The Signature of All Things: A Novel

Chapter Sixteen

Only one month later, they were married.

In the years to come, Alma would puzzle over the mechanism by which this decision had been reached—this most inconceivable and unexpected leap into wedlock—but in the days after the experience within the binding closet, matrimony felt like an inevitability. As for what had actually transpired in that tiny room, all of it (from Alma’s chaste climax, to the silent transmission of thought) seemed a miracle, or at least a phenomenon. Alma could find no logical explanation for what had transpired. People cannot hear each other’s thoughts. Alma knew this to be true. People cannot convey that sort of electricity, that sort of longing and frank erotic disruption with the mere touch of hands. Yet—it had happened. Without question, it had happened.

When they had walked out of the closet that night, he had turned to her, his face flushed and ecstatic, and he said, “I would like to sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life, and listen to your thoughts forever.”

That is what he had said! Not telepathically, but aloud. Overwhelmed, she’d had no words for a reply. She’d merely nodded her assent, or her agreement, or her wonder. Then they had both gone off to their respective bedrooms, across the hall from each other—although, of course, she had not slept. How could she have?

The following day, as they walked toward the moss beds together, Ambrose began speaking casually, as though they were in the middle of an ongoing conversation. Quite out of nowhere, he said, “Perhaps the difference in our stations in life is so vast that it is of no consequence. I possess nothing in this world that anyone would desire, and you possess everything. Perhaps we inhabit such extremes that there is balance to be found within our differences?”

Alma had not an inkling where he was tending with this line of conversation, but she allowed him to keep speaking.

“I have also wondered,” he reflected mildly, “if two such diverse individuals as we could find harmony in matrimony.”

Both her heart and stomach lunged at the word: matrimony. Was he speaking philosophically, or literally? She waited.

He continued, though he was still far from direct: “There will be people, I suppose, who might accuse me of reaching for your wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. I live my life in strictest economy, Alma, not only out of habit, but also out of preference. I have no riches to offer you, but I would also take no riches from you. You will not become wealthier by marrying me, but nor will you grow poorer. That truth may not satisfy your father, but I hope it will satisfy you. In any case, our love is not a typical love, as is typically felt between men and women. We share something else between us—something more immediate, more cherishing. That has been evident to me from the beginning, and I pray it has been evident to you. My wish is that we two could live together as one, both contented and elevated, and ever-seeking.”

It was only later that afternoon, when Ambrose asked her, “Will you speak to your father, or shall I?” that Alma definitively pieced it together: this had indeed been a marriage proposal. Or, rather, it had been a marriage assumption. Ambrose did not precisely ask for Alma’s hand—for in his mind, apparently, she had already given it to him. She could not deny that this was true. She would have given him anything. She loved him so deeply that it pained her. She was only just confessing this to herself. To lose him now would be an amputation. True, there was no sense to be made of this love. She was nearly fifty years old, and he was still a fairly young man. She was homely and he was beautiful. They had known each other for only a few weeks. They believed in different universes (Ambrose in the divine; Alma in the actual). Yet, undeniably—Alma told herself—this was love. Undeniably, Alma Whittaker was about to become a wife.

“I shall speak to Father myself,” Alma said, cautiously overjoyed.

She found her father in his study that evening before dinner, deep in papers.

“Listen to this letter,” he said by way of greeting. “This man here says he can no longer operate his mill. His son—his stupid gambling dicer of a son—has ruined the family. He says he has resolved to pay off his debts, and wishes to die unencumbered. This from a man who, in twenty years, has not taken one step of common sense. Well, a fine chance he has for that!”

Alma did not know who the man in question was, or who the son was, or which mill was at stake. Everyone today was speaking to her as though from the midst of a preexisting conversation.

“Father,” she said. “I wish to discuss something with you. Ambrose Pike has asked for my hand in marriage.”

“Very well,” said Henry. “But listen, Alma—this fool here wishes to sell me a parcel of his cornfields, too, and he’s trying to convince me to purchase that old granary he’s got on the wharf, the one that is falling into the river already. You know the one, Alma. What he thinks that wreck of a building is worth, or why I would wish to be saddled with it, I cannot imagine.”

