by John Darnton
Today at noon I accompanied Papa along the Sandwalk. It had been a while since we took this tour together. As always, we walked through the garden to the back of our property, turned left through the wooden door in the high hedge and then began to traverse the path. For some reason I was in a most nostalgic mood and began thinking back upon the distant past. Perhaps there was something in the play of sunlight that prompted my thoughts.
The path was just as I remembered from my childhood. The first part traced the edge of the wood in sunlight, overlooking the valley. The meadow was already astir for the season, alive with a host of bluebells and ox-eye daisies. At the far end we came to the lonely summer-house where we used to play for hours on end, an imaginary kingdom where we were transformed into valiant princes and beautiful damsels. I could just make out our faint chalk drawings of dragoons. Then Papa and I turned and followed the loop back, only now we were walking under the thick canopy of trees, dark as a tunnel, which used to frighten us so. I remembered being here sometimes in the late evening when pending nightfall changed the familiar shapes of trees into monsters—the Hollow Ash turning into an ogre, the Elephant-Tree with its gnarled growth in the trunk becoming a grotesque giant. I used to run past it, my heart pounding in my chest, giving it a wide berth so that its branches could not reach out to grab my hair.
Papa and I completed the loop and decided to do a second. My memories carried on in a parade of their own choosing. I remembered the mewling of the new-born lambs in the spring and the sound of the scythes being whetted for the mowing in August. I recalled carrying cherry-boughs from house to house to collect pennies for the May Pole and hiding in the hay-carts during the harvest. I remembered the hollow thwack of croquet balls colliding on the lawn and the sizzle of potatoes roasting in the embers of an open Gypsy fire.
One time Papa took me to an exhibition hall on Regent Street, where I observed a diving-bell and obtained my weight in a new machine. I watched a man blowing glass. He gave me a perfect crystalline horse, and when it broke its leg during the carriage-ride home, I burst out crying. Papa took me in his arms and tried, unsuccessfully, to console me. I recalled going with Papa to the Daguerreotype studio, outfitted in a white dress with a lace collar and a black velvet hair-band that pinched my head, and being taken to the roof and trying so hard not to make the slightest movement during the time it took to compose a sun-picture. I recalled Mamma reading to us from John Bunyan, how we would gather around the spreading folds of her skirt to hear about Christians fleeing the City of Destruction and reaching the Celestial City where the streets were paved in gold and crowned men strummed golden harps to sing the praises of God.
I remembered playing roundabouts, when I was always the last to be found. And hiding near the billiard-table to eavesdrop on adult conversation.
And walking into little Horace’s room and finding him and Camilla, our German governess, under the blankets, and how she sat up, flustered, and made me promise not to tell anybody. And I remembered kissing the Lubbock boy in the hollow of the walnut-tree. And being sick in bed with Mamma bending over me, the sweet smell of her, and Papa at the foot of the bed, his brow wrinkled in worry.
As we walked I looked over at Papa, who appeared lost in his own thoughts. We passed a tiny mound of flints and I recalled how in earlier times, when he was working on his theory, he used to knock them off with his cane, one for each circuit, to keep track of his progress. But now he has dropped this engaging habit. And as he moved unsteadily along the familiar route through the copse, he suddenly appeared uncommonly old and sad to me, hunched over in such a way that his white beard touched his chest, and his cloak sagged around his shoulders. The clicking of his cane upon the path seemed to me the sound of time itself passing, like the ticking of the grandfather-clock in the hall, counting the days remaining before Death’s harvest.
When we were young, he used to send us searching for beetles. We fanned out across the meadows and the mudbanks whooping like Indian scouts. We ripped up stones and old rotted tree-trunks for insects, and I was always the one who could bring him the greatest treasure. Then he would call me Diana, fleet of foot, lovely of mien, his own special Huntress.
I blush to be telling you this and speaking of myself at such length.
Yours always,
Bessie
CHAPTER 24
Beth finally penetrated the outer defenses of the law firm of Spenser, Jenkins & Hutchinson and reached the inner sanctum: the wood-paneled office of old Alfred P. Jenkins himself. There, having duly produced reams of documents proving her identity, she was at last presented with the package from Lizzie that had remained in the company vault since 1882. It was handed over on two uplifted palms, as if it were a royal treasure.
Now she wanted to share the prize with Hugh—“the final piece of the puzzle,” she told him breathlessly on the phone. “Meet me in one hour at Christ’s College,” she commanded. When he asked why, she chuckled and said: “Every good treasure hunt has to have a good finish line.”
Hugh walked down Hobson Street and turned into the tunneled archway under the pentagonal towers. The green of the circular lawn in the central courtyard was so bright it almost hurt his eyes. A walkway of smooth rocks surrounded it. The ancient walls of the college rose up three stories high on all sides. Each wall had four separate entryways and perfectly proportioned rectangular windows cut into the stone, some with flower boxes cascading with pink and white blossoms.
On one wall was a coat of arms and the epigram Souvent Me Sou-vient. He translated it almost without thinking: “Remember Me Often.”
