Chapter 15
Maggie stood on the steps of Charlotte Brown’s residence in Haight Ashbury, an upper middle-class neighborhood of stately Victorian homes near Golden Gate Park.
It was elegant without being showy, unlike the magnificent mansions of Nob Hill, and located a little further out from San Francisco’s downtown, recently connected to the rest of the city by streetcar.
It had taken Maggie half an hour to walk there from the hospital, through the gathering autumnal dusk, and she took a moment to compose herself before heading up the stone steps to the house’s covered portico.
She’d taken pains with her appearance—her hair dressed more loosely than its usual regulation-tight bun, a small, felt hat decorated with a single blue feather she’d designed herself, rather than her usual starched cap gracing her head.
As for her dress… Maggie glanced down at the navy-blue silk with some trepidation.
She’d bought the fabric with two months’ worth of her stipend, spending far more than she knew she should, and worked her fingers near to the bone, her eyes gritty with exhaustion, cutting and sewing late into the night.
The result was, she hoped, a study in elegant simplicity—the blue silk had no ornamentation, save for black, cloth-covered buttons down the back, and an edging of black brocade on the sleeves.
Its high collar and sweeping skirts were certainly modest, and appropriate, Maggie hoped, to the occasion, without her seeming as if she were putting on airs… but what if she’d gotten it wrong?
It had felt strange, to cut and sew a dress again, as she’d remembered the days not long ago, when fashion had occupied her thoughts foremost, and what a woman wore had meant more to her than anything she might have thought or said.
Now, Maggie thought, the dress was simply a means to an end, a way to fit in and feel appropriate. She hoped the gown accomplished that.
“Nurse O’Halloran!” Dr. Brown greeted her after a parlormaid had admitted her to the drawing room—a comfortable room with a fire burning in the hearth and an interesting collection of art and antiques gracing its walls and display cabinets. Dr. Brown was clearly well traveled.
She wore a plain, dark dress with a lace collar and a cameo at her throat, and Maggie breathed a silent sigh of relief because her dress did indeed seem appropriate.
“Thank you again for your kind invitation, Dr. Brown,” she told her. “It’s so nice to be in a home again.” And it had been a long time since she’d been in a home as nice as this one, she thought as she took in all the comfortable furnishings and artwork.
“I remember that well,” Dr. Brown replied on a laugh. “And please, in the comfort of my home, you must call me Charlotte.”
She would remain Dr. Brown at the hospital, Maggie understood, but she appreciated the familiarity here. “Then you must call me Maggie,” she said, just as a young woman and man entered the drawing room, both looking to be in their early twenties.
“My daughter Adelaide and my son Philip,” Charlotte introduced them. “My younger daughter, Harriet, is still away at school.”
Maggie could see the family resemblance—Adelaide had the same dark eyes and brows as her mother, as well as the trim but solid stature. Philip was taller but as solidly built, his brown hair swept back from a high, aristocratic forehead.
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Maggie murmured.
“Adelaide graduated from Cooper Medical College, right here in San Francisco,” Charlotte told her, “and Philip received his degree from Harvard Medical School just this last spring.”
“So many doctors in the family,” Maggie exclaimed, and everyone laughed as if she’d said something witty.
“An aperitif,” Charlotte stated firmly, and she rang a bell to summon the maid.
“Mother says you’re training to be a nurse, Miss O’Halloran?” Adelaide asked, smiling. She had the same air of brisk capability as her mother, with a frank and friendly look in her dark eyes.
“Yes, I’ve just started, and please call me Maggie.”
“Then you must call me Adelaide.”
“And I won’t be left out!” Philip chimed in as he accepted a glass of sherry from the maid.
“You must call me Philip.” His dark gaze rested briefly on her in a way that seemed entirely friendly, without even a hint of salacious insinuation or innuendo.
With a jolt, Maggie realized that as a young man of means and looks, she’d expected him to act like Theo Stein, languidly louche and indiscreetly flirtatious.
Philip, however, acted as what she suspected he truly was—an accomplished, personable young man.
“I am so intrigued by all these antiques and artefacts,” Maggie remarked as she accepted her own crystal glass of sherry with thanks. “You must explain them to me, for I fear I am not well traveled.”
