The Great Unknown

by Peg Kingman

  “‘Was’? Does she not live still?”

  “Alas, no; she went to her heavenly reward within this year, or the last, at the age of twenty-six. A consumption, the papers said.”

  “Left she any children?” asked the lady.

  “No, she died a maid,” said the Englishman.

  “La pauvre!” said the lady, and the two of them sauntered off arm in arm, leaving Constantia to reflect. Died a maid! Now, what was the good of that? A matchless courage, a dauntless generosity—a prodigious individual, snuffed out, without issue in the world! Cut off. The pity of it, the sad waste of it! Here is a prodigious seed—fallen upon barren rock. Never mind; some day, some age, there may be another equally prodigious seed . . . which may, or may not, meet with better luck. What is the hurry? Why does it seem to matter? The natural economy—the divine economy—is a profligate one. Efficiency and thrift, those human virtues, are strikingly absent from its workings; from its slow, inefficient, uninformed, careless, and accidental workings.

  Constantia contemplated the lighthouse: Pharos. Draped across glistening rocks at the base of the squat tower she could make out a congregation of fat grey-brown slugs: slumbering seals. The name Pharos brought another: Proteus. In such a place as this the changeable god Proteus might haul himself out from time to time, to sleep among his seals. And here, at the juncture of land, sea, and sky, he might be apprehended, and made to tell the truth about past, present, and future—if mortals could succeed in seizing him, and in holding fast to him through all his terrifying changes, his exuberant mutability, his disposition to sport. His principle was quite opposite to her own: Constantia. Constancy; unchanging, always the same. Mrs Fleming had said she’d been named for the celebrated sweet wine of the Cape, but Constantia doubted this, guessing that the name signified instead her mother’s longing for that quality which had ever eluded her: constancy—fidelity—in her lovers, and perhaps, in herself. In constancy, like produces like, up from the past and down into the unlit future, forever and ever! World without end, Amen! But Proteus embodied the opposing principle: Change. Changing, changing, always changing. Never the same. Not just caterpillar becomes chrysalis becomes imago—but stranger than that. The impossible is commonplace. Everything changes: caterpillar becomes bird becomes tree. Everything disperses, shatters. Everything, even hardest rock, wears down to dust, washes into the bottom of the sea.

  Where new rock forms, under the influence of heat. And pressure. And time.

  Might we breed a winged horse? How beautiful!

  Might we breed a human with six arms? How divine!

  We have succeeded in breeding a human endowed with a thumb and five fingers on each hand. Not just four, but five. How monstrous! Let us cut it off.

  O the pity of it. The sad waste of it.

  The steam packet made some five or six knots; enough to produce a moderate bow wave, two curls of ocean peeling away on either side of the bow which cleaved its ruffled surface, carved away like a pair of endless ringlets of wood whittled from a stick; like heavy soil turning, falling black and wet off the moldboard of the plow. Upon this bow wave rode dolphins, at least four of them; perhaps more. It was hard to count, as they kept disappearing and reappearing; and then, while dolphins might distinguish easily between individuals of their own kind, it was not so easy for Constantia. Still, she counted four visible at once; and it seemed to her that their dolphin-faces (if dolphins could be said to have faces) wore grins (unless that was only the habitual set of their features). They had good reason to grin; why accompany the packet if not for sheer enjoyment? “A disposition to sport”—the phrase sprang again into her mind, though it was not at all what the gardener Mr Gunn had meant, when he was telling her of the pigeons he had been breeding. Then it came washing over her again: her astonishment and alarm at the mutability of things; of this fabric of nature. The Edinburgh Review’s reviewer—the contemptuous and contemptible Dr Sedgwick—had declared that “Species were found, in living nature, to be permanent. To this law not one exception has been found.” O, permanence! How reassuring to believe that something, anything, should be permanent!

  Was this “disposition to sport” carelessness? Or was it playfulness?

  Was it error? Or was it joyous and exuberant improvisation?

  If the musician introduces a note outside of her scale . . . what happens then? How far outside? How wrong? Sharp. Flat. Out of tune? Or a change of key?

