by John Darnton
“You missed the crowds.”
“No, but I missed something.”
She smiled, almost sadly, he thought.
“And the project? Who’s running it?”
“A couple came, nice enough, I guess. Serious types.”
“And you were the odd man out, once again?”
“Sort of. Speaking of which, how is Nigel? What’s he doing?”
“I don’t really know.”
“You don’t?”
“We stopped seeing each other.”
His heart rose up. “What happened?”
“Hard to say, really. He insisted on coming to the funeral, even though I didn’t want him to. My ex-husband came too, so there was a certain amount of . . . strain. I remember just looking at the two of them, so conspicuously ignoring each other, and thinking I wish I were rid of both of them. So when we got back, we went our separate ways. I expect he’s got someone new by now. The gift of gab gets them every time.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I didn’t think he was—up to you.”
She laughed, then said: “Unlike you, for example.”
“Yes. Unlike me.”
She smiled as the train pulled into a station. They had to stand to let an elderly woman pass. Hugh helped her with her suitcase, carrying it outside to the platform, and when he returned, Beth had her feet propped on the seat across from her, resting on an Evening Standard.
“So, what are you doing in Cambridge?” he asked.
“Research,” she replied. “And you?”
“The same—research.”
He was struck by the realization that something had changed: he had found it easy on the island to confide in her, but now a screen went up between them. He felt as if he were playing chess—their pawns just blocked one another.
“What kind of research?” she asked. “Is it about Darwin?”
“Uh-huh. And you?”
“Darwin.”
“I see,” he said. “Is it—biographical or what?”
“Sort of. I can’t really say yet. And you?”
“The same.”
They fell silent, pondering the chessboard. Through the backpack, he felt the journal. If she only knew what he had there . . . but obviously he couldn’t tell her, or anyone else for that matter. What was she up to?
After a minute or two, he said, “You know, Nigel once told me he thought you were related to Darwin.”
She gave him a sharp look.
“Now, why would he say that?”
“I have no idea. But is it true? Are you?”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she said in a tone that ended the matter.
Checkmate.
They talked until the train reached Cambridge. On the platform, he saw that it was starting to drizzle lightly.
“So . . . You want to get a drink?” she asked.
He looked at his watch. The library was still open for another hour and he was also eager to read more of the journal. “I do, but . . .”
She finished his sentence for him: “You’ve got something to do.”
“Yes. I’m really sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry so much.”
“How about tomorrow?” he asked.
“Okay. My schedule is nothing if not flexible—embarrassingly so.”
They fixed a time and place—the Prince Regent at seven—and shared a cab. Inside, they exchanged addresses and phone numbers; she wrote his on the back of an envelope. She was staying with a friend on Nor-folk Street, not too far from his rooming house, and so she dropped him off, refusing money for the fare. Through the window, she sized up his place. “Not fancy,” she said, “but I like the name: Twenty Windows.
Did you count them?”
“Of course.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Hugh dropped the knapsack off in his room, then turned around and left for the library. He followed the narrow side streets with their ungainly brown brick houses and alleyways. It was raining harder now, but it felt pleasantly cool on his face. At Market Square he entered a Gothic world of spires and ancient arches, turning into the passageway behind the walls of Trinity and crossing the slate-covered bridge across the Cam. The river below was an undulating bright green carpet. Three black swans, their heads bowed, swam through weeping-willow boughs that hung on the far bank. Life suddenly seemed filled with possibilities.
It was filled with coincidences and happenstance—you never knew when it might bring you to some crossroads or when you had taken some critical turn, even at the moment you were taking it.
He bounded up the library steps, showed his card, pushed through the turnstile, and mounted the stairs to the Manuscripts Room. Roland was there, shuffling through request forms; he waved hello, then checked his watch and wagged his head in make-believe reproach.
“I need something on Darwin’s family life,” said Hugh. “What can you recommend? I’m interested in particular in Elizabeth—Lizzie.”
“Ah, the mystery retard.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m only repeating what I hear.”
Ten minutes later, Hugh was installed at a corner table, plowing through the half dozen books that Roland provided.
There was little to learn about Lizzie. Born July 8, 1847. Never married. Died June 8, 1926. Those were the bare bones of her life. Her father noted, once, that she was given to strange shivers as a child. And Henrietta left behind some lines suggesting that Lizzie was “slow.” So that’s where the calumny comes from, thought Hugh. He discounted it quickly and almost angrily—Lizzie’s own journal belied any such notion. Besides, he knew enough about sibling rivalry to understand that it worked both ways.
One book carried a reference to the curious fact that in 1866 (the year following her journal entries, Hugh noted) she refused confirmation; she turned away from the catechism and told her mother, “I do not feel much heart for it.” That same year she announced that henceforth she wanted to be known as “Bessie” instead of “Lizzie.” That was curious. Was she acting out of a whim? Or was she experiencing some crisis, some emotional storm that made her want to reinvent herself? And then four years later, just before Henrietta married a man named Litchfield, she seemed to drop out of sight; she went abroad alone and afterward was given short shrift in family chronicles.
