The Signature of All Things (16 page)

“Not at all, Miss Whittaker,” George said. “I would welcome it. If anything, it would relax me.”

At these words, Alma found herself relaxing, too. At last, a simple theme! At last, botany!

“Well, Mr. Hawkes,” she said, “as you surely know,
Monotropa hypopitys
grows only in the shade, and is a sickly white color—almost ghostly in tone. Previous naturalists had always assumed that
Monotropa
lacks pigment because of the absence of sunlight in its environment, but this theory makes little sense to me, as some of our most vivid shades of green can also be found in the shade, in such plants as ferns and mosses. My investigations further show that
Monotropa
is just as likely to tilt
away
from the sun as
toward
it, leading me to wonder if it does not gain nourishment from the sun’s rays at all, but rather from some other source. I have come to believe
Monotropa
gains its nutrition from the plants in which it grows. In other words, I believe it to be a parasite.”

“Which brings us back to an earlier topic of this evening,” George said, with a small smile.

Goodness, George Hawkes was making a jest! Alma had not known George was capable of jesting, but upon realizing his joke, she laughed with delight. Prudence did not laugh, but merely sat watching the two of them, pretty and remote as a picture.

“Yes, quite!” Alma said, gaining more momentum. “But unlike Professor Peck and his head lice, I can offer up documentation. I’ve noticed under the microscope that the stem of
Monotropa
is destitute of those cuticular pores through which air and water are generally admitted in other plants, nor does it seem to have a mechanism to draw moisture from the soil. I believe
Monotropa
takes nourishment and moisture from its foster parent. I believe its corpselike absence of color derives from the fact that it dines upon food that has already been digested, as it were, by the host.”

“A most extraordinary speculation,” said George Hawkes.

“Well, it is mere speculation at this point. Perhaps someday chemistry will be able to prove what my microscope, for now, only suggests.”

“If you wouldn’t mind sharing the paper with me this week,” said George, “I would like to consider publishing it.”

Alma was so enchanted by this unexpected invitation (and so addled by the queer events of the day, and so stirred to be speaking directly to a grown man about whom she had just been nursing sensual thoughts) that she never stopped to consider the strangest element of this entire exchange—namely, the role of her sister Prudence. Why was Prudence even present for this conversation? Why had Prudence given George Hawkes the nod to begin speaking in the first place? And when—at what earlier unknown moment—had Prudence ever had the chance to speak with George Hawkes about Alma’s private botanical research projects? When had Prudence even
noticed
Alma’s private botanical research projects?

On any other evening, these questions might have inhabited Alma’s mind and tugged at her curiosity, but on this evening she dismissed them. On this evening—at the close of what had been the strangest and most distracted day of her life—Alma’s mind was spinning and dipping with so many other thoughts that she missed all this. Bemused, tired, and a bit dizzy, she bade good night to George Hawkes, and then sat alone in the drawing room with her sister, waiting for Beatrix to come and contend with them.

With the thought of Beatrix, Alma’s euphoria diminished. Beatrix’s nightly accounting of her daughters’ shortcomings was never to be relished, but tonight Alma dreaded the lecture more than usual. Alma’s behavior that day (the discovery of the book, the arousing thoughts, the solitary passion in the binding closet) made her feel as though she visibly emanated guilt. She feared Beatrix would somehow sense it. Moreover, the dinner-table conversation had been catastrophic tonight: Alma had appeared blatantly stupid, while Prudence, unprecedentedly, had been something close to rude. Beatrix would not be pleased with either of them.

Alma and Prudence waited in the drawing room for their mother, quiet as nuns. The two girls were always quiet when they were alone together. Never had they found comfortable conversation. Never had they prattled. Never would they. Prudence sat with her hands folded quietly, while Alma
fidgeted with the hem of a handkerchief. Alma glanced at Prudence, seeking something she could not name. Fellowship, maybe. Warmth. Some kind of affinity. Perhaps a reference to any of the evening’s proceedings. But Prudence—glittering as hard as ever—invited no intimacy. Despite this fact, Alma decided to attempt it.

“Those ideas of yours which you expressed tonight, Prudence?” Alma asked. “Where did you come by them?”

