Page 33 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

“Very well, Maggie, and you? Nursing suits you?”

“It does.” Much to her relief, Maggie had graduated from probation and would now, all things being well, get her certificate in a year and a half. Three nurses had been asked to leave the program, including poor Gladys, who had gone with mingled despair and relief. The studying had simply been too hard for her.

“Miss Maggie!”

Jenny appeared at the top of the stairs, her hair in sausage-like ringlets, her face painted, but still wearing her robe. “You must come help me put my dress on!”

“Of course,” Maggie replied, smiling, and started up the stairs.

Jenny’s bedroom looked like a whirlwind had gone through it, with petticoats and peignoirs, gowns and slippers, all thrown around. Draped over the bed was Jenny’s wedding dress—made of pale blue satin, with deeper blue flounces on a full three feet of hem.

“Miss Jessie had it made special,” Jenny told her proudly. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It is,” Maggie assured her. While far less garish than some of the gowns the girls wore, it was still far fussier than anything Maggie—or even Miss Jessie—would have worn.

“I asked for the flounces,” Jenny confided as she slipped off her robe. “Miss Jessie said plainer was best, but who wants to get married in something that makes ’em look like a maid?”

“You would never look like a maid in this, Jenny,” Maggie told her. “You’ll look like a lady.”

“And I’llbea lady,” Jenny told her, her eyes like stars. “Mr. Grayson, he owns a whole lumber mill up near Sacramento. We’re going to honeymoon at Palace Hotel right here in San Francisco, can you believe it? It’s only the fanciest place there ever was!”

“I’m so happy for you,” Maggie told her sincerely. In Jenny’s world, she’d grabbed the shiniest brass ring, the dream every girl in a parlor house or cow yard or crib cherished—that a man would not just notice and love her butmarryher. Jenny was fortunate indeed.

“I can’t believe it,” Jenny murmured to herself as she looked in the mirror, one hand twisting one of her curls. “I can’t believe I’m going to be a married woman.”

She was, Maggie knew, just one month past her fifteenth birthday. It was hardly unheard of for a girl to be wed that young, and considering Jenny’s past, it was just as well, but as truly pleased as Maggie was for the girl, part of her still felt sad. She had never so much as glimpsed Mr. Grayson, but she hoped he treated Jenny well, and also that he truly loved her.

“Let’s get your dress on,” she suggested, and reached for the skirt to help Jenny into it.

Half an hour later, Maggie was seated in the front room with the other girls and Miss Jessie, as well as Danny and Da, everyone in their Sunday best. She had yet to see Brendan, but Miss Jessie had informed her that he was going to walk Jennydown the aisle, which seemed particularly fitting, and made Maggie glad for both Jenny and Brendan. He really was the girls’ protector.

“Isn’t this a grand time?” her da whispered as he leaned across to her. “Our Jenny getting married! And look, there’s the groom!”

Maggie turned to take in the sight of Mr. Grayson for the first time—an unprepossessing man with a thin fringe of graying hair made up for by an enormous set of lambchop whiskers that quite overwhelmed his face. He was well over forty. He smiled at them all rather nervously before taking his place at the front of the room.

At the sight of him, Maggie had to hide her instinctive dismay. This was not the groom she would have chosen for fifteen-year-old Jenny, but at least he would be a good provider, she hoped, and he must truly love her, to propose.

Emma Mae, playing the piano, started a rousing rendition of “Here Comes the Bride”. A second later, Jenny turned the corner, on Brendan’s arm. She was beaming, a vision of innocent loveliness in her pale blue silk, even with the extra flounces. Next to her, Brendan looked particularly dashing in a new gray suit, a pocket watch at his waist, his light brown hair swept back from his forehead with pomade. As they started down the aisle between the rows of chairs, his gaze moved to Maggie, and then quickly away again, before she could so much as smile. When he’d deposited Jenny next to her groom, he went to take his place in the first row, next to Jessamine, who bent her head to whisper something to him. Maggie saw Brendan smile and nod before she quickly looked away.

It shouldn’t hurt, she told herself fiercely. She shouldn’t let it hurt. And, in any case, today was about Jenny.

The service started, the minister from a local mission clearing his throat to begin. Just a few minutes later, they werewed, the new Mr. and Mrs. Grayson. Jenny looked ebullient, her husband shyly proud. Maggie felt suddenly quite teary at the sight of them both.

“And now to celebrate!” Miss Jessie exclaimed, kissing Jenny’s cheek before she gestured to Evie and Mrs. Adams to bring in the trays of oysters and champagne. Emma Mae began playing the piano again, and all of Miss Jessie’s girls went to embrace Jenny, who was both laughing and crying while her husband put a protective arm around her.

“I think they’ll do well together, don’t you?” Brendan murmured, dropping into the seat next to Maggie. She tensed, breathing in the scent of his aftershave—something unfamiliar and new. Had Miss Jessie picked it for him?

Whywas she letting herself think this way?

“I think so, too,” she agreed shakily. She laughed as she dabbed her eyes. “At least I hope so. This whole thing has made me rather absurdly emotional.”

“Not absurd,” Brendan replied. “It’s good to cry at weddings. They’re momentous events. And sometimes unlikely couples make the best ones,” he added with a nod to the Graysons.

“Yes…” Maggie agreed hesitantly. Was he talking about Jenny and her new husband, or him and Jessamine, or the two of them? Except, of course, they’d neverbeena couple. “Excuse me,” Maggie murmured, and rose from her chair.

She made pleasantries with various people for the better part of an hour, barely aware of what she was saying, or even what she was feeling. She was achingly conscious of Brendan—moving around the room, his dry chuckle, the way Jessamine came naturally to his side, her crystalline laugh chiming with his.

It was all so painful, soridiculouslypainful, because Maggie knew she really should be past feeling this way. This ache of longing, of sorrow, of regret. She was annoyed with it, withherselffor feeling it, for the fact that even now some part of her could not resist tracking Brendan around the room.