The Signature of All Things

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  “But Mr. Hawkes said your books are well-reviewed.”

  “Most certainly they are—by the dozen gentlemen on earth who care deeply about bryology.”

  “A dozen!” Mr. Pike said. “That many? Remember, madam, you are speaking to a man who has published nothing in his long life, and whose poor parents fear him to be a shameful idler.”

  “But your work is superb, sir.”

  He waved away the praise. “Do you find dignity in your labors?” he asked.

  “I do,” Alma said, after considering the question for the moment. “Though sometimes I wonder why. The majority of the world—especially the suffering poor—would be happy, I think, never to work again. So why do I labor so diligently at a subject about which so few people care? Why am I not content simply to admire mosses, or even draw them, if their designs please me so much? Why must I pick at their secrets, and beg them for answers about the nature of life itself? I am fortunate enough to come from a family of means, as you can see, so there is no necessity for me to work at all in my life. Why am I not happy, then, to idle about, letting my mind grow as loosely as this grass?”

  “Because you are interested in creation,” Ambrose Pike replied simply, “and all its wonderful arrangements.”

  Alma flushed. “You make it sound grand.”

  “It is grand,” he said, just as simply as before.

  They sat in silence for a while. Somewhere in the trees beside them, a thrush was singing.

  “What a fine private recital!” Mr. Pike said, after a long spell of listening. “It makes one want to applaud him!”

  “This is the finest time of year for birdsong at White Acre,” Alma said. “There are mornings when you can sit under a single cherry tree in this meadow, and you will hear every bird in the orchestra, performing for your benefit.”

  “I would like to hear that some morning. I dearly missed our American songbirds when I was in the jungle.”

  “But there must have been exquisite birds where you were!”

  “Yes—exquisite and exotic. But it is not the same. One gets so homesick, you know, for the familiar noises of childhood. There were times when I would hear mourning doves calling out in my dreams. It was so lifelike, it would break my heart. It made me wish never to wake up.”

  “Mr. Hawkes tells me you were in the jungle for many years.”

  “Eighteen,” he said, smiling almost abashedly.

  “In Mexico and Guatemala, mostly?”

  “In Mexico and Guatemala entirely. I meant to see more of the world, but I couldn’t seem to leave that region, as I kept discovering new things. You know how it is—one finds an interesting place and begins looking, and then the secrets reveal themselves, one after the other, until one cannot pull away. Also, there were certain orchids I found in Guatemala—the more shy and reclusive epiphytes, particularly—that simply would not do me the courtesy of blooming. I refused to leave until I saw them in bloom. I became quite stubborn about it. But they were stubborn, too. Some of them made me wait for five or six years before allowing me a glimpse.”

  “Why did you finally come home, then?”

  “Loneliness.”

  He had the most extraordinary frankness. Alma marveled at it. She could never imagine admitting such a weakness as loneliness.

  “Also,” he said, “I became too ill to continue rough living. I had recurrent fevers. Though they were not entirely unpleasant, I should say. I saw remarkable visions in my fevers, and I heard voices, too. Sometimes it was tempting to follow them.”

  “The visions or the voices?”

  “Both! But I could not do that to my mother. It would have inflicted too much pain upon her soul, to lose a son in the jungle. She would have wondered forever what became of me. Although she still wonders what became of me, I’ll wager! But at least she knows I am alive.”

  “Your family must have missed you, then, all those years.”

  “Oh, my poor family. I have disappointed them so, Miss Whittaker. They are so respectable, and I have lived my life in such irregular directions. I feel sympathy for them all, and for my mother in particular. She believes, I suppose rightly, that I have been trodding most egregiously upon the pearls that were cast before me. I left Harvard after only a year, you see. I was said to be promising—whatever that word is meant to convey—but collegiate life did not suit me. By some peculiarity of the nervous system, I simply could not bear to sit in a lecture hall. Also, I never courted the cheerful company of social clubs and gangs of young men. You may not know this, Miss Whittaker, but most of university life is arranged around social clubs and gangs of young men. As my mother has expressed it, all I’ve ever wanted to do is sit in a corner and draw pictures of plants.”

