The Signature of All Things

came by so often in order to see you ?” but the question, unspoken, hung in the air. “He loved your sister, Alma. He was courting her, in his quiet way. What’s more, she loved him.”
    “As you keep saying,” Alma interjected. “This is difficult for me to hear, Hanneke. You see, I once loved George Hawkes myself.”
    “Do you think I don’t know that?” Hanneke exclaimed. “Of course you loved him, child, for he was polite to you! You were innocent enough to confess your love to your sister. Do you think a young woman as principled as Prudence would have married George Hawkes, knowing that you had feelings for him? Do you think she would have done that to you?”
    “Did they wish to marry ?” Alma asked, incredulous.
    “Naturally, they wished to marry! They were young and in love! But she would not do that to you, Alma. George asked for her hand, shortly before your mother died. She turned him away. He asked again. She turned him away again. He asked several more times. She would not reveal her reasons for refusing him, in order to protect you . When he kept asking, she went and threw herself down the throat of Arthur Dixon, because he was the nearest and easiest man to marry. She knew Dixon well enough to know that he would not cause her harm, in any case. He would never beat her or bring debasement upon her. She even had some regard for him. He had introduced her to those abolitionist ideas of hers, back when he was your tutor, and those ideas affected her conscience greatly—as they still do. So she respected Mr. Dixon, but she did not love him, and she does not lovehim today. She simply needed to marry somebody— anybody —in order to remove herself from George’s prospects, with the hope, I must tell you, that George would then marry you . She knew that George was fond of you as a friend and she hoped he might learn to love you as a wife, and bring you happiness. That is what your sister Prudence did for you, child. And you stand before me claiming that you owe her no debt.”
    For a long while, Alma could not speak.
    Then, stupidly, she said, “But George Hawkes married Retta.”
    “So it didn’t work, then—did it, Alma?” Hanneke asked, in a firm voice. “Do you see that? Your sister gave up the man she loved for nothing. He did not go and marry you, after all. He went and did the same thing Prudence had done: he threw himself down the throat of the next person who passed by, just to be wedded to someone.”
    He never even considered me, Alma realized. Shamefully, this was her first thought, before she even began to take in the scope of her sister’s sacrifice.
    He never even considered me.
    But George had never seen Alma as anything but a colleague in botany and a good little microscopist. Now it all made sense. Why would he have even noticed Alma? Why would he have even recognized Alma as a woman at all, when exquisite Prudence was so near? George had never known for a moment that Alma loved him, but Prudence knew it. Prudence always knew it. Prudence must also have known, Alma realized in mounting sorrow, that there were not many men in this world who could be an appropriate husband for Alma, and that George was probably the best hope. Prudence, on the other hand, could have had anyone. That must have been how she saw it.
    So Prudence had given George up for Alma—or had tried to, in any case. But it was all for nothing. Her sister had forfeited love, only to go live her life in poverty and abnegation with a parsimonious scholar who was incapable of warmth or affection. She had forfeited love, only for brilliant George Hawkes to go live his life with a crazed little pretty wife who had never even read a book and who now resided in an asylum. She had forfeited love, only for Alma to go live her life in absolute loneliness—leaving Alma vulnerable in middle age to enthrallment by a man like Ambrose Pike, who was repelled by her desire, and who wished only to be an angel (or, it now appeared, who wished only to love naked Tahitian boys). What a wastedgesture of kindness, then, had been Prudence’s youthful sacrifice! What a long chain of sorrows it had caused for everyone. What a sad mess this was, and what a deep series of mistakes.
    Poor Prudence,Alma thought—at last. After a long moment, she added in her mind:Poor George! Then:Poor Retta!And then, for that matter: Poor Arthur Dixon!
    Poor all of them.
    “If what you say is true, Hanneke,” Alma said, “then you tell a