Chapter 12 #2
Maggie felt as if she were floating in a daze all the way back to the parlor house on Montgomery Street.
The heat still hadn’t broken, but she barely noticed it, or the hilly, three-mile trek from California Street to the flatter Barbary Coast neighborhood near the waterfront, with its saloons and dance halls, its tumbledown tenements and shabby warehouses.
Three weeks, and then she would be free from her money woes, as well as from Miss Jessie’s barely veiled animosity, and the unspoken tension between her and Brendan.
More importantly, she’d finally be able to shed the sense of drifting that had fogged her days and dogged her steps these last few months, ever since they’d arrived in San Francisco and Maggie had felt as if her future was some impossible, unknown thing.
She would miss Brendan, Maggie acknowledged with a pang, even if things between them still seemed uneasy, as well as Danny and her da, but she could still visit them on occasion, even though she would be kept busy on the wards. Dr. Brown had made that clear enough.
What she looked forward to most of all, though, was having a purpose.
A purpose that was greater than she was, that wasn’t just mere personal ambition or vainglory.
It was that thought that put a spring in her step as she let herself into the parlor house, slipping quickly by the front room, where several male guests were already lounging around, the smell of cigar smoke and perfume heavy on the air.
Upstairs, Maggie went to check on Jenny and tell of Dr. Brown’s offer, tapping once on the door before poking her head in.
“Jenny, I just wanted to—” She stopped abruptly as she took in the sight of the empty bed, her stomach dropping as she realized what it must mean.
“She’s downstairs, entertainin’,” Emma Mae said from the doorway of her bedroom. She was in her lacy wrapper, her hair still done up in strips to make rag curls. “Said she was feelin’ up for it.”
“After just three days?” Maggie felt sick. “She can’t possibly?—”
“She wants the money, I guess,” Emma Mae replied with a shrug. “And so does Miss Jessie.”
Miss Jessie.
A white-hot fury blazed through Maggie at the thought of her. Had Jessamine forced Jenny to work, made veiled—or not so veiled—threats about turning her out if she didn’t?
Before she could think better of it, Maggie whirled around and headed downstairs.
Miss Jessie was still in her office; she generally chose not to make an appearance in the front room until the evening.
Maggie knocked on the door once and then opened it without waiting for an answer.
She saw Miss Jessie’s eyes narrow as she came barging into the room.
“Why is Jenny working?” she demanded. “She’s ill, and she may even still be bleeding,” she fumed without waiting for a reply. “Dr. Brown insisted she have two weeks of bed rest only yesterday, and yet here she is, entertaining, and all because you’ve threatened to turn her out!”
Miss Jessie eyed her coolly. “Would you care to close the door?”
Maggie shut the door with a firm click that wasn’t quite a slam before whirling back to face the other woman. “Well?” she demanded.
“Well,” Miss Jessie repeated in a cold drawl, “you might take care to learn all the facts of a situation before you come storming in here like you own the place.” She gave Maggie a long, level look before continuing, “I didn’t threaten Jenny with anything.
In fact, I told her to stay in bed, but she was the one who insisted, and she would not be dissuaded. ”
Shock rooted Maggie where she stood, and it was a moment before she found her voice. “She must have been afraid that you would?—”
“Oh, must she?” Miss Jessie retorted, an edge to her voice.
“And that is my fault, too, I suppose?” She tilted her chin up, so she was looking down her nose at Maggie.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” she demanded, “sitting up there on your very high horse, that Jenny might like what she does, or at least what she gets out of it? And I don’t even mean the fun and the fripperies—the dresses, the chocolates, and so forth.
I mean the attention. The affection. There’s one gentleman who comes nearly every night and always asks for her in particular. ”
“Was he the—” Maggie began in a whisper.
“The father?” Miss Jessie cut across her scornfully.
“He might have been, and who knows, he might even marry her one day. She wouldn’t be the first whore who made good.
” Her lips twisted in an ugly smile. “Not that you would understand that—or understand that lying flat on their backs is the best way for some of these girls to get ahead in life, and it beats working your fingers to the bone over a washtub or sewing machine with no prospect ever of anything better.”
Maggie thought of Dr. Brown mentioning a girl getting her hand mangled in a sewing machine, and reluctantly she supposed Miss Jessie had a point.
The madam drew herself up, her hazel eyes flashing.
“At least here they can wear pretty dresses and drink champagne and, who knows, maybe a man will be enchanted enough to offer them the respectability you clearly value above all else. They have it far, far better here than in many, or even most, places. And they have a better chance of bettering themselves than if they were working in the peach cannery, where girls can lose a finger along with their livelihoods, and they’re turned out with nothing more than dirty rag to wrap their bloody hand in!
” Miss Jessie broke off, her chest heaving, her eyes bright with frustration and fury.
“I…” Maggie had no idea what to say. She felt ashamed but also angry, because no matter what Miss Jessie said now, she’d seen the fear in Jenny’s eyes for herself, and she knew how weary-hearted all those girls were with the life they’d been forced to choose.
Working in a cannery or laundry was hard, but Maggie still believed it wasn’t as soul-destroying as selling your body to the highest bidder.
And so, she decided, it wasn’t nearly as simple as Miss Jessie made it sound…
but perhaps it wasn’t as simple as she’d made it sound, either.
“I’m…” She took a quick breath. “I’m sorry?—”
“Sorry?” Miss Jessie repeated with a scornful laugh. “I’ll say you’re sorry, or at least you will be. I did you a kindness, you and your brother, by letting you stay here. I liked you, too, well enough, but ever since Jenny got into trouble, you’ve been looking down your nose at all of us.”
“I haven’t,” Maggie protested. She hadn’t looked down on anyone, even if she’d been dismayed by Miss Jessie’s coldhearted attitude toward her girls. “I only want to help?—”
“Well, you can help somewhere else,” Miss Jessie snapped. “Unless you can start paying rent, I want you gone. Tomorrow.”