Alma felt that it would be immoral of her to say nothing of reassurance or allegiance to this broken little creature. How could Alma let Retta believe she was the only wicked girl in the world? But George Hawkes was right there, walking only a few feet in front of them, and surely he could hear all. So Alma did not console, nor did she offer commiseration. All she said was this: “Once you settle into your new home here, my dear little Retta, you will be able to walk in these gardens every day. Then you will be at peace.”
On the carriage ride home from Trenton, Alma and George were mostly silent.
“She will be well taken care of,” Alma said at last. “Dr. Griffon assured me of it himself.”
“We are each of us born into trouble,” George said, by means of reply. “It is a sad fate to come into this world at all.”
“That may be true,” Alma replied carefully, surprised at the vehemence of his words. “Yet we must find the patience and resignation to endure our challenges as they arise to meet us.”
“Yes. So we are taught,” George said. “Do you know, Alma, there were times when I wished Retta would find relief in death, rather than suffer this continued torment, or bring such torment to myself and to others?”
She could not imagine what to say in response. He stared at her, his face twisted by darkness and agony. After a few moments, she stumbled forth with this statement: “Where there is life, George, there is still hope. Death is so terribly final. It will come soon enough to us all. I would hesitate to wish it hastened upon anyone.”
George shut his eyes and did not answer. This did not seem to have been a reassuring response.
“I will make a practice of coming to Trenton to visit Retta once a month,” Alma said, in a lighter tone. “If you wish, you may join me. I will take her copies of Joy’s Lady’s Book. She will like that.”
For the next two hours, George did not speak. For a while, it appeared that he was falling in and out of sleep. As they neared Philadelphia, though, he opened his eyes. He looked as unhappy as anyone Alma had ever seen. Alma, her heart going out to the man, elected to change the subject. A few weeks earlier, George had lent Alma a new book, just published out of London, on the subject of salamanders. Perhaps a mention of this would lift his spirits. So she thanked him now for the loan, and spoke of the book in some detail as the carriage moved slowly toward the city, concluding at last, “In general, I found it to be a volume of considerable thought and accurate analysis, though it was abominably written and terribly arranged—so I do have to ask you, George, do these people in England not have editors?”
George looked up from his feet and said, quite abruptly, “Your sister’s husband has made some trouble for himself of late.”
Clearly, he had not heard a word she’d spoken. Furthermore, the change of subject surprised Alma. George was not a gossip, and it struck her as odd that he would refer to Prudence’s husband at all. Perhaps, she supposed, he was so distraught by the day’s events that he was not quite himself. She did not wish to make him feel uncomfortable, however, so she took up the conversation, as though she and George always discussed such matters.
“What has he done?” she asked.
“Arthur Dixon has published a reckless pamphlet,” George explained wearily, “to which he was foolish enough to append his own name, expressing his opinion that the government of the United States of America is a beastly bit of moral fraudulence on account of its ongoing affiliation with human slavery.”
There was nothing shocking in this news. Prudence and Arthur Dixon had been committed abolitionists for many years. They were well known across Philadelphia for antislavery views that leaned toward the radical. Prudence, in her spare hours, taught reading to free blacks at a local Quaker school. She also cared for children at the Colored Orphans’ Asylum, and often spoke at meetings of women’s abolition societies. Arthur Dixon produced pamphlets frequently—even incessantly—and had served on the editorial board of the Liberator. To be frank about it, many people in Philadelphia had grown rather weary of the Dixons, with their pamphlets and articles and speeches. (“For a man who fancies himself an agitator,” Henry always said of his son-in-law, “Arthur Dixon is an awful bore.”)
“But what of it?” Alma asked George Hawkes. “We all know that my sister and her husband are active in such causes.”
“Professor Dixon has gone further this time, Alma. He not only wishes for slavery to be abolished immediately, but he is also of the opinion we should neither pay taxes nor respect American law until that unlikely event occurs. He encourages us to take to the streets with flaming torches and the like, demanding the instant liberation of all black men.”
“Arthur Dixon?” Alma could not help herself from saying the full name of her dull old tutor. “Flaming torches? That doesn’t sound like him.”
“You may read it yourself and see. Everyone has been speaking of it. They say he is fortunate to still hold his position at the university. Your sister, it seems, has spoken in agreement with him.”
Alma contemplated this news. “That is a bit alarming,” she agreed at last.
“We are each of us born to trouble,” George repeated, rubbing his hand over his face in exhaustion.
“Yet we must find the patience and resignation—” Alma began again lamely, but George cut her off.
“Your poor sister,” he said. “And with young children in her house, besides. Please let me know, Alma, if there is anything I can ever do to help your family. You have always been so kind to us.”
Chapter Thirteen
Her poor sister?
Well, perhaps . . . but Alma wasn’t certain.
Prudence Whittaker Dixon was a difficult woman to pity, and she had remained, over the years, a thoroughly impossible woman to comprehend. Alma pondered these facts the next day, as she examined her moss colonies back at White Acre.
Such a riddle was the Dixon household! Here was another marriage that seemed not at all happy. Prudence and her old tutor had been married now for more than twenty-five years, and had produced six children, yet Alma had never witnessed a single sign of affection, pleasure, or rapport pass between the couple. She had never heard either of them laugh. She had scarcely ever seen them smile. Nor had she ever seen a flash of anger directed by one toward the other. She had never seen emotion of any variety pass between them, in fact. What sort of marriage was this, where people march through the years in diligent dullness?
But there had always been questions surrounding her sister’s married life—beginning with the burning mystery that had consumed all of Philadelphia’s gossips so many years long ago, when Arthur and Prudence had first wed: What happened to the dowry? Henry Whittaker had blessed his adopted daughter with a tremendous sum of money upon the occasion of her marriage, but there was no sign that a penny of it was ever spent. Arthur and Prudence Dixon lived like paupers on his small university salary. They did not even own their home. Why, they barely heated their home! Arthur did not approve of luxuries, so he kept his household as cold and bloodless as his own dry self. He governed his family through a model of abstinence, modesty, scholarship, and prayer, and Prudence had fallen into obedience with it. From the very first day of her career as a wife, Prudence had renounced all finery, and had taken to dressing nearly like a Quaker: flannel and wool and dark colors, and with the most homely imaginable poke bonnets. She did not adorn herself with so much as a trinket or a watch chain, nor would she wear even a speck of lace.