Birdman's Wife

by Melissa Ashley

  I was glad I had made the most of my time with my hosts because a month later our party collected on the veranda of Government House to farewell the Governor and his wife.

  ‘You must promise to write,’ I said to Lady Franklin, tears springing to my eyes.

  ‘Of course I will.’ She smiled affectionately. ‘I shall endeavour to keep you up to date on all the goings on in Van Diemen’s Land. And how’s my fat little boy?’ She pinched Franklin’s cheeks. ‘Why don’t I take him?’ she said, twinkling. ‘I can look after him in the best of comfort here.’

  John laughed. ‘That’s very kind of you, Lady Franklin, but the truth is I have been looking forward to better acquainting myself with my son during our travels. But I assure you, we will keep him safe.’

  ‘I’m only half joking, you know,’ said Lady Franklin wryly.

  Sir John whispered something in his wife’s ear. ‘My wife must let you go,’ he said. Holding Lady Franklin gently around the waist, he reached his hand out to shake John’s.

  Lady Franklin kissed my cheek, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘You’ve been the most wonderful companion, Mrs Gould. I do not know quite how I’ll compensate for your loss.’

  ‘And I yours!’ I said. ‘Here, give Frank one more cuddle.’ I passed a squirming Frank over to Lady Franklin, who kissed and tickled him until he burst into laughter. I put my arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Come here, Master Gould,’ said Lady Franklin.

  ‘Yes ma’am?’ said Henry.

  ‘Now you work hard at your new school. I will write your mother to enquire about your lessons.’

  ‘I will be sure to,’ said Henry, accepting a quick kiss.

  As we started down the veranda stairs, I turned for one last look at my dear friend’s face. ‘Your friendship has meant the world to me. Thank you for everything. Make sure you start your historical society – do not let anyone deter you from all your wonderful plans!’

  Two days into our voyage we passed the lighthouse at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, and early the next morning we sailed through what the locals called the Heads – a pair of perpendicular rocks that looked as if they had been rent asunder by some convulsion of nature. Our first sight of Sydney was of a picturesque, rocky point, studded with houses and surrounded by a strikingly beautiful harbour.

  Dr George Bennett, the curator of The Australian Museum, and his wife insisted that we stay at their home for our two-week visit. Dr Bennett was an expert on Australian species, a Corresponding Fellow of the Zoological Society and a longtime advisor to John. He had published an exquisite volume describing the natural history of the colony called Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore and China. We treasured it not only for its knowledge and insights, but also for the evocative style in which it had been composed.

  On our second day in the settlement, I was thrilled to be reunited with my brother Stephen, whom I had not seen in almost a decade. In many ways he reminded me of our father, with his quick, keen eyes and generous spirit, the way he gestured with his hands as he spoke. And yet he was still my familiar intense and distracted older brother. Following a pleasant lunch reminiscing and catching up on our news, Stephen joined us on a visit to the school where we had enrolled Henry; he wished to introduce us to his two sons, Stephen junior and Charles, who boarded there. As Henry was to stay in Sydney until Christmas, we shared a tearful goodbye. Thankfully, Henry and his Australian cousins seemed to get along well, and we felt reassured that he would be in good company until our return.

  Later that week Stephen took me aside excitedly to confide that he had organised a special treat for us. Every September, Governor and Lady Gipps threw a lavish Spring Ball, which the so-called upper crust of Sydney society jostled to attend. Invitations were much sought after and Stephen was delighted to report that he had managed to secure two coveted tickets for John and me.

  Several days before the big event, Stephen fetched me in his hired carriage, directing the driver to take us to the town’s fanciest fashion shops. My brother pressed a twenty-pound note into my hand, ordering me in no uncertain terms to purchase whatever I might need to create an unforgettable impression. Taken aback, I let myself be carried away by his enthusiasm and managed to spend every last penny.

  Feeling decidedly unlike myself in a beautiful pale blue taffeta gown and jewels chosen to match, on the evening of the ball I marvelled at my transformation – I could hardly believe the graceful woman in the mirror was me. My brother, looking strikingly handsome and every bit the successful colonial gentleman, whistled when I showed him the results of our spree.

