Bless the Bride

expects me to do or even why he hired me. Tomorrow I’ll have to go and admit to failure, I’m afraid. And lose a fat fee.”
    “It’s strange that he was so insistent about seeking you out in particular,” Gus said. “Surely anyone could pay a call on the pawnshops and jewelers.”
    “I agree,” I said. “I have to believe there is more to this than he’s telling me. Maybe I’ll find out tomorrow.”
    “Weren’t you worried about going through Chinatown?” one of the women asked. “One hears such fearful stories.”
    “Oh, balderdash,” Sarah said before I could answer. “It’s no more dangerous than any other part of the city. Even less, as the Chinese don’t get drunk and accost women.”
    I looked at her with amazement. “How do you know so much about it?”
    She laughed. “I work just a stone’s throw from Chinatown.”
    This seemed to me the most unlikely statement possible. Sarah did not look like a girl who had done a day’s work in her life. She was about to marry an English peer. And the area around Chinatown was one of the most squalid in the city. “You work there?” I spluttered out. “Doing what?”
    “Sarah is our champion do-gooder,” one of the women said before Sarah could answer. “She is resolved to save the poor, single-handedly.”
    Sarah flushed. “I volunteer at a settlement house, on Elizabeth Street just up from Canal.”
    “A settlement house? What exactly is that?”
    “An experiment, actually, in which educated, upper-class young people live and work among the poor, thus improving the standard of their living. We work mainly with destitute girls and women, some of whom we’ve saved from prostitution.”
    “There are certainly plenty of brothels on Elizabeth Street,” I said, and did get surprised looks this time.
    “I worked on a case there once,” I explained. “So does your family approve of your work?”
    “Not really, but they tolerate it, knowing my temperament,” Sarah said. “Most of my fellow workers actually live at the house, but my mother was so upset at the idea that I just help out by day. And so now she puts up with it, knowing that I’ll be safely and suitably married soon and living far away from slums.”
    “I’ll wager that your future husband doesn’t look kindly upon it,” one of the other young women commented wryly.
    Sarah was still smiling. “Well, no, Monty is trying to force me to give it up immediately. He worries about my walking alone through those streets. In fact he insists on escorting me to and from Elizabeth Street even though I keep telling him that I am perfectly safe, but I believe he has visions of my being carried off as a white slave.”
    This brought much merriment from the other women.
    “Anyway, his wish will soon be granted,” Sarah continued, “as there is a lot of preparation to be done for the wedding. Gown fittings, seating charts—don’t you find it an absolute bore, Molly?”
    “I do, rather,” I agreed. “In fact I’ve just fled from my future mother-in-law’s house, where I was told that my sewing skills were sadly lacking and my future children would be walking around in rags. She nearly died when I pointed out that there were department stores in New York with ready-made clothes for my children.”
    They laughed again.
    “And does your future husband approve of the work that you do, Molly?” Carrie Chapman Catt asked.
    “Not at all,” I said. “He’s a captain in the police department and he doesn’t think that being an investigator is a suitable job for a woman—especially as it treads on his toes.”
    “But you’ll give it up when you marry, surely?” Sarah said.
    “I suppose I’ll have to. I’ve more or less promised him that I will, but I can’t see myself sitting at home getting bored either.”
    “We can find plenty for you to do for the cause,” Carrie said.
    I grinned. “I don’t think he’d be thrilled about that either.”
    “Aren’t young men a bore,” the sharp-faced girl said. “The world would be a much better place without them.”
    “It would rather limit the future population, Mildred,” Carrie Chapman Catt said mildly.
    “I wish humans could just split apart like amoebas,” Mildred said.
    “Don’t you mean amoebae?” one of them teased.
    I began to feel as I always did in such educated company, that my own education was sadly unfinished. I’d had to stop my lessons with the girls at the big house when my mother died. Sid returned