Chapter 15
Sacramento City
January 1854
Mr. Bridges paid us a visit while you were out this morning,” Fanny said as she emerged from her rooms, an apron strung over her arm. “He still hasn’t found his slave.”
Isabelle nodded as she picked out a freshly cut pansy from her bucket, delivered from Sutter Floral Gardens, and arranged it on a table in the dining room. Mr. Bridges had returned multiple times, but she hadn’t allowed him to search again. Even though Micah was gone, she didn’t want someone who owned slaves in her establishment.
Rodney had called twice as well in the past few weeks. They were seemingly friendly visits, but she suspected he was keeping his eye on her and her establishment. He hadn’t asked directly about Micah again, but he’d inquired about Stephan’s past. She told him the truth—that she didn’t know where Stephan had lived before California, but he was an honest and reliable steward who served this hotel well.
She’d been up until late last night, praying again that Micah was safely hidden away. She may never know what happened to the boy, but she had tried to be faithful in helping him escape slavery.
“Poor Mr. Bridges,” Fanny said with a sigh. “My daddy always said to never trust a slave. They’ll run if given half a chance.”
Isabelle pinched the stem of a flower between her fingers. How could a free woman—one who had traveled fifteen thousand miles to find her husband—judge someone who desired the same freedom? Ignorance and hypocrisy were both revolting to her, but keeping one’s views about slavery private was a fine line to walk. She couldn’t help anyone trapped as a slave if she divulged her own thoughts about abolition.
Fanny tied the apron strings around her back. Still exhausted from her long journey, she’d spent most of her morning resting in the back room. She probably wouldn’t survive a single day working as a slave.
“How many Negroes did you have on your farm?” Isabelle asked, focusing her attention back on the flowers to finish her last arrangement.
“Only two, but I’ve heard plenty of stories. Did your family ever own slaves?”
Isabelle turned the vase a half inch. “We lived in a small house in Baltimore.”
“I always wanted to visit Baltimore. Are your parents still there?”
“No,” she said, stepping back to scrutinize the bouquet.
“Pink or red roses would look better on your tables.”
Isabelle shook her head. “I never buy roses.”
Fanny sat in a chair, eyeing her curiously. “Did your parents come out west with you?”
“My aunt and I came together,” Isabelle said, trying to steer the discussion away from her parents. Fanny would learn in time that most people in California didn’t like to talk much about who or what they left behind. They came here either to escape from their pasts or because they had grand visions of remaking themselves into someone new—much more successful and wealthier than they’d been at home.
Fanny crinkled her nose. “Why would you come out here without a man?”
“My uncle decided to venture west in 1849, soon after President Polk announced there was an abundance of gold in the hills. He came across the isthmus, but when he sent for us, he said Panama was no place for a lady, so we went around Cape Horn.”
By the time they arrived here, Uncle William was gone. He’d died of cholera after the 1850 flood.
“It took me six months to get around the Horn,” Fanny said. “Not including almost a month in New York waiting for a boat.”
“It felt like an eternity, didn’t it?”
Fanny nodded. “We hit a storm somewhere off the coast of Chile, and I thought I was going to die. I tried to keep my mind focused on seeing Ross when I arrived, but alas, no husband of mine.”
When the front bell chimed, Fanny looked over her shoulder with expectation, like Isabelle used to do, but still there was no Ross. Stephan stepped into the room, carrying a stack of letters from the post office. He handed them to Isabelle before moving toward the kitchen—some of the letters were probably for her, confirmations of orders placed or bills for their supplies. Others she would distribute to her guests.
Fanny eyed the stack of mail in her hand. “Does Ross ever write to you?”
“Occasionally,” she said, weighing her words before she spoke again. “He inquires about the condition of the hotel in his absence.”
“When did you last hear from him?”
Isabelle clutched the mail closer to her side. “About a month ago.”
Fanny sighed.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
“Were you and he—” Fanny stumbled over her words. “Were you close?”
Isabelle evaded the question. “He was a good partner to my aunt and me. And a good friend.”
“I worried about him a lot, being out here alone.”
“I think any wife would worry about her husband.”