  Did none of the self-evident truths stand up to a minute and painstaking examination?

  Water is level. But this water, at this moment, was far from level; the steely surface was ruffled in every direction, and the deck of the steam-packet lurched and heaved. There were swells, quite abrupt ones, at irregular intervals, and moving in various directions. The wind blew the tops off the thinnest of these. Against the distant shore, waves rose up (inspired by what force?) and crashed against the rocks; and fell back again, to be succeeded by others without end. Then there were the tides, water rising, and falling, immense masses of it, in rhythm with the moon. Streams ran downhill; joined, became rivers, always running down to the sea—except when they ran up! overwhelmed in their beds by the force of the tides. Indeed, if the savants could be believed, the oceans themselves—“sea level”—had not always lapped against the margins of the land at the same height as they now did. And on a minute scale, even a still glass of water was not truly level—for a thin film of it rose up against the inside wall of the glass—quite visible, if only you looked.

  So: Water is not level. It is only approximately levelish.

  Here is another self-evident truth: Like produces like. A mare always produces a foal, never a tiger cub—nor even a lamb. But a mare might produce a mule. A brown mare might produce a black foal. A four-legged mare might produce a five-legged foal; a monster. Like produces similar. Usually.

  Here is my Livia. Like me. And like her father.

  Ah, her father! . . . “O my dove, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.” Was Solomon indeed the author of that lovers’ song of longing? Solomon, it was said—with an enviable degree of certainty—was himself the son of David and Bathsheba. Lucky child, of such certainty! (But why did it seem to matter? Why did anyone want to know?)

  That Song of Solomon, that ghazal, was quite unlike any other book of the Bible. Christian missionary preachers gave the Song of Solomon a wide berth, even in India—whose own stories and songs it markedly resembled. In India the divine relationship—the relation between divinity and humanity—was that of lovers: amorous, rapturous, reciprocal. In Christendom however, the relationship was paternal, not (shamefully!) amorous. Divinity was father, and humanity, child; their proper relation was infinitely unequal, stern, authoritarian—except for the Song of Solomon, a cuckoo’s egg laid somehow in the Christian nest.

  She could smell the man (second cabin, to be sure) who paused just now, to windward. It was not the smell of gin, as was so often the case here in Britain; nor of garlic, as in France; nor of cumin, as in India. It was just the scent of a man who has not washed his skin and hair, nor changed his shirt in some time. It was the characteristic scent of a human being. Dogs smelled of Dog, cats of Cat, horses of Horse—and men of Man. We are the earthlings who emit that particular smell.

  Presently, as daylight failed, Constantia recognised flat white Coquet Isle, though the packet passed it at a considerable distance to seaward. She recognised the squat lighthouse near its southern tip. Beyond it she could just make out the fishing town of Amble on the low shore of the mainland; and on the hill above that, the ruin of Warkworth Castle. Scarcely any snow was to be seen here. If only they could be put off here, Livia and herself, on that wee isle! But even if it could be done—which was out of the question—it would raise suspicion; and suspicion must on no account be raised. Still, it was heart-rending to come so near, and be obliged nevertheless to pass on. Birds—pigeons and gulls—wheeled in the sky, scribing
curves.

  If only she had saved that last pigeon for now—for here—so near its home! It would cross this water in a scant minute; would land there, on that white rock; it could not help but go there. Indeed, it undoubtedly had gone there. Constantia had flown the pigeon from Edinburgh on Monday, around midday; it should have arrived at Coquet Isle within two hours, perhaps three. Constantia had sent word that she would arrive Wednesday (for who, on Monday, had forseen snow?) Now that it was Wednesday night, was Hugh agitated by her failure to arrive? She feared that he might go ashore—into the town, or beyond—in search of her. My darling, she thought, do not on any account go ashore. Stay safely where you are. Stay there, on Coquet Isle; wait for me there. Wait for us there.