“You are not listening to me, Father.”

Henry did not so much as glance up from his desk. “I am listening to you,” he said, turning over the paper in his hand and peering at it. “I am listening to you with captive fascination.”

“Ambrose and I wish to marry soon,” Alma said. “There need be no spectacle or festivity, but we would like it to be prompt. Ideally, we would like to be married before the end of the month. Please be assured that we will remain at White Acre. You will not lose either of us.”

At this, Henry looked up at Alma for the first time since she’d walked into the room.

“Naturally I will not lose either of you,” said Henry. “Why would either of you leave? It is not as though the fellow can support you in your accustomed manner on the salary of—what is his profession?—orchidist?”

Henry settled back into his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and gazed at his daughter over the rims of his old-fashioned brass eyeglasses. Alma was not certain what to say next.

“Ambrose is a good man,” she finally uttered. “He has no longing for fortune.”

“I suspect you may be correct in that,” Henry replied. “Though it does not speak highly of his character that he prefers poverty to riches. Nonetheless, I thought the situation out years ago—long before you or I ever heard of Ambrose Pike.”

Henry rose somewhat unsteadily and peered at the bookcase behind him. He pulled out a volume on English sailing vessels—a book that Alma had seen on the shelves her whole life, but had never opened, as she held no interest in English sailing vessels. He paged through the book until he found a folded sheet of paper tucked inside, stamped with a wax seal. Above the seal was written “Alma.” He handed it to her.

“I drew up two of these documents, with the assistance of your mother, around 1817. The other, I gave your sister Prudence when she married that crop-eared spaniel of hers. It is a decree for your husband to sign, asserting that he will never own White Acre.”

Henry was nonchalant about this. Alma took the document, wordlessly. She recognized her mother’s hand in the straight-backed capital A of her own name.

“Ambrose has no need of White Acre, nor any desire for it,” Alma said, defensively.

“Excellent. Then he will not mind signing it. Naturally, there will be a dowry, but my fortune, my estate—it will never be his. I trust we are understood?”

“Very well,” she said.

“Very well, indeed. Now, as to the suitability of Mr. Pike as a husband, that is your business. You are a grown woman. If you believe such a man can render you satisfied in wedlock, you have my blessing.”

“Satisfied in wedlock?” Alma bristled. “Have I ever been a difficult figure to satisfy, Father? What have I ever asked for? What have I ever demanded? How much trouble could I possibly present to anybody as a wife?”

Henry shrugged. “I could not say. That is for you to learn.”

“Ambrose and I share a natural sympathy with each other, Father. I know that it may seem an unconventional pairing, but I feel—”

Henry cut her off. “Never explain yourself, Alma. It makes you appear weak. In any case, I do not dislike the fellow.” He returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

Did that constitute a blessing? Alma could not be certain. She waited for him to say more. He did not. It did seem, however, that permission to marry had been granted. At the very least, permission had not been declined.

“Thank you, Father.” She turned toward the door.

“One further matter,” Henry said, looking up again. “Before her wedding night, it is customary that a bride be advised on certain matters of the conjugal chamber—presuming that you are still innocent of such things, which I suspect you are. As a man and as your father, I cannot advise you. Your mother is dead, or she’d have done it. Do not trouble yourself asking Hanneke any questions on the matter, for she is an old spinster who knows nothing, and she would die of shock if she ever knew what transpired between men and women in their beds. My advice is that you pay a visit to your sister Prudence. She is a long-married wife and the mother of half a dozen children. She may be able to edify you on some points of matrimonial conduct. Do not blush, Alma—you are too old to blush and it makes you look ridiculous. If you are to have a go at marriage, then by God, go at it properly. Arrive prepared to the bed, as you do with everything else in life. It may be worth your effort. And post these letters for me tomorrow, if you are going into town anyway.”