  “Thank goodness for that!” Alma said.

  “Perhaps. I don’t think my mother would agree, and my father went to his grave angry at my choice of career—if one can call it a career. Mercifully for my long-suffering mother, my younger brother Jacob has come up behind me to set an example as a most dutiful son. He attended university in my footsteps, but, unlike me, he managed to remain there for the expected duration. He studied courageously, earning every honor and laurel as he did so, though I sometimes feared he would injure his mind through such exertions, and now he preaches from the same Framingham pulpit where my father and grandfather once stood before their own congregations. He is a good man, my brother, and he has prospered. He is a credit to the Pike name. The community admires him. I am entirely fond of him. But I do not envy his life.”

  “You come from a family of ministers, then?”

  “Indeed—and was meant to be one myself.”

  “What happened?” Alma asked, rather boldly. “Did you fall away from the Lord?”

  “No,” he said. “Quite the opposite. I fell too close to the Lord.”

  Alma wanted to ask what he meant by such a curious statement, but she felt that she had pushed overmuch already, and her guest did not elaborate. They rested in silence for a long while, listening to the thrush sing. After a spell, Alma noticed that Mr. Pike had fallen asleep. How suddenly he was gone! Awake one moment and asleep the next! It occurred to her that he must have been utterly exhausted from his long journey—and here she was peppering him with questions, and bothering him with her theories of bryophytes and transmutation.

  Quietly, she stood up and crossed to another area of the boulder field, to ponder once more her moss colonies. She felt so pleased and relaxed. How agreeable was this Mr. Pike! She wondered how long he would stay at White Acre. Perhaps she could convince him to remain for the entirety of the summer. What a joy it would be to have this friendly, inquisitive creature about the place. It would be like having a younger brother. She had never before imagined having a younger brother, but now she desperately wanted one, and she wanted him to be Ambrose Pike. She would have to speak to her father about it. Surely they could make a painting studio for him, in one of the old dairy buildings, if he wished to stay.

  It was probably half an hour before she noticed Mr. Pike stirring in the grass. She walked back over to him and smiled.

  “You fell asleep,” she said.

  “No,” he corrected her. “Sleep overtook me.”

  Still sprawled in the grass, he stretched out his limbs like a cat, or an infant. He did not seem the least bit uncomfortable about having dozed off in front of Alma, so she did not feel uncomfortable, either.

  “You must be weary, Mr. Pike.”

  “I have been weary for years.” He sat up, yawned, and set his hat back on his head. “What a generous person you are, though, to have allotted me this rest. I thank you.”

  “Well, you were generous to listen to me speak about mosses.”

  “That was my pleasure. I hope to hear more. I was just thinking, as I nodded off, what an enviable life you lead, Miss Whittaker. Imagine being able to spend one’s entire existence in pursuit of something so detailed and fine as these mosses—and all the while surrounded by a loving family and it
s comforts.”

  “I should think that my life would appear dull to a man who had spent eighteen years in the jungles of Central America.”

  “Not in the least. If anything, I have been longing for a life that is a bit more dull than what I have thus far experienced.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Pike. A dull life is not as interesting as you may think!”

  He laughed. Alma came closer and sat beside him, right on the grass, tucking her skirts beneath her legs.

  “I shall confess something to you, Mr. Pike,” she said. “Sometimes I fear that my labors in these moss beds are of no use or value whatsoever. Sometimes I wish I had something more sparkling to offer the world, something more magnificent—like your orchid paintings, I suppose. I am diligent and disciplined, but I do not possess a distinctive genius.”

  “So you are industrious, but not original?”

  “Yes!” Alma said. “Exactly that! Precisely.”

  “Bah!” he said. “You do not convince me. I wonder why you would even try to convince yourself of something so foolish.”

  “You are kind, Mr. Pike. You have made an old lady feel quite attended to this afternoon. But I am aware of the truth of my own life. My work in these moss fields excites nobody but the cows and the crows who watch me at it all day.”

