The Signature of All Things (27 page)

But by the time Alma had arrived, Retta was already sleeping, with a thumb in her mouth and her beautiful hair splayed across the pillow like bare black branches against a pale winter sky. George explained that the pharmacy had sent over a bit of laudanum, and this had seemed to work.

“Pray, George, try not to make a habit of that,” Alma had warned. “Retta has an unusually sensitive constitution, and too much laudanum may do her harm. I know she can be a bit nonsensical at times, and even tragic. But my understanding of Retta is that she requires only patience and love in order to find her own way back to happiness. Perhaps if you give her more time . . .”

“I apologize for having disturbed you,” George said.

“Not at all,” Alma said. “I am always at your disposal, and Retta’s, too.”

Alma wanted to say more—but what? She felt she may have spoken too freely already, or perhaps even criticized him as a husband. Poor man. He was exhausted.

“Friendship is here, George,” she said, and laid her hand on his arm. “Use it. You may call upon me at any time.”

Well, he did. He called upon Alma in 1826, when Retta cut off all her hair. He called upon Alma in 1835, when Retta vanished for three days, and was ultimately found in Fishtown, sleeping amid a pile of street children. He called upon her in 1842, when Retta came after a servant with a pair of sewing scissors, claiming that the woman was a ghost. The servant had not suffered serious injury, but now nobody would take Retta her breakfast. He called upon her in 1846, when Retta had started writing long, incomprehensible letters, composed more of tears than ink.

George did not know how to manage these scenes and muddles. It was all a dreadful distraction to his business and to his mind. He was publishing more than fifty books a year now, along with an array of scientific journals and a new, expensive, subscription-only
Octavo of Exotic Flora
(to be released quarterly, and illustrated with impressively large hand-tinted lithographs of the finest quality). All these endeavors required his absolute attention. He had no time for a collapsing wife.

Alma had no time for it either, but still she came. Sometimes—during particularly bad episodes—she would even spend the night with Retta, sleeping in the Hawkeses’ own conjugal bed, with her arms around her trembling friend, while George slept on a pallet in the print shop next door. She got the impression that he usually slept there nowadays, anyway.

“Will you still love me and will you still be kind to me,” Retta would ask Alma in the middle of the night, “if I become the very devil himself?”

“I will always love you,” Alma reassured the only friend she had ever
had. “And you could never be the devil, Retta. You simply must rest, and not trouble yourself or the others anymore . . .”

In the mornings after such episodes, the three of them would breakfast together in the Hawkeses’ dining room. This was never comfortable. George was no light conversationalist under the best of circumstances, and Retta—depending on how much laudanum she had been given the night before—would be either frenzied or stupefied. Intervals of lucidity became ever more rare. Sometimes Retta chewed on a rag, and would not let it be taken from her. Alma would search for some topic of conversation that would suit all three of them, but no such topic existed. No such topic had ever existed. She could speak with Retta about nonsense, or she could speak with George about botany, but she could never puzzle out a way to speak to them both
.

T
hen, in April of 1848, George Hawkes called upon Alma again. She was working at her desk—attacking with zeal the puzzle of a poorly preserved
Dicranum consorbrinum
recently sent to her by an amateur collector in Minnesota
—
when a thin young boy arrived on horseback, carrying an urgent message: Miss Whittaker’s immediate presence was please requested at the Hawkes home on Arch Street. There had been an accident.

“What sort of accident?” Alma asked, rising from her work in alarm.

“A fire!” the boy said. It was difficult for him to restrain his glee. Boys always loved fires.

“Dear heavens! Has anyone been injured?”

“No, ma’am,” said the boy, visibly disappointed.

Retta, Alma soon learned, had set a fire in her bedroom. For some reason, she had decided that she needed to burn her bedclothes and curtains. Mercifully, the weather was damp, and the fabrics had only smoldered, not ignited. A good deal more smoke than flame had been produced, but the damage to the bedroom was considerable nonetheless. The damage to the morale of the household was even more severe. Two more maids had resigned. No one could be expected to live in this home. No one could bear this demented mistress.

