The Signature of All Things: A Novel

Chapter Twenty-eight

Dees van Devender stared at Alma from across a cluttered table in his office.

Alma allowed him to stare. Her uncle had not spoken to her since she had been ushered into his chambers a few minutes earlier, nor had he invited her to have a chair. He was not being impolite; he was simply Dutch, and therefore cautious. He was taking her in. Roger sat at Alma’s side, looking like a crooked little hyena. Uncle Dees took in the dog, as well. Generally speaking, Roger did not like to be looked at. Normally, when strangers stared at Roger, he would turn his back on them, hang his head, and sigh in misery. But suddenly Roger did the strangest thing. He left Alma’s side, walked under the table, and lay down with his chin upon Dr. van Devender’s feet. Alma had never seen the likes of it. She was about to comment upon it, but her uncle—completely unconcerned about the cur on his shoes—spoke first.

“Je lijkt niet op je moeder,” he said.

You do not look like your mother.

“I know,” Alma replied in Dutch.

He went on: “You look precisely like that father of yours.”

Alma nodded. She could tell by his tone that this was not a point in her favor, her resemblance to Henry Whittaker. Then again, it never had been.

He stared some more. She stared back. She was as riveted by his face as he was by hers. If Alma did not look like Beatrix Whittaker, then this man most certainly did. It was a most marked similarity—her mother’s face all over again, but elderly, male, bearded, and, at the moment, suspicious. (Well, to be honest, the suspicion only heightened his resemblance to Beatrix.)

“Whatever became of my sister?” he asked. “We heard of the rise of your father—everyone in European botany did—but we never heard from Beatrix again.”

Nor did she hear from you, Alma thought, but she did not say it. She did not really blame anyone in Amsterdam for never having attempted to communicate with Beatrix since—when was it?—1792. She knew how the van Devenders were: stubborn. It would never have worked. Her mother would never have yielded.

“My mother lived a prosperous life,” Alma replied. “She was content. She made a most remarkable classical garden, much admired throughout Philadelphia. She worked alongside my father in the botanicals trade, straight up to her death.”

“Which was when?” he asked, in a tone that would have befitted an officer of the police.

“In August of 1820,” she replied.

Hearing the date caused a grimace to cross her uncle’s face. “So long ago,” he said. “Too young.”

“She had a sudden death,” Alma lied. “She did not suffer.”

He looked at her for a while longer, then took a leisurely sip of coffee and helped himself to a bite of wentelteefje from the small plate before him. Clearly, she had interrupted an evening snack. She would have given almost anything for a taste of that wentelteefje. It looked and smelled wonderful. When was the last time she’d had cinnamon toast? Probably the last time Hanneke had made it for her. The aroma made her weak with nostalgia. But Uncle Dees did not offer her any coffee, and he certainly did not offer her a share of his beautiful, golden, buttery wentelteefjes.

“Would you like me to tell you anything about your sister?” Alma asked at length. “I believe your memories of her would be a child’s memories. I could tell you stories, if you like.”

He did not respond. She tried to imagine him as Hanneke had always depicted him—as a sweet-natured ten-year-old boy, weeping at his older sister’s elopement to America. Hanneke had told Alma many times of how Dees had clung to Beatrix’s skirts, until he’d had to be pried off. She’d also described how Beatrix had scolded her little brother to never again let the world see his tears. Alma found it difficult to picture. He looked dreadfully old now, and dreadfully grave.

She said, “I grew up with Dutch tulips all around me—descendants of the bulbs that my mother took with her to Philadelphia from right here at the Hortus.”

Still, he did not speak. Roger sighed, shifted, and curled up even closer to Dees’s legs.

After a spell, Alma changed tack. “I should also let you know that Hanneke de Groot still lives. I believe you may have known her long ago.”

Now a new expression crossed the old man’s face: wonderment.

