by John Darnton
“Not in so many words. And we knew what was wrong, or at least what had kicked it off—that business at the lab.”
“Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t anyone say anything before?”
“Well, as I said, we’ve taken our cues from Bridget. She doesn’t know the half of it, mind you. She never learned about the pills, but I believe she always suspected something was wrong. Still, the first thing many of us thought when we heard Cal had died was that, you know, he had taken his own life. When we heard the circumstances, we were fairly sure.”
“Why?”
“Well, it was odd in that . . . I mean, he was on that ledge and he plummeted to the one spot he knew would be certain death. What are the odds of that happening? I guess it could have been either—he could have fallen—but I think it’s equally possible that it wasn’t an accident, that he jumped.”
Hugh was too shocked to speak.
“I gather you were ahead of him on the path. You didn’t actually see him lose his footing or anything, did you?”
“No.”
Hugh replayed the memory loop: the rocks, the waterfall, the falling body, the deadly pool of bubbles.
“That’s what Bridget told us. By the way, you should know—she loves you, no doubt about that. That’s the reason she’s insisting we all talk to you. She thinks you’ve been blaming yourself for Cal’s death, and this new information might help.”
Hugh grunted. He didn’t know what to say. He felt as he had in that first meeting with Bridget—he just wanted to run away. Simon was trying to help him, but all he felt was an intense dislike for the man. He stopped walking and turned toward him.
“I want to thank you.”
“Please, it’s nothing,” said Simon. “Rather, I mean it’s important, very important, and I only wish you could have known it sooner.”
He opened his briefcase and fished inside. “Here. I have a letter for you to read. But I’ll have to ask you to return it.”
Simon handed Hugh a sheet of stationery and waited, fidgeting. It was from Cal, written from Connecticut. The note was brief; it said he was feeling better, not doing much of anything, trying to relax. He thanked Simon for all he had done. Hugh was relieved that it did not mention him.
He returned it. The two shook hands and Simon hurried off into the central courtyard, carrying the battered briefcase, his birdlike gait accentuated by speed.
Hugh wandered along the High Street. Was it possible? Looked at in a different way, could Cal’s death have been not entirely accidental? He tried to think back. Cal had been acting oddly those last few weeks. In the car driving to Devil’s Den, he had blurted out a series of apologies—he was sorry that when they were younger, he and his friends didn’t include Hugh in all their games. He was sorry for the times he had hurt him and for turning his back and leaving for Europe when times were still tough at home with the old man.
It was true, he seemed to want to talk; once or twice they almost did, but Hugh had been confused. This was not what their relationship was about. Cal was the older brother who gave all the advice and cleared the way. He was the anchor; Hugh was the one adrift. It felt odd, this turning of the tables.
“Wanna grab a beer?” Cal had his coat on, ready to go out.
A twinge of guilt. “Man, I’d love to. But I’m running late. I got so much to do. Maybe later . . . tomorrow.”
Slowly Cal began to unbutton his coat. “Sure. That’s cool.”
On the path, Hugh had repeated the warning about the pool beneath the waterfall. Cal had just laughed.
“You think I could forget poor Billy Crowther? He was the first dead body I ever saw, his mom bawling her eyes out at the funeral home. Remember how we used to drop sticks and logs into the water and watch them get sucked down? That time we threw in Jimmy Stern’s sneakers—he cried all the way back. This place used to loom large in our adolescent fantasy life.
Good old Devil’s Den.”
He tried to remember everything about that afternoon. He was ahead on the path, anxious to reach the swimming hole. Why was Cal taking so long? He turned to look—did he see him? Did he see him lose his footing? Or did he see him leap? And did Cal really cry out? Or did he remain silent as he fell straight down into the middle of the churning pool?
Then came the hard part: Should he jump in after him or shouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he die, too? As he tried to decide, time passed. Then more time.