  How homesick she felt! Despite having no home, and despite the heavy homely warmth of Livia against her, she ached for home: a safe, familiar, private place. For being surrounded by people well known, not strangers. For knowing how things work; for not being wrong, as strangers find themselves in the wrong, not knowing how to behave: “I know not how to goe out or come in.” She longed for water that tasted like the first water she’d ever swallowed, the way water ought to taste. She longed for an always-known landscape; for seeing just far enough, not too far; shadows falling where they ought; known grasses, trees, flowers, vines; knowing which berries to eat, and which to shun; the easy stirring of soft hazy air; the delicious fall of the land; familiar scents and stenches; familar barkings and birdsong; and all of it ending in an intimately known horizon: that bump; that slope; that peak where the light lingers last at sunset. Oh, home! Home is meeting the eyes of one’s husband, after a separation. Darshan: seeing, and being seen. Drinking up the sight of him. Being drunk up by him. Go out; come in; it does not matter how. Any way one likes.

  Then, as she watched, the lantern atop the lighthouse suddenly came alight: a hot spark in the purple dusk. Never fear. All will be well.

  As night fell, the steam-packet entered the channel of the Tyne just behind the last of the fishing boats. Livia nuzzled, suckled, and slept again. The cordial widow reappeared, this time to insist on sharing the last of her porkpies with Constantia. The Tyne’s channel was deeply cut, its banks high and steep; the black city seemed to lean scowling over its black river, ill-lit, unfamiliar, and unwelcoming, during the long passage upriver.

  “There’s plenty of lodging houses up around the Black Gate, for second-cabin travelers such as us,” said the widow, drawing her cloak closer about her as the packet sidled alongside Newcastle’s torch-lit steam wharf, to tie up at last. “The one I always go to is just past the Castle keep, not too far. The landlady keeps a good fire and a hearty supper—but her charges are moderate for all that. What’s more, I’ve never been bitten by bugs in her beds, unlike some other houses I might name. Come with me, if you like. She’ll have a bed for any friend of mine.” They disembarked and Constantia, knowing of no other place to go, was glad to follow a guide. “The entire district is likely to be cleared, before long,” called the widow over her shoulder as she led the way up the steep muddy street—still knitting, by feel, in the darkness. “There’s talk of building a railway viaduct through here. Where’s all of us second-cabin folk to lodge then, I ask you?”

  The lodging house was better than Constantia had feared, and the landlady greeted them like old friends, saying, “So here you are after all, Mrs Todd! I was just saying to my girl, ‘How sorry Mrs Todd will be at missing that funeral!’—with the roads all stopped by snow, and no mail-coaches getting through from the north. But you’ve won through somehow, for here you are, and brought your young friend, too.”

  “Quite right,” replied the widow. “Just off the steam-packet from Edinburgh. I never would miss that funeral, not if I could help it. As for my friend, here, and her little babby—well, I never did ask your name, did I?” she added, turning to Constantia.

  “I am Mrs MacAdam,” said Constantia. “And did I hear aright? Are you indeed called Mrs Todd?”

  “I was born a Carter, and married first a Barnes and then a Norris. But my third husband, may the good lord have mercy upon his soul, was Samuel Todd, of South Shields.”

  “My father was a Todd,” said Constantia.

  “Was he, now? From hereabouts?” said Mrs Todd.

  “What was his Christian name?” said the landlady.

  “Indeed, I do not know,” admitted Constantia. “He died before I was born, and my mother remarried soon afterward. But he and my mother both hailed from Northumberland, and I should be very glad to find their people—if only I knew where or how to look for them.”

  “Well, as it happens, Mrs MacAdam,” said the widowed Mrs Todd, “I expect to see the entire tribe of them tomorrow; of Todds, that is—all my late husband’s people—at the funeral. Oh no, a very old woman, quite her time. Won’t be a sad occasion. If your business permits, you might like to come with me and make your inquiries. There’ll be a crush of talkative old folk—older and more talkative than myself, just fancy!—who can tell you all about every Todd—and Dodd—that ever was. Can and will. There’s no need to go to the graveside; I’m not going myself. No, I’ll be far too busy helping to lay out the breakfast that’s after, at her daughter’s house. It’s just out the West Gate road. You can walk there with me—and help with the breakfast, too, if you like.”

