Galapagos Regained (17 page)

“I want no part of this horrid plot,” said Malcolm.

“Nor do we ask you to take one,” said Wilberforce. “We merely request that throughout your passage to Galápagos you refrain from speaking of the Great Winnowing. And, of course, once it becomes known aboard the
Equinox
that the Encantadas have been harrowed, you must not reveal that the Anglican Communion lent Heaven a hand.”

Seeking to settle his stomach, Malcolm entered into what he imagined was a Saint Francis of Assisi sort of rapport with the nightingales. The birds bestowed their healing gifts upon him, even as he took refuge in a comforting thought. At the moment Stopsack and Eggwort might be acquiescing to the proposed mischief, but surely when it came down to it the Governor would never allow his archipelago to become an abattoir, nor would this so-called emperor stand by whilst intruders butchered the reptiles whose meat sustained his community.

“Very well, Sam—I shall remain silent,” Malcolm said. For the nonce, he thought.

“Do we have your solemn word?” asked Wilberforce.

“Another order from my bishop?” Malcolm replied, straightaway receiving a nod.

“Remember, sir, to swear before the mortal likes of Sam and myself is perforce to swear before God,” said Hallowborn. “Our Creator occupies all places at all times.”

“A theological point in which I require no instruction from you,” Malcolm told the rector, offering the nightingales a sweet Franciscan smile. “I daresay that, even as He sheds His grace on Oxford, God has betaken Himself to Galápagos, that He might minister to its fallen tortoises and sinful lizards. Yes, Sam. Yes, Simon. You have my word.”

*   *   *

Throughout the week preceding the
Equinox
's scheduled departure, Chloe's energies were consumed largely in evading Mr. Popplewell, who insisted that she submit to an
Evening Standard
interview, “so that thousands of Englishmen might satisfy their curiosity concerning the woman who would put God in His grave.” Ever since he'd published his article about the “freethinking female naturalist,” with its scurrilous quotation from the Reverend Mr. Hallowborn—“I am moved to call Miss Bathurst the Covent Garden Antichrist”—she'd wanted no truck with Popplewell, his wretched newspaper, or his salivating readership. She could only hope that when she finally gave her prize-winning performance at Alastor Hall, amongst the journalists present would be a sober and appreciative
Times
reporter, perhaps even the one who'd written with such verve about her final gallows speech at the Adelphi.

Beyond the unease Chloe felt at being branded an antichrist (a discomfort leavened somewhat by the satisfaction she took in the epithet), the most troublesome consequence of Popplewell's piece was Fanny Mendrick's discovery that her rooming-companion harbored atheist sympathies. So bitter was the subsequent altercation between Chloe and Fanny that the wreckage of their friendship was surely but one more such quarrel away.

“I don't know which fact gives me greater pain,” said Fanny. “That you would murder your Creator or that, having done so, you would collect ten thousand pounds in blood money.”

“It's my Christian duty to help my father pay his debts,” said Chloe.

“And is it your Christian duty to spit on Christianity?”

“Oh, Fanny, how it grieves me to cause you unhappiness.”

“Then burn your ticket to Galápagos.”

A particularly exasperating aspect of his “freethinking female naturalist” article was Popplewell's penchant for making a philosophical debate sound like a penny dreadful. In his estimation the interconnected voyages of the
Paragon
and the
Equinox
constituted a “cosmic regatta” between irreconcilable worldviews.

On the one hand, allied with the Church of England and the dictates of tradition, we have Captain Deardon and his company of Anglicans, coursing towards Ararat. On the other, braving the wrath of the faithful and the ire of the angels, we have Captain Runciter's band of unbelievers, heading for Galápagos. Make no mistake, O my readers—the real prize in this race is not £10,000. Whichever company brings back the better evidence will be giving us to know whether we descend from the loving hands of Providence or the hairy loins of primates. Is it any wonder Miss Chloe Bathurst is amongst our nation's most talked-about figures, her praises sung in every hellfire club from Lowestoft to Liverpool, even as her damnation is recommended from thousands of pulpits throughout Great Britain?

