Derek Beaven - Newton’s Niece

‘Do try to hurry, Kit!’

Well, I’d been speechless then, yet I could sing. How could that happen? Let us with a gladsome mind. I made myself go back to that moment when it had seemed an inspired idea to give forth those words. In the body; out of the body. Out of the body, of necessity. An intelligent escape – from memory too? Had I done it before, and was that why I hadn’t bitten – because I was inured to such acts, schooled? I had been pulled back in by the act of singing while the evidence was still, I swallowed involuntarily, tangible, and the perpetrator a distinctive stranger. I shuddered. Was that why I remembered only this one time? It was dangerous to think this way. Someone might get hurt; die even.

I scurried down the main stairs, scrunching a fistful of brocade in each hand to clear the skirts from where my shoes were treading. I had on my best blue shoes.

Charles was in the saloon. He had his back to the fire. He was quietly, almost casually dressed, as he often was when he called on us. But his wig was an imposing affair, designed perhaps, like his shoes, to increase his height: a great man. My uncle hovered near the door, while Pet stood with a tray for coffee.

‘Here’s Kit,’ said my uncle. ‘Sit down, Kit.’ I sat in a chair by the wall under the landscape of Greenwich Park. Looking down at my blue shoes poking out as evidence of my legs, I felt painfully self-conscious. The fire made it too hot. Although it was November, there was a freak mugginess to the day.

‘How are you, Catherine?’ Charles said.

‘Well, thank you, my Lord,’ I lied, feeling the room sweat.

Charles laughed. It was a private joke. He’d not made much secret of his angling for a thorough ennoblement, but it was as yet only a royal promise.

‘You look bright. And in good form,’ he said.

My mouth was dry. ‘I feel a touch out of sorts. Maybe I’m starting a cold.’

‘Pull up a chair yourself, Charles,’ said my uncle. Charles placed himself smoothly opposite me. He smiled. Pet put the tray on a little table before the hearth.

‘You’re relaxed enough, man,’ my uncle observed, ‘for someone who’s lost everything.’

‘Lost everything?’ I said, startled for a moment out of my discomfort.

‘Everything,’ Charles smiled again. ‘All my political career, at least.’ He snapped his fingers and reached out for his coffee. ‘For a week or two.’

‘Charles has resigned,’ explained Isaac.

‘But that was months ago,’ I said.

‘The Exchequer.’ Charles pulled at his lace cuff. ‘Yesterday I threw in at the Treasury as well. As far as lordships go I’m no longer the First of the T.’

‘But the recoinage!’

‘Yes, Catherine. Everything leaks away, even despite your uncle’s massive endeavours. Or gets melted away, I should say. And government’s always a fickle thing. You drudge for years to rescue the country from its recurring propensity to fall to pieces, and what thanks do you get?’ He looked at my uncle. ‘But your position’s assured, Isaac. And I don’t care so much about mine. One could do with a rest; or a change. The death of my poor wife.’ He looked back to me. ‘Time,’ he said. Time for one’s own concerns.’

I thought of the mistresses he’d had, or was alleged to have had. And of the antique Duchess, married for sheer advancement, who had conveniently died last year. A man who was attractive to women, thirty-eight, with power, rank, money, in excess. Looks? How should I know? Good teeth? Mostly. Height? No. What exactly would be required of me?

‘Ingrates!’ My uncle exploded quietly and subsided. Then, like a grumbling Etna, he gave out some more blasts: ‘Bank of England … currency reform … East India Company … Exchequer Bills … General Mortgage … Could I begin to list … Ingrates … national saviour … d’you hear, Kit?’ Charles beamed and then looked mod-. estly down.

‘Window tax,’ I muttered.

‘Kit!’ Shushed my uncle. Charles laughed. Uncle Isaac said he’d go out and see what on earth was keeping the girl with the coffee refill. What was she doing with it, he wanted to know. The door clicked meaningfully behind him. I looked at my nails, and then across the space at the dull London day outside the window. A dozen chimneys leached grey into grey. I drank from the coffee dish which had lain so far untouched in my lap. The hot, sweet stuff helped. When would he start?

‘Time, Kit,’ Charles said slowly.

‘Time. Yes.’ I looked steadily at him for a moment, and then away.

‘I’ve a word game. You must help. We’re in a house of numbers, so I’ll make a metaphor to suit. When I give out you must continue.’ We had played such games, but now I felt my head swimming. He said: ‘In our world of mathematics, time is a line I might draw on a sheet of paper. A pathway. Two. As many as you like. Some lines intersecting, or curving together. Some, thanks to your uncle, whose rate of approach can be notated, even predicted.’ The coffee I’d drunk lay queasily on my stomach, but I fought the feeling down because I wanted my wits about me. I wanted to do the right thing -for all concerned, including me; but I couldn’t for the life of me think what the right thing might be. Charles went on: ‘How many young women could I speak so to?’

‘Of analysis?’ I said. ‘Or of fluxions? Hardly to me. Did your wife appreciate mathematics?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I never asked her. I never seemed to have the time. Which of course may also be conceived of as … a train of dots – moments – each infinitesimally small; adding up to … this. Us. Now. No, now. Gone. Now. How they escape us as we try to catch them.’ He gestured as if to pluck the time as it flew. ‘ Carpe diem. ’ Then he spread his hands to indicate our presence in the room, with the fire and the coffee table and the window. ‘Are you for lines or dots, Kit?’

I couldn’t think. Usually I’d have come up with something sharp. ‘I can’t tell,’ I said lamely.

‘You’re not yourself, Kit. What is it? You don’t call me Charles and make me feel merry. You don’t cut me down to size.’

‘Lines, Charles,’ I tried, flagging up a smile. ‘The fire. Surely it’s very hot in here, don’t you find?’ I really did feel thoroughly uncomfortable in myself, and he’d hardly said anything about the matter in hand, with his elaborate address. He went to open the window for me.

‘Come here and get some fresh air. You look poorly, my dear. My dearest. Kit.’ He put his arm on my waist. I froze. I didn’t know how to act. ‘Our lines first crossed when you were ill at Cambridge. You were fourteen, I believe. How old are you now?’

‘Nineteen.’ Were my teeth chattering?

‘I pray you’re not ill again now that we curve together. Heavens, these are hard lines. A shared locus. Asymptote. No. The game defeats me and you shall have to help me out. Help, Kit.’ His hand played with the gatherings at the top of my skirt, his fingers just pressing in to find the flesh of my hip. I wondered sweatily what figure he’d have used if I’d said dots. But the game had defeated me from its outset. I think it was something he’d composed and was hoping to pass off as spontaneous – a word-screen to hide behind. Yes I really did feel as though there was something more wrong than I could put down to emotional stress. Had Pet laced me too tightly? ‘I’m sorry’ I said. ‘Let me sit down.’ But before I could do so a wave of nauseous faintness swept over me and I fell – or would have fallen had he not caught me in his arms and held tightly on to me. I recall his forceful hand next to the fabric roll at my buttock. It was at this moment that my uncle returned to the room.