Patrick and Maggie’s Wedding Trip — Part 1

The train pulled out of Denver with a long, gathering motion that settled gradually into something steadier, more assured. Maggie felt it through the seat beneath her, through the window at her shoulder, through the quiet shift of the world as the city began to fall away behind them.

She did not lean forward to follow it. Once, she might have. Now, she sat easily, her gloved hands resting in her lap, aware instead of the presence beside her—of the space they occupied together, claimed without effort in a carriage that belonged, for the moment, to everyone and no one at all.

Patrick removed his hat and set it aside with habitual precision, his attention briefly on the arrangement of their things before it returned, as it always did, to her. “Comfortable?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, and meant it. She glanced at him, a hint of a smile forming. “You’ve arranged it so.”

“I prefer not to discover discomfort later.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

The faintest shift in his expression answered that—something that might have been amusement, though it never quite announced itself.

Outside, the last edges of the city gave way to open land. The train gathered speed.

Maggie let her hand rest between them, then, after a moment’s consideration, allowed it to move just enough that it brushed his.

He did not look down. He did not hesitate. His hand closed over hers as if the decision required no thought at all.

“We’re really leaving,” she said.

“Yes.”

She glanced at him again, her expression softer now. “And not just Buckhorn Gap.”

“No.”

Philadelphia. New York. Ireland. Everything that came after. Patrick’s family. Ballymore House.

Maggie let out a quiet breath, then leaned just slightly into him—not enough to draw notice, but enough.

Patrick’s hand tightened, almost imperceptibly. “Shall we?” he said after a moment.

“Yes.”

They made their way to the dining car, which seated perhaps thirty, the tables dressed in white linen and set with silverware that caught the lamplight every time the car swayed. A porter had materialized the moment they were seated.

“Dr. and Mrs. O’Brien,” he greeted them politely, showing them to their seats.

Across the car, near the window, an elderly woman in considerable purple was settled with every appearance of permanence, her traveling case at her feet and, beside it, a bird cage containing a grey parrot who was conducting what appeared to be a strong independent opinion about the soup.

Patrick had noticed it immediately. He had said nothing for approximately four minutes, which Maggie had come to understand was simply how he arrived at things.

“African grey,” he said, from behind the menu.

“What? You mean that lady’s bird?”

“Yes, the parrot. Highly intelligent. Remarkable vocabulary, in the right circumstances.” A pause. “I believe it has just criticized the consommé.”

Maggie looked. The parrot had, in fact, turned its back on the soup bowl the porter had set nearby and made a sound of withering judgment. This struck her as funny, and she couldn’t help smiling.

“Its name,” Patrick said, “appears to be Commodore.”

Maggie pressed her lips together. Patrick was going to be—well, Patrick, and comment dryly on this in a manner that would make her want to laugh.

“The lady has addressed it as such twice since we sat down. The second time with some feeling.”

The car swayed gently on the track. Somewhere behind them, a gentleman sneezed. The Commodore turned, considered the room, and screeched, “BLESS YOU!”

Maggie gave up and laughed, quietly, which Patrick received with an expression of complete innocence that she had come to understand was his finest achievement.

“The salmon,” she managed, studying the menu to regain her composure.

“The salmon,” he agreed, and flagged down the porter.

The gentleman at the next table had the comfortable look of a man who traveled often and enjoyed the company it provided. He had glanced over twice already with the benign curiosity of someone working himself up to an introduction, and when the porter departed he saw his moment.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he said pleasantly. “Aldrich. St. Louis. You’ll think me forward, but I couldn’t help overhearing—are you a medical man?”

“O’Brien,” Patrick said. “And yes. Patrick O’Brien.” He gestured across the table. “My wife, Maggie.”

Mr. Aldrich beamed at her with the goodwill of a man who found the world generally agreeable. “A pleasure, Mrs. O’Brien. Ireland, is it?” This directed back at Patrick, with the tone of a man rather proud of his ear for accents.

“Yes. My family home is near Cork.”

“Wonderful country, I’m told. Never been myself.” He settled comfortably into it. “And you’re practicing where—Denver?”

“Buckhorn Gap. A smaller settlement, south of Denver.”

“A frontier doctor,” Mr. Aldrich said, with what appeared to be genuine admiration. “The West needs men like you.” He turned to Maggie with a kindly air. “And how do you find it, Mrs. O’Brien?”

“I’m still finding my feet,” Maggie said. “We’ve only just married.”

Mr. Aldrich’s face arranged itself into warm congratulation. “Newlyweds! Well. That explains the air about you.” He raised his water glass in a small, genial toast. “And where are you headed, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Philadelphia first,” Patrick said. “Mrs. O’Brien’s family. Then New York, and from there a steamer to Ireland.”

“Ireland.” Mr. Aldrich looked pleased by the ambition of it. “Cork, you said. Will you be long?”

“Long enough to do it properly,” Patrick said, with a small satisfaction that Maggie recognized as the particular pleasure of a man returning to something he loved and bringing someone he loved to see it.

It was at this point that the Commodore, who had been quiet for several minutes and was perhaps feeling neglected, produced a phrase in what Maggie was fairly certain was French.

Mr. Aldrich blinked. Maggie looked at Patrick.

Patrick had gone very still, in the manner of a man who had made a decision and was committing to it completely. His eyes were fixed on Mr. Aldrich with an expression of polite, pleasant attention. A muscle moved in his jaw.

