The Sensorium of God Read online

  Praise for Stuart Clark’s trilogy:

  ‘A moving and eye-opening story of brilliance and bravery’

  Daily Mail

  ‘A game of galactic hide-and-seek’

  New Scientist

  ‘A vivid, thrilling portrayal of the lives and work of Kepler and Galileo . . . Books like this transform the way we access and understand our view of history’

  Lovereading UK

  ****

  Book of the Month, BBC Sky at Night

  First published in Great Britain in 2012

  by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

  Birlinn Ltd

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.polygonbooks.co.uk

  Copyright © Stuart Clark, 2012

  The moral right of Stuart Clark to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978 1 84697 187 7

  eBook ISBN 978 0 85790 079 1

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.

  Typeset by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd

  Printed and bound by Scandbook, Sweden

  Content approved by NMSI Enterprises/Science Museum. Licence no. 0283.

  CONTENTS

  Part I

  1. Woolsthorpe, England 1679

  2. Southwark

  3. Woolsthorpe

  4. London

  5. Cambridge

  6. London

  7

  8

  9. Danzig, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

  10. London

  11. Rome, Papal States

  12. Islington Village 1683

  13. London

  14

  15

  16

  17. Islington Village

  18

  19. London

  20. Cambridge

  21. Greenwich

  22. Cambridge

  Part II

  23. Cripplegate 1686

  24. Cambridge

  25. Cripplegate

  26. London 1687

  27. Cripplegate

  28. London

  29. Hampton Court

  30. Adriactic Sea

  31. London

  32. High Laver, Essex

  33. Cambridge 1693

  Part III

  34. Cripplegate 1703

  35. London

  36. Cambridge

  37. Hanover, Saxony

  38. London

  39. Oxford

  40. London

  41

  42. Hanover

  43. London

  44

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  PART I

  Action

  1

  Woolsthorpe, England

  1679

  There was no place for daylight in this morbid womb. The alchemist smoothed the heavy curtains across the window and pressed them into the corners of the frame, determined to banish any sunshine from the room. Candles would provide all the illumination he needed to perform his work.

  Edging round a table cluttered with bottles and vials, he approached the bed. His eyes came to rest on its unconscious occupant, whose outline was scarcely visible beneath the heap of blankets.

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small mirror. Just a fortnight ago he had used it to bounce light across his rooms in college. Now, he held it close to his mother’s mouth. Reassured by the faint condensation that collected on the polished metal, he straightened. His eyes stung from exhaustion.

  Returning to the window, he stood in front of the table and stared at the bottles. Each one contained something different: a salt, a herb, some liquid essence. Now they were all that stood between his mother and death. He drew his hands together as if in prayer and raised them to his face. Taking a sharp breath, he shoved the baggy cotton shirt-sleeves up his thin arms and set to work.

  He picked up a flask, upturned it and shook the final drops of a previous concoction to the floor. Then he began swirling a new mixture together.

  Three drops of yellow dock root oil – to help purify the blood.

  A sprig of saturated thyme – to bring courage.

  Coffee essence – to stimulate the heart.

  A pinch of crushed turmeric.

  A few days ago he would have measured everything and kept track of the recipes in his notebook, but yesterday his mother had slipped into an unbreakable sleep. Now, he sloshed together anything that came to mind. He set the bottles chinking as he snatched up one container after another.

  God grant her reprieve and I will atone for every wicked thought I have ever harboured against her, he vowed.

  He took the flask and leaned over his mother to drip the curative on to her thin lips. As he did so, the door opened. Unwelcome light entered the room, making him blink.

  ‘Come along, Isaac.’

  Newton shot a piercing look at the all-too-familiar figure bustling into the room. The portly woman carried a tray of food.

  ‘I must work,’ he snapped.

  ‘Nonsense.’ Mrs Harrington thrust the tray at him.

  Upon his arrival last week, he had found the troublesome woman supervising the household with misplaced industry.

  ‘You must eat,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in making yourself sick as well.’ There was no warmth in her voice.

  ‘What concern is it of yours? You don’t belong here.’

  ‘I’m your mother’s closest friend. I’ve known you since you were born. I helped deliver you, in that very bed.’

  ‘You were just a girl from the village, hired to help out during my mother’s confinement. Only later did you worm your way into her affections.’ Newton crossed to the table and lifted more bottles, inspecting their contents. ‘Isn’t it true that you were so convinced I wouldn’t last my first night that you dallied in conversation when you were sent for medicines?’

  She drew herself up. ‘Your mother grows weaker every day, Isaac. It’s time to say goodbye to her.’

  ‘No! I haven’t finished my ex–’ He cut himself off.

  ‘Your what? Your experiments?’

  ‘My treatments, my treatments.’

  Mrs Harrington softened her voice. ‘Isaac, let her pass in peace, with sunlight and warmth.’ She pushed past him, making for the curtains.

  ‘Don’t open the window. There are miasmas in the air, my mother is too frail.’

