by Stuart Clark
‘Robert, you’re a master of experimentation and no one doubts that, but you’re not a mathematician. Neither am I. Mr Halley is, and Mr Newton even more so. We should be content with our stations.’
Hooke looked into Wren’s wide-set eyes. ‘Why do we place such disproportionate value on mathematical descriptions? The true insight comes at the beginning of the investigation, in the observation and the reasoning. The calculation is but the finish of the task. My church stands outside, yet I have not dirtied my hands once in its construction. Mathematicians are the workmen of philosophers, but we insist on treating them as architects.’
Wren shook his head. ‘The new mathematics is the way of proving things beyond doubt. Philosophy and mathematics are drawing closer, so close that I think we may soon see a time when they will become indistinguishable.’
‘Then there is no room for me in such a future.’ Hooke shoved his half-finished meal away.
‘Look around you, Robert; London is your testimony. You have been involved in all aspects of the rebuilding. You don’t need anything else.’
‘You will be remembered for London, not me. You designed most of the buildings; I merely surveyed the land they stand on. Once more, I am cast in the shadows.’
Wren sighed. ‘Oh Robert, you must cheer up, or I fear this self-pity will destroy you.’
17
Islington Village
Mary’s soft touch on Halley’s shoulder broke his reverie. The folds of her dress rustled against his chair and he reached up to take her hand.
‘What are you working on?’ she asked.
‘Oh, just pushing equations around a page, getting nowhere. I remember Father would look at my equations and say, “They might as well be the hieroglyphs of Egypt.” I tried to tell him: each letter represents a measurable quantity. Say p was the time the planet takes to orbit the Sun and a was a measure of the planet’s distance from the Sun. But he wouldn’t listen. He thought that to seek out the rules of the cosmos was threatening.
‘I asked him once if he’d ever wondered why the planets are arranged as they are. You know what he said? “They are as God intended them to be.”’ Halley imitated his father’s voice, elevating the pomposity. “‘Don’t look at me like that, young man. Mankind has believed in Jesus Christ for more than a millennium and a half. What makes you think you know any better?”’
Mary bent to kiss Halley. ‘Well, it’s a good question.’
‘You know, Joane’s got half of London talking about him with her stupid reward – one hundred pounds. She has no shame. We shouldn’t be making a spectacle of his disappearance.’
There was a sharp knock on the front door.
‘Are we expecting anyone?’
Mary shook her head.
When they reached the landing, the sound of conversation was drifting upwards. One voice was Mrs Fletcher’s, their housekeeper; the other was a man’s, young and apologetic. Chomat! Halley ran down the stairs, Mary a few paces behind him.
Joseph Chomat was waiting, face downcast, hat in hand. He looked up. ‘Edmond. . .’
‘You’ve found him?’
Joane’s nephew looked despairing. ‘I have bad news.’
Mary grasped Halley’s hand.
‘Where is he?’ Halley said.
‘Kent. I’m sorry – his body was washed up on the mudflats near Rochester.’
‘Drowned?’ Halley looked around as if lost. ‘Where are my manners? Do please come through; let us offer you some refreshment.’
They seated themselves in the front room, where the dappled spring light was falling through the bay window. ‘Who found him?’ said Halley.
‘A local boy.’
‘How is Joane?’
Chomat shook his head. ‘She’s refusing to pay the reward, claiming that it was intended only if your father were found alive. The local authorities have backed the boy and it looks as if the matter will go to court.’
‘The problem is of her own making,’ Halley mumbled.
‘Edmond, there’s something else I have to tell you.’
‘The coroner has declared that your father was murdered.’
‘I must see him,’ said Halley.
‘The coroner?’
‘My father.’
The mortuary was a long, cold tunnel with a row of skylights.
I’ve seen a dead body before, Halley told himself as he walked down the final few steps. His mother, his brother and his sister had all been laid out before burial. A sailor had succumbed to fever on the journey home from Saint Helena. The body had looked peaceful despite the agony of the man’s final days.
