Galapagos Regained (18 page)

“I portrayed a fictitious female survivor,” Chloe replied, absorbing the last of her tears. “Throughout the play she struggles to forestall her shipmates' descent into cannibalism. Her best speech finds her scrambling atop a pile of corpses and screaming, ‘He who would eat his fellow man must answer to his God!' One night, just to be clever, I added, ‘And he who would eat his God must answer to his fellow man!'”

“Should I assume the piece is allegorical? Is the raft a metaphor for the world?”

“The playwright, Mr. Bulwer-Lytton, has proven himself a stranger to symbolism and other literary felicities. I believe he was drawn primarily to the luridness of the tale. When next you see Miss Annie, give her a kiss from me.”

Mr. Darwin pivoted on his heel and fixed Chloe with a marine iguana's implacable stare. “Get thee to South America, Miss Bathurst. Find your inverse Eden. Who am I to judge your overweening ambition? We're a damned and desperate species, the lot of us, adrift on a wretched raft, scanning the horizon with bloodshot eyes and hollow expectations. Go to the Encantadas. Go with my blessing.”

Having made his parting remark, Mr. Darwin firmed his grip on his walking-stick and, wreathed in cigarette smoke, shambled into the Strand, doubtless seeking to distract himself with the sights, sounds, and fragrances of London, a desire that the indifferent city would surely fulfill straightaway, with myriad sensations to spare—and yet it seemed he was also looking for a ship, the frigate of his most fervent desire, the
Argus
that would never come.

 

5

Chloe Explores St. Paul's Rocks, Home to Brown Boobies, Black Noddies, Belligerent Crabs, and Her Greatest Admirer

By a regrettable turn of the cards and a woeful rotation of Dame Fortune's wheel, the date on which Chloe and Algernon undertook the final leg of their journey from London to the moored
Equinox
coincided with the moment that the leaders of the Chartist movement had elected to stage political demonstrations throughout England. The 20th of October, 1849, began innocuously enough, Chloe awakening in a Haslemere inn, slipping into her Pirate Anne costume (indubitably the proper ensemble for the first day of her grand adventure), and collecting her luggage, including the sandalwood box in which she now stored the transmutation essay. She proceeded to the courtyard, joining her waistcoated, beaver-hatted brother and their fellow travelers: a solicitor on holiday with his wife and their two daughters. Everyone scrambled into the Great Southern Transit Company coach, which promptly set off for the seacoast, and by ten o'clock the passengers were breaking their fast in Brighton.

The trouble began in Portsmouth, its public square so clogged with Chartist protestors that the coachman had to maneuver through a treacherous labyrinth of back streets, a strategy likewise required by conditions in Bournemouth and Weymouth. Although Chloe imagined that these delays might necessitate a full day's postponement of the voyage (a dreadful possibility, the ark hunters having left two weeks earlier), that was certainly preferable to being waylaid by the protestors, who brandished not only placards but also pitchforks, cudgels, and, in a few alarming cases, firearms.

Overlooking the dissidents' uncouth appearances, she decided their desires were not unreasonable.
VOTES FOR ALL MALE CITIZENS
ran the most common sentiment. Other signs insisted
SECRET BALLOTS ARE A SACRED RIGHT
, whilst others promoted
A COTTAGE FOR EVERY HONEST WORKER
. But Algernon (as prescient in political matters as he was inept at faro) declared the movement moribund. The Chartists' demands, he told Chloe, would not be seriously addressed until a generation of plebeians presently in embryo got themselves born, came of age, took note of their lamentable condition, and laid their case before a newly minted Parliament.

“Once we've collected the prize,” said Chloe, “we must donate a portion to the cause of economic justice.”

“Sweetest sister, don't count your chickens ere they've transmuted,” said Algernon.

Surveying the angry placards, Chloe speculated that human beings might do well to petition God in this fashion, as opposed to the more modest medium of prayer. She wondered what demands she might herself post on Heaven's gates.
NO PULMONARY CONSUMPTION IN PERSONS UNDER FORTY.
Yes, that had the proper ring.
LAZARUS GOT A SECOND CHANCE, HOW ABOUT ANNIE DARWIN?
A fair question, she decided.

