“I see,” said Prudence, after a long pause.
“Did Retta ever know that I . . .” Here Alma hesitated and nearly started weeping. “Did Retta ever know that I had feelings for him?”
“How could I possibly answer that?” Prudence replied.
“Did she learn it from you?” Alma’s voice was insistent and ragged. “Had you ever told her? You were the only one who could have told her that I loved George.”
Now the white line around her sister’s lips reappeared, for a slightly longer time. There was no mistaking it. This was anger.
“I would hope, Alma,” said Prudence, “that you would better know my character after so many years. Would anybody who came to me for gossip ever go home satisfied?”
“Did Retta ever come to you for gossip?”
“It matters little whether she did or did not, Alma. Have you ever known me to disclose someone’s secrets?”
“Stop answering me in riddles!” Alma shouted. Then she lowered her voice: “Did you or did you not ever tell Retta Snow that I loved George Hawkes?”
Alma saw a shadow pass across the door, waver, and then vanish. All she caught was the glimpse of an apron. Somebody—a maid—was about to enter the drawing room, but had evidently changed her mind and ducked out instead. Why was there never any privacy in this house? Prudence had seen the shadow, too, and she did not like it. She stood up now and stepped forward to face Alma directly—indeed, almost threateningly. The sisters could not regard one another eye-to-eye, for their heights were so different, but Prudence somehow managed to stare down Alma, nonetheless, even from one foot below her.
“No,” Prudence said. “I have told nothing to anyone, and never shall. What’s more, your insinuations insult me, and are unfair to both Retta Snow and Mr. Hawkes, whose business—I should dearly hope—is their own. Worst of all, your inquiry degrades you. I am sorry for your disappointment, but we owe our friends our joy and best wishes at their good fortune.”
Alma started to speak again, but Prudence cut her off. “You’d best regain mastery of yourself before you continue speaking, Alma,” she warned, “or you shall regret whatever it is you are about to reveal.”
Well, that was beyond debate. Alma already did regret what she had revealed. She wished that she had never begun this conversation. But it was too late for that. The next best thing would have been to end it right now. This would have been a marvelous opportunity for Alma to stop her mouth. Horribly, though, she could not control herself.
“I only wanted to know if Retta had betrayed me,” Alma blurted forth.
“Did you?” Prudence asked evenly. “So is it your supposition that your friend and mine, Miss Retta Snow—the most guileless creature I have ever encountered—willfully stole George Hawkes from you? To what purpose, Alma? For her own sporting satisfaction? And while you are on this line of questioning, do you also believe that I betrayed you? Do you believe that I told Retta your secret, in order to make a mockery of you? Do you believe that I encouraged Retta to pursue Mr. Hawkes, as some sort of wicked game? Do you believe I have some wish to see you punished?”
Sweet mercy, but Prudence could be relentless. Had she been a man, she would have made a formidable lawyer. Alma had never felt so dreadful or appeared so petty. She sat down on the nearest chair and stared at the floor. But Prudence followed Alma to the chair, stood over her, and kept speaking. “In the meanwhile, Alma, I have news of my own to report, which I shall tell you now, for it pertains to a similar concern. I had intended to wait until our family was out of mourning to address this subject, but I see that you have decided that our family is out of mourning already.”
Here, Prudence touched Alma’s upper right arm—bare of its black crepe band—and Alma nearly flinched.
“I, too, am to wed,” Prudence announced, without a trace of triumph or delight. “Mr. Arthur Dixon has asked for my hand, and I have accepted.”
Alma’s head, for just one moment, emptied: Who in the name of God was Arthur Dixon? Mercifully, she did not speak this question aloud, for in the very next instant, of course, she remembered who he was, and felt absurd for having ever wondered. Arthur Dixon: their tutor. That unhappy and stooped man, who had somehow drummed French into Prudence’s head, and who had joylessly helped Alma to master her Greek. That sad creature of damp sighs and sorrowful coughs. That little tedium of a figure, whose face Alma had not thought about since quite literally the last time she had seen it, which had been—when? Four years ago? When he’d finally left White Acre to become Professor of Ancient Languages at the University of Pennsylvania? No, Alma realized with a start, this was incorrect. She had seen Arthur Dixon only recently, at her mother’s funeral. She had even spoken to him. He had offered up his kind condolences, and she had wondered what he was doing there.
Well, now she knew. He was there to court his former student, apparently, who also happened to be the most beautiful young woman in Philadelphia, and, it must be said, potentially one of the richest.
“When did this engagement occur?” Alma asked.
“Just before our mother died.”
“How?”
“In the customary fashion,” Prudence replied coolly.
“Did all this occur at the same time?” Alma demanded. The idea sickened her. “Did you become engaged to Mr. Dixon at the same time as Retta Snow became engaged to George Hawkes?”
“I have no knowledge of other people’s affairs,” Prudence said. But then she softened just a trace, and conceded, “But it would appear so—or, close to so. My engagement seems to have occurred a few days earlier. Though it matters not at all.”
“Does Father know?”
“He will know soon enough. Arthur was waiting until our mourning had passed, to make his suit.”
“But what on earth is Arthur Dixon going to say to Father, Prudence? The man is terrified of Father. I cannot conceive of it. How will Arthur manage to get through the conversation, without fainting dead away? And what will you do for the rest of your life—married to a scholar?”
Prudence drew herself up taller and smoothed her skirts. “I wonder if you realize, Alma, that the more traditional response to the announcement of an engagement is to wish the bride-to-be many years of health and happiness—particularly if the bride-to-be is your sister.”
“Oh, Prudence, I apologize—” Alma began, ashamed of herself for the dozenth time that day.
“Think nothing of it,” Prudence said, and turned toward the door. “I had not expected anything different.”
In all of our lives, there are days that we wish we could see expunged from the record of our very existence. Perhaps we long for that erasure because a particular day brought us such splintering sorrow that we can scarcely bear to think of it ever again. Or we might wish to blot out an episode forever because we behaved so poorly on that day—we were mortifyingly selfish, or foolish to an extraordinary degree. Or perhaps we injured another person and wish to disremember our guilt. Tragically, there are some days in a lifetime when all three of those things happen at once—when we are heartbroken and foolish and unforgivably injurious to others, all at the same time. For Alma, that day was January 10, 1821. She would have done anything in her power to strike that entire day from the chronicle of her life.
She could never forgive herself that her initial response to the happy news from both her dear friend and her poor sister had been a mean show of jealousy, thoughtlessness, and (in the case of Retta, at least) physical violence. What had Beatrix always taught them? Nothing is so essential as dignity, girls, and time will reveal who has it. As far as Alma was concerned, on January 10, 1821, she had revealed herself as a young woman devoid of dignity.