The Signature of All Things

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  Prudence set her work on her lap, folded her hands, and said nothing. Prudence had a habit of never committing to any conversation before she completely understood the circumstances. But Alma waited nonetheless, wanting to force her sister to speak, wanting to catch her at something. At what, though? Prudence’s face had nothing to reveal, and if Alma thought Prudence Whittaker was fool enough to speak first under such hot circumstances, then she did not know Prudence Whittaker.

  In the silence that followed, Alma felt her anger turn from blazing indignation to something more tragic and petulant, something spoiled and sad. “Did you know,” Alma was finally forced to ask, “that Retta Snow is to marry George Hawkes?”

  Prudence’s expression did not change, but Alma saw a tiny white line appear for just a moment around her sister’s lips, as though the mouth had compressed only the slightest bit. Then the line vanished, quickly as it had arrived. Alma might even have imagined it.

  “No,” Prudence replied.

  “How could this have happened?” Alma asked. Prudence said nothing, so Alma kept speaking. “Retta tells me they have been betrothed since the week of our mother’s death.”

  “I see,” said Prudence, after a long pause.

  “Did Retta ever know that I . . .” Here Alma hesitated and nearly started weeping. “Did Retta ever know that I had feelings for him?”

  “How could I possibly answer that?” Prudence replied.

  “Did she learn it from you?” Alma’s voice was insistent and ragged. “Had you ever told her? You were the only one who could have told her that I loved George.”

  Now the white line around her sister’s lips reappeared, for a slightly longer time. There was no mistaking it. This was anger.

  “I would hope, Alma,” said Prudence, “that you would better know my character after so many years. Would anybody who came to me for gossip ever go home satisfied?”

  “Did Retta ever come to you for gossip?”

  “It matters little whether she did or did not, Alma. Have you ever known me to disclose someone’s secrets?”

  “Stop answering me in riddles!” Alma shouted. Then she lowered her voice: “Did you or did you not ever tell Retta Snow that I loved George Hawkes?”

  Alma saw a shadow pass across the door, waver, and then vanish. All she caught was the glimpse of an apron. Somebody—a maid—was about to enter the drawing room, but had evidently changed her mind and ducked out instead. Why was there never any privacy in this house? Prudence had seen the shadow, too, and she did not like it. She stood up now and stepped forward to face Alma directly—indeed, almost threateningly. The sisters could not regard one another eye-to-eye, for their heights were so different, but Prudence somehow managed to stare down Alma, nonetheless, even from one foot below her.

  “No,” Prudence said. “I have told nothing to anyone, and never shall. What’s more, your insinuations insult me, and are unfair to both Retta Snow and Mr. Hawkes, whose business—I should dearly hope—is their own. Worst of all, your inquiry degrades you. I am sorry for your disappointment, but we owe our friends our joy and best wishes at their good fortune.”

  Alma started to speak again, but Prudence cut her off. “You’d best regain mastery of yourself before you continue speaking, Alma,” she warned, “or you shall regret whatever it is you are about to reveal.”

  Well, that was beyond debate. Alma already did regret what she had revealed. She wished that she had never begun this conversation. But it was too late for that. The next best thing would have been to end it right now. This would have been a marvelous opportunity for Alma to stop her mouth. Horribly, though, she could not control herself.

  “I only wanted to know if Retta had betrayed me,” Alma blurted forth.

  “Did you?” Prudence asked evenly. “So is it your supposition that your friend and mine, Miss Retta Snow—the most guileless creature I have ever encountered—willfully stole George Hawkes from you? To what purpose, Alma? For her own sporting satisfaction? And while you are on this line of questioning, do you also believe that I betrayed you? Do you believe that I told Retta your secret, in order to make a mockery of you? Do you believe that I encouraged Retta to pursue Mr. Hawkes, as some sort of wicked game? Do you believe I have some wish to see you punished?”