Despite her fears, the coach reached Plymouth by early afternoon, well before the turning of the tide. Upon shedding the solicitor and his family in the town center, the driver proceeded to the harbor, with its soaring groves of masts and bristling hedges of bowsprits. The docks swarmed with protestors, including not only the expected Chartists but also a faction of religionists enraged by Chloe's project, plus a deputation of freethinkers. This third group, predictably, was in the minority, their placards correspondingly tepid:
HAIL AND FAREWELL, TRANSMUTATIONISTS … A FAVORING WIND FOR THE GREAT QUEST … CHLOE BATHURST, AVATAR OF REASON.
God's defenders, by contrast, brought bravado to their epigrams:
NO SUCCOR FOR THE BRIDE OF BEELZEBUB … DOWN WITH THE SLUT OF SCIENCE … AS JESUS CURSED THE FIG TREE, SO HE REVILETH THE BATHURST TREE.

“Their vehemence frightens me,” she told her brother. “On the other hand, I rarely stirred such passions at the Adelphi.”

“Enjoy this moment in full,” Algernon advised her, “for all infamy is fleeting.”

The coachman halted alongside the gangway, then hopped free of his box and opened the door as a party of four
Equinox
crewmen scurried into view and began unstrapping the trunks, duffels, portmanteaus, and valises from the roof.

“In my capacity as leader of this expedition,” Chloe told her brother, “I shall now issue my first order.”

“As opposed to the ten thousand you've given me in your capacity as my elder sister,” said Algernon.

“Get thee to the hold and ascertain that our animal pens and birdcages have been competently secured.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“No, little brother. My command is your command.”

As Algernon instructed the crewmen to stow the luggage in the cabins reserved to himself and his sister, the religionists shifted tactics, from verbal abuse to vegetable aggression. Putrid onions flew at Chloe from all directions, glancing off her shoulders and skidding along her back. Moldering potatoes followed, and then came decaying cabbages, arcing through the air like so many guillotined heads being tossed about the Place de la Révolution at the height of the Terror. Although the onslaught greatly distressed her, she took solace in having worn a buccaneer costume instead of her burgundy-velvet Françoise Gauvin gown.

The religionists made ready to launch a second assault, retrieving more missiles from a pony cart jammed with the slimy arsenal, but before they could strike again an elegant and well-favored man in a brass-buttoned frock coat appeared on the quarter-deck, wielding a pistol and commanding a dozen sailors armed with muskets.

“Trim their beards!” shouted the first officer, for surely that was the man's rank. “Rattle their wigs! Fire!”

The sailors raised their muskets and unleashed a fusillade over the heads of the throng.

“Stand down!” the first officer ordered the protestors. “Drop your weapons!”

The religionists scanned one another's faces, quickly reaching an unspoken consensus, then spilled their missiles onto the wharf in a mad circus of tumbling bulbs and rolling tubers.

Algernon guided Chloe up the ramp and into the vicinity of their benefactor, who at close range proved more handsome still, a maritime Adonis with cobalt eyes and a cleft chin. “Mr. Bathurst, I presume?” he said, prompting a nod from Algernon. “Ralph Dartworthy, captain's mate, at your service.”

“Allow me to present my sister,” said Algernon.

“Enchantée, Mademoiselle Bathurst.”
Mr. Dartworthy lifted Chloe's hand to his lips and kissed the back of her pirate glove.

“I must thank you for delivering us from the rabble,” she said.

“And I must thank
you
for chasing after this great prize,” said Mr. Dartworthy. “My piece of it, I'm told, comes to two hundred pounds. Captain Runciter hopes that you and your brother might join him for supper at eight o'clock.”

“Tell the old rogue we accept his invitation,” said Algernon.

“And will
you
be at the captain's table, Mr. Dartworthy?” asked Chloe.

“'Tis not every day a man gets to dine with an antichrist,” he replied with a sly smile. “I've never before seen a person change wine into venom or bread into stones. I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

*   *   *

Amongst the useful bits of information Chloe had acquired during her theatrical career was a formula for removing stains from cloth. The secret lay in a confluence of soap, water, lemon juice, and doggedness. Although citrus fruits were understandably at a premium aboard the
Equinox
(their efficacy against the scurvy being a proven scientific fact), she nevertheless persuaded the sea-cook to peel two lemons, keep the pulp for his tea, and present her with the rinds. Laboring strenuously in her cramped poop-deck cabin, she successfully scrubbed the foul-smelling smears and blotches from her buccaneer ensemble.

