The Darwin Conspiracy (42 page)

Hugh grunted. He didn’t know what to say. He felt as he had in that first meeting with Bridget—he just wanted to run away. Simon was trying to help him, but all he felt was an intense dislike for the man. He stopped walking and turned toward him.

“I want to thank you.”

“Please, it’s nothing,” said Simon. “Rather, I mean it’s important, very important, and I only wish you could have known it sooner.”

He opened his briefcase and fished inside. “Here. I have a letter for you to read. But I’ll have to ask you to return it.”

Simon handed Hugh a sheet of stationery and waited, fidgeting. It was from Cal, written from Connecticut. The note was brief; it said he was feeling better, not doing much of anything, trying to relax. He thanked Simon for all he had done. Hugh was relieved that it did not mention him.

He returned it. The two shook hands and Simon hurried off into the central courtyard, carrying the battered briefcase, his birdlike gait accentuated by speed.

Hugh wandered along the High Street. Was it possible? Looked at in a different way, could Cal’s death have been not entirely accidental? He tried to think back. Cal had been acting oddly those last few weeks. In the car driving to Devil’s Den, he had blurted out a series of apologies—
he was sorry that when they were younger, he and his friends didn’t include Hugh in all their games. He was sorry for the times he had hurt him and for turning his back and leaving for Europe when times were still tough at home with the old man.

It was true, he seemed to want to talk; once or twice they almost did, but Hugh had been confused. This was not what their relationship was about. Cal was the older brother who gave all the advice and cleared the way. He was the anchor; Hugh was the one adrift. It felt odd, this turning of the tables.

“Wanna grab a beer?” Cal had his coat on, ready to go out.

A twinge of guilt. “Man, I’d love to. But I’m running late. I got so much
to do. Maybe later . . . tomorrow.”

Slowly Cal began to unbutton his coat. “Sure. That’s cool.”

On the path, Hugh had repeated the warning about the pool beneath the waterfall. Cal had just laughed.

“You think I could forget poor Billy Crowther? He was the first dead body
I ever saw, his mom bawling her eyes out at the funeral home. Remember
how we used to drop sticks and logs into the water and watch them get
sucked down? That time we threw in Jimmy Stern’s sneakers—he cried all
the way back. This place used to loom large in our adolescent fantasy life.

Good old Devil’s Den.”

He tried to remember everything about that afternoon. He was ahead on the path, anxious to reach the swimming hole. Why was Cal taking so long? He turned to look—did he see him? Did he see him lose his footing? Or did he see him leap? And did Cal really cry out? Or did 
he remain silent as he fell straight down into the middle of the churning pool?

Then came the hard part: Should he jump in after him or shouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he die, too? As he tried to decide, time passed. Then more time.

Your memory can play tricks on you, he thought. Each time he replayed the loop now, he saw it differently, more clearly. At least it seemed to be more clear. An accident! It was no accident. Or was it?

And then he began to feel a whole new raft of feelings. He was angry at Cal—for fabricating the lab results and messing up his life and then dying and leaving Hugh to drown in guilt. Then the anger turned to sorrow; it was sad that Cal had felt so desperate and alone and that none of them had known enough to help him. But the more he thought about it, the more he began to feel he was looking down on everything that had happened from a great distance.

The sadness was followed by a spreading sense of calm. And then, unaccountably, Hugh felt a sudden lightness—there was no other way to describe it. He walked down the street with a lighter step, looking at the people and the shops and the cars with a new intensity.

It was a pleasant afternoon, getting cool. The sidewalk was crowded.

He would take the bus to the train station. Then in London he would switch trains and go to Cambridge. He would meet Beth and they would have a quiet dinner somewhere and he would tell her what he had learned. First, he would call Bridget.

He spotted a phone box and felt in his pocket for a phone card. She answered right away, almost as if she had been waiting for the call. He told her what he had learned: that Cal had probably taken his own life.

