Birdman's Wife

by Melissa Ashley

  ‘Maybe we should extinguish the candle,’ whispered John.

  I reached over and snuffed the flame. I felt the pinch of fire, stirred by my husband’s close proximity. John pulled me into his arms and kissed my neck. I responded with fervour, my skin tingling, desire flooding me with warmth. Closing my eyes as his body moved to meet mine, I let go. I was home.

  Chapter 21

  Superb Lyrebird

  Menura novaehollandiae

  Golden Square, london 1840

  The scuff of Daisy’s footsteps sounded on the stair as she brought up my morning tea. The children had finished their bible reading in the nursery and I was tempted to visit, but it was time that I heeded John’s threats about the printer’s looming deadline and resumed my sketching regime. I had been reluctant to take up my pencil, though I could not say why. For so long I had yearned to be reunited with my studio. But here and now, home at last with all my children, the artist in me had retreated. I needed to find food to lure her, stubborn wombat, from the warmth of her burrow.

  Seated at my easel, a painting apron knotted around my waist, I waited for direction. At Yarrundi I had been moved by a wild inspiration, my fingers weightless as they swept my brush across the paper. My preparatory sketches came as easily as walking or cooking a meal, providing me with the comfort that each finished piece drew me another day closer to home.

  My pencils were new. I had an unopened package of watermarked sketch paper. Three limestone slabs delivered by our printer, Mr Hullmandel, were stacked by the door like an accusation. The windows in my studio at the top of our house faced the sky rather than the street, but I could view its traffic-induced tangles from the second-floor nursery. For me, the children’s room was the heart of the house, and I yearned to stay there among the picture books, the slates and counting pegs. There Lizzie sat at her desk making sums, while Louisa napped in the day bed and Frank sucked at his bottle. It was a wrench to exchange time with my children in that sunny, blue-walled room for my poky studio.

  I had to tell myself that my inability to return to my drawing and the air of distraction I harboured was but a temporary state that – like all moods, good or foul – would surely pass.

  Daisy cleared a space on my desk and set down the tray. ‘Lizzie’s a little teary,’ she said, pouring me a cup of tea.

  I asked what the matter might be. Daisy paused before replying, and I had the uncomfortable thought that Lizzie’s distress was somehow my fault. The notion flitted like a sparrow, but I had seen it.

  ‘She’d a poor sleep,’ my maid replied. I breathed out a sigh and glanced at my easel. I had started my drawing of a treecreeper several times over. Should I go to my daughter? I was close to asking Daisy’s opinion when a shout from the street below took my attention. I rushed to the window. I made out a courier’s van three storeys down. Two black and brindle horses hung their heads as the driver looped and tied reins, ready to unload their cargo. Out onto the pavement scuttled our stuffing team with John in the lead, followed closely by Mr Prince, Mr Baker and two apprentices. They beetled about the van’s rear, waiting in line while its folding doors collapsed, like a set of bellows or a squashed ribcage, and disgorged a trunk. From the team’s excitement it was clear that the trunks we had shipped from Australia on the Kinnear had arrived. They had been held up for weeks at the Port of London awaiting clearance while the authorities checked the cargo’s legal tickets to prove our business was legitimate, that the animals we had imported to England were dedicated to science and not the untaxed labour of smugglers.

  ‘Lizzie needs me,’ I said to Daisy, untying my painting apron. ‘Put out the fire and close the door, please.’

  I rushed down the stairs, taking two at a time, and into the nursery. Lizzie sat at her wooden play crib, rocking her doll. Dried tears smeared her cheeks. ‘Mama,’ she said woefully.

  ‘Come, darling, I’ve something to show you.’

  She ran towards me, offering her hand, and together we went downstairs. The arrival of our Australian collection was all the excuse I needed to hang up my apron for the day. I held fast to Lizzie’s hand while she fiercely clutched the arm of her doll, swatting it against the panelling in the dim hallway. Outside, we blinked into the sunlight and saw that the household had left off their chores to observe the parade of treasures.

  I located John, a bundle of papers pressed to his chest. Initially he did not notice me, busy directing the lifters. A tick in his jaw betrayed his nerves. I slipped my arm inside his elbow.

  John turned to me, grinning. ‘Thank the Lord, eh? No more slacking off for you, Mrs Gould.’

  The lading bill detailing the inventory of our shipment was laid out in columns and filled most of the page. I did not envy my husband’s administrative tasks.