A man was sharpening a long knife on the side of a stone buttress. He set it down, wiped his hands on his leather apron and spoke in a slow voice. ‘Edmond Halley? They told me you were coming. Follow me.’
Each side of the tunnel was lined with wooden benches. Here and there, seemingly in random order, was the outline of a figure covered in a sheet. Some were big, some small; one was clearly an infant. Halley glanced back to remind himself of how far he was from the exit.
‘We brought him in night before last,’ the man was saying. ‘We only transport them at night, when it’s cooler.’ He stooped to pick up a bucket. ‘You might need this.’
Halley dumbly accepted, already feeling queasy.
They approached a bench where a large body was visible under a sheet. The mortician peeled back the covering to reveal the face and chest. Halley gagged.
‘He’s been in the water a long time,’ said the mortician.
Halley could recognise nothing of his father in that grey mass of decay and disfigurement. Broken bone and teeth, withered muscle and flesh. One eye was gone; whether gouged before death or lost to the fishes, Halley could not tell. There were dark markings across the ruined flesh of the upper torso.
‘Are those bruises?’
‘He met a violent death.’
Halley nodded. ‘Do you have his clothing? His possessions?’
‘This is how they found him.’
‘Naked?’
‘Not quite.’ The man replaced the sheet over the face, then lifted it from the other end, revealing the feet.
Halley choked back tears. His father’s feet were still stuck in those infernal leather shoes.
Joane was dressed in black, which made her seem even smaller than usual. She was sitting beside the maw of the empty fire in the gloomy back room, staring at the wainscoting. Cleeter towered behind her chair, dressed in a sombre grey waistcoat and jacket.
Halley fidgeted. Their attire made him feel inadequate. He was wearing a simple black armband, but his jacket was fastened by a dozen gold buttons that seemed inappropriately cheerful.
Five minutes had passed since he had been shown in, and she had yet to look up.
‘I am sorry, Joane,’ Halley said. ‘I know how you must feel. I assume that he is to be buried in the family grave.’ He stopped himself from saying, ‘with Mother’.
‘I have made the arrangements with the Vicar of Barking,’ she murmured.
Halley was thinking that his best course of action would be to leave, but then she looked up at him.
‘I knew about the Earl of Essex. Your father was terrified. Did you really think he wouldn’t talk to me – his wife – about that?’
But that had been our secret, Halley thought; he and his father had agreed to carry the burden alone.
‘I gave you the chance to confide,’ said Joane.
‘If you knew the truth, you should have known to keep quiet. It may not be over.’
She tutted. ‘Of course it’s over, Edmond. Haven’t you heard? Braddon and Speke have been arrested, tried and found guilty of spreading derogatory rumours. They’re in prison. And now your father, their principal witness, is dead. I would say that closes the matter, wouldn’t you?’
‘Then we have no more to say,’ he said stiffly. ‘I will be in touch about taking over my father’s estate.’
‘It’s not a
s simple as that,’ she said. ‘You’ll know soon enough, so I might as well tell you now. Your father died intestate. I’m suing you for control of his properties and wealth.’
‘My father’s properties are mine. I’m his son.’
Cleeter stood gawping behind Joane like some ridiculous butler.
She stood up. ‘Since when have you shown any interest in your father’s business? Always too busy careering around trying to impress the greybeards at that Royal Society of yours. You forfeited your rights to your father’s estate a long time ago with your indifference. I’m the one who’s helped him these past ten years.’
‘You will get this house and your share of his personal wealth. With the sale of the soapworks that will be enough.’
‘There’s nothing left from the soapworks. Your father had just mortgaged the place to buy new vats. He sold everything at exactly the wrong time. You’ll get something of his wealth and properties – I’m not as callous as you think – but I’m not handing everything to you.’
Halley turned to go.
