The Signature of All Things: A Novel

Chapter Fourteen

Later that month, Alma received a note from George Hawkes, asking that she please come to Arch Street, in order to visit his printing shop and see something quite extraordinary.

“I shall not spoil the incredibility of it by telling you more at this point,” he wrote, “but I believe you would enjoy viewing this in person, and at your leisure.”

Well, Alma had no leisure. Neither did George, though—which is why this note was most unprecedented. In the past, George had contacted Alma only for publishing matters, or emergencies regarding Retta. But there had been no emergencies with Retta since they had placed her at Griffon’s, and Alma and George were not working on a book together at the moment. What, then, could be so urgent?

Intrigued, she took a carriage to Arch Street.

She found George in a back room, hulking over a long table covered with the most dazzling multiplication of shapes and colors. As Alma approached, she could see that this was an enormous collection of paintings of orchids, stacked in tall piles. Not only paintings, but lithographs, drawings, and etchings.

“This is the most beautiful work I have ever seen,” George said, by means of a greeting. “It’s just come in yesterday, from Boston. It’s such an odd story. Look at this mastery!”

George thrust into Alma’s hand a lithograph of a spotted Catasetum. The orchid had been rendered so magnificently that it seemed to grow off the page. Its lips were spotted red against yellow, and appeared moist, like living flesh. Its leaves were lush and thick, and its bulbous roots looked as though one could shake actual soil off them. Before Alma could thoroughly take in the beauty, George handed her another stunning print—a Peristeria barkeri, with its tumbling golden blossoms so fresh they nearly trembled. Whoever had tinted this lithograph had been a master of texture as well as color; the petals resembled unshorn velvet, and touches of albumen on their tips gave each blossom a hint of dew.

Then George handed her another print, and Alma could not help but gasp. Whatever this orchid was, Alma had never seen it before. Its tiny pink lobes looked like something a fairy would don for a fancy dress ball. She had never seen such complexity, such delicacy. Alma knew lithographs, and knew them well. She had been born only four years after the technique was invented, and she had collected for the library at White Acre some of the finest lithography the world had yet produced. She believed she well understood the technical limitations of the medium, yet these prints proved her wrong. George Hawkes knew lithography, too. Nobody in Philadelphia had mastered it better than he. Yet his hand shook as he reached to give Alma another sheet, another orchid. He wanted her to see all of this, and he wanted her to see it all at once. Alma was desperate to keep looking, but she needed to better understand the situation first.

“Wait, George, let us pause for a moment. You must tell me—who made these?” Alma asked. She knew all the best botanical illustrators, but she did not know this artist. Not even Walter Hood Fitch could create work like this. If she had ever before seen the likes of it, she most certainly would have remembered.

“The most extraordinary fellow, it seems,” George said. “His name is Ambrose Pike.”

Alma had never heard the name.

“Who publishes his work?” she asked.

“Nobody!”

“Who has commissioned this work, then?”

“It is not clear that anyone has commissioned it,” George said. “Mr. Pike made the lithographs himself, in a friend’s print shop in Boston. He found the orchids, executed the sketches, made the prints, and even did the tint work on his own. He sent all this work to me without a good deal more explanation than that. It arrived yesterday in the most innocuous box you have ever seen. I nearly toppled over when I opened it, as you can imagine. Mr. Pike has been in Guatemala and Mexico for these past eighteen years, he says, and only recently returned home to Massachusetts. The orchids he has documented here are the result of his time in the jungle. Nobody knows of him. We must bring him to Philadelphia, Alma. Perhaps you could invite him to White Acre? His letter was most humble. He has put the entirety of his life toward this endeavor. He wonders if I might publish it for him.”

“You will publish, won’t you?” Alma asked, already imagining these lavish prints in a perfectly executed Hawkes volume.

“Naturally, I will publish! But first I must gather my senses around it all. Some of these orchids, Alma, I’ve never before seen. Such artistry, I most certainly have never before seen.”

“Nor have I,” Alma said, turning to the table and gently paging through the other examples. She almost didn’t want to touch them, they were that spectacular. They should be behind glass—each and every one. Even the smallest sketches were masterpieces. Reflexively, she glanced up at the ceiling to make sure it was sound, that nothing would leak on this work and destroy it. She feared suddenly for fire or theft. George needed to put a lock on this room. She wished she were wearing gloves.

