The weather has turned more disagreeable. A storm pounds us with heavy snow, blown into our faces so that we barely make our way along the river ice. Travel is slow at best. The dog is the only member of the party that remains undaunted. It disappeared early in the day so that I suspected it had slunk away to join a pack of wolves, pannier still strapped to its back, but upriver we found it curled in a drift of snow. As we neared, it hopped to its feet, shook off the snow, vanished ahead into the storm. This happened through the day. Even the Indian girl cannot keep up with the animal’s pace, so has fallen back to travel with the others. How the dog predicts our route, I do not know, except that we follow the river.
We camp the nights damp & cold with none of us sleeping soundly. Without tents, we rely all the more on our sailcloth bags as our only shelter. Once inside, I pull my poncho overhead to make a small tent beneath which I can eat, read, write somewhat protected from the storm.
Lieut. Pruitt’s efforts to take celestial observations are frustrated by the weather.
Sophie Forrester
Vancouver Barracks
January 31, 1885
Allen is gone. I must accept it. Last night I could make do with the thought that he was just at the wharf in Portland, sleeping aboard the docked steamer, and that by some chance I might see him one last time. Tonight is different. The sun has set, the barracks fallen quiet, and I am alone in this house. The ship was to depart this morning at daybreak, bound for Puget Sound. By this late hour, could they near British Columbia? Will it truly be months, even a year before I hear word of him again?
I am feeling sorry for myself, and it is senseless. Of course this day would come.
I wonder, if I had stood on the river shore this morning and waved goodbye as the ship left for the coast, if we had a grand farewell and watched the distance between us grow, if I had witnessed his leaving, would I then be more settled with it? Would his absence be more real to me? Instead, my thoughts play tricks on me. Maybe the ship was delayed for some reason, or at the last minute Allen decided he could not leave me behind after all, and I will soon hear him in the hall, bumping his loud boots against the bench, and then his call, “Sophie love, I’m home.”
Everything became a mad rush in the end, with word that the steamer was in the harbor days earlier than expected and set to leave immediately. There were crates to be sealed, lists to check, messages to send.
When I suggested I go to Portland to see him off, he said there was no sense to it. They would board the ship at night and leave at daybreak. There would be no time to visit or say farewell. I suspect he also worried for my health, even traveling those few hours by carriage and ferry.
At least I sent him with my letter. I had little time to compose it, but may my words remind him of my love and allow him to feel the touch of home.
And we did have yesterday morning. Oh, but that it could have lasted forever. The joy of waking to the scent of warm, fresh popovers. (How did he ever convince the barracks cook to bake them? And with blackberry jam and butter! By chance, Allen discovered the antidote to my queasiness.) As the first rays of morning came through our little kitchen window, it was as if we had all the time in the world, and when he laughed and held my hands, I felt as if the sunlight poured through me.
The silver comb is beautiful. It is his birthday present to me, as he will not be with me in April. I wear it in my hair now as I write. The engravings of the fern fronds are so delicate, so lifelike. It is evidence that Allen knows my preferences well. He must have planned this for some time. Did he purchase it in San Francisco on our travel to the barracks, and then keep it hidden away these past months? Surely he couldn’t have found such a fine piece in Vancouver.
Oh, Allen, still you are a surprise to me. Soldier, fearless adventurer?—?yet your heart is gentle. I will wear the comb in my hair every day, so as to feel as if you are always near.
February 2
I am expecting a young woman named Charlotte this afternoon?—?she is to move into the small bedroom and tend to chores here each afternoon. It seems the Connors have enough help that they are willing to part with her a few hours each day, if we take on the girl’s room and board. I have not yet met her, but I’m told her father is an enlisted man and her mother a washerwoman at the barracks.
Allen made the arrangements before he left. I resisted when we first came to Vancouver and he wanted to hire help?—?it is one thing to send out the laundry, I reasoned, but I am perfectly capable of cooking meals and keeping a house. (What would Mother think, to know that even with no husband or children to care for, I am being afforded a housemaid!) But now that my tasks are restricted, and I no longer have Allen’s assistance, I suppose it is unavoidable.