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The cook stared at the lilacs as if she expected a tiger to leap out. In that instant Hattie realized the cook disliked her, and she was embarrassed that her feelings were hurt.

“I’m sure the child returned to school herself,” Hattie said stiffly. What did it matter if Edward’s cook did not approve of her? The controversy over her thesis topic had shaken her self-confidence; before the thesis committee’s decision, she seldom cared what others might think of her, certainly not a servant.

The cook seemed to be waiting for her to open the telegram.

“No need for you to wait,” Hattie said. “I’ll come inside if there is a reply to be sent.” She was annoyed at the cook’s attitude. Her mother said leave the cooks in the kitchen, otherwise there would be trouble; if a cook left the kitchen, look out; cooks wanted to run the whole house. Her mother said bachelors like Edward, who were never at home, spoiled good servants because he allowed them the run of the place while he was away. Hattie must be firm with the cook from the start.

She waited until the cook was gone before she opened the telegram. The message was odd; it must have been sent by someone else, a colleague, perhaps, who signed the message “Dr. E. G. Palmer,” not “Edward” as he would have. The telegram told her nothing but the arrival time of the train. Had there been an accident? Was Edward ill?

She felt her heart pound as she hurried past the water garden and fountain and up the steps to the house. The expedition was to have lasted three months, time enough, Edward hoped, to allow him to complete the collection of sponges and marine algae of the Caribbean Sea.

She sat down at her writing desk, then realized she might have to break into his desk to locate the name and address of Edward’s liaison officer at the Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington. She had not thought to ask for the address, but Edward did not leave instructions for her either. He had been a bachelor too long, her mother said, but he was the only gentleman willing to take a heretic to be his wife.

She paused at the door of Edward’s study. They had not discussed what she should do in the event of an emergency. Edward had invited her into his study once, when they first arrived and he showed her their home. The entire third floor of the house was three big rooms, one passing into the other; the walls of every room were lined with oak bookshelves booked solid from floor to ceiling; in the center of the rooms were oak cabinets with dozens of small drawers.

Edward made his study in the first room; the desk in the center, flanked by two vast library tables covered with papers, books, and bits of dry leaves and plant stalks, was Edward’s desk, as massive as a throne. She felt uncomfortable as she looked through the papers and letters on top of the desk. No mention of the expedition underwriters, no names or addresses, only Latin names of plants, diagrams of leaf structures, and queries from other plant collectors concerning plants they wished to sell or to buy.

The drawers of the desk were locked. She sat down in the big oak chair and took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding and she could feel the perspiration cling to her clothes and her body. She took deep breaths, as her doctor had instructed, and calmed herself. Easy does it.

She was not about to break open the locks on his desk drawers lest she appear to be overwrought. Her annoyance surprised her. Edward prepared for weeks and methodically reviewed all that he might need for three months in the Caribbean. The floor of his study had been spread with lanterns, candles, tents, tarps, a folding shovel, a trowel, a clock, bottles of chemicals — formaldehyde and alcohol — and a number of handsome cherry wood boxes that contained magnifying glasses, a microscope, a small telescope; and of course, one cherry wood box contained Edward’s camera, another the glass plates and bottles of chemicals. Specimen collection envelopes, botanical field guides, a book of maps, blank notebooks, leather boots, rubber boots, rubber hip waders, a wide-brim straw hat, a pith helmet, mosquito netting, a canteen, and a revolver all were carefully packed into huge black steamer trunks. With so much equipment to organize, no wonder he forgot to leave her a name or address to contact in the event of a mishap for himself. The telegram said nothing about illness or injury. She really had made much over nothing. Her nerves were still fragile, though she was much better since she married Edward.

She got up from Edward’s desk because walking calmed her. She wandered up and down the aisles of worktables in the laboratory-study. He collected other curiosities as well as plants. On the floor in one corner, a fossilized clamshell as big as an oven cradled a giant yellow tooth. Odd baskets as tall as chairs were filled with artifacts — bows and spears and arrows bristled out of pottery jars painted with serpents and birds. A strange carved mask with a frightful expression gazed at her from another corner stacked high with colorful handwoven textiles. Mineral specimens filled the shelves — fist-size amethysts, flawless crystals, and rows of eye agates watched over glittering pyrites.

As she turned, her ankle brushed a big dark lustrous rock on the floor. A meteorite. Edward had showed it to her because he was quite proud of it. Too heavy for the shelf with the other meteorites, it was allowed a place on the floor. He was quite keen on “celestial debris,” as he called it. Meteorite specimens were nearly indestructible — unlike rare orchids.

In the seventh month of their courtship, Edward told Hattie about the disastrous expedition to collect rare orchids on the Pará River in Brazil. He lowered his voice slightly as he recounted the events. His companions on the expedition were unreliable, and Edward was injured, unable to protect the specimens during the ocean storm. Boxes of rare orchid specimens were lost at sea during a storm, and others were ruined later when they were stored in a damp shed in Miami. Dozens of rare orchids, intended to repay the underwriters of the expedition, mildewed and rotted. Later there were allegations certain plant materials were exported without proper government permits. His companions behaved irresponsibly, and the failure of the expedition nearly ruined him.

Hattie had not expected such frankness from Mr. Palmer, though he was much older than the suitors she was accustomed to. Suddenly she felt too warm, on the verge of a queasy stomach. Was this a test, to see if she would confide her difficulties? How much had his sisters told him about her? Should she tell him how the suitors vanished from her doorstep after the decision of the thesis committee became known? Or how the illness that followed was to blame for her withdrawal? What a relief it had been to stay home with her books. Yes, she would confide in Mr. Palmer.

“By now you must have heard — I am the heretic of Oyster Bay,” Hattie said bravely, with a smile. Then Edward Palmer won her heart as he looked at her intently and replied, “Good for you!” He was a man of science himself, he said. He listened quietly to her story of the failed thesis with its scandalous view of early church history. The thesis committee had been unanimous in its determination that her principal reference sources — Dr. Rhinehart’s moldy Coptic scrolls — were not authenticated, and in any case the scrolls were unacceptable Gnostic heresy, pure and simple.

“Surely you’ve heard all about the furor from your sister,” Hattie said, feeling bolder. “My heresy was a lively topic of dinner party conversations on Long Island for months!” Edward’s laughter at her wit endeared him to Hattie; all the other gentlemen she told looked a bit shocked.

How good Edward’s laughter sounded! To hear her mother talk, Hattie’s entire life was ruined by her assertions that Jesus had women disciples and Mary Magdalene wrote a Gospel suppressed by the church.

Her affection for Edward stirred at that instant, and she could only smile at his neglect to leave her a way to reach him. The hundreds of tiny specimen drawers in the huge oak cabinets stirred her curiosity. She pulled out a drawer: inside was a small manila envelope carefully secured with red string. She unwound the string from the circular clasp and gently squeezed the sides of the envelope to look inside. All she saw was a single shriveled stalk with fragments of dry plant material, remains of leaves, perhaps. She sniffed the envelope but detected only a faint odor. Edward’s special interest was in aromatic grasses and plants, which always were highly prized by horticulturists and gardeners. Edward traveled to places so remote and collected plants so rare, so subtle, few white men ever saw them before. He added these rare treasures to his growing collection of roots, stalks, leaves, and, most important, when possible, seeds. His ambition was to discover a new plant species that would bear his name, and he spent twenty years of his life in this pursuit before their marriage.