The Signature of All Things (38 page)

Dreadfully shamed.

What had she done? What had he felt? What had he heard? Dear God, what had he
smelled
? But before she could react or pull away, she felt something else. Though Ambrose still did not move or stir or react, she suddenly felt as though he were brushing against the soles of her feet with a persistent stroke. As the moments passed, she perceived that this stroking sensation was, in fact, a question—an
utterance
coming into being, right out of the floor. She felt the question enter through the bottoms of her feet and rise through the bones of her legs. Then she felt the question creep up into her womb, swimming through the wet path of her quim. It was nearly a spoken voice that was gliding up into her, nearly an articulation. Ambrose was asking something of her, but he was asking it from inside her. She heard it now. Then there it was, his question, perfectly formed:

Will you accept this of me?

She pulsed silently with her reply:
YES.

Then she felt something else. The question that Ambrose had placed within her body was twisting into something else. It was now turning into
her
question. She had not known that she had a question for Ambrose, but now she did have one—most urgently. She let her question rise through her torso and out through her arms. Then she placed her question upon his awaiting palms:

Is this what you want of me?

She heard him draw in his breath sharply. He clutched her hands so tightly that he nearly hurt her. Then he shattered the silence with one spoken word:

“Yes.”

Chapter Sixteen

O
nly one month later, they were married.

In the years to come, Alma would puzzle over the mechanism by which this decision had been reached—this most inconceivable and unexpected leap into wedlock—but in the days after the experience within the binding closet, matrimony felt like an inevitability. As for what had actually transpired in that tiny room, all of it (from Alma’s chaste climax, to the silent transmission of thought) seemed a miracle, or at least a phenomenon. Alma could find no logical explanation for what had transpired. People cannot hear each other’s thoughts. Alma knew this to be true. People cannot convey that sort of electricity, that sort of longing and frank erotic disruption with the mere touch of hands. Yet—it had happened. Without question, it had happened.

When they had walked out of the closet that night, he had turned to her, his face flushed and ecstatic, and he said, “I would like to sleep beside you every night for the rest of my life, and listen to your thoughts forever.”

That is what he had said! Not telepathically, but
aloud
. Overwhelmed, she’d had no words for a reply. She’d merely nodded her assent, or her agreement, or her wonder. Then they had both gone off to their respective bedrooms, across the hall from each other—although, of course, she had not slept. How could she have?

The following day, as they walked toward the moss beds together,
Ambrose began speaking casually, as though they were in the middle of an ongoing conversation. Quite out of nowhere, he said, “Perhaps the difference in our stations in life is so vast that it is of no consequence. I possess nothing in this world that anyone would desire, and you possess everything. Perhaps we inhabit such extremes that there is balance to be found within our differences?”

Alma had not an inkling where he was tending with this line of conversation, but she allowed him to keep speaking.

“I have also wondered,” he reflected mildly, “if two such diverse individuals as we could find harmony in matrimony.”

Both her heart and stomach lunged at the word:
matrimony.
Was he speaking philosophically, or literally? She waited.

He continued, though he was still far from direct: “There will be people, I suppose, who might accuse me of reaching for your wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. I live my life in strictest economy, Alma, not only out of habit, but also out of preference. I have no riches to offer you, but I would also take no riches from you. You will not become wealthier by marrying me, but nor will you grow poorer. That truth may not satisfy your father, but I hope it will satisfy you. In any case, our love is not a typical love, as is typically felt between men and women. We share something else between us—something more immediate, more cherishing. That has been evident to me from the beginning, and I pray it has been evident to you. My wish is that we two could live together as one, both contented and elevated, and ever-seeking.”

It was only later that afternoon, when Ambrose asked her, “Will you speak to your father, or shall I?” that Alma definitively pieced it together: this had indeed been a marriage proposal. Or, rather, it had been a marriage
assumption
. Ambrose did not precisely ask for Alma’s hand—for in his mind, apparently, she had already given it to him. She could not deny that this was true. She would have given him anything. She loved him so deeply that it pained her. She was only just confessing this to herself. To lose him now would be an amputation. True, there was no sense to be made of this love. She was nearly fifty years old, and he was still a fairly young man. She was homely and he was beautiful. They had known each other for only a few weeks. They believed in different universes (Ambrose in the divine; Alma in the actual). Yet, undeniably—Alma told herself—this was love. Undeniably, Alma Whittaker was about to become a wife.

