Apologising, I made the excuse that I felt tired from packing. I would discuss the children’s schedules later. Mother looked into my eyes with great tenderness. I then turned away, unable to control my emotions. I rushed upstairs to the bedroom and threw myself on the bed, giving in to my tears, the tension I had ignored during our frantic planning brimming over. All of a sudden, the reality of our voyage to Australia gripped me.
While I was wrestling with my fears of what lay ahead, John was downstairs checking every last detail of the inventory of belongings and supplies we were shipping to Australia. We had been warned of how under-resourced the Australian colonies were, and John and his team had taken great care to source the necessary equipment and foodstuffs we would require for such a lengthy and ambitious expedition. John’s far-reaching plans included making collections in Van Diemen’s Land, New South Wales, New Zealand and New Guinea. In three large trunks we had packed bottles for wet specimens, gunshot, powder and caps for shooting, card and boards for packaging, cotton wool for nesting the specimens, a writing board, preserving spirits, watermarked paper, reference books and camphor, straw hats, hooks and line for fishing, several novels, tea leaves and coffee grounds, tooth powder and hair pomade, new boots for each member of the party, scissors and dissecting kits, chocolate powder, a camp oven, watercolour paints, a set of hog and sable brushes, arsenic, canvases, sealing wax, turpentine and pitch, field glasses, stockings and kerchiefs, box rules, plain measures, candlesticks and holders, and, last but not least, bottles of whisky and port.
Having finally retired, I found that my worries about the leap we were taking kept me wide awake, and I felt restless knowing John would not come to bed for hours. But all my tossing and turning and wild imaginings helped me stumble upon an idea. Lighting a candle, I took the stairs to my studio on the top floor and fetched my favourite stubby old pencils, drawing board and a ream of fresh paper. Creeping down to the nursery, I let myself into my daughters’ bedroom. Lizzie and Louisa were sleeping. I pulled a chair up to their cots and took in hand my sketching implements. I drew Lizzie first, with her wispy blonde curls and raspberry-red cheeks and lips; then Louisa, her black hair hidden inside the lacy casings of her nightcap. Pencilling their peaceful features, I felt the familiar fear curl through me. That thing I could not own up to adjusted on its perch, stretched out a wing. The sadness under my ribs sharpened my concentration and I made strong and confident lines. I performed the same exercise in the boys’ bedroom, while Charlie tossed his head from side to side and Henry snored lightly. I imagined, in the months to come, lifting the sketches from my pelisse and comforting myself with them as we travelled. When we had found our temporary home, I could use them as the basis of portraits, applying my brushes for added colour, depth and tone.
I do not like to think of the pain of my departure from the children. I held them all and promised to write, kissed Mother and hugged Sarah, forcing myself to expunge all feeling from my expression. I did not wish to upset them. The children were too young to understand the two-year sentence we had consigned them to. As I was helped into the waiting carriage, my knees buckled. I gripped the railings and heaved my body up the steps, reminding myself that in entrusting the children to Mother and Sarah I had acted in their best interests as a loving and responsible mother.
We left home in the pre-dawn dark, sharing the coach with Gilbert, Mary and Benstead. Taking my seat between John and a sleepy Henry, I tried desperately to join my son in slumber but to no avail. In Portsmouth, we picked up our final passenger, Will Coxen, the fourteen-year-old son of my deceased brother, Henry. Will’s father had died when he was very young and I had not seen my nephew for some time. Regarding Will’s sharp blue eyes, his firm jaw and aquiline nose, I was reminded of my older brother’s features. I felt a pang that father and son had not been given the opportunity to know each other. Henry’s widow had remarried but trouble had brewed between Will and his stepfather. The situation became much worse after Will’s hand was maimed in a shooting accident. He was just twelve and the injury prevented him from following in the family tradition of joining the Admiralty. Threatened by his stepfather with a passage to South Africa, Will had sought our family’s help. I intervened and volunteered to accompany Will to Australia instead, where he was to work on the farm run by my brother Stephen.
