Chapter 23
“Mr. O’Malley…”
In the three months since she’d been living at the O’Malley boarding house, Maggie had given little thought to the absent Mr. O’Malley.
He had always been a vague figure, out on Lake Michigan, working on one of the lakers taking lumber and grain across the vast waters.
She’d known he would have to return home at some point, of course, but had not considered when.
“Come meet him,” her landlady urged, pulling on her sleeve like a child. Despite her forty-odd years, she looked animated and girlish in a way Maggie had never seen before.
With mingled reluctance and curiosity—she still wished she could have escaped upstairs—Maggie let herself be led into the front room, where a tall, swarthy man in canvas trousers and a fisherman’s knit sweater was standing by the fireplace, sipping from a mug of coffee.
“This is Mrs. Brendan O’Donaghue,” Harriet told her husband importantly. “Newly married and arrived from New York with her husband.”
“Is that so?” Underneath shaggy eyebrows and a full head of graying hair, Patrick O’Malley, who had fully retained his Irish brogue, eyed her speculatively, a shrewdness to his dark eyes that made Maggie instantly easy. “And how are you finding married life, Mrs. O’Donaghue?”
Was there a clever, knowing note to his tone?
Maggie couldn’t tell, but she felt herself prickle all the same.
“Very well, thank you,” she replied quickly, perhaps too quickly.
The last thing she needed was someone else observing her sham marriage from close quarters.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. O’Malley. Welcome home.”
She half-hoped she might be able to excuse herself, but it was clear from Harriet O’Malley’s manner that she was expected to stay and partake in the festivities.
Patrick O’Malley had come bearing gifts from his journey—a delicate lace shawl for his wife, a bottle of French brandy for the men to enjoy, and a large box of Maillard chocolate creams for the ladies.
“I would have thought from all this you’d traveled to Europe, not Buffalo!” Sarah Whitman exclaimed as she popped a chocolate into her mouth, her blue eyes dancing.
“Well, they do call Buffalo the Paris of America,” Mr. O’Malley replied in his thick brogue. “And rightly so! You can get just about anything there. You know they’re going to build a power plant on the falls there? It should provide electricity for half the country!”
“Goodness,” Maggie remarked, just as Sarah’s bright gaze turned toward her.
“Maggie! How was your party? Have you taken Chicago by storm with your hats?” It was an echo of what Theo had said, and it made Maggie wince inwardly.
“Not yet,” she replied with what she hoped was a light laugh. “It was only a brief discussion, after all.”
“But you’ve gained the commissions?” Sarah pressed.
“Yes,” Maggie admitted, for it was the truth, even if it didn’t feel as if it was. “I’m to design six hats for the Exposition dedication at the end of October.”
“The Exposition!” Patrick interjected, to Maggie’s relief.
She did not want to elaborate on those commissions, or why she’d been given them, and it seemed like Harriet’s husband enjoyed vaunting his opinions.
“It’s all I seem to hear about these days.
And the lake is chock-a-block with schooners and barges because of it.
Can barely get across sometimes!” He rocked back on his heels.
“I suppose I ought to take a gander at what’s been going up at Jackson Park. ”
“Oh, we should,” Harriet enthused. “Daniel, Maggie’s brother, works on the building sites and tells us all sorts of stories. The work sounds terribly dangerous, but the buildings are going to be marvelous, even if they won’t be ready for the dedication.”
“At least they have six more months before opening,” Sarah remarked. “It should be ready by then!”
The conversation continued, and sensing she wouldn’t be able to make her excuses, Maggie took a seat on the settee, letting the chatter swirl around her.
It was going to be challenging to make six whole hats in just a few weeks, she reflected, and first, of course, she had to come up with different and innovative designs.
The excitement she’d once felt about such a prospect had fizzled out, leaving only exhaustion.
Why bother, when she had so little experience?
She’d made all of three hats in her entire lifetime!
Her friend Tovah would be better suited for such work, Maggie reflected, not her, with her galling lack of experience.
She straightened suddenly, the idea coming to her in a flash.
She would write Tovah and ask for her advice.
If she sent it fast mail—an additional expense—it could get to New York in two days or less.
If Tovah wrote back quickly, she’d still have time to make the hats.
The thought of hearing from her friend made Maggie ache inside.
