The Darwin Conspiracy (9 page)

11 January 1865

Papa has been ill as long as I can remember. When he takes to his bed, a pall
is cast upon the household and we all scarcely dare to speak above a murmur.

Mamma says the attacks are brought on by his work, by the strain of thinking
so hard about natural science. To support her speculation she notes that his
initial attack, now almost thirty years ago, came as he was first framing his
theory on the transmutation of species and natural selection. For twenty-two
years he kept his theory a secret in private notebooks, except for discussions
with a few friends and colleagues like Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, and
Mr Hooker, the botanist at Kew, and by correspondence with Mr Asa Gray
at Harvard.

Can you imagine, she says, the strain from carrying the weight of all that
theorising for all those years? No wonder Papa sought the miracle water-cure
from Dr Gully. I accompanied him to Malvern once and was shocked at how
willingly he submitted himself to freezing baths and the torture of being
wrapped in the frigid ‘dripping-sheet’ that is intended to send the blood from
one organ to another.

I have a conjecture of my own to explain Papa’s indisposition, for I
marked the occasions when it seizes him most dramatically. It occurs not just
when the subject of his theory arises but when an event happens that refers to
the genesis of the theory. For example, Papa had an unusually severe and
prolonged attack of vomiting after receiving that dreadful letter from the
Dutch East Indies in 1858, the one in which Mr Alfred Russel Wallace proposed his nearly identical theory, so close in all its particulars that Papa
moaned that the very phrases could serve as chapter-headings for his own
book. Then Papa rallied to put his own theory of natural selection before the
public, acceding to the exhortations of Mr Huxley and others that the two
papers, his and that of Mr Wallace, be presented simultaneously at the Linnean Society. He worked in a frenzy to rush
Origin
into print and became so
exhausted that he could barely finish it. But the true illness came shortly
afterwards, not when the theory itself was challenged but when his achievement was called into question because of the coincidence of its having two
authors. That nasty Richard Owen, who dreams of heading up a new
Museum of Natural Science and is one of Papa’s main detractors, was said to 
have remarked at a dinner on Eaton Place: ‘What can be so unimaginable as
a child with two fathers?’ To which the riposte, to the amusement of everyone
present, was: ‘Especially if one of them is an ape.’

I do not see why people should react that way, even if Mr Wallace did
arrive at a similar theory. Perhaps the coincidence can be taken as more proof
of its genuine validity, not less, because once a compelling idea is in the air,
more than one person is bound to seize it. That is especially true for the theory
of natural selection, since it is supremely elegant in its simplicity. In any case,
Papa is the one who laboured to make it presentable and understandable. He
is so sensitive, I know he hates all the controversy, including those cartoons in
Punch
and those horrid drawings in
Vanity Fair,
and it upsets him no end to
discover that Mr Wallace has received little credit or that people might think
that he himself acted in some untoward way to deny Mr Wallace priority.

I wish my father would travel, for I believe that nothing is as much a
remedy to frayed nerves as new horizons. But he scarcely stirs himself to go to
London these days and adamantly refuses to consider crossing the Channel,
which seems odd for someone who travelled around the world and experienced so many exotic adventures as a young man. Not so long ago three of his
old shipmates from the
Beagle
came to stay for a week-end and Papa worked
himself into such a state that he could barely spend ten minutes with them.

Afterwards my brother Leonard came upon Papa in the garden and they
strolled together across the lawn. To hear him tell it, Papa suddenly broke off
all conversation and turned away with a horrid expression that made a
strong impression upon Leonard, who later told me, ‘There shot through my
mind the conviction that he wishes he were no longer alive.’

20 January 1865

I had hoped to be able to report that our lives had improved at Down House,
but alas, this is not to be. Our home resembles a sanitarium. Papa has
resumed the water-treatment on his own, even going so far as to use the outdoor hut that John Lewis made some fifteen years ago. It is an ingenious contraption out by the well, with a little rooftop steeple that holds four or five
gallons of water. Papa undresses inside and pulls a little rope to send the
 
water rushing down upon him with great force. Horace and I sometimes station ourselves outside and we hear such gasps and groans that one would
think the person inside was dying. We wait five minutes and then Papa rushes
out fully dressed again but looking frozen and so miserable that one
of us usually consents to accompany him on his rounds along the Sandwalk, his
path for thinking, built specially at the end of the garden behind our property.

Two days ago, I had a row with Papa. I happened to be in his study and
I picked up his cosh from its usual place on the mantelpiece. It is little more
than a foot-long coil of wire with metal knobs on either end, heavy enough to
serve as a useful tool or to fend off an animal, should it come to that. He
keeps it as a souvenir of his time in South America since he used to carry it in
his belt during his excursions there. Suddenly Papa walked in, and seeing me
holding the implement, proceeded to berate me, saying he had told me never
to touch it, which I am sure is not the case. He then renewed his accusation
that I was ‘a petty spy’, which struck me as very hurtful and totally unwarranted. I replaced the cosh and held my tongue until I brushed past him to
the doorway, whereupon I whirled around and said something wicked,
namely, that I thought he was unreasonable and spiteful. Etty heard me and
told Mamma, who said I must apologise or do without dinner and I chose
the latter, remaining in my room and missing the nightly gathering in the
drawing-room. I tried to read this new book by the mathematician,
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
but was so upset I could not at first concentrate on the words, although later I found myself succumbing to its magical
spell. Sometimes I feel like Alice: I find myself at odds with this world, as if
I too had fallen down a rabbit-hole. At certain moments I believe I am
twenty-foot tall and can see things that elude everyone else, and at other
moments I fear I am no bigger than a mouse and must run about to avoid
being stepped upon.