  Mr Prince and Mr Baker fumbled with the edge of a tin trunk, narrowly missing my arm. I stepped back, my grip on Lizzie’s shoulder tightening. I lowered my face to her level and explained that many pretty creatures awaited her inspection in the trunks.

  ‘How do they breathe? Do they get scared of the dark?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re studies,’ I said, straightening. ‘Like Papa makes.’

  She looked into the street, swinging her doll from side to side. I did not think she was impressed.

  When the van was almost empty I took Lizzie inside to the dining room to see what all the fuss was about. The chairs had been pushed aside to allow space for the trunks, and the table had been cleared, its surface covered in newspaper. I pressed myself and Lizzie against the walls as the last one was brought in. Taking an iron lever in hand, John pried open the lid of one of the larger trunks and we craned our necks to peer inside. There were boxes stacked upon boxes, some tin, others wood, nestled among rags and folded cloths and pressed flax. The scent of camphor, turpentine and arsenic floated into the air like the smoky genie escaping his lamp in The Arabian Nights. John opened a tin to reveal a zebra duck lying in a mess of straw, its head folded under a wing. He set it on the table. His helpers reached further into the crate, uncovering shrike thrushes, coachwhip birds and golden whistlers from beneath swaddlings of paperbark. Mr Prince remarked on the delicacy of the pardalote, and we all exclaimed over the softly painted eye-shadowing of the shy albatross.

  Mr Baker placed a grey currawong on the table. ‘It’s looking good, sir.’

  John did not respond. Instead, he began checking the specimens against his list. Tension furrowed his features. ‘Open the next box, Baker,’ he commanded. Ever present was the concern that in our haste to preserve our collection from ants and moths, we might have bundled the skins too quickly in their bedding of cotton and tow.

  Determined to ensure his name was forever associated with the description of every curious Australian species, John had left strict instructions with Mr Prince that no London ornithologist be privy to the contents of our consignments. Subsequently, our first shipment from Van Diemen’s Land had been left shut in the stuffing room for three months. When Mr Prince had mentioned the container in a letter to John’s friend Sir William Jardine, the revered Scottish ornithologist and botanist had commanded that the trunk be opened immediately and the contents inspected for damage. Far more than scientific priority might be lost. The pelagics we had collected onboard the Parsee were covered in mildew, feathers falling out of their tails and wings. Time being of the essence, Sir William had then guided Mr Prince and Mr Baker step by step through the method of repair. All the windows on the bottom floor were to be closed and the fires stoked hot. A stiff brush was applied in a brisk fashion to the mouldy feathers. Each specimen was then laid before the flames for an afternoon to dry thoroughly. As an insurance measure against damage from mould and moisture, the skins were anointed with fresh camphor and turpentine before being deemed ready for storage until our return.

  While we had learned a lesson from that experience, there were still more risks. An earlier collection of South Australian specimens had suffered breakage, some of the bottles smashing
together and creating a heterogeneous mix of broken eggs, preserving fluid, nests and plants to pool at the bottom of a chest. Today’s delivery was our last, apart from the specimens collected by Gilbert in and around the Swan River settlement in the far west of the continent. So far we had been extraordinarily fortunate in shipping our collections to England. None of the vessels had foundered or been raided by pirates, we had not been forced to pay enormous customs duties to clear port and the majority of skins had survived their journeys unblemished.

  ‘Come, Lizzie,’ I said, tugging at my daughter’s sleeve. ‘Let’s give you a feast of decent subject matter to write to Charlie and Henry about.’ Having returned to boarding school, my sons would be mightily jealous of their sister’s privilege in witnessing this event.

  I led Lizzie around the table to inspect the fruits of our expedition. I allowed her to touch the nest of the pretty spiny-cheeked honeyeater, with its pink lores and bill, explaining how differences in plumage, bill length and size were used to differentiate species. I showed her the chats that John had caught in New South Wales, their treecreeper friends and the sittellas, each of which moved in opposite directions along the bole of a tree.

  ‘I like the parakeets,’ she said, stroking the elegant Bourke’s parrot.

  ‘What about the raptors?’ I asked.

  ‘This one is frightening,’ she said, shrinking back from the huge hooked beak of the wedge-tailed eagle.

  ‘But you do like our hoard?’ I asked, assuming she would be as intrigued and delighted as Henry when he helped us unpack a collection. He thought it was like having a museum in our very own home.

  ‘They’re all dead,’ said Lizzie flatly, plucking at the eyes of her doll.

  ‘But I’ll paint them and bring them back to life,’ I replied.

