The Darwin Conspiracy

by John Darnton

  ‘Yes, Papa. I know.’

  At that, he released me, fell back upon the pillow and said, now in an exhausted voice, ‘But you do not know that I have omitted one chapter—

  rather, I have written it but have hidden it away so that no-one may see it. I thought the writing of it would ease my conscience, but this was not to be.’ I stared at him, not knowing what to say. He lay silent for several minutes, looking up at the ceiling, as if he were still undetermined as to what to do.

  Then, with a sigh, he directed me to fetch something from his study. To my surprise, he asked me to find his cosh.

  I did so, and when I returned and held it out to him, he grabbed it from me and clasped it tightly in one hand. Then, with almost a sob, he said that after he died, not before, I should open the chest that he kept locked beneath his desk. He told me that I would find the key to it in the top drawer of his bureau and he watched while I walked across the room, opened the drawer and took out a strong-box key. Confused, I returned to him. He was still clutching the cosh, which I would fain have taken away. Then he said something that I shall always remember. He said: ‘Of them all, only you know me for what I am.’ At that, he closed his eyes and fell into a weakness that again drained his system and turned him pale.

  In some time, Mamma returned with a priest, of whom I said Papa had little need. She ignored me and was surprised to find the cosh there, still in Papa’s hand, but I did not feel the need to explain and left the room without a backward glance. The doctor came at two in the morning and applied mustard-plasters to Papa’s chest, which made him vomit. He was heard to remark ‘If I could but die,’ and began spitting blood. His skin turned grey.

  He was fed spoonfuls of whiskey and alternated between drowsiness and pain throughout the night and the next morning. Then, in the afternoon, he lost consciousness and fell into raspy breathing, finally dying at four o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, 19 April 1882.

  I honoured my promise to Papa—I did not open the chest until after his death, not until today, upon returning from the Abbey. Inside, I found a sealed parcel filled with paper. On the outer wrapping in Papa’s hand was a quotation from a book that he used to read many years ago, Milton’s Paradise Lost. I decided not to open the package—for I have for some time known my father’s secret—and instead am passing the missing chapter of his life on to you with this communication. Do with it what you will; I am confident that you will know how best to dispose of it in years hence.

  You should know, Emma, that not a day passes but that I punish myself for losing you and think of how, had I been wiser or more righteous, my life

  and yours would have turned out differently. Then I would have been able to gather you in my arms, not just for that one passing moment but whenever the wish overtook me. Scarcely a day passes that I do not try to summon up in my imagination an image of what you must be like, in your habits and your looks and your spirit. You are ten now—only this month having passed that mile-stone birthday. In my mind’s eye I see you as robust and healthy, as I was, but infinitely more beautiful.

  I know nothing of your situation—only that you are being raised by a ‘fine family’ somewhere in the American Midwest, a land that I have seen in picture-books and that calls to mind, for me at least, wild Indians on the rampage. This naturally makes me concerned for your safety, but I believe my worry on this score is misplaced. I have developed an insatiable appetite for all manner of information about America. I have even imagined visiting that land someday, but for the idea that I would be consumed with the thought of you and preoccupied in looking for you everywhere, even knowing that such a search was destined to fail.

  You will be mine always in my mind.

  Your loving mother,

  Lizzie

  When Beth finished the letter she put it carefully back inside the plastic envelope, which she sealed for safekeeping, and looked over at Hugh.

  “Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “that’s proof—if ever any was needed—of just how cruel the Victorians could be. They wielded that old sanctimonious Puritan sword with a vengeance, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. These are the people who brought you skirts around piano legs. But tell me—the letter, it stayed in some lawyer’s file all these years?

  Emma never got it?”

  “No, she never got it. And of course her name wasn’t Emma. Her new family named her Filipa. I’ve got the lineage straight now. She was my great-grandmother—a pretty strong woman by all accounts.”

  “Any men along the line?”

  “One. Her son. He was named Benjamin. His daughter was my mother. As you know, she was the first to be told of the Darwin connection.”

  “Which is why she named you Elizabeth?”

  “No, that was pure coincidence. I was born before she got the notification from the lawyers. You want to see something heartbreaking?

  Look at this.”

  She handed the folder to Hugh.

  “Look how she signed it,” she said.

  “Lizzie. But she had been calling herself Bessie for—how long?—almost two decades. What’s that all about?”

  “I don’t know. I’d say she was definitely carrying some heavy psychological baggage. Which is not surprising given her family—a famous father who’s a sham, a mother who dotes only on him, a goody-two-shoes sister who’s the apple of everybody’s eye.”

  “A brother-in-law who seduces her and leaves her in the lurch.”

  “Exactly.”

  Hugh’s eyes fell upon the package. He picked it up and read the quotation, in Darwin’s script, written so long ago that the black ink was flaking. It read:

  Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part; Do thou but thine.

  He weighed it in one palm, his hand moving up and down like a scale. It wasn’t heavy.

