The Darwin Conspiracy

by John Darnton

  Finally, the Beagle came to the Equator. As might be expected, Charles had heard various tales of the ancient ceremony, replete with schoolboy pranksterism, called “crossing the line.” But none of his shipmates would be specific; quite the contrary, they had delighted in teasing him by keeping their allusions vague yet threatening. Still, he was not prepared on February 16 when he and thirty-two other “griffins”—novices—were confined to the lower deck with the hatchways battened down, leaving their prison dark and stiflingly hot. Charles had caught a glimpse of the forecastle and he was convinced they had all gone mad: FitzRoy, dressed as Father Neptune, complete with toga and trident, presided over a tribe of half-naked, painted men, dancing wildly to flutes and drums.

  The hatchway opened and four of Neptune’s constables descended.

  They made directly for Charles and grabbed him by the shoulders and legs. After stripping him to the waist, they blindfolded him and led him to the upper deck. The air resounded with chants and the boards shook with the thud of pounding feet. Buckets of water were tossed over him, so that he could scarcely breathe. He was led to a plank and forced to stand on it.

  Then his face and mouth were lathered with pitch and paint, and he was “shaved” with a rusty piece of iron hoop. He felt bits of his beard pulled out. Then at a signal—from FitzRoy, no doubt—he felt himself twirled upside down, landing in a sail filled with seawater. There two men dunked him, one of them handling him roughly. He gasped for air, was dunked again, held under for what seemed like minutes, and just as he felt about to drown, was allowed to surface, sprouting from the water like a breaching whale. The initiation was over. It had been one of the most terrifying experiences of his life.

  Charles was tossed a towel and he dried himself. The deck was awash in water, paint, and soapsuds, so slippery he had to grab the rigging. He stayed on to watch the others and thought that most of them were treated even more roughly than he had been, except for the final dunking, which in his case had been far worse. He then noticed that one of the two bullies standing knee-deep in the sail, his forearms glistening with sweat and seawater, was McCormick.

  That night Charles felt he himself had crossed a Rubicon. He knew that the crew accepted him, that he was one of them. They had always admired his marksmanship when he brought down a bird with a single shot and now they laughed good-naturedly whenever he rushed on deck to catch sight of dolphins or some other sea creatures.

  Standing near the bow and feeling the warm breeze in his face, Charles looked up at the sky and spotted the Southern Cross. Abruptly he realized that he had come to a decision without even realizing it. He had decided not to abandon the voyage but to remain on HMS Beagle, come what may. He was in it to the end. There was no place on earth he would rather be than on this ten-gun, ninety-foot vessel crammed with seventy-four souls whose seagoing valor he had come to appreciate and whose fellowship he had come to value—all, that is, save for one.

  CHAPTER 11

  The more Hugh read Lizzie’s journal, the more enigmatic it became.

  Why did Darwin act so strangely? Why did he hightail it away from the dinner table at the mere mention of that famous phrase “survival of the fittest”? And what to make of that conversation between Huxley and Lyell about Alfred Russel Wallace? This last—if true—was especially intriguing because it flew in the face of history: scholars all agreed that Wallace accepted his position as junior author of the theory of evolution with quiet deference, a tugging of the forelock; that he was “content to be moon to Darwin’s sun,” as one writer put it. But this new information suggested the opposite. Wallace seemed to be causing trouble, acting “high-handed” and posing some kind of threat. Lyell and Huxley had ganged up to oppose him. But was it true? A snippet of gossip overheard by a high-strung young woman was hardly a foundation on which to build a radically new analysis of the key people around Darwin.

  That night, Hugh had fallen asleep without finishing the journal.

  He awoke late, jumped in a cab to the station, caught a train to King’s Cross, and took the Underground to South Kensington. He walked to the Cromwell Road, passed through the wrought-iron gate, and strode up the curved walkway toward the Natural History Museum.

  The majestic building with its fine, handcrafted bricks rose before him. He savored the irony: Richard Owen, the brilliant comparative anatomist, was so blinded by ambition that he could not open his eyes to the overpowering truth of what Darwin and Huxley were saying; he became their bitter foe, ridiculing their assertions, which after all could not be empirically tested. As superintendent of the Natural History departments of the British Museum, he drew up plans for this spectacular temple to the glory of science and raised money to see it through; yet his name was engraved nowhere on it. And then in 2002, within the facade arose a new seven-floor annex to house zoology specimens: the Darwin Centre.

  Amazing how Darwin always got the last laugh, Hugh thought.

  Inside the cavernous main hall half a dozen children stared wide-eyed at an animated Tyrannosaurus rex. The central staircase swept upward and spread onto the mezzanine like a fan. Arches picked up conversations and threw them fifty feet across the lobby. From the reception desk Hugh called administration, where a public affairs officer eventually put him in touch with an assistant curator who agreed to see him.

  Her name was Elizabeth Fallows and she greeted Hugh warmly, rising from her desk of piled papers and cat skeletons to pump his hand.

  Her head ducked and bobbed with enthusiasm and her black bangs waved across her forehead. Of course, she was more than happy to show him around. She led the way with an athletic lope, declaiming over her shoulder like a tour guide.

