This Thing Of Darkness (94 page)

Please, God,
Darwin prayed,
bring her back. Bring back my own dear Annie, with her dear affectionate radiant face.
But God did not seem to be listening. As the priory bells rang out for Easter Sunday, her bladder became paralysed, and a catheter had to be inserted. She struggled at first, but when it was done she graciously thanked the doctor in a tiny voice, and held her father’s hand. She looked, he thought, like a dear wingless angel. Barely daring to turn his back on her for one instant, he composed a short letter to his wife.

In the night she stopped vomiting, and flooded her little bed with diarrhoea, but she seemed more relaxed thereafter, and even tried to sing to her father. He kissed her and told her that he loved her, and inside he dared, just, to be optimistic; but Dr Gully came after breakfast and took him to one side, and admitted that her new-found relaxation probably meant only that she had given up the fight.

Gully was correct, at least in this respect. Violent bouts of repeated diarrhoea set in, Annie’s strength weakening with every bowel movement. By afternoon she had lost consciousness, her pulse failing, her body wasted and unable even to empty itself any more. That night Darwin, Brodie and Miss Thorley kept a candlelit vigil, while Etty, who did not really understand what was happening, slept in the next room. Dawn broke unseasonably warm, with stormclouds brewing in the hills, and before long a series of momentous thunderclaps split the sky in two. It was Brodie who first realized that Annie was dead — Darwin probably knew, but refused to believe it - and went into hysterics, screaming like a wild creature, her primeval, lung-bursting yowls pouring forth as if they would never end. Miss Thorley fainted, and Etty appeared in the doorway, weeping with fear at the noise, while lightning bolts hurled themselves pitilessly down from the heavens. Darwin would normally have been quite cross to see the servants lose control of themselves in this manner; but he could not say anything, for he had been struck dumb with horror, and he wanted to die, there and then, just like his daughter, so that the unbearable, unimaginable pain would go away.

 

The Reverend George Packenham Despard picked up a hansom at the stand on Oxford Street and, after a wearisome queue for the Tyburn turnpike, took the Uxbridge Road heading westwards out of town. On his left, workmen had almost finished rebuilding the marble arch that had once stood opposite the King’s Palace. On his right, opposite Kensington Palace and the gravel-pits, the new suburb of Bayswater, with its gleaming wrought-iron cathedral at Paddington Station, was half-way to completion. The houses were decent enough, elegant stucco-fronted terraces for gentlemen and their families, but everyone in London knew the stigma attached to living north of the park. What stigma, then, should be attached to living north of the park and a further two miles to the west? Bowling at speed down Notting Hill, he found Norland Square amid brick-kilns beside the main road, just a hundred yards short of the old plague-grave at Shepherds Bush. This FitzRoy fellow could not be doing very well for himself. All the ground-floor rooms around the square had semi-circular bay windows, which struck Despard as a rather
nouveau-riche
touch. He tugged the bell-pull, and presented his card to the housemaid. No butler, he noted. Presently, he was admitted to the drawing room.

Captain Robert FitzRoy proved to be a slender character with thinning hair, sombrely dressed and of middling height. His nose was sharp, his ears were too large and the bags beneath his eyes were grey with fatigue. But although he looked tired and drawn, Despard thought he could detect a certain wiry grace within.

‘My dear sir, you must forgive me,’ explained FitzRoy. ‘I am afraid that I had forgotten our appointment. My wife has not been well this last day or so. I proffer you my most sincere apologies.’

‘Not at all, sir. I am extremely sorry to hear of your wife’s malaise. May I be so impolite as to enquire the nature and progress of her ailment?’

‘It was a most sudden affliction. At first we thought she was taken bad in the breath. But Dr Locock fears that it may be the cholera - she is feverish and cannot keep down any liquids. Yet she is young and strong - she is not yet forty - so we are all hopeful.’

‘I shall pray for her myself.’

Even though he was merely a former schoolmaster, Despard felt that the taking of holy orders surely lent his prayers extra impetus, extra vigour and moral ascendancy when it came to catching the ear of the Lord.

