This Thing of Darkness

  ‘How dare you discuss me in such terms, or any terms, with Mr Lyell? Have you told your new friend of your transmutationist theories? I doubt it! For I, too, have read his latest volume, which makes it abundantly clear that although varieties may change a great deal, they can never deviate far enough to be called separate species.’

  ‘Of course I have not discussed such matters with Mr Lyell! I have discussed my most private thoughts with you and you alone, because I was confined in a cabin with you for five years, and because I trusted you as my companion and as a gentleman to keep such confidences to yourself! Although, God knows I regret those confidences now. You gave me your word as a gentleman that you would have no objection to my casting doubt upon the Biblical flood in my account of the voyage, although now it seems that you have reneged upon that understanding.’

  ‘On the contrary. You are quite entitled to print whatever nonsense you wish concerning the flood, although I believe our understanding was that you should do so discreetly. My objection to this volume is of an entirely different nature, and concerns the disgraceful remarks, or lack of them, on the title page.’

  ‘On the title page? Remarks? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your page of acknowledgements, or lack of them, in which you ascribe your place on the voyage to the wish of Captain FitzRoy, and to the kindness of Captain Beaufort.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I am further astonished at the total omission of any notice of the ship’s officers, either particular or general. What of Sulivan? What of Stokes? What of Bynoe? Officers who assisted you in the furtherance of your views, and who gave you preference in the collection of specimens. A plain acknowledgement, never mind a word of flattery or fulsome praise, would have been slight return due from you to those who held the ladder by which you mounted to your current position. Or were you not aware that the ship which carried you safely round the world was first employed in exploring and surveying, and that her officers were not ordered or obliged to collect anything for you at all? To their honour, they gave you the preference. To your dishonour, you make no mention of them.’

  ‘I shall write to them.’

  ‘It is not enough. This page must be altered at the publisher’s. I do not trust you to write to them.’

  ‘You have the most consummate skill in looking at everything and everybody in a perverted manner! All this is about a simple oversight! You would do better to concentrate your energies upon finishing your part of the manuscript - which I would remind you was due for publication at the end of this month - than upon such petty matters. What in God’s name is taking you so long? This delay is holding up my efforts to prosecute a successful scientific career.’

  ‘You forget that I have two volumes to contend with,’ said FitzRoy, coldly. ‘My own and the editing of Captain King’s. A total of more than half a million words — ’

  ‘Half a million words? I read some of King’s journal on the Beagle. No pudding for schoolboys was ever so heavy. It abounds with natural history of the most trashy nature. I trust that your own volume will present an improvement. Half a million words! No wonder the three volumes are to cost two pounds eighteen shillings!’

  ‘The publisher Mr Colburn tells me that the high price derives from a shortage of rags to make paper. And, of course, your friends in the Liberal government continue to tax paper at a penny-halfpenny a pound.’

  ‘Henry Colburn is a villain of the worst sort! I have had to pay him no less than twenty-one pounds ten shillings — in advance - for the copies I intend to distribute to my friends and family. That is more than I am receiving for my contribution! I am writing this book at a considerable loss. You, on the other hand, are on a full surveyor’s salary.’

  ‘On the contrary. As I am able to dedicate only part of my time to the surveying work, I have written to Sir Francis Beaufort offering to return half of my salary. And if the work continues beyond the end of 1838, I shall complete it unpaid.’

  ‘Unpaid? Return half your salary? When you have found yourself in financial difficulties? You are quite mad!’

  ‘No — I am not mad. I simply have ideas of money, and ideas of duty, which are different from persons such as yourself. A gentleman should always place duty and public service ahead of all other things. I am sure that it is a gesture that Sir Francis will properly appreciate, as being undertaken from the best of motives.’

  Darwin sneered across the study. ‘A gesture that has precipitated such universal admiration that you have not been reappointed to command the Beagle’s next voyage.’

  ‘What?’

  FitzRoy’s blood had turned to ice.

  ‘What did you say?’ he repeated.

  ‘It is nothing . . . just a rumour . . . Beaufort . . .’ Darwin realized, uncomfortably, that he had gone too far.