  “It’s called the ‘spirit collection’ because the specimens are preserved in alcohol to kill the bacteria that cause tissue degradation. There are four hundred and fifty thousand jars, including over twenty-five thousand of plankton.”

  They entered an airtight chamber; the door behind them locked and a few seconds later the door in front clicked open. He looked at her quizzically.

  “For temperature control,” she explained. “We keep it at thirteen degrees Celsius, below the flash point of alcohol. That also reduces evaporation. If there’s alcohol spillage, sensors pick it up. There’s nothing like this collection anywhere in the world. It goes back to Captain Cook in 1768—earlier, actually.”

  They entered the storage rooms, rows upon rows of metal cabinets stretching in all directions. She continued the tour.

  “We have twenty-two million specimens on seven floors—the largest such collection in the world. We’re especially proud of our type specimens—they’re the definitional archetypes by which a species is first named and described. We have almost eight hundred and seventy-seven thousand of them. They’re extremely important—during the war they were secretly transported to underground caves in Surrey for safekeeping. Couldn’t let the Jerries bomb them. That’s how essential they are.”

  Hugh nodded to show he was impressed—and he was.

  “The whole point of type specimens is lost on us today,” she went on. “Of course it was rooted in the nineteenth-century mania for classification—God bless all those amateur scientists for trying to make sense of the natural world: you know, a place for everything and everything in its place.

  “But it was also rooted in religion. If the Lord made each and every species, and if they were fixed and never-changing, then it made sense to hunt down the best representative of each one. That was the only means of settling arguments about what belonged where. You found a bird, you opened a drawer, you compared it to the best of the lot, and you knew where you stood. So collectors were actually documenting God’s work. Everything fit neatly. There was no contradiction between science and religion.”

  Her bangs shook with enthusiasm as she talked.

  “Until Darwin came along. He upset the apple cart with his idea that every living organism was part of an ever-growing tree of life, with many branches. That’s why he
called his theory the transmutation of species. He didn’t use the word ‘evolution,’ you know, not until The Descent of Man, in 1871.”

  “And do you have many specimens from Darwin himself?” Hugh asked.

  “Thousands. He sent back everything—not just pickled stuff for the wet collection. We have birds and reptiles and fish and bones, eggs and shells and pollen, everything you can imagine.

  “Here’s one”—she pulled a drawer, which slid open quietly, and held up a bottle labeled in black ink—“a baby parrot fish. They munch coral in their beaks. Darwin theorized that’s what caused sandy beaches.”

  She gave a snort of a laugh. “No one’s right all the time.”

  “And do you have any of his finches?” He thought of using the proper name, Geospizinae—the subfamily for Darwin’s finches, named after him in honor of their pivotal role in leading him to understand dif-ferentiation among species—but refrained. Name-dropping was discouraged among British scientists.

  “Of the thirteen species, twelve are represented here; we have five hundred fifty skins, sixty spirit specimens, and ten skeletons.”

  “They include the ones he himself collected?”

  “Of course. He collected thirty-one specimens, of which twenty-two reached the museum. We retain nineteen.”

  “How are they labeled? I mean, he mixed up all his specimens, didn’t he—took finches from the various islands and put them all in the same bag? Years later he had to implore FitzRoy to show him his finches.”

  “You’ve hit the sore point, haven’t you, you naughty boy.” She was smiling. “In terms of location, our labels simply follow his best guess. I suppose in the long run it was fortuitous.”

  “Why?”

  “It proves that he had no inkling of the theory back then, doesn’t it?

  If he had come upon it while he was in the Galápagos, he would hardly have made such a ridiculous mistake, would he?”

  “I guess not.”

  “So we know that the theory dawned on him after he returned to London, just as he said. It took a year or two. There was no Eureka moment. He returned to our shores in 1836 and he sketched a thirty-five-page outline in 1842.”

  “Why did he take twenty-two years to write the damn thing?”

  “Well, that’s what Americans call the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  He followed her into the control chamber—again they were briefly locked in together.

  “Personally,” she said, “I don’t believe the answer is all that complicated.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Think of it this way: Christianity was around more than eighteen hundred years. It took him two decades to overturn it. A ratio of ninety to one—that’s not so bad.”

  The lock clicked open. She escorted him down to the first floor and the top of the majestic grand staircase leading to the lobby below. They were eye-level with the dinosaurs.

  “Tell me,” said Hugh. “Do you have any specimens from the Beagle marked ‘R.M.’?”

  “We do,” replied Ms. Fallows. “From Robert McCormick. I suppose you’ve heard of him.”

  Hugh had, but only that morning. Two days ago he had found the Beagle’s crew list on the Internet and printed it out; it began with “Ash Gunroom— steward ” and ended with “York Minster— passenger. ” On the train he had scanned it and found the name that matched the initials

  “R.M.”—Robert McCormick, surgeon.

  She continued: “There are just a few dozen. Some were mixed in with Darwin’s and sent along by him after the ship’s return. There aren’t many because of course he abandoned the voyage early on, at Rio, didn’t he?”

  “Did he?”

