The Signature of All Things

know, because I cannot find it marked on any map in existence. Tell him that I need useful details. Tell him I don’t care a row of pins for news of his failing health. My health is failing, too, but do I trouble him to listen to my sorrows? Tell him that I will warrant ten dollars per hundred of every specimen, but that I need him to be exact and I need the specimens to be identifiable. Tell him that he must stop pasting his dried samples to paper, for it destroys them, which he should bloody well know by now. Tell him that he must use two thermometers in every Wardian case—one tied to the glass itself and one embedded in the soil. Tell him that, before he ships off any further specimens, he must convince the sailors on board the ship that they must move the cases off the decks at night if frost is expected, because I will not pay him a wooden tooth for another shipment of black mold in a box, purporting to be a plant . And tell him that, no, I will not advance his salary again. Tell him that he is fortunate to still have his employment at all, given the fact he is doing his level best to bankrupt me. Tell him I will pay him again when he has earned it.” (“Dear Sir,” Alma would begin writing, “We here at the Whittaker Company offer our most sincere gratitude for all your recent labors, and our apologies for any discomforts you may have suffered . . .”)
    Nobody else could do this work. It had to be Alma. It was all just as Beatrix had instructed on her deathbed: Alma could not leave her father.
    Had Beatrix suspected that Alma would never marry? Probably, Almarealized. Who would have her? Who would take this giant female creature, who stood above six feet tall, who was overly stuffed with learning, and who had hair in the color and shape of a rooster’s comb? George Hawkes had been the best candidate—the only candidate, really—and now he was gone. Alma knew it would be hopeless ever to find a suitable husband, and she said as much one day to Hanneke de Groot, as the two women clipped boxwoods together in Beatrix’s old Grecian garden.
    “It will never be my turn, Hanneke,” Alma said, out of the blue. She said it not pitifully, but with simple candor. There was something about speaking in Dutch (and Alma spoke only Dutch with Hanneke) that always elicited simple candor.
    “Give the situation time,” Hanneke said, knowing precisely what Alma was talking about. “A husband may still come looking for you.”
    “Loyal Hanneke,” Alma said fondly, “let us be honest with ourselves. Who will ever put a ring on these fishwife’s hands of mine? Who will ever kiss this encyclopedia of a head?”
    “I will kiss it,” said Hanneke, and pulled Alma down for a kiss on the brow. “There now, it is done. Stop complaining. You always behave as though you know everything, but you do not know all things. Your mother had this same fault. I have seen more of life than you have seen, by a long measure, and I tell you that you are not too old to marry—and you may still raise a family yet. There’s no hurry for it, either. Look at Mrs. Kingston, on Locust Street. Fifty years old, she must be, and she just presented her husband with twins! A regular Abraham’s wife, she is. Somebody should study her womb.”
    “I confess, Hanneke, that I do not believe Mrs. Kingston is quite fifty years old. Nor do I believe she wishes us to study her womb.”
    “I am merely saying that you do not know the future, child, quite as much as you believe you do. And there is something more I need to tell you, besides.” Hanneke stopped working now, and her voice became serious. “Everyone has disappointments, child.”
    Alma loved the sound of the word child in Dutch. Kindje . This was the nickname that Hanneke had always called Alma when she was young and afraid and would climb into the housekeeper’s bed in the middle of the night. Kindje . It sounded like warmth itself.
    “I am aware that everyone has disappointments, Hanneke.”
    “I’m not certain you are. You are still young, so you think only of your own self. You do not notice the tribulations that occur all around you, to other people. Do not protest; it is true. I am not condemning you. I was as selfish as you, when I was your age. It is the custom of the young to be selfish. Now I am wiser. It’s a pity we cannot put an old head on young shoulders, or you could be wise, too. But someday you will understand that nobody passes through this world without