  “Cows and crows are excellent judges of genius, Miss Whittaker. Take my word for it—I have been painting exclusively for their amusement now for many years on end.”

  * * *

  That evening, George Hawkes joined them for dinner at White Acre. This would be the first time George had met Ambrose Pike in person, and he was terribly excited about it—or as excited as a solemn old fellow like George could ever become.

  “It is my honor to know you, sir,” George said, with a smile. “Your work has brought me the most undeviating pleasure.”

  Alma was touched by George’s sincerity. She knew what her friend could not say to the artist—that this past year had been one of acute suffering within the Hawkes household, and that Ambrose Pike’s orchids had freed George, fleetingly, from the snares of darkness.

  “I offer you my unfeigned thanks for your encouragement,” Mr. Pike replied. “Unfortunately, my thanks are the only compensation I can make at the moment, but they are sincere.”

  As for Henry Whittaker, he was in a foul mood that night. Alma could see it from ten paces away, and she keenly wished that her father were not joining them for dinner. She had neglected to warn her guest about her father’s curt nature, and now she regretted it. Poor Mr. Pike would be thrown at the wolf without any preparation, and the wolf was, quite clearly, both hungry and incensed. She also regretted that neither she nor George Hawkes had thought to bring one of the extraordinary orchid paintings to show her father, which meant that Henry had no sense of who this Ambrose Pike was, other than an orchid-chaser and an artist—neither of which was a category of person he tended to admire.

  Not surprisingly, the dinner began poorly.

  “Who is this individual again?” her father asked, looking straight at his new guest.

  “This is Mr. Ambrose Pike,” Alma said. “As I told you earlier, he is a naturalist and a painter, whom George has recently discovered. He makes the most exquisite renditions of orchids I have ever seen, Father.”

  “You draw orchids?” Henry demanded of Mr. Pike, in the same tone in which another man might say, “You rob widows?”

  “Well, I attempt to, sir.”

  “Everybody attempts to draw orchids,” Henry said. “Nothing new about that.”

  “You raise a fair point, sir.”

  “What is so special about your orchids?”

  Mr. Pike contemplated the question. “I could not say,” he admitted. “I don’t know whether anything is special about them, sir—other than that painting orchids is all I do. It is all I have done now for nearly twenty years.”

  “Well, that is an absurd employment.”

  “I disagree, Mr. Whittaker,” the artist said, unperturbed. “But only because I would not call it an employment at all.”

  “How do you make a living?”

  “Again, you raise a fair point. But as you can probably see by my mode of dress, it is arguable whether I make a living at all.”

  “I would not advertise that fact as an attribute, young man.”

  “Believe me, sir—I do not.”

  Henry peered at him, taking in the worn suit and the unkempt beard. “What happened, then?” he demanded. “Why are you so poor? Did you squander a fortune like a rake?”

  “Father—” Alma attempted.

  “Sadly, no,” said Mr. Pike, seemingly unoffended. “There was never any fortune in my family to be squandered.”

  “What does your father do for a living?”

  “Currently, he resides across the divide of death. But prior to that, he was a minister in Framingham, Massachusetts.”

  “Why are you not a minister, in that case?”

  “My mother wonders the same thing, Mr. Whittaker. I am afraid I have too many questions about religion to be a good minister.”

  “Religion?” Henry frowned. “What the deuce does religion have to do with being a good minister? It is a profession like any other profession, young man. You fit yourself to the task, and keep your opinions private. That is what all good ministers do—or should!”

  Mr. Pike laughed pleasantly. “If only somebody had told me that twenty years ago, sir!”

  “There is no excuse for a young man of health and wit in this country not to prosper. Even a minister’s son should be able to find industrious activity somewhere.”

  “Many would agree with you,” said Mr. Pike. “Including my late father. Nonetheless, I have been living beneath my station for years.”

  “And I have been living above my station—forever! I first came here to America when I was a young fellow about your age. I found money lying about everywhere, all over this country. All I had to do was pick it up with the tip of my walking stick. What is your excuse for poverty, then?”