Hugh wondered: Just how reliable an observer was she? Was she a Victorian maiden with an overheated imagination? Was she fixated on her father? Jealous of Etty? Some things were clear: she was a rebellious tomboy, hungry for life—but also, by her own account, shy, suspicious, wanting to fade into the background. And a sleuth—what a sleuth!
Unaccountably, Hugh suddenly felt protective of her, wanting to side with her against her perfect sister, her uncomprehending mother, and her beloved but autocratic Papa.
She was certainly dead-on about the illnesses that plagued Darwin’s later life. He checked the indexes and skimmed the relevant passages: there they all were, the pathetic bouts of nervous exhaustion and nausea, dizziness and headaches, fatigue and insomnia, eczema and anxiety.
He had so many symptoms that no single illness explained them all.
Some theorized that he came down with Chagas’ disease, contracted from the bite of a benchuca bug in South America, an episode that Darwin described in grisly detail (Hugh made a note: March 26, 1835—
Triatoma infestans). But the symptoms didn’t fit; Darwin did have an incapacitating sickness in Argentina, but that happened before, not after, the famous bite. So most scholars leaned to the theory that his illnesses were psychosomatic in origin. They seemed to involve an amalgam of grief, guilt, and fear, suggesting, said one biographer, Janet Browne, “some deep-seated dread of exposure.” But what secret was there in his life? What exposure could he possibly have feared?
Hugh’s thoughts were interrupted by Roland.
“Only half an hour to closing.”
“Roland, do you have any of Lizzie’s letters? Can I se
e them?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“There aren’t any?”
“No, there are. They’re on the reserve shelf. Someone else has them on call.”
“Someone else?”
Roland nodded officiously. “Look, I’m not supposed to say anything.
Curators are not supposed to blab about other people’s research. What do they say in Vegas? What goes on here, stays here. But the coincidence is just too striking.”
“What?”
“For the longest time, nobody’s interested in Elizabeth Darwin. And then just a few days ago a young woman comes along and, like you, she wants to know everything about her. She’s American too.”
“Her name . . . would it be Beth Dulcimer?”
“Ah, so you know her. Or do you know of her?”
“I know her.”
“Then I do hope you’re not rivals. She certainly is attractive.”
On the way home, Hugh wondered what Beth could be up to. And why was she so secretive about it? On the other hand, he had to admit, he had not been exactly forthcoming himself. But that was precisely the point: he had something to hide. So what was she hiding?
He stopped off at The Hawks Head, muggy and smoky and loud. As 8 5
he approached the bar, he noticed a young man seated on a stool who looked a lot like Cal during his Harvard days—the thin back, the dark hair curling just over the collar. Hugh felt the familiar rush of confusion and emptiness and then the long numbing ache.
He brought his beer to a table and ignored a young, sallow blond woman who gave him the eye. He finished a pint, then another. With the alcohol, the ache began to ebb a bit. Relaxed, he let his mind drift back to his days at Andover.
The truth of it was, when he got expelled, he had not been devastated. Quite the contrary: he was secretly pleased, excited; the drama brought everything to a head. He had gotten into the school only on his brother’s coattails—Cal had been such a success, they hoped for the same from the younger brother—and, as always, he hadn’t quite measured up. But this—this was as good as success in its own way; it made as big a mark, merely upside down. Not for him the easy path. He was a rebel. That morning, he spent a good half hour carving his name into the wooden seat of a bench on campus; he had once heard that Wordsworth did this as a young boy in the Lake District.
“Hugh, Jesus Christ. No, it can’t be.” When Cal called him in the dorm the next morning to make sure he had not gotten caught, Hugh had to tell him what had happened—that the dorm master had gone looking for him, had smelled alcohol on his breath, and had promptly called the Dean of Students. He was finished. Cal groaned into the receiver, for he was bound to feel responsible. He had come up to Andover to celebrate Hugh’s Harvard acceptance and together the two had gone off to a bar. Cal came with him on the train to Connecticut; it was hard to know who was consoling whom. They would confront their father together. Their father did not get particularly angry. But that was worse in a way—he seemed to expect Hugh to fail. The one he was angry at was Cal.
When Hugh left the pub, the rain had stopped. He walked to his rooming house and found a note from his landlady pushed under the door. Bridget had telephoned—he was to call back, no matter how late.
He went to the phone in the hall.
“Hugh, thank God.”
“What’s up?”
“Listen, I’ve been doing some thinking. We have to meet. I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Okay. But tell me why.”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Noon tomorrow, right? St. James’s Park?
At the entrance closest to the palace . . . Hugh, are you there? Are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“So what do you say—will you meet me?”
He paused, only a second.
“I’ll be there.”
CHAPTER 9
7 February 1865
Mr Alfred Russel Wallace came to Down House today for the week-end and as always his visit precipitated an atmosphere of crisis. Even before our guest arrived, Papa began stammering, as he so often does in Mr Wallace’s presence. This is to be expected, I suppose, since Papa responds adversely to the strain of any social situation, and in this instance the awkwardness is compounded by Mr Wallace’s rightful claim to be co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection.
