“But sometimes I fear that my world has become too detailed,” Alma said. “My books on mosses take me years to write, and my conclusions are excruciatingly intricate, not unlike those elaborate Persian miniatures one can study only with a magnifying lens. My work brings me no fame. It brings me no income, either—so you can see I am using my time wisely!”
“But Mr. Hawkes said your books are well-reviewed.”
“Most certainly they are—by the dozen gentlemen on earth who care deeply about bryology.”
“A dozen!” Mr. Pike said. “That many? Remember, madam, you are speaking to a man who has published nothing in his long life, and whose poor parents fear him to be a shameful idler.”
“But your work is superb, sir.”
He waved away the praise. “Do you find dignity in your labors?” he asked.
“I do,” Alma said, after considering the question for the moment. “Though sometimes I wonder why. The majority of the world—especially the suffering poor—would be happy, I think, never to work again. So why do I labor so diligently at a subject about which so few people care? Why am I not content simply to admire mosses, or even draw them, if their designs please me so much? Why must I pick at their secrets, and beg them for answers about the nature of life itself? I am fortunate enough to come from a family of means, as you can see, so there is no necessity for me to work at all in my life. Why am I not happy, then, to idle about, letting my mind grow as loosely as this grass?”
“Because you are interested in creation,” Ambrose Pike replied simply, “and all its wonderful arrangements.”
Alma flushed. “You make it sound grand.”
“It is grand,” he said, just as simply as before.
They sat in silence for a while. Somewhere in the trees beside them, a thrush was singing.
“What a fine private recital!” Mr. Pike said, after a long spell of listening. “It makes one want to applaud him!”
“This is the finest time of year for birdsong at White Acre,” Alma said. “There are mornings when you can sit under a single cherry tree in this meadow, and you will hear every bird in the orchestra, performing for your benefit.”
“I would like to hear that some morning. I dearly missed our American songbirds when I was in the jungle.”
“But there must have been exquisite birds where you were!”
“Yes—exquisite and exotic. But it is not the same. One gets so homesick, you know, for the familiar noises of childhood. There were times when I would hear mourning doves calling out in my dreams. It was so lifelike, it would break my heart. It made me wish never to wake up.”
“Mr. Hawkes tells me you were in the jungle for many years.”
“Eighteen,” he said, smiling almost abashedly.
“In Mexico and Guatemala, mostly?”
“In Mexico and Guatemala entirely. I meant to see more of the world, but I couldn’t seem to leave that region, as I kept discovering new things. You know how it is—one finds an interesting place and begins looking, and then the secrets reveal themselves, one after the other, until one cannot pull away. Also, there were certain orchids I found in Guatemala—the more shy and reclusive epiphytes, particularly—that simply would not do me the courtesy of blooming. I refused to leave until I saw them in bloom. I became quite stubborn about it. But they were stubborn, too. Some of them made me wait for five or six years before allowing me a glimpse.”
“Why did you finally come home, then?”
“Loneliness.”
He had the most extraordinary frankness. Alma marveled at it. She could never imagine admitting such a weakness as loneliness.
“Also,” he said, “I became too ill to continue rough living. I had recurrent fevers. Though they were not entirely unpleasant, I should say. I saw remarkable visions in my fevers, and I heard voices, too. Sometimes it was tempting to follow them.”
“The visions or the voices?”
“Both! But I could not do that to my mother. It would have inflicted too much pain upon her soul, to lose a son in the jungle. She would have wondered forever what became of me. Although she still wonders what became of me, I’ll wager! But at least she knows I am alive.”
“Your family must have missed you, then, all those years.”
“Oh, my poor family. I have disappointed them so, Miss Whittaker. They are so respectable, and I have lived my life in such irregular directions. I feel sympathy for them all, and for my mother in particular. She believes, I suppose rightly, that I have been trodding most egregiously upon the pearls that were cast before me. I left Harvard after only a year, you see. I was said to be promising—whatever that word is meant to convey—but collegiate life did not suit me. By some peculiarity of the nervous system, I simply could not bear to sit in a lecture hall. Also, I never courted the cheerful company of social clubs and gangs of young men. You may not know this, Miss Whittaker, but most of university life is arranged around social clubs and gangs of young men. As my mother has expressed it, all I’ve ever wanted to do is sit in a corner and draw pictures of plants.”
“Thank goodness for that!” Alma said.
“Perhaps. I don’t think my mother would agree, and my father went to his grave angry at my choice of career—if one can call it a career. Mercifully for my long-suffering mother, my younger brother Jacob has come up behind me to set an example as a most dutiful son. He attended university in my footsteps, but, unlike me, he managed to remain there for the expected duration. He studied courageously, earning every honor and laurel as he did so, though I sometimes feared he would injure his mind through such exertions, and now he preaches from the same Framingham pulpit where my father and grandfather once stood before their own congregations. He is a good man, my brother, and he has prospered. He is a credit to the Pike name. The community admires him. I am entirely fond of him. But I do not envy his life.”
“You come from a family of ministers, then?”
“Indeed—and was meant to be one myself.”
“What happened?” Alma asked, rather boldly. “Did you fall away from the Lord?”
“No,” he said. “Quite the opposite. I fell too close to the Lord.”
Alma wanted to ask what he meant by such a curious statement, but she felt that she had pushed overmuch already, and her guest did not elaborate. They rested in silence for a long while, listening to the thrush sing. After a spell, Alma noticed that Mr. Pike had fallen asleep. How suddenly he was gone! Awake one moment and asleep the next! It occurred to her that he must have been utterly exhausted from his long journey—and here she was peppering him with questions, and bothering him with her theories of bryophytes and transmutation.
Quietly, she stood up and crossed to another area of the boulder field, to ponder once more her moss colonies. She felt so pleased and relaxed. How agreeable was this Mr. Pike! She wondered how long he would stay at White Acre. Perhaps she could convince him to remain for the entirety of the summer. What a joy it would be to have this friendly, inquisitive creature about the place. It would be like having a younger brother. She had never before imagined having a younger brother, but now she desperately wanted one, and she wanted him to be Ambrose Pike. She would have to speak to her father about it. Surely they could make a painting studio for him, in one of the old dairy buildings, if he wished to stay.
It was probably half an hour before she noticed Mr. Pike stirring in the grass. She walked back over to him and smiled.
“You fell asleep,” she said.
“No,” he corrected her. “Sleep overtook me.”
Still sprawled in the grass, he stretched out his limbs like a cat, or an infant. He did not seem the least bit uncomfortable about having dozed off in front of Alma, so she did not feel uncomfortable, either.