One thing was certain: Human Time was the saddest, maddest, most devastating variety of time that had ever existed. She tried her best to ignore it.
Nevertheless, the days passed by.
* * *
In early May of 1851, on a cool, rainy morning, a letter came to White Acre addressed to Henry Whittaker. There was no return address, but the edges of the envelope had been inked with a black border, signifying mourning. Alma read all of Henry’s mail, so she opened this envelope, too, as she dutifully caught up with correspondence in her father’s study.
Dear Mr. Whittaker—
I write today both to introduce myself and to share unfortunate news. My name is the Reverend Francis Welles, and I have been the missionary at Matavai Bay, Tahiti, for thirty-seven years. At times in the past, I have conducted business with your good representative, Mr. Yancey, who knows me to be an enthusiastic amateur in the field of botany. I have collected samples for Mr. Yancey and shown him places of botanical interest, &c., &c. Also, I have sold him marine specimens, coral and seashells—a special interest of mine.
Of late, Mr. Yancey had enlisted my aid in the attempt to preserve your vanilla plantation here—an endeavor that was much assisted by the arrival, in 1849, of a young employee of yours, by the name of Mr. Ambrose Pike. It is my sad duty to inform you that Mr. Pike has passed away, owing to the sort of infection that—all too easily in this torrid climate—can lead the sufferer to a fast and early death.
You may wish to alert his family that Ambrose Pike was called to our Lord on November 30, 1850. You may also wish to inform his loved ones that Mr. Pike was given a proper Christian burial, and that I have arranged for a small stone to mark his grave. I much regret his passing. He was a gentleman of the highest morality and purest character. Such are not easily found in these parts. I doubt I shall ever meet another like him.
I can offer no consolation, aside from the certainty that he lives now in a better place, and that he will never suffer the indignities of old age.
Yours most sincerely, The Reverend F. P. Welles.
The news hit Alma with all the force of an ax head striking granite: it clanged in her ears, shuddered her bones, and struck sparks before her eyes. It knocked a wedge of something out of her—a wedge of something terribly important—and that wedge was sent spinning into the air, never to be found again. If she had not been sitting, she would have fallen down. As it was, she collapsed forward onto her father’s desk, pressed her face against the Reverend F. P. Welles’s most kind and thoughtful letter, and wept like to pull down every cloud from the vaults of heaven.
* * *
How could she possibly grieve Ambrose more than she had already grieved him? Yet she did. There is grief below grief, she soon learned, just as there are strata below strata in the ocean floor—and even more strata below that, if one keeps digging. Ambrose had been gone from her for so long, and she must have known he would be gone forever, but she had never considered that he might die before she did. The simple magic of arithmetic should have precluded that: he was so much younger than she. How could he die first? He was the picture of youth. He was the compilation of all the innocence that youth had ever known. Yet he was dead, and she was alive. She had sent him away to die.
There is a level of grief so deep that it stops resembling grief at all. The pain becomes so severe that the body can no longer feel it. The grief cauterizes itself, scars over, prevents inflated feelings. Such numbness is a kind of mercy. This is the level of grief that Alma reached, once she lifted her face from her father’s desk, once she stopped sobbing.
She moved forward as though manipulated by some blunt, relentless external force. The first thing she did was tell her father the sorry news. She found him lying in bed, eyes closed, gray and weary, looking like a death mask unto himself. Ingloriously, she had to shout the news of Ambrose’s death into Henry’s ear trumpet before he was made to understand what had transpired.
“Well, there goes that,” he said, and shut his eyes again.
She told Hanneke de Groot, who pursed her lips, pressed her hands to her chest, and said only, “God!”—a word that is the same in Dutch as in English.
Alma wrote a letter to George Hawkes explaining what had happened and thanking him for the kindness he had shown Ambrose, and for honoring Mr. Pike’s memory through the exquisite orchid book. George responded immediately with a note of perfect tenderness and polite sorrow.