On Monday morning Popplewell tracked Chloe to a Bond Street milliner's shop, hovering in the shadows as she opened her purse (newly fattened with Shelley Society funds) to procure an extravagant white Panama hat, perfect for keeping the equatorial sun from ravaging her skin. Upon completing the transaction, she informed the journalist that if he did not absent himself she would seek out a constable and complain that she'd been “subjected to the advances of the lecherous scribbler Popplewell.” Her nemesis departed straightaway.

The following afternoon she sat down with Mr. Abernathy of Maritime Enterprises, the corporation charged with equipping the voyage, receiving his assurances that the
Equinox
would put to sea with an abundance of animal pens and birdcages. Returning to the street, she again encountered Popplewell. Before he could speak, she told him that unless he disappeared instantly she would visit the nearest magistrate and “swear out a complaint against the unscrupulous penny-a-liner Popplewell.” Again the scoundrel fled.

Wednesday morning found Chloe and Algernon at the British Museum, where they spent three damp and frigid hours poring over hand-colored maps of the Encantadas, an experience redeemed for her by the delight she took in seeing the positions and shapes of the islands whence came Mr. Darwin's reptiles and birds. (Charles Isle resembled a walnut shell, Indefatigable a fried egg, Narborough a mushroom cap, Albemarle a gouty foot.) Exiting the map room, she and her brother were importuned by Popplewell. This time around, she deferred to Algernon, who brandished his furled umbrella and waved it about whilst feigning derangement. The journalist vanished.

Chloe would admit that the “freethinking female naturalist” article had brought one blessing into her life. Thanks to Popplewell's pen, the management of the Adelphi Theatre now perceived her not as a nuisance with anarchist sensibilities but as a resourceful bluestocking capable of wheedling £300 from the Shelley Society, which meant that her dealings with the playhouse need no longer take the form of theft. Instead she could walk through the front door of a Wednesday afternoon, seek out Mr. Kean, and propose to buy, for two pounds sterling, the female pirate regalia that had figured so prominently in
The Beauteous Buccaneer
. Like most aspiring transmutationists, Chloe was not superstitious, and yet she could not but impute certain arcane powers to these costumes: by outfitting herself as Pirate Anne or Pirate Mary she would
become
Pirate Anne or Pirate Mary—women who, owing to their many years of sinking ships and accumulating doubloons, were far better suited to the imminent voyage than was Chloe Bathurst, who'd never even seen the Atlantic Ocean, much less sailed upon it.

Mr. Kean cheerily accepted her offer, dispatching his wife to the wardrobe racks. Ellen Tree returned promptly, costumes in hand. Chloe left the manager's office in good spirits, clutching a muslin sack stuffed with the talismanic garments.

No sooner had she stepped into the foyer, now overrun with playgoers leaving the matinee performance of
Via Dolorosa
, than a tall figure with a walking-stick planted himself in her path.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bathurst.”

She could scarcely credit her senses, which disclosed not only the haggard features of Mr. Darwin's face but also the rasp of his cough and the acrid aroma of his tobacco. “Hello, sir,” she replied, her throat constricting as if she'd fallen prey to one of her father's talkative nooses.

“How felicitous to find you here.” Mr. Darwin puffed on his cigarette, exhaling a pungent zephyr. “I've been searching for my erstwhile zookeeper all day.” Elaborating, he revealed that after arriving on the morning train he'd made inquiries at the Adelphi. Eventually Fanny Mendrick had stepped forward to explain that she and Miss Bathurst were “friends and fellow lodgers whose affection has been compromised by the Shelley Prize.” On apprehending that she was speaking with Chloe's former employer, Miss Mendrick had offered him directions to their rooms, noting that Miss Bathurst was usually “out and about until sundown, making preparations for her awful sea voyage,” and so he'd resolved to spend the afternoon on the premises, watching Miss Mendrick portray the saintly Veronica.

“Have you been well, Miss Bathurst?” asked Mr. Darwin, flourishing the “freethinking female naturalist” edition of the
Evening Standard
.

“I must confess to considerable fatigue. Pondering the arguments I overheard in our vivarium”—it would be best, she decided, not to mention her stolen copy of the essay—“is a wearying vocation. May I assume you are furious with me?”