Alma had not even had time to properly contemplate the notion of marriage, yet now it all seemed arranged and decided. Even her father had proceeded immediately to the topics of inheritance and the marital bed. Events moved even more swiftly after that. The next day, Alma and Ambrose walked to Sixteenth Street to have a daguerreotype made of themselves: their wedding portrait. Alma had never before been photographed, and neither had Ambrose. It was such a dreadful likeness of them both that she hesitated even to pay for the picture. She looked at the image only once, and never wanted to see it again. She appeared so much older than Ambrose! A stranger, looking at this picture, might have thought her the younger man’s large-boned, heavy-jawed, rueful mother. As for Ambrose, he looked like a starved, mad-eyed prisoner of the chair that held him. One of his hands was a blur. His tousled hair made it appear as though he had been roughly awoken from a tormented sleep. Alma’s hair was crooked and tragic. The whole experience made Alma feel terribly sad. But Ambrose only laughed when he saw the image.

“Why, this is slander!” he exclaimed. “How unkind a fate, to see oneself so honestly! Nonetheless, I will send the picture to my family in Boston. One hopes they will recognize their own son.”

Did events generally move this hastily for other people who were engaged to marry? Alma did not know. She had not seen much of courtships, engagements, the rituals of matrimony. She had never studied the ladies’ magazines, or enjoyed the light novels about love, written for dewy, innocent girls. (She had certainly read salacious books about coupling, but they did not clarify the larger situation.) In short, she was far from an expert belle. If Alma’s experiences in the realm of love had not been so markedly scarce, she might have found her courtship, such as it was, both abrupt and unlikely. In the three months that she and Ambrose had known each other, they had never exchanged a love letter, a poem, an embrace. The affection between them was clear and constant, but passion was absent. Another woman might have regarded this situation with suspicion. Instead Alma felt only drunken, and befuddled by questions. They were not necessarily unpleasant questions, but they swarmed within her to the point of distraction. Was Ambrose now her lover? Could she fairly call him that? Did she belong to him? Could she hold his hand at any time now? How did he regard her? What would his body look like, beneath his clothing? Would her body bring him satisfaction? What did he expect from her? She could not conjecture answers to any of it.

She was also hopelessly in love.

Alma had always adored Ambrose, of course, from the moment she had met him, but—until his marriage proposal—she had never considered allowing herself to fall backward into the full expression of that adoration; it would have felt audacious to do so, if not dangerous. It had always been enough simply to have him near. Alma would have been willing to regard Ambrose as merely a dear companion, if it would have kept him at White Acre forever. To share buttered toast with him every morning, to observe his ever-illuminated face as he spoke of orchids, to witness the mastery of his printmaking, to watch him throw himself down upon her divan to listen to theories of species transmutation and extinction—truly, all that would have been plenty. She would never have presumed to wish for more. Ambrose as friend—as brother—more than sufficed.

Even after the events of the binding closet, Alma would not have asked for more. Whatever had transpired between them in the dark, she was easily prepared to regard as a unique moment, perhaps even a mutual hallucination. She could have talked herself into believing that she had imagined the current of communication that had moved between them across the silence, and imagined the riotous effect that his hands against hers had wrought throughout her entire body. Given enough time, she might have even learned to forget that it ever occurred. Even after that encounter, she would not have allowed herself to love him so desperately, so thoroughly, so helplessly—not without his permission.

But now they were to be married, and that permission had been granted. There was no chance anymore for Alma to restrain her love—and no reason to. She allowed herself to plummet directly into it. She felt inflamed by amazement, rampant with inspiration, enthralled. Where she had once seen light in Ambrose’s face, she now saw celestial light. Where his limbs had before looked only pleasing, they now looked like Roman statuary. His voice was an evensong. His slightest glance bruised her heart with fearful joy.

