“Or could it be cultivated in the American South?” Alma put in. “How much water does it require?”
“I’m not interested in any venture that might involve cultivation in the American South, Alma, as you well know,” Henry said.
“But, Father, people are saying that the Missouri Territory—”
“Honestly, Alma, can you foresee this pale little English mite thriving in the Missouri Territory?”
The pale little English mite in question blinked, and seemed to have lost his capacity for speech. But Alma pushed on, asking the guest with mounting eagerness, “Do you think the plant you’re discussing might be the same one that Dioscorides mentions, sir, in Materia medica? That would be a thrill, wouldn’t it? We have a splendid early volume of Dioscorides in our library. If you’d like, I could show it to you after dinner!”
Here, Beatrix finally chimed in, admonishing her fourteen-year-old daughter, “I do wonder, Alma, whether it is absolutely necessary for you to put the entire world in possession of your every thought. Why not let your poor guest attempt to answer one question before you assault him with another? Please, young man, try again. What was it you were attempting to say?”
But now Henry was speaking again. “You didn’t even bring me cuttings, did you?” he asked the overwhelmed fellow—who by this point did not know which Whittaker he should answer first, and therefore made the grave mistake of answering nobody. In the long silence that ensued, everyone stared at him. Still, the young man could not manage to emit a single word.
Disgusted, Henry broke the silence, turning to Alma and saying, “Ah, put it to rest, Alma. I’m not interested in this one. He hasn’t thought things through. And yet look at him! Still he sits there, eating my dinner, drinking my claret, and hoping to get my money!”
So Alma did indeed put it to rest, pursuing no further questions on the subject of ammoniacum gum, or Dioscorides, or the tribal customs of Persia. Instead, she turned brightly to another gentleman at the table—not noticing that this second young fellow had himself turned rather pale—and asked, “So, I see by your marvelous paper that you have found some quite extraordinary fossils! Have you been able yet to compare the bone to modern samples? Do you really think those are hyena teeth? And do you still believe that the cave was flooded? Have you read Mr. Winston’s recent article on primeval flooding?”
Meanwhile, Prudence—without anyone’s noticing—turned coolly to the stricken young Englishman beside her, the one who had just been so firmly shut down, and murmured, “Do go on.”
That night, before bedtime, and after evening accounting and prayers, Beatrix corrected the girls, as per daily custom.
“Alma,” she began, “polite discourse should not be a race to the finish line. You may find it both beneficial and civilized, on rare occasions, to permit your victim to actually finish a thought. Your worth as a hostess consists in displaying the talents of your guests, not crowing about your own.”
Alma began to protest, “But—”
Beatrix cut her off, and continued, “Moreover, it is not necessary to overlaugh at jests, once they have done their duty and caused amusement. I find lately that you are carrying on with laughter altogether too long. I never met a truly honorable woman who honked like a goose.”
Then Beatrix turned to Prudence.
“As for you, Prudence, while I admire that you do not engage in idle and irritating chatter, it is another thing altogether to retreat from conversation entirely. Visitors will think you are a dunce, which you are not. It would be an unfortunate stamp of discredit upon this family if people believed that only one of my daughters had the capacity to speak. Shyness, as I have told you many times, is simply another species of vanity. Banish it.”
“My apologies, Mother,” Prudence said. “I felt unwell this evening.”
“I believe that you think you felt unwell this evening. But I saw you with a book of light verse in your hands just before dinner, idling away quite happily as you read. Anyone who can read a book of light verse just before dinner cannot be that unwell a mere hour later.”
“My apologies, Mother,” Prudence repeated.
“I also wish to speak to you, Prudence, about Mr. Edward Porter’s behavior this evening at the dinner table. You should not have let that man stare at you for quite so long as you did. Engrossment of this sort is demeaning to all. You must learn how to abort this sort of behavior in men by speaking to them with intelligence and firmness about serious topics. Perhaps Mr. Porter might have awoken from his infatuated stupor sooner, had you discussed with him the Russian Campaign, for instance. It is not sufficient to be merely good, Prudence; 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.”
Life 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, the girls 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!”