The Darwin Conspiracy (28 page)

Well, I hate to say it, but it’s an opportunity. Who would pass that up?”

He looked aghast.

“Okay, maybe you would. I couldn’t. I was just looking around and I found the journal. The moment I opened it and read the first page, I was hooked. I mean,
Jesus Christ,
what a find! It’s Darwin’s daughter—

Lizzie, right? Where did you get it?”

“Keep going.”

“So I read the whole thing. It’s amazing. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have. I was just interested in . . . whatever you had in your room. I didn’t expect to find anything to do with Lizzie. I thought, you know, that I might find something more about you.”

Hugh’s anger was subsiding.

“But you just put it back hoping I wouldn’t notice?”

“Not really. I turned it around. I figured you’d notice. I thought of writing a note but it was pretty hard to put it all down on paper.”

His anger had dissipated, replaced by something else—concern, primarily, that the secret was out and that she might make use of his find.

Still, it would be good to have someone to talk it over with.

“You know, you could have asked me,” he said.

“Ask you? How could I ask you? I didn’t know it existed.”

“I mean about the whole thing—my research.”

“And you could have asked me.”

She had a point there. “You’re looking into Lizzie too—right?”

“Right,” she replied.

“Why?”

“Because . . . because she was my great-great-grandmother—that is, if I’ve counted the generations right.”

Hugh dropped on the bed, his mouth open. “You mean that? You really mean that?”

“Yes. I’ve known for a while. My mother always told me that we were distantly related to Darwin. But I never really paid attention. I thought it was just one of those wild family rumors, you know, like somehow being related to royalty.”

“How did you finally find out?”

“When she died. The information was part of the estate. Here, take a look.”

She opened the desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to him. It was a letter from a London solicitor, the firm of Spenser, Jenkins & Hutchinson, dated May 20, 1982, and addressed to Dorothy Dulcimer of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“That’s my mother,” said Beth, anticipating his question.

He read on. The letter stated that certain documents had been placed in trust with the firm in 1882 because it represented Charles Loring Brace, the founder of the Children’s Aid Society, with the proviso that they remain “confidential and undisclosed” for a period of one hundred years. These papers, it said, were left with the firm by Elizabeth Darwin, daughter of the famed naturalist, upon his death, and were believed to contain information that she deemed “important for history but too injurious to the reputations of persons still living or their descendants to be revealed in the intervening future.”

The letter continued:

Our files and a check of existing records lead us to believe that you are the
closest living relative of the person for whom the package was left in trust—
namely, one Emma Elizabeth Darwin, born out of wedlock on 1 April 1872,
and given over for adoption that same month through the auspices of the
Children’s Aid Society.

Kindly review the enclosed documents to ascertain your claim upon the
papers in question. Should you care to pursue the claim, you are requested to
present yourself in person to our offices. . . .

There was an address that Hugh recognized as being near the Old Bailey.

“This is amazing,” said Hugh. “Unbelievable.” He held it up:

“ ‘important for history but too injurious to the reputations of persons still living . . .’ What could that be?”

“Something Lizzie found. Or wrote. From reading the journal, I’d say she was on the trail of her father for some reason.”

“So your mother never went to get the papers?”

“No, she left that for me.”

Hugh kept shaking his head. “Nigel said you were related—do you remember? I asked you about it on the train and you denied it.”

“What I said was: don’t believe everything you hear. I stand by that as a general observation.”

He smiled. “I knew Lizzie had gotten pregnant but I never connected it to you.”

“No reason to.”

“And who is Charles Loring Brace?”

“A social reformer of the mid-nineteenth century. He founded the Children’s Aid Society to provide for homeless street urchins in New York. It sponsored the ‘orphan trains’ that sent them out west—some two hundred fifty thousand of them.”

“And he knew Darwin?”

“Yes. Darwin admired his book,
The Dangerous Classes.
In the summer of 1872, he invited Brace and his wife to Down House. That’s when they became friends.”

