This Thing Of Darkness (80 page)

‘Take care, my dear,’ murmured FitzRoy, his hand gripping his cane more tightly, but she moved among the beseeching supplicants like a yacht upon the sea, her donations a mere shining drop or two swallowed up by the hungry ocean.

 

Darwin trotted down the front steps of number thirty-six Great Marlborough Street to find his jobbed cabriolet the only one unattended, all the others at the little stand tenanted by loafing teenage drivers with hats and pipes at the most rakish angles their owners could affect. ‘Have any of you fellows seen my devil?’ he asked peevishly.

‘Yer honour, he’s just gorn a little way round of the corner for summat short. Why, here he comes, sir, right as a trivet. Jump up, sir.’

A small, gin-stunted coach-boy in frock-coat and top-boots took his place at the reins. Darwin settled in under the hood. ‘Thirty-one Chester Street. And take care, if you’ve been gilding your liver.’

Cheerfully ignoring the gibe, the boy swung the buggy round through Argyll Place and joined the traffic stream heading south along Regent Street. From there they bore west down Conduit Street, linking up with Piccadilly via Old Bond Street, until finally they found themselves clattering down Grosvenor Place, keeping the wall of the still unnamed royal palace to their left. It was a whole year since he had seen FitzRoy; they had corresponded about their co-authored book entirely by letter, even though they lived less than two miles apart. Nor had he any particular wish to set eyes upon him now. What had occurred that morning, however, had altered matters. Gould’s letter had thrown him into a panic of excitement. Unfortunately, he would have to negotiate a boatload of tiresome courtesies before he could get down to business, but that could not be helped. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, rather late to go visiting, but he knew FitzRoy well enough for such informality.

Grand, multi-storeyed mansions in white stucco stacked up along Grosvenor Place; Chester Street proved to be one of the narrow thoroughfares linking it to the equally grandiose terraces of Belgrave Place. It was a prosperous area, reflected Darwin; trust FitzRoy to pitch up on the aristocratic side of Regent Street. So much for his former cabin-mate’s supposed shortage of cash. Obviously he was enjoying the benefits of full pay while he prepared the charts from the voyage.

A flight of white marble steps led up to a wide, stucco-fronted ground floor divided by a trio of arched windows; thereafter the house was a plain brick, its upper windows more prosaically rectangular. He handed his card to the housemaid and enquired if the FitzRoys were ‘at home’. The reply came back in the affirmative, although the matter was hardly in doubt as the lamps had already been lit to fend off the gloom of the afternoon. He was shown past a panelled dining room, up a spiral staircase at the rear of the house — the building was only one room deep, he noted, more imposing from the front than inside - and into a bright, pleasant drawing room on the first floor where the FitzRoys dwelt amid dark mahogany furniture.

‘My dear Darwin,’ said FitzRoy, rising, but his manner was cold, and Darwin knew immediately that something was wrong. It did not matter: his business here was more important than whatever was bothering the inflexible old curmudgeon today.

‘Mrs FitzRoy, may I have the honour of presenting to your acquaintance Mr Charles Darwin.’

‘The honour is all mine, Mrs FitzRoy, believe me. And if you will forgive so forward an observation, I see that congratulations are shortly to be in order.’

‘I am delighted to meet you at last, Mr Darwin.’ Mary FitzRoy extended a hand. ‘And, yes, it would appear that we are to be blessed, as I believe Lieutenant Sulivan and his wife have been earlier this week.’

‘I pity the poor lady, then, for I apprehend that her husband has a new commission, which will snatch him away at what must be an inopportune moment.’

‘Mr Sulivan has command of the
Pincher
, my dear, an anti-slaving schooner due to sail for West Africa,’ FitzRoy explained.

‘Then we must be happy on Mr Sulivan’s behalf. No one who enters into marriage with a naval officer can fail to be aware of the separations involved.’

Don’t patronize me
, thought Darwin.
I am only here on sufferance.
Mrs FitzRoy was astonishingly beautiful, he decided, but he could not work out whether her solemn, direct manner betokened gracious piety or insufferable self-satisfaction. Certainly, she did not seem the sort of empty-headed woman to dote on the romantic heroines of Byron and Scott. There was something intimidating about her, something almost evangelical.

