The Signature of All Things

subjects look either fear-stricken or deceased. Music was not a gift, either, and around the time Alma turned eleven, her father officially requested that she stop torturing the pianoforte. In all these pursuits, Prudence excelled. Prudence could also sew beautifully, and operate a tea service with masterful delicacy, and had many other small and galling talents besides. On Fridays, Alma was likely to have the blackest and most envious thoughts about her sister. These were the timeswhen she honestly thought, for instance, that she would happily trade in one of her extra languages (any of them, except Greek!) for the simple ability to fold an envelope just once as prettily as Prudence could do it.
    Despite all this—or perhaps because of it—Alma took real satisfaction in the realms where she excelled over her sister, and the one place where her superiority was most notable was at the Whittakers’ famous dining room table, particularly when the room was thick with challenging ideas. As Alma grew older, her conversation became bolder, more certain, more reaching. But Prudence never developed such confidence at the table. She tended to sit mute but lovely, a sort of useless adornment to each gathering, merely filling a chair between guests, contributing nothing but her beauty. In a way, this made Prudence useful. One could seat Prudence next to anyone, and she would not complain. Many a night, the poor girl was deliberately placed beside the most tedious and deaf old professors—perfect mausoleums of men—who picked at their teeth with their forks, or fell asleep over their meals, lightly snoring while debates raged alongside them. Prudence never objected, nor asked for more sparkling dinner companions. It did not seem to make a difference who sat near Prudence, really: her posture and carefully arranged countenance never altered.
    Meanwhile, Alma lunged into engagement with every possible topic—from soil management, to the molecules of gases, to the physiology of tears. One night, for instance, a guest came to White Acre who had just returned from Persia, where he had discovered, right outside the ancient city of Esfahan, samples of a plant that he believed produced ammoniacum gum—an ancient and lucrative medicinal ingredient, whose source had thus far been a mystery to the Western world, as its trade was controlled by bandits. The young man had been working for the British Crown, but had grown disillusioned with his superiors and wanted to speak to Henry Whittaker about funding a continued research project. Henry and Alma—working and thinking as one, as they often did at the dining room table—came at the man with questions from both sides, like two sheepdogs cornering a ram.
    “What is the climate in that area of Persia?” Henry asked.
    “And the altitude?” Alma added.
    “Well, sir, the plant grows on the open plains,” the visitor replied. “And the gum is so abundant within it, I tell you, that it squeezes out great volumes—”
    “Yes, yes, yes,” Henry interrupted. “Or so you keep saying, and we must have your word on that, I suppose, for I notice you’ve brought me nothing but the merest thimbleful of gum as evidence. Tell me, though, how much do you have to pay the officials in Persia? In tributes, I mean, for the privilege of wandering around their country, collecting up gum samples at will?”
    “Well, they do demand some tribute, sir, but it seems a small price to pay—”
    “The Whittaker Company never pays tribute,” Henry said. “I dislike the sound of this. Why have you even let anyone over there know what you’re doing?”
    “Well, sir, one can hardly play the smuggler!”
    “Really?” Henry raised an eyebrow. “Can’t one?”
    “But could the plant be cultivated elsewhere?” Alma leapt in. “You see, sir, it would do us little good to send you to Esfahan every year on expensive collecting expeditions.”
    “I have not yet had the chance to explore—”
    “Could it be cultivated in Kattywar?” Henry asked. “Do you have associates in Kattywar?”
    “Well, I don’t know, sir, I merely—”
    “Or could it be cultivated in the American South?” Alma put in. “How much water does it require?”
    “I’m not interested in any venture that might involve cultivation in the American South, Alma, as you well know,” Henry said.
    “But, Father, people are saying that the Missouri Territory—”
    “Honestly, Alma, can you foresee this pale little English mite