Peggy Madden was the perfect balance to Maggie’s reflective, considered nature; renowned for her sharp sense of humour and flighty notions. She was also renowned for her good looks with a pretty, heart-shaped face, long blonde hair and full, rosy lips which the boys seemed to especially like. Maggie was slightly envious of Peggy’s hair, which she would leave to hang loose about her shoulders whenever she could. Maggie would often frown in the mirror at her own unruly, auburn curls which barely reached her shoulders, brushing and teasing them to try and make them lie sleek and flat like Peggy’s. They never did.
Katie Kenny was a blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked girl who was well-known in the parish from her job at O’Donoghue’s shop and well-liked for her caring and kind-hearted temperament. Maggie knew how much Katie missed her sister Catherine who had been in America for the last three years and how much she was looking forward to seeing her very soon.
Maggie enjoyed listening to her two friends’ romantic notions of sailing to America, where they imagined a life of wealth and independence waiting for them. They aspired to the American way of life which they saw in the women who returned from there, like Maura Brennan and Maggie’s aunt, Kathleen Murphy. The self-assurance and poise displayed by these women was undeniably inspiring to the naïve younger girls of the parish and they could often be found gawping at the ‘American ladies’, whispering remarks to each other about their fancy hats and shiny brass buttons.
Maggie often wished she could join in with their enthusiastic conversations, share in their excitement and dream about the prospect of a new life in America, but all she really wanted to do was stay here and continue her present life with Séamus. Staring out of the cottage window now, she recalled one such conversation between the three girls last summer. They were sitting in their favourite spot by the fairy fort at the lake, skimming stones.
‘Did ye see that fella Tom Durcan passin’ through again yesterday?’ Katie had asked casually as she hitched up her skirt and bent down to search for the perfect, flattened, smooth skimming stone. ‘Y’know, that shippin’ agent from Castlebar?’
‘No, I didn’t see him. Is he that roundy lookin’ fella with the piggy eyes?’ Peggy’s rather unkind description of the man was so perfect it made Katie and Maggie giggle.
‘Well, you’ll never guess what?’ Katie continued dramatically, clearly keen to tell her story about him.
‘What?’ her friends chorused.
‘Well, didn’t he only stop me in the street and ask whether I might be lookin’ for passage to the United States. Bold as you like. Practically shoved the tickets under my nose he did.’ She threw her stone then, getting six decent bounces as a distant rumble of thunder echoed beyond the hills.
‘Ah sure, he’s been toutin’ his tickets around here for years Katie. Don’t mind him,’ Peggy replied, throwing a stone herself which sank straight into the depths of the lake. ‘What are you after tellin’ him anyway?’
‘I said I might be,’ Katie replied, ‘but that it was none of his feckin’ business.’ Katie, like Peggy, had a sharp sense of humour and was usually able to get a smile out of Maggie who was lost in her own thoughts as usual. ‘And then, the cheek of him,’ she continued, ‘he said it would be his business if I did decide to go, because he has the tickets!’
The three girls had roared with laughter then, gathering their coats and hats to make for home as the first drops of rain started to fall.
‘Well, I’ll tell ye now girls,’ Peggy had said, brushing the fluffy, white dandelion seeds from her skirts as they strode through the long grass, ‘if I ever do cross that ocean, I’m buying the finest hat I can. I’ll not be arriving on American shores and scaring the livin’ daylights out o’ those poor yanks. Peggy Madden will arrive as she means to live among them; as a lady with style.’
Maggie remembered the conversation as clearly as if it had happened yesterday and she thought it amusing that Katie had, as it turned out, bought her ticket from Mr Durcan with money sent from her sister Catherine in New York and that, true to her word, Peggy had made a special trip to Crossmolina to buy her new hat and gloves for the journey.
‘As fashionable as you might find in any store in St. Louis,’ the shopkeeper had apparently told her.
The sound of laughter outside caught Maggie’s attention again and she smiled as she watched Peggy adjusting that very hat on her head now. It was olive green; wide-brimmed with a silk ribbon and organza detailing, secured with a fancy peacock-feather pin. The gloves were of a matching olive green; suede day gloves, with three, dainty, silver-tone buttons at the wrist. Peggy carefully brushed some dust from them as the strengthening breeze caused the slender blossom trees to sway easily.