After Market Drayton the traffic thinned out somewhat, but his father’s coachman kept a careful course between the whitethorn hedgerows, anxious not to scratch Dr Darwin’s paintwork. Six miles south-west of Stoke they turned off on the rough track towards Maer, whereupon Charles’s new stock, which he had put on for the benefit of his female cousins, chafed at his neck with every bounce of the curricle. It was with an enormous sense of relief that he finally spied the gates of Maer thrown welcomingly open, and beyond them the warm, ancient stone of Maer Hall itself amid the trees. The thirty-mile journey had taken more than four hours.
As he expected, he found the Wedgwood family on the garden side, out on their picturesque porch, gathered adoringly around Uncle Jos and Aunt Bessie. A great shout of excitement rose up as he marched round the corner. How friendly, how informal, he thought, how different from the rigid courtesies of life at the Mount. Uncle Jos strode forward and extended all five fingers, rather than the polite double digit, for his favourite nephew to shake. ‘Charles. I had a feeling we might see you today.’
Darwin laughed. ‘You could not keep me away, sir. Good morning, Aunt Bessie. Good morning, everybody!’
Uncle Jos’s eyes shone with pleasure as greetings and embraces were exchanged. An obsessive hunter and shooter, he had suffered the misfortune of siring four sons, not one of whom had ever shown the slightest sporting interest. His nephew, on the other hand, lived for the hunt as he did.
‘Oh Charles,’ teased Fanny Wedgwood, ‘would you not like to come boating with us on the pool? We should so love you to come.’
‘Oh yes please,’ echoed Emma, who sat with her arm round her elder sister’s waist.
Beyond the flower garden, a steep wooded slope ran down to the sparkling mere that had given the hall its name in the seventeenth century. Fed by clear springs, its marshy end, adjoining the house, had been cleared by Capability Brown and transformed at great expense into a fishtail-shaped landscape feature. Water-birds now paddled in the shallows, or flapped lazily across the surface, scanning the reeds for insects.
‘Ladies, that would be a high treat indeed,’ affirmed Darwin, his bad mood swiftly evaporating. ‘But I fear your father and I have business at hand.’
‘Oh Charles,’ protested Emma with mock reproach. ‘I am sure that you would prefer to go boating if Fanny Owen were present.’
‘Ladies, you are making a game of me,’ mumbled Darwin, but he knew that he was blushing. It was not merely the mention of the infuriatingly flirtatious and delightful Fanny Owen that had embarrassed him so, but that he appreciated the quietly competing charms of Emma herself just as keenly.
‘Come on, my lad. Out with it. Something disturbs you, I can tell.’
Unlike Etruria, the family’s former home, which sat grandly on a ridge above Stoke-on-Trent, overlooking the pottery factories that had yielded the vast wealth of the Wedgwoods, Maer Hall nestled amid woods and wild heathland. Walking its sandy paths in search of partridge, one might never imagine that the hustle and bustle of the nineteenth century lay so close by.
‘It is nothing, sir. I have been offered a place as a naturalist on a naval expedition around the world - I was recommended by Henslow, the professor of botany at Cambridge - but my father, I suppose understandably, is reluctant to allow it. He says it is a wild scheme, which will be disreputable to my future character as a clergyman. And it will be costly, too. I think he fears I will end up in the sponging-house.’
Uncle Jos smiled. ‘You have felt the rough edge of his tongue, I do not doubt.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Your father cares for your safety, Charles. I saw this with Susannah when she was alive. Although a casual observer might have thought him unduly formal, I could see that he loved your mother very much. But as to this being a wild scheme, and disreputable to a clergyman’s character, well, with all due respect to your father, I am bound to disagree. I should think the offer is extremely honourable to you. The pursuit of natural history, though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman.’
‘My father also thought the vessel must be uncomfortable - that there must be some objection to it, as I am not the first to be offered the post.’
‘Well, I am no naval expert, but I cannot conceive that the Admiralty would send out a bad vessel on such a service. And if you were appointed by the Admiralty, you would have a claim to be as well accommodated as the vessel would allow. Did your father entertain any other objections?’
‘He considered that I was once again changing my profession.’
