Chapter 20
Maggie walked out of Mr. Selfridge’s office as if in a dream. Or, really, a nightmare.
For while she had feared she would be dismissed for designing Mrs. Stein’s hat, she had still hoped—and, in truth, believed—that it would not truly come to pass.
Mr. Selfridge could be so charming and kind, and yet when it came to protecting the store and its reputation, he had been as hard as iron.
She saw the speculative looks and heard the whispers that ran through Field’s various departments as she made her way downstairs and out the door.
She considered saying goodbye to Mrs. Wentworth, who was the only one there she’d counted as a friend, thanks to the store’s strict policy on maintaining a distance between employees, but she was afraid to see Mrs. Attlebury again, and didn’t think she could bear the older woman’s gloating if she did.
To be dismissed by Mr. Selfridge, the man who had hired her in the first place, was to be brought low indeed.
As Maggie made her way down the grand staircase, her mind whirled.
What on earth was she going to do now? A woman might have come in the store asking for her, but Maggie had no idea who she was, or how to find her.
And with no reference, getting another job would be difficult indeed.
And, meanwhile, the weekly rent was due—something Brendan would cover if she asked him to, but Maggie couldn’t bear for it to come to that.
No, she had to stand on her own two feet, she decided as she murmured her thanks to the doorman and walked out of Field’s for what felt like forever. The next time she entered the store, she thought, it would be as a customer in her own right, a woman of means and style.
Or so she could dream.
With a sigh, her shoulders slumping, Maggie started walking down State Street. It was a crisp, sunny fall day, the kind of day that put a spring in one’s step and joy in one’s heart, but Maggie could find neither.
What was she going to do?
For lack of any other ideas, she took the streetcar south to Prairie Avenue, once again walking down Millionaire’s Row without a destination in mind.
She could knock on the Steins’ servants’ door again, she thought morosely, but she was reluctant to beg another favor when her patroness had not sought her out personally.
And, in any case, she doubted whether she would get past the housekeeper, or even the housemaid, to see Mrs. Stein in person.
Maggie’s steps slowed as she stood on the tree-lined sidewalk, mansion after elegant mansion gracing the wide boulevard. So much opportunity, so much possibility in these beautiful homes, and yet she felt, as ever, as if she were on the outside, nose pressed to the glass, utterly unable to enter.
Mrs. Wyatt.
The name came to her unbidden, tossed carelessly by Mr. Selfridge in a moment’s pique, like a taunt.
Mrs. Wyatt was the name of the woman who had asked about her, and so all Maggie needed to do was find her and offer her her services.
It was an uncommonly bold thing to do, Maggie knew, but she had no other possibilities, and so she simply had to take the risk. But how could she find Mrs. Wyatt?
Maggie glanced up and down the street, empty this early in the morning.
Most of the men had gone to work, and the women were still likely to be in bed, or maybe at breakfast, ladies intent on a day of leisure.
Then she saw a young woman hurrying down the sidewalk, dressed in a maid’s uniform and carrying a wrapped parcel. Maggie started toward her.
“Excuse me… excuse me!” she called.
The maid, a slip of a thing with bright red hair who looked no more than fifteen or sixteen, glanced up suspiciously, her parcel clutched to her chest.
“Do you work in one of these fine houses?” Maggie asked, adopting a kindly tone.
The girl nodded, still suspicious. “I was just buying some boot polish we’d run out of,” she said, and Maggie nodded in understanding.
“I have an appointment with Mrs. Wyatt,” she told her in a confiding manner.
“I know she lives on Prairie Avenue, but I can’t remember which number.
” In truth, she had no idea if Mrs. Wyatt, whoever she was, lived on Prairie Avenue or anywhere else.
But considering many of Chicago’s wealthiest residents had homes on this street, she thought it a risk worth taking.
“You don’t happen to know which number…?
” she asked, screwing up her face as if she was trying to remember.
“The Wyatts?” The girl wrinkled her nose. “They’re at number seventeen, I think.” She frowned, her eyes narrowed. “But how come you don’t know that?”
“Ah, number seventeen,” Maggie said quickly. “Of course, now I remember. Thank you so much for your help.” And with a quick, kindly smile, she hurried on her way before the girl could become any more suspicious.
