Louise Madrid thrust an armload of clothing into Maggie’s hands and said, “If you are eating my cooking and sleeping in my bed, you might as well earn your keep. These need mending.” She sat down in the rocking chair and picked up a book.
In fact, Maggie did the cooking now, and she and Clara slept on the floor, but Maggie didn’t mind the sewing. She longed to busy her hands with needlework, and she was grateful to the Madrids for allowing Clara and her to stay. Maggie had heard Louise complain what a nuisance the two visitors were, but Mary had stood firm. “If you want me to finish preparing the fields for spring planting, you will welcome them. Truth is, I have more claim to the house than you do, Louise, it being left to both me and Micah. I have a mind to find a solicitor who will tell me my rights. Might be I could sell my portion of the farm,” Mary had told her sister-in-law. No one had ever stood up for Maggie, and she was grateful. She tried to pay for her keep by doing work that Louise considered beneath her.
Now Maggie took out her needle and thread and concentrated on her stitching, listening to the clamor outside. Louise’s two children were as smitten with Mary as Clara was. The three followed her everywhere. Maggie recalled her friend’s comment that cats and children loved her, although not men. Women didn’t seem to care for her either. The news was about that Mary was going to California to find a husband, but not a single woman had called to wish her well.
As if knowing what Maggie was thinking, Louise said, “She is a queer one, Mary is. All the girls she grew up with are married now, with children, some even with grandchildren. They think her odd, and she is, no husband and working the farm like a man. They do not understand it, and neither do I. She could have married our neighbor, Howard Hale—” Louise stopped and looked up from a book she held in her hands. “Is he kin to you?”
“No,” Maggie replied.
“Odd, you having the same name.”
“Mary will find a husband in California,” Maggie said.
Louise snorted. “The shame of it, her going away like that. What about me? Did she consider Micah and me? Did she give a moment’s thought to all the work I will have to do when she is gone? I am already worked to the bone.”
Maggie smiled to herself. Louise sat in the house most of the day, reading or doing useless needlework. She had recently painted grapes on a piece of velvet that Maggie had made into a pillow for her, and now she was making drawn-work doilies. The fancywork sat in a basket beside her chair. Did the woman really have any idea how much work Mary did and how she would be taxed when Mary left? “Mary wants adventure,” Maggie said.
Louise rolled her eyes. “That is unnatural. Women do not want adventure. They want a husband and children. If Mary leaves us for California, Mr. Madrid will not allow her to return. He has made that clear to her. He does not want her back after all the embarrassment.”
“I thought Mary owned half of the farm,” Maggie said. It was none of her business, but she wanted to prick Louise for her harsh words about Mary.
“Who says that?”
Maggie shrugged. She should have kept her mouth shut.
“Mr. Madrid owns the farm for the both of them,” Louise said sharply. “It is unseemly that a woman should work a farm for herself. Although Mary is … well, look at her. She might as well be a man.”
As far as Maggie could see, Micah left the farming to Mary, who enlisted the children to help her plow and plant. Mary acted as both hired man and hired girl. She had told Maggie that when she was a girl, she had had her own bedroom upstairs, but as the children were born, Louise claimed the room for them, and now Mary slept on a pallet near the fireplace in the kitchen. When Maggie showed surprise, Mary said she didn’t mind. After all, it was the warmest place in the house in winter, and she did not wake others when she rose before dawn to prepare breakfast.
“I shall miss her, I suppose. She is company of a sort,” Louise said suddenly. “I am lonely here. Mary is not interested in the finer things, in fancywork or poetry. I have never seen her read anything but a newspaper. She talks mostly of seeds and planting and reaping. I have tried to improve her mind, but she does not care for novels, and she will not gossip. When she talks of something besides the farm, it is politics. Perhaps that will please a man in California, but not here. Politics is for men, not women. I myself would not be able to name the president of the United States if Mary had not talked so much about him.”
“Then her political knowledge has accomplished some purpose,” Maggie said, choosing to misinterpret Louise’s words.
The remark confused Louise, and she cast an accusing eye on Maggie, as if Maggie were criticizing her. Then she asked, “Why will you go to California? Surely someone as pretty as you could find a husband in Chicago.”
As if prettiness is all that is necessary for a good marriage, Maggie thought. She knew better. “I wanted to leave Chicago,” she said. “I could not bear to stay there. I determined to get as far away as possible, and California seems like it is the end of the earth.”