  “How kind!—if only my time were my own!” said Constantia. “Unfortunately I am obliged—most urgently obliged—to post back up the coast to Amble at the first opportunity—by tomorrow morning’s earliest coach.”

  “Not in the morning you won’t,” said the landlady. “The steamer bringing the London mails don’t come in until half-past three o’clock in the afternoon, at the soonest; and then the northbound bag gets loaded onto the coach that’ll be waiting at the Tower Arms. The coach don’t leave for the north until four o’clock, or quarter-past, sometimes, if the steamer’s late—then to drive on all the night through.”

  “So, you see, hinney, there’s all the morning—if you like to come along with me to that funeral breakfast,” said Mrs Todd.

  Matters might have turned out very differently, Constantia knew. Chance! What is that? Is there such a thing? It is an event not intended, and not accounted for; it is neither divine design, nor fitness to circumstance. It is not God. It is not Nature. Both of these imply direction, and efficacy. Both imply implacable cause; and inevitable effect: that is to say, Law! which, whether divine or natural, is not to be trifled with. But chance is quite another thing. It is, for example, the precise location of the hidden mole hole in the pasture—stepping in which, the galloping colt snaps his foreleg. Or, missing which, he does not. It is the gust of wind which causes the plummeting hawk to miss its quarry; to wearily proceed, therefore, to another attempt, in which this pigeon is knocked out of the sky instead of that one. It is the depth and width of the plowshare which—by a hair’s breadth—snags and brings up a gold torque, betraying the hoard below. Or—by the same hair’s breadth—misses it.

  Our words for this phenomenon are unsatisfactory: Happenstance. Circumstance. Luck. Accident. Some matters, some eventualities, it seems, do lie within the jurisdiction of certain forces which may be law, either divine or natural. But other matters—even those of immense eventual significance, of colossal consequence—fall prey instead to lightest, most capricious chance. At any of a great many points, things might have turned out quite differently than they did. It is very hard to think about this, for nothing seems so inevitable as History, the sequence of things which did happen (not least because history has quite obviously conspired to produce the very flower of the universe: one’s own magnificent self).

  But suppose the tiger had hunted eastward that night, instead of westward? Or suppose the hornets had, the previous day, abandoned that nest for another, somewhere else; and did not rise to sting, when stepped upon? Suppose no one had been passing below, when the teak tree dropped its massiest branch? Suppose the creature whose remains formed an exquisite fossil embe
dded in the limestone of Coquet Isle had been devoured instead by a passing monster; had been digested, transformed into lowliest excrement, ephemeral dirt; into nothing?

  In natural law, Constantia knew, there is no justice.

  Suffering does not matter at all.

  Waste does not matter at all.

  Time does not matter at all.

  But what an unbearable thought! Despicable!

  We have a better idea than that; for we are the human beings: Homo sapiens, the tasting earthlings. Rasikas, tasters, connoisseurs, savants, persons of goût, of discernment! of judgment, of justice! of ingenuity! We have a better idea than that despicable one. We can imagine something far better. We have imagined it; do imagine it; and we call it God. This idea, of our very own creation, inevitably has our fingerprints all over it. We make our idea Just, Loving, Attentive, Wise, Thrifty, and All-Powerful.

  To humankind, Wisdom is justice; Solomon was called wise because he was just.

  The Redress is in reserve.

  Is it?

  11

  “JOSEPH DODD, did you hear that?”

  “What’s that?”

  “They eloped, she says. No, eloped; that means they run off together in secret, just the two of them, to Scotland, where anybody can be married just as hasty as they like, without banns or decent waiting.”

  “There was Simon Todd’s son, who ran off with that hussy—that sempstress from Yorkshire.”

  “Oh, aye; but those two settled down in Jarrow at last, steady as deacons, though no one expected it. And that wasn’t but ten or twelve years ago, so it can’t be them. When did you say all this—this, business was, then, Mrs, ah . . .”

  “Mrs MacAdam,” supplied someone.

  “It must have been 1822,” said Constantia, “as I was born in 1823.” All the elderly Todds and Dodds, seated on chairs ranged around the walls of the steamy farm kitchen, were inspecting her and Livia with frank curiosity.