‘You oblige us both with your kindness.’

‘Cholera is become the plague of our times. It is curious, is it not, that ever since the cesspits were closed over, and sewers fed directly into the river, measures taken to curb the influence of dangerous miasmas in our midst, the disease seems to have taken an even firmer hold than before?’

‘Curious indeed.’

FitzRoy kept his responses to a minimum. Really, Despard’s visit was quite dreadfully timed. He had asked the governess to take the children on a long day’s outing, so as to leave him alone to tend his beloved Mary; then the housemaid had come to fetch him away from her sickbed. But as the man had an appointment, and had come all this way, there was really nothing FitzRoy could do but to honour his obligations. There was no doubting that Despard’s Christian concern was genuine; but FitzRoy could discern something else there - an ill-concealed air of self-satisfaction regarding the progress of his own life and fortunes. Despard had a row of protruding upper teeth, which seemed to be attempting to smile delightedly, while the lower set did its best to hold them back.

‘You must forgive me, Mr Despard, but my time must be brief, of necessity. How may I help you?’

‘Of course, of course. You are aware, I take it, of the fate of Mr Allen Gardiner?’

‘I read in the newspapers that the bodies had been found. Mr Gardiner came to visit me when I was the Member of Parliament for Durham.’

‘It is a tragic tale, Captain FitzRoy, but one to stir the heart of any God-fearing man. If you will permit me ... ?’ With an air of sly showmanship, Despard produced a salt-stained, leatherbound notebook from within his coat.

‘The journal of Allen Gardiner,’ he breathed, reverentially opening the cover. ‘They set sail on the
Ocean Queen
, bound from Liverpool to San Francisco, which landed the seven men and their two schooners in Banner Roads, Tierra del Fuego. Almost immediately, by the Lord’s grace, they found near Picton Island a snug and beautiful cove, smooth as a mirror, with green wooded slopes and copses of trees about its margin. Tragically, the fates were to prove unkind. A storm blew up and destroyed their schooners, which they had not thought to anchor. It was subsequently discovered that they had unfortunately left all the gunpowder for their muskets in the
Ocean Queen
, so they could not hunt for food. All their belongings were stolen by natives during the night. They built a little hermitage in a nearby cave, using the wreckwood from the schooners, and lit a fire to warm themselves; but tragically the walls of the hermitage itself were caught by the flames and burned to the ground. All setbacks, I am sure you will agree, that nobody could have foreseen.’

‘Er ... quite.’ FitzRoy could hardly believe what he was hearing.

‘But here is the amazing part, Captain FitzRoy. The day after the fire they returned to the cave, to discover that a large rock had dislodged itself from the cavern roof and had crashed to the ground exactly where Mr Gardiner had intended to sleep. The fire was a miracle - a sign from the Lord! Of course, their regret was immediately exchanged for a humbling sense of the compassion of the Almighty, in so warning them from such danger.’

‘I have no doubt of it,’ said FitzRoy, drily.

‘The next day they went fishing, but their net was torn to shreds by ice. Just listen to what Mr Gardiner wrote in his journal, and one cannot fail to be touched by his honest and simple piety: “Thus the Lord has seen fit to render another means abortive, and doubtless to make His power more apparent, and to show that all our help is to come immediately from Him.”’

‘What happened to them?’ asked FitzRoy, as if the answer were not self-evident.

‘They starved to death. But with all their hardships and privations, not one word of complaint appears to have been uttered. I am proud to say that they placed their full reliance on the mercies of Him whom they desired to serve. Listen to what Dr Williams had to say as he lay dying: “I am happy day and night ... asleep or awake, hour by hour, I am happy beyond the poor compass of language to tell.” And hear what Mr Gardiner himself wrote, upon his own deathbed: “The Lord in His providence has seen fit to bring us very low, but all is in infinite wisdom, mercy and love. The Lord is very pitiful and of tender compassion. When His set time is fully come, He will either remove us to His eternal Kingdom, or supply our languishing bodies with food convenient for us. Should it be His will that none of our mission should survive, would that He will raise up other labourers, who may convey the saving truths of the Gospel to the poor blind heathen around us.”’

