Birdman's Wife

by Melissa Ashley

  ‘I can take him,’ I said.

  ‘I’m quite happy here.’

  ‘I don’t know how I slept through.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. Go back to bed,’ said John. ‘You need your beauty sleep.’

  If only it were my appearance that caused his concern. When I awoke there was a note from him under my bedside medicines stating that the French tracing paper had arrived. The message for me to return to work was clear. We had been held up three days awaiting the stationer’s delivery. Henry, back in his cot, stirred and I kissed his pretty forehead. I dressed him and went down to the kitchen. After breakfast and prayers, I took him with me to the studio. I had laid out a blanket and rattles, preferring him nearby while I worked. I could see to his moods and take breaks to nurse him.

  On my desk were two folio-sized stones awaiting transfer. I had two sketches, which as far as I was concerned were complete. The Himalayan monal, Lophophorus impejanus, and the crimson-horned pheasant, Tragopan satyra, both members of the order Galliformes, the family Phasianidae: chickens and junglefowl. But John had scrawled amendments over my drawings. I creased my brow, annoyed. I’d worked on both sketches for a week, finalising composition and then adding the feather and tarsal detail. He wanted me to change the fanning of the tail of the Himalayan monal and to fatten the neck wattles on the crimson-horned pheasant. Both birds had extraordinary plumage, the former a crest of fine wires and purple plumes with rounded edges. Its wings were purple, green, black and blue, shot with iridescence like a peacock’s plumage. The pheasant had a blue wattle beneath its neck, skin folds around its eyes and a russet belly the shade of a Royal Guard’s cloak, decorated with large white splotches.

  It was one thing to draw sketches for my husband to fold into his correspondence – even if they were to be included in the publications of the world’s best ornithologists – but quite another to reach the professionalism required to produce a collection for a book. A new element of critique was introduced into my preparatory processes, necessitating a much sharper degree of precision.

  To produce a preliminary sketch, I stroked and stroked the shapes with my pencil, entering an almost trance-like state, the drafting desk I bent before fading from my awareness. I stepped back from the paper and screwed up my eyes. I walked to the other end of the studio. I tried a new thickness of lead. I propped the drawing against the wall and shut the curtains. I covered one eye with my hand. It was never right. I laboured at tones and shade. I added background detail. I began a new pose with more confident lines. Every mark I made on the page was an attempt to crack the egg of composition. And then, as if it were there all along and had been playing a game of hide and seek, the design revealed itself. Relieved, and my enthusiasm renewed, I drew at a rapid pace, my pencil a blur as it moved over the watermarked sketch paper.

  We had named our publication A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. We would release our one hundred coloured lithographs in parts, containing five plates each. John had a prospectus printed in The Times, drawing attention to the rarity of our Himalaya specimens to attract potential subscribers. He invited readers to commit to receiving the publication in parts, paid in instalments each time they were released. The payments enabled us to fund the project, paying for colourists, printing costs, paper and binding materials. Even before the first set of plates were released last December, we had signed up fifty subscribers. Following the publication of the first four illustrations, our list of supporters trebled.

  As I read John’s notes, Henry happily gnawed on a cloth ball. After I examined the sketches in detail I found that although I was prepared to enlarge the crimson-horned pheasant’s fat blue wattle, which dangled either side of its throat, I was unable to agree with John’s recommendation that I open out the Himalayan monal’s tail feathers. The bird’s two-tone tail, its top half showing iridescent teals and purples, its lower segment an earthy brown, was a magnificent feature. Fanning the tail feathers, I believed, would risk drawing attention away from the creature’s brilliant plumage, dulling the overall impression when the painting was coloured. Determined to put forward my case, I wrote a note and summoned Daisy. ‘Run this around to Bruton Street. Tell John that if he still wishes me to make this change, he’s to come home for luncheon and speak with me.’