  Sweet mercy, but Prudence could be relentless. Had she been a man, she would have made a formidable lawyer. Alma had never felt so dreadful or appeared so petty. She sat down on the nearest chair and stared at the floor. But Prudence followed Alma to the chair, stood over her, and kept speaking. “In the meanwhile, Alma, I have news of my own to report, which I shall tell you now, for it pertains to a similar concern. I had intended to wait until our family was out of mourning to address this subject, but I see that you have decided that our family is out of mourning already.”

  Here, Prudence touched Alma’s upper right arm—bare of its black crepe band—and Alma nearly flinched.

  “I, too, am to wed,” Prudence announced, without a trace of triumph or delight. “Mr. Arthur Dixon has asked for my hand, and I have accepted.”

  Alma’s head, for just one moment, emptied: Who in the name of God was Arthur Dixon? Mercifully, she did not speak this question aloud, for in the very next instant, of course, she remembered who he was, and felt absurd for having ever wondered. Arthur Dixon: their tutor. That unhappy and stooped man, who had somehow drummed French into Prudence’s head, and who had joylessly helped Alma to master her Greek. That sad creature of damp sighs and sorrowful coughs. That little tedium of a figure, whose face Alma had not thought about since quite literally the last time she had seen it, which had been—when? Four years ago? When he’d finally left White Acre to become Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Pennsylvania? No, Alma realized with a start, this was incorrect. She had seen Arthur Dixon only recently, at her mother’s funeral. She had even spoken to him. He had offered up his kind condolences, and she had wondered what he was doing there.

  Well, now she knew. He was there to court his former student, apparently, who also happened to be the most beautiful young woman in Philadelphia, and, it must be said, potentially one of the richest.

  “When did this engagement occur?” Alma asked.

  “Just before our mother died.”

  “How?”

  “In the customary fashion,” Prudence replied coolly.

  “Did all this occur at the same time?” Alma demanded. The idea sickened her. “Did you become engaged to Mr. Dixon at the same time as Retta Snow became engaged to George Hawkes?”

  “I have no knowledge of other people’s affairs,” Prudence said. But then she softened just a trace, and conceded, “But it would appear so—or, close to so. My engagement seems to have occurred a few days earlier. Though it matters not at all.”

  “Does Father know?”

  “He will know soon enough. Arthur was waiting until our mourning had passed, to make his suit.”

  “But what on earth is Arthur Dixon going to say to Father, Prudence? The man is terrified of Father. I cannot conceive of it. How will Arthur manage to get through the conversation, without fainting dead away? And what will you do for the rest of your life—married to a scholar?”

  Prudence drew herself up taller and smoothed her skirts. “I wonder if you realize, Alma, that the more traditional response to the announcement of an engagement is to wish the bride-to-be many years of health and happiness—particularly if the bride-to-be is your sister.”

  “Oh, Prudence, I apologize—” Alma began, ashamed of herself for the dozenth time that day.

  “Think nothing of it,” Prudence said, and turned toward the door. “I had not expected anything different.”

  * * *

  In all of our lives, there are days that we wish we could see expunged from the record of our very existence. Perhaps we long for that erasure because a particular day brought us such splintering sorrow that we can scarcely bear to think of it ever again. Or we might wish to blot out an episode forever bec
ause we behaved so poorly on that day—we were mortifyingly selfish, or foolish to an extraordinary degree. Or perhaps we injured another person and wish to disremember our guilt. Tragically, there are some days in a lifetime when all three of those things happen at once—when we are heartbroken and foolish and unforgivably injurious to others, all at the same time. For Alma, that day was January 10, 1821. She would have done anything in her power to strike that entire day from the chronicle of her life.

  She could never forgive herself that her initial response to the happy news from both her dear friend and her poor sister had been a mean show of jealousy, thoughtlessness, and (in the case of Retta, at least) physical violence. What had Beatrix always taught them? Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls, and time will reveal who has it. As far as Alma was concerned, on January 10, 1821, she had revealed herself as a young woman devoid of dignity.