Cast loose for the first time in her life into the realm of love, imbued with impossible energy, Alma barely recognized herself. Her capacities seemed limitless. She barely had need for sleep. She felt she could row a boat up a mountainside. She moved through the world as though in a corona of fire. She was zoetic. It was not merely Ambrose whom she regarded with such vivid purity and thrill—but everything and everybody. All was suddenly miraculous. She saw lines of convergence and grace everywhere she looked. Even the smallest matters became revelatory. She was doused by a sudden surfeit of the most astonishing self-confidence. Quite out of the blue, she found herself solving botanical problems that had vexed her for years. She wrote furiously paced letters to distinguished men of botany (men whose reputations had always cowed her), laying challenge to their conclusions as she had never before permitted herself to do.

“You have presented your Zygodon with sixteen cilia and no outer peristome!” she scolded.

Or, “Why are you so certain this is a Polytrichum colony?”

Or, “I do not agree with Professor Marshall’s conclusion. It can be discouraging, I know, to achieve consensus in the field of cryptogamia, but I caution you against your haste in declaring a new species before you have thoroughly studied the accumulated evidence. These days, one may see as many names for a given specimen as there are bryologists studying it; that does not mean the specimen is either new or rare. I have four such specimens in my own herbarium.”

She had never before possessed the courage for such remonstrance, but love had emboldened her, and her mind felt like an immaculate engine. A week before the wedding, Alma woke in the night with an electrified start, abruptly realizing that there was a link between algae and mosses. She had been looking at mosses and algae for decades, but she had never before seen the truth of it: the two were cousins. She had no trace of a doubt about it. In essence, she apprehended, mosses did not merely resemble algae that had crawled up on dry land; mosses were algae that had crawled up on dry land. How mosses had made this elaborate transformation from aquatic to terrestrial, Alma did not know. But these two species shared an entwined history. They must do. The algae had decided something, long before Alma or anyone else was watching them, and in that point of decision, had moved up into the dry air and transformed. She did not know the mechanism behind this transformation, but she knew that it had occurred.

Realizing all this, Alma wished to run across the hall and leap into bed with Ambrose—with he who had ignited such wildness within her body and mind. She wished to tell him everything, to show him everything, to prove the workings of the universe to him. She could not wait for daylight, when they could speak again at breakfast. She could not wait to look upon his face. She could not wait for the time when they would never need to be separated—not even at night, not even in sleep. She lay in her own bed, trembling with anticipation and sentiment.

What a long distance it felt, between their two rooms!

As for Ambrose himself, as the wedding approached, he became only more serene, only more attentive. He could not have been kinder to Alma. She sometimes feared he might change his mind, but there was no sign of it. She had felt a shudder of apprehension when she handed him Henry Whittaker’s decree, but Ambrose had signed it without hesitation or complaint—indeed, without even reading it. Each night, before they went to their separate rooms, he kissed her freckled hand, right below the knuckles. He called her “my other soul, my better soul.”

He said, “I am such a strange man, Alma. Are you certain you can endure my unusual ways?”

“I can endure you!” she promised.

She felt that she was in danger of igniting.

She feared she might die of gladness.

Three days before the wedding—which was to be a simple ceremony held in the drawing room at White Acre—Alma finally visited her sister Prudence. It had been many months since they had last seen each other. But it would be utterly rude of her not to invite her sister to the wedding, so Alma had written Prudence a note of explanation—that she was to be wed to a friend of Mr. George Hawkes—and then made plans for a brief visit. Furthermore, Alma had decided to follow her father’s advice, and speak to Prudence on the matter of the conjugal bed. It was not a conversation she was eagerly anticipating, but she did not wish to come into Ambrose’s arms unprepared, and she did not know whom else to ask.

It was an early evening in mid-August when Alma arrived at the Dixon home. She found her sister in the kitchen, making a mustard poultice for her youngest boy, Walter, who was sick in bed, ill in the stomach from having eaten too much green watermelon rind. The other children were milling about the kitchen, working at various chores. The room was suffocatingly hot. There were two small black girls whom Alma had never before seen, sitting in the corner with Prudence’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Sarah; together, the three of them were carding wool. All the girls, black and white, were dressed in the humblest imaginable frocks. The children, even the black ones, approached Alma and kissed her politely, called her “auntie,” and returned to their tasks.