  I had learned how to argue with my opinionated and strong-willed husband. I had to be firm, and make my case based on the facts and in logical stages. In the meantime, I set to work filling in the detail on the feathers. The lithograph print was tonally complete, like a pen and ink drawing, all of the fine plumage properly finished. I used an array of pencils and brushes to delineate the textures of the feather groups: the downy underbelly feathers; the stiff tail feathers with their angled barbs; the sensitive bristles around the bill; the lashes protecting the eye; the short, exquisitely small feathers of the head and neck; the tufted feathers surrounding the thighs.

  Several hours later a knock sounded at the door and John stepped into the studio. I could smell the meat on him from where I sat.

  ‘They’re fine,’ he began. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘Thank you. I knew you’d see reason.’ I smiled.

  When I had agreed to illustrate John’s monograph, I thought I had made a good calculation about how much time and effort the project would consume. I was wrong of course. It was all I’d anticipated, multiplied by a factor of ten. We followed Lear’s example in his parrot monograph and kept background detail to a minimum, just a log for a perch, a few sprigs of leaf. John prepared the specimen as a taxidermied mount and I made a sketch showing the species’ diagnostic markings. The bird’s plumage colourings, morphological features such as tail length, bill size, head shape, type of leg scaling and number of toes, all needed to be drawn to their correct proportions. Just like Lear, I used a measuring tape to confirm scale.

  ‘I have a spare hour, if you like,’ said John, glancing at Henry.

  ‘You’ll have to wash your hands,’ I said. ‘Have Daisy fix Henry’s pap and you can take him for a play. I’ll begin the transfers.’

  John picked Henry up and raised him towards the ceiling. ‘Who’s a big, strong boy, then?’ Pencil poised, I watched them leave, reflecting on my luck in marrying a committed scientist, a man willing to experiment, even with untested domestic arrangements.

  Pleased at my victory, I affixed a fresh sheet of copying paper over the Himalayan monal, with its wiry, feather-tipped crest, and traced my pencil along the lines. We hired the lithographic stones from our printer, Mr Charles Hullmandel, a renowned expert in the field. They were like large marble slabs, bone-grey in colour and too heavy for me to lift. Rather than draw on the printing block, I applied the tracing paper copy directly onto the surface and rubbed it with a pencil. The limestone was so porous that it could be smudged by a fingerprint, or a sneeze, the mark showing as an imperfection on the plate. I liked to think of the limestone surface as a fine woven fabric, a kind of skin, in its delicate sensitivity. It was as if the stones, dug out of a quarry in Austria, composed of the finest corals, trapped under pressure for thousands of years, retained this living quality. Over many applications I learned to hold my elbow away from the porous surface. I once spilled tea on a block and had to employ a pumice scrubber to remove the mark. I remember all too well the disaster of our first ever print, and Mr Hullmandel’s annotations listing its many flaws: fingerprints, droplets of saliva, a sort of misted cloud that he said came from my very breath. For weeks I had redrawn and practised my transferring. Examining our first successful print, the Himalayan jay, was akin to encountering divine perfection. No smudges, no marks, no extraneous pencil or erasure lines, the fine detail passed through the presses clear and clean.

  We did not plan it this way, but Part One of the hand-coloured plates, featuring a jay, a grosbeak, a tragopan and an owl, had been completed just one month after Mr Lear released his inaugural set of parrot prints. While Lear’s monograph was popular, we sold thrice as many sub
scriptions to A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. Although Lear’s parrot illustrations were aesthetically brilliant, the species were familiar. The birds featured in our publication were for the most part curiosities, a highly prized quality both to layman and collector. And herein lay the folio’s unique value. Mr Vigors authored the letterpress, scientifically describing each species, as John was not experienced enough in systematisation. Even with the occasional mistake – Sir William Jardine wrote to John complaining of the back-to-front placing of a species of tragopan’s feet – A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains was nothing short of an outstanding success.

  The completion of our folio marked a transformation in John’s and my daily lives. Most significantly, sales derived from the collection allowed us to move out of our cramped and draughty rooms and into our own home. We did not travel far, choosing a four-storey house several doors away. Most of the furniture in our former dwelling had been donated by the Zoological Society and was returned. Even so, we had to transport trunks of bed linen, crockery, clothing and shoes. The job was undertaken by a convoy of John’s assistants, who made the somewhat comical fifteen-yard walk from Number 12 Broad Street to our new address at Number 20 Broad Street, Golden Square.

