The Great Unknown

by Peg Kingman

  IN 1827, MUHAMMED ALI of Egypt had presented to Charles X of France a young female giraffe. Delivered by ship to Marseille, this docile giraffe had then been led the 900 kilometers to Paris on her own four feet, accompanied every step of the way by the elderly naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, on his own (two) feet. She had caused a sensation in every town she passed. In Paris she took up residence at the menagerie, where Parisians in their tens of thousands—tout le monde—came to gaze at her. She was called Zarafa (“giraffe” in Arabic, so clever); and was widely admired for her grace and beauty. Alas, in January 1845 the lovely Zarafa died, at the age of twenty. But the taxidermists of Paris did their best, and before long, a well-preserved Zarafa appeared again in public, now to grace the lofty entrance hall of the Muséum, as celebrated in death as she had been in life.

  Constantia was carrying Livia through this busy echoing hall one wet day in April—having just delivered a letter from Cévennes to Hugh, who was assisting the Misses Grant and Buckley in their Muséum workroom—when she was brought to a standstill by a piping vibrant young voice piercing through the hubbub. Utterly familiar, in a Scotch-inflected English that soared above the murmuring of the French, the voice said, “But why such a very long neck, Mamma, when it might have accomplished the same end by growing very long legs instead?”

  At once Constantia turned, scanning the crowd gathered around the far side of Zarafa’s plinth, and—beneath the giraffe’s belly—found the speaker: Tuckie. Of course.

  With her mother—whose eyes met Constantia’s, at that very moment.

  Delight bloomed simultaneously across these three faces.

  Exclamations of astonishment and joyful embraces were followed by explanations. For a treat, Mr Chambers had brought the two of them with him to Paris, where he was celebrating his forty-fourth birthday (two months early, it must be admitted) by attending the international conference at the Muséum. While he reveled, day after day, in hearing the world’s savants read aloud their learned papers in geology and paleontology, Tuckie and Mrs Chambers were walking Paris’s avenues and boulevards, regaling themselves with novelties and delights, for the eye and for the palate.

  “Mrs MacAdam, did you notice?” said Tuckie, turning her head from side to side, to show her profile. “It is the very first bonnet I’ve ever had from a shop, new just for me, not handed down from my sisters! A Paris bonnet!”

  “Exceedingly elegant, and suits you admirably,” said Constantia. “What will your sisters say, poor dears?”

  “We have bought rabbit muffs for them,” said Tuckie. “Or Daddy did, rather.”

  “A pity about the rain,” said Constantia. “You cannot think how often I have blessed you, Mrs Chambers, for this handsome cloak, during this coldest and wettest of springs—but it is unfortunate that the weather is so unpleasant for your visit. The charms of Paris are not so evident from under an umbrella, whilst one’s stockings are being splashed.”

  “Oh, but damp stockings are nothing to us,” Tuckie assured her. “We’re hardier than that, Mamma and I—indeed, it was snowing the day we left Edinburgh. Paris feels quite like the tropics, by comparison; and this warm rain like the monsoon, as I suppose. It was you who told us of the monsoon, Mrs MacAdam. How we have missed you, ever since you went away! And to think of finding you and Livie here! Livie, Livie, such a big plump girl now—look at you! Do you remember me, Livie? Of course she does! See her smile! What pretty teeth she has got, too!”

  “We have acquired a great stock of presents to carry home, quite a merchant’s cargo,” Mrs Chambers was saying, “but in all of Paris, I have not been able to find a suitable present for my husband. He tells me he wants nothing but a new surtout, to replace his old one, now too much worn to be presentable. Of course I have ordered one for him, but I do desire to give him something handsome and impractical as well.”

  “I understand: no quotidian necessity, but glorious superfluity,” said Constantia.

  “And, as it happens, a modest legacy has just fallen to me, my own to use as I like; entirely unexpected, left me by an acquaintance who recently passed away. Oh! but you knew her yourself, now that I think of it—for you must remember Lady Janet!—who was taken to her heavenly rest most unexpectedly, soon after the New Year.”

  Constantia doubted that Lady Janet was constitutionally capable of heavenly rest; it was far easier to imagine her setting an example of virtuous industry for the angels there—if there she was.