When Alma arrived, George was pale and overwhelmed. Retta had been sedated, and lay heavily asleep across a couch. The house smelled of a brush fire after rain.

“Alma!” George said, rushing to her. He took her hand in his. He had done that only once before, more than three decades earlier. It was different this time. Alma felt ashamed of even remembering the last time. His eyes were wide with panic. “She cannot stay here any longer.”

“She is your wife, George.”

“I know what she is! I know what she is. But she cannot stay here, Alma. She is not safe, and nobody is safe around her. She could have killed us all, and ignited the print shop, as well. You must find a place for her to stay.”

“A hospital?” Alma asked. But Retta had been to the hospital so many times, where, it always seemed, nobody could do much for her. She always returned home from the hospital even more agitated than when she had been admitted.

“No, Alma. She needs a permanent place. A different sort of home. You know of what I speak! I cannot have her here for another night. She must live elsewhere. You must forgive me for this. You know more than anyone, and yet not even you know fully what she has become. I have not slept a night in this past week. Nobody in this household sleeps, for fear of what she will do. She requires two people with her at all times, to ensure that she does not harm herself or another. Do not force me to say more! I know that you understand what I am asking. You must attend to this for me.”

Without questioning for a moment why it must be
she
who must attend to this, Alma attended to it. With a few well-placed letters, she was quickly able to secure admission for her friend at the Griffon Asylum in Trenton, New Jersey. The building had just been erected the year prior, and Dr. Victor Griffon—a respected Philadelphia figure who had once been a guest at White Acre—had designed the property himself, for optimum serenity to the disturbed mind. He was the foremost American advocate of moral care for the mentally disturbed, and his methods, it was said, were quite humane. His patients were never chained to the walls, for instance, as Retta had once been chained at the Philadelphia hospital. The asylum was said to be a serene and beautiful place, with fine gardens and, naturally, high walls. It was not unpleasant, people said. Nor was it inexpensive, as Alma had learned when she paid, in advance, for the first year of Retta’s stay. She had no wish to trouble George with the bill, and Retta’s own parents had long ago passed away, leaving only debts behind them.

It was a sad business for Alma, making these arrangements, but
everyone agreed it was for the best. Retta would have her own room at Griffon, such that she could not harm another patient, and she would also have a nurse with her at all hours. Knowing this brought Alma comfort. Moreover, the therapies at the asylum were modern and scientific. Retta’s madness would be treated with hydropathy, with a centrifugal spinning board, and with kind moral guidance. She would have no access to either fire or scissors. Alma had been assured of this last fact by Dr. Griffon himself, who had already diagnosed Retta with something he called “exhaustion of the nervous fountain.”

So Alma made all the arrangements. George was required only to sign the certificate of insanity and accompany his wife, along with Alma, to Trenton. The three of them went by private carriage, because Retta could not be trusted on a train. They brought a strap with them, in case she needed restraining, but Retta bore herself along lightly, humming little songs.

When they arrived at the asylum, George walked briskly ahead across the great lawn toward the front entrance, with Alma and Retta following just behind him, arm in arm, as though they were enjoying a stroll.

“Such a pretty house this is!” Retta said, admiring the elegant brick building.

“I agree,” Alma said, with a surge of relief. “I am happy that you like it, Retta, for this is where you will live now.” It was not clear how much Retta understood about what was happening, but she did not seem agitated.

“These are lovely gardens,” Retta went on.

“I agree,” said Alma.

“I cannot bear to see flowers cut down, though.”

“But, Retta, you are so silly to say such a thing! Nobody loves a bouquet of freshly cut flowers more than you!”

“I am being punished for the most unspeakable offenses,” Retta replied, quite calmly.

“You are not being punished, little bird.”

“I am terrified of God, more than all.”

“God has no complaint with you, Retta.”

“I am plagued by the most mysterious pains in my chest. It feels sometimes as if my heart will be crushed. Not at the moment, you see, but it comes on so quickly.”