Shortly thereafter, Alma received a letter from her sister Prudence, expressing condolence for the loss of her husband. She did not know who had told Prudence. She did not ask. She wrote Prudence a note of gratitude in reply.
She wrote a letter to the Reverend Francis Welles, which she signed in her father’s name, thanking him for conveying the sad news about the death of this most respected employee, and asking if there was anything the Whittakers could do for him in return.
She wrote a note to Ambrose’s mother, into which she transcribed every word of the Reverend Francis Welles’s letter. She dreaded to send it. Alma knew that Ambrose had been his mother’s favorite son, despite what Mrs. Pike referred to as “his ungovernable ways.” Why would he not have been her favorite? Ambrose was everyone’s favorite. This news would destroy her. What’s worse, Alma could not help but feel that she had murdered this woman’s favorite son—the best one, the jewel, the angel of Framingham. Mailing the dreadful letter, Alma could only hope that Mrs. Pike’s Christian faith would shield her at least somewhat from this blow.
As for Alma, she did not have the comfort of that sort of faith. She believed in the Creator, but she had never turned to Him in moments of despair—and she would not do so now, either. Hers was not that sort of belief. Alma accepted and admired the Lord as the designer and prime mover of the universe, but to her mind He was a daunting, distant, and even pitiless figure. Any being who could create a world of such acute suffering was not the being to approach for solace from the tribulations of that world. For such solace, one could only turn to the likes of Hanneke de Groot.
After Alma’s sad duties had been carried out—after all those letters about Ambrose’s death were written and posted—there was naught else for her to do but settle into her widowhood, her shame, and her sadness. More from habit than desire, she returned to her studies of mosses. Without that task, she felt she might have died herself. Her father grew sicker. Her responsibilities grew larger. The world became smaller.
And that is what the rest of Alma’s life might have looked like, had it not been for the arrival—only five months later—of Dick Yancey, who came striding up the steps of White Acre on a fine October morning, carrying in his hand the small, worn, leather valise that had once belonged to Ambrose Pike, and asking for a private word with Alma Whittaker.
Chapter Nineteen
Alma led Dick Yancey into her father’s study and closed the door behind them. She had never before been in a room alone with him. He had been a presence in her life since earliest memory, but he had always made her feel chilled and uneasy. His towering height, his corpse-white skin, his gleaming bald head, his icy gaze, the hatchet of his profile—all of it combined to create a figure of real menace. Even now, after nearly fifty years of acquaintance, Alma could not determine how old he was. He was eternal. This only added to his fearsomeness. The entire world was afraid of Dick Yancey, which was exactly how Henry Whittaker wanted it. Alma had never understood Yancey’s loyalty to Henry, or how Henry managed to control him, but one thing was clear: the Whittaker Company could not function without this terrifying man.
“Mr. Yancey,” Alma said, and gestured toward a chair. “I beg of you, make yourself at ease.”
He did not sit. He stood in the middle of the room and held Ambrose’s valise loosely in one hand. Alma tried not to stare at it—the only possession of her late husband. She did not sit, either. Evidently, they would not be making themselves at ease.
“Is there something you wished to speak with me about, Mr. Yancey? Or would y
ou prefer to see my father? He has been unwell lately, as I know you are aware, but today is one of his better days and his head is clear. He can receive you in his bedchamber, if that would suit you.”
Still, Dick Yancey did not speak. This was a famous tactic of his: silence as a weapon. When Dick Yancey did not speak, those around him, nervous, filled the air with words. People said more than they meant to say. Dick Yancey would watch from behind his silent fortification as secrets flew. Then he would bring those secrets home to White Acre. This was a function of his power.
Alma resolved not to fall into his trap and speak without thinking. Thus, they stood in silence together for what must have been another two minutes. Then Alma couldn’t bear it. She spoke again: “I see you are carrying my late husband’s valise. I assume you have been to Tahiti, and have retrieved it there? Have you come to return it to me?”