Your memory can play tricks on you, he thought. Each time he replayed the loop now, he saw it differently, more clearly. At least it seemed to be more clear. An accident! It was no accident. Or was it?
And then he began to feel a whole new raft of feelings. He was angry at Cal—for fabricating the lab results and messing up his life and then dying and leaving Hugh to drown in guilt. Then the anger turned to sorrow; it was sad that Cal had felt so desperate and alone and that none of them had known enough to help him. But the more he thought about it, the more he began to feel he was looking down on everything that had happened from a great distance.
The sadness was followed by a spreading sense of calm. And then, unaccountably, Hugh felt a sudden lightness—there was no other way to describe it. He walked down the street with a lighter step, looking at the people and the shops and the cars with a new intensity.
It was a pleasant afternoon, getting cool. The sidewalk was crowded.
He would take the bus to the train station. Then in London he would switch trains and go to Cambridge. He would meet Beth and they would have a quiet dinner somewhere and he would tell her what he had learned. First, he would call Bridget.
He spotted a phone box and felt in his pocket for a phone card. She answered right away, almost as if she had been waiting for the call. He told her what he had learned: that Cal had probably taken his own life.
She did not seem surprised and was quiet for a moment, then just told him that she loved him before quickly hanging up.
He had plenty more time left on the card. Why not? He lifted the receiver and dialed the number he knew by heart. It was odd, how much he suddenly wanted to hear his father’s voice.
CHAPTER 28
During dinner at a small French restaurant—they had decided to splurge—Beth listened carefully as Hugh described his meeting with Simon and what he had learned about Cal’s death.
“For the first time I think I’m remembering that afternoon clearly.”
He told her everything, slowly and quietly, including the odd sense of calm that had come upon him after he left the New College cloister.
“I think that’s natural,” she said. “You’re finally dealing with what actually happened and what you really felt. You’re putting it to rest.”
He told her that he had called his father and that they had talked for a long time, the words coming easily, for the first time in years.
They ordered a second bottle of wine and relaxed. She was proud that she had succeeded in tracking down Matthews’s relatives, in the northern city of Blackburn. She had arranged to rent a car to go there the following day and planned an excursion afterward to the Lake District—that is, if they had cause to celebrate.
“How’d you find his relatives?” he asked.
“It wasn’t so hard, once you realized that Lizzie’s R.M. was Richard Matthews. That explained everything. The person Matthews was writing to wasn’t his wife—remember, he was only a teenager. It was his mother. She had one other son, Richard’s older brother, and neither ever returned to England. So when she died, her place went to some cousins, which is what Lizzie wrote in her journal.
“I reread the part where she describes her trip to visit R.M.’s relative.
She wrote that she traveled southeast, changed trains at Kendal, and that the trip lasted some two hours. That gave an approximate area for her destination. Then I checked her expenses—don’t forget, the journal doubles as an account book—and I found she had spent one pound one shilling on the day in question. I called up the British Rail Museum and it turns
out they’ve preserved old timetables and rate cards. A friendly guy there helped me and we figured that one pound one shilling would get her to Blackburn. The travel time matched, about two hours.
“So I concentrated on Blackburn. And sure enough, there are still some Matthewses there, spelled with two t’s. I called and eliminated five families until I found the right ones, descendants of Richard’s cousins.
On the phone they were friendly and sounded more than happy to cooperate.”
An hour later, Hugh walked her home. The house was dark but Alice had left the outdoor light on. Beth took his hand and pulled him inside and they mounted the stairs quietly. In her room, as he began to undress her, she kissed him, then drew back. He looked at her quizzically. She gave him that wicked smile, pulled him close, and whispered:
“Come buy my fruits, come buy, come buy.”
The next morning, still groggy, they drove straight to Blackburn. Eventually they found the house, shabby on the outside but warm and comfortable on the inside—heavy in chintz, flowered draperies, and tables cluttered with family photographs.
