“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.”