  ‘If John goes off the hooks, Eliza,’ he said, grinning, ‘you’ll soon pick up a capital match!’

  I prodded him in the side for his cheek. John, beaming with pride, took my arm and led me to the carriage. It felt lovely to be dressed up in all this finery – and even better to see my husband looking so irresistible. We walked towards the stately home of the Governor and his wife, its wide veranda blazing with light. Inside the formal dining room, candles shimmered on the long, lavishly decorated table, lush with the colony’s produce. Mouth-watering platters of sliced duck, pork and mutton nestled in among baked vegetables and fresh greens, dishes of glacé fruits and sparkling goblets of champagne.

  In the ballroom the rugs had been rolled back and the stage set for a five-piece band. When the fiddler sounded the first notes of a waltz, the dancing began. After a turn about the gleaming pine boards with John and then Stephen, I retired to catch my breath on the sidelines with Mrs Bennett. I surrendered to the wondrous bedazzlement of spruced-up gentlemen and powdered, bejewelled ladies, abandoning themselves to the festive music until well past midnight.

  As we departed the ball, the skies of Sydney town opened, admitting a heavy deluge. My new blue silk dancing slippers were quite ruined by the water swirling along the uneven gutters. But I was so happy that I did not care. John was overjoyed with his first foray into the colony’s society, having made the most of the opportunity to spread word of our endeavour far and wide. He was delighted to have made so many new and useful acquaintances who would help our cause.

  Indeed, John had charmed the most useful people of all – the Governor and his wife, who were greatly influenced by his passion for our expedition. The following afternoon a note was delivered granting all of the requests John had made to the New South Wales’ administration. Our expedition party was to be given the use of government vessels and mailing services, a convict servant and rations, and the protection of the local police should we require assistance in our long journey from Sydney to Stephen’s property at Dart Mouth in the Upper Hunter Valley.

  Chapter 17

  Satin Bowerbird

  Chlamydera violaceus

  Mosquito Island 1839

  A flicker attracted my eye: a black and blue butterfly, thumb-sized, drifted towards the oarsman’s lamp. The creature floated near my bonnet, wafting into the flame’s halo like a shred of burning fabric.

  ‘We call him the Graphium sarpedon,’ said Mr Scott, ‘the blue triangle.’ Our guide tilted his chin, his body tuned to the insect’s dance. He was heavyset, indelicate in his flannel trousers and calico shirt, but in observing the blue triangle he seemed to borrow its grace, the tension leaving his legs, his plump fingers clutching at the air around his heart.

  We were sojourning for the week in the coastal town of Newcastle, with its grand views of the Pacific Ocean. Upon arrival, John had approached the reputed local naturalist Mr Alexander Scott for recommendations as to the best places to study the region’s birdlife. As well as being an expert on moths and butterflies, Mr Scott had various pastoral interests and, like Stephen, travelled between his farm and Sydney to conduct market business. He grew tobacco, tow and grapes, and had ambitions to make wine. Mr Scott also planned to set up a salt harvesting operation on Mosquito Island, a tidal island in the mouth of the Hunter River that we were journeying to this day. He had been granted a large pastoral lea
se on the adjacent Ash Island and spent several months there each spring collecting its Lepidoptera and building a residence that he hoped would become a more permanent base. Like me, Mr Scott was an illustrator. Born in Bombay, as a boy he had been taught drawing and the skills of collecting by his father, who had worked as a botanist for the East India Company.

  Mr Scott gave the signal to land the canoe on the island. No jetty had yet been built on which to disembark. Instead the canoe was driven as far up shore as possible, and a shallow anchor thrown. Mr Scott’s man tossed planks of wood onto the mudflats, stepping stones to harder ground.

  ‘Give me your hand, Eliza,’ said John.

  I held my hem around my knees to prevent it dragging. ‘Thank you, but I’ve made it this far on my own.’ I smiled.