Beth handed over three other documents. One was an old birth certificate that listed the mother as Elizabeth Darwin and, in the space for the father’s name, said simply: “unrecognised.” The second were adoption papers, signed, in a shaky hand, by Lizzie. The third was a letter written to Brace by a Society member who accompanied an “orphan train” carrying sixty-eight homeless children from New York City to the Midwest in August 1872.

“You will be pleased to learn that I have successfully handed over baby Emma to the family from Minneapolis, according to the adoption arranged by you, this very day in Detroit. The new parents plan to call her Filipa.” The author of the letter went on to describe the “joy of seeing so many of our innocent charges wrapped in the bosom of new families.” She wrote:

They were taken in despite their condition, which, after a rough crossing on
the steamer across Lake Erie from Buffalo resulting in all of them being seasick, together with the soil of excreta from the animals on deck and the long
train ride to Detroit, left something to be desired. Indeed, they did smell something awful. At each stop, families gathered in churches and meeting-houses to
take their pick of the youngsters gathered in a circle, some prospective parents
moved almost to tears by their plight, others being more practical and hardened, squeezing their muscles or opening their mouths to check their teeth. By
now, only a dozen or so of the least presentable children remain to be adopted.

Hugh handed the papers back.

“Any idea who the father was?”

“None. I don’t even know if Lizzie’s parents ever knew.”

“Oh, they knew all right. At least her mother did—I found a note from her chastising Lizzie in no uncertain terms.”

Beth was impressed. “Where do you keep finding this stuff?”

“Luck, mostly. The letter was in a book she owned. The journal you saw I found in Darwin’s old publishing house. You notice she disguised it.”

“Yes. And I think she makes a convincing case about her father. He was acting strange. Of course we have no idea what she suspected him of doing.”

Hugh could not help but notice that she had said “we.” “So what have you been doing here, at the library?”

“Research—like you. Finding out as much as I could about Lizzie.”

“Meanwhile, you’ve got those papers waiting for you at the solicitors, right? Or did you get them?”

“Not yet. I’ve been to the office in London but I had to supply all kinds of credentials to prove I am who I say I am. It’s taking forever. 
These British lawyers are real nitpickers. They tell me I can get it soon. 
You want to see them?”

“Of course.”

“So . . . what does this mean?”

“What?”

“About us. Are we working together? Are we partners?”

“How about it? You want to?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then we’re partners.”

Events were transpiring so quickly that Hugh’s feelings barely caught up. He discovered he was relieved that the competition was over, the screen down. It would be good to have someone to share in the adventure—and who better than Beth, Darwin’s blood relative? He also acknowledged that the documents from the estate were bound to unlock some of Darwin’s secrets.

“I had a thought,” Beth said suddenly. “Did you notice Lizzie’s journal had the number one on it? It was circled.”

“Yes.”

“Why would you put a one unless there was a two?”

“You mean there’s another journal out there?”

“Yes.”

“And if it’s not in the publishing house, chances are it’s lying around in that vast collection at the library.”

“Yes.”

He put his arm around her. “You’re brilliant.”

She picked up the birth certificate with a mischievous smile. “I come by it naturally.”

That night, in deference to Alice in the room next door, they made love quietly, but in some ways the restraint only heightened the passion.

The next morning, inside the Manuscripts Room, Roland was yawning as if he were still recovering from a rough night out. They approached him together.

“I see you’ve joined forces,” he said. “I figured it was just a matter of time.”

“We need your help,” said Hugh. “Let’s go get a cup of tea.”

In the cafeteria they began by asking questions about the Darwin collection as a whole, and, as usual, Roland was a fount of information.

“His wife, Emma, died late in the nineteenth century. Their son, Francis, was interested in the family heritage and he amassed quite a few papers. Ida Farrer, who married Horace, the youngest and feeblest of Darwin’s sons, kept family letters. In 1942, the treasure trove was bequeathed to the library.”

Hugh looked him square in the eyes.

“Roland, could you do me a favor?”