  FitzRoy was pressing him, desperate to know more: ‘What do you know of the Beagle sailing again? What do you mean, “Beaufort”? You have met him?’

  ‘He is a frequent guest at Mr Babbage’s soirées,’ confessed Darwin, weakly. ‘He has lately become a considerable friend of mine. He has read my manuscript and given it his unqualified approval. He mentioned that the Beagle was sailing again, under Wickham, to survey the coast of Australia. I supposed that you knew . . .’

  FitzRoy’s expression revealed that, without a shadow of doubt, he had not known of Wickham’s appointment.

  Darwin barged on into the ensuing silence: ‘Sir Francis has arranged for me to receive a government grant of a thousand pounds to edit five large illustrated volumes on the zoology of the Beagle, to be authored by Owen, Waterhouse, Gould, Jenyns and Bell. They are to be published by Smith and Elder — a reputable scientific publisher.’

  FitzRoy was stunned. ‘You are to produce an official guide to the zoology of the Beagle — with no reference to myself?’

  ‘It was my understanding that you had been informed.’

  ‘I think that you had better leave.’

  Darwin rose without a word. Both men knew that their friendship was finally and irrevocably at an end. The weakest go to the wall, thought Darwin, angrily. Your kind shall be swept aside like the great beasts of old. Scientists, industrialists, enterprisers, inventors, businessmen, these are the ones who shall inherit the earth. Your species has reached the end of its natural lifespan.

  FitzRoy’s carriage deposited him outside the imposing stone portico of Montagu House, home of the British Museum. He stepped down as deftly as ever, but anyone who knew him well, seeing him alight, would have noticed that something was missing, a certain spring, an optimism in his step. Still ramrod straight, however, he rustled through the meagre crowds that pushed, head down, along Great Russell Street, his sober black frock-coat cut high at the neck and drawn tightly about him to keep out the cloying yellow mist that streamed in his wake. His bearing wore the dignity of habit; inside he felt like an empty shell, more like the ghost of Captain FitzRoy than his living, breathing spirit.

  He was made to wait for what seemed an eternity in a narrow corridor behind the vestibule. Eventually an adenoidal clerk appeared, and announced that Mr Butters would see him now. The curator of Natural History was finally revealed to be a short, round, irritable man of middle age, attired in a sober and shapeless suit of comparable vintage, although the cinched-in waist hinted that its owner had once fancied himself as something of a swell about town. Even if that had indeed been the case, there was nothing swell whatsoever about Mr Butters’s present-day incarnation. He looked his uninvited guest up and down with barely concealed headmasterly annoyance.

  ‘And to what, Captain Fitzwilliam, do we owe the pleasure of your visit?’

  ‘I am — that is, I was - the captain of HMS Beagle, a surveying-brig, from 1828 until the present day. If you will be kind enough to suffer the imposition, I am here on the matter of some specimens gathered by myself and Mr Bynoe, our surgeon, at the Galapagos Islands.’

  ‘And how may I assist you with regard to these specimens?
’

  ‘A Mr John Gould, a taxonomist of the Zoological Society, wishes to examine the specimens in question further. I am here to make it clear to you that I have no objections whatsoever to Mr Gould’s work — unless, of course, it should conflict with the researches being carried out by your own experts.’

  ‘The Zoological Society, you say?’ Butters pronounced the name of that new-fangled institution with the kind of lofty disdain he might have reserved for a gang of Thames mudlarks. ‘We are very busy here, Captain Fitzwilliam.’

  ‘FitzRoy.’

  ‘I do beg your pardon, Captain FitzRoy. Do the officers of the Zoological Society not have sufficient animals of their own to experiment upon, without interrupting our own most industrious endeavours? They have a chimpanzee, I gather, dressed in a morning-coat for the entertainment of the public.’

  If the museum was indeed the site of any industrious endeavours, then those labours were certainly not making their presence felt. The building was utterly silent, and the motes of dust that had risen politely at FitzRoy’s entrance were now settling drowsily once more upon the aged books and charts that slept on Butters’s desk. FitzRoy felt as if he had stepped back into the last century.

