The Girls of Good Fortune

Marie gives Celia a pouch of coins and instructs her to buy opium. As Celia follows Marie’s directions, she walks through a rally of Chinese workers. At her destination, she sees a room full of men and women who are smoking opium. Hearing the cry of a baby, she follows the noise and discovers a tunnel behind a staircase. Inside the tunnel is a family of Chinese people who are cooking, sleeping, and playing a game. Celia suspects that they are living in the tunnel to avoid the violence that other Chinese immigrants are experiencing.

As she leaves the establishment, Celia sees men who are called “highbinders” (82) because of the way they wear their hair. Her father taught her that these men are often assassins for the brotherhoods known as tongs. The tongs are known to run illegal activities like gambling, sex work, and human trafficking.

Once Celia returns to the inn, she reviews a flyer from the rally, which decries the increasing anti-Chinese action throughout the American West, including the forced removal of the residents of Tacoma’s Chinatown. The flyer further declares that due to a lack of witnesses, the grand jury did not indict anyone who was accused of participating in the Rock Springs massacre.

Celia reflects on her father’s proverb, “Fortune rests in misfortune” (85), and ponders how to contact Stephen. She visits the Bettencourts’ house to ask the housekeeper, Miss Waterstone, for Stephen’s address at college. Miss Waterstone informs her that the mayor has decided not to send funds to allow Stephen to travel home until he has completed his medical degree. She turns Celia away.

Celia recalls advice that her mother gave when Celia’s father was absent for work: “Focus on the tasks before you, and your time apart will pass all the faster” (89). Celia tries to apply this idea to her situation with Stephen. Meanwhile, Marie grows impatient with Celia’s clumsiness; Celia has learned that Marie collects the girls’ income in order to make payments to a “big boss” (91). Celia also learns that Lettie misled her into thinking that the previous housekeeper died, so she confronts the young woman on this point. Marie arranges for a midwife to visit Celia.

Celia’s pregnancy is five months along, and she likes the midwife, Mrs. Downey. She often sends letters addressed to Stephen at King’s College, hoping that they will reach him. One day, while she is reading The History of Tom Thumb, Lettie comes to Celia’s door with dresses to wear as her pregnancy advances. While they converse, Celia feels something moving in her stomach, and Lettie tells her that it is the baby quickening.

Lettie relates that she came from Ireland to Portland as a mail-order bride; her groom told her they were already married and could live as husband and wife. However, Lettie learned that he had married another woman, and he also left Lettie pregnant. Because she was Irish, anti-immigrant prejudices made it difficult for her to find work. Lettie explains that Marie offered to let her lodge at the Dewdrop and work off her debt later. Mrs. Downey, the midwife, found Lettie’s daughter a home with adoptive parents. Celia reflects that “[i]n various ways, they were both just doing what was needed to survive” (97). She invites Lettie to stroll through the park the next day.

Lettie and Celia dress up and visit the shops downtown, pretending to be wealthy ladies. Celia notes that “the more uppity her manner, the better the treatment” (101). She enjoys the play-acting until she sees Abigail Bettencourt, Stephen’s sister, across the street. Celia hurries to ask Abigail if Stephen is coming home for the Christmas holiday, but Abigail says her mother instructed her not to speak of Stephen to Celia. Mrs. Bettencourt is cold to Celia and orders her to stay away from her family. Celia contemplates the damage she could do to the Bettencourts’ reputation if she were to make it known that Stephen had fathered her baby, but she doesn’t want to hurt Stephen by taking such action.

Celia is upset that her child will be born in a brothel; she feels degraded by the surroundings. She decides to read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to soothe herself with a “story of tumbling down a vexing path and yearning for escape” (106). Timothy Vale, the Bettencourts’ driver, visits and says that he has found work at a ranch in Colorado; he offers to marry Celia. Celia realizes, “He was proposing more than marriage; he was proposing a new life. A fresh start” (109). However, Celia still loves Stephen, so she declines Timothy’s offer.

Celia goes into labor in April. Lettie reassures her that all is going well, but Celia hears Mrs. Downey, the midwife, praying.

Celia delivers her baby, and in the quiet that follows, she fears that the infant has Chinese features and is causing consternation to the other women. Instead, she sees that her daughter has hair “a golden shade of honey, [and] her other features [are] no less fair” (113). Mrs. Downey says that a brothel is no place to raise a child; she offers to arrange for the baby to be adopted. Marie says that if Celia loves the baby, she must do what is best for her. Celia makes her decision.

Inside her cell, the imprisoned Celia realizes that she has been given food and water. As she eats and drinks, she wonders if anyone knows she is missing. Suddenly, she feels sleepy and guesses that her water was drugged. She thinks of the child she left behind.