“Have you ever—” George began, but he was so overcome, he couldn’t finish the sentence. She had never seen his face so undone by emotion.

“I have never,” she murmured. “I have never in my life.”

That very evening, Alma wrote a letter to Mr. Ambrose Pike, of Massachusetts.

She had written many thousands of letters in her life—and many of them had been letters of praise or invitation—but she did not know how to begin this one. How does one address true genius? In the end, she decided she must be nothing short of direct.

Dear Mr. Pike,

I fear you have done me a great harm. You have ruined me forever, for admiring anybody else’s botanical artwork. The world of drawing, painting, and lithography will seem sadly drab and dull to me now that I have seen your orchids. I believe you may soon be visiting Philadelphia in order to work alongside my dear friend George Hawkes on the publication of a book. I wonder if, while you are in our city, I may lure you to White Acre, my family’s estate, for an extended visit? We have greenhouses stocked with an abundance of orchids—some of which are nearly as beautiful in reality as yours are in depiction. I daresay you may enjoy them. Perhaps you might even wish to draw them. (Any of our flowers would consider it an honor to have their portraits painted by you!) Without a doubt, my father and I shall delight in making your acquaintance. If you alert me as to your expected arrival, I shall send a private carriage to collect you at the train station. Once you are in our care, we shall see to your every need. Please do not harm me again by refusing!

Most sincerely yours, Alma Whittaker

He arrived in the middle of May 1848.

Alma was in her study working at her microscope when she saw the carriage pull up in front of the house. A tall, slender, sandy-haired young man in a brown corduroy suit stepped out. From this distance, he appeared to be no more than twenty years old—though Alma knew that to be impossible. He was carrying nothing but a small leather valise, which looked not only as though it had traveled the world a few times already, but as though it might fall apart before the end of this day.

Alma watched for a moment before she went out to greet him. She had witnessed so many arrivals at White Acre over the years, and it was her experience that first-time visitors always did exactly the same thing: they stopped in their tracks to gape at the house before them, for White Acre was both magnificent and daunting, especially upon first sight. The place had been expressly designed to intimidate, after all, and few guests could hide their awe, their envy, or their fear—particularly if they did not know they were being watched.

But Mr. Pike did not even look at the house. In fact, he turned his back to the mansion immediately and regarded, instead, Beatrix’s old Grecian garden—which Alma and Hanneke had kept pristine over the decades as a tribute to her. He backed up a bit, as though to get a better sense of it, and then he did the oddest thing: he set down his valise, took off his jacket, walked to the northwest corner of the garden, and then strode in long lengths diagonally to the southeast corner. He stood there for a moment, looked about, and then paced out two contiguous borders of the garden—its length and width—in the long strides of a surveyor measuring a property boundary. When he reached the northwest corner, he took off his hat, scratched his head, paused for a moment, and then burst into laughter. Alma could not hear his laughter, but she could distinctly see it.

This was too much for her to resist, and she rushed out of her carriage house to meet him.

“Mr. Pike,” she said, extending her hand as she approached him.

“You must be Miss Whittaker!” he said, smiling warmly and taking her hand in greeting. “My eyes cannot believe what I am seeing here! You must tell me, Miss Whittaker—what mad genius took such pains to fabricate this garden according to strict Euclidian geometric ideals?”

“It was my mother’s inspiration, sir. Had she not passed away many years ago, she would have thrilled to know that you recognized her objectives.”

“Who would not recognize them? It’s the golden ratio! We have double squares here, containing recurring nets of squares—and with the pathways bisecting the entire construction, we make several three-four-five triangles, as well. It’s so pleasing! I find it extraordinary that somebody would take the trouble to do this, and on such a magnificent scale. The boxwoods are perfect, too. They seem to serve as equation marks to all the conjugates. She must have been a delight, your mother.”

“A delight . . .” Alma considered that possibility. “Well, my mother was blessed with a mind that functioned with delightful precision, to be sure.”

“How very remarkable,” he said.

He had still not appeared to notice the house.

“It is a true pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pike,” Alma said.

“And you, Miss Whittaker. Your letter was most generous. I must say that I enjoyed the private carriage ride—a first, in my long life. I am so accustomed to traveling in close quarters with squalling children, unhappy animals, and loud men smoking thick cigars that I scarcely knew what to do with myself for such a long spell of solitude and tranquility.”