She did not seem surprised and was quiet for a moment, then just told him that she loved him before quickly hanging up.

He had plenty more time left on the card. Why not? He lifted the receiver and dialed the number he knew by heart. It was odd, how much he suddenly wanted to hear his father’s voice.

During dinner at a small French restaurant—they had decided to splurge—Beth listened carefully as Hugh described his meeting with Simon and what he had learned about Cal’s death.

“For the first time I think I’m remembering that afternoon clearly.”

He told her everything, slowly and quietly, including the odd sense of calm that had come upon him after he left the New College cloister.

“I think that’s natural,” she said. “You’re finally dealing with what actually happened and what you really felt. You’re putting it to rest.”

He told her that he had called his father and that they had talked for a long time, the words coming easily, for the first time in years.

They ordered a second bottle of wine and relaxed. She was proud that she had succeeded in tracking down Matthews’s relatives, in the northern city of Blackburn. She had arranged to rent a car to go there the following day and planned an excursion afterward to the Lake District—that is, if they had cause to celebrate.

“How’d you find his relatives?” he asked.

“It wasn’t so hard, once you realized that Lizzie’s R.M. was Richard Matthews. That explained everything. The person Matthews was writing to wasn’t his wife—remember, he was only a teenager. It was his mother. She had one other son, Richard’s older brother, and neither ever returned to England. So when she died, her place went to some cousins, which is what Lizzie wrote in her journal.

“I reread the part where she describes her trip to visit R.M.’s relative.

She wrote that she traveled southeast, changed trains at Kendal, and 
that the trip lasted some two hours. That gave an approximate area for her destination. Then I checked her expenses—don’t forget, the journal doubles as an account book—and I found she had spent one pound one shilling on the day in question. I called up the British Rail Museum and it turns out they’ve preserved old timetables and rate cards. A friendly guy there helped me and we figured that one pound one shilling would get her to Blackburn. The travel time matched, about two hours.

“So I concentrated on Blackburn. And sure enough, there are still some Matthewses there, spelled with two
t
’s. I called and eliminated five families until I found the right ones, descendants of Richard’s cousins.

On the phone they were friendly and sounded more than happy to cooperate.”

An hour later, Hugh walked her home. The house was dark but Alice had left the outdoor light on. Beth took his hand and pulled him inside and they mounted the stairs quietly. In her room, as he began to undress her, she kissed him, then drew back. He looked at her quizzically. She gave him that wicked smile, pulled him close, and whispered:

“Come buy my fruits, come buy, come buy.”

The next morning, still groggy, they drove straight to Blackburn. Eventually they found the house, shabby on the outside but warm and comfortable on the inside—heavy in chintz, flowered draperies, and tables cluttered with family photographs.

The owners, a chipper couple in their seventies, were delighted to hear of the visitors’ interest in their old letters in the attic. They were happy to turn the whole packet over—“Read through them, take what you want, make copies, and return them at your leisure”—but first insisted that their guests have a pot of tea and hear about the family tree, down to and including the youngsters off in different parts of the globe. Beth and Hugh were happy to oblige.

They decided not to open the packet right away. Instead, they set out, stopping off for sandwiches on the outskirts of Blackburn, then driving north to the Lake District.

It was after 10 p.m. by the time they arrived at the bed-and-breakfast in Ambleside, but they were too excited to sleep. Beth opened the French windows and stepped out onto the tiny balcony. Below, as far as 
she could see, stretched a lake bordered on all sides by woods and meadows. The full moon laid down a path of shimmering gold on the calm water. The air was cool and fresh. She went back inside.

They had called ahead to say they’d be late, and the owner of Ambleside Lake Cottage, before going off to bed, had left the front door unlocked and two ham sandwiches and two bottles of warm beer in their room. They ate ravenously. It had been a long day’s drive.

