The Great Unknown

by Peg Kingman

  “Aha! Here you are! I have found you at last, my wife, my Camera Obscura!” cried Mr Chambers. He burst out of the conservatory door onto the broad granite step, where Mrs Chambers had come to sit with Constantia and the two babies in the final two minutes of September afternoon sunshine. “I have been hunting you all over the house, my dear, and not finding you. But you cannot elude me forever; I shall always succeed at last in running you to ground. I am sorry, but it is rather urgent, and not a business which any mere husband is qualified to sort out—” And away went Mrs Chambers with him, to attend to some household matter.

  Constantia wondered at this. “Camera Obscura”! Did it not mean “dark room”? Was it not also a species of device for making images and portraits: daguerreotypes, calotypes? As a term of endearment from husband to wife, it was certainly unusual; she supposed it must contain some meaning personal to the two of them.

  The absent landlord of Spring Gardens owned a fine old library, but evidently he distrusted either his books or his tenants, for the doors fronting his bookcases were fitted with brass mesh, and locked. They were dangerous things, books; best locked safely away in cages, like the fierce beasts in a menagerie. There was nevertheless plenty to read in the library, for the Chamberses took in all the journals and reviews; these covered every table and overflowed onto the chairs and sofas. There was Blackwood’s; and the Edinburgh Review; and most especially there was Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. There was an abundance of books, too; and Constantia had been invited by Mrs Chambers to carry off anything she liked; to treat as her own anything that was not locked away.

  Beneath the window stood the writing table where, Constantia knew, Mrs Chambers devoted her mornings—and some of her afternoons as well—to a copious correspondence. The table now stood bare except for inkstand, blotter, and a large horn paper knife, for Mrs Chambers always fastidiously cleared away her papers upon completing her day’s work. Upon the chimneypiece over the empty fireplace were not the usual porcelain garnitures or bronze figurines, but an assortment of rocks and shells; the window sills, too, were lined with rocks. Under Constantia’s examination, these unconventional decorations revealed their remarkable qualities.

  “That, Mrs MacAdam, is my husband’s dearest possession; his best fossil ammonite,” said Mrs Chambers’s voice, startling Constantia who, having come in search of the mislaid Vestiges, had been distracted instead by the remarkable fossil at the center of the chimneypiece.

  “It is very fine,” said Constantia, and thought of the little fossil Potamides (or was it a Tympanotonos?) given her by her husband. It was now—indeed, always—in the bottom of her pocket. “Where did he find it?”

  “Oh!—inside a box, truth be told. He did not collect it himself, but bought it, sight unseen, from a dealer in London. He has found several interesting fossils, these last few years, but nothing so fine as that. Here is a Sphenopteris he found near Burdiehouse; and he collected that fragment of ancient fern here in Musselburgh. When other men go out to walk, they stride along with their heads high, their eyes raised to distant horizons, gazing upon the sublime; upon mountains or sea or waterfalls or skies. But my husband’s sights are fixed upon the ground beneath his feet; no further. He says he is haunted by the thought that he might, all un-knowing, tread upon something wonderful—might fail to recognise some prize, some treasure, beneath his very boot. Once he told me of a nightmare in which felons, breaking rocks for railway beds, were smashing up the most marvelous fossils: the earthly remains of God’s most astonishing creatures.”

  NOTHING HAPPENS; and nothing happens; and still nothing happens. Everything remains the same . . . or so it seems. But the truth is that everything is changing imperceptibly all the time. The pressure of these infinitesimal changes mounts. In the solid edifice, unseen cracks deepen and widen. Eventually, something ruptures—a cog in the cosmic engine slips—and everything crashes at once, into new stasis.

  Wait for it.

  Some twins are not much alike, but Jenny and Lizzy were all but identical. Constantia could see that one was slightly taller and slimmer than the other, just now. And the shorter one had a little more sunburn across her nose, this week. So they were distinguishable—only just—to a discerning onlooker; but this taller girl, was she Jenny? Or was she Lizzy? Constantia did not feel quite certain which name went with which twin. Within the family they were sometimes addressed as “Twinnies” when together, or “Twinny” if separate. They had not the slightest objection to this. Were they as identical in character as they were in body? It was clear enough that they did not share a mind. Each had to learn her lessons for herself; she did not know what her sister knew. But what was a mind? And what was a character?