“What did you do with yourself, then?” Alma asked, smiling at his enthusiasm.

“I befriended a quiet view of the road.”

Before Alma could respond to that charming reply, she saw an expression of concern cross Mr. Pike’s face. She turned to see what he was looking at: a servant was walking into White Acre’s daunting front doors, carrying Mr. Pike’s small piece of baggage with him.

“My valise . . .” he said, reaching out a hand.

“We are merely taking it to your rooms for you, Mr. Pike. It will be there, next to your bed and awaiting you, whenever you need it. “

He shook his head, embarrassed. “Of course you are,” he said. “How foolish of me. My apologies. I am not accustomed to servants, and that sort of thing.”

“Would you prefer to keep your valise with you?”

“No, not at all. Forgive my reaction, Miss Whittaker. But if one has only a single asset in life, as do I, it is a bit worrisome to watch a stranger walk off with it!”

“You have far more than one asset in life, Mr. Pike. You have your exceptional artistic talent—the likes of which neither Mr. Hawkes nor I has ever before seen.”

He laughed. “Ah! You are kind to say so, Miss Whittaker. But everything else that I own is in the valise, and perhaps I value those prized little belongings more!”

Now Alma was laughing, too. The reserve that normally exists between two strangers was thoroughly absent. Perhaps it had never been there at all.

“Now tell me, Miss Whittaker,” he said, brightly. “What other marvels do you have at White Acre? And what is this I hear, that you study mosses?”

This is how it came to pass that, by the end of the hour, they were standing together amid Alma’s boulders, discussing Dicranum. She had intended to show him the orchids first. Or rather, she had never intended to show him the moss beds at all—for nobody else had ever shown an interest in them—but once she had started speaking of her work, he insisted that she take him to see it.

“I should warn you, Mr. Pike,” she said, as they walked across the field together, “that most people find mosses to be quite dull.”

“That doesn’t frighten me,” he said. “I’ve always found fascination in subjects that other people find dull.”

“This, we share,” said Alma.

“Tell me, though, Miss Whittaker, what is it that you admire in mosses?”

“Their dignity,” Alma replied without hesitation. “Also, their silence and intelligence. I like that—as a point of study—they are fresh. They are not like other bigger or more important plants, which have all been pondered and poked at by hordes of botanists already. I suppose I admire their modesty, as well. Mosses hold their beauty in elegant reserve. By comparison to mosses, everything else in the botanical world can seem so blunt and obvious. Do you understand what I am saying? Do you know how the bigger, showier flowers can look at times like dumb, drooling fools—the way they bob about with their mouths agape, appearing so stunned and helpless?”

“I congratulate you, Miss Whittaker. You have just described the orchid family to perfection.”

She gasped and put her hands to her mouth. “I’ve offended you!”

But Mr. Pike was smiling. “Not in the least. I am teasing you. I have never defended the intelligence of an orchid, and I never shall. I do love them, but I confess that they do not seem particularly bright—not by your standards of description. But I am much enjoying listening to somebody defend the intelligence of moss! It feels as though you are writing a character reference in their defense.”

“Somebody must defend them, Mr. Pike! For they have been so overlooked, and they have such a noble character! In fact, I find the miniature world to be a gift of disguised greatness, and therefore an honor to study.”

Ambrose Pike didn’t seem to find any of this dull. When they arrived at the boulders, he had dozens of questions for Alma, and he put his face so close to the moss colonies that it appeared as though his beard was growing out of the stones. He listened with care as she explained each variety, and discussed her burgeoning theories of transmutation. Perhaps she spoke overly long. Her mother would have said so. Even as she spoke, Alma feared that she was about to throw this poor man into pure tedium. But he was so welcoming! She felt herself set loose as she spilled forth ideas from her long-overbrimming vaults of private thoughts. There is only so long that a person can keep her enthusiasms locked away within her heart before she longs to share it with a fellow soul, and Alma had many decades of thoughts much overdue for sharing.

Very soon Mr. Pike had thrown himself on the ground so that he could peer under the lip of a larger boulder and examine the moss beds that were hidden in those secret shelves. His long legs flopped out from beneath the rock as he enthused. Alma thought she had never been so pleased in her life. She had always wanted to show this to somebody.

