Dark Matter

Strangely it was those silver cups that Mister Scroope had given into Newton’s keeping for their Cambridge college that first caused me to question the Pentateuch itself. The cups told the story of Nectanebus, the last native King of Egypt, who was a magician and made models of his own soldiers and those of the enemy and set them in a tank of water to work a trick so that his enemies should be engulfed in the waters of the Nile. And this made me think that when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and all the Pharaoh’s armies were drowned in the Red Sea, it was no more than a story borrowed from the Egyptians. Which shook me, for if the Pentateuch was not true, then everything else that followed in the Bible could be no more than myth or legend. Thus it was that gradually I came to think that if one part of the Bible might be questioned and found wanting, then why not the whole?

Perhaps I might still have believed in God. But it was my master’s science that caused me to deny the existence of God himself. It was Newton’s mathematics that reduced the cosmos to a series of algebraic calculations, while his damned prisms ripped apart God’s rainbow covenant with Noah. How could God remain in heavens that were so keenly observed through a telescope and precisely described as a series of fluxions? Like some satanic geometer, Newton pricked the bubble of God’s existence and then divided his heavenly kingdom with a simple pair of compasses. And seeing all such mysteries conquered, my own thoughts crashed to earth from the ethereal sky like a flaming cherub, with hideous ruin. O how fall’n! how changed. It was as if once I had thought myself an angel but, finding my wings clipped by the sharp scissor blades of science, I discovered I was merely a raven on Tower Green, raspingly lamenting its cruel fate. Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace and rest can never dwell, hope never comes that comes to all.

In the officers’ quarters at the Ordnance, Major Mornay was wearing his arm in a sling. He was being shaved by Mister Marks, the Tower Barber, and was attended by Mister Whiston, the broker, Lieutenant Colonel Fairwell, Captain Potter and Captain Martin. For all his previous evening’s debauches, he seemed to be in good humour, for we had heard his voice outside the door; but even as we entered, he left off telling the brave story of how he had received the wound in his arm and, colouring like a beetroot, stared upon us as if we had been two ghosts.

“Olim, hero, hodie, cras nescio cujus,” Newton remarked with a cruel smile,

Once upon a time, yesterday, today, tomorrow, I know not whose, by which I assumed my master meant the Major to know that he was well aware that Mornay had lied about how he had come by his wound. And yet it was not a direct statement to that effect, for this might have provoked Mornay too far, perhaps into challenging Newton to a duel. My master was no coward; but he had seldom held a sword, let alone a pistol, and had not the slightest intention of being challenged. I suffered no such constraints, however, although Newton had cautioned me to give only utterance to that which he prompted.

“What do you mean by that?” Major Mornay asked Newton, his speech faltering like an admission of high treason.

“Mean? Why, nothing at all, Major. Nature has cursed me with a manner that doth sometimes seem like impertinence. It is only the disadvantage of intellect, for I think that Nature is best pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous words or thoughts.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Doctor?” He took a cloth from Mister Marks and wiped his face carefully.

“We came to return you this dagger,” said Newton.

Mornay hardly glanced at the blade now in Newton’s hand, its handle extended, politely, in the Major’s direction, and then, briefly, at me, so that he did lie most brazenly.

“I own no such dagger,” said Mornay. “Who says I do?”

“Perhaps you do not recognise it,” said Newton, “since I have cleaned it for you. Otherwise one could not mistake such a dagger, to be sure. For it has a most noble sentiment engraved upon the blade. It says, ‘Remember Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. Remember religion.’”

“Amen,” said Captain Martin.

“Amen indeed,” said Mornay. “Nevertheless it is not my dagger.”

Newton remained all smiles. “If you say so, Major, then it must be true, for you are a gentleman. And yet we should certainly not relinquish the evidence of one man’s good eyes for the vain fictions of another man’s devising.” Newton pointed at me. “This humble clerk saw you drop this dagger last night, outside a house in Lambeth Marshes.”

“I was nowhere near Lambeth Marshes last night.”

Seeing that I was about to contradict Mornay’s bare-faced lie, Newton did hold me by the arm and shake his head so slightly that I think only I perceived it.

“One of you two gentlemen must be mistaken.”

“The mistake is not mine,” said Mornay.