Page 5 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

Declan gave a theatrical, and Maggie suspected, unrepentant, wince. “Ah now, Maggie, I’d had a wee bit of trouble there, hadn’t I? Couldn’t be letting anyone know where I was, not for a spell, at any rate. But I gave you my address when I could, didn’t I?” he continued in a cajoling tone. “I supposed San Francisco was a good enough distance from the Whyos, and so it seems it was, and it’s all come aright, since you’re here now.”

“You were with the Whyos?” Danny exclaimed. He sounded impressed rather than alarmed, which was especially irritating, considering his own brush with that notorious gang, that had cost both Maggie and Brendan their livelihoods, and very nearly their lives. But now it seemed a point of pride to her brother.

Resisting the urge to throw up her hands at both her brother’s and father’s ways, Maggie reached for her own glass and took a sedate sip. She should have known Danny would have his head turned by the father he’d hero-worshipped from afar. She just hoped it didn’t lead him into making reckless and rash decisions yet again.

“Ah, well, notwiththem,” Declan replied with an uneasy laugh. “But they’re not ones to cross, that I can assure you, and I learned that the hard way. But enough about that.” He turned to Maggie, his ready smile slipping just a little, no doubt at the stern look she felt tightening her face. “Maggie, pet, tell me what you’ve been up to. Don’t you look smart! Like a true lady.”

“We’ve been looking foryou,” Maggie replied. She wasn’t about to share the many sorrows and joys of their journey all the way from Ireland to here, the triumphs as well as the tribulations. None of it mattered anymore.

“Maggie’s been working as a milliner,” Danny interjected, sounding proud of her for perhaps the first time in his life. “Made all sorts of fancy hats, some were even seen at the World’s Fair, don’t you know!”

“Danny.” Maggie pressed her lips together as she shook her head. “Not now.”

“Were they, now?” Declan asked, a gleam in his eyes as he leaned back to appraise her. “Did you make that hat you’re wearin’, then?”

Maggie brushed the brim of her modest straw boater, its only embellishment a pale pink ribbon. “Yes, I did,” she admitted. “But I left that all behind when we came to San Francisco.” She gave her brother a quelling look before turning back to their father. “We came here with very little, Father.” She stopped abruptly, feeling as if the words she wanted to say, but knew she couldn’t, were choking her.

She wanted to ask her father if he’d thought about them at all when he’d left them in Ireland after their mother had died, and then abandoned them yet again in New York. He must have known they would have had nothing when they’d arrived, and yet he hadn’t been able to stir himself on their account at all. Well over ayearhad passed before they’d discovered an address for him, and then it had been all the way across the country!When she considered the matter, Maggie really was amazed they’d found him at all. And despite his seeming good cheer, she wondered if their father was pleased that they had.

“Ah, Maggie,” Danny said, “you could start again with all that hat business, here in San Francisco. Isn’t it the Paris of the West, like you said? You could open up another shop, make more of them fancy hats and sell ’em to all the well-to-do ladies.”

As if such a thing could be so easy, Maggie thought bitterly. If it were even desirable, which it no longer was.

“That time has passed, Danny,” Maggie stated quietly. She turned to their father. “What about you? How did you end up all the way out here in San Francisco?”

“Ah, well…” Declan scratched his cheek as he laughed uneasily. “I didn’t set on aplan, as such. But like I said, I’d run into some trouble back in New York, and that led me to Chicago. I would have settled there, sure enough, but…” He trailed off with another uncertain laugh, shrugging as he ran his hand over his stubbled jaw, his gaze downcast.

“Did you know the druggist, H.H. Holmes?” Maggie asked abruptly, and her father looked up in blank surprise.

“A druggist? Can’t say that I did.”

She nodded slowly, unsurprised. So Holmes had lied about his association with her father, just as she’d suspected, a small treachery on top of far greater and more terrible ones, to worm his way into her and Brendan’s lives.

As for what had taken her father from Chicago to San Francisco… did it even matter now? It would have been gambling or cards or petty crime, maybe a woman. Something nefarious and of ill repute, undoubtedly, that had him moving on yet again.

A sigh escaped her as she lowered herself onto a sofa across from where her father sat sprawled, Danny perched next to him.

“And here?” she asked. “How did you come to be living at this… establishment?”

“Miss Jessie’s?” A grin split their father’s face. “Isn’t she a peach? A true gem. The Diamond, they call her, you know, on account of the crystal.” He nodded toward the chandelier above them.

Maggie gave a little shake of her head. She didn’t doubt Jessamine Conant’s reputation among a certain section of society, for the woman certainly seemed both gracious and beautiful, but she knew they needed to discuss a far more pressing matter.

“Are you…workinghere?” she asked bluntly.

Declan nodded happily. “I do odd jobs and suchlike for Miss Jessie and the girls. A handyman, I suppose. I always was a jack-of-all-trades!” He chuckled. “I get my room and board in return, up in the attic. It’s cozy up there, and out of the way. Suits me just fine.”

Maggie nodded slowly. A room in the attic of a brothel, and, it seemed, with no other pay. She’d suspected something like that, but she still felt dispirited.

“Then we can’t stay with you,” she said, pointing out the glaringly obvious.

She had enough money for a few nights in a boarding house, maybe a week, but no more. And what then? She supposed she could try to get a job in one of the city’s department stores, the way she had back in Chicago, but she had no reference, as she’d been dismissed from her position at Marshall Field and Company. The other kinds of jobs she could get—working in a factory or sewing piecework—seemed dismal prospects indeed and would barely make enough to keep a roof over their heads, if that.

Why, ohwhy, Maggie wondered, were she and Danny always on the brink of poverty and near penury? She knew it was at leastin part her own fault—her outspokenness had rarely done her any favors—and yet she still felt the deep injustice of it all. It felt like fate, or Providence, had been capricious in its dealings with the O’Halloran family.

And what about Brendan? He had more means than she did, perhaps, but she didn’t want to cast him out, considering they’d come all this way together. Could he stay here, if they did? Would he want to? She wished she knew his mind, but he’d been near silent ever since they’d gotten on the train.

She stared blindly ahead, trying to think of a plan. They’d find somewhere to stay for the night, and look for jobs in the morning, and then…