The Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford

Author:Elisabeth Gifford [Gifford, Elisabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Alexander

I awaited my departure for Edinburgh with some impatience, greatly pleased that Carfax, my old friend in the university museum, had offered me undisturbed access to the now vast collection of specimens in his care.

And of course, I could not think of being in Edinburgh without feeling the exhilaration of returning to those same streets Mr Darwin once walked as a medical student. I pictured him, then little more than a boy, standing white and sweating outside the medical buildings, unable to stomach another dismemberment of a human body.

I pictured him following his mentor Grant on cold and wet journeys along the coast to collect their sea specimens. Grant strides along, a little ahead of the stockier Darwin, all the while busily dropping his theories of species development into ears already attuned to transmology by Darwin’s own grandfather, the radical Erasmus.

I almost felt a tingle in the soles of my feet as I anticipated following Darwin up the marble steps of the university museum, to perhaps make my own small contribution to our understanding of species.

At least, such was my hope.

* * *

Bad weather turned the crossing into an ordeal of twelve hours before we came near the harbour of Oban. I sat out on deck, shivering, since the wash of seasickness from suffering travellers made the interior of the cabin impossible. Sharing my end of the bench was an old man who belched and made other noises of an upset digestion for some hours. On my other side sat a fishwife who waved bread and pickled herring under my nose and declared them just the thing to settle the stomach.

Arriving at the large sandstone house that served Matthew and Fanny as a manse, I was once again encouraged to believe in civilisation. Edinburgh may have many alleys and wynds of unspeakable filth and degradation, but the New Town is a monument to progress and the rational mind.

I was as warmly greeted as ever by my hosts, but it was evident that Fanny had suffered from ill health since I had last seen her. She was a great deal thinner, with dark hollows round her eyes, and I wondered that Matthew had not thought to mention their troubles to me.

I had considered Fanny a somewhat silly girl, concerned only with puddings and purchasing furniture for their already well-appointed house, but the woman who greeted me in the hallway seemed to have passed through a sadness, now borne with silent dignity. She clasped my hand in both of hers and called me ‘our dear friend’.

If Fanny was indeed convalescing from some grave illness, I decided that I should quietly enquire of Matthew whether my stay was inconveniencing them, and remove to lodgings nearby. But I soon discovered that they had my every waking moment mapped out. Indeed, my arrival must have been their main topic of conversation for some weeks, judging by the thought that they had given to my comfort.

Fanny told Matthew to show me straight away to my room, which she had readied for my arrival with great thoughtfulness.

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