The Sensorium of God

by Stuart Clark

  ‘You wouldn’t . . .’ Newton croaked. There was only silence. He couldn’t see properly. Was Fatio gone? In his place were the foul creatures of his visions. They crept closer, hissing and spitting, beaks open, claws raised. Newton pressed his hands into his eyes, but still he saw them approach.

  He screamed out and the darkness took him.

  Part III

  Force

  34

  Cripplegate

  1703

  Halley never understood why his first few days back on dry land were accompanied by the feeling of the waves still rolling beneath him, as if his body could not bear to be separated from the ocean. He had stepped ashore in Deptford a few hours ago, and although he was now crossing the flat grass of Cripplegate meadow, his mind insisted on telling him he was fighting the swell of the Channel. His occasionally misplaced feet and his sway must have given the impression he had been drinking. One stumble almost dislodged the unfamiliar object he was wearing on his head. With a hasty look up to see whether the men scything the long grass ahead had noticed him, he straightened the periwig and continued.

  He had bought it an hour ago from a shop near the docks.

  ‘Have you given any thought to style, sir?’ asked the shopkeeper with exaggerated politeness.

  ‘What about that one?’ Halley pointed to a sumptuous creation hanging from its stand like a pelt.

  The shopkeeper pulled a face. ‘One must be careful to wear an appropriate wig, sir, or one risks being accused of aggrandisement.’

  Halley was about to protest at the man’s impertinence when he caught a glimpse of himself in the shop’s mirror. Roughly shaven, with cheeks ruddy from the wind, the Atlantic salt and the sun, he did not look like a gentleman. His eyes were creased and his thinning hair was knotted into the nape of his neck with a dirty black ribbon.

  Nevertheless, Halley spared no effort in explaining his station.

  ‘I do beg your pardon, sir. It is just that you sounded like . . . well, like . . .’ The shopkeeper closed his eyes. ‘ . . . a sailor.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  Halley left the shop soon afterwards with the wig in question and headed for the barber.

  Now his breath quickened as he left the meadow and rounded the street corner. Before he reached the front door, which he noticed was glossy from a new coating of black paint, William had opened it.

  ‘I saw you coming. Welcome home, sir,’ he said with a broad smile.

  No longer the boot-boy, William was the manservant of the house. His face had matured, but his eyes still burned with the same willingness to please.

  Halley beamed at him but was immediately distracted by three figures rushing into the hallway. Mary ran into his arms. He stroked her hair, tracing the new strands of white. After a few moments he loosened his grip, but did not let her go.

  She reached up and touched his new wig.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he said uncertainly, easing back to look into her eyes.

  ‘It’s curlier than your own,’ she said, slipping her fingers into the ringlets.

  The other two figures stepped closer.

  ‘Margaret! Katherine!’ exclaimed Halley. ‘My two daughters are grown more beautiful than I could have imagined.’

  That was rather flattering in Margaret’s case. She bobbed at the knees. ‘Father.’

  ‘Why so serious? Are you not glad to see me returned?’ Halley teased.

  ‘Of course I’m pleased.’ Her face remained impassive.

  Katherine smiled for both of them. Almost a mirror-image of her mother in looks, she squeezed herself into Halley’s free shoulder. ‘We have so much to tell you, Father.’

  How can my younger daughter be fifteen already? Halley thought with a touch of panic.

  There was a clatter of footsteps from the landing.

  ‘Careful,’ warned Mary as her son barrelled down the stairs.

  ‘Step lively there, sailor,’ said Halley, disentangling himself from the women.

  ‘Did you meet any cannibals?’ The twelve-year-old jumped from three stairs up, jacket flaring like a bat’s wings. Halley lurched backwards as he caught his namesake. There was a collective gasp and Halley felt a cool breeze on his shaven scalp.

  Mary was staring at his head. ‘I thought you would wear it like a hat, with your hair underneath.’

  Katherine was making a poor job of stifling her giggles; even Margaret looked as if she were smirking.

  Halley ran a hand over his shaven pate. ‘Gentlemen wear it like this to prevent itching.’