  “You may imagine our astonishment at learning not only that poor Lady Janet had anything to leave—but that Nina and I were among her legatees!” Mrs Chambers was saying. “To Nina she bequeathed her japanned cabinet—not yet finished inside one of the door panels, however—and with a moderate sum, on the condition that Nina should finish its decoration. After consideration, Nina has accepted the bequest, and is inking the final panel with meticulous care—but with a design which Lady Janet would never have approved, for it is an anatomical rendering of the human hand—holding sprigs of opium poppy, in bud, bloom, and seed. Aye, it is rather grotesque, but inside the cabinet door, you know, it will seldom be seen. The bequest left to me, however, is without strings, and is just that ideal sum which is too great to be squandered, yet too small to be responsibly invested. It is just such a sum as will enable me to surprise my frugal husband with the present he deserves, but never expects, and never seeks for himself—if only I could find precisely the right article.”

  “You are in the right city for marvelous presents, to be sure.”

  “We have been astonished by the opulence of the shops in the rue St Honoré and rue de Rivoli. We have inspected every gold watch and chain in the city; and the most remarkable top-hats, which would be the wonder of Edinburgh. I was tempted for one entire day by an antique Etruscan jug; and another day by a curious Egyptian alabaster figure with a dog’s head. I considered an orrery, but I was not certain of its accuracy. Tuckie was enchanted by the stuffed baby zebra we saw at Deyrolle’s. I nearly made up my mind to have a handsome old set of Napier’s bones—for making calculations, you know—which were said to have belonged to Voltaire. But I held back, for none of these struck me as the Very Thing, and I was beginning to despair when, last evening, Mr Chambers came in with this little handbill which he had picked up here, at the conference.” From inside her muff she drew out a leaflet and unfolded it.

  Constantia, who knew it instantly, felt a thrill run through her.

  “Handsomely illustrated, too,” Mrs Chambers was saying. “It describes an extraordinary fossil, only just discovered, rather like a Chinese puzzle, it seems: one creature preserved inside another—if I understand the French correctly, which is far from certain. It was plain that he was utterly smitten, though he never thinks of spending anything on his own pleasures. How could I have been so slow to think of it? Not Napier’s bones, no; but bones of quite another sort! It is offered at a price very near what I am able to pay; and inquiries, it says here, are to be directed to a M. Stevenson, to be heard of at this Muséum. I daresay that with a name like Stevenson, this monsieur may even speak English. If only I could make the porter understand me, and direct me! But no; he refuses to understand my French; apparently I am no more intelligible than an orangutan, although Mam’selle has always assured me that my pronunciation is no worse than that of other Scots ladies. Perhaps he would be obliged to understand you, Mrs MacAdam?”

  “Let us dispense with the porter entirely,” said Constantia. “I know just where Mr Stevenson is to be found. I assure you that he speaks English perfectly, and nothing could better please me than to introduce him to you. No, it is no trouble at all; come this way, pray,” she said, leading Mrs Chambers and Tuckie out of the high echoing hall, around a corner, and behind a screen, to a jib door which opened into a low passage. “Yes, I know Mr Stevenson—rather well. As a matter of fact,” said Constantia, shutting the door behind them, “he is my husband.”

  Mrs Chambers was not the first to approach Mr Stevenson
wishing to see his spectacular fossil. There had been more or less frank interest on the part of at least three others. The first of these had promptly tendered a rather low offer, hoping to snap it up at a bargain price in early-bird style. The second, known to represent a minor European royal personage possessed of—or by—a burgeoning collection of fossils, had sent an enthusiastic account to his principal, and was now anxiously awaiting instructions. The third had made several disparaging remarks as to the preparation and cleaning of the fossil; then offered Mr Stevenson a small sum to withdraw it from the open market for a fortnight, an inducement which Mr Stevenson had declined.