Alma asked Prudence if she could help with the poultice, but Prudence refused assistance. One of the boys brought Alma a tin cup of water from the pump in the garden. The water was warm, and tasted murky and unpleasant. Alma did not want it. She sat on a long bench, and did not know where to put the cup. Nor did she know what to say. Prudence—who had received Alma’s note earlier in the week—congratulated her sister on her upcoming nuptials, but that perfunctory exchange took only a moment, and then the subject was closed. Alma admired the children, admired the cleanliness of the kitchen, admired the mustard poultice, until there was nothing left to admire. Prudence looked thin and weary, but she did not complain, nor did she share any news of her life. Alma did not ask any news. She dreaded to know details of the circumstances the family might be facing.

After a long while, Alma roused the courage to ask, “Prudence, I wonder if I might have a private word with you.”

If the request surprised Prudence, she did not show it. But then, Prudence’s smooth countenance had always been incapable of expressing such a base emotion as surprise.

“Sarah,” Prudence said to the eldest girl. “Take the others outdoors.”

The children filed out of the kitchen solemnly and obediently, like soldiers on the way to battle. Prudence did not sit, but stood with her back braced against the large wooden slab that called itself a kitchen table, her hands folded prettily against her clean apron.

“Yes?” she asked.

Alma searched her mind for where to begin. She could not find a sentence that did not seem vulgar or rude. Suddenly she deeply regretted having taken her father’s advice on the matter. She wished to run from this house—back to the comforts of White Acre, back to Ambrose, back to a place where the water from the pump was fresh and cold. But Prudence gazed at her, expectant and silent. Something would need to be said.

Alma began, “As I approach the shores of matrimony . . .”

Alma trailed off and stared at her sister, helpless, wishing against all reason that Prudence would glean from this senseless fragment of a statement precisely what Alma was attempting to ask.

“Yes?” Prudence said.

“I find myself without experience,” Alma completed the statement.

Prudence gazed on, in unperturbed silence. Help me, woman! Alma wanted to cry out. If only Retta Snow had been here! Not the new, mad Retta—but the old, joyful, unrestrained Retta. If only Retta had been there, too, and if only they were all nineteen years old again. The three of them, as girls, might have been able to approach this subject in safety, somehow. Retta would have made it amusing and candid. Retta would have released Prudence from her reserve, and taken away Alma’s shame. But nobody was there now to help the two sisters to behave as sisters. What’s more, Prudence did not appear interested in making this discussion any easier, as she did not speak up at all.

“I find myself without experience of conjugality,” Alma clarified, in a burst of desperate courage. “Father suggested that I speak with you for guidance on the subject of delighting a husband.”

One of Prudence’s eyebrows lifted, minutely. “I am sorry to hear that he thinks me an authority,” she said.

This had been a misguided idea indeed, Alma realized. But there was no backing out of it now.

“You take me wrongly,” Alma protested. “It is only that you have been married so long, you see, and you have so many children . . .”

“There is more to marriage, Alma, than that to which you allude. Further, I am prevented by certain scruples from discussing that to which you allude.”

“Of course, Prudence. I do not wish to offend your sensibilities or intrude in your privacy. But that of which I speak remains cryptic to me. I beg you not to misunderstand me. I do not need to consult with a doctor; I am familiar with the essential workings of anatomy. But I do need to consult with a married woman, so as to comprehend what might be welcome to my husband, or unwelcome to him. How to present myself, I mean, in regards to the art of pleasing . . .”

“There should be no art to it,” Prudence replied, “unless one is a woman for hire.”

“Prudence!” Alma cried with a force that surprised even herself. “Look at me! Do you not see how ill-prepared I am? Do I look like a young woman to you? Do I appear an item of desire?”