The Commodore, encouraged by the silence, offered a second phrase. Possibly an elaboration on the first.

Something happened to Patrick’s mouth.

“Patrick,” Maggie said.

“Mm,” said Patrick, not quite meeting her eyes, and she noticed a merriment dancing in them. It was not, she would reflect later, his finest performance. His shoulders were doing something she had never seen them do before, and his hand had found his water glass with rather more purpose than thirst required.

“Is that—” Mr. Aldrich began.

“French,” Patrick said, with tremendous composure. “Yes.”

“Well,” said Mr. Aldrich. “I didn’t study French myself.”

“No,” said Patrick. “Quite.”

The Commodore appeared satisfied and subsided. The porter arrived with the salmon. Mr. Aldrich, whose French extended no further than a menu, turned to Patrick with renewed curiosity. “Did you pick up the language in your travels?”

“It was—insisted upon, in my education. My brother and I both suffered through it as boys, and complained about it as much as we dared.” He paused. “My time in Paris made learning it useful. Which my father rather pointedly reminded me.” 

“You trained in Paris?”

“Edinburgh first. Then Paris, yes.”

Mr. Aldrich declared this enormously impressive. The dinner settled into something easy and warm, the car swaying gently on the track, the lamps doing their amber work overhead.

Maggie waited until Mr. Aldrich was occupied with his beef before she looked at her husband with an expression she did not particularly bother to conceal.

Patrick met her eyes. His own were still very bright.

Later, he mouthed.

She reached for her salmon, took a sip of wine, and looked forward to later.

The compartment was small and lamp-lit and entirely theirs, the heavy curtains drawn around them. The plains outside the window had gone to full dark by the time Patrick, with the gravity of a man delivering a considered professional opinion, explained what the Commodore had said.

Maggie stared at him. “Both phrases,” she said.

“Both phrases.”

“The first one I can—” She stopped. “But the second one.”

“Yes,” Patrick said.

“That is not a thing one says in a dining car.”

“The Commodore,” Patrick said carefully, “does not appear to observe that distinction.”

She stared a moment longer. And then, entirely against her will, she felt heat rise in her face. “Goodness.” She resisted the urge to laugh at the impertinent parrot, though she suspected Patrick would hardly be shocked if she did.

Patrick looked at her. And then he appeared to become aware, perhaps for the first time, of precisely what he was doing—sitting in a first-class Pullman compartment on a train bound for Philadelphia, solemnly explaining parrot profanity to his wife of one week, in a language he had been made to study against his considerable will and had not expected to require for this particular purpose.

He lost it completely. It was not a polite laugh. It was real and helpless, and Maggie started laughing too because…the entire thing was one of the funniest moments she’d yet lived.

“That poor woman,” she managed.

“She seemed…” He couldn’t finish.

“She called him Commodore,” Maggie said. “She’s made her peace with it.”

“Their manner did seem to suggest a history together. She maintained complete composure,” Patrick agreed, still not entirely recovered. “Throughout.”

“Unlike some people at the table.”

“I held it through dinner.”

“You did,” she allowed. “You were very nearly magnificent.”

He laughed again, quieter this time, and the train swayed on through the dark. He had shed his coat and was sitting with his feet extended, and he looked, she thought, like a man who had put down something heavy and had no immediate plans to pick it up again.

Outside, the plains unwound behind them without ceremony. The lamp swayed.

“Where did he learn it, do you think?” she said. “Paris?”

Patrick considered this with apparent sincerity. “Most likely.”

“And the second phrase.” She kept her voice very even. “You recognized it quite readily.”

There was a brief pause before he answered. “Paris,” he said, “was an education in several respects.”

“Mm,” said Maggie. “Was it?”

He looked at her. She looked back at him, pretending great innocence.

“That,” Patrick said pleasantly, “is a separate conversation.”

“I thought it might be,” she said, rolling her eyes inwardly. Even a man you loved was still a man about things. 

Maggie looked around. The porter had made up the compartment while they were at dinner, and it was as discreet and comfortable as everything else on the train had been — the berth turned down, a small lamp burning low, the curtains drawn against the dark.

Ready to get comfortable, Maggie reached for her buttons and found she couldn't quite manage the uppermost ones. Patrick stood to help her. Then there was, of course, her corset. 

"Here," Patrick said, and she turned, and his hands were steady and unhurried, unlacing with the matter-of-fact competence of a man entirely comfortable with the task.

Then he stopped. "This is too tight," he said.

"It's perfectly acceptable."

"It is not." His voice had acquired the particular quality it got when he was about to be professionally immovable. "You've been corseted like this all day."

"All women are corseted like this all day." She turned and looked at him, her hands on her hips.

"Yes," Patrick said, in the tone of a man who had opinions about that too and was, for the moment, limiting himself to the immediate case. "Turn around."

She turned. His fingers found the laces, and the relief, when it came, was considerable. She exhaled slowly, feeling the evening's constraint ease away.

"You're very good at that," she said.

"Bandages in uncooperative situations," he said. "This is considerably easier."

"That," Maggie said, "is not what I meant." When he didn’t answer immediately, she asked, "Part of the Paris conversation, husband?"

His hands were warm at her back. Still.

"That conversation," Patrick said, with great composure, "grows longer by the hour." He caressed her back while he said this.

"Mm hmm," Maggie said. She felt his lips find the curve of her neck, just below her ear, and whatever reply she'd had in mind dissolved entirely.

The lamp burned low. Outside, the dark plains ran on and on.