  Our financial windfall enabled us to hire more servants to help run the household. John’s secretary Mr Edwin Prince suggested his wife’s services as our housekeeper, to which I readily agreed. Mrs Prince proved a steadfast, faithful woman, with a knack for organisation that came a close second to her husband’s meticulous bookkeeping. We employed a young nanny for Henry, a tall, red-cheeked lass by the name of Joanne, and an elderly cook, Bessie, with whom I felt an immediate affinity. Her uncomplicated smile and thick hands and forearms recalled Cook, my childhood ally whose home-made biscuits had assuaged many a doubt and fear.

  John, eager to customise a laboratory and office in the large basement, disappeared in a flurry of carpenters’ shavings, lumber stacks and measuring tape. He used the opportunity to update his stuffing equipment and storage arrangements, and to bulk order supplies of preserving chemicals from the apothecary. A new apprentice was hired for the home business, and Mr Joseph Baker, John’s best stuffer, promoted to head taxidermist. This would allow John more time to devote to the devouring business of producing and selling our folios.

  Despite John’s excitement at fitting out quarters to suit his unique needs, I secretly fancied that I had the best task in the setting up of our new home. My husband had surrendered the decision making about draperies, carpets, wallpaper, upholstery and furnishings to me. I commandeered Mrs Prince and Daisy to act as my advisors. Huddled together on our rickety old kitchen chairs – I could not wait to be rid of them – we pored over the advertising pamphlets left by an endless line of door-to-door salesmen, eager to commission items for our decorating project. Perhaps my nesting instincts were awakened because of the new life that had quickened in my belly. Swept up in the swirl of general enthusiasm, I ordered a costly wicker crib and spoiled Henry with a spinning top and set of tin soldiers.

  In our new home, I made a daily habit of joining John for morning tea in his office. Mr Prince would answer my tap on the door, quietly excusing himself from the room.

  John had his name and credentials painted onto a plaque and affixed to the door. Inside the large, slightly chilly room, he had arranged an enormous oak desk and floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves in which to file his papers and ledgers. Though the surface of his desk was vast, there was little spare room among the half-dozen raptor skins, the reading lamp and teetering stack of folio reference titles; scattered pencils and ink blotters; rulers and measuring tape poking out from under messy paper piles. There was a crystal dish for his cigars and a clutch of dirty cups nesting by his elbow, evidence of his edict that no one was to clean or interfere with anything in his room.

  ‘Have you heard any news of my drafting table?’ I asked John.

  I had discovered that propping up the limestone blocks I transferred my drawings onto helped to prevent my eyes and back from becoming sore. My old desk, which we had adjusted for that purpose, was the property of the Zoological Society and had been returned. We had a bespoke version designed for my new studio, but it was several weeks overdue and I was desperate to transfer my work to it.

  John waved his hand. He would send a note to the cabinet maker, he said, reaching for a slice of fruitcake and biting into it with relish. Dusting off his fingers, he turned his eyes to me.

  ‘I know that look,’ I said, laughing as I placed my cup in its saucer. ‘All right then. Out with it. What do you propose?’

  My husband was utterly hopeless at disguising the formation of a new idea. When so consumed, he moved with great speed, pausing in the middle of conversations to jot down notes. That morning he leapt up from his chair and moved to the window, staring through the heavy glass, before turning around so quickly that I almost jumped. ‘What might be your thoughts with regards to producing a collection of illustrated European birdlife?’

  I wondered how many European tribes were in existence. Surely it would be in the realms of one or two hundred. ‘It would be huge,’ I said. ‘And bereft of curiosities. How will you secure our subscribers’ interest?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said John. He pressed his finger on a sheaf of correspondence. ‘I’ve had many enquiries about rendering more familiar birds as beautifully illustrated hand-coloured lithographs.’