  ‘Put it on again, Edmond, quickly,’ said his wife.

  Halley retrieved the wig from where it lay on the floor and flipped it back on to his head. ‘William, keep a watch out for my possessions. They’re being delivered from the docks.’

  ‘Certainly, sir. Shall I bring coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please – and some brandy. I think we all need something to steady our nerves.’

  Halley crossed the dark landing that night and gingerly entered the master bedroom. Now that the time had come for him to be alone with Mary, he was feeling jittery. All evening she had been quiet, even when Katherine had been making the rest of them laugh with her tales of who was making eyes at whom in church.

  When Halley told his tales of storms and dangers, Mary had stared at the rugs or the backs of her hands. At times she had looked at him quizzically, perhaps even sadly, and it had unnerved him.

  She must think me grown so ugly. He knew that this voyage had taken its physical toll on him; he had seen that in the wigmaker’s mirror – face rounder, jawline flabbier, brow more wrinkled. Yet inside he felt the same as ever; at least, he thought he did.

  Mary was sitting at the dressing table, combing her hair by the light of a rush-lamp.

  ‘Katherine looks so like you,’ he said from the shadows.

  ‘Flatterer. She’s young and pretty. Look at the wrinkles around my mouth and eyes.’ Mary leaned towards the looking-glass to examine herself.

  ‘Then my eyesight must be failing me, for I see only the beautiful woman I married. I think I must look like a stranger – an old, unattractive stranger, at that.’

  She twisted in her seat. ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I still love you the same as ever before.’

  ‘Edmond,’ she said, ‘I need to tell you about Robert.’

  A cold weight settled upon him. He could see from her expression what she meant.

  ‘When?’ he finally managed to stammer.

  ‘Back in March.’

  More than six months ago . . .

  ‘I didn’t know how to tell you earlier. You were so happy with the children.’

  Halley felt suddenly ridiculous without his hair. He slumped on the bed, his elbows resting on his knees. His stomach had become a great hollow, as if something had been torn from him.

  ‘He’d always pretend not to be interested in my expeditions, yet we always ended up talking about them. Where was he buried?’

  ‘St Helen’s on Bishopsgate. I took the children to the funeral.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The thought briefly entered his head that he used to return home aflame for Mary, but tonight he just wanted to feel her living warmth.

  The overcast sky matched the colour of Hooke’s tombstone. It was made of a gritty, rough material, prone to crumbling, and Halley fancied it would not last many English winters. As for St Helen’s itself, the rattle of carts on the nearby street and the ever-present echo of the city crowded in on it, making it an unlikely place to rest in peace. At least you’re close to Gresham, thought Halley, crouching down to brush away a spider. He rested his fingers on the engraving.

  Died 3rd March 1703

  Halley had been in the warmth of the lower latitudes, somewhere off the Dalmatian coast, taking his magnetic readings and calculating longitudes, watching the Moon melt into the shimmering Adriatic water. And, under the guise of his natural investigations, he had been scouting the coastline a
t Winslow’s behest, looking for German fortifications that could prove useful if troops were ever needed to assault the Papal States. He had not spared a single thought for Hooke or any of the others in the Society.

  Are you waiting somewhere, Robert, wondered Halley, with Grace?

  The cold of the headstone spoke for itself. Halley felt the old doubts rising.

  Last night, after the memories of Hooke had assaulted him – the scuttling between coffee-shops, the lugging around of byzantine mechanical contraptions that only Hooke could operate properly, the peevish comments that could be laughed over later – he had watched Mary sleeping beside him. The temporary nature of their lives struck him more forcefully than ever before, and he wondered what he would do if ever Mary were not waiting at home for him.

  Footsteps approached.

  ‘Mary said I’d find you here. Welcome back.’ Christopher Wren indicated Hooke’s grave. ‘When did you hear?’

  ‘Mary told me last night.’

  ‘I came round this morning to tell you myself.’

  Halley placed his hand on the headstone again. ‘He always wanted to die in the spring. Was anyone with him?’