  Twins! Two, exactly the same! How could this happen? What could it mean? Are we not each a unique creation, then, after all? Had some mistake been made? By whom?

  Constantia’s twins had been unalike: a son and a daughter. Her daughter was thriving; her son lost beyond all finding. A stranger had slid into the world through her body, but had not paused here; had slipped along again, further, immediately, forever. Gone. Had some mistake been made? By whom?

  From her high window Constantia watched the two little boys, Jemmie and Willie, in the garden below, one warm afternoon. As the tight-fitting frocks in which Hopey dressed them each morning buttoned down the back, it was usually possible to keep them clothed. But left unsupervised together for the quarter of an hour, they conspired on this occasion to unbutton each other, and succeeded in promptly shedding their clothes. Even from this distance, Constantia could see that the air and the sunshine on their white skin delighted them; the sensation of freedom delighted them; and the liberation and parading and accessibility of their hairless pink genitals especially delighted them, for these were their favourite parts of themselves. All too soon their sisters found them, and put an end to such pleasures; the boys were required, briskly, to put their clothes on again. Why? To the little boys, it must have seemed unjust. Tuckie’s puppy, Bunty, was not required to wear clothes; nor did Bunty seem to notice or care whether the little boys did or didn’t.

  Jemmie, at four, could very nearly read, but not quite. Mary had undertaken to teach him, and Constantia often overheard their lessons in the day nursery. Jemmie recognised most letters; could sometimes remember their names and, if prompted by pasteboard pictures of animals associated with them, could even repeat the sounds they purported to represent. Constantia still remembered her own difficulties in learning to read, and felt sympathy for Jemmie. “Cuh, for crow” seemed reasonable enough, as one often heard crows say just that: cuh! caw! But dogs certainly did not say “Duh.” Tuckie’s puppy said many things, such as “Wah! Wah!” and “Ip!” and “Yiyiyi!” and sometimes “Grr,” or “Mmm?”—but he never said anything that sounded like “Duh.”

  The puppy, Bunty, could very nearly understand English, but not quite. There were many utterances he did understand, such as “Walk?” and “Naughty!” and “Cat” and “Dinnertime!” When Mary had begun teaching Jemmie his letters, Tuckie had quietly begun to administer the same lessons to Bunty. Constantia found her at it one day in a corner of the garden.

  “But Bunty is as clever as Jemmie,” explained Tuckie, “or cleverer; and he is very hardworking—have you seen him dig? He never wants to give it up—so I suppose that he can learn to read.”

  “Has he learnt any letters yet?” asked Constantia.

  “Not yet,” said Tuckie. “Not quite. But I am sure that he will, for he is keen, and I am patient. Learning to read was perplexing when I was little, I remember; but then I found quite suddenly that I could read—and now that I can, Mrs MacAdam—oh aye, I have been able to read for years, ever since I was four!—and now, when I see a word, the very sound of it bursts instantly upon my mind, without the slightest effort.”

  “I know just what you mean,” said Constantia. “Once one has got the knack of it, it is impossible for her imperturbable calm, even though awash in terrifying scen
ts of dangers. Perhaps he mistook this calm for courage. Probably it was inconceivable to him that this calm was the result of obliviousness, and ignorance. How could smells not be smelled?

  The dog apprehended language, Constantia supposed, about as well as the child apprehended smells.

  After midnight, while feeding the babies by candlelight, Constantia listened to the silence of the house. It was deeply silent, or so it seemed . . . but how much, she asked herself, do we miss? Do sublime ragas and celestial symphonies constantly play, at pitches we cannot hear? Too high? Too low? Too quiet, or too loud, for humans to hear? Too slow or too fast, for human ears to apprehend? Are there exquisite chords, counterpoints, and harmonies? or is it noise, cacophony, that music of the spheres? Does it roar, that Ocean of Music? Or does it murmur?