He neither moved nor said a word.
Alma went on. “If you are wondering whether I would like to have that valise back, Mr. Yancey, the answer is yes—I would like it very much. My late husband was a man of few belongings, and it would mean a good deal to me to keep as a remembrance the one item that I know he himself valued enormously.”
Still, he did not speak. Was he going to make her beg for it? Was she meant to pay him? Did he want something in exchange? Or—the thought crossed her mind in an errant, illogical flash—was he hesitating for some reason? Could he be feeling uncertain? There was no telling with Dick Yancey. He could never be read. Alma began to feel both impatient and alarmed.
“I really must insist, Mr. Yancey,” she said, “that you explain yourself.”
Dick Yancey was not a man who ever explained himself. Alma knew this as well as anybody alive. He did not squander words on such petty uses as explanation. He did not squander words at all. From earliest childhood, in fact, Alma had rarely heard him speak more than three words in a row. As for this day, however, Dick Yancey was able to make his point clear in a mere two words, which he now growled from the corner of his mouth as he strode past Alma and out the door, thrusting the valise into her arms as he brushed by her.
“Burn it,” he said.
* * *
Alma sat alone with the valise in her father’s study for an hour, staring at the object as though trying to determine—through its worn and salt-stained leather exterior—what lurked within. Why on earth would Yancey have said such a thing? Why would he take the trouble to bring her this valise from the other side of the planet, only to instruct her now to burn it? Why had he not burned it himself, if it needed burning? And did he mean that she should burn it after opening it and reviewing its contents, or before? Why had he hesitated so long before handing it over?
Asking him any of these questions, of course, was quite outside the realm of possibility: he was long gone. Dick Yancey moved with improbable speed; he could be halfway to Argentina by now, for all she knew. Even if he had remained at White Acre, though, he would not have answered any further queries. She knew that. That sort of conversation would never be part of Dick Yancey’s service. All she knew was that Ambrose’s precious valise was in her possession now—and so was a dilemma.
She decided to take the thing out to her own study, in the carriage house, that she might contemplate it in privacy. She set it down upon the divan in the corner—where Retta used to chat with her so many years ago, where Ambrose used to sprawl out comfortably with his long legs dangling, and where Alma had slept in the dark months after Ambrose left. She studied the valise. It was about two feet long, a foot and a half wide, and six inches deep—a simple rectangle of cheap, honey-colored cowhide. It was scuffed and stained and humble. The handle had been repaired with wire and leather lacing several times. The hinges were corroded from sea air and age. One could barely make out, above the handle, the faintly embossed initials “A.P.” Two leather belts circled the valise, buckling it closed, like cinch straps around a horse’s belly.
There was no lock, which was entirely characteristic of Ambrose. His was such a trusting nature—or rather, it had been. Perhaps, had there been a lock on the valise, she would not have opened it. Perhaps all it would have taken was one faint sign of secretiveness, and she would have backed away. Or perhaps not. Alma was the sort of person who was born to investigate things regardless of the consequences, even if it meant breaking a lock.
She opened the valise with no difficulty. Folded inside was a brown corduroy jacket, instantly recognizable, which made her throat clench with feeling. She lifted it out and pressed it to her face, hoping to smell something of Ambrose in its fibers, but all she could detect was a trace of mildew. Underneath the jacket she found a thick stack of paper: sketches and drawings on wide, toothy paper the color of eggshell. The topmost drawing was a depiction of a tropical Pandanus tree, immediately recognizable by its helices of leaves and thick roots. Here was Ambrose’s virtuosic botanical hand at work, in typically perfect detail. It was a mere pencil sketch, but it was quite magnificent. Alma studied it, then set it aside. Underneath this drawing was another—a detail of a vanilla bloom, drawn in ink and delicately tinted, which seemed almost to flutter across the page.