“Hanneke de Groot,” he marveled. “I have not thought of her in years. Hanneke de Groot? Imagine it . . .”

“Hanneke is strong and healthy, you’ll be happy to hear,” Alma said. There was a bit of wishful thinking in this statement, as Alma had not seen Hanneke in nearly three years. “She remains the head housekeeper of my late father’s estate.”

“Hanneke was my sister’s maid,” Dees said. “She was so young when she came to us. She was a sort of nursemaid to me, for a while.”

“Yes,” said Alma, “she was a sort of nursemaid to me, too.”

“Then we were both fortunate,” he said.

“I agree. I consider it one of the finest blessings of my life, to have passed my youth in Hanneke’s care. She formed me, nearly as much as my own parents formed me.”

The staring recommenced. This time, Alma allowed the silence to stand. She watched as her uncle took a forkful of wentelteefje and dipped it in his coffee. He enjoyed his bite unhurriedly, without making so much as a drip or a crumb. She needed to learn where she could procure such fine wentelteefjes as this.

At last, Dees wiped his mouth on a plain napkin and said, “Your Dutch is not awful.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I spoke much of it, as a child.”

“How are your teeth?”

“Quite well, thank you,” said Alma. She had nothing to hide from this man.

He nodded. “The van Devenders all have good teeth.”

“A lucky inheritance.”

“Did my sister have any other children, apart from you?”

“She had one other daughter—adopted. That is my sister Prudence, who now operates a school from within my father’s old estate.”

“Adopted,” he said neutrally.

“My mother was not blessed with fecundity,” Alma elaborated.

“What of you?” he asked. “Do you have children?”

“I, like my mother, was also not blessed with fecundity,” Alma said. This understated the situation considerably, but at least it answered the question.

“A husband?” he asked.

“Deceased, I’m afraid.”

Uncle Dees nodded, but did not offer condolence. This amused Alma; her mother would have responded the same way. Facts are facts. Death is death.

“And you, sir?” she ventured. “Is there a Mrs. van Devender?”

“Dead, you know.”

She nodded, exactly as he had nodded. It was a bit perverse, but she was enjoying everything about this frank, blunt, desultory conversation. With no sense of when or where it all might end, or whether her destiny was or was not meant to intertwine with the destiny of this old man, she felt she was on familiar territory here—Dutch territory, van Devender territory. She had not felt so at home in ages.

“How long do you intend to stay in Amsterdam?” Dees asked.

“Indefinitely,” Alma said.

This took him aback. “If you’ve come seeking charity,” he said, “we have nothing to offer.”

She smiled. Oh, Beatrix, she thought, how I have missed you these many years.

“I am not in need of charity,” she said. “My father left me well provided for.”

“Then what are your intentions for your stay in Amsterdam?” he asked, with undisguised wariness.

“I would like to work here, at the Hortus Botanicus.”

Now he looked genuinely alarmed. “Dear heavens!” he said. “In what possible capacity?”

“As a botanist. Specifically, as a bryologist.”

“A bryologist? But what on earth do you know about mosses?”

Here Alma could not help but laugh. It was a marvelous thing, to laugh. She could not think of the last time she had laughed. She laughed so hard, she had to put her face in her hands for a spell, in order to hide her hilarity. This spectacle only seemed to unnerve her poor old uncle more. She was not helping her own cause.

Why had she thought her modest reputation might have preceded her? Oh, foolish pride!

Once Alma had contained herself, she wiped her eyes and smiled at him. “I know I have taken you by surprise, Uncle Dees,” she said, falling naturally into a warmer and more familiar tone. “Please forgive me. I wish you to understand that I am a woman of independent means, who does not come here to disrupt your life in any manner. However, it is also the case that I am possessed of certain abilities—both as a scholar and as a taxonomist—which might be of use to an institution such as yours. I can say without reservation that it would bring me the greatest pleasure and contentment to spend the rest of my working life here, giving my time and energies to an institution that has figured so prominently both in the history of botany, and in the history of my own family.”