Fanny nodded toward the white swinging door into the kitchen, hinged onto the back wall. “Do you need me to help tonight?”
“Please,” Isabelle said as she glanced around the dining room. The violet blooms brightened the white tablecloths, but each place still needed silver along with the fine blue-and-white transferware she’d received recently from England. Soon she needed to send Stephan to San Francisco to order new cloths for the tables as well.
“Before you go to the kitchen, could you help Stephan finish setting the tables?”
Fanny hesitated, eying the kitchen door again. “I’ve never worked with a Negro before.”
Isabelle set her empty bucket down on the floor. “He’s a freedman.”
“Still—”
“Things are much different here in California than in Kentucky,” Isabelle tried to explain. “You’ll have to get used to working alongside freedmen and women.”
“It makes no sense to me.” Fanny picked at the edge of her apron. “How can one black man be free and another be a slave?”
Isabelle sighed. “Californians are still trying to figure that out.”
With her apron neatly covering her calico dress, Fanny hastened toward the kitchen. She wasn’t the first person who’d balked at working with Stephan, as if she were somehow better than the man because of her skin color. As Aunt Emeline liked to say, “God created every person equal. It was man who ascribed worth.”
People may be equal in God’s eyes, but they were often afraid of what they didn’t understand. The entire hierarchy of freedom was absurd, founded on fear and greed and a pompous sense of self-regard.
Isabelle picked up the bucket in her free hand and began walking toward the lobby. From the Garden of Eden until today, man and woman alike tried to usurp power from the God who made them. Slavery, in her opinion, was the apex of power. One man controlling another.
After she stepped up to her desk, Stephan walked into the room. He closed the door between the lobby and dining room, then moved over to the counter.
“I saw a friend on the way to the post office,” he whispered.
Her eyebrows slipped up. “Yes?”
“I wanted you to know”—he hesitated, glancing back at the door before he spoke again—“that your package is gone.”
She sighed with relief. “Do you happen to know its particular destination?”
“The Colony of Vancouver Island,” he said. “It’s on a steamer from San Francisco with twenty others. They should arrive in about three days.”
She’d read in the paper that the British were welcoming Negroes onto the island to help populate the country, like they’d opened their borders to the runaway slaves back east. Micah and the others would be safe there. “Very good.”
Stephan placed his elbows on the polished counter, studying her for a moment. “Why did you help him?”
The answer was too complicated to explain now so she chose one of her many reasons. “Because I believe all people should be free.”
He smiled, the kindness radiating across his face. “You are a good woman, Miss Isabelle.”
“No better than any other.”
“Much better than any I’ve ever worked for.”
She brushed a lock of stray hair back over her ear. “You let me know if anyone bothers you, Stephan.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Then let me know if I can help someone else.”
When he left, she fanned the stack of letters out on her desk. In the middle was one postmarked from Marysville, the town close to where Ross had mailed his last letter to her.
Her joy at Stephan’s news plummeted as she picked up her letter opener and slowly slit the envelope.
She moved closer to the coal stove, warming herself as she unfolded the sheet of paper. Ross’s script looked hurried, and there was a copper-colored smudge on the right-hand corner as if he’d written it while sifting the dirt for gold.
Dearest Isabelle,
I’m still digging on the fields near Marysville. I won’t say much in the letter, in case someone intercepts this, but you will be quite pleased with my findings here.
There isn’t much to report outside my digging—I eat beans and dried pork every day, sleep when I can, and if I’m lucky, dream about you at night. We’ve only had mild bouts of rain this month, and my tent stays quite dry. I will continue digging until the weather won’t let me continue, reaping a harvest for our future.
In your capable hands, I’m certain the hotel is running quite well. While I’m grateful for the placid weather, I eagerly await the rains so I can return to you.
With what I’ve earned here, I will buy you a wedding gift that will last a lifetime. Just think—in a few short months, we will be husband and wife.
Yours forever,
Ross
She crumpled the letter in her hands. Ross may not have much to report from the diggings, but she had plenty to tell him. In person.
“Isabelle?” she heard Fanny call out from the dining room.
She quickly opened the door to the stove and tossed Ross’s everlasting love into the fire.