The owners, a chipper couple in their seventies, were delighted to hear of the visitors’ interest in their old letters in the attic. They were happy to turn the whole packet over—“Read through them, take what you want, make copies, and return them at your leisure”—but first insisted that their guests have a pot of tea and hear about the family tree, down to and including the youngsters off in different parts of the globe. Beth and Hugh were happy to oblige.
They decided not to open the packet right away. Instead, they set out, stopping off for sandwiches on the outskirts of Blackburn, then driving north to the Lake District.
It was after 10 p.m. by the time they arrived at the bed-and-breakfast in Ambleside, but they were too excited to sleep. Beth opened the French windows and stepped out onto the tiny balcony. Below, as far as she could see, stretched a lake bordered on all sides by woods and meadows. The full moon laid down a path of shimmering gold on the calm water. The air was cool and fresh. She went back inside.
They had called ahead to say they’d be late, and the owner of Ambleside Lake Cottage, before going off to bed, had left the front door unlocked and two ham sandwiches and two bottles of warm beer in their room. They ate ravenously. It had been a long day’s drive.
Hugh pulled the packet out of his backpack. It was still tied up with an old blue ribbon, perhaps the very one Lizzie had noted in her journal. He spread the letters on the bed and they sorted them by date, reading them in chronological order.
After forty-five minutes Hugh picked one up, read the opening, and said: “Pay dirt.”
He handed Beth the letter. She squinted—the handwriting was poor and tumbled out in lines that slanted increasingly downward at each row’s end. But she could make out the words.
It was written from Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and dated Christmas Day, 1835. The writer began by saying how much he missed his home on this particular holiday and how much he longed to see his mother. He said he was “feeling much improved in outlook” now that he had left the Beagle and was soon to live with his elder brother, doing God’s work among the Maori on the south coast. He did not describe the horrors of being left alone with the Indians in Tierra del Fuego, leading Beth to conclude that he must have provided a full account of that in a previous letter.
But he did say that he was going to relate an incredible night that he had spent at the home village of Jemmy Button, which he said “seemed to have made an indelible mark upon everyone present and even changed them in some manner difficult to ascertain or even to describe.”
“You’re right,” said Beth. “This is it. I’ll read it aloud.”
We started out under threatening skies. We were going almost due north, following a well-worn trail, and the terrain changed after a few hours from the desolation to which we had become accustomed to a surprising lushness.
All about were giant ferns and long grass and eventually bushes and even trees. From the fact that we had to stop from time to time to rest, I took it that we were gaining in altitude, which meant we were moving closer to the sun, thus accounting for a warmer climate. In any case, the greenness all around was a pleasure to the eye.
There were four of us—myself, Mr Darwin (or Philos, as we called him), Mr McCormick, the ship’s surgeon, and of course Jemmy Button, of whom I wrote you before. Mr Darwin you will also recall from my earlier letters.
He’s a gent and he talks with a high accent but he managed to gain the respect of my shipmates because he took hardship well and was willing to embark upon any adventure. It was no secret that there was bad blood between him and Mr McCormick, who seemed to carry a grudge (in that respect he is like many short men I know). The two were continually vying for the favour of Captain FitzRoy, and as Philos took his meals with the Captain, he inevitably had the upper hand. I’m glad the Captain was not among our party, which would have soon fallen to feuding—that plus the fact that he has been so changeable lately that you never know when he is going to smile and when he is going to scald you with his hot temper.
As we walked, I kept a close eye on our guide, Jemmy, who was all puffed up with himself and acting as if he were some sort of Royal Scout on King William’s hunting party. Indeed, he behaved in a most peculiar manner. He jumped about like a Jack-in-the-box, running up ahead on the path and then darting back to join us, cantering about like a small boy and repeating over and over: ‘My contree, my contree.’ From what I had heard earlier from Mr Darwin, he was in such high spirits because at long last he was going to be able to show his village to us and introduce us to the tribal elders. I mentioned before what a natty dresser he is; for this occasion he was done up even more than usual, in long dress-coat and such, which made him perspire dreadfully and looked ridiculous in the bush.