With this, she took the brown-wrapped parcel from under her arm and set it on the edge of his table.

“I will not ask you to take my word for my abilities, Uncle,” she said. “This package contains a theory I have recently brought forth, based upon research I have conducted over the past thirty years of my life. Some of the ideas may strike you as rather bold, but I ask only that you read it with an open mind—and, needless to say, that you keep its findings to yourself. Even if you don’t agree with my conclusions, I think you will get a sense of my scientific aptitude. I ask you to treat this document with respect, for it is all that I have and all that I am.”

He made no commitment.

“You do read English, I assume?” she asked.

He raised one white eyebrow, as though to say, Honestly, woman—show some respect.

Before Alma passed the small package to her uncle, she reached for a pencil on his desk and asked, “May I?”

He nodded, and she wrote something on the outside of the parcel.

“This is the name and address of the hotel where I am currently staying, near the port. Take your time in reading this document, and let me know if you would like to speak to me again. If I have heard no word from you within a week, I shall return here, collect my thesis, bid you farewell, and go on about my way. After that, I promise, I shan’t bother you or anyone in the family again.”

As Alma was saying this, she watched her uncle spear another small triangle of wentelteefje on his fork. Rather than carry the fork to his mouth, though, he tilted sideways in his chair, slowly sliding one shoulder down, in order to offer the food to Roger the dog—even as he kept his eye on Alma, pretending to listen to her with complete absorption.

“Oh, do be careful . . .” Alma leaned over the table in concern. She was about to warn her uncle that this dog had a terrible habit of biting anyone who tried to feed him, but before she could speak, Roger had raised up his misshapen little head and—as delicately as a fine-mannered lady—removed the cinnamon toast from the tines of the fork.

“Well, I’ll be,” Alma marveled, backing off.

Her uncle had still made no overt mention of the dog, though, so Alma said nothing more on the matter.

She brushed off her skirts and collected herself. “It has been a most sincere pleasure to meet you,” she said. “This encounter has meant more to me, sir, than you could possibly suspect. I have never before had the pleasure of knowing an uncle, you see. I do hope you will enjoy my paper, and that it will not overly shock you. Good day, then.”

He responded with nothing more than a nod.

Alma started for the door. “Come, Roger,” she said, without turning to look behind her.

She waited, holding the door open, but the dog did not move.

“Roger,” she said more firmly, turning to look at him. “Come now.”

Still, the dog did not move from Uncle Dees’s feet.

“Go on, dog,” said Dees, not very convincingly, and without moving so much as an inch.

“Roger!” Alma demanded, bending down to see him more clearly under the table. “Come now, don’t be silly!”

She had never before needed to call for him; he had always simply followed her. But Roger put back his ears and held his ground. He was not going to leave.

“He’s never behaved like this before,” she apologized. “I’ll carry him out.”

But her uncle put up a hand. “Perhaps the little fellow can stay here with me for a night or two,” he suggested casually, as though it meant nothing to him whatsoever, one way or the other. He did not even meet Alma’s eye as he said it. He looked—for just a moment—like a young boy, trying to persuade his mother to permit him to keep a stray.

Ah, Uncle Dees, she thought. Now I can see you.

“Of course,” Alma said. “If you’re quite certain it’s not a bother?”

Dees shrugged, nonchalant as could be, and stabbed another piece of wentelteefje.

“We will manage,” he said, and fed the dog again, straight from the fork.

Alma walked briskly away from the Hortus Botanicus, in the general direction of the port. She did not wish to take a hackney cab; she felt far too animated to sit in a coach. She felt empty-handed and lighthearted and somewhat shaken and very much alive. And hungry. She kept turning her head and looking for Roger, out of force of habit, but he was not trailing behind her. Dear heavens, she had just left both her dog and her life’s work in that man’s office, after a mere fifteen-minute interview!

