The Conjurer's Bird

by Martin Davies

  Jan. 12, 1768

  James Turner

  Nov. 7, 1768

  William Burton

  March 25, 1769

  Dr. Taylor

  April 12, 1769

  Richard Burnett

  I noted the names down and looked at them, the grains of excitement beginning to grow inside me. James Browne, it seemed, had disqualified himself by living on for another eighteen years. But William Burton had died three months after Banks sailed, so his daughter Mary fitted on both counts. It wasn’t much to go on. Only a thread. But my hands were sweating a little as I noted down the dates. If I was right, if Mary Burton was the name of the woman in the picture, then finally I had something to go on. I could go back to London and try to trace her through the records. And if Hans Michaels was right, then finding her was the key to finding the Ulieta bird.

  Carried away by the moment, I found myself scanning through the remaining records, my eyes still hungry for detail. And it was that careless impulse that brought my whole theory crashing to the ground. Around me, the same earnest faces were peering at the same screens, but now mine was just another one of them. The excitement was gone, blown out in an instant. Because Mary Burton had been buried in Revesby alongside her father—only six months after Joseph Banks returned to Britain.

  I could have stayed longer and tried to think up some new theory to fit these facts, but I had a long drive home ahead of me, so I took defeat on the chin. If Mary Burton wasn’t Miss B, then the Revesby connection was probably just another blind alley. Perhaps, after all, the only way forward was to track down the Ainsby family. I stored the lists I’d made in my jacket pocket, thanked the librarian who’d helped me, and then set off back toward the cathedral in the mild, damp, deeply gray afternoon. It was three-fifteen by the time I arrived back at the hotel to collect my bag. Three-fifteen is a ghostly time in county town hotels. Lunches are over by two-thirty and even the stragglers have gone by three. All the guests who plan to go out are out, and those who plan to stay in are probably snoozing in their rooms. A thick silence falls on everything except the clocks, which seize their moment and begin to tick louder.

  It was just that sort of silence that greeted me when I reached the reception desk, and my defiant striking of the bell did very little to dent it. I could see my bag behind the desk, but it seemed hasty somehow to go behind and fetch it, so I waited, leaning on the dark oak counter, looking idly at the various leaflets and notices displayed there. After a few moments my eye fell on the guest register, still open at the page where I’d been the last person to sign it. I was about to turn away again when a familiar word caught my attention—Mecklenburg. My eye leapt back to it and my blood began to pump a little faster: Mecklenburg Hotel. The words were written under the column headed ADDRESS, and to their left, in beautiful handwriting, was the name Karl Anderson. I checked the dates. He’d arrived a week ago and hadn’t yet checked out. He must have come here straight from London, the day after I’d met him. He’d left London and come to Lincoln. This was the place where he’d come to find the bird.

  It was late when I got home. The phone was ringing as I opened the front door, but by the time I’d closed it behind me, the ringing had stopped. It left behind a silence that seemed unusually anxious, a stillness that seemed ill at ease. I knew from the moment the door closed that something was wrong.

  There was no mess this time, no broken window or shattered glass. Only a broken catch on a kitchen window where the ill-fitting frame had been levered open. Not even a footprint on the paintwork or a broken plate knocked from the drainboard. I took it in with a dull sense of incredulity: the window hanging open, the broken lock, the habitual warmth of the kitchen dispersed into the winter night. And suddenly I felt angry. Not shocked, not horrified, just full of choking rage at the effrontery of it all. I was cold and lonely and tired, and this place was my sanctuary. How dare someone come smashing their way in here? How dare they? Absurdly, the thing that seemed to anger me most was the open window. I’d been planning to wallow in the room’s warmth, and the squandered heat was somehow more than I was prepared to put up with.

  I pulled the window closed and began a quick, clinical inspection, my brain racing. Whoever had done this, I was going to find them. I’d call the police, give them Anderson’s name, get them to find out what was going on. And I wanted to tell him myself that there was nothing here to find. Because that was the other thing that made me angry—the pointlessness of it all. My notes held no secrets. I knew nothing and could help no one. And the thought only made me even madder.

  There was no sign of any disturbance in the kitchen, and none in the hallway. My workshop seemed untouched, too, the tools and chemicals still neat in their cupboards. My bedroom, then…I climbed the stairs two at a time, impatient to know the worst. But this time there was to be no lucky escape, no cryptic overtidiness. The room had been ransacked.

  The worst thing was the paper. My old trunk had been pulled into the center of the room and the contents scattered over every surface. All those notes on extinct birds, most of them untouched for fifteen years, now sprawled in confusion. They had never been properly sorted, but they had been piled together with some rudiments of sense. Now they were flung in all directions, a random diaspora of lost species, a last, giddy flapping of flightless wings. No two consecutive pieces of paper seemed to have remained together. Someone had been through each one, and discarded them in different directions. And they had found nothing. I knew that. There was nothing to find.