  I could not quite believe how quickly the sun rose and set in the southern hemisphere. One moment we stumbled about in feathery shadows, the next the sky’s curtain was drawn to reveal, on this day, a mosaic of shorebirds tiling the mudflats. Their curiously shaped bills were an arrangement of dissecting tools: curved like pincers; spatulate, long and thin like probes and forceps; short and strong-gripping, bent skywards like a damaged pin. There were dotterels and whimbrels, knots and godwits and curlews, stilts and egrets and lapwings and oystercatchers, all nudging the mud for oysters, crabs, worms and yabbies. Overhead a sea eagle glided and spied.

  Mr Scott had invited us to spend the night on the island. John and Benstead had visited it the previous day to collect specimens, and Benstead had remained on the island to set up our government-issued tent. Little Frank was still too young for such adventures so he had stayed behind in Newcastle in Mary’s care. First on our itinerary was a trek into the rainforest. Mr Scott was excited about a discovery he wanted to share – he had marked the route to his treasure with ribbons and was adamant that we should make our way into the jungly depths while it was still early. That way we could also observe the island’s birdlife at its most engaged.

  The air beneath the canopy was cool and moist, as if we had stepped into a sea of fern trees. The succulent fronds opened radially from fibrous boles, rough as the casing of a bag moth. New shoots in the centre formed whelk-tight coils. High up on the cedar and ash trees clung staghorns and crowsnests, their lobes flared like ears to gather water and sunlight rather than sound. Every now and again we paused to identify the call of a familiar bird species. The coos of native doves, the low chatter of a parakeet, the high-pitched trill of the black and yellow whistler, the bell-like echo of the eastern robin, the cracking ricochet of the coachwhip bird and, a first for me, the infantile mewling of the green catbird.

  The forest’s pungent fruits and flowers ground into a dense-smelling paste under my shoes. A florid rot. Ignoring Scott’s warning to avoid touching anything with our bare hands, I could not resist removing my gloves and running my fingers along the lichened, mossy trunks, the collage of motifs reminding me of the skins of rays, sea jellies and cuttlefish. I crouched to sniff fungi sprouted on the bark of fallen logs, their forms and pigments as varied as corals.

  Like thieves, we sidled over roots and edged around vines. The sultry environment unsettled me, the sky patched with green, my nostrils stoppered by a dank perfume. What if Scott’s ribbons had perished in the incessant rain? Hacking through the trail here and there, he confessed to not having travelled his secret path for several months.

  I patted my handkerchief across my neck and chin and it came away brown with dirt. I loosened my bonnet strings, letting the hat drop between my shoulder blades. The state of my shoes and the hem of my skirt caused me to regret my decision not to adopt Lady Franklin’s more practical travelling garb of sturdy boots. That morning in the rainforest, it was as if I had crossed a threshold in feminine comportment and would never look back. My hair was loose, my shirt had brambles in it and I had discovered a leech crawling up my stockings.

  Just as I wondered how much further I could manage to scramble, Mr Scott ordered us to cease movement with a wave of his hands. We crept in single file behind his crouched form. I turned to John, shoulders raised in question, for a clue.

  ‘There,’ he whispered excitedly, pointing his index finger.

  Suddenly I saw it. ‘Charles’s treasure,’ I whispered back, smiling.

  The construction, a curious conglomeration of twigs, was built into a small clearing, shaded by an overhanging tree limb.

  ‘I present to you, the satin bird’s bower,’ said Mr Scott, bowing theatrically.

  ‘I’ll be deuced!’ said John, patting the older man on the back. ‘By Jove, would you look at it!’ He crouched on the path, his hat across his knees, eyes radiant with excitement.

  This was a new experience for us – we had seen a satin bird’s bower in the Australian Museum on a tour with Mr Bennett, but never one in the wild. The museum’s bower had been discovered by my brother Charles, no less, on land bordering Dart Mouth.

  The elaborate composition we now saw was like a wreath or arbour, certainly not a nest, made from sticks woven together to form a horseshoe shape. It was offset by a sort of stage: a platform of cleared space surrounding the bower about which blue flowers, purple figs, bleached snail shells and feathers had been strewn.

  ‘Would you object to a closer inspection?’ John said softly.

  ‘By all means,’ replied our host, much pleased by John’s reaction.