“Mother is the well-traveled one in the family,” Adelaide told her. “Her father was a Presbyterian missionary, and they traveled to Chile for some years when she was a child, as well as all over the United States.”
Philip took her elbow to guide her in front of a rather fearsome-looking wooden statue of a human figure with a strong, carved nose and deeply set, blank eyes.
“This is a chemamüll, from the Mapuche tribe, made before Columbus ever sailed the seas,” he told her.
“They used them to decorate graves, the way we use headstones. Sadly, this one was taken from its sacred site. My mother has said she hopes it still honors the resting place.”
“I am trying to be respectful, not superstitious,” Charlotte inserted with good-natured asperity as Philip smiled at Maggie.
“Of course, Mother,” he said, dropping his hand from Maggie’s elbow. “We know you don’t believe in ghosts.”
The playful yet intelligent conversation continued, much of it flying over Maggie’s head, as Charlotte’s husband, a banker who insisted she call him Henry, came into the room and then they all moved into the dining room for supper.
It quickly became clear to Maggie that the Brown family was both well traveled and educated, with far more progressive ideas than most people she encountered.
The conversation over the dinner table was full of humor, as well as robust arguing, with Adelaide and Philip often raising their voices, their elbows propped on the table and their faces flushed, as they leaned across the table to make a point.
And they had so many points to make—the most effective way for workers to unionize for better wages, how to end the economic panic that had started last spring, after a run on gold reserves, and many medical issues besides, regarding sanitation, regulations about patent medicines, whether some form of health insurance was a good idea or not, and the nature of institutional care.
When they started talking about women’s suffrage, Maggie’s head began to spin.
She’d been enjoying listening to their spirited debate, both Charlotte and Henry adding their own opinions but also encouraging their children’s.
Even Mary, who served them three delicious courses—turtle soup, saddle of mutton, and plum pudding—was asked her opinion regarding patient medicine, and whether she wished to have the ingredients labeled on the bottle.
She gave her employers a startled look, stammered that it didn’t matter to her either way, really, and fled to the kitchen.
“And that’s the problem,” Adelaide exclaimed earnestly as the green baize door swung closed behind the servant.
“The very people we are trying to serve don’t have the means to form an opinion.
” She turned a sudden, gleaming eye on Maggie, as she was finishing off the last of her pudding.
“Maggie, what do you think?” she demanded.
“What… what do I think?” Maggie repeated uncertainly, conscious of everyone’s gaze suddenly swiveling toward her.
“Adelaide, you’re being awful,” Philip scolded his sister as he leaned back in his chair with an indulgent smile. “Comparing our guest to our servant.”
“I wasn’t—” Adelaide began to protest indignantly.
“That would be a fair comparison to make,” Maggie heard herself say, and everyone at the table fell quite abruptly silent.
She surveyed them all, eyeing her speculatively but, she hoped, without judgement, and, perhaps thanks to the wine served generously through all three courses, was emboldened to continue, “I’m more like Mary than any of you.
I worked as a second girl—not even at table—back in New York.
And I’ve lived in a tenement where fresh water is a passing fancy, and I sewed piecework for twelve hours a day or more, just to keep a roof over my head.
When my mother was ill back in Ireland, we couldn’t even afford to call a doctor.
” She felt her face flush and wondered if she was terribly reckless for admitting to such things, but Adelaide only looked fascinated, and when she risked a glance at Dr. Brown—Charlotte—she saw, to her gratification, that she was smiling faintly, seeming approving…
or at least Maggie hoped. “You shouldn’t have put Mary on the spot like that,” she stated, and now she knew she was being reckless.
“She’s your servant, as you said, Philip, and she wouldn’t dare offer an opinion in case she was fired. ”
“She wouldn’t be fired—” Adelaide protested, and Maggie was bold enough to cut her off.
“But she doesn’t know that, does she?” she interjected.
“Everything turns on the whims of an employer, and as a servant you have no idea—no idea at all—what those are.” She heard the heat behind the words, and she couldn’t be sorry for it.
“Back in New York, my employer fired me for giving an opinion when a guest had asked for it. How was I to know it wasn’t really wanted? ”