  ‘These particular specimens - they are finches, of various types — are the subject of some considerable scientific controversy. Although I cannot say I agree with Mr Gould’s diagnosis, I felt it only fair to give him the chance to examine the birds properly and at his leisure.’

  ‘No good ever came of scientific controversy, no good at all. If you will take my advice, Captain FitzRoy, you will advise this Mr Gould to stick to dressing up chimpanzees.’

  ‘Be that as it may, sir, I fear I must impose upon your kindness. It has become a matter of honour, sir.’

  ‘Has it, by Jove?’ Butters winced in disapproval. ‘Well, we have a great many specimens here at the museum. Yours may not be easy to locate. They may not yet have been examined or catalogued. When did you say you returned?’

  ‘One year ago. The twenty-sixth of October 1836.’

  Butters burrowed into the teetering piles of books that cluttered the corner of his office, before emerging with a dust-coated ledger. ‘HMS Adventure . . . HMS Agamemnon . . . HMS Arethusa . . . Here we are, HMS Beagle. FitzRoy and - who was it?’

  ‘Bynoe. Benjamin Bynoe.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Specimens collected by Robert FitzRoy, Benjamin Bynoe, John Lort Stokes, Phillip Parker King . . . not catalogued yet, I’m afraid. The cases haven’t even been opened.’

  ‘After a whole year?’

  ‘As I believe I mentioned, Captain FitzRoy, ours is a busy department of a busy museum. We do not have the time to fling ourselves upon every crate or packing-case that every passing sailor chooses to deposit on our doorstep.’

  ‘The collection of these specimens was not undertaken lightly, Mr Butters. Indeed, it was often undertaken at considerable personal risk to the officers involved. And for the record, your ledger is incorrect. Our midshipman’s name was Philip Gidley King, not Phillip Parker King.’

  ‘I very much doubt it, sir. We are not prone to such errors. Besides, Phillip Parker King is not a midshipman. According to the ledger, he was the expedition’s commander.’

  ‘Captain Phillip Parker King was the commander of the first expedition, which returned to these shores in October 1830. He has been retired these last seven years.’

  ‘As I said. Not catalogued yet. The cases have not been opened.’

  ‘The cases delivered here in 1830 have not been opened?’

  ‘As I believe I have made abundantly clear, Captain FitzRoy, ours is a busy department in a busy museum. No doubt they will be dealt with in due course. Now, if you will excuse me, I, too, am an extremely busy man. If your Mr Gould wishes to make himself known to me, I undertake to refer him to my clerical staff. I bid you good day, sir.’

  FitzRoy crossed town, a prizefighter winded by blow after blow to the solar plexus who yet refused to buckle under. As he walked up the Admiralty steps, he realized that he had absolutely no memory of the journey he had just undertaken. He was a man in a daze. He scarcely had time to pull himself together before it was announced that the hydrographer would see him at once, even though he had taken the liberty of calling without an appointment.

  At least Beaufort is being generous to me, he thought. Which might yet be a good sign. If it was true that he had lost the Beagle, then — at best - it might mean a promotion. Alternatively, at worst, he might find himself relegated to a coastal guardship, and the relative ignominy of anti-smuggling patrols or fisheries protection. At least it would mean he could visit his wife more often. Whatever hand the good Lord and the Admiralty were about to deal him, it would surely be for the best, he reassured himself.

  The door opened. Beaufort hobbled round his desk and limped across the turkey-carpet to pump his hand. FitzRoy’s stomach knotted itself tightly into a ball. Pull yourself together, he told himself.

  He smiled, and returned Beaufort’s enthusiastic greeting. Was that sympathy or congratulation flickering in the Irishman’s grizzled smile?

  ‘Well, FitzRoy, I must congratulate you. Seymour has passed his court-martial with flying colours, no small thanks to you.’

  It took FitzRoy a moment to realize what Beaufort was talking about.

  ‘Your letter explaining that the ocean currents had been altered by the earthquake was entirely accepted by the tribunal. Seymour was completely exonerated of blame for the loss of the Challenger. Indeed, he was praised most highly for his subsequent conduct in protecting his men from the hostile Araucanian tribesmen. He has been honourably discharged, and given another brig.’