  I followed my husband and Mr Scott to the clearing, treading carefully so as not to disturb our other hosts. I could see that the structure’s interwoven twigs met in the middle. Feathers from the tail of the crimson rosella had been inserted at what seemed to be regular intervals in the wreath. The entrance to the bower showed curious stains, as if the juice of a fruit or the petals of a brightly coloured flower had been wiped or ground onto the twigs. When I glanced at the bower, and then at the surrounding forest, I was struck by the neatness of the area, as if the satin bird had spent time removing fallen leaves and branches. The way the flowers and seeds lay, just near the entrance to the twiggy construction, had me in mind of a housewife arranging her Wedgwood china on the mantelpiece. Putting the doilies underneath, moving the candlesticks just so.

  ‘If we conceal ourselves and remain very quiet and still,’ said Mr Scott, ‘we should have no trouble viewing their courting dance. It’s the appropriate season and the species is unshy.’

  My husband and I bent to kneel beside Mr Scott, keeping dutifully silent as he arranged the fronds and leaves to help conceal our intrusion. John had taught me to turn this requirement of stillness into a sort of contemplation. As I waited, I became acutely aware of the tiniest movement or sound: a shiver of leaf, the whine of a mosquito, a caterpillar dragging itself across a thin stem.

  A curious buzzing began, high in the overhead canopy.

  ‘The male!’ whispered Mr Scott.

  We craned our necks. Perched on a limb some feet above the bower was the male satin bird, his deep indigo coat, lemon bill and olive claws a stunning contrast against the bush canopy.

  ‘To your left,’ Mr Scott mouthed.

  A female, her coat a collection of lemon and olive bands and speckles, her eye a lavender jewel, hopped around the entrance to the bower, eyeing the shells and flowers, cocking her head towards the male’s clicking calls.

  Like a falling leaf, the male drifted from his high perch, landing with several jerks beside the female. He kept his purple eye on her. He picked up a feather, uttered a curious string of trills, and proceeded to run back and forth along the length of the bower. His eyes appeared to start from his head. He fanned one wing, like a gentleman opening his jacket to find his billfold, folded it shut and spread the other. He presented her with a bruised flower petal. And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, the male returned to his post, leaving the bewildered female alone among the snail shells, flowers and fruits.

  The female waited several moments and then, as if losing patience, took to the air and disappeared. A minute later, the male fluttered back
down to the bower. At first he behaved like that same gentleman dressed for the theatre, strutting to and fro on the kerb, enjoying the shine of his boots, inspecting his manicured nails. Then, as if he had decided the female would not return, the male attacked the housekeeping, probing his flower petals and fruits for signs of decay, discarding stray leaves and twigs. John gripped my arm as the animal picked up a stick in his beak, dipped it into the juice of a crushed fig and hopped towards the bower’s entrance to daub the liquid onto several twigs.

  ‘The deuced fellow is an artist.’ John laughed.

  Mr Scott, his man and Benstead would sleep in swags near the campfire while John and I had the use of the tent. Our water, stored in animal bladders, hung from a pole near the opening. Before retiring we spread out our blankets around the fire and feasted on several ducks we had caught that day, the men passing around a bottle of rum. When the mosquitoes descended, the men piled fresh timber onto the blaze, as the heat and flames were said to keep such creatures away.

  Lying on my back, I studied the night sky, a beach after a storm. A half-moon was one of my treasures that evening – the lap of the river, the burr of insects, two bandicoots scampering past, the simple meal following the afternoon’s long trek and the novelty of canoeing to the isolated island, set like a tongue in the mouth of the Hunter River. I felt a creature of the earth. Soil roughened my fingernails and there were twigs in my hair. I smelled my own perspiration. A rare moment when the various strands, like a great net, seemed perfectly connected. The full meaning and significance of our enterprise struck me. The species we had discovered and the leaps and bounds we had made in our research gave our enterprise might and heft. Our future success felt palpable.

  Silhouetted in firelight, John’s profile was an uninterrupted burning line – his chiselled features, distinctive full jaw and strong nose, finished with a contemplative forehead. His breeches were the colour of summer mushrooms when you turn them upside down to look at their gills, which bruise with just a light touch of the fingertips. I leaned over and playfully tugged his side whiskers. Something inside me had loosened – a binding force – like braided hair, undone and released.