“So here is my question to you, Miss Whittaker,” he called from under the rock ledge. “What is the true nature of your moss colonies? They have mastered the trick, as you say, of appearing modest and mild. Yet from what you tell me, they possess considerable faculties. Are they friendly pioneers, your mosses? Or are they hostile marauders?”

“Farmers or pirates, do you mean?” Alma asked.

“Exactly.”

“I cannot say for certain,” Alma said. “Perhaps a bit of both. I wonder that to myself all the time. It may take me another twenty-five years or so to learn.”

“I admire your patience,” he said, at last rolling out from under the rock and stretching casually across the grass. As she would come to know Ambrose Pike better over time, she would learn that he was a great one for throwing himself down wherever and whenever he wanted to rest. He would even collapse happily on a carpet in a formal drawing room if the mood struck—particularly if he was enjoying his thoughts and the conversation. The world was his divan. There was such a freedom in it. Alma could not imagine ever feeling so free. On this day, while he sprawled, she sat carefully on a nearby rock.

Mr. Pike was considerably older, Alma could see now, than he had initially appeared. Well, naturally he was—there was no way he could have created such a vast body of work had he been so young as he first seemed. It was only his enthusiastic posture and his brisk walking pace that made him resemble a university student from a distance. That, and his humble brown attire—the very uniform of an impecunious young scholar. Up close, though, one could see his age—especially as he lay in the sun, flopped across the grass without his hat on. His face was faintly lined, tanned and freckled by years of weather, and the sandy hair at his temples was turning gray. Alma would have put him at thirty-five years old, or maybe thirty-six. More than ten years younger than she, but still, no child.

“What profound reward you must glean from studying the world so closely,” Ambrose went on. “Too many people turn away from small wonders, I find. There is so much more potency to be found in detail than in generalities, but most souls cannot train themselves to sit still for it.”

“But sometimes I fear that my world has become too detailed,” Alma said. “My books on mosses take me years to write, and my conclusions are excruciatingly intricate, not unlike those elaborate Persian miniatures one can study only with a magnifying lens. My work brings me no fame. It brings me no income, either—so you can see I am using my time wisely!”

“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 its 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.”

“And your plans now?” Alma said.

Mr. Pike raised his hands, as though in supplication before heaven. “It has been so long since I made plans, you see.”

“But what would you like to do?” Alma asked.

“Nobody has ever asked me that question before.”

“Yet I ask you, Mr. Pike. And I wish for you to give me an honest answer.”

He turned his light brown eyes upon her. He did look awfully weary. “Then I shall tell you, Miss Whittaker,” he said. “I would like never to travel again. I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent—and working at a pace so slow—that I would be able to hear myself living.”

George and Alma exchanged glances. As though sensing that he was being left behind, Henry woke up with a start, and pulled the attention back to himself.

“Alma!” he said. “That letter from Dick Yancey last week. You read it?”

“I did read it, Father,” she replied, briskly changing tone.

“What do you make of it?”

“I think it unfortunate news.”

“Obviously it is. It has put me in a ghastly temper. But what do your friends here make of it?” Henry asked, waving his glass at his guests.

“I do not believe they know of the situation,” Alma said.

“Then tell them the situation, daughter. I need opinions.”

This was most odd. Henry did not generally seek opinions. But he urged her again with a wave of the wineglass, and so she began to speak, addressing herself to George and Mr. Pike both.

“Well, it’s about vanilla,” she said. “Fifteen years or so ago, my father was convinced by a Frenchman to invest in a vanilla plantation in Tahiti. Now we learn the plantation has failed. And the Frenchman has vanished.”

“Along with my investment,” Henry added.

“Along with my father’s investment,” Alma confirmed.

“A considerable investment,” Henry clarified.

“A most considerable investment,” Alma agreed. She knew this well, for she had arranged the transfers of payment herself.

“It should have worked,” Henry said. “The climate is perfect for it. And the vines grew! Dick Yancey saw them himself. They grew to sixty-five feet tall. The blasted Frenchman said that vanilla would grow happily there, and he was right about it. The vines produced blossoms as big as your fist. Exactly as he said they would. What was it the little Frenchman told me, Alma? ‘Growing vanilla in Tahiti will be easier than farting in your sleep.’”

Alma blanched, glancing at her guests. George politely folded his napkin in his lap, but Mr. Pike smiled in frank amusement.

“So what went wrong, sir?” he asked. “If I may pry?”