What an encounter! What a risk!

But it was a risk she had had to take, for this is where Alma wanted to be—if not at the Hortus, then here in Amsterdam, or at least in Europe. She had dearly missed the northern world during her time in the South Seas. She had missed the change of seasons, and the hard, bright, bracing sunlight of winter. She had missed the rigors of a cold climate, and the rigors of the mind, as well. She was simply not made for the tropics—neither in complexion nor in disposition. There were those who loved Tahiti because it felt to them like Eden—like the beginning of history—but Alma did not wish to live at the beginning of history; she wished to live within humanity’s most recent moment, at the cusp of invention and progress. She did not wish to inhabit a land of spirits and ghosts; she desired a world of telegraphs, trains, improvements, theories, and science, where things changed by the day. She longed to work again in a productive and serious environment, surrounded by productive and serious people. She desired the comforts of crowded bookshelves, collection jars, papers that would not be lost to mold, and microscopes that would not go missing in the night. She longed for access to the latest scientific journals. She longed for peers.

More than anything, she longed for family—and the sort of family with whom she’d been raised: sharp, inquiring, challenging, and intelligent. She wanted to feel like a Whittaker again, surrounded by Whittakers. But since there were no more Whittakers left in the world (aside from Prudence Whittaker Dixon, who was busy with her school; and aside from whatever members of her father’s appalling and unknown clan had not yet died in English prisons) then she wanted to be around the van Devenders.

If they would have her.

But what if they would not have her? Well, that was the gamble. The van Devenders—whatever remained of them—might not long for her company quite as profoundly as she longed for theirs. They might not welcome her offered contributions to the Hortus. They might see her as nothing but an interloper, an amateur. It had been a precarious play for Alma to have left her treatise with her uncle Dees. His reaction to her work might be anything—from boredom (the mosses of Philadelphia?), to religious offense (continuous creation?), to scientific alarm (a theory for the entire natural world?). Alma knew that her paper ran the risk of making her look reckless, arrogant, naive, anarchistic, degenerate, and even a tiny bit French. Yet her paper was also—more than anything else—a portrait of her capacities, and she wished for her family to know her capacities, if they were to know her at all.

Should the van Devenders and the Hortus Botanicus turn Alma away, however, she resolved to square her shoulders and carry on. Perhaps she would take up residence in Amsterdam regardless, or perhaps she would return to Rotterdam, or perhaps she would move to Leiden and live near the university there. If not Holland, there was always France, always Germany. She could find a position elsewhere, perhaps even at another botanical garden. It was difficult for a woman, but not impossible—especially with her father’s name and Dick Yancey’s influence to lend her credibility. She knew of all the prominent professors of bryology in Europe; many had been her correspondents over the years. She could seek them out, and ask to become somebody’s assistant. Alternatively, she could always teach—not at the university level, but one could always find a position as a governess within an affluent family somewhere. If not botany, she could teach languages. Heaven knows, she had enough of them in her head.

She walked the city for hours. She was not ready to return to the hotel. She could not imagine sleeping. She both missed Roger and felt liberated without him trailing along behind her. She did not yet have a grasp of Amsterdam’s geography, so she wandered, losing and finding herself, through the city’s curious shape—meandering all around its great half-drawn bow, with its five giant, curving canals. She crossed over waterways again and again, on dozens of bridges whose names she did not know. She strolled along Herengracht, admiring the handsome homes with their forked chimneys and jutting gables. She passed the Palace. She found the central post office. She found a café, where she was at last able to order a plate of her own wentelteefjes, which she ate with more pleasure than any meal she could remember—while at the same time reading an oldish copy of Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, which some kind British tourist had probably left behind.

