Darwinia

“Relatively, though no one’s seen a living animal like it or anything remotely equivalent. Large predators are scarce on the Continent. Donnegan reported a leopard-sized carnivore from the Massif Central, but nothing bigger. So what does this fellow represent, Mr. Law? That’s the interesting question. A large, recently-extinct hunter?”

“I hope extinct. He looks formidable.”

“Formidable and, judging by the cranium, perhaps intelligent. As animals go. If there are any of his tribe still living, we may need those pistols Finch is so fond of. And if not—”

“If not?”

“Well, what does it mean to talk about an extinct species, when the continent is only eight years old?”

Guilford decided to tread carefully. “You’re assuming the continent has a history.”

“I’m not assuming it, I’m deducing it. Oh, it’s a familiar argument — I simply wondered where you stood.”

“The trouble is, we have two histories. One continent, two histories. I don’t know how to reconcile them.”

Sullivan smiled. “That’s a good first pass. Forced to guess, Mr. Law? Which is it? Elizabeth the First, or our bony friend here?”

“I’ve thought about it, obviously, but—”

“Don’t hedge. Take your pick.”

“Both,” Guilford said flatly. “Somehow… both.”

“But isn’t that impossible?”

“Apparently not.”

Sullivan’s smile became a grin. “Good for you.”

So Guilford had passed a test, though the older man’s motives remained obscure. That was all right. Guilford liked Sullivan, was pleased that the botanist had chosen to treat him as an equal. Mainly, however, he was glad to step out of the taxidermist’s hut and into the daylight. Though London’s docklands didn’t smell much better.

That night he shared his bed with Caroline for the last time.

Last time until autumn, Guilford corrected himself, but there was small comfort in the thought. Frustratingly, she was cool toward him tonight.

She was the only woman he had ever slept with. He had met her in the offices of Atticus and Pierce when he was touching up his plates for Rocky Mountain Fossil Shales. Guilford had felt an immediate, instinctive fondness for the aloof and frowning Pierce girl. He obtained a brief introduction from her uncle and in the following weeks began to calculate her appearances at the office: she took lunch with her uncle, a secretary told him, every Wednesday noon. Guilford intercepted her after one of these meetings and offered to walk her to the streetcar. She had accepted, looking at him from under her crown of hair like a wary princess.

Wary and wounded. Caroline hadn’t recovered from the loss of her parents in the Miracle, but that was a common enough grief. Guilford found he could provoke a smile from her, at least now and then. In those days her silences had been more ally than enemy; they fostered a subtler communication. In that invisible language she had said something like: I’m hurt but too proud to admit it — can you help? And he had answered, I’ll make you a safe place. I’ll make you a home.

Now he lay awake with the sound of an occasional horsecart passing in the night and a valley of cotton bedsheet between himself and the woman he loved. Was it possible to break an unspoken promise? The truth was that he hadn’t delivered Caroline to a safe place after all. He had traveled too far and too often: out west, and now here. Given her a fine daughter but brought them to this foreign shore, where he was about to abandon them… in the name of history, or science, or his own reckless dreams.

He told himself that this was what men did, that men had been doing it for centuries and that if men didn’t do it the race would still be living in trees. But the truth was more complex, involved matters Guilford himself didn’t care to think about, perhaps contained some echo of his father, whose stolid pragmatism had been the path to an early grave.

Caroline was asleep now, or nearly asleep. He put a hand on the slope of her hip, a gentle pressure that was meant to say But I’ll come back. She responded with a sleepy curl, almost a shrug, not quite indifferent. Perhaps.

In the morning they were strangers to one another.

Caroline and Lily rode with him to the docks, where the Argus was restless with the tide. Cool mists twined around the ship’s rust-pocked hull.

Guilford hugged Caroline, feeling wordless and crude; then Lily clambered up into his arms, pressed her soft cheek against his and said, “Come back soon.”

Guilford promised he would.

Lily, at least, believed him.

Then he walked up the gangway, turned at the rail to wave goodbye, but his wife and daughter were already lost among the crowd that thronged the wharf. As quick as that, Guilford thought. As quick as that.