Henry glared at him. “The vines did not bear fruit. The blossoms bloomed and withered, and never produced a single blasted pod.”

“May I ask where the original vanilla plants came from?”

“Mexico,” Henry growled, staring Mr. Pike down in a spirit of full challenge. “So you be the one to tell me, young man—what went wrong?”

Alma was slowly beginning to glean something here. Why did she ever underestimate her father? Was there anything the old man missed? Even in his foul temper, even in his semideafness, even in his sleep, he had somehow garnered exactly who was sitting at his table: an orchid expert who had just spent nearly two decades of study in and around Mexico. And vanilla, Alma now remembered, was a member of the orchid family. Their visitor was being put to the test.

“Vanilla planifolia,” Mr. Pike said.

“Exactly,” Henry confirmed, and set down his wineglass on the table. “That is what we planted in Tahiti. Go on.”

“I saw it all over Mexico, sir. Mostly around Oaxaca. Your man in Polynesia, your Frenchman, he was correct—it is a vigorous climber, and it would happily take to the climate of the South Pacific, I suspect.”

“Then why are the blasted plants not fruiting?” Henry demanded.

“I could not say for certain,” Mr. Pike said, “having never laid eyes on the plants in question.”

“Then you are nothing but a useless little orchid-sketcher, aren’t you?” Henry snapped.

“Father—”

“However, sir,” Mr. Pike went on, unconcerned with the insult, “I could posit a theory. When your Frenchman was originally procuring his vanilla plants in Mexico, he may have accidentally purchased a varietal of Vanilla planifolia that the natives call oreja de burro—donkey’s ear—which never bears fruit at all.”

“He was an idiot then,” Henry said.

“Not necessarily, Mr. Whittaker. It would take a mother’s eye to see the distinction between the fruiting and nonfruiting versions of the planifolia. It is a common mistake. The natives themselves often confuse the two varieties. Few men of botany can even tell the difference.”

“Can you tell the difference?” Henry demanded.

Mr. Pike hesitated. It was evident he did not wish to disparage a man he had never met.

“I asked you a question, boy. Can you tell the difference between the two varieties of planifolia? Or can you not?”

“Generally, sir? Yes. I can tell the difference.”

“Then the Frenchman was an idiot,” Henry concluded. “And I was a bigger idiot to have invested in him, for now I have wasted thirty-five acres of fine lowland in Tahiti, growing an infertile variety of vanilla vines for the past fifteen years. Alma, write a letter to Dick Yancey tonight, and tell him to yank up the entire lot of vines and feed it to the pigs. Tell him to replace it with yams. Tell Yancey, too, that if he ever finds that little shit of a Frenchman, he can feed him to the pigs!”

Henry stood up and limped out of the room, too angry to finish his meal. George and Mr. Pike stared in silent wonder at the retreating figure—so quaint in his wig and old velvet breeches, yet so fierce.

As for Alma, she felt a strong surge of victory. The Frenchman had lost, and Henry Whittaker had lost, and the vanilla plantation in Tahiti was most certainly lost. But Ambrose Pike, she believed, had won something tonight, during his first appearance at the White Acre dinner table.

It was a small victory, perhaps, but it might count toward something in the end.

That night, Alma awoke to a strange noise.

She had been lost in dreamless sleep and then, as suddenly as though she’d been slapped, she was awake. She peered into the darkness. Was there somebody in her room? Was it Hanneke? No. Nobody was there. She rested back into her pillow. The night was cool and serene. What had broken her slumber? Voices? She was reminded for the first time in years of the night that Prudence had been brought to White Acre as a child, surrounded by men and covered with blood. Poor Prudence. Alma really should go visit her. She must make more of an effort with her sister. But there was simply no time. There was silence all around her. Alma began to settle back into sleep.

She heard the sound again. Once more, Alma’s eyes snapped open. What was it? Indeed, it seemed to be voices. But who would be awake at this hour?

She rose and wrapped her shawl around her, and expertly lit her lamp. She walked to the top of the stairs and looked over the banister. A light was on in the drawing room; she could see it glowing from under the door. She could hear her father’s laughter. Who was he with? Was he talking to himself? Why had nobody woken her, if Henry needed something?

She came down the stairs and found her father sitting next to Ambrose Pike on the divan. They were looking over some drawings. Her father was wearing a long white nightdress and an old-fashioned sleeping cap, and he was flushed with drink. Mr. Pike was still in his brown corduroy suit, with his hair even more disarranged than earlier in the day.