Number seventeen was only a few houses down, a gracious brick mansion of three floors, topped with a fanciful cupola.
Maggie stood in front of it, steeling herself for another uncomfortable interview.
She’d tried to brazen her way into Mrs. Stein’s house back in New York, and despite the housekeeper’s humiliating rejection, she’d come out of the episode with a job.
She could do so again, she vowed. All she needed was a little gumption, and after everything she’d experienced and endured since coming to New York, surely she had that.
Resolutely, Maggie marched up the walk. She started around to the servants’ entrance in the back and then suddenly checked herself and defiantly went to the front door instead.
She’d have more than a little gumption, she decided with a flare of reckless daring.
She was tired of begging for favors, of hoping for scraps.
From now on, it was the front door only.
“May I help you?” The housemaid who answered the door was young and plain, dressed in black with a frilled white apron and a mobcap over her dark hair. She looked Maggie up and down with obvious dubiousness.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Wyatt,” she proclaimed in her most aristocratic tones.
“Margaret O’Halloran, milliner.” She lifted her chin as she stared the maid down.
“Mrs. Wyatt had asked for me to call on her in person, after she went to Field & Company to find me.” She pursed her lips as she tilted her chin a fraction higher.
“Oh, I don’t know—” the maid began uncertainly.
“I didn’t ask you if you knew,” Maggie replied in a clipped voice, determined to stay her course. “Please let Mrs. Wyatt know I have arrived.” And then, trying not to tremble, she angled herself away from the maid slightly, as if she had finished with the tedious conversation.
After a brief hesitation, the maid opened the door a little wider for Maggie to come in. “Wait here, please,” she said as Maggie stepped into the soaring foyer, her heels clicking on the black and white checked marble.
She went in search of her mistress while Maggie released a pent-up, shaky breath. She’d made it this far, she told herself, she could brazen out the rest, even if her knees were wobbling and her insides felt like a plate of jelly.
A few endless minutes later, the maid reappeared. “Mrs. Wyatt will see you,” she told Maggie. “She’s upstairs in her dressing room.”
“Thank you,” Maggie whispered, in her relief forgetting to sound imperious.
On still-shaky legs, she followed the maid upstairs, down a carpeted hallway, the walls lined with works of art in heavy, gilt frames, and then to the lady of the house’s elegant boudoir, the walls patterned in silk and a dressing table and velvet chaise its main furnishings.
Mrs. Wyatt was seated at the dressing table, still in her robe, her heavy auburn hair piled up in a loose bouffant. She was a handsome woman who looked to be in her early forties, with an aristocratic bearing and a frank expression on her face.
“Well, the mysterious Miss O’Halloran at last,” she stated, raising her eyebrows. “Mr. Selfridge wouldn’t tell me a thing about you. I’m glad to meet you at last.” She held out one slender white hand, which Maggie took uncertainly.
“Thank you, madam,” she said as she let go of the other woman’s fingertips. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“You’re very young,” Mrs. Wyatt remarked as she turned back to her reflection and began to liberally powder her face. “The way Mrs. Stein went on, I was expecting someone with a touch more experience.”
“Experience comes in all forms,” Maggie replied after a moment. “Am I correct in believing you wish to commission one of my designs?”
Mrs. Wyatt met her gaze in the mirror, her face full of humor that made Maggie think her eloquent airs were fooling no one, maybe not even the maid.
“I might,” she told her as she continued to use the powder puff, sending a cloud of perfumed talc into the air that tickled Maggie’s nose.
She struggled not to sneeze, which she feared would seem very inelegant indeed.
“The dedication of the Columbian Exposition is next month,” Mrs. Wyatt told her.
“I would like a new hat for the occasion—something modern and different that no one else has ever seen. Something fun.” She raised her eyebrows as she studied her reflection, a playful smile tugging at her mouth.
“Do you think you can manage something like that?”
“Of course,” Maggie said swiftly, without even considering the matter. “Do you have a gown in mind?”
“Not yet,” Mrs. Wyatt replied carelessly. “I’m discussing it with my dressmaker. I suppose you’ll have to coordinate with her—she’s at Strickland, on Oakwood. I’ll send a note, telling her to expect you.”