“Yes, I suppose I understand it, your husband getting killed like that.” Mary had told her sister-in-law the same story she’d told the ministers, that Maggie’s husband had been run down by horses while saving a child.
“It was in the newspaper,” Mary had said, and Maggie had swallowed a smile when she overheard that, because she knew Louise did not read newspapers. “You must have read it.”
“Oh yes, I suppose I did,” Louise had replied.
Now Louise closed her book and picked up her needlework. “I must say I enjoy your company more than Mary’s. It is nice to take a few minutes away from all my chores to sit and talk.” When Maggie only nodded, Louise continued. “You may think me harsh in my view of Mary, but she resists my attempts to instruct her in women’s ways. Perhaps it goes back to an incident when she was young.”
Maggie knew Louise wanted her to ask what had happened, but she did not care to know Mary’s secrets, did not want to gossip about her.
When Maggie didn’t reply, Louise continued. “I do not like to carry tales, but I believe you should know of it. The thing happened when Mary was fourteen or thereabout. She was always a big girl, and by then she was unnaturally large. The boys did not care for her, not only because she was an oddity but because she was always besting them at games and would not defer to them.” She stopped as if waiting for Maggie to nod in disapproval.
Maggie kept on stitching, however, and after a moment, Louise went on. “There was one fellow. I believe his name was Andrew—Andy for short. He brought her sweets in his lunch bucket and sat beside her in the schoolroom. The boys did not tease him for it, and Mary should have known from that that something was wrong. But she was foolish about him and paid no attention to the others. In fact”—Mary leaned forward—“I believe Mary was quite smitten with him and thought he was with her. Imagine that!” She sat back and dipped her chin to emphasize the absurdity of what she had just said.
“Sometimes Andy walked her home, and on one particular day, he suggested they go a roundabout way through a copse of trees. Mary was imprudent enough to agree. After they were hidden by the foliage, he pushed her against a tree and kissed her. When Mary did not protest—I do not know this for sure, but it was what the boy claimed—he ripped the bodice of her dress and grabbed her breasts.” Louise stopped to gauge Maggie’s reaction, but Maggie, her face flushed, kept her head bowed. She did not want to hear about Mary’s humiliation.
“I suppose Mary pushed him away, but by then it was too late, of course. He ran off shouting to his friends, ‘Touched them! Touched them! You owe me a nickel!’ You see, the boys had followed them and had seen the entire incident. It had been a dare. A boy asked what they felt like, and Andy replied, ‘Like shoats.’ For weeks, the boys made oinking sounds whenever Mary passed. She never let on she knew what they meant, but everyone in the school had been told what had happened and laughed. I myself was so embarrassed that I could hardly stand next to her. You see, Micah was already courting me.”
“Her brother did not defend her?” Maggie asked.
“He could hardly fight the whole school. Besides, we were both so ashamed of her.” Louise laughed and looked at Maggie for her response, but Maggie kept her eyes on her sewing. Not for anything in the world would she laugh at her friend’s terrible experience. Louise should have offered sympathy, not censure, and Micah, who like Mary was tall and broad, should have beaten the boys within an inch of their lives.
When Maggie said nothing, Louise cleared her throat. “I tell you this out of the goodness of my heart, so that you understand why Mary does not care for men.”
“I must start supper, Mrs. Madrid,” Maggie said, rising. “I shall finish the mending later.”
Louise was irked and said, “You may put it aside. I should like you to make a dress for me. I have the fabric already. Mary says you were a dressmaker in Chicago, Mrs. Hale.”
Maggie was startled. She still was not used to her new name.
HER LAST NAME was actually Kaiser, Maggie told Mary after she had been at the farm for a week and knew Mary would keep her secret. She hadn’t said anything at first for fear the truth would make Mary reconsider taking her in. She would have changed her first name, too, if she had been quick enough to think of it.
“You should know who you have brought under your roof,” Maggie said one night after the others had gone to bed. Maggie had mixed up the bread dough and set it near the fireplace to rise overnight.
Mary was putting away the supper dishes the two had washed and dried and was about to pour the water remaining in the teakettle into the tin cans holding the geraniums, which she had taken from the windowsill to keep them from freezing. She held the kettle in her hands for a moment, then said, “Louise is in bed upstairs. What do you say to a cup of the good tea?”