‘But I understand that we must congratulate
you
, Mr Darwin,’ said the object of his study, as the housemaid served tea. ‘My husband tells me that you are to be made a fellow of the Royal Society, and secretary of the Geological Society.’

‘Indeed so. The offers came about through the good offices of Mr Lyell. I often dine at his club, or he at mine - did I tell you that I had been elected to the Athenaeum, along with Mr Dickens, the novelist?’

‘What elevated circles you do move in, Mr Darwin.’

Again, Darwin had the faintest sense that he was being patronized, but he refused to be ashamed of his achievements.

‘Oh, I have made a good many interesting new friends of late. I am a frequent guest at Mr Babbage’s
soirées
, along with Herbert Spencer, Mr Brown the botanist, Sydney Smith, Thomas and Jane Carlyle - he writes all the articles on German literature in the
French Quarterly
— and Miss Martineau, of course, who is a friend of my brother.’
All fascinating and influential people,
he thought,
not tuppenny-ha‘penny aristocrats.
‘The company cannot be faulted - sadly, it is my own digestion that usually lets me down.’

‘You continue to remain unwell? We are sorry to hear it.’

His ill-health was evident. Darwin was even thinner and more sickly than he had been at the end of the voyage, a condition that lent his overhanging brow an air of perpetually furious concentration. He could not have weighed more than ten and a half stone.

‘Yes, I appear to be suffering some sort of chronic complaint, brought on no doubt by many years of constant seasickness.’ He grinned humourlessly at FitzRoy. ‘I have tried all sorts of physic, from calomel to quinine to arsenic - even Indian ale — but nothing seems to work.’
Damn it, this was like confessing to a Catholic priest.
‘I dare say that London’s murky atmosphere does my constitution no help.’

‘Then perhaps you would be well advised to spend more time with your family in Shropshire.’

And less time collecting influential
friends like trophies, thought FitzRoy. He is here because he wants something, that much is clear. He would not come for any other reason.

‘I was back home only last week, in fact — I travelled by train as far as Birmingham. I cannot say that I was much impressed. One has to pay for one’s own candles to read, and one must hire a footwarmer to stave off the cold. It was tremendously fast, though — just five hours, once the locomotive had been pulled up to Camden by the winding-cables.’

‘And what intelligence is there of your family, Mr Darwin?’

‘Oh, we have cause for great celebration. My sister Caroline is married now, to my cousin Josiah Wedgwood - the eldest son of my uncle Jos - who has recently returned from travelling in Europe.’

‘And what of yourself? Is it your intention to take a wife?’

Mary FitzRoy posed the question with disarming directness, but Darwin deflected it. Negotiations with Emma Wedgwood were at too delicate a stage to make the matter public.

‘I fear I am too busy cataloguing the specimens from the voyage to consider capturing such a rare specimen as a wife.’

‘It would appear that both you and my husband will spend more years organizing your discoveries than you spent actually circumnavigating the world.’

‘What with the book and the charts, I feel like an ass caught between two bundles of hay,’ put in FitzRoy, who had barely spoken, and only did so now for his wife’s benefit. ‘Both hail me, and tell me they require my undivided attention to do them full justice.’

What’s biting the old goose?
thought Darwin, but he ploughed on nonetheless. ‘I have been fortunate enough to enlist the most excellent help, FitzRoy. Lyell has introduced me to Richard Owen, the Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. Do you know Owen? He is the man who first coined the term “dinosaur”. My fossils from Punta Alta are entirely new to science. He has christened the giant aquatic rodent a Toxodon, the giant armadillo is to be called a
Scelidotherium,
there is a giant sloth called a
Glyptodon,
and a giant guanaco that he has named
Machrauchenia.
Owen says, and this is the remarkable thing, that all the South American fossils are related to the animals still living on the same continent - it is as if there is a continuous process of change. Do forgive me, Mrs FitzRoy. All this scientific talk must be rather dull for you.’

‘Not in the least, Mr Darwin — I am fascinated. Indeed, I am intrigued to know what you make of the recent discoveries in Trafalgar Square. I apprehend that workmen laying the foundations for the column have found the bones of enormous elephants, rhinoceroses and sabre-toothed tigers.’