Alma felt hope rising within her. The valise, then, contained Ambrose’s botanical impressions from the South Pacific. This was comforting on multiple counts. For one thing, it meant that Ambrose had taken solace in his craftsmanship while he was in Tahiti, and had not merely withered away in idle despair. For another, by taking possession of these pictures, Alma would have more of Ambrose now—something exquisite and tangible to remember him by. Not least, these drawings would be a window into his final years: she would be able to see what he had seen, as though looking straight through his eyes.
The third drawing was a coconut palm, simply and quickly sketched, unfinished. The fourth drawing, however, stopped her short. It was a face. This was a surprise, for Ambrose—to Alma’s knowledge—had never shown any interest in depicting the human form. Ambrose was no portraitist, and had never claimed to be. Yet here was a portrait, drawn in pen and ink in Ambrose’s exacting hand. It was the head of a young man in right profile. His features pointed to Polynesian ancestry. Broad cheekbones, flat nose, wide lips. Attractive and strong. Hair cut short, like a European’s.
Alma turned to the next sketch: another portrait of the same youth, in left profile. The next picture depicted a man’s arm. It was not Ambrose’s arm. The shoulder was wider than his, the forearm sturdier. Next came an intimate detail of a human eye. It was not Ambrose’s eye (Alma would have known Ambrose’s eye anywhere). It was someone else’s eye, distinctive for its feathery lashes.
Then came a full-length study of a young man, nude, from behind, seemingly walking away from the artist. His back was broad and muscled. Every vertebral knob had been meticulously rendered. Yet another nude showed the young man resting against a coconut palm. His face was already familiar to Alma—the same proud brow, the same wide lips, the same almond-shaped eyes. Here, he looked somewhat younger than in the other drawings—not much more than a boy. Perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old.
There were no more botanical studies. All of the remaining drawings, sketches, and watercolors in the valise were nudes. There must have been more than a hundred of them—all of the same young native with the short European hair. In some, he appeared to be sleeping. In others, he was running, or carrying a spear, or lifting a stone, or hauling a fishing net—not unlike the athletes or demi-gods on ancient Greek pottery. In none of the images did he wear a scrap of clothing—not so much as a shoe. In most of the studies, his penis was flaccid and relaxed. In others it was decidedly not. In these, the youth’s face turned toward the portraitist with frank, and perhaps even amused, candor.
“My God,” Alma heard herself say aloud. Then she realized she had been saying this all along, with every new and shocking picture.
My God, my God, my God.
Alma Whittaker was a woman of quick calculation, and far from a sensual innocent. The sole possible co
nclusion to be reached regarding the valise’s contents was this: Ambrose Pike—paragon of purity, the angel of Framingham—was a sodomite.
Her mind flew back to his first night at White Acre. Over dinner, he had dazzled them, Henry and Alma both, with his ideas about the hand-pollination of vanilla orchids in Tahiti. What was it he had said? It would be so easy, he’d promised: All you need is little boys with little fingers and little sticks. It had sounded so playful. Now, in echoing retrospect, it sounded perverse. But it also answered for much. Ambrose had been unable to consummate their marriage not because Alma was old, not because Alma was ugly, and not because he wanted to emulate the angels—but because he wanted little boys with little fingers and little sticks. Or big boys, by the looks of these drawings.
Dear God, what he had put her through! What lies he had told! What manipulations! What self-disgust he had made her feel for her own entirely natural longings. The way he had looked at her from the bathtub that afternoon when she had taken his fingers into her mouth—as though she were some sort of succubus, come to devour his flesh. She remembered a line from Montaigne, something she had read years ago, which had always stayed with her, and which now felt horribly pertinent: “These are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.”
She had been made a fool by Ambrose and his supercelestial thoughts, by his grand dreams, his false innocence, his pretense at godliness, his noble talk of communion with the divine—and look where he had ended up! In a louche paradise, with a willing catamite, and a fine upstanding cock!
“You duplicitous son of a whore,” she said aloud.
The Signature of All Things Page 35