Maggie grinned. Louise allowed them to drink only the cheap tea that Mary brought home from the store, keeping the expensive tea for herself, for her nerves, she insisted. “I say you deserve it,” Maggie told Mary.
Filling the kettle, Mary set it on a grate in the fireplace and added kindling to the fire, then took out a small china teapot with pink flowers painted on it. Louise had claimed the teapot was a wedding gift to her from Mary’s mother, but Mary confided that the pot had been in the Madrid family for years, and her mother had promised it to her. Louise did not allow Mary to touch it, for fear the big woman would break it, although Maggie had noticed that Mary was not clumsy. “We will have a tea party. Shall we go into the parlor?” Mary asked and reached for china cups and saucers instead of the tin cups.
The parlor was cold and fussy, however, and Maggie said she would rather sit at the scrub-top kitchen table near the fireplace. Besides, Clara lay sleeping on a pallet in the kitchen. Maggie sat down at the table, enjoying the homey scene. She once had thought marriage would be like this—a fire, a sleeping child, tea with someone she loved.
Mary settled herself in a chair, then said, “I do not require you to tell me anything. You are my friend, and I know you for a good woman.”
Maggie reached across the table and squeezed Mary’s hand. Then she said, “I am a married woman, and it is possible, even probable, that my husband is still alive, although I wish to God he was not. I tried to kill him. His name is Jesse Kaiser.”
Mary only nodded, and Maggie continued. She had never told anyone what had gone on in her marriage and had believed it would be difficult, but the words poured out as she unburdened herself.
“It was true love when I met him. He was so thoughtful. He brought me violets, and when my hands were cramped from sewing, he rubbed them with oil. My parents did not approve of him, and they told me if I married him, they would be through with me. But I was in love.” She shook her head. “How foolish we are when we are young. I never thought to inquire what work he did and discovered too late that it was gambling, and he was not good at it. We were not married a month when he hit me the first time. I had been brought up in refinement and never considered that I would have to earn my living. He said I must help support us. My only skill was stitching, and so I set myself up as a dressmaker and was quite fortunate to attract some wealthy clients. Among them was that Mrs. Whitney, although I do not know her well and have made only two or three dresses for her. Jesse said my earnings as a seamstress belonged to him as my husband. When I protested, he struck me. He beat me again after a coachman came to pick up a dress, saying I had been unnatural with the man, and another time he accused me of holding back money from him. After a while, he did not need a reason to hurt me. I thought the beatings would stop when I conceived, but they only grew worse.”
“And after Clara was born?”
“I had a son first.” Maggie’s throat contracted, and she blinked back tears. “Richard. We called him Dick.” Maggie paused to gain control of her voice. It hurt so much to talk about the boy. “Jesse was thrilled. For a time, he was once again the loving man who had courted me. Then I conceived again, and the beatings became worse than ever. He asked how I expected him to support two children, although it was I who brought in the money. I hid enough to buy food for Dick and me and gave Jesse the rest, which he gambled away. After Clara was born, Jesse said he had no use for a daughter, and he left us.
“I was glad. I did not make a great deal of money, but it was enough for a room and what we needed, although sometimes when the women were late in paying me, I took the children to the Kitchen. Reverend Swain’s wife operated it, and at the church I was afraid she would recognize me, because Jesse once caused a scene there, saying I had embarrassed him by seeking charity.”
Mary had poured the hot water into the teapot and added the tea leaves to steep. Now she went to the stove and poured the tea into the cups. “I can chip a little sugar off the cone if you want it,” she said, but Maggie shook her head, saying she was not used to sugar in her tea. Mary set down the cups and seated herself. “If it is too painful, you need not go on. It is not necessary that I know.”
“I will be all right. It is like a weight off my chest to tell of it.” Maggie took a sip of the tea and smiled. She had rarely had such good tea and understood why Louise wanted to keep it for herself. “Jesse came back to see me from time to time. If he had won at gambling, he brought us sweets and once a diamond ring, or so he claimed. I tried to sell it and discovered it was glass. Then he would lose again and demand money and beat me. When he was in the room, I sent Clara to stay with a neighbor for fear he would hurt her, too. He never touched our son.” No, Maggie thought, he did not touch Dick, but he treated the boy so abominably that Dick shook whenever his father entered the room, and I had to hold him to stop the trembling.
