A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (20 page)

‘It’s love,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s all it is.’ Amanda’s gaze was surprised from the ceiling, and she looked across with brimming eyes. ‘It’s the love-call of
xestobium rufo-villosum
, for God’s sake, girl. Simple as that. Put one of the little fellows in a box and tap on the table with a pencil and he behaves in exactly the same way. Thinks you’re a female and butts his head against the box trying to get to you. Speaking of which, why didn’t you marry that lieutenant when I told you to? Sheer damn insubordination.’ He reached across and took her hand.

But his daughter didn’t reply, her eyes continued to overflow, the ticking carried on overhead, and Colonel Fergusson
was duly buried before the year’s end. On this prediction the doctor and the death-watch beetle had managed to agree.

Amanda’s grief for her father was compounded by anxiety over his ontological status. Did his obstinate refusal to acknowledge the divine plan – and his careless use of the Almighty’s name even on his deathbed – mean that he was now consigned to outer darkness, to some chilly region unheated by patent stoves? Miss Fergusson knew the Lord to be just, yet merciful. Those who accepted his commandments were to be judged in punctilious accordance with the law, whereas the ignorant savage in the darkened jungle who could not possibly have known the light would be treated with gentleness and given a second chance. But did the category of ignorant savage extend to occupants of cold square houses outside Dublin? Was the pain which unbelievers bore all their lives at the prospect of oblivion to be extended into further pain inflicted for having denied the Lord? Miss Fergusson feared that it might be.

How could her father have failed to recognize God, His eternal design, and its essential goodness? The proof of this plan and of this benevolence lay manifest in Nature, which was provided by God for Man’s enjoyment. This did not mean, as some had assumed, that Man might recklessly pillage Nature for what he sought; indeed, Nature was deserving of the more respect because it was a divine creation. But God had created both Man and Nature, placing Man into that Nature as a hand is placed into a glove. Amanda frequently reflected upon the fruits of the field, how various they were, and yet how perfectly each was adapted for Man’s enjoyment. For instance, trees bearing edible fruits were made easy to climb, being much lower than forest trees. Fruits which were soft when ripe, such as the apricot, the fig or the mulberry, which might be bruised by falling, presented themselves at a small distance from the ground; whereas hard fruit, which ran no risk of sustaining an injury by a fall, like the cocoa, the walnut or the chestnut, presented themselves at a considerable height. Some fruit – like the cherry and the plum – were moulded for the mouth; others – the apple and the pear – for the hand; others still, like the melon,
were made larger, so as to be divided among the family circle. Yet others, like the pumpkin, were made of a size to be shared amongst the whole neighbourhood, and many of these larger fruits were marked on their outer rind with vertical divisions, so as to make apportionment the easier.

Where Amanda discovered in the world divine intent, benevolent order and rigorous justice, her father had seen only chaos, hazard and malice. Yet they were both examining the same world. In the course of their many arguments, Amanda once asked him to consider the domestic condition of the Fergusson family, who lived together with strong bonds of affection, and declare whether they too were the consequence of chaos, hazard and malice. Colonel Fergusson, who could not quite bear to inform his daughter that the human family sprang from the same impulse which animated a beetle striking its head against the walls of its box, replied that in his view the Fergussons were a happy accident. His daughter replied that there were too many happy accidents in the world for them to be accidental.

In part, Amanda reflected, it was a matter of how you perceived things. Her father saw in a vulgar simulacrum of coloured lights and trilling music a true portrayal of a great maritime tragedy; whereas for her the reality was best conveyed by a simple, static canvas adorned with pigment. Mainly, however, it was a question of faith. A few weeks after their visit to the Peristrephic Panorama, her father was rowing her slowly across the serpentine lake on the neighbouring estate of Lord F—–. Some connection having been made in his mind, he began to rebuke her for a belief in the reality of Noah’s Ark, which he referred to sarcastically as the Myth of the Deluge. Amanda was not discountenanced by the accusation. She replied by asking her father if he believed in the reality of Mr Bullock’s Pantherion of stuffed wild beasts at his Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London. The Colonel, taken aback, responded that naturally he did; whereupon his daughter exhibited a humorous astonishment. She believed in the reality of something ordained by God and described in a book of Holy Scripture read and
remembered for thousands of years; whereas he believed in the reality of something described in the pages of
Saunder’s News-Letter & Daily Advertiser
, which people were unlikely to remember the very next morning. Which of them, she insisted upon knowing, with a continuing and unnecessary mockery in her eye, was the more credulous?

