Chapter 13 #2
He stared at her for a long moment as the weight of the years lay heavily between them.
In that moment, Maggie remembered so much and all of it made her ache—the first time she’d met him, sweeping the steps of his grocery back in New York.
The sleigh ride through Central Park, when he’d held her hand and she’d felt herself come alive, but even then she’d fought it.
When he’d told her he loved her, and she’d insisted he wanted a wife, not a woman with plans and ambition, such as she was.
When, in Chicago, he’d told her she was only his friend, and that it had felt like a relief.
Every time they’d come together, they’d butt heads, broken hearts.
It seemed as if it couldn’t be any other way between them.
“Brendan…” she whispered, and finally he nodded slowly.
“Yes, you’re right,” he agreed quietly. “It is better this way, Maggie.”
Maggie clutched her handbag to her, the twenty-one dollars still crumpled in her fist. “I’m sorry,” she said again, because she was, deeply, achingly sorry, but she knew even that emotion wasn’t enough, and she suspected Brendan knew it too.
He didn’t reply, and after another endless moment, she turned away, hurrying off, without letting herself look back.
At the parlor house, Maggie gave Miss Jessie her rent money for the three weeks, placing each crumpled bill on the desk with decision. Miss Jessie watched, her eyes narrowed, her lips pressed together.
“I’ll be leaving in three weeks,” Maggie told her. “I’ve applied to the nurses’ training school at the Children’s Hospital, and it comes with room and board.”
“Have you now?” Miss Jessie replied tonelessly. She didn’t take the bills Maggie had laid on her desk.
“I want to thank you, for your kindness,” Maggie continued, meeting the other woman’s gaze with a level one of her own.
“I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, and I’m too outspoken for my own good—I’ve been so before, certainly, and it has gotten me into trouble more than once.
” She managed a smile that she was heartened to see Miss Jessie return, if only faintly.
“But I like you, Jessamine,” she told her honestly, “and I think you do these girls a lot of good, all things considered. It isn’t an easy life, heaven knows, but you make it a little easier for them.
I just wish…” She sighed as she shook her head, remembering that morning, as she’d come into Jenny’s bedroom, saw how pale the girl looked, after her evening’s entertaining.
“Don’t scold me,” Jenny had told her wearily, her eyes still closed. “I know you disapprove, but Mr. Grayson was askin’ for me special, and I couldn’t say no. Not to him. He’s the best chance I got.”
“Mr. Grayson?” Maggie had asked, sitting on the edge of Jenny’s bed. “Is he… your particular friend?”
Jenny had opened her eyes as she’d given Maggie an impish grin. “He is, and he was ever so kind last night, Miss Maggie. He didn’t ask me to do anythin’, you know, down below.”
Maggie had swallowed hard, not wanting to tarnish the young girl’s perception of the man. “I see,” she’d said instead. “Jenny… I wanted to tell you, after visiting Dr. Brown at her hospital, she wished me to ask you if you’d like a position at her home?”
Jenny had wrinkled her nose, seeming nonplussed by the news. “A position?” she’d repeated. “What kind of position?”
“As a maid,” Maggie had told her, injecting an enthusiasm in her voice she hoped Jenny might feel, as well. “In a very nice house. You’d have room and board and be paid six dollars a week, and Dr. Brown is so very kind?—”
“A maid!” Jenny had not sounded at all impressed by such an offer. “And only six dollars a week? Miss Maggie, I make as much as that here, on a good night!”
“Yes, but Jenny…” Maggie had stared at her in confused appeal. “Wouldn’t you… wouldn’t you rather be a maid?”
“No thanks,” Jenny replied with decision.
“I’d been workin’ as a maid for my pa since I was six.
I came to the city to get away from that life.
I ain’t goin’ back to it, and not for six dollars a week!
” She’d laughed then, before rolling over and going back to sleep, while Maggie had stared at her in dismay.
She had not, she’d realized, anticipated such a response.
“I suppose,” Maggie told Miss Jessie now, “that I wish things could be different for girls like Jenny, and for women everywhere, but I know they’re not, and we have to live in this world, not the one we dream of.
” Jenny had made her choice, and she would make hers.
She smiled again, firmly this time. “I hope we can part on good terms, when the time comes.”
With her head bent, Miss Jessie stared down at the crumpled bills without speaking, and Maggie had no idea how she had received her peace offering.
She’d meant what she’d said; she did like Jessamine Conant, even if she didn’t always like what she did or how she did it.
Miss Jessie had been kind to her when she’d desperately needed kindness, and for that she would always be grateful.
Finally, Miss Jessie looked up, her eyes bright with, Maggie realized with a ripple of shock, what looked like unshed tears. She’d never seen the madam so moved before.
“Thank you for your words,” Miss Jessie stated formally. She cleared her throat before continuing, “Indeed, I hope we part on good terms, Maggie.” She nodded once, a dismissal, and with an answering smile and nod, Maggie left, the wrinkled bills still lying untouched on the desk.
As she stepped out of the room, she felt as if her heart had lightened, like a balloon in her chest, floating up toward the sky.
She’d done all she could here, and she hoped she would part on good terms not just with Miss Jessie, but with everyone, Brendan included.
This time, she’d leave without regret or recrimination, guilt or sorrow.
She’d step into her future like she finally belonged there.
Just three more weeks, she thought with a flutter of excitement, and her new life, her real life, a life of purpose and meaning and hope, could finally begin.
She hurried upstairs to begin her morning’s work, and it wasn’t until that evening, when she went back to her bedroom, that she saw the cameo and ring on her pillow, and realized Brendan must have bought them back for her.
Maggie held them in her hand, her eyes stinging, wishing that maybe they hadn’t missed each other after all, and yet knowing, as she was about to leave, that they had.