Saturday's Lady

Three

The man's eyes blinked open.

The noise of the pub had died down. It was late.

He gradually came to the realisation that someone was shaking him awake.

"Oi," he slurred. "Have some respect, hey?"

"You going to pay?" asked the bartender. 

The man slapped the only coin in his pocket down on the counter. He'd found the coin on the road earlier, but couldn't really remember that very well.

"A penny won't pay for three glasses of whiskey."

"Shove off."

He stumbled out of the pub, ignoring the bartender and walking into the cold midnight rain. There wasn't anyplace for him to spend the night, so he pushed his greasy red hair from his face and started to walk. 

There was an alcove in an alleyway twelve blocks down, so he let himself collapse there. The building he leaned against was a familiar one to him, standing plain and grey against the plain grey Galway streets, and he'd wake to the plain grey Galway sky. Nothing changed in his life, and perhaps it was easier that way. He still lived here on St. Augustine Street, just outside now and not inside a tiny flat above him. It was a happy, if ignorant, way to live. Sleep, find dropped coins, drink, act like you were going to pay, then conveniently forget.

Of course, he had a running debt at multiple pubs. It was time to flee somewhere else.

The rising sun greeted the man. He looked to the west, to where the docks rose with clangs and calls of men about to set off for the great unknown.

Of course, he thought groggily. I'll go to the sea. Maybe to America. Canada. Back to Glasgow.

He'd only need some money first.

Something clattered to the cobblestone by him. It was a coin, fallen from the unfortunate pocket of someone passing.

The man rose from where he leaned on the wall, and picked it up. A penny was as good as anywhere to start. Of course, the temptation came to go up to the west side of the city, and get something else to drink, but he pushed the thought down. You couldn't save money if you spent all of it.

*****

The day dawned clear and crisp in Denver, but in the queer Colorado way where the air belies a laziness. Spring comes, it says, but you won't notice until the morning frost is gone and you have a moment to stand in the sunshine, hearing the icicles drip into gutters.

Emma always pictured spring in Denver as pale rose.

She woke just after sunrise- hours before she would have liked- to the maid knocking on the door. Groggily she opened her eyes, every limb still yawning. 

"Come in," she groaned, but it wasn't any use. The girl had already opened the door and entered the room. 

"I've brought your breakfast. I hope you won't mind my just walking in."

"I thought I locked the door." Emma sat up with a yawn, tossing her braid over her shoulder. She normally did lock doors- they'd drive her mad unlocked.

The maid shrugged, pushing the door shut with her heel. "It was open. Perhaps you forgot last night, you were so tired."

Almost on cue, Emma yawned, pouring herself a cup of tea. "Can I give you some advice?"

"Of course?"

Emma took a sip of her tea as the maid looked at her anxiously. "If a wealthy lady offers to change your life by letting you attend parties, don't think about accepting."

*****

"You did well last night. Quite a shame that you didn't stay until the end." Mrs. Remigrant sat in front of Emma in the library that morning.

Emma looked up from the book she'd been reading- Walden- to Mrs. Remigrant. "Headache, ma'am."

"Oh, yes, of course, but did you enjoy yourself?"

"Very much, ma'am." Emma said it without much conviction, but she was surprised to believe herself. She had had fun at the party; no matter how loud it was. 

Emma turned back to the page and began to read. "'Rather than love, than money, than fame-'"

"There's another party tomorrow night. A dinner, really, not a ball, but it's with a good family a few blocks down."

"I look forward to it," Emma replied, hastily; she wanted to return to Walden Pond. "'Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me-'"

"Oh, I'm glad. Remember, Emma, this is a secret. Don't tell your family anything when you go home on Friday." It was a warning and Emma did not want to test the lady's wrath.

"Of course. '...than fame, give me truth-'"

"Are you giving me cheek? I'm telling the truth, for lying is a damnable offence." Mrs. Remigrant's eyes hardened into cold steel.

Emma shook her head vigorously. "No, ma'am, it's a part of the book." 

Immediately the steel melted and the eyes dropped closed again. "Ah, of course. Forgive me, please." She shifted in her armchair. "Keep reading, please."

*****

It rained that day, a small drizzle that fell in sheets and turned the roads to mud. Hannah the maid stepped out of the servant's door of the Remigrant mansion, with her empty basket and a dollar in dimes. Cook had asked her to go buy a dozen eggs, five pounds flour, a pound sugar, and a tin of baking soda, but that could wait for a moment. Hannah was outside. That in itself was a miracle.

Normally she would have stood an basked in the sun, letting her olive face soak up the warmth, but today was a cloudy March day that yielded no warmth. Hannah pulled her shawl around her tightly, as if it would make a difference. 

A brisk wind blew, bringing fresh air from somewhere. The city seemed so big, so dirty to Hannah that she could not imagine a place any less pleasant. She longed for a country house, a little town somewhere away from this. She'd met a few people from larger cities but most of her acquaintances were from Denver- the farthest she'd ever met anyone from was St. Paul.

Until the strange Irish girl with disgustingly red hair and unsettlingly bright eyes came to Denver on a charity train ticket, given a job because of some connection to the small hometown of Charles Petersen. Hannah suspected that years ago, before Mr. Petersen married Mrs. Remigrant's daughter Jeanette, he'd been in love with Emma MacEilan. She was bewitching, after all- not terribly beautiful, but her gaze was arresting and her words seemed to steal your soul with startling ease. And worst of all- she was an Irish girl who was poorer than Hannah, and she'd lived on a farm before coming to Denver. 

So Hannah breathed in the rare, clean air, and wished that there was a way to get Emma McWhatever back to Ireland where she belonged.