  ‘She needs fresh air. It reeks in here.’

  ‘The potions react with sunlight. You’ll destroy them.’

  She gave him a sour look. Balancing the tray on one hip, she pulled the curtain open. The sunlight cut into Newton’s eyes. He gripped the sides of the table to steady himself against the molten force rising inside him.

  She crossed to the mantelpiece, still carrying the tray. ‘You think your mother wants all this?’ She cast her disdainful gaze over more bottles and flasks.

  ‘My mother will be treated with whatever I choose,’ he said through clenched teeth.

  A knowing smile crossed her face. ‘I’ve watched you and your wicked little ways since you were a boy.’

  ‘The boy you remember has grown up.’

  ‘As far as I can see, nothing’s changed. I remember you peering round the congregation while the rest of us bowed our heads in prayer. You always did think you w
ere something special.’

  Newton’s hands jerked free from the table and he started groping among the bottles. He picked something up and without thinking hurled it in Mrs Harrington’s direction.

  Jaw dropping in disbelief, she heard it smash against the wall. Newton’s second missile found its mark, glancing off her fleshy left cheek. She reeled backwards, dropping the contents of the tray across the floorboards, and fled the room, screaming.

  Newton rushed after her, kicking the food aside and slamming the door shut with his whole body. He stumbled to the curtains and yanked them shut before returning to his mother’s bedside. Her jaw was slack. He reached out to touch her face, hesitating at the last moment. When his ink-stained fingers made contact with the skin, terror flashed inside him and he snatched his hand away. She was gone. Tears of rage spilled from his eyes. When the spasm subsided, he sank to his knees and raised his face to heaven.

  ‘Lord, why do you test me with such impossible tasks?’

  The servants took Hannah’s body and sewed it into a woollen burial garment and bonnet. Quiet tears accompanied their busy hands. They laid the body on a table in the parlour where Newton stood in one corner, keeping vigil.

  Outside the world had turned to green, yet he seemed immune to its warmth. His clothing hung as if tailored for a larger man. To hide this fact he had swaddled himself in his academic gown, embracing its comfortable feeling of far-off Cambridge.

  He could not go near the corpse. How small she looked compared to his memory. The bonnet covering her hair could not disguise the tangled white eyebrows and the thin skin stretched over her cheekbones. She was as pale as the coarse wool of her shroud, and with each passing hour looked less as though she had ever been alive.

  He conjured the memory of her once delicate face, with its attentive eyes and the tumbling ringlets of dark hair that she had let him stroke. He tried to hold the image but another kept forcing it away. He saw his mother in the distance, peering out of the carriage that had taken her away from him for eight years. It was his earliest memory. The scene replayed itself in staccato images, and he watched for the millionth time as she broke her gaze and looked away from him long before she had to, before the vehicle had drawn out of sight.

  Why had she turned away? The question haunted him, now perhaps more than ever before. What if she were magically to open her eyes now? The impossible reality filled his mind. She would sit upright, the sunlight from the window catching the outer threads of her woollen garments but rendering the rest of her in silhouette. She would talk in the softest of voices, her features indistinct, answering his questions without hesitation.

  – Why did you leave me, mother?

  – I fell in love with Barnabas. I wanted to start again, to pretend you never existed.

  – Why?

  – You always were difficult. You didn’t need me or want me.

  – Then why did you return when he died?

  – We couldn’t stay in the rectory once Barnabas had died. I needed a home for my new children. You just got in the way.

  – Did you love them more than me?

  – Of course I did.

  Movement through the panelled window snapped him from his imaginings. The round ball of Woolsthorpe’s rector was making its way up the path towards the front door.

  Newton left the parlour and opened the front door before the Reverend Hazel could knock.

  ‘My condolences, Mr Newton. Your mother was a credit to the parish.’ Hazel made to step forward, stopping himself just in time to avoid walking straight into Newton’s immobile form.

  ‘You have a difficult task, Reverend. My mother has not left a will. I searched her papers today but could find nothing.’

  Hazel patted his leather satchel. ‘I have it here. Mrs Harrington delivered it to me at the beginning of the week.’

  Suspicion flared in Newton. ‘Let me see it.’

  Hazel fumbled around, eventually producing a folded piece of paper. Newton seized it and unfolded the sheet. It was indeed covered in his mother’s handwriting.

  ‘As you see, you are sole executor and principal beneficiary,’ said Hazel. ‘She has left the house and estate to you in its entirety.’

  Newton’s eyes worked through the almost illegible scribble. Indeed, Woolsthorpe Manor was now his. The other gifts were trifling, some five pounds for the parish poor and similar sums for the serving staff.

  ‘There is little provision for your siblings,’ said Hazel tentatively.

  ‘Half-siblings,’ Newton corrected him. ‘They inherited from their father. They want for nothing.’

  Hazel paused before answering. ‘If that is your decision.’

  ‘It is.’ Newton handed him back the will.