‘That’s right,’ she said in a brittle voice, ‘do what you always do. Run away. Pretend it’s not happening. How will you ever amount to anything? Your father mollycoddled you when he should have made you work. Well, Edmond, it’s time you grew up.’
That night, cradling a goblet of wine, Halley watched the Earth’s celestial neighbour rise. He should have been out there, under the Moon, making his observations, but Joane’s voice rattled in his head.
Time to grow up.
He tried to dismiss her words, but they had lodged inside him. He threw the rest of the wine down his throat and turned away from the night sky.
18
Halley spurred his horse faster, relishing the breeze on his face and the flash of the hedgerows as he thundered along the Great North Road. The drumming of the hooves on the dried earth became one with the pounding of his heart as he galloped past the lumbering coaches sharing the road.
Now and again a cluster of whitewashed cottages sped past; a few villagers looked up to see who was in such a tearing hurry. Perhaps they expected to see the red livery of a King’s messenger. Instead, they saw Halley’s wind-tousled hair and billowing shirt. He wanted to laugh out loud, and it struck him that this was how he used to feel all the time. It had been four months since his father’s funeral. The world had continued through its orbit, and the air was again filled with birdsong and warmth.
He was riding so hard that he missed the fork to Sawtry, where the reluctant rector and the long-overdue rent were waiting. Drawing the stallion to a halt, he circled back to the split in the road. Sure enough, he had taken the route where someone had used a poker to burn the word ‘Cambridge’ into an arrow of wood.
On the grassy verge startled geese flapped furiously to escape the horse and rider. One by one they rose clumsily into the air, becoming more graceful as they gained height. The sight reminded Halley of Hooke, who had once said that the grace of a high-flying bird must surely be attributable to the decrease of gravity with altitude.
Hooke. The deadline for his proof had long since passed.
Halley looked thoughtfully at the sign to Cambridge. The horse was growing impatient beneath him.
‘Hah!’ he shouted, slapping the reins.
The Rector of Sawtry could wait.
He galloped off towards Cambridge and Newton.
Summer air clogged the Cambridge streets. Halley found lodgings at the first half-decent inn he came across, then set off into the maze of narrow walkways overhung by rickety timber buildings. Conscious of the stares drawn by his tailored jacket, he increased his pace.
Through the slivers between the buildings Halley at last spied the four towers of Trinity’s gatehouse. He emerged from the alleys and crossed the open concourse.
Someone jumped from the shadows of the college garden’s wall. A malnourished lad dressed in sackcloth, with a shrivelled right arm, confronted him and nodded a greeting.
‘You startled me,’ said Halley, making to step around him.
‘Who you here to see?’
‘Mr Newton. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Aye, he’s in. First room on the right, when you get through to the quad.’ There was something in the way he emphasised the word ‘quad’ that indicated he had no idea what a quad was. Probably just something he had overheard. Yet there was sincerity in the boy’s eyes, and a painful neglect, evident in his scuffed and dirty knees, that tugged at Halley. He reached into a pouch and tossed the boy a coin.
‘Go through the small one. They only open the big one for the Master,’ called the boy, holding his prize.
‘Thank you,’ said Halley as he pushed open the gate and stepped into the coolness of the stone entrance.
A steward looked him up and down and asked him to state his business.
‘Edmond Halley, astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society, to see Mr Newton.’
‘Wait here. But don’t get your hopes up. Mr Newton doesn’t have many visitors.’ With a quizzical look, the steward left.
Dons in their black gowns came and went. When the steward returned, he seemed perplexed. ‘He says to go round, to the first –’
‘Door on the right? Thank you, I’ve been here before.’
Halley stepped from the shadow of the gateway into the full sunlight of the path that ran around the quadrangle. The door to Newton’s room was closed. Halley knocked and waited. The door opened a crack and a single bloodshot eye squinted as him. It was not Newton’s.
‘Yes?’ its owner inquired, as if Halley’s arrival was entirely unexpected.
