The Darwin Conspiracy (14 page)

I blushed scarlet and found it impossible to look either gentleman in the
eye for the rest of the afternoon, though whether it was for my trespass or
their most uncongenial plotting was hard to say. In any case, I was taken
aside by Mamma shortly before supper and told that my father was most
upset with me and that I would be sent to London for a spell to stay with
Uncle Ras so that his anger might cool.

10 February 1865

I must say that my Uncle’s London house is one of my favourite places on this
earth. All manner of interesting and elegant persons are drawn to his dinner
table: Benthamites and Chartists and Catholics, even atheists—in short, free-thinkers of all stripes. The wine flows bounteously, as does the conversation,
and unlike Down House, where Papa is given to banishing me from the
 
drawing-room the moment the discussion turns spirited (which is rare
enough), here I am permitted to remain as witness to the verbal thrusts and
parries.

This evening, Thomas and Jane Carlyle were present, as were Hensleigh
and Fanny Wedgwood, and three or four other notables, including Harriet
Martineau, whose lively conversation is more diverting than her journalism.

Imagine my surprise after the meal was concluded when yet another couple
joined the company. It was shocking enough that the two arrived only to par-take of coffee and brandy. But I was overcome with embarrassment when I
was introduced to Miss Mary Ann Evans and did not at once grasp that I
was standing in the presence of a person I most esteem, the author of
The Mill on the Floss
and
Silas Marner,
the confusion arising from her adoption
of the pseudonym George Eliot. To complete my discomfiture, I next found
myself addressing her paramour, George Henry Lewes, who despite the
furore surrounding their relationship, struck me as a perfect gentleman. I
find Uncle admirable for opening his door to two such personages who so
bravely fly in the face of social convention, especially Miss Evans, living
openly as she does with a married man.

No sooner were we all seated than the conversation took a lively turn.

Miss Martineau, as is her wont in her writings, attacked slavery as a most

‘hideous institution’ and avowed that of all peoples, the Americans are the
most uncivilised. Uncle Ras—undoubtedly to throw some oil on the fire, since
he has rarely evidenced concern for the impoverished—then inquired as to
whether her compassion for ‘those in shackles’ was broad enough to include
poor English working men and women. Another gentleman put in that factory workers in the Midlands laboured in conditions of servitude not much
removed from those on plantations in the American South.

To this Hensleigh objected in a most unpleasant manner, saying that the
depravity of the poor was their own doing and that the problem with Christianity was that it coddled the sinful. Miss Martineau demurred, and quoted
from her own research on factory accidents.

All the while, I was formulating a thought on the earlier question and
searching for the courage to put it into words. For though I have been privileged to attend Uncle Ras’ soirées, I have never before expressed an opinion,
following as it were some unspoken etiquette to remain silent, and I wondered
whether my Uncle might be displeased at such a breach. Miss Evans noticed
my conundrum and kindly leaning over to pat my hand, said to the assembly:

‘I venture that Miss Darwin has something to say.’ Instantly, all eyes turned
upon me. I had no choice but to voice my view, saying that I felt that there
was yet another group that found itself ‘in the yoke’. ‘And what group, pray
tell, is that?’ said Mr Carlyle. I felt I should hesitate to accept a challenge
from such an eminent thinker but found, before I had barely a chance to consider the matter, that I blurted out my answer in a single word: ‘Women.’

This met with great merriment around the table, causing me to blush
deeply. But Miss Evans came to my rescue and insisted that I had much evidence and reason on my side. The others laughed again, but then she raised
her voice most uncharacteristically and declared: ‘I have often had the
thought—which I am loath to confess and which for that reason weighs
heavily upon my bosom—that I would rather have been born a boy than a
girl. For no-one can doubt that from every point of view a man’s lot is infinitely preferable to a woman’s in the England of today.

‘Is it not the case,’ she said, ‘that a woman’s property and fortune falls to
her husband in the very first minute of marriage? And is it not the case that a
woman can be speedily divorced upon the mere accusation of
criminal conversation
?’ (In saying this Miss Evans showed no sign of shame at her own
adultery.) ‘And once in court, is it not true that she finds herself without legal
rights?’

At this point, Harriet Martineau was moved to recall the case of poor
Caroline Norton, whose husband beat her for nine years, robbed her income,
filed a malicious lawsuit after separation, and refused to allow her to see her
three sons.

This led to consideration of the Contagious Diseases Act, which I consider
an outrage since it allows for a woman to be apprehended solely for the act of
being found close to a military garrison. The men all defended it, saying the
only method of putting an end to the horrible epidemic was for women of
dubious virtue to undergo mercury treatment.

‘Besides,’ said Mr Carlyle, ‘the measure is not intended for use against
ladies such as yourselves. It is aimed solely at those of a lower order.’

His words caused a visible discomfort around the table for his having
linked, however obliquely, Miss Evans with fallen women. Mr Lewes, I
thought, was going to square off right then and provoke him to fisticuffs
(which I would have viewed with a certain relish), but fortunately for our
host the moment passed without incident.

Throughout the evening, I felt Miss Evans’ grey-blue eyes and soft round
 
face seeking me out, and I basked in her warm regard. Upon wishing me
good-evening, she leant so close I felt a wisp of her hair brush my cheek, and
she whispered in my ear that I was a most excellent woman—a credit to my
kind, she said—and that I must always hold true to my beliefs.

I do believe Uncle Ras heard part of this, for after everyone had departed,
he fixed me with a curious gaze and said I was a continual mystery to him, a 
‘veritable Pandora’s box’. He followed what I took to be a compliment with
harder words, however, though they were not meant harshly, I am sure. He
said he wondered why it was that my Papa doted so on Etty when he had
another equal treasure close at hand.