  Wren shook his head. ‘He sent for Knox, but he arrived too late. Edmond, we’ve lost others too; Sam’s gone.’

  ‘Pepys?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Back in May . . . and Wallis from Oxford.’

  Halley looked up into the heavy grey sky.

  ‘It does mean that Wallis has left the Savilian Chair open,’ said Wren.

  ‘The Society will not be the same without them, especially Robert.’

  ‘I’m afraid the Society has not been flourishing this past summer. The physicians have rather taken over, and each meeting is a debate about one grotesque physiology or another. Believe it or not, they discussed the medicinal benefits of cow piss last week. Did you know that if you drink a pint of the stuff, it’s sufficient to make you vomit?’

  ‘They actually debated that?’

  ‘And the best time of day to smell flowers.’

  Halley looked at the grave. ‘Oh Robert, what would you have made of that?’

  ‘We cannot let the Society die,’ said Wren.

  ‘Is there a plan?’

  Wren turned from the grave and Halley followed. They started down the tree-lined path to the street. ‘There are a number of us who wonder whether Newton could be persuaded into the President’s chair.’

  Halley searched Wren’s face. ‘Is he fully recovered?’

  ‘Oh yes, leaving Cambridge was the best decision he ever made. Well, that and accepting the job at the Mint. His work there has turned him into a public figure. He’s become something of a royal favourite, and I’m told there’s talk of a knighthood. So, yes, I’d say he appears himself again, if not more confident than ever, but he’s a rare visitor to the Society. Rumour has it that he’s finally preparing to publish his book on colour. Why do you look sceptical? You think Newton is a bad choice?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s just that I haven’t only been at sea all the time I’ve been away. On my way home I visited Hanover and met Leibniz. There’s trouble brewing – big trouble between him and Mr Newton.’

  ‘Tell me more.’

  Halley began his story, careful to imply that he had made an innocent jaunt to see Leibniz. In reality he had been working under orders from the Queen to brief her brother, George Ludwig, about the Adriatic reconnoitre.

  He had waited with Winslow in a claustrophobic corridor, unable to shake the feeling that he was committing some monstrous treachery by telling a foreign duke about English espionage.

  ‘Just tell him what we’ve discussed and nothing more,’ Winslow had said impatiently, irked by Halley’s fretting. ‘One day, and probably soon, he’ll be the King of England. That’s why we’ve got to start preparing him.’

  Halley clasped his hands together. ‘It feels uncomfortable.’

  ‘I don’t like it any more than you do.’ The spymaster jerked a thumb at the dark wooden door, ‘He’s hardly kingly material; he doesn’t even speak English. There are more than fifty others who have a better claim to the throne than he does, but do you know what George Ludwig has going for him? He’s a Protestant, and all the others are Catholics.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘And that far down the succession, he’ll do anything Parliament asks. So everyone’s happy.’

  The smile vanished as the door opened. The pair walked in to see a small gathering of finely-dressed men seated around a heavy table. They were silent and expectant, illuminated only by a watery light trickling in from the small leaded windows. Halley guessed from the curve of the far wall that they were in one of the turrets he had seen from the carriage.

  The English heir sat at the head of the table. He gestured for Halley to begin.

  During the report George bobbed his head as if understanding what his translator was saying, but he looked increasingly nonplussed about what to do with the privileged information. His advisers behaved the same way, nodding with fake sagacity. Halley had seen more convincing puppetry.

  The Duke said something official-sounding when Halley concluded his account.

  ‘How do you like it here in Hanover?’ inquired the translator with a wan smile.

  Halley chose his words carefully. ‘It’s quite the most serene city I’ve ever visited. I fear you will find London raucous by comparison.’

  The Duke flashed a lopsided smile, throwing an aside to his advisers. The men laughed loudly.

  ‘A chance I’m willing to take. Thanks be to God,’ came the translation.

  They behaved like men who still could not believe their luck: from a dukedom in this backwater of Saxony, to the monarchy of England on the invitation of Parliament.