“You will meet friends here who can help you.”

“When I was a young girl,” Retta said in this same relaxed tone, “I used to go on compromising walks with men. Did you know that about me, Alma?”

“Hush, Retta.”

“There is no need to hush me. George knows. I’ve told him many times. I permitted those men to handle me however they liked, and I even allowed myself to take money from them—though you know I never needed the money.”

“Hush, Retta. You are not speaking sensibly.”

“Did you ever wish to go on compromising walks with men? When you were young, I mean?”

“Retta, please . . .”

“The ladies in the buttery at White Acre used to do it, too. They showed me how to do things to men, and taught me how much money to take for my services. I bought myself gloves and ribbons with the money. I once even bought a ribbon for you!”

Alma slowed her pace, hoping George could not hear them speaking. But she knew he had already heard everything. “Retta, you are so weary, you must save your voice . . .”

“But did you never, Alma? Did you
never
wish to commit compromising acts? Did you never feel a wicked hunger, inside the body?” Retta clutched her arm and gazed up at her friend quite piteously, searching Alma’s face. Then she slumped again, resigned. “No, of course you didn’t. For you are good. You and Prudence are both good. Whereas I am the very devil himself.”

Now Alma felt that her own heart would break. She looked at the wide, hunched shoulders of George Hawkes as he walked ahead of them. She felt overcome with shame. Had she never wished to commit compromising acts with men? Oh, if Retta only knew! If anyone knew! Alma was a forty-eight-year-old spinster with a dried-up womb, and yet she
still
found her way to the binding closet several times a month. Many times a month, even! What’s more, all the illicit texts of her youth—
Cum Grano Salis
, and the rest of them—still pulsed in her memory. Sometimes she took those books out of their hidden trunk, in the hayloft of the carriage house, and read them again. What did Alma
not
know of wicked hungers?

Alma felt that it would be immoral of her to say nothing of reassurance
or allegiance to this broken little creature. How could Alma let Retta believe she was the only wicked girl in the world? But George Hawkes was right there, walking only a few feet in front of them, and surely he could hear all. So Alma did not console, nor did she offer commiseration. All she said was this: “Once you settle into your new home here, my dear little Retta, you will be able to walk in these gardens every day. Then you will be at peace.”

O
n the carriage ride home from Trenton, Alma and George were mostly silent.

“She will be well taken care of,” Alma said at last. “Dr. Griffon assured me of it himself.”

“We are each of us born into trouble,” George said, by means of reply. “It is a sad fate to come into this world at all.”

“That may be true,” Alma replied carefully, surprised at the vehemence of his words. “Yet we must find the patience and resignation to endure our challenges as they arise to meet us.”

“Yes. So we are taught,” George said. “Do you know, Alma, there were times when I wished Retta would find relief in death, rather than suffer this continued torment, or bring such torment to myself and to others?”

She could not imagine what to say in response. He stared at her, his face twisted by darkness and agony. After a few moments, she stumbled forth with this statement: “Where there is life, George, there is still hope. Death is so terribly final. It will come soon enough to us all. I would hesitate to wish it hastened upon anyone.”

George shut his eyes and did not answer. This did not seem to have been a reassuring response.

“I will make a practice of coming to Trenton to visit Retta once a month,” Alma said, in a lighter tone. “If you wish, you may join me. I will take her copies of
Joy’s Lady’s Book
. She will like that.”

For the next two hours, George did not speak. For a while, it appeared that he was falling in and out of sleep. As they neared Philadelphia, though, he opened his eyes. He looked as unhappy as anyone Alma had ever seen. Alma, her heart going out to the man, elected to change the subject. A few weeks earlier, George had lent Alma a new book, just published out of London, on the subject of salamanders. Perhaps a mention of this would lift his
spirits. So she thanked him now for the loan, and spoke of the book in some detail as the carriage moved slowly toward the city, concluding at last, “In general, I found it to be a volume of considerable thought and accurate analysis, though it was abominably written and terribly arranged—so I do have to ask you, George, do these people in England not have editors?”