As I heard Mr Wallace recount it (on his first visit here three years ago), the theory came to him while he was mapping an invisible boundary between two hostile tribes on the island of Gilolo in the Moluccas. He was stricken with malaria and as he lay feverish on a mat in a palm-lined hut, the idea leapt full-blown into his brain. Influenced by the work of Thomas Malthus, as was Papa, he conjectured that disease, war and famine hold a population in check and of necessity improve the race ‘because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain’.
Mr Wallace is a tall man, somewhat aloof. He gives the impression of not having fully adapted to English society after eight years wandering among the savages of the Moluccas and Papua New Guinea. I see something in him that is as strong as steel. He is enigmatic and arouses some suspicion in me, though why that should be I am at a loss to explain since he has acted only with kindness and deference to Papa and our family. Etty finds him lower class and vulgar in his manners and so of little consequence, but I cannot dispel the notion that he is as swift and cunning as one of his emblematic species that would prevail through sheer instinct to survive.
He and Papa are cordial in their dealings and outwardly correct, but I know that their relationship is not without tension. When Papa first replied to Mr Wallace’s letter outlining the theory, he did not receive an answer for the longest time. And when finally it came he was upset, reading it in the privacy of his study and promptly throwing it into the fire-place. I can attest to this myself for I entered shortly afterwards and saw it burning there.
To ease this particular week-end, Papa has invited some other guests, including Mr Lyell and Mr Huxley. Mr Lyell is a bit dreary and talks so softly one must strain to hear him. But I enjoy Mr Huxley, a most entertaining and energetic man who has a quick wit and a lively countenance. He has become Papa’s most ardent defender, describing himself as ‘Mr Darwin’s bulldog’ (though I think he more resembles a fox-terrier). I sometimes think of him as a revolutionary general, a Napoleon of natural history, pursuing a military campaign against the Church and scientific establishment under the banner of pure reason.
Our guests arrived at differing times in the morning and Comfort exhausted a number of horses in fetching them. For the afternoon, Mamma packed Etty and Horace and Leonard and me off to Great-Aunt Sarah’s house to be out from underfoot. We returned barely in time for dinner. The conversation was animated, with Mr Huxley extolling the virtues of the natural sciences. At one point he declared that to a person uninstructed in its glories, a country stroll is ‘a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall’.
He then described the latest attacks upon Papa’s theory and his own efforts at confounding the critics which, to hear him tell it, are unerringly successful. He observed that a new word had come into conversations around London clubs, the word Darwinism. As he said this I could not help but steal a glance in Mr Wallace’s direction to see how he would take it, since I sometimes wonder if he is subject to jealousy, but his face was a mask of imper-turbability. Shortly afterwards, he proffered a recommendation, which he said would ensure that the theory be fully understood in all its particulars.
He began by saying as follows: ‘I venture to suggest that the words natural selection, while accurate from a scientific point of view, tend to be misleading as far as the general public is concerned.’
At this Papa sat bolt upright and demanded: ‘By Jove, how so?’
‘The phrase opens the door to misinterpretation, since it would seem to imply that these natural forces, which you and I
both agree are impersonal and random, operate as if some higher consciousness were involved. The word selection would seem to indicate that there is in fact some entity or other that performs the selecting.’
‘And what term, pray tell, would you use in its place?’ inquired Mr Huxley.
‘I suggest borrowing a term from Herbert Spencer,’ Mr Wallace replied.
‘It sums up the theory most concisely and it does so without any reference whatsoever to a higher force.’
‘And pray, what term is that?’
‘ “Survival of the fittest.” ’
At that, Papa reacted so strongly I thought he would have a stroke. He turned ashen and thrust his hand upon his chest as if his heart would give out. Then he rose shakily, excused himself from the table and retreated to his bedroom for the remainder of the evening.
Mr Huxley, who is nothing if not irreverent, made light of the matter. He said to Mr Wallace over coffee: ‘I dare say, if it was a strong reaction you were seeking, you were most successful in provoking one.’
The episode stayed with me for some time. What is there about that particular term, I wondered, that gave Papa such nervous offence?
8 February 1865
Today an incident occurred that makes me blush to recall. In early afternoon, with Papa still not stirring from his room and Mr Wallace having departed for the train station, Mr Huxley and Mr Lyell convened in Papa’s study. As they had a slightly secretive air about them, as if to indicate that what they were about to discuss was confidential, my curiosity was naturally piqued.
And so, after a few minutes, I strolled into the hall and waited outside the door. My intuition was soon rewarded, for I overheard snippets of a conversation that was heated and most intriguing.
Mr Huxley remarked at one point that ‘he has become very high-handed indeed’, a statement with which Mr Lyell agreed. I was not at all certain to whom they were referring—and feared for a moment that it could be dear Papa—until I heard Mr Lyell continue, saying: ‘He should not have been told that he had been left out of the second edition. That clearly upset him and was a mistake.’ This made clear that the reference was to Mr Wallace, for in the past I had heard someone observe that Papa had neglected to mention his competitor in this edition of the Origin and had been forced to move quickly to rectify the matter. Scientists care a great deal about such things.