13 February 1865

At breakfast this morning Uncle Ras, who is fond of diversions of all sorts,
asked me when in my childhood I had been at my happiest. Something about
the way he posed the enquiry, seated at the table with a shadow falling across
his set face and staring out the window, was saddening, as if he were reflecting upon the loneliness of his bachelor life, but I took the question at its most
superficial and tried to give him a proper reply.

I talked warmly of the early years and especially of his visits to Down
House, when we children would gather at his heels like a pack of puppies
and follow him all the day long. And indeed I do retain fond memories of the
amusements he devised, telling us tall tales of outlandish adventures in
Africa and India and drawing devils and monkeys and imps with his long,
thin fingers. Seeing that my recollections appeared to warm him, I continued
in that vein, talking about our trip to London to see the Great Exhibition,
though in fact much of that I was told about afterwards, retaining only the
dimmest memory of grasping his hand in fear of the towering crowds. I
recalled our visits together to the Zoological Gardens, where I was fascinated
by the languid hippopotamus, and to Wombwell’s Menagerie to see the
orangutan dressed up in a child’s clothes.

‘Capital,’ he replied loudly, though it struck me that his enthusiasm was
perhaps over strong and was intended to cover some deeper malaise.

And indeed, something about recollecting my childhood plunged me into a 
melancholy that I could not shake for the trying. I began thinking of all the
bleak times of my now distant youth and found it impossible to reconcile them
with other times that I knew to be joyous. What made the recollection so
troubling was that I could not for the life of me fathom the reason for any
unhappiness, yet I remained convinced that despite all the occasions of joy
and even laughter, a blight of some sort lay upon my early years. Upon considering it at length, I drew a connection to Papa’s many illnesses and to the
pall of sickness and death that seemed to spread over our household like some
cauchemar.

14 February 1865

The cause of our distress may have been the death of poor sweet Annie some
fourteen years ago. I cannot honestly say that I remember Annie, since I was
only four years old at the time of her passing, and yet on occasion I am able to
conjure her up—a gentle creature, with ruby lips and golden curls. I am told
she never recovered from the scarlet fever, which struck down all of us girls at
once, and she suffered terribly, lingering for weeks on end at death’s door in
Malvern where she was taking the water-treatment. Papa kept vigil by her
bedside but did not attend her funeral, which I find odd. All this I know
from Aunt Elizabeth, not from my parents, since they never speak of Annie’s
death, nor indeed of Annie herself.

Indeed, we Darwins have had our fair share of torment from untimely
deaths. There was poor Mary, no bigger than a squirrel, who lived not quite
one full year, and little Charles Waring, who did not see two years. We pass
their tiny headstones every Sunday on the way to church. And then of course
there was the passing of Papa’s own father, my grandfather Robert, which
was so deeply upsetting. To Papa’s eternal regret, he arrived too late at
Shrewsbury and could not be present at the burial of the man who made him
what he is today.

We are like our poor Queen, who lost her beloved Albert four years ago
and yet, to hear talk of it, is still unhinged by grief, wearing nothing but
black and having his clothes laid out anew each morning.

Though she is not mentioned, Annie is a spectral presence in our house.

Some years back I discovered at the bottom of a large trunk her very own
writing-box, and occasionally when I am alone I retrieve it. It is made of a
handsome hardwood and inside there is some cream-coloured stationery with
crimson borders and matching envelopes, as well as steel pen-nibs with a
wooden holder, two goose-quill pens, and a pen-knife with a mother-of-pearl
handle; also red sealing-wax and wafers kept in a small box with decorations
reading ‘Am I Welcome?’ and
‘Dieu Vous Garde’.
The quills still have ink
on their tips and I used to hold them and imagine myself as Annie, dipping
them pensively as she chose her words in writing to this person or that.

Of all the deaths and illnesses, it was Annie’s that rent Papa’s heart. For
some reason he holds himself to blame, I believe, as if her being called away
at the tender age of ten was some kind of retribution. I recall Etty telling me
that she observed Papa closely as he was composing his long memorial to
Annie, writing his recollections slowly and sobbing quietly every so often. She
said the look upon his face was, to her thinking at least, a look of guilt.

It would not be the first time that he has castigated himself unduly. Some
years back, Mamma, in the fullness of her religious belief, wrote him a private letter expressing a deep and secret sorrow: unless he turned to God, she
feared, they would not have the blessing of eternal life together. I came upon
it in the desk in his study where he kept it hidden and where he was wont to
read it from time to time. Once, I chanced to be in the same room, and as he
was unaware of my presence, I observed him seized by a strong emotion and
heard him murmur an expression of his own culpability, ‘If she but knew the
reason. If she but knew the reason.’ His words have long been a puzzlement
to me.

Sometime afterwards I asked him when it was and why he had lost his
faith and become an atheist. For I wondered to myself if the cause had not
been the crisis brought on by Annie’s demise. But his answer was of a different order altogether and a surprising one. He held me at arm’s length and
looking into my eyes replied: ‘It was long, long ago, when I was a young man
aboard the
Beagle.
But there’s no more to be said about that.’

15 February 1865

I surreptitiously borrowed from my Uncle a book that is the rave of all London and I can see why it has gained such renown. It is but a slender volume
containing a single poem, called
Goblin Market.
Though it is frightening in
parts, especially in its depiction of those horrid little goblin-men, I find it
most uplifting in its ultimate moral message. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. I found the book on a rosewood table in Uncle Ras’ parlour and took it
upstairs without his permission. To my knowledge, he has never asked about
it and consequently I am sorely tempted to keep it. The volume is so small I
keep it in Annie’s writing-box.