  “What do you say?” he asked. “Shall we open it?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Down House

  I have been much affected by the death this month of my elder brother, Erasmus. When I was a youth I looked up to him and made him the model of my behaviour, a course I dearly wish I had continued to pursue, for he was a good man and remained so until the end of his days. He neither married nor raised a family nor achieved recognition from the world commensurate with his abilities and native talents, but he could look back at his life at its close and say that he had lived it honourably. I cannot do the same, alas. For over fifty years I have not been able to travel, to sleep through the night, to spend one week in full health. For the truth of the matter is that the greater part of my life has rested on the twin pillars of cowardice and deceit. They are the Scylla and Charybdis through which I have sailed these many years on a voyage of fame and fortune. I have gained all this and more—I am consulted by wise men the world over who take my word as gospel—but I have not achieved peace of mind. For despite the world’s opinion, and despite the honours that have accrued to me, all has been undeserved. I am a rogue and blackguard and worse. My life has turned to dross. Were I a believer in Heaven and Hell, I know that, like Lucifer, I would spend my eternity in the darker place.

  I do not wish to dwell on the particulars of my shame and so I will make my narrative short. Among my shipmates on the Beagle was a certain Robert McCormick, the ship’s surgeon, who from the commencement of the voyage had been vying with me over the collection of specimens. At one point we struck upon the theory of natural selection and transmutation of species. In one magnificent stroke, the theory made sense of the natural world in all its splendid variety and explained the existence of disparate species without recourse to a belief in a Supreme Being. I realised that Mr McCormick had grasped the essentials of the theory and I knew that whoever first presented that theory to the civilised world would achieve lasting scientific renown.

  I suppressed my feelings about Mr McCormick, however, and did not intend to harm him, this despite several indications that he was not above placing my life in jeopardy. To cite but one episode, in th
e Galápagos he enticed me into swimming with sharks. Luckily, the beasts on those isolated islands are so unacquainted with men that they have not developed an instinct to kill us. I soon came to the realisation that if I did not take care to defend myself, Mr McCormick might well succeed in disposing of me.

  Fate played us both for fools. I found myself on an outing with the man, along with Captain FitzRoy. Our goal was to investigate a volcano which even then was showing signs of activity. After a laborious climb we stopped to dine and consumed two bottles of wine, which made us fall asleep. A short while later I awoke, as did Mr McCormick, though Captain FitzRoy continued deep in slumber. The two of us then resolved to carry on. When we achieved the summit, I proposed entering the volcano’s cone. This we did without too much difficulty, lowering ourselves down with a rope that we attached to a rock above. The heat was suffocating, the smell of sulfurous gases overpowering and the sound of bubbling lava unnerving, but we were both exhilarated at the prospect of exploring a natural phenomenon unknown to anyone else. We went down to a depth of about ten feet below the volcano’s lip. There was a ledge that served as a convenient work-space. After some minutes I was bending over to chip away at some rock with my back turned to Mr McCormick when I heard him cry out. I turned around and saw him motioning towards the centre of the basin. It was belching smoke, and searing hot magma was bubbling up like an angry red and yellow sea. The whole was beginning to shake so violently that we realised it was about to erupt.

  We raced to the rope but found to our dismay that it had disintegrated in the intense heat.

  McCormick yelled above the roar that we must find a way to save ourselves from that infernal place. A plume of smoke and fire rose up before us and out of fear we grabbed each other for comfort. Just then, I spotted a ledge over our heads, about thirty feet away. By hugging the walls with our backs we carefully manoeuvred our way to it. Once there we were closer to our goal, but not home free. The ledge was about eight feet above. I shouted for Mr McCormick to give me a boost, since he was considerably shorter than I. Without a moment’s hesitation, he placed the fingers of his hands together in a cup that I used as a stirrup. Swinging my full weight upwards and steadying myself with one hand on his shoulder, I thrust myself high and managed with my other hand to catch hold of a protuberance of rock. Using this, and aided no doubt by the fear of death, I pulled myself up with a strength I did not know I possessed. I landed on the upper ledge, gasping for breath but alive.

  It was then my turn to help Mr McCormick. I could hear him shouting, encouraging me in no uncertain terms to waste no time. I ran to find the remaining piece of rope but found the remnant too small to be of use. I returned to the spot, lay down on my stomach, spread my legs upon the ledge for leverage and leaned over the edge. When he saw me reappear, Mr McCormick’s face turned hopeful. The trembling was increasing now and I could see the lava begin to rise below like a boiling cauldron. I took my cosh from my belt and reached down, holding it as low as I could with one hand while I braced myself against the edge with the other. By jumping, he could just reach it. He grabbed it. But his body, short as it was, was fully extended so that he could not pull himself up. I realised I would have to lower it another five or six inches, even though doing so would make my own position more precarious.