“From Mr. Dixon, largely. The condition and plight of the African race is a preferred topic of our good tutor.”

“Is it? I have never heard him make mention of any such thing.”

“Nonetheless, he has strong feelings on the subject,” Prudence said, without any change of expression.

“Is he an abolitionist, then?”

“He is.”

“Heavens,” Alma said, marveling at the idea of Arthur Dixon with strong feelings on
anything
. “Mother and Father had best not hear of that!”

“Mother knows,” Prudence replied.

“Does she? And what about Father?”

Prudence did not reply. Alma had more questions—a good many more of them—but Prudence did not seem eager for discussion. Again, the room fell silent. Then suddenly Alma leapt into that silence, allowing a wild and uncontrolled question to burst from her lips.

“Prudence,” she asked, “what do you think of Mr. George Hawkes?”

“I think him to be a decent gentleman.”

“And I think I am most desperately in love with him!” Alma exclaimed, shocking even herself with this absurd, unanticipated admission.

Before Prudence could respond—indeed, if she ever would have responded at all—Beatrix entered the drawing room and looked at her two daughters sitting on the divan. For a long while, Beatrix said nothing. She held her daughters in a stern, unyielding gaze, studying first one girl, then the other. This was more terrifying to Alma than any lecture, for the silence contained infinite, omniscient, horrifying possibilities. Beatrix could be aware of anything, could know of
everything.
Alma picked at a corner of her handkerchief, tearing it to threads. Prudence’s countenance and posture did not alter.

“I am weary this evening,” Beatrix said, finally breaking the awful hush.
She looked at Alma and said, “I do not have the will tonight, Alma, to speak of your shortcomings. It will only further injure my temper. Let it only be said that if I ever see such gape-mouthed distraction from you at the dinner table again, I will ask you to take your meals elsewhere.”

“But, Mother—” Alma began.

“Do not explain yourself, daughter. It is weak.”

Beatrix turned as though to exit the room, but then turned back and leveled her gaze at Prudence, as though she were only just remembering something.

“Prudence,” she said. “Fine performance tonight.”

This was entirely out of the ordinary. Beatrix never gave praise. But was there anything about this day that was
not
out of the ordinary? Alma, amazed, turned to Prudence, again looking for something
.
Recognition? Commiseration? A shared sense of astonishment? But Prudence revealed nothing and did not return Alma’s gaze, so Alma gave up. She stood from the divan and headed toward the stairs, and bed. At the foot of the stairs, though, she turned to Prudence and surprised herself once more.

“Good night, sister,” Alma said. She had never once used that term before.

“And to you,” was Prudence’s only reply.

Chapter Eight

B
etween the winter of 1816 and the autumn of 1820, Alma Whittaker wrote more than three dozen papers for George Hawkes, all of which he published in his monthly journal
Botanica Americana.
Her papers were not pioneering, but her ideas were bright, her illustrations free of error, and her scholarship stringent and sound. If Alma’s work did not exactly ignite the world, it most certainly ignited Alma, and her efforts were more than good enough for the pages of
Botanica Americana
.

Alma wrote in depth about laurel, mimosa, and verbena. She wrote about grapes and camellias, about the myrtle orange, about the cosseting of figs. She published under the name “A. Whittaker.” Neither she nor George Hawkes believed that it would much benefit Alma to announce herself in print as female. In the scientific world of the day, there was still a strict division between “botany” (the study of plants by men) and “polite botany” (the study of plants by women). Now, “polite botany” was often indistinguishable from “botany”—except that one field was regarded with respect and the other was not—but still, Alma did not wish to be shrugged off as a mere polite botanist.

Of course, the Whittaker name was famous in the world of plants and science, so a good number of botanists already knew precisely who “A. Whittaker” was. Not all of them, however. In response to her articles, then, Alma sometimes received letters from botanists around the world, sent to
her in care of George Hawkes’s print shop. Some of these letters began, “My dear Sir.” Other letters were written to “Mr. A. Whittaker.” One quite memorable missive even came addressed to “Dr. A. Whittaker.” (Alma kept that letter for a long time, tickled by the unexpected honorific.)