I had taken laudanum to calm my nerves but it was not long before the tincture wore off. Nearing the wharves to board our vessel, the Parsee, I felt suddenly unwell. I clutched Henry’s fist in mine and sucked in my breath. The morning was blustery and cold, and I pressed my skirts against my legs for warmth. I glanced at the grey sky, the orange sun just rising. The air was thick with soot. The harbour stank. Garbage lay in piles, overflowing from tins and buckets; red-eyed rats squirmed in rotting food and newspaper drifted down to the black water. Huge seabirds floated and dived on the thick air currents. I kept seeing the murky blue eyes of Charlie, Lizzie and Louisa, roused from sleep, cheeks pink, their fingers stuffed hastily into mittens. I wanted to scream out, What of my children?
While we sought to make discoveries about Australia’s birds, I would surely miss the precious moments every mother treasures as her children grow. I would have a blank in my memory of when Louisa raised her foot in her first step, when Charlie wrote his first letter. I would be ignorant as to how Lizzie was coping with waking in the night. I would forget how they lay in the nests of their beds, upside down, to one side, with the sheets and blankets kicked off. I would miss seeing their faces lengthen from toddlerhood into childhood, their spines stretch and their bellies tighten. I would not notice Louisa’s first tooth nor the shade of blue her eyes resolved into, so like the markers of growth and daily habits that we criticised our collectors for failing to regard as important.
I thought of how John had lamented the lack of detail accompanying the newly arrived black honeyeater, which promised to be as exclusive in appearance and cryptic of habit as the star finch. He told me he had dreamed of scaling a flowering eucalypt. Finding himself on a high bough, he had perched between two forking branches with his notebook in hand to observe a female black honeyeater at her nest. The way she moved from chick to chick. How she tipped her head when drinking nectar from the flowering gumnuts. The way she drew her bill along her mate’s wing, preening and nuzzling. How she folded a wing over her face when sleeping. The soft trills of her distress call, the lingering notes of her mate’s territorial chirp. John knew these precious glimpses of a bird in its natural element to be of the greatest importance to the advancement of the science of ornithology. In a moment of bitter weakness, I could not help but wonder at those recordings a mother makes of her children. Could I willingly give this up? Did obtaining the one set of observances, for the betterment of natural history, justify the negligence of the everyday milestones reached by my own children?
‘I’m going to be ill,’ I said, clutching John’s arm. We were steps from the gangway.
‘Have you taken your drops?’ he enquired.
‘They didn’t work.’
‘Give me your hand,’ said John, crushing my gloved fingers in his. He tried to drag me towards the boarding plank. But my feet would not move. It was as if they were dug in deep, clamped to the boards, a part of the wharf. Perspiration trickled along my neck. All before me blackened. I met my husband’s concerned stare and felt myself slump.
When I awoke, the stink of smelling salts lay in my nostrils. John pressed a wet flannel against my forehead. He had carried me to a room at the dockyards where papers were inspected. I was seated on a hard bench.
It was as if my childbearing body had not fully returned to earth after Louisa’s birth. There was a humour out of balance. In the weeks following her delivery, I’d been bled and cupped by our family physician, but whatever ailed me was more subtle and nuanced. For many days I felt like a moth crawled out of its cocoon, the dried and brittle casing attached by a tiny clinging thread. I dragged it around, catching it on the doorway as I turned a c
orner, stopping in the middle of an errand to try to detach it and then, distracted by the intricate plaiting of its skin, began to marvel at its ability to support new life.
‘I have overestimated my capabilities,’ I said to John. ‘I’ve been carried away with your schemes.’
‘This will pass, Eliza. You’re consumed by nerves. I’m here. I’ll steady you. We’ll get through it.’
How it pained my husband to be brought to earth by me.
‘I cannot assist you,’ I said, giving in to my terror. ‘I’m sorry.’ Under no circumstances could I part with dear Charlie, sweet Lizzie and tiny Louisa. Charlie sent to boarding school at four, still a baby! Louisa just six months and sickly, and Lizzie left to play dolls without my companionship. I would remain in England. I would release my mother and cousin from duty, and John could hire himself another artist. There! It was settled.
‘Do you recall the day we were married?’ asked John.
I nodded.
‘You were so frightened you almost forgot to breathe.’
‘I know.’
