The crowd on Mott Street streamed past me, giving me a wide berth. My hopes rose for accomplishing this successfully. I reached the back door of the rectory and tapped lightly. Mrs. McNamara opened it. “Can I help you, Sister?” she asked. “Father Barry is occupied at the moment.”
“Mrs. McNamara, it’s me, Molly Murphy,” I said.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she exclaimed and crossed herself. “Whatever next? Well, I certainly wouldn’t have recognized you. Come on in. Himself is just having his supper,” she said. “He won’t notice a thing while he’s eating.”
Up the stairs we went. Bo Kei looked amazed and delighted when a nun came into the room, then even more excited when she realized it was I. I showed her I had brought her a similar costume. I helped her into it and a few minutes later two nuns came out of the church rectory and melted into the Italian crowd on Park Street. Then it was an easy walk through the noisy Italian streets to the house on Elizabeth.
Hermione was still on duty. “Well, I never,” she said when she saw us, and burst out laughing. “Come in, do.” She whisked us inside and shut the door behind us. “Come on through to the kitchen and I’ll make us some tea.”
“I presume that Sarah came by and warned you about this,” I said.
“She did indeed. Welcome.” She held out her hand to the frightened girl. “You’ll be safe here. And I expect you’d like to get out of that nun’s habit. If you take a look in that closet you’ll find some clothing that will fit you. Help yourself. And I’ll go and make us some tea.”
I followed Hermione down the hall.
“I hope you don’t mind keeping Bo Kei here at least for a few days?” I asked.
“We’re not about to turn her out onto the streets,” Hermione said, then lowered her voice, “but let’s just hope that nobody finds out she’s here. I don’t particularly want to find our house firebombed or our staff with their throats cut.”
“I know I’m asking you to take a big risk,” I said. “I’d take her in myself but my future bridegroom is putting the finishing touches to my house, and he must not find out that I’m doing this.”
“I quite understand,” she said. “Sarah Lindley is having the same problems with a bossy bridegroom.”
“She is. I gather he came here today. Sarah was most embarrassed.”
Hermione shook her head. “No, we haven’t seen him today. Sarah thought he’d come here for some reason, but he hadn’t.”
“But I saw him on Bayard Street, just around the corner, so I assumed he’d come to escort Sarah. She was worried he’d come to tell you in person that he’d forbidden her to come here anymore.”
“I don’t know why he’d need to come in person after he already wrote us a letter,” Hermione said. “I hope he wasn’t spying on her to make sure she hadn’t come here.”
“A letter?”
She went across to a bureau and opened a drawer. “Read this. It will make your toes curl.”
The letter was written in a tall, elegant script with extravagantly flourishing curls on the capital letters.To whom it may concern. Please be advised that at my request Miss Sarah Lindley will no longer be working as a volunteer at your establishment. She needs to devote her full energy and attention to the preparations for our wedding.Yours faithfully, M. P. G. Warrington-Chase (The Honorable)
“What a nerve,” I said. “Did you show this to Sarah?”
“I thought it wiser not to. She told me that Monty was adamant that she give up coming here and she didn’t want to upset him. I expect she’d have been livid if she found that he’d written to us.” She looked up at me. “I hope Sarah is doing the right thing marrying him.”
“But she loves him, doesn’t she?”
“I think she likes the idea of being a grand English lady and living in a castle,” Hermione said, “and of course he’s in love with her money. Who wouldn’t be?”
“But surely he doesn’t need her money—he’s from an aristocratic family with large estates.”
“And has squandered his inheritance in riotous living, to paraphrase the Bible. Believe me, Mr. Monty Warrington-Chase can’t wait to marry and settle his debts.”
“How do you know this?”
“My brother is a member of the same club. Monty spilled out his problems one night while in his cups,” she said. “Naturally I’ve said nothing to Sarah. If she really does love him, then all is well.”
“I think she does,” I said. “She was most concerned about his health.”
“His health? I put that down to aristocratic pallor.” She laughed. “Then I wish them every happiness. Here, take this tray into the living room and I’ll follow with the teapot.”
A few minutes later Bo Kei reappeared in a Western skirt and shirtwaist. “Now I am proper American lady,” she said, laughing with relief.
“Tell this lady your story,” I suggested, but Hermione shook her head. “Let’s not put her through that again. Sarah has already given me a most riveting account. I gather you leaped between rooftops and shimmied down drainpipes.”
Bo Kei nodded, her hand shielding her mouth as she giggled. “Nuns always call me tomboy.”
We took tea together and then Hermione suggested that she meet Annie. “We have another Chinese girl here you might know,” she said.
We proceeded up the stairs. Annie was lying as if asleep, but she opened her eyes as we came in.
“A visitor, Annie. A Chinese girl like you.”
Bo Kei gave a squeal and rushed toward Annie’s bed, letting out a stream of Chinese. Annie recoiled for a moment, then threw her arms around Bo Kei. We watched them as they sat together, holding hands, looking incredulously at each other’s faces. Then Bo Kei looked up at us.
“This girl my cousin. She went away from my village and nobody knew where she has gone. We think she is dead.”
Thirteen
Job well done, I said to myself as Sister Molly of the Unholy Order made her way back to Sid and Gus. They were waiting anxiously and were delighted that the story had ended so happily.
“But what are you going to tell this Chinaman who hired you?” Sid gave me a worried stare.
“That’s a problem, isn’t it. I’m not quite sure,” I said. “From what I hear he’s a powerful and ruthless man. I don’t like to think what he’d do if he found out I’d helped the girl escape from him.”
“Molly, you can’t risk putting yourself in that kind of danger,” Gus said. “This girl isn’t anything to you and I’m sure this kind of marriage arrangement is usual in their culture. Would this life be so much worse than a marriage to someone in her village at home?”
I sighed. She had made a valid point. If women could be bought and sold in China, could she have expected any better for herself? And at least here she would have enough to eat and nice clothes. And if she produced that son, she’d be treated well. But she clearly did not want to be treated as chattel. She had taken a terrible risk to run away. I knew how she felt. I had fled from Ireland when the odds had seemed against me. I had received help when I least expected it. How could I deny it to Bo Kei?
“Maybe I’ll tell him that I’ve looked diligently but that the girl is nowhere to be found at any of the missions—which is true of course.”
“Are you sure that nobody at the settlement house will betray the presence of Chinese girls there?”
“No, I’m not at all sure. If they stay hidden upstairs, then maybe they are safe, but if they come down to communal meals, then anyone could inadvertently give them away. The house is too close to Chinatown. Our only chance is to spirit her far away as soon as possible. So if you two could get to work trying to find a position for her—”
“Molly, we’re planning your party, remember?” Gus said. “We’ve a host of people coming who will need to be fed and entertained. We’ve decorations to design, food to make, drinks to order. Can’t you put off reporting in to your Chinaman for a day or so? He can’t expect you to work miracles in a single day, surely?”