“It appears he did strike Clara,” Mary said. “I saw the bruises.”
“That was later.” Maggie stared at the tea in her cup, remembering that once a wealthy woman had given her a tip for finishing a dress ahead of time, and she’d taken Dick and Clara to a tea shop for cakes. She smiled to remember that Clara had stuffed her cake into her mouth, while Dick had eaten his in small bites to make it last. She realized now that the generous woman was Mrs. Whitney. “This is very good,” she said, putting down her cup.
“Louise requires the best—for herself,” Mary said with a laugh. “Isn’t that nice for us tonight?”
Maggie swirled the leaves in the cup. “We lived like that for a long while. I would have moved, but my ladies knew where I was located, and I was afraid they would not follow me to a new address. Jesse visited on occasion but did not stay long with us. I think he had another woman, and the truth was, I hoped so. I wanted him to keep away.”
“Did you consider divorce?” Mary asked.
“Oh, no. Jesse would have taken the little ones from me for spite, and who knows what he would have done with them. My business would have suffered, too, and I had to feed the children. My customers would not care that my husband hit me, but they would be shocked if I were a divorced woman.” She paused. “Besides, Jesse told me he would kill me if I ever left him, and I believed him.”
Maggie was quiet for a moment. It was painful to go on, but still she continued. “My son got sick. I think he had pneumonia, or maybe typhoid. You remember how there was rain and hail and such cold in the fall that people stayed in their homes and did not go out. I had made several dresses, but the women did not send for them since, due to the weather, many parties had been called off. So I was not paid, and money was scarce. I had to choose between food and fuel. I knew we would starve if we did not eat, so I purchased bread.”
For a time, Maggie did not go on. She stared out the window into the darkness, remembering. She remembered that the rain had mixed with the soot on the outside of the windows, making black streaks down the panes. She had sat with her sewing in dim light that came through the glass, her hands stiff with the chill. Clara was wrapped in quilts in the rocking chair, numbed by the cold. The boy lay on the bed, his head hot with fever. Maggie wanted to tend him, to rub his head with cool water. But one of her clients had demanded she finish a dress in time for a party. The garment had been completed the week before, but the woman, a Mrs. Fletcher, decided she did not like the sleeves and wanted them removed so that she could display her diamond bracelets. There would be no extra pay for the additional work.
Maggie had had to leave the children behind when she went to the Fletcher mansion for the final fitting. A neighbor had promised to look after them, but when Maggie returned the woman was drunk, and Dick was screaming from the fever. Maybe if Maggie had been there, Dick would not have gotten worse, but how could she have stayed? There would have been no money if the dress had not been completed. Mrs. Fletcher, at least, paid her bill on time.
“Mrs. Fletcher told me her maid would pick up the dress,” Maggie said. “The maid was that girl Winny, the Irish one with the red hair we saw at the church.”
Mary smiled. The two had discussed the other women who had signed up for the trip, and they had both thought Winny was among the nicest.
“Winny saw how tired I was and said she would watch Dick and Clara while I napped. She did not have to get back for a time, because Mrs. Fletcher was not going to the party after all. I was so grateful that I did not argue and lay down and went to sleep. When I awoke, I saw that Dick was better, and Winny was rocking him in the chair. It was a brave thing for the girl to do, since she could have caught Dick’s fever. He was laughing, and I thought Winny must be an angel. She offered to stay longer, but I knew she would be missed by Mrs. Fletcher, and I said my husband would be there soon, although I did not expect him at all. As she left, Winny told me Mrs. Fletcher put ice on her children’s foreheads when they had fevers. I thought that was a good idea and went outside for it. The ice in the street was dirty, and I had to hunt for some that was clean. It took longer than I wished. When I returned to the room, Clara was sitting beside her brother, holding his hand. Dick was dead.” Maggie took a deep breath and stopped. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears.
She glanced over at her daughter, who was curled up on her pallet. Maggie remembered it all so vividly. She had wrapped Clara in quilts and set her on the bed to sleep, then held Dick in her arms, rubbing the ice over his head as if it could ease the fever of the dead boy. Tears ran down her face as she rocked him back and forth until the little body was cold. She could have taken him outside, left the body in the street, but she would never abandon him. She took Mrs. Fletcher’s money and paid for a proper burial. Then, with Clara in her arms, she made her way through the snow to her parents’ house and begged them to take her in. They refused.