  Mrs Chambers was another sort of buyer altogether. She saw everything to praise and nothing at all to criticise in the fossil itself: its beauty! its importance! the excellence of its preparation! She must have it; her husband certainly ought not to have to live another day without it. There followed indeed some quibblings over price. Mrs Chambers insisted that it was worth rather more than Mr Stevenson asked; she would never forgive herself if they would not accept a premium above his asking price. Mr Stevenson, however, declared himself unable—really not within his power—to accept from the friend and benefactress of his wife and child, even so much as his original asking price; the price for so kind a friend was of course rather less. Mrs Chambers argued that it was not herself but Mrs MacAdam—ah, Stevenson!—who had acted the part of friend and benefactress; a debt that never could be repaid . . . and so on.

  But with the encouragement and aid of Misses Grant and Buckley they came eventually to a compromise, settling upon the original asking price; and the Stevensons—and the Misses Grant and Buckley too—agreed to come as guests to Mr Chambers’s celebratory dinner some evenings hence, at the restaurant called Les Trois Frères, at the Palais Royale.

  On their way out of the Muséum, Constantia offered to lead Mrs Chambers to the assembly rooms where the conference was under way, saying, “I daresay that you in particular, at least as much as your husband, would like to hear the learned papers read; Tuckie and I might amuse ourselves meanwhile by inspecting the displays in the exhibit hall. There are some marvels to be seen.”

  Mrs Chambers only smiled faintly, and shook her head.

  Constantia tried again: “Indeed, I am surprised, Mrs Chambers, that you do not take your place by his side. You have, after all, a far more than ordinary interest, and expertise, in these matters.”

  “Oh, not I. One can hear enough of that sort of thing,” declared Mrs Chambers. “My husband comes in each evening eager to tell the news; overflowing with it. A few years ago, it was the titanic clash between the diluvialists and the fluvialists; and then there was the Great Devonian Controversy, satisfactorily settled at last. But the great revelations of this conference, I gather, are furnished by Mr Agassiz and his party, with their mounting evidences of glaciers practically everywhere; my husband is beside himself with joy about the deeply scratched bedrock atop our very own Corstorphine Hill, just outside of Edinburgh, and vows to go inspect these telling glacial gouges for himself, just so soon as we shall have returned home.”

  Was this not a decided—if tactful—rebuff? But as Mrs Chambers had never demanded to know Constantia’s secrets, Constantia felt bound to accord her an equivalent deference. In any case, Mr Chambers was apparently reporting the proceedings to her, in some detail.

  The Stevensons, having accepted Mrs Chambers’s (formerly Lady Janet’s) good money for the Precious Trove, packed the fossil stones once more into their crates; gave notice to Mme Mouchy; and, trying to subdue a giddy and premature sense of triumph, set an appointment for a day early in May to meet the sellers of that Cévennes quarry in the presence of notaire and avocat, for purposes of conveyance.

  It was quick work to sort through their scanty personal goods. Of her remaining dress lengths of bizarres, Constantia set aside one—a reciprocal stripe based upon planaria, in gold and mauve—as a present for Miss Buckley, who had particularly admired it. The remainder could be sold to one of the maisons de confection, which proffered ready-made clothes to the middling classes. Those of Hugh’s old shirts worn beyond repair would go to ragpickers. Wrapped in the oldest of these, at the back of a drawer, was a book she had never come across before. “What is this book, my dear?” she asked Hugh who, seated beneath the window, was reckoning yields in his works-plan for the new quarry. She read aloud the imprint on the spine: “MATTHEW ON NAVAL TIMBER AND ARBORICULTURE. Do you take an interest in such subjects?”

  “Oh, that!” said he ruefully, as she passed it to him. “I had nearly succeeded in forgetting all about it. Indeed, the very sight of it is a reproach to me—for it does not belong to me. No, it must have been lent me at the time I was taking my leave from Scotland in ’forty-two . . . but my departure, you know, was so exceedingly hasty and fraught—so near a thing, with so many nocturnal flittings between hiding places arranged by Chartist friends who preferred, for their safety and mine, to remain anonymous—that, while I am convinced it came into my hands at that time, I do not know who lent it—and I have been unable to return it to its owner. As neither timber nor arboriculture holds for me any charm, I cannot fathom why it should have been bestowed on me. But here is a bookmark, still . . . Well! How very odd! Do you know, my dear, I was thinking not long ago of these very phrases, these very words—though I could not remember where I had read them. Listen: ‘As the field of existence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they have superior adaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other kind; the weaker, less circumstance-suited, being prematurely destroyed.’ How unruly a servant is memory! Mine is, to be sure. Presumably the owner wanted his property returned to him, for he has written his name here, on the fly-leaf—but I do not remember ever meeting him, nor have I ever heard of Spring Gardens.”