“Boy, I’ve been doing you nothing but favors since the day we met.”

“Could I see the papers? Could I go back in the stacks and look at them?”

“You mean look at them as in look
at
them, or look at them as in look
through
them?”

“The second.”

“You must be joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Hmm. Highly illegal, you know. It’s a restricted area. I’d probably lose my job. And there’s a second curator on duty who might see you.”

“Not if Beth distracted him.”

She smiled at Roland.

“My, my,” he said. “You two do like breaking the rules, don’t you?”

Ten minutes later, when the Manuscripts Room was virtually deserted, Beth went over to the other curator with a request. While they remained hunched over a research book, Roland led Hugh behind the counter to a blue door, swiped a card, and they were inside. It was quiet except for the hum of air conditioners. A large metal case faced them, holding several small stacks of manuscripts with slips hanging down from the pages, reserved by readers for continual use. They turned right and walked past row upon row of metal shelves until deep in the bowels of the building they came to Case 20, the area reserved for Western manuscripts. They followed the rows until they came to number 137.

“Here you are,” said Roland. “If you have to touch anything, put it back exactly as it was. You have precisely one hour—that’s when the superintendent returns. And for God’s sake, if you hear the other curator, hide!”

Hugh looked down the aisles: each had ten bays, five shelves to a bay, extending for about 130 feet. Three of the aisles were for Darwin material, most of it kept in brown and blue boxes. Some of it was labeled: “From family,” “From Down House,” “From botany.”

He started with “family,” opening one box, then another, moving quickly down the aisle. Most of the material was in small dark brown envelopes, bundles of letters, which he ignored. After twenty minutes, he came to a large box marked “Accounts.” He opened it and found stacks of ledgers and bills and account books, some written in Darwin’s hand. Toward the bottom, lying upside down, he came upon what he was looking for—a small account book with the numeral “2” on the cover, circled. He opened it, flipped to the back. There it was: Lizzie’s handwriting!

He found a small label stuck on the binding with a reference number: DA/acct3566. He wrote it down, replaced the account book in the box, and the box on the shelf. Then he calmly walked back to the blue door, opened it slightly, peered out to see if the coast was clear, and returned to the reading room. No one saw him.

He filled out a request form and handed it to Roland.

“Middle aisle, three quarters of the way down, on the right,” he said quietly.

10 June 1871

How strange to resume my journal after all this time, nearly six years since I
gave it up (and what unhappy, disillusioning years they have been!). Indeed
I would not do so, especially after forswearing it, were it not for the whirl-wind of emotions bearing down upon me. I am prey to joy and agony at one
and the same time. Sometimes I feel as if my heart is so full and overflowing
that it will burst and I shall fall stricken on the floor for all to see and to
wonder: what could have befallen the poor maiden that she expired thus in
the bloom of her years? I feel an overwhelming desire to confess, to unburden
myself, to pour out my innermost thoughts and desires. But alas, there is no-one, absolutely no-one, to serve as my confessor, no-one into whose ear I might
discharge my burning secret.

I am in love. Heavens, am I in love. I think of no-one but him. I long to
be with no-one but him. I dream of him. Wherever I go, I see his nimble
form, his handsome visage, his gentle brown eyes. I hear his soft voice and
feel his look upon me, which makes me blush to the roots of my hair. I would
spend my life with him. And he has no idea that I am consumed by my adoration of him.

There!—I have admitted it. I have put my secret to paper. That at least is
something, but I cannot say that it has brought me great relief. Even in this
writing, I must exercise caution and not disclose the name of my beloved or in
any way reveal his identity. We have been thrown together by circumstance,
like the lovers in one of Mrs Gatskell’s novels. I long to put down his name or
at the least his initials and to read them and re-read them, but I dare not,
lest this fall into someone’s hands. I shall call him
X.
Sweet
X.
Dearest
X.
I
 
do love you with all my heart and soul. How trite those words sound now
that I look at them—oh, how woefully dumb is language compared to the
heart’s longing.