‘Is Mr Newton in residence? I’m Edmond Halley.’
The door opened enough for the man to bend himself into a bow. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘I’m Humphrey, sir, Mr Newton’s assistant. He bids you come in and wait.’
Halley stepped in from the brightness, straight into a heavy swathe of dark fabric draped across the doorway.
‘Wait! Light will ruin the experiment,’ explained the man, closing the door behind Halley with a click of the metal latch. ‘There, you can go through now.’
Halley parted the curtain and stepped into a room where illumination was a precious commodity. Apart from the dust motes dancing in the occasional golden needle of light from the window shutters, everything was silhouettes and shadows. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could discern shelves laden with books, a desk, a couple of chairs arranged haphazardly, and in the far corner a pair of none-too-comfortable-looking beds. Piles of papers and books covered the floor.
Newton was at work in a separate space, visible through a hole in the wall. His lanky frame was crouched over a small tin furnace that, despite its size, had raised the temperature of the room to sweltering point. A rubicund glow cast him in a demonic hue. He did not look around but continued to stir a potion in a crucible. Metallic odours stung Halley’s eyes and made it difficult for him to breathe.
Humphrey headed into the wooden outbuilding. He gently placed his hands on Newton’s shoulders and lowered himself to match Newton’s pose, sliding his hand along Newton’s outstretched arm to take over the stirring. It was a practised move that ensured the liquid never broke its motion.
Newton rose, pushed up his baggy shirtsleeves and ducked through into the main room. ‘Mr Halley,’ he said, dabbing at his sweaty brow, ‘what brings you to Cambridge?’
‘Diversion from my lamentable daily routine of landlord.’
‘Of course. My condolences on your loss and my sympathy for the predicament you now find yourself in. Having to share an estate cannot be an easy thing.’ Newton lowered himself into a chair and indicated the other for Halley.
‘The news of my settlement has reached Cambridge?’
‘I have my eyes and ears in the capital,’ said Newton, as if trading a confidence.
Newton had aged considerably, thought Halley; his hair was now entirely grey and sat in wiry bushes about his head. A ragged fringe had bee
n chopped into the front. But his eyes were the same, wide open, with a gaze that was difficult to hold for long. Perhaps it was Newton’s superior decade in age, or the lengthy nose he tended to look down, that made Halley uncomfortable.
‘You have spent too much time with the quicksilver,’ he joked nervously.
Newton raised his chin.
‘I mean the colour of your hair.’
‘Am I totally silver now?’ Newton craned his neck, trying to see his own hair.
Halley nodded slowly before Newton fixed him with an unblinking stare. ‘Tell me, what does London think of my pursuits?’
‘What do your London eyes and ears tell you?’
‘They never tell me about myself, only others.’
‘Very well, I will not lie to you.’ Halley steeled himself. ‘Alchemy’s considered to be a waste of your mathematical talents.’
‘If you listen to others, most of my career has been a waste of time. Once it was the mathematics that was the waste, then optics, now the chemical arts. Yet it was in that furnace that I made the alloy that I polished into the telescope’s mirror.’
Halley glanced over at Newton’s assistant, who was continuing to stir as if in a trance. ‘What are you making?’
‘I cannot tell you. Unlike the Royal Society, I don’t believe that all knowledge needs to be widely known. The followers of Pythagoras were a secret cult. Only after their work was plundered did the rest of the world learn of its existence. You of all people should appreciate the wisdom of keeping some beliefs private.’
Was he referring to religion now, or that stupid business with Mrs Hevelius? ‘Another snippet from your London eyes and ears?’
‘There will be tough times ahead for atheists,’ said Newton matter-of-factly.
Halley inclined his head as if accepting advice, then said, ‘Mr Newton, in London the problem of celestial motion vexes us all. We would like to know what shape an orbit would be for a planet held in place by a force that drops with the inverse square of distance.’