“And so you came to the church,” Mary said, finishing her tea.
“Not then. It was sometime later. There is more,” Maggie told her, bowing her head.
“There is more tea, as well,” Mary said, when Maggie did not continue. “In fact, I believe there is enough that we can have a cup every night when Louise is in bed. She will not know until we are on our way to California that it is used up.” As she stood, she gripped Maggie’s shoulder, and Maggie clutched her friend’s hand.
“Perhaps the rest should wait for another time. I do not wish to add to your sorrow,” Mary said, after she had added more tea leaves to the pot and poured in the water from the kettle.
“No, it needs to be said now.” Clara stirred and muttered something, and Maggie went to her, covering her with the quilt the girl had thrown aside. “I wonder if she dreams of it,” Maggie said but did not explain what she meant. She sat back down at the table and waited for Mary.
“Jesse came back. I had thought he was gone for good, but he was not. It was the week before the meeting at the church. When he discovered that Dick was dead, he was furious and knocked me down, accusing me of killing our son. Clara tried to tell him that it was not my fault and blurted out that she had held Dick when he breathed his last because I was not there. I said I had only gone for ice to help with the fever, but Jesse would not listen. He was like a madman. He hit me again and again until I could no longer feel the pain. I think I passed out. When I came to, I saw him on the bed with Clara. He had beaten her, too. You saw the bruises. He had pushed up her dress and was using her as he would a wife.” Maggie turned her head to the side and covered her eyes with her hand. “I cannot say more.”
“You do not have to,” Mary said, reaching across the table and putting her hand on Maggie’s arm. “I know what animals do.”
“He is indeed an animal. His own daughter,” Maggie whispered. “I could not imagine such a thing. Clara was crying, and he slapped her and told her to be still.” Maggie stopped to wipe tears from her eyes. “I told him to stop, and he said I was jealous. Jealous! How could he? I went as mad as he was at that, and I grabbed a poker and slammed it down on his head. I did it again, maybe twice more, until he was still.”
“And you left then?”
Maggie shook her head. “I was horrified at what I had done. I went outside and hailed a hack and took him to the hospital.”
Wordlessly, Mary poured more tea and set Maggie’s cup in front of her. The two were silent until Mary asked, “You say you do not know if he is dead?”
Maggie shook her head. “Three days later, two policemen came to see me. They asked what had happened. I should have told them the truth, but I could not. I said Jesse had beaten me, and I had defended myself. One of the coppers, the older one, asked what I had done to deserve the beating. Had I said something to him? He even asked if I had burned supper. I replied that Jesse was angry because our son had died, that he blamed me for it. The man said that explained it. He told me I’d had no cause to hit Jesse, that it was a man’s right to beat his wife. He said I ought to make it up to him.” She paused. “I could not tell him what Jesse had done to Clara. I could not shame her.”
Mary struck the table with her hand. “The beast! It is all right for him to beat you, but not all right for you to defend yourself and your daughter?”
“I suppose that is the law.”
“And what did the other copper say?”
“Nothing. Not then, anyway. He returned a day later. He was by himself. He said that Jesse was in a bad way and that if he died, I would be charged with murder. He told me to take Clara and hide somewhere.” Maggie gave a little smile. “I thought he would want something of me for his help, but he did not. In fact, he said, ‘My sister’s husband, he sometimes…’ He did not continue, but I knew he meant the husband beat his wife, too. When he left, he handed me a dollar and said he wished he had more to give me.
“I did not know what to do. The next morning, I packed as much as I could and took Clara, and we roamed the streets. That was when I noticed the broadsheets about the California venture. I had seen the sheets before, had read them, but until that moment I did not think that I would be one of the women to sign up. Perhaps God was speaking to me then, was showing me a way. I had thought I might rent a room in another part of the city or perhaps leave Chicago, but I did not have the money. Besides, I feared Jesse would come after me.”
“And will he?”
“Oh yes, if he lives. He may be looking for me even now.”
“And so you go to California to look for another husband, even though you still are married.”
Maggie looked up, shocked. “I had not thought of it that way.”
“Perhaps he is dead,” Mary said.
Maggie turned her head to look at Clara. “God willing,” she said.