It was in the autumn of 1839, after long meditation, that Amanda Fergusson proposed to Miss Logan the expedition to Arghuri. Miss Logan was a vigorous and seemingly practical woman some ten years older than Miss Fergusson, and had been fond of the Colonel without any zephyr of indiscretion arising. More to the point, she had travelled to Italy a few years previously while in the employment of Sir Charles B——–.

‘I regret that I am unacquainted with the place,’ replied Miss Logan when first interviewed. ‘Is it far beyond Naples?’

‘It is on the lower slopes of Mount Ararat,’ Miss Fergusson responded. ‘The name Arghuri is derived from two Armenian words signifying
he planted the vine
. It is where Noah returned to his agricultural labours after the Flood. An ancient vine stock planted by the Patriarch’s own hands still flourishes.’

Miss Logan concealed her astonishment at this curious lecture, but felt bound to enquire further. ‘And why might we be going there?’

‘To intercede for the soul of my father. There is a monastery upon the mountain.’

‘It is a long way to go.’

‘I believe it to be appropriate.’

‘I see.’ Miss Logan was pensive at first, but then brightened. ‘And shall we drink the wine there?’ She was remembering her travels in Italy.

‘It is forbidden,’ replied Miss Fergusson. ‘Tradition forbids it.’

‘Tradition?’

‘Heaven, then. Heaven has forbidden it, in memory of the fault into which the grapes betrayed the Patriarch.’ Miss Logan, who would complaisantly allow the Bible to be read to her but was not diligent in turning the pages herself, exhibited
a momentary confusion. ‘Drunkenness,’ explained Miss Fergusson. ‘Noah’s drunkenness.’

‘Of course.’

‘The monks of Arghuri are permitted to eat the grapes, but not to ferment them.’

‘I see.’

‘There is also an ancient willow tree, sprung from one of the planks of Noah’s Ark, which grows there.’

‘I see.’

And thus it was agreed. They would depart in the spring, to avoid the malarial menace of the later seasons. Each would require a portable bedstead, an air mattress and a pillow; they would take some Oxley’s essence of ginger, some good opium, quinine and Sedlitz powders; a portable inkstand, a match-box and supply of German tinder; umbrellas against the sun and flannel belts to ward off cramps of the stomach during the night. After some discussion they decided not to travel with either a portable bath or a patent coffee-machine. But they counted as necessary a pair of iron-pointed walking sticks, a clasp-knife, stout hunting-whips to beat off the legions of dogs they were prepared to encounter and a policeman’s small lantern, since they had been warned that Turkish paper lanterns were useless in a hurricane. They took mackintoshes and heavy greatcoats, anticipating that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s dream of perennial sunshine was unlikely to be fulfilled for lesser voyagers. Miss Logan understood gunpowder to be the most acceptable offering for the Turkish peasant, and writing-paper for the superior classes. A common box-compass, she had further been advised, would afford pleasure by directing the Mussulman to the point of his prayers; but Miss Fergusson was disinclined to assist the heathen in his false adorations. Finally, the ladies packed two small glass bottles, which they intended to fill with grape juice crushed from the fruit of Noah’s vineyard.

They travelled by Government steam-packet from Falmouth to Marseilles, thereafter entrusting themselves to the French conveyances. In early May they were received by the British Ambassador in Constantinople. As Miss Fergusson explained
the extent and purpose of their journey, the diplomat studied her: a dark-haired woman in early middle age, with protuberant black eyes and rather full, reddish cheeks which pushed her lips forward into a pout. Yet she was in no wise a flirt: her natural expression appeared to mix prudishness with certainty, a combination which left the Ambassador indifferent. He grasped most of what she was saying without ever quite bestowing upon her his full attention.

‘Ah,’ he said at the finish, ‘there was a rumour a few years ago that some Russo had managed to get to the top of the mountain.’

‘Parrot,’ replied Miss Fergusson without a smile. ‘Not a Russo, I think. Dr Friedrich Parrot. Professor in the University of Dorpat.’

The Ambassador gave a diagonal nod of the head, as if it were slightly impertinent to know more than he did about local matters.