Uncle Jos laughed. ‘Well, you have not been the most steadfast apprentice to the professions that have been selected for you. If you were presently absorbed in professional studies, then I should probably agree that it would be inadvisable to interrupt them, but this is not the case. Admittedly, this journey would be of no use as regards a curacy, but looking upon you as a man of enlarged curiosity, it would afford you such an opportunity of seeing the world as happens to very few.’
‘Those are my very own thoughts on the subject - my own thoughts exactly, sir.’
A tiny spark of hope ignited somewhere deep in the young man’s heart.
As the last rays of the summer sun flared through the trees, Fanny Wedgwood sat on the porch, working on a rolled-paperwork decoration for a tea canister, while her sister Emma read out passages from the Ladies’ Pocket Magazine.
‘There is a delightful walking-dress pictured, of striped sarcenet, sea-green on a white ground. The border has a double flounce, the sleeves have mancherons of three points bound round with green satin, the hat has a white veil, and it is ornamented in front with three yellow garden poppies. It says here that all the most distinguished ladies in Kensington Gardens are wearing coloured skirts and dresses this year, trimmed with fine lace. “Silk pelisses are generally seen on our matrons”, apparently.’
‘You have a silk pelisse or two, Fan,’ cut in Hensleigh Wedgwood. ‘Does that make you a matron? After all, you are twenty-five.’
Fanny threw a handful of rolled-paperwork trimmings at her brother. ‘The canister will be next if you utter another word.’
‘Really, Hen. You must learn to be more courteous with your sister,’ chided Bessie Wedgwood maternally.
Just then Charles and Jos appeared through the trees bordering the mere, and trudged up between lines of geraniums towards the house. Charles held forth a solitary partridge by its neck, looking curiously pleased with himself for a man with such a paltry bag. ‘Just the one,’ he called in confirmation.
‘A good job we were not expecting partridge pie for supper,’ laughed Fanny.
‘All the more left over for the poachers,’ scoffed Hen.
‘And there are certainly enough of those, if the last quarter-sessions are anything to go by,’ grumbled Jos.
‘Still, even a solitary partridge is one in the eye for the Duke of Wellington!’ Charles’s comment was deliberately intended to flatter his uncle who, as Whig MP for Shropshire, had helped win the battle to make game licences available outside the squirearchy for the first time.
‘Very true,’ beamed Jos. ‘Mind you, with only one partridge in the bag that’s a devilish dear game licence I’ve shelled out for.’
‘Never mind, dear,’ said his wife. ‘I’m sure you will have better luck on the morrow.’
‘On the morrow? Ah, but we shall not be shooting on the morrow.’
‘On the second day of the partridge season? Why ever not, dear?’
Jos grinned at Charles conspiratorially. ‘Because Charles and I shall go off tomorrow to return Robert Darwin’s curricle to its owner.’
The door to Dr Darwin’s study was pushed warily open. The silent dust motes, unexpectedly disturbed, whirled about in panic-stricken eddies. Charles moved forward cautiously into the darkened room.
‘Charles?’
‘Father.’
‘I thought you were at Maer, for the partridge.’
‘I have just r
eturned from there, sir. Father ... would you consider Uncle Jos to be a “man of common sense”?’
Dr Darwin could just make out a stiff-backed figure silhouetted in the doorway behind his son, a pair of neatly trimmed grey sideburns illuminated by the daylight from the hallway. ‘Your uncle Josiah? ... But of course. That goes without saying. What an absurd question. Why ever do you ask?’
Josiah Wedgwood stepped forward into the study.
‘Good morning, Robert,’ he said.
‘I am the devil of a fellow at hunting - the best shot in my family, sir. One day I intend to be an admiral. The best way for me to arrive at that position, it seems, will be for me to serve on the Beagle. The arrangement will benefit you and it will also benefit me.’
Charles Musters looked FitzRoy squarely in the eye. Coolly, FitzRoy returned his gaze. They were sitting facing each other across a desk in a borrowed Admiralty office, where FitzRoy was recruiting the few remaining officers required for the second surveying voyage of the Beagle. At the back of the room, Musters’s mother raised her eyes despairingly to heaven. Charles Musters was eleven years old.