‘You can do this,’ said John. ‘You really can. And anyhow, I cannot do it without you. I need you to accompany me. And it is not only as my artist but as you, my wife, my dearest Eliza, with your strength and passion, your steady will.’
A low whistle sounded. ‘Last call!’ shouted a shipmate.
‘Mama,’ said Henry, crouched near my lap, ‘Papa’s right. All will be well. You heard the man. We must get moving.’ He held my eyes, attempting to convey the authority of a governess. I hid my smile at how ludicrous he appeared. ‘Please now, fix your bonnet, Mama. It’s gone all lopsided.’
I obeyed Henry’s order and tickled my fingers under his chin. ‘Dearest boy,’ I said, ‘I’m so glad to have brought you along.’
I held my chilly, gloved hands out to John and took a deep breath.
Part TWO
alario
(l. on the wing)
Chapter 10
Spectacled Petrel
Procellaria conspicillata
Cape of Good Hope 1838
A shot rang out and I jumped. Not knowing when the trigger was to be pulled made me flighty. I laid my novel, A Year in the Country, face-down on the bunk and repositioned my reading cushion. There was no point in trying to nap. I wondered if Mary Howitt had her writing interrupted by her husband’s thumping about and shouting in the afternoons. John may not have hunted for pleasure, but he gave little thought to how I was to cope with the disturbances.
More shots sounded and I sat up, sliding my feet into my shoes. From my desk I removed a roll of paper and bag of pencils, tucking them into my apron pocket. I let myself out of the cabin and took the stairs leading to the foredeck. Our barque, the Parsee, was a solid oak-planked vessel, her hull sheathed in forged copper. According to Captain McKellar, at 359 tons she was not a large nor even a medium-sized sailing ship. But she was rugged and sturdy, and in labouring weather that gave her the advantage. Her trio of masts could be quickly serviced, tacked like the finest stitch to the hem of the most challenging shoreline. This was not the case with a larger, more cumbersome vessel.
I had learned that the various latitudes and longitudes of oceanic life brought with them small surprises. No sooner had I obtained a handle on one aspect of sailing – sea-stomach, salt pork, the incessant grinding of the cables and sails – than another facet of our confinement in a wooden vessel threw itself into sharp relief. As we rounded the Cape of Good Hope, our three main sails hung slack for want of wind. Not counting the crew, there were twenty passengers onboard. My seafaring companions included the Martins, a recently wed couple, and our cabin neighbours Mr Albercrombie, who was to take up a position as surgeon at the women’s prison in Van Diemen’s Land, and the heavily pregnant Mrs Albercrombie. The tropical days often found us dozing on chairs on the foredeck with magazines folded over our faces, or swatting at midges and mosquitoes with our rolled correspondence papers. We attempted to ignore the briny air that seared our throats and the cloying humidity that slowed our thoughts.
An extraordinary calm had beset the vessel. It was as if the seas we had sailed these past eleven weeks had transformed in both consistency and temperament. The seemingly endless languid days and evenings created a mood of fraught tedium. When not drawing specimens for John, I switched from lazing on the foredeck to slumbering in my cabin. Mary, Henry and I sometimes played at bowls and dominoes, and I encouraged everyone in our party to write home. There were many marvels to describe: blue-finned, orange-bellied flying fish; a calving sperm whale, its back scarred by squid tentacles. A school of bottle-nosed dolphins swam beside us for three whole days. Colonies of medusas glowed like tiny fires when we ventured onto the foredeck at night. I had imagined voyaging to be a life of strict ritual, broken by exhilarating peril. But putting oneself to sea was a different matter. While all about me the crew kept busy laying trawl nets, caulking boards, mending tarpaulin and frayed hoists, and doing other ship-keeping tasks, I felt somewhat at a loss not having a useful skill to contribute. Despite my restlessness, there was something altogether magnificent about our constant surveillance by the moon, about the vast bright aviaries of stars that glided above our figurehead, the invisible zoos of animals swimming beneath.
