The Girls of Good Fortune

Celia wakes up to find herself face-down on the ground. She is in a dim, enclosed place that smells like a back alley. She calls for help through the closed door. She doesn’t understand why she is dressed like a man, with false hair attached to her face, but she realizes that she is trapped in the tunnels.

Celia feels that she is being watched and judged as she walks through Portland’s North End to look for Abigail, the daughter of the Bettencourts, her employers. Celia wonders if Abigail has gone to a vaudeville show at the Silver Dollar Saloon, but the girl is not there. Suddenly, Celia overhears a white man pushing a Chinese-appearing man out the saloon door. The owner addresses the Chinese man as a “dumb coolie” (13) and tells him to go back to Chinatown. Other bystanders of Asian heritage look away, and Celia doesn’t acknowledge the aggressive owner, either. She reflects that the men who were hired to build the transcontinental railroad are now left without jobs, and that Chinese men are often willing to engage in hard labor for less pay. There is widespread resentment that these laborers are taking jobs away from white men, and expressions of prejudice and discrimination are increasing.

Celia spots a beautiful red-headed woman standing in a window at the Dewdrop Inn. She is repulsed by the woman’s profession as a sex worker and reflects that these women pose as “seamstresses” because sex work is illegal.

Abigail is not at the saloon, and Celia thinks about the rumors she has heard of women who are abducted in Portland and trafficked through tunnels that connect various basements in the waterfront area; these were said to be built by Chinese labors years ago. She walks toward the Wilamette River and meets Timothy Vale, the Bettencourts’ driver. Abigail is nearby, and a stain on her face suggests she snuck away to eat ice cream. Celia scolds the girl and threatens to tell her parents, but Abigail says she will simply deny it and that her parents will believe her over Celia. Celia, who has been working for the Bettencourt family for three years, is hurt by this treatment. Abigail is the one who discovered Celia’s half-Chinese heritage and revealed it to the Bettencourts.

The Bettencourts live in the wealthier Alphabet District of Portland in a grand Victorian mansion. Edwin Bettencourt is the mayor of the city. While Celia is in her servant’s room on the third floor, Stephen Bettencourt sneaks in to embrace her. Stephen is the Bettencourts’ son, and Celia has secretly been in a romantic relationship with him since November. Stephen is leaving in three days to attend King’s College at Oxford University, where he intends to study medicine. They agree to meet later at their usual spot.

Stephen gives Celia a letter from her father, who is Chinese. During her childhood, Celia’s father was often away for his work on the Union Pacific railroad. Ever since her mother died five years ago of tuberculosis, Celia’s father is the only family she has left. He now works at a coal mine in the Wyoming Territory and writes to invite her to join him.

Georgia Bettencourt (Edwin’s wife and Stephen’s mother) prompts Celia to hand out drinks at the Bettencourts’ party. Georgia has known that Celia has a Chinese father named Chung Jun ever since Abigail found a letter from him. Celia has taken her mother’s maiden name of Hart and is passing for white. The Bettencourts have kept her in their employ, but now, at the party, several of the guests express anti-Chinese sentiment. Gordon Humphrey, a lumber baron, refers to the Chinese immigrants as “beasts” (27) and supports the Chinese Exclusion Act. Several of the attendees belong to the Knights of Labor and have supported Edwin Bettencourt’s run for mayor. The narrative clarifies that Celia’s father has found a husband for Celia and wants her to come live with him in Rock Springs.

Celia meets Stephen in the barn, and they embrace. Stephen doesn’t want Celia to obey her father. Celia’s father fell in love with the daughter of missionaries in China and converted to her religion. After the Second Opium War, they moved to America, which is known among the Chinese as Gam Saan or “Golden Mountain” (32). Celia fears that Stephen’s parents will not approve of their union, and she asks what will happen if they have a child who inherits Chinese features. She remembers the story of a Portland woman who gave birth to a baby with brown skin and then learned that she was a “quadroon,” or one-quarter Black. In that case, the husband refused to acknowledge the child. Now, Stephen promises Celia that he doesn’t care what their children look like. Swearing that he loves her, he finds a bit of string, ties it in a loop, and proposes to her with this makeshift ring. Celia agrees and puts on the string. They make love, and Stephen leaves for college.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Waterstone, leads Celia through the house to the drawing room. Celia is reminded of lessons in the one-room schoolhouse that she attended in Washington Territory, where she was labeled “different” (38). The Bettencourts await her anxiously, and Celia worries that they have learned about her relationship with Stephen. Over the fireplace is Mr. Bettencourt’s saber from his service with the Union army during the Civil War. During that time, he witnessed the unjust treatment that the Indigenous groups experienced, and Celia thinks that he shows a sympathy “rarely afforded the outcasts of white society” (39).

Mr. Bettencourt gives her a newspaper describing a riot in Rock Springs in which a white gang attacked Chinese miners. The newspaper declares that the white miners had just cause because the Chinese workers were brought in as strikebreakers, are now the ethnic majority, and agree to accept lower wages than white workers. Celia is shocked when Mrs. Bettencourt confirms that her father was among those killed.

Celia grieves her father’s death but is also outraged over his murder. She feels guilty for not answering his letter. In her room, she looks at the locket that holds a photograph of her parents, who look happy. When the housekeeper sends Celia on a shopping trip, Celia feels inexplicably nauseous at the tea shop. She passes another shop with a sign advertising that the owners are from Japan. At one point, she thinks she glimpses her father and follows the man, only to find that he is a stranger. She then sees two Chinese women making bao, the dumplings she recalls making with her father. The woman are discussing Rock Springs. Celia asks them what they know, but she doesn’t speak Mandarin. Another woman describes the attack in terms that horrify her.

Celia longs to talk with Stephen about the massacre. She continues to feel ill. The doctor is called, and he announces that Celia is pregnant.

Celia braces for the inevitable discussion with the Bettencourts. She hopes that they will support Stephen’s offer to marry her. Mrs. Bettencourt believes that Celia is lying with her claim that she is pregnant with Stephen’s child—their grandchild. Mrs. Bettencourt says, “This whole matter is an abomination” (55). She points out that it would be illegal for Celia and Stephen to marry in Oregon Territory, but Celia reveals that they planned to marry in Washington Territory, where the laws against cross-cultural marriage have been repealed. The mayor sends Celia to her room.

Celia wishes that she could get in touch with Stephen. Miss Waterhouse instructs Celia to pack and gives her an address on Halsey Street as her new place of employment. Timothy drives her there but stops some distance away, and Celia realizes that the address is for the Dewdrop Inn, a local brothel.

Celia is ashamed when men comment on her arrival and call her the “new girl” (63). She wishes that she knew Stephen’s address so she could contact him. She meets some of the young women, one of whom is a redheaded young woman named Lettie. Lettie tells her where to find Marie, who runs the brothel. Marie, a woman in her forties, is Chinese. Celia sees Marie burning incense at a shrine and recalls that her father kept one as well, even though he was ostensibly Christian. Celia is hired and meets the cook, who is from Poland. That evening, as Celia hears the noises of other women entertaining their clients, she wishes that she were anywhere else.