  ‘So long as you don’t grow bored,’ I said, aware of my husband’s unrelenting ambition to describe specimens new to science.

  ‘There are plenty of fascinating European species to keep my interests up. And it will help us both to gain a better understanding of the continent’s birds.’ He explained that we could source skins from local collections, keeping our costs down.

  ‘You make it sound intriguing. A new challenge for both of us. I shall be eager to participate.’ I moved my hand to the small of my back. ‘But you must not forget, I will be occupied with an infant soon. I wonder how we will manage such a load of drawing?’

  John poured himself a second cup of tea and glanced at me, as if he had read my thoughts. ‘I’ve been in discussions with Mr Lear,’ he said, explaining that the young artist had run into financial trouble finding subscribers for his monograph of parrots, despite the lithographs’ unique artistry. Although Lear was perfectly willing to while away an afternoon perfecting the vanes on a grass parakeet’s wing feathers, the tasks of chasing tardy subscribers and balancing accounts with his suppliers caused him pain to the point of neglect.

  ‘Please do not think ill of me, Eliza, but I have negotiated a sum with him to buy the leftover plates he failed to secure subscribers for.’

  ‘As long as you gave him a good price,’ I said. ‘It’s not really my business.’

  ‘It was a compromise on both our parts. But you’ll be pleased to know I’ve invited him to work with us, designing and sketching specimens for our European collection. I’ll be able to pay him a small salary.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news!’ I exclaimed. The thought of having the talented and charming Mr Lear as our helpmate, and enjoying a unique opportunity to learn from him, immediately settled the ruffled nerves I’d felt on learning of John’s new project. Sharing with Mr Lear the pressure of sketching and designing for my husband on another ambitious enterprise made the commission seem far less daunting.

  ‘What if Mr Lear and I drew together? There’s enough room in my new studio for two angled tables. He could escape his draughty rooms, away from his sister and her hot stove and irons. And, best of all, I could peep over his shoulder and learn his brilliant techniques.’

  ‘I had not thought of that,’ said John. He closed his eyes, considering my idea, and grinned. ‘I like the sound of this very much, Eliza.’

  Emboldened, I revealed the remainder of my thoughts. ‘In your note to the cabinet maker, why not have his firm produce two drafting desks? What do you say? It would put my heart at rest to s
hare the burden – and of course the pleasure – with Mr Lear.’

  My husband replied that he was much relieved by my reception of his proposal. He thought the notion of bringing Lear into my studio to draw was a stroke of genius. That way, if John had a rush on certain specimens, he could consult with Lear on the premises, losing no time in couriering messages halfway across London.

  All we had to do was convince Lear to agree to our invitation.

  I had not seen Mr Lear since visiting his rooms and was eager to renew our acquaintance. As soon as our angled desks arrived, I began fussing about with Daisy and Mrs Prince, arranging my studio so that two artists could make use of the light and space. I had kept my old bookcase, with its shelves for storing mounted specimens for reference. John purchased a large table upon which we could dry fresh-painted lithographs, with deep drawers to store my boxes of watercolours and pencils. Two lamps lit our desks and alongside my meticulously laid out sketch paper were two boxes of soft and hard sketching pencils. For Lear’s and my inaugural drawing session, John had sent up a golden eagle, beautifully mounted, on loan from the British Museum, and a red-footed falcon, its wings curved in flight.

  ‘He’s sure to be impressed,’ said Daisy, glancing up from the fire she’d been building.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ said Mrs Prince, after the knock we’d been anticipating sounded. She ushered Lear into the warm room.

  Lear rested his walking cane behind the door. I was shocked by his appearance: he was shivering and shaking with cold, poorly dressed for the freezing weather. I was about to greet him when he drew a handkerchief out of his pocket, seized by a fit of coughing.

  ‘Daisy, see if you can find some blankets and put some more coal on the fire!’ I said, moving to help our guest with his coat. I took his hand. ‘Oh Mr Lear, it is so wonderful to see you again. Are you sure you are well enough to work?’