  ‘If there is nothing more you require, your Grace, I should like to visit your esteemed librarian,’ said Halley.

  The Duke’s face darkened. ‘Leibniz?’

  Halley nodded.

  ‘If you must,’ said the translator evenly. ‘Tell him to hurry up with my family history. He’s been working on it for over a decade. Now I’m to be King of England I need it more than ever.’

  Halley omitted to recount any of this to Wren, but told him all about his subsequent meeting with Leibniz. His first thought had been that the ducal library could do with being moved to a larger room. The carved and gilded bookcases were over-full, and piles of books buttressed the straining shelves.

  Leibniz was perched on the settle in the largest of the bay windows, rocking one leg back and forth. It was adorned with a wedge-shaped shoe and a showy garter tied just below a swollen knee. He was older than Halley had been expecting, plump in the face with dark eyes which were almost lost in small pillows of flesh. His whole attention was focused elsewhere.

  There was another person in the recess. The woman mirrored Leibniz’s pose and had a figure so shapely it must surely have been turned by a master craftsman on a lathe. Halley drew himself more upright.

  ‘Mr Halley, I am humbled by your presence.’ Leibniz’s words caught him off guard. ‘Allow me to introduce Lady Caroline of Ansbach, soon to be the Duke’s daughter-in-law.’

  Halley welcomed the opportunity to bow low and collect himself. ‘I’m charmed to meet you, Lady Caroline.’

  When he looked up again her lips were not answering his smile. Her eyes were as unwavering as the steel grey of her silk dress and transmitted a rather forbidding, critical intelligence.

  Unnerved by her appraisal, Halley spoke quickly. ‘You must relish your conversations with Mr Leibniz, your ladyship.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to converse with Europe’s leading mathematician?’

  Halley raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You flatter me too much,’ said Leibniz. ‘I’m sure Mr Halley knows full well that Mr Newton is also a highly skilled mathematician.’

  ‘Nonsense. If Mr Newton cannot bring himself to publish his new mathematics, then how confident of his work can he truly be?’ Caroline rose gracefully from her
perch. ‘Perhaps I should leave you two to talk.’

  Leibniz extended an appropriately deferential invitation for her to stay, allowing her to refuse politely and leave with decorum.

  ‘Mr Halley,’ she said with frosty politeness as she left.

  ‘I hope I have not caused Her Ladyship any offence,’ said Halley, conscious that if she were marrying the Duke’s son, she would one day be England’s Queen Consort.

  ‘Think nothing of it. She’s young and looks up to me. All European mathematicians now use my notation for the calculus; she admires that.’

  ‘But Newton was first in its derivation, was he not?’

  Leibniz’s brow knotted. ‘I admit that Mr Newton had the first inklings before me – I saw that from the papers he lodged at the Royal Society – but then I developed an independent system, and Monsieur Bernoulli simplified it. That is the way of things. One man takes an initial step, then another carries it forwards, and so on. Mr Newton, for all his skill, cannot lay sole claim to the calculus.’

  ‘You saw Newton’s papers?’ Halley asked incredulously.

  ‘A few preliminary papers only, back in ‘72 when I visited London. Your secretary, what was his name? Big man, round face . . .’ The German snapped his fingers. ‘Collins, that was it. He showed them to me.’

  ‘Does Newton know?’

  Leibniz shrugged. ‘They were but preliminary pieces, jottings on power series as I recall, but enough to show me that he was thinking in the same direction. You know, I do envy you all in London, coming together every week for discussions. If it weren’t for my talks with Lady Caroline, I think I should wither away. She has a keen mind.’

  ‘The Society can be quite rough-and-tumble,’ said Halley, still trying to digest the fact that Leibniz had seen Newton’s supposedly confidential papers.

  ‘Better that than a vacuum. I have to beg our ambassador in London to send me the Society journal.’ He took a breath. ‘I once tried to inaugurate a philosophical society here. I designed windmills to drive pumps that would drain the silver mines, and I proposed that the increased wealth thus created should be used to found something in Hanover. No one was interested, in either the windmills or the society. What can one do?’