  Constantia took the book back again. On the fly-leaf was written, in a large bold hand:

  J. Gunn. his Book.

  Spring Gardens.

  “But,” said Constantia, after an electric moment, “I know Spring Gardens. I know Mr Gunn, too. And furthermore, I know who will be so good as to carry his book back to Scotland, and return it to him.”

  (Could this, too, happen by chance? Could it?

  It could. And here is the proof: It did happen.)

  Meanwhile, there was a dinner to be eaten, at Les Trois Frères. Constantia’s best gown of plain indigo silk broadcloth was just good enough, although she knew that she looked as sober as a Quakeress in it, and not at all Parisian. Hugh’s best coat, perhaps no longer quite impeccable by daylight, could still pass muster by evening’s gaslight and candlelight; and his hat was above reproach. Leaving Livia for the first time in the charge of Mme Mouchy, they splurged on a fiacre to deliver them unspattered to the Palais Royale—unspattered, though slightly crushed, for Miss Grant and Miss Buckley crowded into the fiacre with them. Constantia carried Mr Gunn’s book, wrapped in paper and tied with twine, to pass to Mrs Chambers.

  Behind a sort of lectern at the entrance to the splendid dining salon there presided a glossy and ceremonious maître d’hôtel—connoisseur of every nuance of dress and deportment—who received them in English even before they spoke, and bowed them to a table near the gilded boiserie where Mr and Mrs Chambers were already seated. The white napery was luminous damask; the faceted wine and water glasses glittered in the light of massy ormolu gasoliers; the silver forks and spoons gleamed. At a signal from Mr Chambers, a waiter poured iced champagne into each glass, and then Mr Chambers raised his glass, saying: “By rights, of course, we ought to be drinking wormwood and gall tonight, not champagne—for this, you will surely have remembered, is the centennial of the catastrophe at Culloden. Aye, but it is: the sixteenth of April, the year ’forty-six. But let us not dwell tonight upon strife and sorrow; although every human endeavor must meet the same end, there may be nume
rous occasions for rejoicing meanwhile—and this is most certainly one of them. A friend rediscovered and a mystery elucidated—” (he bowed toward Constantia), “valuable new acquaintances gained—” (toward Hugh and the Misses Grant and Buckley), “and a most remarkable vestige of former worlds, newly brought to light—” (Hugh, again), “and, astonishingly, into my own possession!” (toward his wife). “My wonder at these unlooked-for events is exceeded only by my delight in them. I beg you all will drink a glass with me, in honour of remarkable coincidences, and accidental discoveries!”

  The room was high, luxuriously warm, extravagantly illuminated; and sounded of very civilized revelry: of the tinkling laughter and flutey voices of French ladies; of their fans, their bracelets; a general rustling and preening and striking of becoming attitudes, which might be demure or coquettish; arch or artless; resisting or yielding. Frenchmen were always far more attentive to their ladies than were Englishmen to theirs, because Frenchmen never felt abashed or shy or awkward in feminine company. They knew themselves to be the most dashing, fascinating, admirable, clever, brave, handsome beings in the world; hadn’t their mothers and aunts and even their sisters convinced them of this, each and every garçon of them, since their earliest boyhoods? With plenty to say, they bent toward their companions, unfrightened by those rosy plump arms and shoulders and necks.

  But not all the voices were French. For Englishmen abroad, a dinner at Les Trois Frères was all but obligatory; one could scarcely claim to have been at Paris at all, unless one had dined at Les Trois Frères; or else the Café de Paris; or, preferably, both. In the bustle of meeting, greeting, and seating, Constantia had had no attention to spare for the party seated at the next table further along, behind her chair; now, however, she could hear them from time to time: a mixed party of Englishmen and Englishwomen. “By dint of triple shifts, and unrelenting push . . .” a man’s voice was saying behind her, in English.