  This would trouble her for many years to come. Alma tormented herself by imagining—again and again—all the different ways she might have behaved on that day, had she been in better control of her passions. In Alma’s revised conversations with Retta, she embraced her friend with perfect tenderness at the mere mention of George Hawkes’s name, and said in a steady voice, “How lucky a man he is to have won you!” In her revised conversations with Prudence, she never accused her sister of having betrayed her to Retta, and certainly never accused Retta of having stolen George Hawkes, and, when Prudence announced her own engagement to Arthur Dixon, Alma smiled warmly, took her sister’s hand in fondness, and said, “I cannot imagine a more suitable gentleman for you!”

  Unfortunately, though, one does not get second chances at such blundered episodes.

  To be fair, by January 11, 1821—merely one day later!—Alma was a much better person. She pulled herself back into order as quickly as she could. She firmly committed herself to a spirit of graciousness about both engagements. She willed herself to play the role of a composed young woman who was genuinely pleased about other people’s happiness. And when the two weddings arrived in the following month, separated from each other by only one week, she managed to be a pleasant and cheerful guest at both events. She was helpful to the brides and polite to their grooms. Nobody saw a fissure in her.

  That said, Alma suffered.

  She had lost George Hawkes. She had been left behind by her sister and by her only friend. Both Prudence and Retta, directly after their weddings, moved across the river into the center of Philadelphia. Fiddle, fork, and spoon were now finished. The only one who would remain at White Acre was Alma (who had long ago decided that she was fork).

  Alma took some solace in the fact that nobody, aside from Prudence, knew about her past love for George Hawkes. There was nothing she could do to obliterate the passionate confessions she had so carelessly shared with Prudence over the years (and heavens, how she regretted them!), but at least Prudence was a sealed tomb, from whom no secrets would ever leak. George himself did not appear to realize that Alma had ever cared for him, nor that she might ever have suspected him of caring for her. He treated Alma no differently after his marriage than he had treated her before it. He had been friendly and professional in the past, and he was friendly and professional now. This was both consoling to Alma and also horribly disheartening. It was consoling because there would be no lingering discomfiture between them, no public sign of humiliation. It was disheartening because apparently there had never been anything at all between them—apart from whatever Alma had allowed herself to dream.

  It was all terribly shameful, when one looked back on it. Sadly, one could not often help looking back on it.

  Moreover, it now appeared that Alma would be staying at White Acre forever. Her father needed her. This was more abundantly clear every day. Henry had let Prudence go without a fight (indeed, he had blessed his adopted daughter with a quite generous dowry, and he had not been unkind toward Arthur Dixon, despite the fact that the man was a bore and a Presbyterian), but Henry would never let Alma go. Prudence had no value to Henry, but Alma was essential to him, especially now that Beatrix was gone.

  Thus, Alma entirely replaced her mother. She was forced to assume the role, because nobody else could manage Henry. Alma wrote her father’s letters, settled his accounts, listened to his grievances, minded his rum consumption, offered commentary on his plans, and soothed his indignations. Called into his study at all hours of day and night, Alma never knew exactly what her father might need from her, or how long the task would take. She might find him sitting at his desk, scratching away at a pile of gold coins with a sewing needle, trying to determine if the gold was counterfeit, and wanting Alma’s opinion. He might simply be bored, wishing for Alma to bring him a cup of tea, or to play cribbage with him, or to remind him of the lyrics of an old song. On days when his body ached, or if he’d just had a tooth drawn or a blistering plaster applied to his chest, he summoned Alma to his study merely to tell her how much pain he was in. Or, for no reason at all, he might simply wish to inventory his complaints. (“Why must lamb taste like ram in this household?” he might demand. Or, “Why must the maids constantly move the carpets about, such that a man never knows where to put his footing? How many spills do they want me to suffer?”)

