The Signature of All Things

to pass. She could not allow it to happen.
    Alma pondered this. She pondered it for several months. Finally, she took action. She asked Mimi to write a nice letter, on Hortus stationery, asking Alfred Russel Wallace to please accept an invitation to speak on the subject of natural selection at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, in thespring of 1883. A honorarium of nine hundred pounds sterling was promised for the gentleman’s time and trouble, and all travel expenses, naturally, would be covered by the Hortus. Mimi balked at the fee—this was several years’ wages, for some people!—but Alma calmly replied, “I will be paying for everything myself, and what’s more, Mr. Wallace needs the money.”
    The letter went on to inform Mr. Wallace that he was more than welcome to stay at the van Devenders’ comfortable family residence, which was conveniently situated just outside the gardens, in the prettiest neighborhood of Amsterdam. There would be plenty of young botanists about the place who would be happy to show the famous biologist all the delights of the Hortus, and the city beyond. It would be an honor for the gardens to host such a distinguished guest. Alma signed the letter, “Very sincerely yours, Miss Alma Whittaker—Curator of Mosses.”
    A reply came swiftly, from Wallace’s wife, Annie (whose father, Alma had been thrilled to learn, was the great William Mitten, a pharmaceutical chemist and first-rate bryologist). Mrs. Wallace wrote that her husband would be delighted to come to Amsterdam. He would arrive on the nineteenth of March, 1883, and would stay a fortnight. The Wallaces were most grateful for the invitation, and praised the honorarium as very generous, indeed. The offer, the letter hinted, had arrived at just the right time—as had the money.

Chapter Thirty-one
    H e was so tall!
    Alma had not expected this. Alfred Russel Wallace was as tall and lanky as Ambrose had been. He was not far from the age Ambrose would have been, either, if Ambrose had survived—sixty years old, and in fine health, if a bit stooped. (This was a man who had plainly spent too many years bent over microscopes, peering at specimens.) He was gray-haired, with a heavy beard, and Alma had to resist the urge to reach up and touch his face with her fingertips. She could not see well anymore, and she wanted to know his features better. But that would have been rude and shocking, so she restrained herself. All the same, as soon as she met him, she felt she was welcoming her oldest friend in the world.
    At the beginning of his visit, though, there was such a bustle of activity that Alma was a bit lost in the crowd. She was a large woman, true, but she was old, and old women do tend to get pushed aside at big gatherings—even when they have footed the bill for that gathering. There were many who wanted to meet the great evolutionary biologist, and Alma’s young cousins, all enthusiastic young students of science themselves, took much of his attention, crowding him like hopeful beaux and belles. Wallace was so polite, so friendly—especially with the younger set. He permitted them to boast of their own projects, and to seek his advice. Naturally, they wished to parade him about Amsterdam, too, and thus several days were occupied with silly tourism and civic pride.
    Then there was his speech in the Palm House, and the ponderous questions afterward from scholars, journalists, and dignitaries, followed by the requisite long, dull dinner in formal dress. Wallace spoke well, both at his lecture and at the dinner. He managed to avoid controversy, answering all the tedious and uninformed questions about natural selection with thorough patience. His wife must have coached him to be on his best behavior, Alma thought. Good girl, Annie.
    Alma waited. She was not one who was afraid to wait.
    In time, the novelty surrounding Wallace’s visit died down, and the clamoring crowds thinned. The young moved on to other excitements, and Alma was able to sit next to her guest for a few breakfasts in a row. She knew him better than anyone, of course, and she knew that he didn’t want to talk about natural selection forever. She engaged him instead on subjects that she knew were dear to his heart—butterfly mimicry, beetle variations, mind-reading, vegetarianism, the evils of inherited wealth, his plan to abolish the stock exchange, his plan for the end of all war, his defense of Indian and Irish self-governance, his suggestion that