The Signature of All Things

by Elizabeth Gilbert

sodomite.

Ambrose had been unable to consummate their marriage not because Alma was old, not because Alma was ugly, and not because he wanted to emulate the angels—but because he wanted little boys with little fingers and little sticks. Or big boys, by the looks of these drawings.

succubus,

“These are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.”

louche

duplicitous

salacious

People could be many things, apparently, and all at once.

purported

belligerent

“You think I have not met such men as that in my travels? You think I was not once such a man as that myself? You think they took me on the Resolution for my able navigating? I was a hairless little boy, Plum—a hairless little shaver from the land, with a fine clean arsehole. There’s no shame in saying it!”

“Ask yourself what they did to me on that ship, Plum! The youngest shaver there, I was! Oh, by God, but they had their fun with me!

cogent

coy,

This made no sense to Alma. It was as if she were being told that her mother and father were not her real parents, or that her name was not Alma Whittaker,

Do you think, Alma, that it is a gift to be as beautiful as your sister? Do you remember what she looked like at sixteen years old? Do you remember how men stared at her? Old men, young men, married men, workers—all of them. There was not a man who set foot on this property who did not look at your sister as if he wished to purchase her for a night’s entertainment.

All Prudence ever wished for, Alma, was not to be seen.

By all means she could see that. George Hawkes had always made Alma herself feel safe. Safe and recognized.

“Naturally, they wished to marry! They were young and in love! But she would not do that to you, Alma. George asked for her hand, shortly before your mother died. She turned him away.

debasement

in order to remove herself from George’s prospects, with the hope, I must tell you, that George would then marry you. She knew that George was fond of you as a friend and she hoped he might learn to love you as a wife, and bring you happiness.

He never even considered me, Alma realized.

Prudence must also have known, Alma realized in mounting sorrow, that there were not many men in this world who could be an appropriate husband for Alma, and that George was probably the best hope.

abnegation

parsimonious

What a wasted gesture of kindness, then, had been Prudence’s youthful sacrifice! What a long chain of sorrows it had caused for everyone.

“If anything, she admired you. She always tried to emulate you.” “Nonsense! She never did.”

posture.

charlatan.”

“Be careful, Hanneke,” Alma warned, fighting back a tidal surge of grief. “You have given me a great shock, and now you attack me, while I am still in a state of amazement. So I must beg of you—please be careful with me today, Hanneke.”

“But everyone has been careful with you already, Alma,” the old housekeeper replied, relenting not an inch. “Perhaps they have been careful with you for too long.”

suffused

petulant

Her compass spun itself out.

imbibe

“No, dear one. I shall not live anywhere near White Acre, ever again. It is all in your care now. But my books and my belongings will remain at the carriage house, while I go away for a while. Eventually I shall settle someplace, and then I shall send for all that I need.”

She sailed without a maid, without a friend, without a guide. Hanneke de Groot had wept on Alma’s neck at the news she was leaving, but had quickly regained her senses and commissioned for Alma a collection of practical garments, including two specially made travel dresses: humble frocks of linen and wool, with reinforced buttons (not much different from what Hanneke had always worn), which Alma could tend without assistance. So attired, Alma rather resembled a servant herself, but she was exceedingly comfortable and could move about with ease. She wondered why she had not dressed this way her entire life. Once

It took her three weeks to pack. She knew precisely what to take, as she had been instructing botanical collectors for decades on the subject of safe and useful travel. Thus, she packed arsenical soap, cobbler’s wax, twine, camphor, forceps, cork, insect boxes, a plant press, several waterproof Indian rubber bags, two dozen durable pencils, three bottles of India ink, a tin of watercolor pigments, brushes, pins, nets, lenses, putty, brass wire, small scalpels, washing flannels, silk thread, a medical kit, and twenty-five reams of paper (blotting, writing, plain brown). She considered bringing a gun, but as she was not an expert shot, she decided that a scalpel would have to do at close range.

All of this, she loaded into trunks and wooden boxes (cushioned lovingly with dried moss)

searching for him almost botanically, as though he were a rare orchid specimen.

It was as if Ambrose had left her a map, and now she was following it. She did not know what she would do with The Boy once she had found him. But she would find him.

(redolent

Alma had never before been on a ship. Or, rather, she had been on many ships, when she used to go with her father down to the docks of Philadelphia to inspect arriving cargo, but she had never sailed on a ship before. When the Elliot pulled out of its slip, she stood on the deck with her heart drumming as though to burst from her chest.

Alma was on the open ocean for the first time in her life.

Her closest companion was the small monkey that Captain Terrence kept as a pet. His name was Little Nick, and he would sit with Alma for hours,

He could never get over his perplexion that there was not a similar bracelet on her other wrist—although every morning he checked to see if a bracelet had grown there during the night. Then he would sigh and give Alma a resigned look, as though to say, “Why can you not just once be symmetrical?”

All types of men went to sea. Alma well knew this to be true.

manacled

“You are a right little daughter of Neptune, Miss Whittaker,” and Alma felt

cerulean