Henry saw me emerge from below deck and rushed to greet me. All of our hunting party were gathered on the foredeck. Henry and John wore almost identical yellow breeches and linen shirts, secured at the waist with leather braces. Was it Henry’s doing, wanting to look like his father, I wondered, or Mary’s? Henry also had a neckcloth jauntily tied under his chin. John began the day with one neatly knotted around his neck, but inevitably it finished the afternoon shoved into his pocket covered in grease and gunpowder. At evening’s close his shirts were blood-flecked and feather-stuck, and I did not envy Mary’s laundry pile.
The calm seas had made Captain McKellar finally relent to John’s demands to shoot for specimens. My husband’s ability to spot a member of the feathered tribes from miles away was almost uncanny. As if summoned by an invisible horn, hair-thin specks appeared above the sealine. I watched as they grew in proportion. Soon I could identify several species: shearwaters and prions, frigatebirds and storm petrels. How did they sense, from such distance, the stink of the burley we had laid out? Thrusting their rudder-like feet into the air, as if applying a brake, they dipped and landed with a few flaps amid the fish heads, tails and innards, and began to feast.
Our chief collector John Gilbert stood at the ship’s bow, his weapon expertly trained on a fulmar. The seabird resembled a large, rather clumsy-footed gull. Henry stared with interest at Gilbert, who was a picture of concentration, his shoulder tensed inside his oiled coat as he prepared to fire. After discharging his gun and felling the fulmar, Gilbert waved Henry over.
‘May I hold the gun?’ asked Henry, looking pleadingly at me.
‘You may.’ I smiled and nodded at Gilbert. ‘Be careful with my boy.’
‘Mother!’ said Henry, colouring. ‘I am quite all right.’
‘That you are, mister.’ Gilbert gave me a wink. ‘I won’t try him with anything he’s not ready for.’
‘I appreciate your consideration,’ I said, tipping my head in acknowledgement and turning back to the glittering waves.
After almost three months at sea, I’d become rather firm friends with Gilbert. Henry and my nephew Will adored John’s rough-shaven colleague and were eager to learn from him. Along with his expertise at his trade, Gilbert had tricks to help us pass the time – playing deck quoits, cards and dice, and telling spine-tingling ghost stories. Best of all, Gilbert was an avid fan of novels. We had formed a little club of sorts, exchanging our favourite titles: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame for a biography of Lord Byron, and George Sands’s Indiana for Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers.
Passing my son a leather bag and brass rod, Gilbert opened the chamber of his gun and motioned for Henry to pour the shot into the barrel. He showed him how to lay
down the square of felt and place the percussion cap over the top, jamming everything into place with a brass rod. Gilbert then brought the two parts of the musket together, snapping them into alignment, an oiled-smooth, loaded weapon.
Three fulmars now soared above the centre mast, attracted by the bucket of slops. A frigatebird appeared on their tails, its red throat sack flaccid. It swooped to attack the smallest fulmar, shrieking and tapping its beak on its head until the animal opened its mouth and disgorged the contents of its crop. The frigatebird angled and dived, catching the regurgitated meal on the wing. As the bird moved out towards the open water, Gilbert motioned for quiet.
Henry retreated to the railing, all bravery forgotten. He fitted his head under my waiting hand. We did not draw breath, hardly daring to lift our eyes to the becalmed sea. I felt my son’s chest tremble. Gilbert had the butt of the rifle against his shoulder, and his eyes squinted into its sights.
The shot sounded and I found myself wishing that Gilbert might miss, that the bird would escape.
A rowboat bobbed like a toy in the blue-black waters below us, with Benstead controlling the oars and Will at the prow. Firearm by his side, Gilbert watched as Benstead rowed out to collect the felled animal which now floated barely five yards from the ship. Will leaned over with a meshed scoop to retrieve the carcass from the water. Despite his injured hand, he was able to manoeuvre the net remarkably well.
All of a sudden Gilbert grew animated, his movements quick and concentrated. He motioned to John, who refocused the brass telescope with which he had been scanning the horizon.
‘Eliza, look!’ John strode up to the railings and passed me the instrument. I put it to my eye. Oh! The glass circle of the lens returned to me the unmistakable brow and bill of a royal albatross flying towards us. It must have been attracted by the burley pail. I lifted Henry and settled the eyepiece in front of his face. But he could not focus and returned the tool.
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