Touché,
thought FitzRoy, with a glow of pride.

‘A fascinating discovery indeed,’ replied Darwin evasively. ‘And there are now live elephants and rhinoceroses - or should one say rhinoceri? - at the Zoological Society, and a giraffe too. They are the most astonishing creatures. You really must go, when your condition permits it. I was there yesterday — the Society is opened privately to members at weekends - did I tell you that I had been elected a member of the Zoological Society? - and I saw a chimpanzee named Tommy, who had been dressed up in human clothing and allocated a human nurse. I assure you, you would find his antics most amusing. During my visit, the nurse showed him an apple but would not give it him, whereupon Tommy threw himself on his back, and kicked and cried precisely like a human child. He then looked very sulky, and after two or three fits of passion the nurse said, “Tommy, if you stop bawling and be a good boy, I will give you the apple.” The ape certainly understood every word of this - and though, like a child, he had great work to stop whining, he at last succeeded and got the apple, jumped into an armchair and began eating it with the most contented countenance imaginable!’

‘And is your own interest in Tommy the chimpanzee a scientific one, Mr Darwin, or purely a matter of entertainment?’

‘Well, I was at the Zoological Society principally to see Mr John Gould, the taxonomist. Did I say? He has agreed to classify all the birds that I collected on the voyage. Waterhouse is attending to the insects, Bell the reptiles, and my friend Leonard Jenyns the fish. In fact, it is upon a matter of Mr Gould’s classification that I am here to see Captain FitzRoy. I wonder, Mrs FitzRoy, if you would be so kind as to permit us a few moments in private? It is a technical discussion — most tiresome, I assure you.’

‘Of course, Mr Darwin. That would be no trouble at all.’

‘Then, if you have no objection, my dear, we can repair to my study, upstairs,’ said FitzRoy. ‘Mr Darwin might like to inspect the work in progress.’

‘And may I venture to hope, dear lady, that your confinement proceeds in as smooth and untroubled a manner as possible, God willing.’

The preamble completed, FitzRoy led Darwin up the winding staircase, noticing as he did so that the philosopher pulled a silver snuff-box from his coat pocket and took a furtive pinch, before loping on after him. They went into FitzRoy’s study, as neat and tidy a workplace as his cabin in the ship had been, and shut the door.

‘It is opportune indeed that you have chosen today to pay your visit,’ remarked FitzRoy icily, ‘for there is an urgent matter I must discuss with you. But you indicated that you also have business with me.’

‘It is Gould,’ said Darwin, simply. ‘He has been working on the Galapagos finches. He says there are no fewer than four sub-groups, and that one,
Geospiza,
contains no fewer than six species with insensibly graduated beaks.
Separate species
, FitzRoy. The variants have become
separate species
.’

‘I find that hard to credit.’

‘All three mockingbirds are different species, too, from three different islands! All of them are unknown to zoological science. And Bell says that each of the lizards from each of the different islands are different species as well. I tell you, FitzRoy, these are not variants but species! Would that I had paid more attention to Lawson’s lecture about the differing tortoise carapaces.’

‘How came you by several different types of finch? Bynoe told me that you refused my offer of a cage of finches on James Island.’

‘My assistant - Covington.’ Darwin looked shamefaced. ‘It was he who collected the birds. I failed to observe any distinction at the time. I am convinced that Covington’s birds differ from island to island, but I cannot be absolutely sure of the labelling. I fear I have mingled together the collections that he made at the different locations. I never dreamed that islands just fifty or sixty miles apart, most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, under the same climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would be differently tenanted. That is why I have come to you, FitzRoy. You and Bynoe . . . I know that you both made properly labelled and differentiated collections. I need your permission for Gould to access the collections made by yourself and Bynoe in the British Museum. I need your help, FitzRoy.’

‘You ask for
my
help to try to prove your transmutationist theories?’

‘I merely ask for access to the specimens.’

‘You and this ornithologist of yours - this Gould - you claim that they are different species of finch, but I still fail to see by what
mechanism
any creature can cross the barrier between species. They are all finches. Surely by definition they are variants?’