‘It seems to me appropriate and just,’ went on Miss Fergusson, ‘that the first traveller to ascend the mountain upon which the Ark rested should bear the name of an animal. No doubt part of the Lord’s great design for us all.’

‘No doubt,’ replied the Ambassador, looking away to Miss Logan for some clue as to the personality of her employer. ‘No doubt.’

They remained a week in the Ottoman capital, by no means long enough for Miss Logan to become accustomed to the coarse stares she received at the
tables d’hôte
. Then the two ladies gave themselves up to the Favaid-i-Osmaniyeh, a Turkish company running steamers to Trebizond. The accommodation was crowded and to Miss Logan’s mind far filthier than anything she had previously encountered. She ventured upon deck the first morning, and was approached by not one but three potential beaux, each with his hair curled and exuding a powerful odour of bergamot. Thereafter Miss Logan, despite having been engaged for her experience, confined herself to the cabin. Miss Fergusson professed not to notice such inconveniences and to be positively intrigued by the scrum of third-class passengers on
board; she would occasionally return with an observation or a question designed to stir Miss Logan from her dismal state of mind. Why, her employer wished to know, were the Turkish women all accommodated on the left-hand side of the quarterdeck? Was there some purpose, be it of society or of religion, behind such positioning? Miss Logan was unable to furnish a reply. Now that they had left Naples way behind them she felt increasingly less secure. At the faintest whiff of bergamot she shuddered.

When Miss Logan had permitted herself to become engaged for the voyage to Asiatic Turkey, she had under-estimated Miss Fergusson’s pertinacity. The absconding muleteer, the swindling innkeeper and the devious customs-house officer were all treated to the same display of unthwartable will. Miss Logan lost count of the times their luggage was detained, or they were told that a
buyurulda
or special permit would be necessary in addition to the
tezkare
they had already procured; but Miss Fergusson, with assistance from a dragoman whose own brief display of independent thought had been snuffed out early on, harried, demanded and succeeded. She was tirelessly willing to discuss things in the manner of the country; to sit down with a landlord, for example, and answer such questions as whether England was smaller than London, and which of the two belonged to France, and how much larger the Turkish navy was than those of England, France and Russia put together.

Miss Logan had further imagined that their journey, while devotional in its final purpose, might afford pleasant opportunities for sketching, the activity which had first established a bond between employer and companion. But antiquities held no charm for Amanda Fergusson; she had no desire to examine heathen temples to Augustus, or half-surviving columns supposedly erected in honour of the apostate Emperor Julian. At least she evinced an interest in the natural landscape. As they rode inland from Trebizond, hunting-whips at the ready against the expected dog-packs, they viewed mohair goats on hillsides of dwarf oak, dull yellow vines, lush apple orchards; they heard
grasshoppers whose ringing note seemed sharper and more insistent than that of their British cousins; and they witnessed sunsets of the rarest purple and rose. There were fields of corn, opium and cotton; bursts of rhododendron and yellow azalea; red-legged partridge, hoopoes and blue crows. In the Zirgana mountains large red deer softly returned their gaze from an apprehensive distance.

At Erzerum Miss Logan prevailed upon her employer to visit the Christian church. The impulse proved at first a happy one, for in the graveyard Miss Fergusson discovered tombstones and crosses whose Celtic air recalled those of her native Ireland; a smile of approval crossed her dutiful features. But this unexpected lenity was short-lived. Leaving the church, the two ladies noticed a young peasant woman placing a votive offering in a crevice by the main door. It proved to be a human tooth, no doubt her own. The crevice, upon further examination, was found to be stuffed full of yellowing incisors and weathered molars. Miss Fergusson expressed herself forcibly on the subject of popular superstition and the responsibility of the clergy. Those who preached the word of God, she maintained, should be judged according to the word of God, and punished the more severely if found wanting.

They crossed into Russia, engaging at the frontier post a new guide, a large and bearded Kurd who claimed familiarity with the requirements of foreigners. Miss Fergusson addressed him in what seemed to Miss Logan a mixture of Russo and Turk. The days when Miss Logan’s fluent Italian had been of use to them were long past; having begun the journey as guide and interpreter, she felt she had dwindled into a mere hanger-on, with little greater status than the discarded dragoman or the newly appointed Kurd.