Page 2 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

“Montgomery Street is about a mile north of here,” Danny announced as he sauntered up to her with a cocksure smile. Apparently, he’d had better luck ascertaining their direction than she’d had. “We can walk up Third Street all the way to Market, unless you want to take one of them trolleys?”

Maggie glanced at Brendan, who had still not said a word. “It’s a long way, with these suitcases,” she remarked, frowning. “Perhaps we should take a streetcar?”

“I can manage,” Brendan told her shortly, looking away, and for a moment, she was reminded, painfully, of when she and Danny had arrived at Castle Garden in New York, carrying her mother’s trunk between them all the way to Orchard Street. How long ago it seemed now, and how far they’d come, and yet she felt further from everything—from who she’d been and, more importantly, who she wanted to be—than she ever had.

“Very well,” she told Brendan and, holding her hatbox, she followed Danny up the steep street, further into the city.

It did not take long before the railyards gave way to the city’s business district, but before Maggie could be comforted by the reassuring sight of the many stately buildings, seeming bulwarks of respectability and prosperity, the landscape changed once more, and the semi-dilapidated apartment buildings and Victorian houses, paint peeling from their trim, informed them they had entered the neighborhood the errand boy had told her was known as the Barbary Coast.

Maggie kept her chin lifted and her gaze straight ahead as they passed dance halls and dive bars, cow yards and cribs—the slang, she quickly realized from the signs she saw, for brothels—with half-dressed women hanging out of the windows, men staggering from saloons with empty tankards of beer. The air smelled thickly of cigar smoke and beer, sweat and something sweetish Maggie didn’t recognize. More than one wolf whistle accosted her ears as a man sauntered by, giving her an insultingly thorough glance. Her cheeks heated from the mortification of it all.

It had been bad enough, back in Chicago, when she’d realized how much of society had come to view her—as little better than one of the women lounging on the balcony above her now, a tattered feather boa looped around her shoulders. Thanks to the business arrangement she’d had with Theo Stein, she’d been considered a kept woman, even if she hadn’t been, not in that way.

But to be treated as suchhere, where she’d come to start afresh, to be a new person and beseenas a new person, was too much to be borne. She glared defiantly at one man who stepped forward with a decided leer, but he only laughed and blew her a drunken kiss.

Maggie looked quickly away, her cheeks scarlet. Everywhere she turned, there was a sign—some painted, some in electric lights—advertising some debauched attraction—drink, opium, whatever kind of woman might be required. To walk along such a street as if she belonged there felt like both punishment and penance—as well as a reminder that no matter how far she traveled, she might never escape her past mistakes.

Especially if she continued to make them.

Excepthere, she reminded herself, she wouldn’t. Her brother wasn’t the only one who was going to be different in this new city.

“Here it is!” Danny exclaimed. He’d stopped in front of a three-story house, its wooden exterior painted lilac, with peelingtrim painted a deeper purple, and the front door a bright and vivid pink. Maggie had never seen such a colorful establishment, and it made her wonder what—or really,who—was inside.

A woman appeared in an upstairs window, dressed only in a lacy peignoir open at the front, her thick blond hair twisted into a heavy rope hanging over one shoulder. She glanced down at them in rueful curiosity before she pulled the gauzy curtain across the window, blocking their view.

Maggie swallowed hard.

Danny started toward the steps. “Shall we go inside?”

Quickly, she grabbed her brother’s shoulder. “Danny, wait.” She glanced at Brendan, who did not seem to have noticed the near-naked woman above them, and had not once remarked on the unwholesome nature of the neighborhood as they’d ventured further into it, obvious as it had to have been to him. Irritation flared through her at his seemingly deliberate indifference not just toward her but toward everything, but she forced herself to suppress it as she turned back to Danny.

“I believe this is a… women’s establishment,” she told him stiffly. “I can’t imagine that Da…” She swallowed that thought. “But I’ll go and ask if they know of him.”

“A women’s establishment?” Danny repeated, frowning, before his eyes rounded and he let out a guffaw. “By Jove, Maggie, do you mean abrothel?” Her brother cackled with laughter. “Well, fancy that! Our da lives in a whorehouse!”

“Hold your tongue, Danny,” Maggie snapped. “Likely as not he isn’t here, but like I said, I’ll ask.” And angling her chin a notch higher as she stared straight ahead, her cheeks positively aflame, she mounted the steps and knocked smartly on the door.

CHAPTER 2

Maggie kept her expression polite but faintly reserved as she waited for the door to open. Her hands were slippery as they clutched the strap of her hatbox, and her hat felt itchy on her head. She had, of course, never been to such an establishment as this, and she was not particularly pleased to be on the steps of one now. She felt passersby’s curious and undoubtedly condemning glances from the street, and the space between her shoulder blades prickled with shame.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she let it out slowly as she considered what she would say to whoever answered, and then the door opened.

A woman stood there, tall and willowy, her auburn hair dressed in a stylish bouffant. She wore a simple shirtwaist and dark skirt, both of good quality, and they suited her trim figure. She looked more like a schoolteacher than the madam of a brothel, and Maggie didn’t think she could be much past thirty.

She eyed Maggie with frank and friendly humor. “May I help you?” she asked, her lips twitching with amusement, and for one scorching second, Maggie realized the woman must think she was there in search of a…job, and what an unlikely candidate she obviously was.

“I’m looking for my father,” she informed the woman quickly, her voice coming out more sharply than she’d intended. She felt another blush rising to her already heated cheeks. “Declan O’Halloran. He gave us this…establishment… as his address.”

“Ah,Declan,” the woman exclaimed, and now her voice was full of affection. “You must be his daughter, then. Maggie, isn’t it?”

For a few seconds, Maggie could only gape at her. For years, she’d been on what had felt like a wild goose chase, searching for her father, traveling all the way from Ireland to New York, then Chicago, and now San Francisco, always on the faintest of hopes, following the frailest of threads. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how much she’d given up on the idea of ever finding her father.

“Y… yes,” she stammered. “I am Maggie.” She glanced behind her, to where Danny and Brendan were watching from the base of the steps, her brother with lively interest, his face full of eager hope, while Brendan gazed off into the distance as if he didn’t care whether she found her father or not.

“He’s spoken about you often,” the woman said, smiling. “And your brother. I’m Jessamine Conant, and I run this house. Most people call me Miss Jessie.” She opened the door wider, revealing a pleasant hall with a Turkish runner, a hat stand and marble-topped table, a potted palm and a coat rack. “Won’t you come in?”

Maggie hesitated, and the woman gave a knowing laugh.