As George and Alma found themselves sharing research with each other and editing papers together, he became an even more regular visitor to White Acre. Happily, his shyness relaxed. He could frequently be found speaking at the dinner table now, and sometimes even attempting a witticism.

As for Prudence, she did not speak at the dinner table again. Her outburst about Negroes on the night of Professor Peck’s visit must have been some passing act of fever, for she never again repeated the performance, nor did she ever again challenge a guest. Henry had teased Prudence about her views rather relentlessly since that night, calling her “our dusky-loving warrior,” but she refused to speak again on the subject. Instead, she retreated back into her cool, distant, mysterious ways, treating everyone and everything with the same indifferent, indecipherable politeness as ever.

The girls grew older. When they turned eighteen, Beatrix discontinued their tutoring sessions at last, announcing their educations complete, and sending away poor, boring Arthur Dixon, who took a position as a tutor of classical languages at the University of Pennsylvania. Thus it seemed the girls were considered children no longer. Any mother other than Beatrix Whittaker might have regarded this period as a time of dedicated husband-seeking. Any other mother might have now ambitiously presented Alma and Prudence into society, encouraging the girls to flirt, to dance, and to court. This might have been a wise moment to order new gowns, adopt new hairstyles, commission new portraits. These activities, however, seem not to have occurred to Beatrix at all.

In truth, Beatrix had never done Prudence or Alma any favors regarding their suitability for marriage. There were those in Philadelphia who whispered that the Whittakers had rendered their girls completely unmarriageable, what with all that education and isolation from the better families. Neither girl had friends. They had only ever dined with grown men of science and trade, so their minds were distinctly unformed. They had not the slightest training in how to speak properly to a young suitor. Alma was the type of girl who, when a visiting young fellow admired the water lilies in
one of White Acre’s beautiful ponds, would say, “No, sir, you are incorrect. These are not water lilies. These are lotuses. Water lilies float on the surface of water, you see, while lotuses rise just above it. Once you learn the difference, you’ll never make the mistake again.”

Alma had grown tall as a man by now, with broad shoulders. She looked as though she could swing an ax. (In point of fact, she
could
swing an ax, and often had to, in her botanical fieldwork.) This need not have necessarily precluded her from marriage. Some men liked a larger woman, who promised a stronger disposition, and Alma, it could be argued, had a handsome profile—at least from her left side. She certainly had a fine, friendly nature. Yet she was missing some invisible, essential ingredient, and so, despite all the frank eroticism that lay hidden within her body, her presence in a room did not kindle ideas of ardor in any man.

It did not help that Alma herself believed she was unlovely. She believed this only because she had been told it so many times, and in so many different ways. Most recently, the news of her homeliness had come straight from her father, who—after drinking quite a bit too much rum one evening—had said to her, quite out of nowhere, “Think nothing of it, my girl!”

“Think nothing of what, Father?” Alma asked, looking up from the letter she had been writing for him.

“Don’t dismay of it, Alma. It’s not everything to have a pleasing face. Plenty of women are loved who are not beauties. Think of your mother. She’s never been pretty a day of her life, yet she found a husband, didn’t she? Think of Mrs. Cavendesh, down near the bridge! The woman looks a fright, yet her husband finds her adequate enough to have made seven children out of her. So there will be somebody for you, Plum, and I think he will be a fortunate man to have you.”

To think that all this was offered by way of
consolation
!

As for Prudence, she was a widely acknowledged beauty—arguably the greatest beauty in Philadelphia—but the entire city agreed that she was cold and unwinnable. Prudence excited envy in women, but it was not clear that she excited passion in men. Prudence had a way of making men feel that they ought not to bother at all, and so, wisely, they didn’t. They stared, for one could not help staring at Prudence Whittaker, but they did not approach.

One might have expected the Whittaker girls to attract fortune hunters.
True, there were many young men who coveted the family’s money, but the prospect of being Henry Whittaker’s son-in-law seemed more like a threat than a windfall, and nobody really believed that Henry would ever part with his fortune, anyway. One way or another, not even dreams of riches brought suitors near White Acre.