  As I gazed at them, I could feel my heart beating uncomfortably fast. The anger inside me had coiled into something tight and powerful. I’d ring the police right now, get them on the heels of whoever had been here. And I’d go back to Lincoln, find Anderson, show him what I thought of him. Was this the sort of thing his “researchers” did? Well, we’d see. We’d see what a bit of police questioning would find out…

  But I didn’t move toward the phone. Instead I sat down on the edge of my bed and took a deep breath. It was impossible to be sure, but it occurred to me that despite the chaos there might actually be nothing missing. Nothing had been worth taking. So what would I report? Another theftless break-in. A window that didn’t lock properly. An assurance from some tired young policeman that I’d been lucky. A warning to get some proper locks. Yes, I’d report it. But first I wanted to think.

  Before that night, Anderson’s story about the lost bird had stirred up some old emotions, emotions probably better left where I’d buried them. But now with my anger came an unwonted clarity. Looking around the overturned bedroom, I realized why finding the Ulieta bird was important to me. Not for posterity, not for science, not even for the fame of being its finder. But for myself, to fill a hollow of discontent that had lain inside me too long, studiously ignored for fifteen years, now washed into view by the flood tide of events. The same discontent I felt whenever I looked at the photograph by my bed or thought of my days in Brazil. Finding the bird—seeing it held in my hands in defiance of all logic—would be my proof that even the most fragile things can sometimes cheat oblivion.

  I checked through the rest of the house perfunctorily, still busy with my thoughts. Only when that surge of emotion had begun to pass did some semblance of perspective return, and with it came the bald truth. The few clues I had led nowhere, and I had no idea where to go.

  I was sitting in the kitchen, still in my coat, when the phone rang. The noise startled me, and I felt a temptation not to answer it, an urge to be left alone in contemplation of my own helplessness. But when I heard Katya’s voice I felt strangely comforted. And there was an unfamiliar note in it. She sounded excited.

  “Fitz?” she began. “Listen, I think I may have found something.”

  She didn’t wait to ask questions, or give me any time to speak.

  “I’ve been digging around,” she told me. “In the Fabricius papers. You know, the naturalist who knew Banks. There’s an archive of his stuff in Denmark—it’s an easy jour
ney from where my family lives. I didn’t say anything before, in case it was all a waste of time. Listen, it’s about the bird.”

  Hastily, her voice more accented than normal, she told me she’d gone to Sweden to see her father. “He was so patronizing,” she told me. “He just loved the fact I’d come to him for help. But he was quite helpful. He arranged for me to get access to the Fabricius archive. I’ve been there all day today, and I’ve only just started. There’s a couple more days’ work here at least. But I’ve found something. It was one of the first letters I looked at. I almost didn’t notice it.”

  “Go on. What have you found?” Suddenly telling her about the burglary didn’t seem so important.

  “It’s a letter to Fabricius from a man in France, dated 1778. Apparently Fabricius had tried to buy some drawings from him, and this was a letter of refusal. There’s a P.S. at the bottom. Here, I’ll read it to you. ‘I assume from your last letter that the picture of Turdus ulietensis you have received from Lincolnshire is by the same artist. I wish you joy of it. I’m sure it is fine work.’ Do you see? Turdus ulietensis—that’s our bird, isn’t it?”

  But I could barely reply. Katya had stumbled across something amazing, something that would be meaningless to most people but that meant everything to us—proof that our lost bird had survived its time in Joseph Banks’s collection. Because a year or so after it was last seen there, someone had been making a painting of it—someone somewhere in Lincolnshire.

  Katya had used up her phone card before I had a chance to tell her about my own discovery in Lincoln. That’s why when the phone rang again, later that night, I was quick to answer, hoping she’d found another chance to call. But it wasn’t Katya this time; it was Gabby. Her lectures were over. She was flying back to London.

  THEY LAY in bed, naked together, long into the evening. After the urgency of their first passion came a long, slow time of discovery in which they lay and touched, hardly talking, each from time to time running fingertips over the other as if to memorize an outline or reassure themselves that what they felt was real. The lines of an autumn sun edged slowly around the ceiling and he watched them lengthen and fade with his head on her shoulder, his cheek resting against the swell of her breast.

  “When I saw you in the wood that day,” he said, his fingers running very slowly across the bare smoothness of her stomach, “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Nor I,” she replied. “I have never expected this.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad. I thought you might think…”

  “No, I never thought that. I hoped, but I didn’t expect.”

  At that he laughed and raised his head and kissed her neck.

  It was a small bedroom, low-ceilinged, hung in shades of green and russet; the light was fading quickly around them, yet still touched her skin with the palest hint of gold. Before it was completely dark they slept a little and he woke to the touch of her lips moving slowly across his chest in small, pinching kisses. He could smell her hair close to his face and feel the warmth of her body slipping gently over his, and for a fragment of a moment he could scarcely believe that the happiness inside him was his own; then he felt her teeth nip teasingly at his skin, and in an instant they were rolling and struggling in each other’s arms.

  When the day was quite gone she rose to light the lamp. He watched as she swung herself upright so that her back was toward him, long, straight, beautiful. Then she stood up, still naked, and moved soundlessly across the room, hair spilling over her shoulder, her pale skin still light in the darkness. When the lamp flared she saw him watching her, his eyes moving over her body.