Until this moment, Alma had not realized how afraid she was of her wedding night. Naturally she loved Ambrose, and she was consumed with anticipatory thrill, but she was also terror-stricken. That terror gave partial explanation to her sleepless bouts of nighttime shuddering these past few weeks: she did not know how to comport herself as a man’s wife. True, Alma had been consumed for decades by a rich, indecent, carnal imagination—but she was also an innocent. An imagination is one thing; two bodies together is something else entirely. How would Ambrose regard her? How could she enchant him? He was a younger man, and a lovely man, whereas a true assessment of Alma’s appearance at the age of forty-eight would have called for this truth to be revealed: she was far more bramble than rose.

Something in Prudence softened, marginally.

“You need only be willing,” Prudence said. “A healthy man presented with a willing and acquiescent wife will need no particular coaxing.”

This information brought Alma nothing. Prudence must have suspected as much, for she added, “I assure you that the duties of conjugality are not overly discomforting. If he is tender to you, your husband will not much injure you.”

Alma wanted to crumple to the floor and weep. Honestly, did Prudence think that Alma feared injury? Who or what could ever injure Alma Whittaker? With hands as callused as these? With arms that could have picked up the oaken slab against which Prudence so delicately rested, and thrown it across the room with ease? With this sunburned neck and this thistle-patch of hair? It was not injury that Alma feared on her wedding night, but humiliation. What Alma desperately wanted to know was how she could possibly present herself to Ambrose in the form of an orchid, like her sister, and not a mossy boulder, like herself. But such a thing cannot be taught. This was a useless exchange—a mere preamble to humiliation, if anything.

“I have taken up enough of your evening,” Alma said, standing up. “You have a sick child to attend. Forgive me.”

For a moment, Prudence hesitated, as though she might reach forward, or ask her sister to stay. The moment passed quickly, though, if it had ever existed at all. She merely said, “I am pleased that you visited.”

Why do we differ so? Alma wanted to beg. Why can we not be close?

Instead she asked, “Will you join us at the wedding on Saturday?” although she already suspected the answer would be a demurral.

“I fear not,” Prudence replied. She did not supply a reason. Both of them knew why: because Prudence would never again set foot at White Acre. Henry would not accept it, and nor would Prudence herself.

“All good wishes to you, then,” concluded Alma.

“And to you,” Prudence replied.

It was only when Alma was halfway up the street that she realized what she had just done: she had not only asked a weary forty-eight-year-old mother—with a sick child in the house!—for advice on the art of copulation, but she had asked the daughter of a whore for advice on the art of copulation. How could Alma have forgotten Prudence’s shameful origins? Prudence could never have forgotten it herself, and was likely living an existence of perfect rigor and righteousness in order to counter the infamous depravities of her natural mother. Yet Alma had barreled into that humble, decent, and constrained household nonetheless, with questions on the tricks and trade of seduction.

Alma sat down on an abandoned barrel in a posture of dejection. She wished to go back to the Dixon house and apologize, but how could she? What could she say, that would not make the situation even more distressing?

How could she be such a blundering clod?

Where on earth had all her good sense gone?

The afternoon before her wedding, two items of interest arrived in the post for Alma.

The first item was an envelope postmarked Framingham, Massachusetts, with the name “Pike” written in the corner. Alma immediately assumed this must be a letter for Ambrose, as it was obviously from his family, but the envelope was unmistakably addressed to her, so she opened it.

Dear Miss Whittaker—

I apologize that I shall be unable to attend your wedding to my son, Ambrose, but I am much the invalid, and such a long journey is far outside my capabilities. I was pleased, however, to receive the information that Ambrose is soon to enter into the state of holy matrimony. My son has lived for so many years in seclusion from family and society that I had long ago abandoned the hope of his ever taking a bride. What’s more, his young heart was so deeply injured long ago by the death of a girl whom he had much admired and adored—a girl from a fine Christian family in our own community, whom we had all assumed he would wed—that I feared his sensibilities had been irreparably harmed, such that he could never again know the rewards of natural affection. Perhaps I am speaking too freely, though certainly he has told you all. The news of his engagement, then, was welcome, for it showed evidence of a healed heart.