Under it, appropriately enough, was Beth. She carried a basket. When she saw him, she smiled wickedly and walked over to put her arm on his. “Come with me.”
She led him to the far wall and an entryway marked “G.” The stairwell inside was painted blue. They walked up to the first floor and she pulled out a key, opened a door on the right, and stepped aside to let him enter first.
“Recognize it?” she asked.
“Recognize it? How could I? I’ve never been here.”
“And here I thought you were the Darwin expert.”
“I get it,” he said. “His old rooms.”
He looked around. The place was shabbily elegant, like most of Cambridge’s student accommodations. There was a brick fireplace with a marble mantel, a worn window seat, and mahogany wainscoting nicked with scars. A small teardrop glass chandelier hung between two beams embedded deep in the plaster. The floors were ancient oak, tough as iron. It was odd how the knowledge that Darwin had spent so much time there as a young man transformed the place in Hugh’s eyes.
“Nobody’s here?”
“It’s between terms.”
“How’d you get the key?”
“The porter. He’s been asked so many times he just hands it over.
The tip’s come down, too—now it’s only five quid.”
They sat side by side on a soiled, lumpy couch. She reached into her basket and lifted out a heavy green bottle with a label in the shape of a shield— Dom Pérignon—and two flutes. “That’s for later,” she said. Then she pulled out a small briefcase, unzipped it, and held up a package, which was wrapped in faded brown paper and tied tightly with twine.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t read it?” he said. “You who goes around reading other people’s journals.”
“No, I haven’t. I thought we’d do that together. I just read the letter that was attached to it.”
And with that, she opened a plastic folder and pulled out several pieces of stationery, delicate as moths’ wings. “It’s from Lizzie to her daughter. Now sit back, be quiet, and listen.” She began in slightly theatrical tones but soon turned serious—almost, Hugh thought, as if traces of Lizzie’s imagined voice were melding into her own.
26 April 1882
Down House
Downe, Kent
England
My darling Emma,
I am writing to you as the one who
brought you into this world and the one who, were it not for a calamitous chain of events too sorrowful to recount, would have remained more precious to you than anyone else alive. You were taken from my arms when you were a babe, not yet a full day old, owing to the fact that you were conceived in the recklessness of a passion that would not be denied and born out of wedlock, a circumstance for which I have only myself to blame. For this unhappy state of affairs, and for every consequence that has sprung from it, I beg your forgiveness. I can only pray that, as you are bound to retain in your temperament some trace of my own, you will temper your judgment of my shameful deed with compassion, and that in the fullness of time you will, if not comprehend my actions, at least find it in your heart not to look upon me with abhorrence.
I have no assurance that this letter will reach you. I am sending it through the offices of the Children’s Aid Society, the agency that arranged for your placement. Although I am told that their policy is to not permit contact between children and the mothers who relinquish rights over them—a necessity, it is said, to allow the children to embark upon their new lives unfettered by chains from the past—I entertain the hope that because Mr Charles Loring Brace is an acquaintance of my father’s, an exception may be made in this instance and that my letter will eventually find its way into your hands.
Should the Society decide not to forward it to you, it will remain in the possession of their solicitors, who, I am informed, will then determine what to do with it.
My purpose is to tell you something of your distinguished lineage and to bequeath to you an extraordinary document. You will readily understand its significance when I tell you who wrote it and under what circumstance. I have been unable to decide what to do with it and have alternated between two opposite courses—making it public or destroying it outright, seeing advantages and disadvantages to each. My charge to you, should it reach you, is that you guard it for an extended period. Then, when time has dimmed passions and eroded remembrance of the people concerned, and perhaps with the distance of a young continent and a new age lending wisdom to your deliberation, you may reach a proper decision as to its fate. I am, in short, providing you with both a gift and a heavily laden responsibility.
You come from a distinguished line through my parents, your grandmother and your grandfather, who were first cousins. The Darwins have been doctors and scholars for generations and the Wedgwoods have been prominent manufacturers of china pottery. Your grandfather’s grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, a poet and a philosopher; he was one of the first scholars to embrace the theory of what is today called evolution, though he did so without any understanding of the mechanism by which it may be said to occur. Supplying that critical element fell to your very own grandfather, Charles Darwin, the famed naturalist. As you undoubtedly know, he is credited with the proposition that Nature itself, confronted with a variety of creatures, often bearing infinitesimal differences, works to select those best suited for survival and in so doing shapes the transformation of new species. This idea gained him considerable notoriety, since it contravened the Biblical story of God’s creation of each and every species, which then remain fixed and immutable throughout all eternity. Gradually, as his theory gained in acceptance, due in part to the efforts of a handful of articulate proponents, he assumed a position of worthy respect in English society.