Despard shut the book. ‘They have gone away,’ he said simply, ‘to regions of everlasting bliss.’

FitzRoy was stunned. He had known tough sealers, shipwrecked on the Fuegian coastline, survive for years on end by clubbing seals and penguins, catching fish, chewing tree-fungus or foraging for birds’ eggs. Gardiner and his men appeared to have welcomed death with a passive and fanatical ecstasy, as if they were perversely determined to die. The man had quite clearly been insane.

Mr Despard smiled beatifically, his lower jaw having finally given up the ghost. ‘Allen Gardiner has spoken to us all, and spoken for us all, in death. The Lord has heard his cry, and other labourers have come forward by the score to take his place. Since his death, the society’s meetings and rallies have been packed. Well-wishers have donated thousands of pounds to build a new vessel, a full-sized vessel this time, to be named the
Allen Gardiner.
The Patagonian Missionary Society has hired a professional captain, one William Parker Snow -’

‘I know Captain Snow. He is a good man.’

‘- to sail the vessel on a return journey to Tierra del Fuego. This time we will make contact with the savage James Button, and ultimately we will build a Christian society, there in the harsh south, that will be the envy of the God-fearing world. Imagine it, Captain FitzRoy! A place of gardens and farms and industrious villages, where the church-going bell may awaken the silent forests. Round its cheerful hearth and kind teachers, the Sunday school may assemble the now joyless children of Navarin Island. The mariner may run his battered ship into Lennox harbour, and leave her to the care of Fuegian caulkers and carpenters; and after rambling through the streets of a thriving seaport town, he may turn aside to read the papers in the Gardiner Institution, or may step into the week-evening service in the Richard Williams Chapel!’

Despard’s face glowed with pious excitement. ‘Have you seen our society’s magazine, Captain FitzRoy? It is called the
Voice of Pity.’

He handed FitzRoy a coloured pamphlet, already opened at a poem entitled ‘Plea for Patagonia’:

Underneath was the blunt appeal for hard cash:

Despard took back the magazine. ‘The Patagonian Missionary Society is on the march, Captain FitzRoy, and nothing can stop us. Even as we speak, good Christian ladies from Maidstone to Dundee are knitting dresses, to clothe the base nakedness of the savages.’

‘What do you want from me?’

I have no money left to give
, thought FitzRoy.
My wife’s father pays for this house.
Instantly he regretted his self-centred thoughts.

‘Only your blessing.’ Despard smiled. ‘I believe that you know a Captain Sulivan, the representative of Her Majesty’s Navy in the Falkland Islands?’

‘Of course. He was my friend and lieutenant.’

‘Allen Gardiner wrote to Captain Sulivan prior to his departure, requesting that he sail across to Tierra del Fuego after a month or two to check on the progress of the mission. Regrettably, Captain Sulivan did not receive the letter until it was too late. HMS
Dido
had already found the bodies before the letter even reached the Falkland Islands. Captain Sulivan, I’m afraid, quite unnecessarily blames himself for the deaths of Allen Gardiner and his comrades.’

Quite unnecessarily indeed,
thought FitzRoy.

‘The captain has offered the Patagonian Missionary Society ten per cent of his salary in perpetuity - a most generous gift - and has agreed to become an honorary member of our committee. But all this is contingent on the society receiving your blessing for its intended plan of action.’

‘And what, might I ask, is the society’s intended plan of action?’

‘It is none other, Captain FitzRoy, than your own plan of action!’ Despard bared his teeth exultantly, like a large carnivorous rodent. ‘Rather than attempt to build a mission in Tierra del Fuego from scratch, we shall begin by removing carefully selected savages - led, hopefully, by your old acquaintance James Button - to a mission station on the Falkland Islands. There we shall civilize them, and instruct them through benign guidance in the ways of the Lord. Only then shall we return them to Tierra del Fuego, to plant the seeds of civilization and to found the city of Gardineropolis!’