I have received your wedding portrait. You appear a capable woman. I see no sign of foolery or frivolity in your countenance. I do not hesitate to say that my son needs just such a woman. He is a clever boy—quite my cleverest—and as a child he was my chiefest joy, yet he has spent far too many years idly gazing at clouds and stars and flowers. I fear, too, that he believes he has outwitted Christianity. You may be the woman to correct him of that misconception. One prays that a decent marriage shall cure him of playing the moral truant. In conclusion, I regret that I cannot see my son wed, but I hold high hopes for your union. It would warm this mother’s heart to know that her child was elevating his mind with contemplation of God through the discipline of scriptural study and regular prayer. Please see to it that he does.

His brothers and I welcome you to the family. I suppose that is understood. Notwithstanding, it bears saying.

Yours, Constance Pike.

The only thing Alma gleaned from this letter was: a girl whom he had much admired and adored. Despite his mother’s certainty that he had told all, Ambrose had told nothing. Who had the girl been? When had she died? Ambrose had left Framingham for Harvard when he was but seventeen years old, and had never lived in the town since. The love affair must have been before that early age, then, if it had even been a love affair. They must have been children, or nearly children. She must have been beautiful, this girl. Alma could see her now: a sweet thing, a pretty little collie, a chestnut-haired and blue-eyed paragon who sang hymns in a honeyed voice, and who had walked with young Ambrose through spring orchards in full bloom. Had the death of the girl contributed to his mental collapse? What had been the girl’s name?

Why had Ambrose not spoken of this? On the other hand, why ought he have? Was he not entitled to the privacy of his own former stories? Had Alma ever told Ambrose, for instance, of her dog-eared, useless, misdirected love for George Hawkes? Should she have told him? But there had been nothing to tell. George Hawkes had not even known that he was an actor in a love story, which meant that there had never been a love story in the first place.

What was Alma to do with this information? More immediately, what was she to do with this letter? She read it again, memorized its contents, and hid it. She would reply to Mrs. Pike later, in some cursory and innocuous manner. She wished she had never received such a missive. She must teach herself to forget what she had just learned.

What had been the girl’s name?

Fortunately, there was another piece of mail to distract her—a parcel wrapped in brown waxed paper, secured with twine. Most surprisingly, it came from Prudence Dixon. When Alma opened the parcel, she discovered that it was a nightdress of soft white linen, trimmed with lace. It looked to be the right size for Alma. It was a lovely and simple gown, modest but feminine, with voluminous folds, a high neck, ivory buttons, and billowing sleeves. The bodice shone quietly with delicate embroidered flowers rendered in threads of pale yellow silk. The nightdress had been folded neatly, scented with lavender, and tied with a white ribbon, under which was tucked a note in Prudence’s immaculate handwriting: “With all best wishes.”

Where had Prudence come by such a luxurious item as this? She would not have had time to sew it herself; she must have purchased it from a skilled seamstress. How much it must have cost her! Where had she found the money? These were exactly the sorts of materials the Dixon family had long ago renounced: silk, lace, imported buttons, finery of any kind. Prudence had worn nothing this smart in nearly three decades. All of which is to say, it must have cost Prudence a great deal—both financially and morally—to procure this gift. Alma felt her throat pinch with emotion. What had she ever done for her sister, to deserve such a kindness? Especially considering their most recent encounter, how could Prudence have made such an offering?

For a moment, Alma thought she must refuse it. She must package this nightdress up and send it right back to Prudence, who could cut it into pieces and make pretty frocks out of it for her own daughters, or—more likely—sell it for the abolitionist cause. But no, that would appear rude and ungrateful. Gifts must not be returned. Even Beatrix had always taught that. Gifts must never be returned. This had been an act of grace. It must be received with grace. Alma must be humble and thankful.

It was only later, when Alma went to her bedroom and closed the door, stood before her long mirror, and put the nightdress on, that she understood more fully what her sister was telling her to do, and why the garment could never be returned: Alma needed to wear this lovely item on her wedding night.

She actually looked pretty in it.