  I looked down at Mr McCormick and saw him staring back at me with an appraising look. His face was contorted and he was sweating profusely. He had grabbed the cosh with both hands and was holding on for dear life. I lowered it an inch or two and he began to try to scramble up, kicking desperately at the wall with the soles of his shoes but making little headway. At some point I heard a sound behind me and became aware of Captain FitzRoy’s presence. He was not yet close enough to help and could scarcely see what was happening, though he could plainly hear us. I do not know what occurred next. A giant plume of smoke rose from the belly of the volcano. I pulled the cosh. McCormick was still holding on. Perhaps I should lower it a little more, I thought. There was room, though perhaps not. I hesitated, uncertain. The more I extended it, the more tenuous was my own position, as my balance was giving way. When I concentrated again on the figure below me, I saw that his hands were slipping a bit from sweat and he was looking deep into my eyes with a hard glower. I heard his voice rise up, thin but distinct, and he spoke the words I shall never forget: ‘So that’s how it is, eh, Mr Darwin? Survival of the fittest!’ And with that he let go, or I lurched upwards so violently that it broke his grip. In any case I saw him tumble backwards, turning in mid-air slowly as he plunged into the bubbling lava.

  He screamed on the way down.

  I do not remember how I got out of there, though I expect that Captain FitzRoy helped me. The two of us ran down the mountain-side to the crewmen waiting at the boat. They quickly rowed us out to the ship and we set sail.

  I have often thought that that afternoon was the determining event of my life. Having taken one course, or having that course thrust upon me, everything that followed was inevitable. I became a conniver, and much of what I did makes me blush to the roots with shame, not just that I did it but that I was so adept in the doing of it. Nothing was too large or small to escape my notice in fashioning my deception. Thus, I put it out that Mr McCormick had left the Beagle earlier in the voyage, and I even throttled his parrot, adding it to my specimens. Sailing away from the Galápagos, I intentionally mixed together all the finches I had gathered from the separate islands, so that I could maintain the fiction that I derived the theory of natural selection on my own at a subsequent time. I went through my notebooks, changing and cen-soring various entries to make the narrative conform to my story. As a ruse to explain my many illnesses, which somehow came in retribution for that horrible episode, I fabricated an incident in which I was bitten by a benchuca insect. I paid blackmail to Captain FitzRoy, the poor soul, who until the very last remained suspicious of my actions in attempting to save McCormick.

  Without definitive proof, he embraced religion with fanatical zeal—I believe as a result of the events that transpired that fateful day.

  A few men may have guessed that the burden I carried was one of guilt, but only one person came upon my secret, and that is my daughter Elizabeth, who inherited my cunning. We have never discussed it. I have not done right by her but my actions in that regard pale in comparison with my other deeds.

  Many a time have I thought over the events of that day on the volcano and wondered if I could have done more to save the poor man. Although he is dead, I still fear him. One time I even fled from a séance, so apprehensive was I over the prospect of a spectral encounter.

  Occasionally, when I tread the Sandwalk with Elizabeth, I think upon the path itself and how it resembles my life. It begins in open air and sunshine, full of promise and hope, but then takes a turn into darkness and despair.

  The vehicle that carried me around that fatal turn was the Beagle. All I ever wanted to do was to succeed at something and please my father. Now all is lost. Like Faust, I have made my pact with the Devil and there is nothing more to be done but wait in the twilight of my life for him to claim his due.

  Charles Darwin

  Set in his own hand, this day

  30 August 1881

  CHAPTER 26

  The champagne began to lose its fizz.

  At first they drank with abandon, already high from their incredible find.

  “This is an invaluable piece of history,” Beth remarked, suddenly serious. “Think of it. A confession coming to light after all these years—

  Darwin and McCormick, bitter rivals, struggling on a volcano, Darwin trying to save him—”

  “Or maybe not trying all that hard. You could read it that way. Why else did Darwin feel guilty for the rest of his life?”

  “Because despite his best efforts, he failed to rescue him. Because at heart he was a good man. And because even though he was an atheist, he continued to uphold Christian morality. McCormick’s death was an accident.”

  “You�
��re probably right.”

  “The whole thing is so unbelievable—except that it’s written in Darwin’s own hand. Thank God for that.”

  “And he admits that McCormick had grasped the theory of evolution, that’s the significant thing. For all anybody knows, McCormick could have gone down in history as the co-discoverer. And here he is today, a complete unknown.”

  They raised their glasses to the past and to the whole lot of them: Darwin, FitzRoy, McCormick, Jemmy Button, and, of course, poor Lizzie.

  “But in the end she was vindicated,” Hugh said. “Her father gave her credit—she was the only one who was able to ferret out his secret.”

  “Small consolation,” Beth shot back. “The way I look at it, her whole life was kind of a waste.”

  “I wonder why she didn’t read his missing chapter. She’s supposed to be curious. Maybe she was scared of what she might find.”

  “Could be. But she already knew the secret. So she assumed, rightly, that her father was spilling the beans about his role in McCormick’s death. She didn’t need to read it. She couldn’t bring herself to actually destroy it—after all, her Papa was already world-famous—and yet she didn’t want to be the one to make it public. So she sent it off to her daughter in the New World, basically passing the buck—or leaving things up to fate.”

  “I guess,” he replied.

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  She put an arm around Hugh and gave him a hug. That was when the fizz began to fade.

  “Something else bothers me,” he said. “Did you notice the language Darwin used? At one point he says, ‘My life has turned to dross.’

  At another he’s talking about his fame and fortune and says, ‘All has been undeserved.’ That’s a bit strong, don’t you think? I mean, if McCormick’s death was totally accidental. Because Darwin did deserve something—he came up with the theory.”