  On busier, healthier days, Henry might have genuine work for Alma. He might need Alma to write a threatening letter to a borrower who had fallen into arrears. (“Tell him that he must commence paying me back within the fortnight, or I will see to it that his children spend the remainder of their lives in a workhouse,” Henry would dictate, while Alma would write, “Dear Sir: With greatest respect, I ask that you bestir yourself to attend this debt . . .”) Or Henry might have received a collection of dried botanical specimens from overseas, which he would need Alma to reconstitute in water and diagram for him swiftly, before they all rotted away. Or he might need her to write a letter to some underling in Tasmania working himself halfway to death at the far reaches of the planet in order to gather exotic plants on behalf of the Whittaker Company.

  “Tell that lazy noodle,” Henry would say, tossing a writing tablet across the desk at his daughter, “that it does me no good when he informs me that such-and-such a specimen was found on the banks of some creek whose name he has probably invented himself, for all I know, because I cannot find it marked on any map in existence. Tell him that I need useful details. Tell him I don’t care a row of pins for news of his failing health. My health is failing, too, but do I trouble him to listen to my sorrows? Tell him that I will warrant ten dollars per hundred of every specimen, but that I need him to be exact and I need the specimens to be identifiable. Tell him that he must stop pasting his dried samples to paper, for it destroys them, which he should bloody well know by now. Tell him that he must use two thermometers in every Wardian case—one tied to the glass itself and one embedded in the soil. Tell him that, before he ships off any further specimens, he must convince the sailors on board the ship that they must move the cases off the decks at night if frost is expected, because I will not pay him a wooden tooth for another shipment of black mold in a box, purporting to be a plant. And tell him that, no, I will not advance his salary again. Tell him that he is fortunate to still have his employment at all, given the fact he is doing his level best to bankrupt me. Tell him I will pay him again when he has earned it.” (“Dear Sir,” Alma would begin writing, “We here at the Whittaker Company offer our most sincere gratitude for all your recent labors, and our apologies for any discomforts you may have suffered . . .”)

  Nobody else could do this work. It had to be Alma. It was all just as Beatrix had instructed on her deathbed: Alma could not leave her father.

  Had Beatrix suspected that Alma would never marry? Probably, Alma realized. Who would have her? Who would take this giant female creature, who stood above six feet tall, who was overly stuffed with learning, and who had hair in the color and shape of a rooster’s comb? George Hawkes had been the best candidate—the only candidate, really—and now he was gone. Alma knew it woul
d be hopeless ever to find a suitable husband, and she said as much one day to Hanneke de Groot, as the two women clipped boxwoods together in Beatrix’s old Grecian garden.

  “It will never be my turn, Hanneke,” Alma said, out of the blue. She said it not pitifully, but with simple candor. There was something about speaking in Dutch (and Alma spoke only Dutch with Hanneke) that always elicited simple candor.

  “Give the situation time,” Hanneke said, knowing precisely what Alma was talking about. “A husband may still come looking for you.”

  “Loyal Hanneke,” Alma said fondly, “let us be honest with ourselves. Who will ever put a ring on these fishwife’s hands of mine? Who will ever kiss this encyclopedia of a head?”

  “I will kiss it,” said Hanneke, and pulled Alma down for a kiss on the brow. “There now, it is done. Stop complaining. You always behave as though you know everything, but you do not know all things. Your mother had this same fault. I have seen more of life than you have seen, by a long measure, and I tell you that you are not too old to marry—and you may still raise a family yet. There’s no hurry for it, either. Look at Mrs. Kingston, on Locust Street. Fifty years old, she must be, and she just presented her husband with twins! A regular Abraham’s wife, she is. Somebody should study her womb.”

  “I confess, Hanneke, that I do not believe Mrs. Kingston is quite fifty years old. Nor do I believe she wishes us to study her womb.”

  “I am merely saying that you do not know the future, child, quite as much as you believe you do. And there is something more I need to tell you, besides.” Hanneke stopped working now, and her voice became serious. “Everyone has disappointments, child.”

  Alma loved the sound of the word child in Dutch. Kindje. This was the nickname that Hanneke had always called Alma when she was young and afraid and would climb into the housekeeper’s bed in the middle of the night. Kindje. It sounded like warmth itself.