“I have my usual complaints,” said Mr. Darwin, vaulting past her question whilst massaging his temples. “Headaches. Nausea. Insomnia. Each month I go to Malvern for Dr. Gully's cold-water treatments. They seem to help. Yes, Miss Bathurst, I am furious with you, though my feelings are tempered by a certain begrudging wonder that you have come so far so fast.”

Sensing that he needed to get off his feet, she guided Mr. Darwin into an alcove decorated with posters for Adelphi productions gone by:
The Beauteous Buccaneer, Wicked Ichor
,
The Raft of the Medusa, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Murders in the Rue Morgue
. He eased himself onto a velvet-upholstered bench, so that a lithographic hodgepodge of pirates, vampires, castaways, wraiths, and orang-utangs swirled above his head like the
dramatis personae
of a nightmare.

“If you're planning to expose me as a fraud, I can hardly blame you,” she said.

“Tomorrow, Miss Bathurst, yes,
tomorrow
I might inform the
Standard
that you've contrived to pass my species theory off as your own.” He secured his walking-stick upright between his knees in a tableau suggesting a Hindoo cobra emerging from a basket. “But
today
I wish only to praise my zookeeper. One might even say I've come to offer her a benediction.”

“A benediction?” she said, astonished.

“Don't overestimate my sympathy. Had I two thousand surplus pounds, I would cover your father's debts, then arrange for you to tell the world you no longer believe in transmutationism. That said, I must allow as how a part of me wants you to claim the prize, for it happens that my relationship with God—”

“Assuming He exists.”

“Assuming He exists, our relationship is in such disarray that I should be glad to see Him thrown down.”

“‘For 'tis not mere blood we seek but the thrill of mocking the cosmos.'”

“How's that?”

“A line from this confection by Mr. Jerrold,” said Chloe, pointing to the
Wicked Ichor
poster. “If you want me to win the contest, why not give me that scrivener's copy of the full treatise? Whilst you're about it, why not lend me your menagerie, thus sparing me a journey to the New World?”

“Why not, Miss Bathurst?” said Mr. Darwin indignantly. “Why not? Because a greater part of me is horrified that my idea has been dragooned into so tawdry an enterprise.”

“In your shoes, I would feel the same way.”

“Furthermore, though personally prepared to forsake theism, I question whether anyone has the right to deprive his fellow humans of its comforts.”

“Were I to give the issue more thought, I would surely agree with you,” she said. “Tell me of your difficulties with the Almighty.”

Mr. Darwin rose and strode up to the
Raft of the Medusa
poster, an image that, though intended to evoke the famous painting, took as many liberties with Géricault's masterpiece as had Bulwer-Lytton's play with the historical facts. “Before finding my true calling, I intended to become a physician. Oft-times my training required me to visit private homes, attending to patients whose illnesses were so contagious that no hospital would admit them. I saw many an innocent child suffer and die.”

“And you wondered why a loving God would permit such a state of affairs?”

“No, back then I never doubted His goodness.”

Mr. Darwin fell silent. A tear coursed down his cheek, followed by another. At last he spoke two syllables.

“Annie.”

“Annie?”

“The signs are unmistakable. Night and day she lies a-bed, clutching that doll you gave her, vomiting, spitting blood, burning with fever, her little heart racing. She has consumption—I know it.” Mr. Darwin jabbed the floor with his walking-stick, as if to wound the world that had sickened his child. “Consumption. There—you see? I found the courage to speak the word. My dear sweet Annie has pulmonary consumption.”

Now Chloe, too, began to weep, soon sobbing with all the ferocious hopelessness of Cleopatra cradling her dying Antony. “That child is a gift from the angels.”

“There are no angels, Miss Bathurst. As His earthly avatars God appoints only vengeful demons.”

From her reticule Chloe withdrew a handkerchief, using it to daub first Mr. Darwin's tears and then her own. “Vengeful demons,” she echoed, blowing her nose.
“C'est vrai.”

In an apparent bid to change an intolerable subject, Mr. Darwin gestured towards the central figure in the
Raft of the Medusa
poster, Françoise Gauvin, standing in the prow of the improvised vessel and frantically signaling the
Argus—
though ultimately the frigate had sailed into the sunset, heedless of the surviving
Medusa
passengers (fifteen out of an original hundred and fifty, the others having succumbed to thirst, duels, murder plots, and suicide). “Is that supposed to be you?”