“I shall speak to Father myself,” Alma said, cautiously overjoyed.

She found her father in his study that evening before dinner, deep in papers.

“Listen to this letter,” he said by way of greeting. “This man here says he can no longer operate his mill. His son—his stupid gambling dicer of a son—has ruined the family. He says he has resolved to pay off his debts, and wishes to die unencumbered. This from a man who, in twenty years, has not taken one step of common sense. Well, a fine chance he has for
that
!”

Alma did not know who the man in question was, or who the son was, or which mill was at stake. Everyone today was speaking to her as though from the midst of a preexisting conversation.

“Father,” she said. “I wish to discuss something with you. Ambrose Pike has asked for my hand in marriage.”

“Very well,” said Henry. “But listen, Alma—this fool here wishes to sell me a parcel of his cornfields, too, and he’s trying to convince me to purchase that old granary he’s got on the wharf, the one that is falling into the river already. You know the one, Alma. What he thinks that wreck of a building is worth, or why I would wish to be saddled with it, I cannot imagine.”

“You are not listening to me, Father.”

Henry did not so much as glance up from his desk. “I am listening to you,” he said, turning over the paper in his hand and peering at it. “I am listening to you with captive fascination.”

“Ambrose and I wish to marry soon,” Alma said. “There need be no spectacle or festivity, but we would like it to be prompt. Ideally, we would like to be married before the end of the month. Please be assured that we will remain at White Acre. You will not lose either of us.”

At this, Henry looked up at Alma for the first time since she’d walked into the room.

“Naturally I will not lose either of you,” said Henry. “Why would either of you leave? It is not as though the fellow can support you in your accustomed manner on the salary of—what is his profession?—orchidist?”

Henry settled back into his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and gazed at his daughter over the rims of his old-fashioned brass eyeglasses. Alma was not certain what to say next.

“Ambrose is a good man,” she finally uttered. “He has no longing for fortune.”

“I suspect you may be correct in that,” Henry replied. “Though it does not speak highly of his character that he prefers poverty to riches. Nonetheless, I thought the situation out years ago—long before you or I ever heard of Ambrose Pike.”

Henry rose somewhat unsteadily and peered at the bookcase behind him. He pulled out a volume on English sailing vessels—a book that Alma had seen on the shelves her whole life, but had never opened, as she held no interest in English sailing vessels. He paged through the book until he found a folded sheet of paper tucked inside, stamped with a wax seal. Above the seal was written “Alma.” He handed it to her.

“I drew up two of these documents, with the assistance of your mother, around 1817. The other, I gave your sister Prudence when she married that crop-eared spaniel of hers. It is a decree for your husband to sign, asserting that he will never own White Acre.”

Henry was nonchalant about this. Alma took the document, wordlessly. She recognized her mother’s hand in the straight-backed capital
A
of her own name.

“Ambrose has no need of White Acre, nor any desire for it,” Alma said, defensively.

“Excellent. Then he will not mind signing it. Naturally, there will be a dowry, but my fortune, my estate—it will never be his. I trust we are understood?”

“Very well,” she said.

“Very well, indeed. Now, as to the suitability of Mr. Pike as a husband, that is your business. You are a grown woman. If you believe such a man can render you satisfied in wedlock, you have my blessing.”

“Satisfied in wedlock?” Alma bristled. “Have I ever been a difficult figure to satisfy, Father? What have I ever asked for? What have I ever demanded? How much trouble could I possibly present to anybody as a wife?”

Henry shrugged. “I could not say. That is for you to learn.”