After some three hours of hard going we stopped alongside a stream for a quick supper. It was a most picturesque setting, with the water flowing past rounded banks of earth. But at the very moment we finished eating, the skies broke open and poured out a flood of rain such as I have rarely seen. There was much lightning and crashing of thunder, which seemed to shake the very ground. We huddled for shelter under the leaves but soon enough we were soaked through and there was nothing for it but to stand there getting wetter and wetter. This did nothing to lighten our moods. It also aggravated the ill-will between Philos and Mr McCormick, since they had been arguing over where best to wait out the storm and whether it was advisable to hide from lightning by standing under a tree or altogether clear of it. Jemmy was much distressed at the delay. Eventually, the rain halted and bless my bones if the sun didn’t immediately show itself—that’s how fickle the weather is in this part of the world.
When we resumed, we headed straight up a mountain. Jemmy scampered ahead like a monkey, bounding over boulders and climbing up crevasses; we were hard put to keep up with him, and whenever we fell far behind, he would glare down at us as if willing us to move faster. After an hour or so, when the rocks dried in the sun, the climb was easier. I began to notice that the ledges contained paths, though whether they had been made by men or animals I could not say. I had the feeling that we were entering upon an inhabited area, and soon enough I was confirmed in my feeling. We came to a small hut, conical in shape and built entirely of stones piled one upon the other. Jemmy said it was for ‘food’. There was a wooden door no taller than three feet, carved with figures of people. Philos opened it and, poking his head inside, observed that it was filled with grain. ‘By the lord Harry,’ he said, ‘this tribe is more advanced than any we’ve seen. They engage in agriculture and store the produce.’ Hearing him, Jemmy beamed and said ‘like Inglan’ (his pronunciation of our country confused me at first). We then resumed our trek upwards and soon passed by small terraces set round with rocks and used for growing green shoots of some sort, which I took to be vegetables.
At this point we began to see people. A small boy appeared out of nowhere, lo
oked at us boldly, then spun around and ran back up the mountain. Soon, he returned with a handful of older folk, who regarded us with curiosity but not, insofar as I could tell, with fear. They were dressed better than the Indians to the south, with cloaks around their shoulders, loin-cloths and rudimentary sandals. Jemmy was unable to contain himself, leaping up and down and speaking a language that sounded different from that used by the savages we had encountered thus far. He greeted friends by grabbing both their forearms in his hands and squeezing; they soon responded in kind. By this time, seeming to know who he was, they became animated, looking at him and touching his fancy clothes and talking excitedly among themselves.
They grabbed him and virtually dragged him up the mountain, leaving us to follow while more children came to stand along our route, looking at us with large round eyes.
After some minutes we came to the summit of the mountain. Here was the village. It was set inside an encircling wall of rock; we were admitted through a narrow crevice and, once inside, I realised that the formation acted as a natural fortress. The houses, of which there were dozens, were more elaborate than the huts we had seen elsewhere; they were made of strong material, a combination of grass packed with mud and wood, and even had windows. Many were two storeys high, with ladders to reach the upper levels, which used the roofs below as balconies. All in all, it was a remarkable place, splendidly designed for communal habitation and, as I said, for defence.
By now the entire populace had turned out. We were led to the centre of the village, which was set around a circle of ashes and scorched rocks. Nearby were half a dozen even larger houses, which I took to be for the tribal elders, and one that was the largest of all. Off to one side was an immense tree with a trunk as wide as a steam-engine and branches that rose up high in the air.
The elders came out to meet us. I could tell they were set apart from the rest, not only because they wore cloaks that were different, dyed a deep red, but also because their bearing was distinguished; most had fine white hair and, unlike the other savages in this part of the world, they did not eschew beards.