22 January 1865

I once overheard my father assert that ‘a good scientist is a detective on the
track of Nature’. I may not be a scientist but, laughable as it sounds, I do
think I would make a most excellent detective.

Truth be told, I have been spying, although that is not the word I would
choose to describe it. I do so because once my curiosity has been pricked, I cannot help myself. I like nothing better when company is present than to slip into
a shadow and make myself inconspicuous in order to overhear what is being
said. It is the only way to find out what is going on in the world, and is certainly more interesting than the
Edmonton Review
or
The Times.
That
was how I learnt about the shocking case of Peter Barratt and James
Bradley, who murdered poor little Georgie Burgess; they made him get
undressed and beat him with sticks in a brook until he stopped moving. One
of the men observed that the two boys were so small their heads could barely
be seen over the dock and another said he was pleased they were sentenced to
a full five years in a reformatory.

Best of all are the occasions when the men assemble in the billiards-room,
for there is a perfect hiding spot in a corner beside the divan and they become
so engrossed in the game that they entirely forget me. In the summer they
leave the windows open for air and I sit outside beneath the flower-box of
primroses and cowslips. That was where I learnt about the Mutiny in India
some years back; Mr Huxley said it all began because the Moors were forced
to bite into cartridges that had been greased with pig fat or some such thing
which I did not fully understand. Only this week I heard Papa say that the
war between the Confederacy and the Northern states in America is causing
trouble in Jamaica. He said: ‘The niggers are ready to rise up against us.’

But Mr Thomas Carlyle was confident that Governor Eyre would deal with
them.

It appears that Papa favours the Northern states. I know that he finds
slavery an abomination—I have heard him describe arguments he had with
Captain FitzRoy on that score—and I am certain he would like to see the
institution eliminated from the face of the earth. But I have also heard him
speak of Southern Americans as a refined and aristocratic people, close to
Englishmen in outlook and sophistication, in contrast to the brash and vulgar Northerners. A Southern victory would mean inexpensive cotton for our
manufacturers. When I hear him talk like this I cannot help but think that in
his heart he tilts towards the South.

25 January 1865

The thought has occurred to me that I am uncommonly adept at ferreting
out the secrets of others. It is simply a gift that has come to me unlooked
for, in the same manner that Etty is quick with words or George skilled in
calculations.

When we were children, our cousins would visit us on holidays and with
our augmented numbers we had the run of Down House. We played at
roundabouts, a game in which we sought hiding-places in all the nooks and
crannies inside and out, and I was always the first to find others and the last
to be discovered. Oftentimes I would lie in my temporary nest for an hour or
more, my heart beating like a little bird’s, listening to the frustrated shouts of
my pursuers as the shadows lengthened into evening. Sometimes I would stay
hidden long after the game had been abandoned, turning up in the lighted
back doorway to great acclaim.

The key, I discovered, was to cast one’s mind into those of the other players; once one divines where they themselves might hide, it is no great feat to
find some other place they would never consider. Being a mistress of concealment is not a trick. It is a facility, akin to intuition. I find that if I stop and
collect myself and ponder deeply, I can project myself into the mind of someone
else and then I can anticipate what that person might think and do.

I myself have a number of secrets, which I would not dare to confess to any
living soul. One concerns a son (who shall be nameless) of Sir John Lubbock,
whose estate at High Oaks we sometimes visited when I was not yet in full
maidenhood—or when I had not yet become
unwell,
as Mamma would put it.

The two of us would steal off together across the fields to an old walnut-tree
that had been struck by lightning, an immense stump rising twenty feet in the
air and hollowed out by nature’s usage. This we pretended was our dwelling
and as we played at man and wife, we indulged ourselves in things that
make me blush to think upon. I would permit him, in the act of leaving for
his work-place, to plant a kiss upon my cheek, and once or twice we progressed beyond that, though not of course to any extent that would give me
cause for repentance. Still, when I see him at church, I am embarrassed.

Because Mamma does not believe in the Creed, when the congregation recites
it, we turn away from the altar and face them; once or twice I have caught 
his eyes looking at me in a most provocative way and felt my face burning red.

He may be highborn, but he is far from a gentleman to subject me to such
treatment; although, as long as I am being truthful, I admit that I do not
totally disavow the way it makes me feel.

28 January 1865

Mamma and I took a long walk this morning because the weather is unseasonably warm for the height of winter. Despite the auspicious day I sensed
that she had something pressing upon her that she wanted to tell me, and as
we approached the wooded area to the south, she began in a soft voice. She
said that Papa’s health was better but still not as much improved as she had
hoped. And then she said she felt I was aggravating his condition by my
behaviour, which she described as ‘disrespectful’. She suggested that I look to
Etty for ‘lessons in deportment’, noting that my sister never gives cause for
concern. Quite the opposite; she said that Etty is a joy to Papa and even supports him in his work by proofreading his manuscripts.

I am afraid my reaction was peevish. I replied that I thought there were
any number of areas in which Henrietta could take instruction from me. I
pointed in particular to the area of physical well-being, for Etty is just like
Papa and falls prey to all manner of illnesses. She is the acorn that falls close
to the oak. Papa sent her away to Moor Park for the water-treatment and
ever since her relapse at Eastbourne she has been an invalid herself, and that
has made her the centre of attention. Papa coddles her and visits her bedroom
to enquire about her health with solicitousness written all over his face. As a
result, I said, Etty received numerous special privileges. At this my mother
grew angry and asked me to cite an example. I replied that we went to
Torquay so that she might take the sea air and that she was given a special
bed-carriage for the journey, and also that she was permitted to go sea-bathing in the horse-drawn machine like all the ladies of fashion, to which my
mother replied: ‘You should be grateful that you are sound in body and not
begrudge your sister treatments that might cure her or alleviate her suffering.’