The Signature of All Things

direction except downward. Prudence’s nose was a little blossom; Alma’s was a growing yam. On it went, from head to toe: a most miserable accounting.
    After breakfast was completed, Beatrix said, “Now come, girls, and embrace each other as sisters.” Alma did embrace Prudence, obediently, but without warmth. Side by side, the contrast was even more notable. More than anything, it felt to Alma, the two of them resembled a perfect little robin’s egg and a big homely pinecone, suddenly and inexplicably sharing the same nest.
    The realization of all this made Alma want to weep, or fight. She could feel her face settling into a dark sulk. Her mother must have seen it, for she said, “Prudence, please excuse us while I speak to your sister for a moment.” Beatrix took Alma by the upper arm, pinching her so firmly that it burned, and escorted her into the hall. Alma felt tears coming, but forced her tears to halt, and then to halt again, and then to halt once more.
    Beatrix looked down at her one natural-born child, and spoke in a voice of cool granite: “I do not intend ever again to see such a face upon my daughter as the face I have just seen. Do you understand me?”
    Alma managed to say only one wavering word (“ But —”) before she was cut off.
    “No outbreak of jealousy or malice has ever been welcomed in God’s eyes,” Beatrix continued, “nor shall such an outbreak ever be welcomed in the eyes of your family. If you have sentiments within you that are unpleasant or uncharitable, let them fall stillborn to the ground. Become the master of yourself, Alma Whittaker. Am I understood?”
    This time, Alma only thought the word (“ But —”); however, she must have thought it too loudly, because somehow her mother heard it. Now Beatrix had been pushed entirely too far.
    “I am sorry on your own account, Alma Whittaker, that you are so selfish in your regard for others,” Beatrix said, her face clenched now with true anger. As for her final two words, she spat them out like two sharp chips of ice:
    “ Improve yourself .”
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    B ut Prudence also needed improvement, and a good deal of it, too!
    To begin with, she was quite far behind Alma in matters of schooling. To be fair, though, what child would not have been behind Alma? By the age of nine, Alma could comfortably read Caesar’s Commentaries in its original, and Cornelius Nepos. She could already defend Theophrastus over Pliny. (One was the true scholar of natural science, she would argue, while the other was a mere copyist.) Her Greek, which she loved and recognized as a sort of delirious form of mathematics, was growing stronger by the day.
    Prudence, by contrast, knew her letters and her numbers. She had a sweet and musical voice, but her speech itself—the very blazing emblem of her unfortunate background—needed much correction. During the beginning of Prudence’s stay at White Acre, Beatrix picked at bits of the girl’s language constantly, as though with the sharpened tip of a knitting needle, digging away at usage that sounded common or base. Alma was encouraged to make corrections, as well. Beatrix instructed Prudence that she must never say “back and forth,” when “backwards and forwards” was so much more refined. The word fancy in any context sounded crude, as did the word folks . When one wrote a letter at White Acre, it went in the post , not the mail . A person did not fall sick ; a person fell ill . One would not be leaving for church soon ; one would be leaving for church directly . One was not partly there; one was nearly there. One did not stove along; one hurried along. And one did not talk in this family; one conversed .
    A weaker child might have given up on speaking altogether. A more combative child might have demanded to know why Henry Whittaker was allowed to talk like a blasted stevedore—why he could sit at the dinner table and call another man “a prick-fed donkey” straight to his face, without everonce being corrected by Beatrix—while the rest of the family must converse like barristers. But Prudence was neither weak nor combative. Instead, she turned out to be a creature of steadfast and unblinking vigilance, who perfected herself daily as though honing the blade of her soul, taking care never to make the same error twice. After five months at White Acre, Prudence’s speech never again needed refinement. Not even Alma could find an error, though she never stopped looking for one. Other aspects