  “I never learned to be coy,” she said simply.

  “I would not change the way you are,” he replied. Then he held out his hand and pulled her back under the sheets and into his arms.

  “And what of Mrs. Jenkins?” she asked, teasing. “Do you not consider this an abuse of her hospitality?”

  “Mrs. Jenkins is an old friend,” he responded with a smile and a shrug. “She will no doubt scold me for being alone with you, but she will probably think the better of me.”

  “She will do neither. She is asleep in her room and she won’t emerge till morning. Martha told her we were taking tea in the drawing room.”

  “What about Martha? Is she discreet?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. And she has been waiting for this for weeks. Your restraint has infuriated her.”

  “But that’s outrageous!”

  When he’d finished laughing, she shook her head reprovingly.

  “You see, Martha has been hearing everything the gossips say about Joseph Banks, the great circumnavigator, and what he got up to in the South Seas. If half of what they say of you is true, you can hardly blame her for expecting a little more impatience and a little less scruple.”

  He found himself blushing. It made her smile.

  “They slander me abominably,” he said, “but there were occasions…I’m prepared to admit I was not chaste for the entire duration of the voyage.”

  “Ah…” She ran a hand across his chest. “I’m glad you are prepared to admit that.” He waited for her to tease him, but in the silence that followed he realized her mood had changed. “After all,” she said quietly, almost to herself, “I have already admitted the same.”

  She felt him go silent, felt his body tensing. Then he rolled her off him and turned onto his side so that they lay facing each other, their heads on the same pillow.

  “About what I said…” he began.

  “I was harsh on you.”

  “You were fair. I cannot imagine what it must be like, knowing no alternative but to give yourself in that way.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “But people suffer much worse. I’ve been lucky.”

  “Men place such great store on virtue,” he continued. “When you told me what had happened…”

  “Yes?” Their faces were only a few inches apart, their naked legs still entwined.

  “It hurt me.”

  “Yes, I saw. That surprised me. It wasn’t what I expected.”

  “Partly it was shock, I think. I’m not used to a woman talking frankly of such things.”

  “And why did it hurt?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “Say it anyway.”

  He shook his head. “What does it matter? I’ve found you now. The rest means nothing.”

  She reached up and ran a finger down the ridge of his nose, then kissed his lips.

  “That’s how you feel now,” she said. “Here with me. You may not always feel it.”

  “When you told me about Ponsonby, I realized I was jealous.”

  “Jealous of him?”

  “Yes. I realized that I’d always thought of you as my discovery. Mine, not his.”

  Her smile made him smile back. “But must I always be someone’s?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  She smiled again. “Know this.” She took his hand and placed it against her naked breast. “Here, now, for as long as this night lasts, I am yours. Totally yours.”

  “And beyond that?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you what lies beyond tonight. Not out there beyond this room.”

  He began to move his hand on her breast in an almost imperceptible caress. “I wish the rest of the world would vanish and leave us here forever.”

  She reached around him and ran the flat of her hand down his spine.

  “None of it is there until you look at it,” she said, pulling him closer.

  “I’ll never look,” he said.

  “You will,” she said, “but kiss me first.”

  “Always,” he whispered, and outside no wheels turned, no hooves rang out, and they could almost believe the world had fallen still for them.

  AT NINE O’CLOCK they roused themselves from the warmth of the covers and began to dress. Before going downstairs Banks took one last look around the green and russet bedroom, the glowing lamp, the sheets in turmoil
, the pillow still double-hollowed where their heads had rested. He waited as she tied her hair, looking at him instead of the glass so that a tendril of brown hair spilled out and hung down her cheek.

  “It isn’t just Martha,” he said. “There are the other servants. Are you not afraid for your reputation?”

  “I have no reputation,” she replied, simply. “Aren’t you afraid for yours?”

  “I have very little, either. They portray me as a tireless philanderer. And besides…”

  “The world judges men differently?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at him, her hands still moving deftly in her hair. “I don’t,” she said.

  He watched as the stray tendril was chased and escaped again. “If we are to be together as I would wish, you cannot stay living here. It is too far. I could take rooms for you in London. Somewhere discreet. You would be barely noticed among the crowds. I believe you would be happy there.”

  She looked back at him and continued to pin her hair. “As your mistress?”

  He paused. “As the woman I want to be with.”

  She came to him then and placed her hands flat against his chest. “You do not need to explain. I understand what I can and cannot be. But if I am ever to be with you as you suggest, there are certain things to which you must agree.”

  He nodded, suddenly a little solemn.

  “It is too soon for me to move now. Even Richmond is still strange to me, and London will be stranger still. And soon you will be gone. If I am to be left to wait for you, I would rather do it here, where things are a little familiar, where the fields and trees are close at hand.”

  He nodded. “And the other things?”

  “I will not use my father’s name. When people talk of the mistress you keep, I want no one to think of that little girl from Revesby who used to go to you in the woods. I don’t want them to have that satisfaction.”