“Yes,” I said. “I believe she came from the nuns.”
Annie gave the ghost of a tired smile. “We call them white ghost ladies. They dress all white, like ghost.”
I stood up. “Is there a convent of any kind around here?”
Hermione shrugged. “I don’t know of a convent. I’ve seen nuns in the streets occasionally, so they may be attached to local churches.”
I took a business card out of my purse. “I’m going on the hunt again, but if the girl should turn up here, please keep her and send someone to find me.” I gave Annie a reassuring smile. “Nice meeting you, Annie. You’re in good hands now. You’ll get well soon.”
“Okay, miss,” she said flatly.
We started the long descent, our footsteps echoing on the bare boards of the stairs.
“She won’t get well, you know,” Hermione said when we were safely out of earshot. “Frankly we’re in a pickle here. We don’t know what to do with her. We shouldn’t really keep her or she might infect the other women who come here, but there’s nowhere to send her.” She paused, sighing. “Poor little thing. So she came over here as a bride, did she?”
“It appears so. And she didn’t give him a son, so he got rid of her.”
“Sent her to work in a brothel. That’s disgusting.”
“From what I’ve learned of this Chinese gentleman, his people look upon women as objects to be traded and disposed of.”
“Horrible.” Hermione shuddered. “I wish you luck. I hope you find this girl before her lord and master does.”
“So do I,” I said. “Please give my best to Sarah when you see her.”
And so I left the settlement house with my head in turmoil. From what I had now learned from Annie, did I really want to find Bo Kei? And if I found her, how could I possibly deliver her back into the hands of Lee Sing Tai?
Eleven
I visited the other settlement houses but, as I suspected, they hadn’t seen my Chinese bride. So I began to look for Catholic churches and more specifically, for nuns. It was midafternoon and I was growing rather hot and weary. But I was now filled with a sense of urgency that I must find the girl before anyone else did.
I began to wish I had been a better Catholic. If I’d made a point of going to mass in New York, I’d have known where to find the churches here in the Lower East Side. But I’d too many sins to confess now to make me want to go back to church—and my few encounters with judgmental priests hadn’t convinced me otherwise. So I wandered aimlessly around, trying first the Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry. Here I moved warily again, as we were close to police headquarters. But nobody at St. Patrick’s had seen a Chinese girl.
“They don’t ever leave Chinatown,” a young priest told me. “Not if they know what’s good for them. And as for girls—well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Chinese woman out in public.”
I wasn’t sure where to go next until an idea came to me. I had help on the spot, so to speak. So I made my way to Cherry Street, where Seamus and his children were now living with his sister Nuala and her brood. I can tell you that climbing the five flights to that tenement brought back painful memories of my arrival in New York. How far I’d come since then. Now I was safe and secure and about to be married to a wonderful man. I found renewed energy to bound up the last few of those stairs.
It was Nuala herself who opened the door. She looked me up and down, hands on hips. “Well, would you look what’s turned up on our doorstep again,” she said.
“That’s a nice welcome, if ever I heard one, Nuala,” I said. “I’m glad to see you looking well.”
“So has your fancy man thrown you out?”
I laughed. “On the contrary. I’m about to be married. To a police captain.”
Nuala looked back into the dark room beyond. “You hear that, boys!” she yelled. “You’d better mind yourselves when Miss High-and-Mighty is around these days, ’cos anything you say will be reported back to the police.”
Several suspicious faces peered out of the darkness. I couldn’t see much of them, but I didn’t like what I saw. Nuala’s boys were now looking like the typical Irish louts.
“I won’t trouble you long, but I’ve a job for young Shamey, and your boys too, if they’d like to help.”
Shamey was called to the door. I wasn’t invited inside. When Bridie heard it was me, she rushed to me and flung her arms around me again. Shamey came with more of a swagger, to impress the cousins, I suspected.
I told him what I wanted. “All the churches in the area, where there might be nuns living. Your aunt Nuala probably knows where they are. Ask if any of them has taken in a Chinese girl. If they have, come and find me immediately.”
“Are you paying him for doing this?” one of Nuala’s boys demanded, pushing past Shamey to face me. He was now almost as tall as me, with a voice that hovered between boy and man.
“You too, if you’d like to help.”