The Signature of All Things

you must also become clever. As a woman, of course, you will always have a heightened moral awareness over men, but if you do not sharpen your wits in defense of yourself, your morality will serve you little good.”
    “I understand, Mother,” Prudence said.
    “Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls. Time will reveal who has it, and who has it not.”
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    L ife might have been pleasanter for the Whittaker girls if—like the blind and the lame—they had learned how to aid each other, filling in each other’s weaknesses. But instead they limped along side by side in silence, each girl left alone to grope through her own deficiencies and troubles.
    To their credit, and to the credit of the mother who kept them polite, thegirls were never unpleasant to each other. Unkind words were never once exchanged. They respectfully shared an umbrella with each other, arm in arm, whenever they walked in the rain. They stepped aside for each other at doorways, each willing to let the other pass first. They offered each other the last tart, or the best seat, nearest to the warmth of the stove. They gave each other modest and thoughtful gifts at Christmas Eve. One year, Alma bought Prudence—who liked to draw flowers (beautifully, though not accurately )—a lovely book on botanical illustration called Every Lady Her Own Drawing Master: A New Treatise on Flower Painting. That same year, Prudence made for Alma an exquisite satin pincushion, rendered in Alma’s favorite color, aubergine. So they did try to be thoughtful.
    “Thank you for the pincushion,” Alma wrote to Prudence, in a short note of considered politeness. “I shall be certain to use it whenever I find myself in need of a pin.”
    Year after year, the Whittaker girls conducted themselves toward each other with the most exacting correctness, although perhaps from different motives. For Prudence, exacting correctness was an expression of her natural state. For Alma, exacting correctness was a crowning effort—a constant and almost physical subduing of all her meaner instincts, stamped into submission by sheer moral discipline and fear of her mother’s disapproval. Thus, manners were held, and all appeared peaceful at White Acre. But in truth, there was a mighty seawall between Alma and Prudence, and it did not ever budge. What’s more, nobody helped them to budge it.
    One winter’s day, when the girls were about fifteen years old, an old friend of Henry’s from the Calcutta Botanical Gardens came to visit White Acre after many years away. Standing in the entryway, still shaking the snow off his cloak, the guest shouted, “Henry Whittaker, you weasel! Show me that famous daughter of yours I’ve been hearing so much about!”
    The girls were just nearby, transcribing botanical notes in the drawing room. They could hear every word.
    Henry, in his great crashing voice, said, “Alma! Come instantly! You are requested to be seen!”
    Alma rushed into the atrium, bright with expectation. The stranger looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. He said, “No, you bloody fool—that’s not what I meant! I want to see the pretty one!”
    Without a trace of rebuke, Henry replied, “Oh, so you’re interested inOur Little Exquisite, then? Prudence, come in here! You are requested to be seen!”
    Prudence slipped through the entryway and stood beside Alma, whose feet were now sinking into the floor, as into a thick and terrible swamp.
    “There we are!” said the guest, looking over Prudence as though pricing her out. “Oh, she is splendid, isn’t she? I had wondered. I had suspected everyone might have been exaggerating.”
    Henry waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, you all make too much of Prudence,” he said. “To my mind, the homely one is worth ten of the pretty one.”
    So, you see, it is quite possible that both girls suffered equally.

Chapter Seven
    T he year 1816 would later be remembered as The Year Without a Summer—not only at White Acre, but across much of the world. Volcanic eruptions in Indonesia filled Earth’s atmosphere with ash and darkness, bringing drought to North America and freezing famine to most of Europe and Asia. The corn crop failed in New England, the rice crop withered in China, oat and wheat crops collapsed all across northern Europe. More than a hundred thousand Irish starved to death. Horses and cattle, suffering without grain, were annihilated en masse. There were food riots in France, England, and Switzerland.