  ‘Thank God. I am profoundly relieved to hear it, sir.’

  ‘There was praise, too, for Commodore Mason, for the alacrity and bravery with which he came to Seymour’s rescue.’ Beaufort stared hard at FitzRoy, a glint in his eye. FitzRoy remained blank-faced. ‘You don’t have to tell me about it if you would prefer not to, FitzRoy,’ he said, ‘but there is precious little goes on in the Service that escapes my knowledge.’

  ‘So I have heard, sir.’

  Beaufort maintained his gaze for a moment or two more, after which his expression indicated that the matter had been dropped. ‘Now. Your Lieutenant Sulivan - Commander Sulivan, as we must now call him. What sort of a man is he?’

  ‘He is as thorough a seaman, for his age, as I know. He is used to the smallest craft as well as to the largest ships. He is an excellent observer, calculator and surveyor. I may truly say that his abilities are better than those of any man who has served with me. Besides these advantages, he has the solid foundation of the highest principles and an honest, warm heart. Nothing on earth would induce Sulivan to swerve from his duty, even in the smallest degree.’

  ‘Good. I was hoping you would say something of the sort. And I gather he has a soft spot for the Falkland Islands, is that not so?’

  ‘He refers to them as God’s own country.’

  ‘The Admiralty has decided to appoint a naval officer to command the waters around the Falkland Islands, by way of a protection vessel. He shall also have responsibility for any isolated British communities on the South American coast.’

  ‘I supposed that Sulivan was to have the Pincher, sir, on slaving duty.’

  ‘Indeed so — he has already spent a fortune modifying her, I hear, according to the FitzRoy model.’ Beaufort smiled. ‘But this is a bigger job. A much bigger job. Not, mark you, that we should have any more trouble with the Buenos Ayreans. Government policy is to extend the hand of friendship to President Rosas, and to the new nation of Argentina.’

  ‘And dare I say it, sir, we gave Rivero and his men a bloody nose at Port Louis.’

  ‘Ah. I was coming to that.’ Beaufort grimaced. ‘The Argentines have made a complaint. Two complaints.’

  ‘Two complaints, sir?’

  ‘The first was that Captain Rivero’s treatment — being manacled in your hold - infringed his rig
hts as a citizen of the new Argentine Republic. The second was that, on a separate occasion, you insulted the commander of a Buenos Ayres guardship, and collectively abused the people of that city.’

  FitzRoy could barely believe what he was hearing.

  ‘But Rivero was a murderer, sir — a cold-blooded murderer. And their guardship attacked us. If I recall, I described its conduct as “rotten” and “uncivilized”, sir.’

  ‘I am sure your memory is exact, FitzRoy. Nevertheless, the government has decided to apologize to the Argentines, and has ordered Rivero and his men to be released without charge. The government are keen to have President Rosas on our side. Argentina could become a considerable trading market, especially for the sale of arms, what with their continuous wars in the south. I’m afraid you have to look at the wider political picture.’

  ‘Indeed sir,’ replied FitzRoy bleakly.

  ‘And, of course, if friendly relations are maintained, then your friend Sulivan will be in no danger, sitting on his little rock in the South Atlantic. So let us hope for the best.’

  ‘I am very glad for him, sir. Very glad indeed. But I came here, if you will forgive my boldness, to discuss my own situation. I heard from Mr Darwin that the Beagle — ’

  ‘Ah, yes. I owe you an apology for that. Mr Darwin should not have spoken out of turn as he did. It was an overheard remark — no more than a rumour at the time — but it has since become a matter of fact. The Beagle is to survey the coast of Australia, completing the task begun by King in the ‘twenties. Captain Wickham is to have the command, with Lieutenant Stokes as his deputy. It will be a six-year voyage. You should not have found out in the way that you did, and for that you have my profound apologies.’

  ‘I accept your apology unreservedly, sir.’

  ‘But you have a family to consider now, FitzRoy. Would you have wished to be absent for six years?’

  ‘I suppose not . . . but where does that leave me, sir? Am I to have an anti-slaving vessel?’

  ‘Anti-slaving vessels are much sought after.’