Night fell, and she kept walking. She passed ancient churches and new theaters. She saw taverns and gin shops and arcades and worse. She saw old Puritans in short cloaks and neck ruffs, looking as if they had stepped out of the time of Charles I. She saw young women with their arms bared, beckoning men into darkened doorways. She saw—and smelled—the herring-packing concerns. She saw the houseboats along the canals, with their thrifty potted gardens and prowling cats. She walked through the Jewish quarter, and saw the workshops of the diamond cutters. She saw foundling hospitals and orphanages; she saw printing houses and banks and countinghouses; she saw the tremendous central flower market, shuttered for the night. All around her—even at this late hour—she sensed the hum of commerce.

Amsterdam—built on silt and stilts, protected and maintained by pumps, sluices, valves, dredging machines, and dikes—struck Alma not so much as a city, but as an engine, a triumph of human industriousness. It was the most contrived place one could ever imagine. It was the sum of human intelligence. It was perfect. She never wanted to leave.

It was long after midnight when she finally returned to her hotel. Her feet were blistering in their new shoes. The proprietress did not respond kindly to her late-night knock on the door.

“Where is your dog?” demanded the woman.

“I’ve left him with a friend.”

“Humph,” said the woman. She could not have looked more disapproving if Alma had said, “I’ve sold him to a gypsy.”

She handed Alma her key. “No men in your room tonight, remember.”

Not tonight, nor any other night, my dear, thought Alma. But thank you for even imagining it.

The next morning, Alma was awakened by a pounding on her door. It was her old friend, the peevish hotel proprietress.

“There’s a coach waiting for you, lady!” the woman yelled, in a voice as pure as tar.

Alma stumbled to the door. “I am not expecting a coach,” she said.

“Well, it’s expecting you,” yelled the woman. “Get dressed. The man says he ain’t leaving without you. Take your bags, he says. He paid your room already. I don’t know where these people get the idea that I am a messenger service.”

Alma, muzzy-headed, dressed and packed her two small bags. She took a little extra time to make her bed—perhaps conscientiously, or perhaps because she was stalling. What coach? Was she being arrested? Expatriated? Was this some sort of a flimflam, a trick played on tourists? But she wasn’t a tourist.

She came downstairs and found a liveried driver, waiting for her beside a modest private carriage.

“Good morning, Miss Whittaker,” he said, tipping his hat. He tossed her bags up by his seat in the front. She had the worst feeling she was about to be put on a train.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t believe I requested a coach.”

“Dr. van Devender sent me,” he said, opening the carriage door. “Up you go, now—he’s waiting, and anxious to see you.”

It took nearly an hour to wind through the city back to the botanical gardens. Alma thought it would have been far faster to walk. More soothing, too. She would have been less agitated, could she have walked. The driver delivered her at last, next to a fine brick house just behind the Hortus, on Plantage Parklaan.

“Go on,” he said over his shoulder, fussing with her bags. “Let yourself in—door’s open. He’s waiting for you, I say.”

It was somewhat unsettling for Alma to let herself in to a private home unannounced, but she did as directed. Then again, this home was not entirely foreign, either. If she was not mistaken, her mother had been born here.

She saw an open door just off the receiving hallway, and peeked inside. It was the parlor. She saw her uncle sitting on a divan, waiting for her.

The first thing she noticed was that Roger the dog—incredibly—was curled up on his lap.

The second thing she noticed was that Uncle Dees was holding her treatise in his right hand, resting it lightly on Roger’s back, as though the dog were a portable writing desk.

The third thing she noticed was that her uncle’s face was wet with tears. His shirt collar was also soaked. His beard appeared to be soaked, as well. His chin was trembling, and his eyes were alarmingly red. It looked as if he had been weeping for hours.

“Uncle Dees!” She rushed to his side. “Whatever is the matter?”

The old man swallowed and took her hand in his. His hand was hot and damp. For some time he could not speak at all. He clutched her fingers tightly. He would not let go of her.

At last, with his other hand, he held up her treatise.

“Oh, Alma,” he said, and he did not bother to brush away his tears. “May God bless you, child. You have your mother’s mind.”