The Signature of All Things

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 forhim 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.”
----
    A lma 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