  “Indeed. Darwin himself wrote that. He even provided a catchy little description: the chap walked off on dockside sporting a parrot on his shoulder. That’s how we know it occurred.”

  “Are the specimens dated?”

  “Yes, of course. McCormick was trained as a scientist, even if he wasn’t a very good one.”

  “And the dates are . . . when?”

  “All from the first few months, up until the ship docked at Rio. Well, they could hardly be after that, could they?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “You suppose not. I should think you’re on safe ground there.”

  Hugh detected a mild reproach. She seemed to think he was doubting the great man’s word.

  “Yes,” he said. “And whatever happened to him?”

  “McCormick? Oh, I’m not sure I know. He undoubtedly continued his voyages and stayed abroad for many years. Then, as I seem to recall, he perished somehow, perhaps in a shipwreck.”

  She seized his hand to say goodbye with the same enthusiasm as when she had met him, her bangs swinging across her forehead.

  “Hardly matters,” she said quietly. “I mean, he was a marginal character in the whole drama—wasn’t he?”

  Hugh got caught up in the traffic jam because of the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and was twenty minutes late meeting Bridget. When he reached the park, threading his way through the crowd, he saw her at the entrance, leaning against an iron railing, her flowerprint dress pinned tight around her thighs. Her hair gleamed in the sun.

  Surprisingly, catching sight of her unawares, he was struck by her beauty. He quickly damped down the thought, not because she was married but because she had once been his brother’s fiancée. When she saw him, she walked over brusquely.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a tense smile.

  “The traffic.”

  “I figured.” Uncharacteristically, she wasn’t making a big deal of it.

  “All the goddamned tourists. Let’s go this way.” She led him along a path that curved left into the lush foliage of the park. He figured she had plotted their walk in advance. The sun had come out.

  “Fine day,” he said.

  “Cut the small talk.” Whatever overlay of English intonation had been there was gone.

  “Okay. It’s a lousy day.”

  “What’s that called anyway, that literary device, the one when nature mirrors your innermost feelings? Wordsworth and all those other dreary poets?”

  “The pathetic fallacy.”

  “That’s it. Well, this is the opposite. Nature is definitely not mirroring my feelings. And I definitely feel pathetic. ”

  “You sounded upset on the phone.”

  “I am, a bit. More than a bit. And the way I look at it, you’re responsible.”

  “Me?”

  “You suddenly appear out of nowhere. You don’t know what you’re doing, where you’re going. You’re still hung up on your brother. It stirs everything up.”

  “What things?”

  “Emotions, dummy. Emotions.”

  He was quiet.

  “If you had answered my letter,” she said, “we might have kept up. We could have dealt with some of this back then and maybe laid it to rest.”

  At the time he had known that that was in the offing. He suddenly realized that was why he hadn’t answered.

  They passed a bank of flowers in full bloom, their blazing colors turned toward the sun. The air was dizzying, with perfumed scents and honeybees. She must have loved Cal deeply, he thought, and that called up a rush of affection and gratitude that reminded him of the first week he met her, in Paris.

  “Maybe you haven’t moved on after all,” he said gently.

  “That’s not the problem. The problem is you haven’t, and if you don’t, then I can’t either.”

  “How come? Christ, I haven’t even seen you for six years. What does my life have to do with yours?”

  “A lot. Don’t forget, we were almost brother and sister.”

  “I know—another three months and you two would have been married.”

  She paused, looking away. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Look, there are certain things you don’t know. There are
a lot of things you don’t know.”

  They came to a crowded bridge over a pond so that they were forced to walk single-file, and his questions were aimed urgently at the back of her shoulder—“Like what? What do you mean?” He caught up and took her elbow in one hand. “Explain what you mean.”

  “Hey, not so hard.”

  “Goddamn it, Bridget. Stop being so fucking mysterious. If you know something, just say it.”

  She shook him off. “That’s the problem. I don’t know anything, I just wonder about things. There’s an awful lot to be explained.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things you have no idea about.”

  They came to a bench; she sat down and he sat facing her. Across from them scum and paper floated on the pond’s edge. A handful of ducks waddled along the rocks, lunging at soggy pieces of bread tossed by a little boy in a sailor’s suit.

  She was quiet for a moment and he waited her out, staring at her.

  “Look,” she said finally. “This is awkward. I don’t know quite where to begin. But you should know that things weren’t so good between Cal and me at the end.” Hearing her pronounce Cal’s name made everything suddenly real.

  “When he went back to the States—I know that you thought he was just on a visit, but it wasn’t clear to me that he was coming back. He didn’t know himself. When we said goodbye, we thought there was a chance we might never see each other again.”

  “But you were going to be married in England. His whole life was here. You mean he was breaking it off?”

  “Not really. But he was acting strangely. He wasn’t himself.”

  “How do you mean? In what way wasn’t he himself?”

  “You always think of him as the older brother, the confident one, the one who knew exactly what he was doing. But he wasn’t always like that. He had devils of his own.”

  “What are you saying? He told you he wasn’t sure about getting married?”

  “No, not exactly. He found it hard to talk about.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “That he was so troubled.”