Chapter 9
Sacramento City
December 1853
Gray fog clung like plaster to the sky as Isabelle plodded up the knoll to her aunt’s cottage—a prefabricated house, painted white and then trimmed with green in Baltimore before being shipped in pieces around Cape Horn.
She’d splurged and bought two hen eggs along with fresh cream to make eggnog for her aunt. In one hand, she held the pitcher of Aunt Emeline’s favorite drink. In her other was a satchel with her Christmas gift. The Methodist church had celebrated with a service this morning, but Aunt Emeline had been too ill to attend. She’d stayed home with Sing Ye, a young Chinese woman who tended to her care.
When Isabelle arrived, her aunt was sitting up against a heap of pillows on her bed, her yellow quilt folded back over her nightdress. Outside the window was a fenced garden blooming with pansies and calendulas, thriving in the warmth of California’s winter.
Even on gray days, her aunt’s home always felt cheery. A respite in a constantly changing city. A safe haven for the women Aunt Emeline loved.
Isabelle scooted a chair to the bedside. “How are you feeling today?”
Aunt Emeline smiled. Her lips were cracked, but her eyes glowed with kindness. “I’m happy that both my girls are here.”
Sing Ye picked up the porcelain basin on the side table. “You are just as lovely as your aunt.”
“Thank you,” Isabelle replied. “I think you are quite lovely as well.”
She shook her head shyly. “Not in China.”
“Here in California, you are beautiful.”
Sing Ye turned softly on feet that were too large to be considered pretty in her homeland, but Isabelle still thought they were small. Everything about Sing Ye seemed delicate, yet she had shown more strength than any woman Isabelle had ever known.
A year ago, Sing Ye had arrived on a steamer in San Francisco while Aunt Emeline was in the city commissioning a seamstress to make new curtains for the hotel. Most of the Chinese girls shipped to San Francisco were swept away by their so-called benefactors into the underworld of slave brothels and secret organizations called tongs. These women became known in Chinese as baak haak chai. One hundred men’s wife.
But Aunt Emeline had rescued Sing Ye, paying for her passage before someone with sordid intentions bought her. Then she brought her back to live in Sacramento as a daughter instead of a slave.
“Nicolas Barr has proposed marriage to Sing Ye.”
Isabelle smiled. “That’s wonderful news.”
“He will take good care of her.”
Nicolas worked down at the wharf, and he seemed to be an honorable young man, a hard worker from Germany who had been spellbound by Sing Ye since they met months ago at church. Then he began visiting her at Aunt Emeline’s house every Sunday afternoon.
Isabelle hoped for Sing Ye’s sake that Nicolas was exactly who he purported to be.
Aunt Emeline clasped her hands together. “Now both my girls will be getting married.”
Isabelle’s smile fell. “Actually—”
“It’s exactly what I wanted before I leave this world.”
Isabelle leaned forward, kissing her wrinkled forehead. “You’re not leaving us anytime soon.”
“Oh, child.” Aunt Emeline reached forward with one of her hands to grasp Isabelle’s arm. “When God calls, I must go home.”
Isabelle wanted to keep her aunt here for many more years—she was the only family Isabelle had left—but Emeline’s heart longed to sweep through the gates of heaven that awaited her, to greet her Savior with William at her side.
“My only regret,” Aunt Emeline began, leaning back against the pillows, “is that I didn’t rescue hundreds of more girls like her.”
“You and Uncle William helped so many.” Isabelle wrapped her fingers over her aunt’s hand, blinking back the tears in her eyes. “I wish I could help women trapped in slavery too.”
Aunt Emeline’s gaze wandered toward the gray light in the window. “I suppose both of us must be faithful in caring for whomever God sends our way, like Queen Esther when God asked her to save her people.”
“You have been a faithful servant, Auntie. In many ways.”
Aunt Emeline began to cough, the hollow rasping of a woman whose body refused to heal, the coal smoke and stench of sewer in this city inflaming her lungs.
Isabelle helped her sit up, gently patting her back, but the cough persisted. “I’m going for the doctor,” Isabelle finally said.
“No.” Aunt Emeline shook her head. “I’m not ill, Isabelle. Just old.”
“He can still give you something for that cough.”
Her aunt pointed at the parade of blue and brown glass bottles lined up on the windowsill. “Nothing works anymore.”
Isabelle held up her pitcher. “I brought you eggnog.”
She poured the drink, and her aunt took several sips before smiling. “It reminds me of home.”
“Do you miss Uncle William?”
“Every day.”
Isabelle opened her satchel. “I have a gift for you.”
She took out the package, wrapped in white tissue paper and decorated with a red ribbon and piece of lace.
“It’s beautiful,” Aunt Emeline said.
“But you haven’t even opened it.”
“I think it’s too pretty to open.”
Isabelle peeled back the paper for her and lifted out the watercolor painting she’d found of her aunt’s beloved home of Marseille. The sails flapping in the breeze along the port. The cliffs along the coast. The basilica called Notre-Dame de la Garde with its bell tower on the hill.
Aunt Emeline clutched the picture to her chest, tears in her eyes. It was where she’d spent her childhood, where she’d met and married her William more than forty years ago.
Slowly she lowered the picture, looking over at the cypress writing desk by the door. It was the only extravagant piece in the cottage, one purchased from a Brazilian man who’d brought it on a ship when he traveled north. When he arrived in Sacramento, he realized he needed money more than furniture. Aunt Emeline, she guessed, had given him even more than the piece was worth so he’d have the funds to start over.
Her aunt pointed toward the desk. “I have a gift for you too.”
But even as she spoke, her eyes began to close.
Isabelle leaned forward. “I’ll open it next time.”
Aunt Emeline nodded. “Have you received any news from Ross?”
“Not yet.” She’d do just about anything to help her aunt recover, including shield her from the realities of what Ross had done.
“He’ll be home soon,” Aunt Emeline said, her voice growing weaker. “Then we’ll have a wedding for you too.”
She kissed Emeline’s soft cheek as her aunt drifted to sleep.
In her heart, she wanted a love like the one shared by her uncle and aunt: two people who’d longed to be together, who trusted one another even when they were apart.
There would be no marriage for her, but perhaps it was for the best. Her uncle and aunt had partnered together to rescue exploited women and children. Helping them find freedom. Ross had been a good business partner, but she suspected he wouldn’t feel the same about helping those in Sacramento City who needed a friend, especially if it threatened his business.
She glanced back out the window again, the glass a dull canvas splattered with vagrant droplets of rain. There was no clarity on it. No beauty. The water clung to it as if it feared falling, as if the clinging was much better than the unknown.
She didn’t know what would happen to her either in the months ahead, but she knew well that she couldn’t cling to the past. She would hold on to her aunt’s hand, content in the comfort of her prayers as she stepped into the unknown.
Smiling, she rose to her feet. She needn’t concern herself with Ross’s perspective any longer. Like Aunt Emeline, she could be faithful to help whomever God sent her way.