‘I could have gone to the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth, but my father says it is better to learn seamanship on a ship than in a classroom. My father says that college volunteers are all soft-handed whelps, sir.’
‘Your father may well have a point,’ conceded FitzRoy gravely, ‘but I’m sure he would be the first to stress the importance of practical knowledge as well.’ He opened a desk drawer, took out a copy of The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor by Darcy Lever, and passed it to the boy. ‘Now, Mr Musters. If you can learn the entire contents of this book, by rote, by the time the Beagle sails in October - and no slacking, for I shall test you on it - then I may just have a place for you as a volunteer. You will need to bring your own south-wester, two pairs of canvas trousers, two flannel shirts, a blanket, a straw mattress — ’
‘A donkey’s breakfast, sir.’
A donkey’s breakfast indeed. One pair of shoes - without nails - a panikin, a spoon and, most important of all, your own knife.’
‘A sailor without a knife is like a woman without a tongue, sir.’
‘You certainly know a fair amount about seamanship for one who has never sailed, Mr Musters,’ conceded FitzRoy, giving silent thanks that the boy’s father had not taught his son the full unexpurgated version of the quip. ‘Your salary will be ten shillings a month. I look forward to seeing you at Devonport in October, Mr Musters.’
‘The pleasure is all mine, sir.’
The interview over, FitzRoy stood up and formally shook the boy’s hand.
‘You will take care of him, won’t you?’ breathed Musters’s mother.
‘As if he were my own son, madam. There will be another volunteer aboard - my new clerk, Edward Hellyer, who is an altogether ... quieter boy, who writes a good hand, so Charles will not go short of company his own age. I am sure they will get on famously. Rest assured, madam, I will do everything in my power to ensure your son’s safe return.’
FitzRoy ushered Mrs Musters and Charles into the corridor, where he was surprised to find a large, bleary-eyed, unshorn youth in a chair, surrounded by vast piles of luggage, his huge, knitted brows buried deep in a copy of the Edinburgh Review. As the Musterses bade him farewell, the youth looked up.
‘Captain FitzRoy?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m so sorry I am late. I came as soon as I could. I caught the Wonder - the lightning coach from Shrewsbury. It makes the journey up to London overnight, non-stop. It’s remarkable - they sound a bugle, and the turnpike opens up, and you thunder straight through like a mail coach.’
‘Remarkable,’ assented FitzRoy. ‘But there is not the least occasion for any apology.’
The youth rose to his feet, revealing the crumpled wreckage of a gentleman’s woollen country suit, which contrasted sharply with FitzRoy’s own immaculate buckskin tights. The stranger was extremely tall — at least six feet in height, thickset and shambling, with long arms, a pleasant round face and friendly grey eyes. His bulbous unsightly nose was squashed against his face like that of a farmer recently defeated in a tavern brawl. All in all, it struck FitzRoy that there was something vaguely simian about the young man’s appearance.
‘Please excuse my apparel. I have come directly from the inn by hackney coach. I have not slept at all.’
‘I beg you won’t mention it,’ murmured FitzRoy.
‘I hope I am not too late. Did you receive a copy of my letter?’
‘It seems not,’ advanced FitzRoy, cautiously, now utterly bewildered as to the stranger’s identity.
‘Thank goodness for that. You must disregard it if you do. Everything has changed. I say, would you mind awfully helping me move my bags into your office?’
FitzRoy, who felt in no position to refuse such an urgent request, complied politely.
‘I believe I have brought everything I need. A hand-magnifier, a portable dissecting microscope, equipment for blow-pipe analysis, a contact goniometer for measuring the angles of crystals — that’s bound to be useful — ’
‘Bound to be,’ acknowledged FitzRoy.
‘- a magnet, beeswax, several jars with cork lids, preserving-papers for specimens, a clinometer, dinner drawers and shirt - do you dress for dinner? - thick worsted stockings, several shirts — I’ve had them all marked “Darwin” — a cotton nightcap — ’
The stranger broke off, for FitzRoy had begun to laugh.
‘I’m sorry, is my inventory at fault? I did my best to conceive of everything that might be needed, but what with the shortage of time ...’
