The Signature of All Things

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.
----
    T he 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.”

Chapter Twenty-nine
    F our years passed.
    They were happy years for Alma Whittaker, and why would they not have been? She had a home (her uncle had moved her straight into the van Devender household); she had a family (her uncle’s four sons, their lovely wives, and their broods of growing children); she was able to communicate regularly by mail with Prudence and Hanneke back in Philadelphia; and she held a position of considerable responsibility at the Hortus Botanicus. Her official title was Curator van Mossen—the Curator of Mosses. She was given her own office, on the second floor of a pleasant building only two doors down the street from the