Upon removing the last spot, she changed into her burgundy-velvet gown and returned to the open air, just in time to observe the crew unbinding the brig from the wharf. The arrival of a woman on the weather deck did not go unnoticed by the sailors, who variously inspected her with slack-jawed amazement, wide-eyed salaciousness, and a cringing discomfort that she interpreted (given her reputation as the enemy of all things holy) as the fear of God. Mr. Dartworthy was everywhere at once, consigning some men to the sheets and braces, sending others up the shrouds, so that the foresail, headsails, topgallants, and royals were soon loosed into the press of the wind, each great block of canvas falling into place like a curtain demarking the end of an Adelphi Company melodrama.

As the westering sun inflamed her wake, the
Equinox
sailed free of the harbor and scudded into the channel, so that Chloe in time found herself surrounded by vast tracts of water. Her skin prickled, alive to the salt air and the impending quest, even as her mind reeled with the humbling geometry of the sea. Here on the mighty North Atlantic, the normally wide gap between the intimate and the infinite did not obtain. Her cabin was absurdly small, and yet just beyond its confines lay the unbounded main, endless in all directions.

Although Chloe's accommodations suggested a sarcophagus, the captain's quarters were as capacious as a bishop's tomb. As she approached the linen-draped table, her velvet gown glowing in the candlelight, four gentlemen set down their goblets, rose from their chairs, and bowed. Clamping eyes on Captain Runciter, a bulky man with a silver beard, she pictured him perched on the Tree of Life, the branch cracking beneath his weight and returning him to his apish ancestors. He introduced himself in a booming voice, averring that, although he disapproved of deicide on first principles, he intended to get everyone to Galápagos and back without misadventure.

“I'm pleased to see you looking so well, Miss Bathurst, after your encounter with the mob,” said Mr. Dartworthy, pulling out a chair and guiding her onto the plush cushion.

“But for your gallantry, sir, my buccaneer ensemble would have been irretrievably tarnished,” she said.

“By the by, your animal pens and birdcages are all safely on board.” Algernon took hold of a green bottle and filled her glass with a honey-colored fluid. “Have some wine, sweetest sister.”

“A commendable Tokay,” noted a third personage, a gangly man in a parson's collar.

“What would we ever do without our pirate costumes?” Algernon replenished his own glass. “Oft-times I've said to myself, ‘I can't imagine what I'll wear to Her Majesty's next ball.' And suddenly the answer dawns on me.”

“Speaking of the theatre, I was recently privileged to observe one of your performances,” said the unidentified cleric to Chloe.

“As the Beauteous Buccaneer?” she asked.

“As a Shelley Prize contestant,” replied the stranger with a furtive smile—and suddenly she recalled him: the vicar who'd cast the deciding vote in favor of the quest. “We've not been formally introduced.” He extended his arm, nearly knocking over his Tokay glass. “Malcolm Chadwick, your brother's cabinmate.”

“Forgive me for not recognizing you,” she said, shaking the vicar's hand. “The low light deceived me, as did my assumption you were still in Oxford.”

“Needless to say, Mr. Chadwick has no interest in whatever financial rewards this expedition might yield,” Captain Runciter explained. “The Oxford Diocese has appointed him ship's chaplain. Mark my words, ere this voyage is done our crew will have need of spiritual solace. Thanks to that scribbler Popplewell, word has been flying up and down the Channel that anyone who signs aboard the
Equinox
is risking his immortal soul.”

“Which doubtless made finding men difficult,” said Algernon.

“In fact, we had to turn applicants away,” said Mr. Dartworthy. “For a British sailor, evidently, killing God does not feel as bad as owning a piece of the Shelley Prize feels good.”

Now the food arrived, a cornucopia of roast beef, baked ham, and fresh mackerel, served on china plates by the captain's steward. The vicar offered a laconic grace, and then everyone set upon the feast.

“Miss Bathurst, I want you to know that, for all my loyalty to the Church of England, I am intrigued by your species theory,” said Mr. Chadwick, indicating her with his fork, its tines holding a nugget of beef. “I look forward to discussing its sources and implications with you in the weeks to come.”