Hugh pulled the packet out of his backpack. It was still tied up with an old blue ribbon, perhaps the very one Lizzie had noted in her journal. He spread the letters on the bed and they sorted them by date, reading them in chronological order.

After forty-five minutes Hugh picked one up, read the opening, and said: “Pay dirt.”

He handed Beth the letter. She squinted—the handwriting was poor and tumbled out in lines that slanted increasingly downward at each row’s end. But she could make out the words.

It was written from Bay of Islands, New Zealand, and dated Christmas Day, 1835. The writer began by saying how much he missed his home on this particular holiday and how much he longed to see his mother. He said he was “feeling much improved in outlook” now that he had left the
Beagle
and was soon to live with his elder brother, doing God’s work among the Maori on the south coast. He did not describe the horrors of being left alone with the Indians in Tierra del Fuego, leading Beth to conclude that he must have provided a full account of that in a previous letter.

But he did say that he was going to relate an incredible night that he had spent at the home village of Jemmy Button, which he said 
“seemed to have made an indelible mark upon everyone present and even changed them in some manner difficult to ascertain or even to describe.”

“You’re right,” said Beth. “This is it. I’ll read it aloud.”

We started out under threatening skies. We were going almost due north,
following a well-worn trail, and the terrain changed after a few hours from
the desolation to which we had become accustomed to a surprising lushness.

All about were giant ferns and long grass and eventually bushes and even
trees. From the fact that we had to stop from time to time to rest, I took it that 
we were gaining in altitude, which meant we were moving closer to the sun,
thus accounting for a warmer climate. In any case, the greenness all around
was a pleasure to the eye.

There were four of us—myself, Mr Darwin (or Philos, as we called him),
Mr McCormick, the ship’s surgeon, and of course Jemmy Button, of whom I
wrote you before. Mr Darwin you will also recall from my earlier letters.

He’s a gent and he talks with a high accent but he managed to gain the
respect of my shipmates because he took hardship well and was willing to
embark upon any adventure. It was no secret that there was bad blood
between him and Mr McCormick, who seemed to carry a grudge (in that
respect he is like many short men I know). The two were continually vying for
the favour of Captain FitzRoy, and as Philos took his meals with the Captain, he inevitably had the upper hand. I’m glad the Captain was not among
our party, which would have soon fallen to feuding—that plus the fact that he
has been so changeable lately that you never know when he is going to smile
and when he is going to scald you with his hot temper.

As we walked, I kept a close eye on our guide, Jemmy, who was all puffed
up with himself and acting as if he were some sort of Royal Scout on King
William’s hunting party. Indeed, he behaved in a most peculiar manner. He
jumped about like a Jack-in-the-box, running up ahead on the path and then
darting back to join us, cantering about like a small boy and repeating over
and over: ‘My contree, my contree.’ From what I had heard earlier from
Mr Darwin, he was in such high spirits because at long last he was going to
be able to show his village to us and introduce us to the tribal elders. I mentioned before what a natty dresser he is; for this occasion he was done up even
more than usual, in long dress-coat and such, which made him perspire
dreadfully and looked ridiculous in the bush.

After some three hours of hard going we stopped alongside a stream for a
quick supper. It was a most picturesque setting, with the water flowing past
rounded banks of earth. But at the very moment we finished eating, the skies
broke open and poured out a flood of rain such as I have rarely seen. There
was much lightning and crashing of thunder, which seemed to shake the very
ground. We huddled for shelter under the leaves but soon enough we were
soaked through and there was nothing for it but to stand there getting wetter
and wetter. This did nothing to lighten our moods. It also aggravated the ill-will between Philos and Mr McCormick, since they had been arguing over
where best to wait out the storm and whether it was advisable to hide from
 
lightning by standing under a tree or altogether clear of it. Jemmy was much
distressed at the delay. Eventually, the rain halted and bless my bones if the
sun didn’t immediately show itself—that’s how fickle the weather is in this
part of the world.