  Do great volumes—sagas, epics, chronicles—of scent blow across our skin at every moment? Do we breathe them oblivious, illiterate? Is it a stench, or is it a perfume? Are vast libraries swirling around us, breathed in and out by us unsuspected, unapprehended? Do we breathe the eloquent air as a puppy chews a book left on the floor, or out in the rain: only for the irresistible feel of it?

  4

  THE THICK FOG which had swaddled the entire Northumberland coast for five days and nights melted suddenly away—in less than an hour—to clear sunshine, at mid-morning of the sixth day. The timing could not have been worse. Hugh Stevenson climbed to the rim of the gryke and ventured to raise his head enough to look shoreward. Three-quarters of a mile distant across green sea stood the ruins of Warkworth Castle. Below it, the town of Amble presided over its tidy harbour at the mouth of the River Coquet, in air so clear and cool it seemed nearer. And from the town, he supposed, this wee island—Coquet Isle—must appear equally near and clear.

  Mr Stevenson had been relying upon the fog to conceal his fires. The fires, a line of five, were well down inside the gryke, one of two deep, jagged, vertical fissures which snaked inland through the low white limestone cliffs at the north end of the little island. Even with the fog as cover, he had waited until first light to kindle his fires, so that that any glow, as seen from the town, would be swamped and backlit by the usual light of dawn, as well as diffused through fog. Their smoke should have been swallowed by the fog, too.

  Now the last wisps of fog had melted to nothing.

  The fires were burning well by this time, hot and clean, with little smoke. He had coal enough at hand to last for several more hours. The underlying stone was not yet heated sufficiently for his purposes. At least two more hours of heating would be required before he could attempt the split; and three hours would offer something like a guarantee of success. This necessity was to be weighed against the risk of discovery.

  The wind had come up, and he saw that three boats had already got under sail and out past Amble’s harbour jetty. Two lug-rigged cobles were on an easy broad reach to the southeast, heading for the usual fishing grounds. The third, a yawl whose red sails had faded to pink, had turned northward instead, tacking into the freshening wind. As he watched, she came about once more. Headed where?

  If he stopped to listen, Mr Stevenson could hear the surf. The sound of this surf was so constant, so unceasing, that after many weeks on this island, he no longer noticed it unless he purposely listened for it. There it was, a dull murmuring and a muttering, rising and falling, like the sound of a great angry crowd at some distance.

  He climbed down again. It was warm inside the gryke out of the wind, with the sun beating down from above, and the row of fires heating the line he had scored into the broad ledge of limestone on which he stood. His decision made, he shoveled more coal onto each of his five fires. Very little smoke indeed, he assured himself.

  Presently, taking up his two buckets, he made his way along the jagged defile of the gryke toward its mouth. The sound of the sea grew louder, and occasional brisk gusts found their way into the fissure too, until, as he rounded the last winding of the gorge above the open sea, he was suddenly knocked off-balance against the rock wall by the force of an oblique blast. Then he rounded the last bulwark, bracing himself against the eroded limestone wall—and here was the sea, bright lapis-blue now under sunshine, and breaking in white foam over the limestone shelves and shoals which, surrounding and guarding this north end of the island, extended several hundred yards seawards, below the abrupt little cliff of the island’s edge. At lowest tides, these shoals would be partially exposed, but now, at high tide, there was little of them to be seen. The wind boxed and buffeted his ears so that he could hear nothing but its roar.

  In deep blue water out beyond the shoals, he could see the shining dark heads of two seals. In a moment, two more popped up. They bobbed in the water, watching him as he watched them. Mr Stevenson climbed carefully over slippery rocks down to a pool that was filled with clear sea-water, and filled both his buckets. Then he lugged the heavy sloshing buckets back up again, to the mouth of the gryke; and into it; and along its length some fifty yards or so, back to the site of his fires. There he emptied the buckets into a barrel; shoveled a little more fuel onto his fires; and returned again for more water. He made this journey three times.

