried to feel relieved that those awkward moments of undressing were over.
In the mornings, they moved around each other as carefully as if they were a pair of fragile antiques, taking turns to wash and dress separately, hardly speaking, faces angled away.
It was a lonely and awkward existence, but Maggie told herself it was better than the alternative… even if she didn’t always believe it.
Inevitably, their avoidance of each other was noticed by their fellow boarders, as well as their landlady.
Maggie endured Harriet O’Malley’s thinly veiled remarks about “wifely duties” with gritted teeth and a polite smile, but when Sarah took her aside one evening, when Teddy had gone in search of some sheet music and they were alone in the parlor, she was dangerously tempted to admit the truth.
“Of course, it’s not for me, spinster as I am, to say,” Sarah told her in her gentle, whimsical way, her blue eyes crinkled in friendly concern behind her spectacles.
“But I can’t help but notice that, as of late, you and Mr. O’Donoghue have seemed to go to great lengths to avoid each other’s company.
I do hope nothing is amiss? Married life, especially at the start, can be such a challenge.
I remember my dear sister saying as much.
It is no small thing, to share your life with another person. ”
Maggie felt a flush come to her cheeks as she tried to think of a way to respond honestly without admitting the truth.
“Thank you kindly for your concern,” she finally replied, unable in her own discomfort to keep from sounding a little stiff.
“It’s true it’s been… an adjustment. But the real strain is that we haven’t been able to find my father. ”
In truth, Maggie had barely spared a thought for her father since Dr. Holmes had told them that Declan O’Halloran had done odd jobs for him.
It seemed all too obvious to her that their father did not want to be found, even if Danny still held out hopes that he’d appear one day, full of plans and as merry as ever.
Despite her own disregard, her father’s absence felt like the most believable excuse she could offer to Sarah, who accepted it just as Maggie had hoped she would.
“Oh my dear, of course! How insensitive of me, not to consider how that sorrow must be trying you,” she said with a frown. “Has there been no further word?”
“No, none.” Maggie shook her head, suppressing the pang of guilt she felt at deceiving a woman she wanted to consider her friend. “Sometimes I fear some trouble might have befallen him.”
Sarah reached out and squeezed her hand. “I’m sure that’s not the case,” she insisted gently. “It is most likely only that he is so busy with work. These men have to work all hours. He’ll be in touch soon, I am sure of it.”
Maggie forced a small, conciliatory smile to her lips.
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” she murmured, grateful that Sarah had accepted her excuse.
She would have to be less obvious about her avoidance of Brendan, she resolved…
and she simply had to find a way to leave these lodgings as soon as possible, so they could end this miserable and painful charade.
Yet, as each week passed, hazy and humid, with no word from Mrs. Stein, Maggie began to feel desperate.
There seemed no way out of her situation, and meanwhile Brendan, while still good-humored, seemed to be getting impatient with the nature of their circumstances.
Maggie could hardly blame him for wanting an end to their difficulties, just as she did, and have a room—and a bed—of his own.
Out of that desperation, she made inquiries at several boarding houses on the city’s South Side, far enough away from Brendan and Dr. Holmes’ drugstore but in a reasonably modest neighborhood.
She soon discovered, as she’d feared she would, that the rent for two small rooms for her and Danny was still beyond their means.
Even the humblest rooms in Pullman, a working-class neighborhood filled with Irish and German immigrants, was eighteen dollars, which was more than their weekly wages combined.
With a week upfront besides, it simply wasn’t possible, at least not without another commission.
Twice after work, Maggie took the streetcar to Prairie Avenue, positively wilting in the heat, and walked fruitlessly up and down the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Stein.
Wistfully, she imagined her benefactress running out into the street, exclaiming how much she’d missed her, and how in demand her services were.
Or perhaps, she dreamed, they’d stumble upon one another, exchange pleasantries, before Mrs. Stein would laugh and say how she’d so meant to be in touch, but time had simply gotten away from her, and she was so glad she’d seen Maggie…
It was all a blatant fantasy, and none of it ever remotely came to pass.