  Mr. Pike looked Henry directly in the eye and said, without a trace of malice, “The want of a good walking stick, I suppose.”

  Alma swallowed hard and stared down at her plate. George Hawkes did the same. Henry, however, seemed not to hear. There were times when Alma thanked the heavens for her father’s worsening deafness. He had already turned his attention to the butler.

  “I tell you, Becker,” Henry said, “if you make me eat mutton one more night this week, I will have someone shot.”

  “He doesn’t really have people shot,” Alma reassured Mr. Pike, under her breath.

  “I had figured that,” her guest whispered back, “or else I would be dead already.”

  For the rest of the meal, George and Alma and Mr. Pike made pleasant conversation—more or less between themselves—while Henry huffed and coughed and complained about various aspects of his dinner, and even nodded off a few times, chin collapsed on his chest. He was, after all, eighty-eight years old. None of it, happily, appeared to concern Mr. Pike, and as George Hawkes was already used to this sort of behavior, Alma eventually relaxed a bit.

  “Please forgive my father,” Alma said to Mr. Pike in a low voice, during one of Henry’s bouts of sleep. “George knows his moods well, but these outbursts can be disquieting to those who do not have experience with our Henry Whittaker.”

  “He is quite the bear at the dinner table,” Mr. Pike replied, with a tone more admiring than appalled.

  “Indeed he is,” said Alma. “Thankfully, though, like a bear, he sometimes gives us the respite of hibernating!”

  This comment even brought a smile to George Hawkes’s lips, but Ambrose was still studying the sleeping figure of Henry, pondering something.

  “My own father was so grave, you see,” he said. “I always found his silences frightening. I should think it would be delightful to have a father who speaks and acts with such liberty. One always knows where one stands.”
/>   “One does, at that,” Alma agreed.

  “Mr. Pike,” George said, changing the subject, “may I ask where you are living at the moment? The address to which I sent my letter was in Boston, but you mentioned just now that your family resides in Framingham, so I wasn’t certain.”

  “At the moment, sir, I am without a home,” said Mr. Pike. “The address you refer to in Boston is the residence of my old friend Daniel Tupper, who has been kind to me since the days of my short career at Harvard. His family owns a small printing concern in Boston—nothing as fine as your operation, but well run and solid. They are mostly known for pamphlets and local bills of advertisement, that sort of thing. When I left Harvard, I worked for the Tupper family for several years as a typesetter, and found that I had a hand for it. That was also where I first learned the art of lithography. I had been told it was difficult, but I never found it to be. It is much the same as drawing, really, except that one draws on stone—though of course you both already know that! Forgive me. I am unaccustomed to speaking about my work.”

  “And what took you to Mexico and Guatemala, Mr. Pike?” George continued gently.

  “Again, we can credit my friend Tupper with that. I’ve always had a fascination for orchids, and somewhere along the way, Tupper hatched a scheme that I should go to the tropics for a few years and make some drawings and such, and together we would produce a beautiful book on tropical orchids. I’m afraid he thought it would make us both quite rich. We were young, you know, and he was full of confidence about me.

  “So we pooled our resources, such as they were, and Tupper put me on a boat. He instructed me to go off and make a great noise of myself in the world. Sadly for him, I am not much of a noisemaker. Even more sadly for him, my few years in the jungle turned into eighteen, as I have already explained to Miss Whittaker. Through thrift and perseverance I was able to keep myself alive there for nearly two decades, and I am proud to say I never took money from Tupper or anybody, after his initial investment. Nonetheless, I think poor Tupper feels his faith in me was quite misguided. When I finally came home last year, he was kind enough to let me use his family’s printing press to make some of the lithographs you’ve already seen, but—quite forgivably—he long ago lost his desire to produce a book with me. I move too slowly for him. He has a family now, and cannot dally about with such expensive projects. He has been a heroically good friend to me, all the same. He lets me sleep on the couch in his home, and, since returning to America, I have been helping once more in the print shop.”