She longed for a kind word, the companionship she’d begun to take for granted before she’d left New York so precipitously.
Losing Brendan’s friendship as well—because that was what it felt like—had left her even lonelier.
And sitting here now, with everyone jabbering so excitedly while Maggie slumped against the sofa, made her feel as if she were existing in a bubble of isolation.
A half-hour passed of desultory conversation, mainly about the Exposition, with Patrick O’Malley airing all his opinions in an important manner and Maggie making the odd, halfhearted comment. Her landlord finally noticed her reticence, and he turned to her, his expression shrewd.
“And where is your husband now, Mrs. O’Donaghue?” he asked. “I gather you were at a party without him?”
“I told you, Patrick, he works at Dr. Holmes’ drugstore,” Harriet intervened. “He’ll be back in time for supper. We shall have to have a celebration!”
“Oh, Dr. Holmes,” Mr. O’Malley answered in something of a sneer. “A man more full of himself I have yet to meet.”
Maggie was inclined to agree, but she kept silent, knowing her landlady had a certain affection for the charismatic druggist, and she had no real wish to be in agreement with Mr. O’Malley, who seemed a man who found his own opinions quite important.
“Oh, but he is charming,” Harriet protested with a laugh. “And he certainly gets the young ladies into his store!”
“I’ve heard talk that he’s got creditors after him,” Mr. O’Malley returned, dropping his voice to a confiding rumble. “The man knows how to spend, but not how to pay.”
“What?” Maggie straightened where she sat, shocked by the observation she’d never heard before. She’d had her unease about Dr. Holmes, it was true, but she had not thought the man was an out-and-out rogue.
“Oh, that’s just gossip,” Harriet exclaimed, tutting. “If Dr. Holmes was in debt, he wouldn’t be able to keep up that palace of his! People are just jealous of his success, especially when he’s so young. And he really is so charming—”
“Charm is as charm does,” Mr. O’Malley replied, while Harriet blushed, seeming scolded.
As the conversation moved on from Dr. Holmes and his finances, Maggie wondered what Brendan would think if he had heard Mr. O’Malley’s talk.
He seemed to only speak in glowing terms of his employer; did he have any idea that Dr. Holmes might not be paying his bills?
What might all this mean for his job at the drugstore?
After another fairly interminable hour, Maggie finally made her excuses and went upstairs to change and write a letter to Tovah.
If she was quick, she could get it in the evening’s post. Yet as she sat down to write, dipping her pen in the bottle of ink, she found the words coming out in an unstoppable torrent.
She wrote about the fire, and the trip to Chicago, her sham marriage to Brendan and her work at Field’s. She was ashamed she hadn’t explained everything to Tovah before, beyond a brief note when she’d first left the city; after all, her friend deserved so much more.
She told her about running into Mrs. Stein, and being brazen enough to ask for a commission, getting fired and then finally the tea party she’d attended today.
She admitted her failings—her absurd pride and the bringing-low she’d had when the women had all smiled at her in such a patronizing way, laughing from behind their hands.
When she thought of how proud Tovah was of growing up in the muck and mayhem of Orchard Street, she knew her friend would understand.
The light was fading from the sky by the time Maggie had finished her letter, and she heard Brendan’s familiar tread on the stair as she capped the bottle of the ink and blew on the paper to dry it.
Writing it all down had felt like a bloodletting.
She was tired, but happier than she’d been in some time, and she was glad she’d thought to reach out to her friend.
“It sounds like a party downstairs,” Brendan remarked as he came into the room.
He was wearing the same kind of brown wool suit he’d worn back in New York, in his days as a grocer, and everything about him seemed achingly familiar, yet also strangely different.
There were new lines on his face, and a reserve in his manner, and the friendly, open expression she’d come to rely on had not been seen in some months, no matter how cordially he conducted himself.
“The great Mr. O’Malley has returned,” he added, a wry note in his voice that made Maggie smile. She suspected they shared the same opinion about Mrs. O’Malley’s husband.
“Indeed he has, and bearing gifts,” she replied with a grin.
“Mrs. O’Malley would like us downstairs before supper, to be properly introduced,” Brendan told her. “Although I gather you’ve already met him? In any case, enough about the O’Malleys. How was the tea party?”