  ‘Then there is just one other matter. Your mother indicates that she is to be buried according to your wishes.’

  ‘In the churchyard, next to my father.’

  Again, Hazel paused. ‘As you wish. Well, I see no further reason to delay you.’

  ‘I’m aware that you had a high regard for Barnabas Smith, Reverend, but I know my mother.’

  ‘God bless you, Mr Newton.’ The coldness in Hazel’s voice made it sound like a curse.

  Newton shut the door on his receding form and looked around the hallway, seeing the plaster and timbers anew. For thirty-seven years – his entire lifetime – he had either lived in or visited this house and walked its fields. Now it was his, yet he felt more at home in a small room overlooking the quadrangle in Trinity College. He grimaced at the irony.

  The mourners gathered by the church. Dressed head to foot in black, they were silhouettes against the sun that had chosen to mock them with its rays.

  Newton looked around and thought what a pitiful end it was. The servants and the farm hands were there, snuffling and grizzling. There were a few villagers and, of course, his half-brother and half-sisters. They stood together, Mary, the eldest, blinking tears and being comforted by Hannah, the youngest and his mother’s namesake. Benjamin looked angry, as usual. He bristled as Newton greeted them.

  ‘Not here, Ben,’ whispered Hannah.

  Newton scrutinised his half-brother and thought what an imperfect rendering he was: short and lacking a well-proportioned oval face, with a nose that was too small. The glare from his red-rimmed eyes, however forceful, inspired no confidence.

  ‘Why bury her here?’ Benjamin asked.

  Newton should have guessed this would be his lament. ‘To be with her true husband.’

  ‘But you never knew him! He died just eighteen months after marrying her, while she was still carrying you. She was married to my father for eight years. If there is a rightful place–’

  ‘Silence!’ Newton raised his hand. ‘I will hear nothing from the man who killed her.’

  Benjamin’s mouth gaped in astonishment.

  ‘Isaac, how can you say that?’ gasped Hannah.

  ‘By nursing him – a grown man – my mother contracted the fever herself. It’s nothing but a statement of fact.’ Newton turned from their incredulous faces, exhilarated by the shock he left in his wake.

  The congregation stood around the grave, as unmoving as the headstones, while Hazel mumbled his way through the eulogy. He insisted on referring to the body as Hannah Smith, a name so alien to Newton that his mind soon drifted, leaving the minister to work through his platitudes.

  Left at Woolsthorpe in the care of his grandparents, Newton had never known when his mother would visit. There was not enough consistency to her appearances to allow him to discern their shape; they could fall on any day of the week and last anything from a whole day to a meagre hour. He would present her with the latest of his wooden models, maybe a simple sundial or a mobile windmill, and she would politely contemplate the creation and then ask how his schooling was progressing.

  When it was time for her to leave – always too soon – his grandparents would force him to watch her go. Sometimes the pain of her departure would rumble inside him like summer t
hunder; other times it would strike like a bolt of lightning. If he tried to run away or he succeeded in hiding, his grandmother would threaten at the top of her wavering voice, ‘If you cannot behave yourself, we’ll have to stop your mother coming to see you.’

  ‘I wish she were dead,’ Newton had screamed at them when he had heard the ultimatum once too often. In the shocked aftermath he had fled the house, returning at twilight, tear-stained and grubby but unrepentant.

  For eight years this hateful cycle repeated itself, but then came the biggest tragedy of all. His mother returned for good, but trailing a meddlesome six-year-old girl, a weakling boy and a screaming baby. Daily, Newton was forced to witness her devotion to them while she all but ignored him.

  Newton’s thoughts returned to the present. He watched with utter disbelief as the small body was lowered into the grave, wincing when he noticed that Benjamin was helping the undertakers.

  Where are you, Mother? With Father in heaven? With that devil Smith, suffering for abandoning me? Well, God cannot help you there. Only I can forgive you that sin.

  The day after the funeral Newton called the servants to the kitchen. They stood in silence, straightening uniforms and tucking away curls of hair. Mrs Harrington rose from her throne at the end of the long, heavy table, her hand fluttering self-consciously to the bruise on her cheek.

  ‘Mrs Harrington, your services are no longer required. You will leave immediately,’ Newton barked.

  She looked around for support but no one would meet her gaze. Swallowing hard, she regained her composure. ‘You wicked man! What would your mother say?’

  ‘My mother is no concern of yours. She has her sins to atone for, you have yours.’ He lifted his dimpled chin to look down his long nose at her.

  ‘She loved you, Isaac, more than you deserved. That’s why she left you here when she married Smith. He wanted Woolsthorpe, but she insisted it was yours alone. He forbade her to bring you to live with him, thinking she’d relent. But she didn’t, because she knew you’d always be overlooked in favour of any children she had with Smith. So she bound you up in Woolsthorpe so tightly that no one could contest it when she left it all to you.’

  ‘We were happy here, together,’ Newton heard himself say, and instantly chided himself for revealing his thoughts.