“We’ve awoken you,” Mr. Pike said, looking up. “My apologies.”

“Can I assist you with something?” Alma asked.

“Alma!” Henry cried. “Your boy here has come up with a piece of brilliance! Show it to her, son!”

Henry wasn’t drunk, Alma realized; he was simply ebullient.

“I had trouble sleeping, Miss Whittaker,” Mr. Pike said, “because I was thinking about the vanilla plants in Tahiti. It occurred to me that there might be another possibility as to why the vines have not fruited. I should have waited until morning so as to not disturb anyone, but I did not want to lose the idea. So I rose and came down, looking for paper. I fear I woke your father in the process.”

“Look what he’s done!” Henry said, thrusting a paper at Alma. It was a lovely sketch, minutely detailed, of a vanilla blossom, with arrows pointing to particular bits of the plant’s anatomy. Henry stared at Alma expectantly, while she studied the page, which meant nothing to her.

“I apologize,” Alma said. “I was asleep only a moment ago, so my mind is perhaps not clear . . .”

“Pollination, Alma!” Henry cried, clapping his hands once, and then pointing at Mr. Pike, indicating that he should explain.

“What I believe may have occurred, Miss Whittaker—as I was telling your father—is that your Frenchman may have, indeed, collected the correct variety of vanilla from Mexico. But perhaps the reason the vines have not fruited is that they have not been successfully pollinated.”

It may have been the middle of the night, and Alma may have been asleep only moments earlier, but still her mind was a fearfully well-trained machine of botanical calculation, which is why she instantly heard the abacus beads in her brain begin clicking toward an understanding.

“What is the pollination mechanism for the vanilla orchid?” she asked.

“I could not say for certain,” Mr. Pike said. “Nobody is certain. It could be an ant, it could be a bee, it could be a moth of some sort. It could even be a hummingbird. But whatever it is, your Frenchman did not transport it to Tahiti along with his plants, and the native insects and birds of French Polynesia do not seem capable of pollinating your vanilla blossoms, which do have a difficult shape. Thus—no fruit. No pods.”

Henry clapped once again. “No profit!” he added.

“So what are we to do?” Alma asked. “Collect every insect and bird in the Mexican jungle and try to ship them, alive, to the South Pacific, with the hopes of finding your pollinator?”

“I don’t believe you will need to,” Mr. Pike said. “This is why I couldn’t sleep, because I’ve been considering that same question, and I think I’ve come up with an answer. I think you could pollinate it yourself, by hand. Look, I’ve made some drawings here. What makes the vanilla orchid so troublesome to pollinate is the exceptionally long column, you see, which contains both the male and female organs. The rostellum—right here—separates the two, to prevent the plant from pollinating itself. You simply need to lift the rostellum, and then insert a small twig into the pollinia cluster, gather up the pollen on the tip of the twig, and then reinsert the twig into the stamen of a different blossom. You are essentially playing the role of the bee, or the ant, or whoever would be doing this in nature. But you could be far more efficient than any animal, because you could hand-pollinate every single blossom on the vine.”

“Who would do this?” Alma asked.

“Your workers could do it,” Mr. Pike said. “The plant only puts out blooms once a year, and it would take but a week to finish the task.”

“Wouldn’t the workers crush the blossoms?”

“Not if they were carefully trained.”

“But who would have the delicacy for such an operation?”

Mr. Pike smiled. “All you need is little boys with little fingers and little sticks. If anything, they will enjoy the task. I myself would have enjoyed it, as a child. And surely there is an abundance of little boys and little sticks on Tahiti, no?”

“Aha!” Henry said. “So what do you think, Alma?”

“I think it’s brilliant.” She was also thinking that first thing tomorrow, she would need to show Ambrose Pike the White Acre library’s copy of the sixteenth-century Florentine codex, with those early Spanish Franciscan illustrations of vanilla vines. He would much appreciate it. She couldn’t wait to show it to him. She hadn’t even shown him the library yet at all. She had barely shown him anything at White Acre. They had so much more exploring ahead of them!

“It’s merely an idea,” Mr. Pike said. “It probably could have waited until daylight.”

Alma heard a noise and turned. Here was Hanneke de Groot, standing at the door in her nightclothes, looking plump and puffy and irritable.