This very day Papa (as I have called him for most of my thirty-four years) was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, which explains my need to write to you. Interment there is no small honour, especially for a free-thinker. (Indeed, a dear friend of mine, Mary Ann Evans, was denied such a privilege only two years ago.) Papa wanted to be buried at St Mary’s, in the village of Downe in Kent, where we live. But his wish was overruled posthumously by a coterie of admirers, including his old champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, who believed that burial in the Abbey was his due and that, not incidentally, it would elevate the status of science. They conducted a campaign in which powerful figures interceded with the Church, and their petition was approved in the Houses of Parliament.
Let me describe today’s ceremony. I hope that your reading of it may lay a foundation of respect for your grandfather that any subsequent revelations will not altogether destroy. You should know that he was widely venerated.
All day yesterday, through a horrible drizzle, four horses drew the hearse from Downe to Westminster, and along the route gentlemen paid their respects by doffing their hats. The coffin was held overnight under an honours guard in the dimly lit Chapel of St Faith and this morning people streamed into the Abbey from all parts. The Queen did not come, nor did Mr Gladstone, but many other notables filled the transepts—judges in their mourning dress, members of Parliament, ambassadors from numerous countries, officials from learned societies and many more. The family was there, all save Mamma, who remained at home, too deep in mourning to attend. I was pleased to see a crowd of common folk, including Parslow, our butler, who packed both sides of the nave and spilled onto the steps outside. At midday, as the bell tolled, the dignitaries passed by the coffin, which was draped in black velvet decorated with a sprig of white blossoms. The choir sang a hymn taken from the Book of Proverbs, which began ‘Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and getteth understanding.’ The service was brief and not overly religious, which Papa would have found befitting. Afterwards the pall-bearers, including Alfred Russel Wallace, the man cited as the co-discoverer of the theory (whom Mr Huxley forgot to invite until the very last moment), carried the coffin to the north-east corner of the nave, where it was buried beneath the monument to Sir Isaac Newton.
I would like to recount the circumstances of your grandfather’s passing, and I beg your indulgence in so doing. It may help you to understand him by creating a fuller portrait. Your grandfather—my papa—had been in decline for some years. Indeed, it is fair to say that his health has been poor for all of his life, ever since he returned from the Beagle, a truth attested to by the voluminous, almost daily records that he kept. His final years passed in the comfort of a daily routine that hardly varied in any detail, though they were not, as you shall learn, free from inner turmoil.
He was dealt a blow eight months ago when his beloved elder brother, Erasmus, passed away. Your grandfather fell into the slough of despond, convinced that he himself was terminally ill. Last month, on 7th March to be exact, he had an attack while walking alone on a favourite path on the outskirts of our property. He barely managed to return to the house and for days he lay upon a sofa. However, a young doctor persuaded him that his heart had not given out and eventually he rallied and even took the air in the spring garden. Your aunt, Henrietta, came and left after a visit of several weeks, and various doctors—four in all—traipsed in and out at various times, each recommending different remedies and providing conflicting prognostications.
On Tuesday last, 18th April, Papa began failing. Just before midnight he was gripped by a pain that seized his heart. He awoke Mamma, who came running from her bedroom to his. She quickly went to fetch the amyl but in a panic became confused and called me for assistance. By the time we found the medicine in his study and returned to his room, he was slumped across the bed, looking close to death. Mamma screamed, which brought the servants.
We managed to give him the capsules and then tried to make him swallow some brandy. Much of it spilled through his beard and trickled down his night-dress but it revived him. His eyes suddenly opened, he retched into a basin, and though trembling violently was finally able to speak. Then he did something I never would have expected from such a confirmed atheist—he pulled Mamma close to him and whispered urgently in her ear, begging her to send for a priest. She leapt up with a willingness that almost rent my heart.
For it turned out that Papa’s plea was in the nature of a ruse, though not a vicious one; he simply wanted to be alone with me for a few moments. He had some important information that he could give to me only.
I should now move my narrative backward and tell you that Papa and I have had
a stormy relationship for a long time—indeed, ever since I was a child. This may have come about from differences in our personalities (which there is little point in exploring here) but also from various facts that I was able to establish with regard to Papa’s work. I uncovered clues that something untoward had happened in the course of the Beagle ’s five-year voyage.
I will not go into them all here; suffice it to say that not long before you were born I came upon proof that he was not, in fact, an estimable thinker of scope and depth, but rather someone of a different moral order. I confronted my father with the evidence in a letter from the very clinic in Zurich where I was forced to abandon you.
My father and I never discussed the matter in all the intervening years, not until the night of his death. Then, once Mamma had been dispatched on her errand and once the servants were sent from the room, he pulled me to him, much as he had her, and in a raspy voice said that although he was not at all a religious man, and not a believer in God, he did have an overbearing need to confess a wrong. There was no-one other than myself to whom he could unburden himself, for I was the only one who knew his secret. But—and at this my blood froze—there was more to be said. He reached up and clutched the edge of my night-dress with a strength that I could scarcely believe.
‘You are aware that for some years now I have been engaged in writing a biography of myself.’ To this I nodded assent, and seeing that he still looked up at me questioningly, I replied loudly, so that he would be sure to hear.