  At the salt pool for the third time, Mr Stevenson looked up from filling his buckets and was appalled by an unexpected apparition to seaward: bounding into view beyond the vertical rock to one side came the bowsprit—the foresail—and then the bow of the pink-sailed yawl, heeled hard over. She was much nearer than she should have been. Stevenson ducked instantly behind the nearest boulder large enough to conceal him and crouched there, fearing even to look out. He had left his buckets in plain view. He could hear shouting from the yawl, but any words were shredded on the wind. No one would dare to land here, over the rocks—but what brought them here at all? And if their recklessness should bring them to grief onto the rocks, would he not be bound to leave his place of concealment to aid them? This made him angry: by what right did trespassing strangers endanger his enterprise, so long in the making—at this critical moment!—by their unwelcome inquisitiveness and incompetence and recklessness?

  He heard no more shouts. After several minutes, he ventured to look out from behind his boulder. The yawl was not to be seen. Presumably she had safely passed beyond the field of view visible to him from this narrow slot in the cliff. Like a blinkered horse, he could see only straight ahead; what lay outside the limestone walls bounding his view to both sides?

  He watched for some time. Presently the yawl glided into his field of view again, now on the starboard tack, and much further out. She disappeared once more beyond the left-side cliff. He waited, and eventually saw the pink sails, further out still, cross once more and disappear toward the right. At last he emerged from his hiding place, and retrieving his buckets, turned to check for smoke rising behind him. It was hard to tell from here, upwind, whether his fires were producing plumes of smoke; if there was smoke, it must be blown away from him. He returned along the gryke once more to feed his fires.

  After a time, he climbed again to the rim of the gryke. From here, he could see the pink-sailed yawl to the southeast, at a reassuring distance. She had only made a long detour—though much too close—around the north end of Coquet Isle on her way to the fishing grounds. Why? He checked twice more during the following hour, but saw her only recede toward the south. His anger and alarm receded with her.

  At noon, Mr Stevenson readied his tools and his mind for the critical operation. Then, taking up a steel rake, he quickly swept the line of burning coals and ash off the limestone ledge, into the damp gorge below—and in the next moment, threw six bucketsful of cold sea-water, one after another, all along the underlying slot he had scored in the stone where he desired it should split. Nothing happened. He waited another instant. Still nothing. Seizing his sledge-hammer, he raised it to strike the desired line of fracture—but before he could strike, a dull crack like a bolt of underground thunder was heard, and a split appeared in the stone at his feet. In the time it took to draw his next brea
th, the split ran, halting but inevitable, the whole length of the ledge, exactly as he had intended. Hugh let out a whoop of triumph. This stone was conquered. What God had joined together, he, Hugh Stevenson, had put asunder.

  There remained a great deal of putting asunder to be done; perhaps months’ worth. During the long operations which lay ahead—sawing, hammering, filing, chiseling, drilling, splitting, reducing, and painstakingly teasing apart this vast block he had split off the limestone ledge—there would be plenty of time for worrying, planning, and remembering. It amused Mr Stevenson now to remember his terror when he had first encountered ancient remains, in this very gryke. Then a barefoot stripling of eleven years, he had been stricken with horror at actually stepping upon—too late to stop himself—the unmistakable knuckly ridge of a spine standing proud of the limestone, like a submerged sea creature breaking the surface of the water; breaking into the air. The hairs of his body had stiffened—his appetite for solo exploration and adventure had curdled—and he had bolted from the spot, not daring to mention even to his quarrymaster father what he had seen in this cleft in the earth.

  By the time he was fifteen or sixteen, however, and of some real use to his father (and fancying himself already an adept in the stonecutter’s art), he had become accustomed to fossils. By then, he knew of the Annings, brother and sister, and of the astonishing—and valuable—monsters they were extricating from the Lias cliffs at Lyme Regis.

  To what ancient creature had it belonged, that spine he had stepped on here, all those years ago? No one would ever know. Upon returning to Coquet Isle this summer, he had searched diligently; but no traces of it remained. During the intervening two decades, north wind and North Sea had eradicated it. It had been eroded to gravel and washed to the bottom of the sea.