Maggie didn’t so much as glimpse the hem of Mrs. Stein’s skirt or the shiny black doors of her carriage, never mind the woman herself, and she wasn’t bold enough to knock on the door and request an interview, fearing she’d be sent away with a flea in her ear, no access to Mrs. Stein, and no further opportunity to advance herself.
By the end of July, however, the weather as hot and humid as ever, and Brendan having asked her yet again in his kindly way if she thought she’d be able to move soon, Maggie decided even more desperate measures were needed.
Resolutely, she knocked on the servants’ entrance one Wednesday evening after work, the air as thick as soup and the sky the color of a bruise, and asked the sullen housemaid McCullough if Mrs. Stein was available to discuss her millinery needs, tilting her chin to combat the quaver in her voice.
The housemaid, however, was completely dismissive of both her and her request.
“You again,” she exclaimed, looking displeased by Maggie’s appearance on her doorstep.
She supposed any servant resented another’s interference in gaining influence with their mistress.
“Mrs. Stein won’t have any millinery needs, as you say,” the maid told her with a slight sneer, “since she ain’t even in the city. ”
“She… isn’t?” Maggie stared at the young woman in dismay. This possibility had not occurred to her. “Has she gone back to New York?” If so, then her hopes were well and truly spent.
“New York?” the maid scoffed, shaking her head in derision. “No, she’s spending the rest of the summer in Wisconsin, on Lake Geneva. It’s where all the rich people go when it gets too hot here. Didn’t you know that?”
No, she obviously didn’t, Maggie thought resentfully, but she forced a small, polite smile to her lips. “Oh, I see,” she said as her heart plummeted. “Thank you.”
If Mrs. Stein was summering somewhere else, Maggie knew, she would not be likely to return to Chicago—or have any millinery needs—until September, at the earliest, and that was the very best Maggie could hope for.
The likelier outcome, she feared, was that by September Mrs. Stein would have forgotten her completely, and Maggie would have no recourse at all to advancing her career.
Beyond that, it meant another month or more of sharing a room with Brendan, pretending to be husband and wife when she felt as if they were anything but, and Brendan clearly itching to get away. The prospect was utterly dispiriting, yet what could she do?
With another murmured thanks, Maggie turned from the door to trudge back down the drive, intending to catch the streetcar back to Englewood.
Already, she could picture her evening—sitting in the airless parlor with Sarah Whitman, making tedious, tepid conversation, before retiring to the even more airless bedroom and spending an uncomfortable night under the covers, doing her best to ignore Brendan on the floor beside the bed, and melting in the heat.
It also meant another month of working at Field’s, attending to customers’ whims while Mrs. Attlebury glared on, always at the ready to disapprove or rebuke.
Ever since Maggie had suggested a different hat to Mrs. Pendlehurst and then had the temerity to take tea with a customer, her supervisor had taken an even greater disliking to her, showing it in a dozen different ways, from a finger run accusingly along the countertop, looking for imaginary dust, to a stern rebuke if Maggie wasn’t quick or quiet or polite enough, on absolutely any occasion.
Maggie hadn’t minded so much when she’d envisioned herself moving on imminently, becoming a milliner in her own right as she’d dreamed, but now she knew she needed her job at Field’s more than ever, and the wages that went with it.
She could not let Mrs. Attlebury turn even more against her, or give her any reason to dismiss her out of hand.
With a sigh, her dress sticking to her shoulder blades and the air still heavy with heat even though it was past six o’clock, Maggie headed for home. She’d just reached the corner of Prairie Avenue and Sixteenth Street when she heard a jarringly familiar voice from behind her.
“Why, Miss O’Halloran! It is Miss O’Halloran, is it not?”
Slowly, Maggie turned around, her mouth gaping open before she thought to shut it. Strolling toward her with a smile of amazement on his face was none other than Theo Stein.