“Now I’ve woken the entire household,” Mr. Pike said. “My sincerest apologies.”

“Is er een probleem?” Hanneke asked Alma.

“There’s no problem, Hanneke,” Alma said. “The gentlemen and I were simply having a discussion.”

“At two o’clock in the morning?” Hanneke demanded. “Is dit een bordeel?”

Is this a bordello?

“What is she saying?” Henry asked. Apart from his failing hearing, he had never mastered Dutch—despite having been married to a Dutchwoman for decades, and having worked alongside Dutch speakers for much of his life.

“She wants to know if anyone would like tea or coffee,” Alma said. “Mr. Pike? Father?”

“I will have tea,” Henry said.

“You’re all kind, but I will take my leave,” Mr. Pike said. “I will return to my rooms now, and I promise not to disturb anyone again. Moreover, I’ve just realized that tomorrow is the Sabbath. Perhaps you will all be rising early, for church?”

“Not I!” Henry said.

“You will find in this household, Mr. Pike,” Alma said, “that some of us keep the Sabbath, some of us do not keep it, and some of us keep it only halfway.”

“I understand,” he replied. “In Guatemala, I often lost track of the days, and I fear I missed many Sabbaths.”

“Do they honor the Sabbath in Guatemala, Mr. Pike?”

“Only through the acts of drinking, brawling, and cockfighting, I’m afraid.”

“Then off to Guatemala we go!” Henry cried.

Alma had not seen her father in such high spirits in years.

Ambrose Pike laughed. “You may go to Guatemala, Mr. Whittaker. I daresay they would appreciate you there. But I myself am finished with jungles. For tonight, I should simply return to my rooms. When I have the opportunity to sleep in a proper bed, I would be fool to waste it. I bid you both a good night, I thank you again for your hospitality, and I apologize most sincerely to your housekeeper.”

After Mr. Pike left the room, Alma and her father sat in silence for a while. Henry stared at Ambrose’s sketch of the vanilla orchid. Alma could almost hear him thinking; she knew her father all too well. She waited for him to say it—what she knew was coming—while at the same time trying to figure out how she was going to combat it.

Meanwhile, Hanneke returned with a tray, which held tea for Alma and Henry, and coffee for herself. She set it down with a grumbling sigh, then plopped herself in an armchair across from Henry. The housekeeper poured her own cup first, and put her gouty old ankle up on a finely embroidered French footstool. She left Henry and Alma to serve themselves. Protocol at White Acre had grown relaxed over the years. Perhaps too relaxed.

“We should send him to Tahiti,” Henry said at last, after a good five minutes of silence. “We will put him in charge of the vanilla plantation.”

So there it was. Exactly what Alma had seen coming.

“An interesting idea,” she said.

But she could not let her father dispatch Mr. Pike to the South Seas. She knew this with as much certainty as she had ever known anything in her life. For one thing, she sensed that the artist himself would not welcome the assignment. He had said as much himself—that he was finished with jungles. He did not wish to travel any longer. He was weary and homesick. And yet he had no home. The man needed a home. He needed to rest. He needed a place to work, to make the paintings and prints he was born to make, and to hear himself living.

What’s more, though—Alma needed Mr. Pike. She felt overcome with a wild necessity to keep this person at White Acre forever. What a thing to decide, after knowing him less than a day! But she felt ten years younger today than she had felt the day before. This had been the most illuminating Saturday Alma had spent in decades—or perhaps even since childhood—and Ambrose Pike was the source of the illumination.

This situation reminded her of when she was young, and she had found a fox kitten in the woods, orphaned and tiny. She had brought it home and begged her parents to allow her to keep it. This was back in the halcyon days before Prudence had arrived, back when Alma had been given the run of the whole universe. Henry had been tempted, but Beatrix had put a stop to the plan. Wild creatures belong in wild places. The kit was taken from Alma’s hands, not to be seen again.

Well, she would not lose this fox. And Beatrix was not here anymore to prevent it.

“I think it would be a mistake, Father,” Alma said. “It would be a waste of Mr. Pike to send him to Polynesia. Anyone can manage a vanilla plantation. You just heard the man explain it himself. It’s simple. He’s even made the instruction drawings already. Send the sketches to Dick Yancey, and have him enlist someone to implement the pollination program. I think you could find better use for Mr. Pike right here at White Acre.”

