Page 6 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

“What do you mean, you can’t stay here?” Declan demanded. He sounded affronted, sitting up straight in his chair, his sunken chest thrust out. “I’m yourfather, ain’t I? Your da, and you’ve come all this way to be with me, so you have. Of course you’ll stay with me. I won’t take no for an answer!”

Danny grinned in delight while Maggie could not hide her expression of deep dismay. She already knew it would be near impossible to refuse her father… but how could she possibly stay in abrothel?

CHAPTER 4

“I know it’s a bit bare, but I hope it will do, and we can always find a few more bits and pieces for you, if they’re needed.”

Jessamine smiled at Maggie with warm encouragement, and with effort she managed a smile back, although everything in her was still cringing in horror and affront at the thought of staying at such an establishment. Just as she’d expected, she hadn’t been able to refuse her father, and she, Danny and Brendan were all spending the night at Miss Jessie’s.

Glancing around the sparsely furnished room, Maggie was reminded of the one she’d shared back in New York, when she’d worked as the second girl for the Cater family. She’d been dismissed from that job too, she reflected wearily, for once again being too outspoken, as well as seeming to have airs above her station.

Maybe it wasn’t fate, after all. Maybeshewas the problem.

“These will do very nicely indeed, thank you,” she told Jessamine, only a little stiffly. Especially since Maggie intended for them only to stay one night. Jessamine Conant had been nothing but kind since they’d arrived at her parlor house, as the upmarket brothel was known, on Montgomery Street, but in the morning, Maggie would make sure they found somewheremore respectable, although she doubted that would be anywhere nearby. The whole neighborhood seemed infested with places of questionable repute, and she did not yet know the city well enough to find more suitable accommodation.

A day’s grace would be welcome, she told herself, even if she desperately wished they had landed in more amenable circumstances.

Jessamine had been graciously accepting of the idea, and she was now showing them the attic rooms herself. Once the house’s servant quarters, the rooms were small and spare, possessing only iron bedsteads and a dresser each, with one small, high window. Danny would share with their father, while Brendan would have his own room and Maggie would share with the sulky maid Evie, who would undoubtedly be displeased to have a roommate for the night.

“And what do you intend, on the morrow?” Jessamine asked pleasantly, one slender hand resting on the knob of the door. “Do you know anyone else in this city?”

Maggie swallowed the huff of hopeless laughter she felt welling up inside her. “No,” she admitted. “We know no one… except for our father.”

Jessamine nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. “You’ll find work, I suppose?”

Maggie nodded back. “I hope to do so.”

“What were you doing before, in Chicago?”

“I worked in the millinery department of Marshall Field and Company.” She had no intention of telling Miss Conant, or anyone in this city, about the aspirations she’d once had to be the foremost milliner of Chicago. Such notions only embarrassed and ashamed her now.

If she could find a position that would pay to keep her and Danny housed, fed and clothed, then that would be enough… even if the mere thought of spending hours walking up and downthe steep, hilly streets of San Francisco looking for work seemed exhausting.

“You must have some skill with a needle, then?” Jessamine surmised.

“Yes, I’ve done piecework,” Maggie answered, “but at Field’s I just worked behind the counter.” She smiled with weary wryness. “I fetched ladies their hats and told them how well they suited them, no matter how they looked.”

Jessamine chuckled, her hazel eyes glinting with humor. “Oh, I can imagine,” she remarked. “Well, I’m sure you could find a similar position at one of the grand stores by Union Square—at I. Magnin, or the City of Paris. They’re usually willing to hire pretty girls with experience.” Her lips twisted wryly. “Just as I am.”

Maggie blushed at this remark, and Jessamine chuckled again.

“Don’t worry, I won’t ask if you’re interested. If you show yourself at one of those stores looking neat and trim and with a reference, I’m sure you’ll have your choice of employment.”

“Yes… although I don’t have a reference,” Maggie confessed in a low voice. There was something about Jessamine Conant’s demeanor that invited confidences, as reluctant as she was to admit to this particular one. “I was dismissed from Field’s for—” She paused, not wanting to go into how she’d designed a hat for a customer that had been both her downfall at that commercial palace and the beginning of her own business. “For telling a woman a hat…didn’tsuit her,” she said instead.

She’dalmostbeen dismissed for that piece of honest insubordination, so it didn’t feel like a lie, and, in truth, what did it matter anyway? Chicago was over two thousand miles away, and her brief career at Field’s had ended months ago. None of it was of any importance anymore at all.

Jessamine laughed again, a rich, deep sound. “Oh, did you?” she mused. “Anddidthe hat suit her?”

Despite the heaviness inside her, Maggie’s lips twitched. “No, it certainly did not.”

“Well, then I’d say you did her a service.” She nodded toward the room. “Make yourself comfortable. You can eat supper in the kitchen with Evie and Cook.” Her lips curved. “I imagine you’ll want to avoid the rooms where we…entertain.”

Maggie swallowed hard at that thought before nodding quickly. She was sure they would, too.Quitesure. “Thank you, Miss Conant.”

“Please, call me Miss Jessie. Or, if you’d rather, Jessamine.” With one last fleeting smile, she left Maggie alone, closing the door softly behind her.

Maggie heaved a sigh that felt as if it came from the depths of her being. As grateful as she was for the roof over her head, right then the future felt impossible to imagine, much less navigate. Had they really been in Chicago only six days ago, holed up in a boarding house by the stockyards, reeling from everything that had happened and having no idea what to do next?