‘My dear sir, you must forgive me. My manners are atrocious. But I do believe you have omitted to tell me your name. Although I must thank your shirts for furnishing me with a clue.’
‘By the Lord Harry, what a buffoon I am! I am Charles Darwin,’ explained the stranger, as if that settled the matter.
‘Charles Darwin,’ repeated FitzRoy blankly.
‘I am the naturalist invited on your voyage by Professor Henslow.’
‘Ah!’ FitzRoy exhaled, beginning to understand. ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Darwin. Please forgive my inexcusable confusion. I did enquire of the hydrographer, Captain Beaufort, some weeks back, as to finding me a naturalist and companion for this voyage, but I had heard nothing by return. In the meantime I have also pursued other avenues. I fear I must own’ - here FitzRoy improvised hastily - ‘that the position is already taken, by a Mr Chester. Do you know Harry Chester?’
‘No,’ said Darwin bleakly, his face a picture of misery.
‘He is the son of Sir Robert Chester. He works in the Privy Council office.’ It was true that FitzRoy had offered the post to Harry Chester, who, fearing for his life, had turned him down flat inside five minutes. But now that he had lied about Chester’s acceptance, FitzRoy began to feel like a thorough scoundrel.
‘I suppose I had better leave, then.’ The young man addressed the remark unhappily to his own oversized knees.
‘No, wait. Please tell me about yourself. Who knows? Perhaps Mr Chester will change his mind. You are a botanist? A stratigrapher?’
‘I do a little in that way. I am a parson. A parson-to-be, at any rate. That is to say, I am a student. I am doing an ordinary arts degree, preparatory to a career in orders. But I am fascinated by all branches of natural philosophy. I always have been. Even when I was at Mr Case’s school, aged eight, I used to fish for newts in the quarry pool. And I collected pebbles - I wanted to know about each and every stone in front of the hall door. My nickname at Shrewsbury School was Gas. My brother Erasmus and I had our own laboratory. It was in an old scullery in the garden. We used to determine the composition of commonplace substances, coins and so forth, by producing calxes — you know, oxides. And we used to buy compounds and purify them into their constituent elements. We naively thought we might isolate a new element of our own. We had an argand lamp for heating the che
micals, an industrial thermometer from my uncle Jos, and a goniometer — the same one that’s in my bag.’ The young man’s enthusiasm, which had nostalgically begun to pick up speed, came to an abrupt halt at the thought of all the useless equipment gathered about his feet.
What on earth was Beaufort thinking about? wondered FitzRoy. Sending me an entbusiastic student - a typical country gentleman in orders, who rides to bounds and fancies himself a philosopher. And not even a finisbed one at tbat. And if he reads the Edinburgh Review, it’s ten to a penny he’s a Whig.
‘We used to heat everything over an open flame,’ Darwin went on, aimlessly filling the silence in the room. ‘More often than not the substances exploded.’
‘Is that how you came by the scar on your hand?’
‘Oh, no, that was done by my sister Caroline when I was but a few months old. I was on her lap, and she was cutting an orange for me, when a cow ran by the window, which made me jump, and the knife went into my hand. I remember it vividly.’
‘If it happened to you as a baby, then surely you have been told what happened since and have visualized the incident in your mind.’
‘Oh no, because I clearly remember which way the cow ran, and that would not have been told me subsequently.’
For the first time, FitzRoy sat up and took notice. Something in that one act of analysis told him that here was a mind worthy of further investigation, however unpromising the state of the individual that housed it.
‘How are you on stratigraphy, Mr Darwin? For I fear there is not much call for a chemist on a naval survey vessel.’
‘Oh, but we must now call it geology, Captain FitzRoy. I am fascinated about it. After hunting, it is my second love. I have recently returned from surveying the Llangollen area with Professor Sedgwick - the professor of geology at Cambridge University. He is a marvellous man, sir - a visionary, in my notion. He says that our knowledge of the structure of the earth is much like what an old hen would know of a hundred-acre field, were she scratching in one corner of it. But he says that were we to expand our knowledge sufficiently, we might arrive at the all-embracing hypothesis that would explain the earth’s history - the scientific truths that would finally reveal God’s intention.’