“Ambrose and I share a natural sympathy with each other, Father. I know that it may seem an unconventional pairing, but I feel—”

Henry cut her off. “Never explain yourself, Alma. It makes you appear weak. In any case, I do not dislike the fellow.” He returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

Did that constitute a blessing? Alma could not be certain. She waited for
him to say more. He did not. It did seem, however, that permission to marry had been granted. At the very least, permission had not been declined.

“Thank you, Father.” She turned toward the door.

“One further matter,” Henry said, looking up again. “Before her wedding night, it is customary that a bride be advised on certain matters of the conjugal chamber—presuming that you are still innocent of such things, which I suspect you are. As a man and as your father, I cannot advise you. Your mother is dead, or she’d have done it. Do not trouble yourself asking Hanneke any questions on the matter, for she is an old spinster who knows nothing, and she would die of shock if she ever knew what transpired between men and women in their beds. My advice is that you pay a visit to your sister Prudence. She is a long-married wife and the mother of half a dozen children. She may be able to edify you on some points of matrimonial conduct. Do not blush, Alma—you are too old to blush and it makes you look ridiculous. If you are to have a go at marriage, then by God, go at it properly. Arrive prepared to the bed, as you do with everything else in life. It may be worth your effort. And post these letters for me tomorrow, if you are going into town anyway.”

A
lma had not even had time to properly contemplate the notion of marriage, yet now it all seemed arranged and decided. Even her father had proceeded immediately to the topics of inheritance and the marital bed. Events moved even more swiftly after that. The next day, Alma and Ambrose walked to Sixteenth Street to have a daguerreotype made of themselves: their wedding portrait. Alma had never before been photographed, and neither had Ambrose. It was such a dreadful likeness of them both that she hesitated even to pay for the picture. She looked at the image only once, and never wanted to see it again. She appeared so much older than Ambrose! A stranger, looking at this picture, might have thought her the younger man’s large-boned, heavy-jawed, rueful mother. As for Ambrose, he looked like a starved, mad-eyed prisoner of the chair that held him. One of his hands was a blur. His tousled hair made it appear as though he had been roughly awoken from a tormented sleep. Alma’s hair was crooked and tragic. The whole experience made Alma feel terribly sad. But Ambrose only laughed when he saw the image.

“Why, this is
slander
!” he exclaimed. “How unkind a fate, to see oneself so honestly! Nonetheless, I will send the picture to my family in Boston. One hopes they will recognize their own son.”

Did events generally move this hastily for other people who were engaged to marry? Alma did not know. She had not seen much of courtships, engagements, the rituals of matrimony. She had never studied the ladies’ magazines, or enjoyed the light novels about love, written for dewy, innocent girls. (She had certainly read salacious books about coupling, but they did not clarify the larger situation.) In short, she was far from an expert belle. If Alma’s experiences in the realm of love had not been so markedly scarce, she might have found her courtship, such as it was, both abrupt and unlikely. In the three months that she and Ambrose had known each other, they had never exchanged a love letter, a poem, an embrace. The affection between them was clear and constant, but passion was absent. Another woman might have regarded this situation with suspicion. Instead Alma felt only drunken, and befuddled by questions. They were not necessarily unpleasant questions, but they swarmed within her to the point of distraction. Was Ambrose now her lover? Could she fairly call him that? Did she belong to him? Could she hold his hand at any time now? How did he regard her? What would his body look like, beneath his clothing? Would her body bring him satisfaction? What did he expect from her?
She could not conjecture answers to any of it.

She was also hopelessly in love.

Alma had always adored Ambrose, of course, from the moment she had met him, but—until his marriage proposal—she had never considered allowing herself to fall backward into the full expression of that adoration; it would have felt audacious to do so, if not dangerous. It had always been enough simply to have him near. Alma would have been willing to regard Ambrose as merely a dear companion, if it would have kept him at White Acre forever. To share buttered toast with him every morning, to observe his ever-illuminated face as he spoke of orchids, to witness the mastery of his printmaking, to watch him throw himself down upon her divan to listen to theories of species transmutation and extinction—truly, all that would have been plenty. She would never have presumed to wish for more. Ambrose as friend—as brother—more than sufficed.