A Heart Most Worthy by Siri Mitchell Page B
Authors: Siri Mitchell
certain that there had been someone, some mysterious woman, that her husband had been in love with before they had married.
“It’s not what they might expect. . . .” She said it in a tone so low that Madame could scarcely hear her.
It’s not what Adeline Quinn, née Howell, had expected. He’d been so utterly charming, despite the melancholy she saw hiding behind his twinkling eyes and his quick smiles. And he’d been so ambitious. He’d spun visions of a new kind of city. A city where men and women could work together and immigrants could be encouraged to improve their plight.
The right sort of immigrant. The smart, hardworking, intelligent kind.
How they’d talked back then! Of anything. Of everything. As they’d shared their dreams for the future, she’d talked herself into believing that the difference in their backgrounds hadn’t mattered. That her blueblood parents would accept her marriage to an Irishman. She’d thought of it as the first step in their plan. Their first advancement for the cause.
It was to be a marriage of minds and goals.
Encouraged by their shared passions, she had hoped for love and companionship. But she had tumbled from those glorious daydreams after the wedding, straight into the treacherous seas of matrimony where she’d found herself sailing alone.
Oh, she’d known of the other woman before she’d married. Patrick Quinn was nothing if not honorable. She knew she’d turned his head and captured his imagination, and she’d told herself that she could also heal his heart. But still, after twenty-one years, she hadn’t been able to expunge the memory of that ghost. The toll that it had left on her, the weight that it had caused her to carry, had become debilitating. For how could she live up to a memory, an ideal, of some other woman when she didn’t even know who that person was?
An immigrant.
That’s all Patrick had ever told her. Knowing he had been raised in the North End, it wasn’t difficult to guess what kind of immigrant, what sort of woman it had been. And at this point, with dreams of romance behind her, she could admit that the thought of it disgusted her. Patrick had fallen in love with an Italian.
Madame could read her client’s face as easily as she could read the pull of a thread against the grain. The best cure for both was to smooth things out. “Nobody ever said marriage was easy. Perhaps a smile when he arrives home. A pleasant word or inquiry about his day?” Isn’t that what any man would want?
“You think I don’t do those things?” Adeline Quinn had taken to hovering near the door every evening until his return. Even when that hour kept creeping ever later. It was crass, undignified, and completely out of keeping with her class and station in life . . . and still, she could not seem to control herself. She just wanted . . . desperately craved . . . something . Some vitally important, nameless, missing thing.
Mrs. Quinn took the sample book that Madame Fortier offered. Began to flip through it. Black, brown, taupe. Wool jersey, wool tricotine, wool poplin. Buttons and beads and braids. Why should a new gown make her feel any more pleased, any more happy than the last one had? And if it did, how long would that satisfaction last? Until the season’s first ball? Until Thanksgiving? Or Christmas? Until Patrick passed by her bedroom door again without stopping to say good-night? How sick to death she was of expectations! And hope! And the city and the war and people not knowing what they were meant to do or how they were to act!
She shut the book and shoved it back into Madame’s hands. “If I wanted to order what everyone else has, then I would patronize Madame Connolly’s. Please tell me you’ve something to offer other than what I’ve already seen half the other women in Boston wearing.”
Madame had grown round-eyed at the diatribe, causing a swell of perverse pleasure in Mrs. Quinn’s breast. It made her despise herself all
“It’s not what they might expect. . . .” She said it in a tone so low that Madame could scarcely hear her.
It’s not what Adeline Quinn, née Howell, had expected. He’d been so utterly charming, despite the melancholy she saw hiding behind his twinkling eyes and his quick smiles. And he’d been so ambitious. He’d spun visions of a new kind of city. A city where men and women could work together and immigrants could be encouraged to improve their plight.
The right sort of immigrant. The smart, hardworking, intelligent kind.
How they’d talked back then! Of anything. Of everything. As they’d shared their dreams for the future, she’d talked herself into believing that the difference in their backgrounds hadn’t mattered. That her blueblood parents would accept her marriage to an Irishman. She’d thought of it as the first step in their plan. Their first advancement for the cause.
It was to be a marriage of minds and goals.
Encouraged by their shared passions, she had hoped for love and companionship. But she had tumbled from those glorious daydreams after the wedding, straight into the treacherous seas of matrimony where she’d found herself sailing alone.
Oh, she’d known of the other woman before she’d married. Patrick Quinn was nothing if not honorable. She knew she’d turned his head and captured his imagination, and she’d told herself that she could also heal his heart. But still, after twenty-one years, she hadn’t been able to expunge the memory of that ghost. The toll that it had left on her, the weight that it had caused her to carry, had become debilitating. For how could she live up to a memory, an ideal, of some other woman when she didn’t even know who that person was?
An immigrant.
That’s all Patrick had ever told her. Knowing he had been raised in the North End, it wasn’t difficult to guess what kind of immigrant, what sort of woman it had been. And at this point, with dreams of romance behind her, she could admit that the thought of it disgusted her. Patrick had fallen in love with an Italian.
Madame could read her client’s face as easily as she could read the pull of a thread against the grain. The best cure for both was to smooth things out. “Nobody ever said marriage was easy. Perhaps a smile when he arrives home. A pleasant word or inquiry about his day?” Isn’t that what any man would want?
“You think I don’t do those things?” Adeline Quinn had taken to hovering near the door every evening until his return. Even when that hour kept creeping ever later. It was crass, undignified, and completely out of keeping with her class and station in life . . . and still, she could not seem to control herself. She just wanted . . . desperately craved . . . something . Some vitally important, nameless, missing thing.
Mrs. Quinn took the sample book that Madame Fortier offered. Began to flip through it. Black, brown, taupe. Wool jersey, wool tricotine, wool poplin. Buttons and beads and braids. Why should a new gown make her feel any more pleased, any more happy than the last one had? And if it did, how long would that satisfaction last? Until the season’s first ball? Until Thanksgiving? Or Christmas? Until Patrick passed by her bedroom door again without stopping to say good-night? How sick to death she was of expectations! And hope! And the city and the war and people not knowing what they were meant to do or how they were to act!
She shut the book and shoved it back into Madame’s hands. “If I wanted to order what everyone else has, then I would patronize Madame Connolly’s. Please tell me you’ve something to offer other than what I’ve already seen half the other women in Boston wearing.”
Madame had grown round-eyed at the diatribe, causing a swell of perverse pleasure in Mrs. Quinn’s breast. It made her despise herself all