“Doing what, exactly?” Henry asked.

“You have not yet seen his work, Father. George Hawkes thinks Ambrose Pike to be the best lithographer of our age.”

“And what need do I have for a lithographer?”

“Maybe it’s time to publish a book of White Acre’s botanical treasures. You have specimens in these greenhouses that the civilized world has never seen. They should be documented.”

“Why would I do such an expensive thing, Alma?”

“Let me tell you something that I’ve heard recently,” Alma said, by means of an answer. “Kew is planning to publish a catalog of fine prints and illustrations of its most rare plants. Had you heard that?”

“For what purpose?” Henry asked.

“For the purpose of boasting, Father,” Alma said. “I heard it from one of the young lithographers who works for George Hawkes down on Arch Street. The British have offered this boy a small fortune, to lure him over to Kew. He is fairly gifted, though he’s no Ambrose Pike. He is considering to accept the invitation. He says the book is intended to be the most beautiful botanical collection ever printed. Queen Victoria herself is investing in it. Five-color lithographs, and the best watercolorists in Europe to finish them off. It will be a large volume, too. Nearly two feet tall, the boy says, and thick as a Bible. Every botanical collector will want a copy of it. It is meant to announce the renaissance of Kew.”

“The renaissance of Kew,” Henry scoffed. “Kew will never be what it was, now that Banks is gone.”

“I hear differently, Father. Since they’ve built the Palm House, everyone claims the place is becoming magnificent again.”

Was this shameless of her? Even sinful? To stir up Henry’s old rivalry with Kew Gardens? But it was true, what she said. It was all true. So let Henry brew up some antagonism, she decided. It did not feel wrong to evoke this force. Things had become too torpid and slow at White Acre over these last years. A bit of competition would harm no one. She was merely raising up the blood in Henry Whittaker’s old bones—and in herself, too. Let this family have a pulse again!

“No one has yet heard of Ambrose Pike, Father,” she pushed on. “But once George Hawkes publishes his orchid collection, everyone will know the name. Once Kew publishes its book, every other prominent botanical garden and greenhouse will want to commission a florilegium, as well—and they’ll all want Mr. Pike to make the prints. Let us not wait, only to lose him to a rival garden. Let us keep him here, and offer him shelter and patronage. Invest in him, Father. You’ve seen how clever he is, how useful. Give him the opportunity. Let us produce a folio of White Acre’s collection that surpasses anything the world of botanical publishing has ever seen.”

Henry said nothing. Now she could hear his abacus clicking. She waited. It was taking him a long time to think. Too long. Meanwhile, Hanneke was slurping at her coffee with what appeared to be deliberate insouciance. The noise seemed to be distracting Henry. Alma wanted to knock the cup out of the old woman’s hands.

Raising her voice, Alma made one last effort. “It should not be difficult, Father, to persuade Mr. Pike to stay here. The man is in need of a home, but he lives on precious little, and it would require nearly nothing to support him. His worldly belongings fill a valise that would fit on your lap. As you have witnessed tonight, he is agreeable company. I think you may even enjoy having him about. But whatever you do, Father, I lay the most urgent stress upon you not to send this man to Tahiti. Any fool can grow a vanilla vine. Get another Frenchman for that job, or a hire a missionary gone bored. Any blockhead’s brother can manage a plantation, but no one can make botanical illustrations in the manner of Ambrose Pike. Do not let the chance slip for you to keep him here with us. I seldom give you such strong counsel, Father, but I must plead with you tonight in the plainest terms—do not lose this one. You shall regret it.”

There was another long silence. Another slurp from Hanneke.

“He will need a studio,” Henry said at last. “Printing presses, that sort of thing.”

“He can share the carriage house with me,” Alma said. “I have plenty of room for him.”

So it was decided.

Henry limped off to bed. Alma and Hanneke were left staring at each other. Hanneke said nothing, but Alma did not like the expression on her face.

“Wat?” Alma finally demanded.

“Wat voor spelletje speel je?” Hanneke asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alma said. “I am not playing a game.”

The old housekeeper shrugged. “As you insist,” she said, in deliberately accentuated English. “You are the mistress of this house.”

Then Hanneke stood up, quaffed back the last of her coffee, and returned to her rooms in the basement—leaving a mess behind in the drawing room for someone else to clean up.