“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.”