  John, overhearing our exchange, laid his hand gently on Lizzie’s back. ‘Come now, isn’t it time to feed your budgies?’

  ‘Did you shoot all of them, Papa?’ she asked.

  ‘Never fear, missy. We left the majority in their bush homes. It’s like Noah’s Ark. We took just a couple of each species so we might learn of their habits and customs.’

  ‘I do not approve,’ she sniffed.

  John hurriedly motioned me towards him, his patience worn thin. ‘Take her out of here,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t have time for this.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, torn between the two of them. I steered Lizzie from the crowded room, attempting to cajole her out of her dark mood with promises of treats. I offered to let her release Joanne and Graham from their cage for a play. But she was not interested.

  ‘If it’s all the same with you, Mama, I’d like to be by myself.’

  I returned to the living room in time to hear John bark out an order at Mr Prince. My husband sat at the table, clearly agitated, his knee bouncing up and down. One barrel remained to be opened and one of the apprentices was struggling to lever off the lid.

  John sprang to his feet. ‘Out of the way,’ he said, pulling the lid off with a powerful yank. He leaned deep into the barrel, digging through the packing material and depositing unopened tins of all sizes on the rug. ‘Ah,’ he said at last, drawing out a large keg. He laid it on the table as gingerly as if it were a sickly child. ‘Thank the Lord! The lyrebirds survived.’ He called for everyone’s attention and asked us to gather around. Unpacking stopped and the room fell silent.

  ‘To me, our collection of scientific treasures is as significant as the ears of corn, the pods of cocoa, the sacks of potatoes and tobacco leaves introduced to Europe following the discovery of the Americas,’ he began. He paced the room, hands deep in his pockets, stopping to tap the glass keg. ‘These precious lyrebirds represent some of our most important findings in Australia. They weren’t an easy quarry: I stayed out seven nights in a row trying to capture the female. My patience was handsomely rewarded.

  ‘Four of these specimens will be sent to the eminent anatomist and palaeontologist Professor Richard Owen for dissection. The professor will examine the interior organs and bone structure for clues to classification. When the lyrebird was first described by Dr John Latham forty years ago, no dissections were made. Anatomical characteristics that might indicate affinity were not examined: the bony structure of the palate, the formulation of the muscles of the chest, the number of wing feathers. This has led to confusion about the species’ taxonomy. Now we may be able to unlock those characteristics. I don’t need to tell you how significant any findings will be.’

  John went on to explain that he had found an early report about the lyrebird written by the New South Wales judge advocate David Collins. In 1798 Collins had been one of a party of soldiers and ex-convicts despatched by the colony’s governor to find a troublesome rogue settlement some twenty miles south of Sydney town. After a month’s futile search, the party was forced to turn back, having run short on provisions. Inside one of the officer’s packs was the first collected specimen of the lyrebird, or menura, Latin for mighty tail. Collins noted the bird’s unusual song and its abilities as a mimic, not only able to imitate the calls of other forest birds but also the crackling of the men’s campfire.

  ‘Fancy that,’ said Mr Prince, squinting at the keg.

  ‘They are like pheasants,’ remarked Mr Baker. ‘Do they show promise for the table?’

  ‘I’ve not sampled their meat. But according to Collins’s diary they were dry and tough,’ said John. ‘I can tell you they’re an exceedingly clever tribe. I know they don’t look like much submerged in preserving liquid, but just you wait. I’m devoting myself to mounting them as specimens this week. And then everyone will know the magnificence of this superb and clever bird.’

  John’s pronouncement caused a delighted uproar. It was clear from the smiles and shaking of hands that, having witnessed this first glimpse of an important discovery, everyone in the room felt excited to be part of it.

  Once all the trunks had been unpacked and checked against the inventory, our household resumed its state of intense working days, stretched to breaking by an unceasing list of tasks. While John built the taxidermied mount, I worked on the lithograph of the rufous treecreeper, an undescribed species that John was keen to present to the Zoological Society. Despite all the excitement surrounding our Australian collection and the welcome challenge it presented, I was still feeling ambivalent about returning to my studio. I hoped the lyrebirds would reignite my enthusiasm; a good feeling about my subject always helped to draw out my best work.

  One morning during prayers with Lizzie and Louisa, we were interrupted by Mr Prince tapping agitatedly at the door. I was to come to the stuffing room at once. The mounting of the lyrebirds had been completed and they were ready for me to sketch. I hurried after Mr Prince, eager to view the unique beauty of the songbirds at last. As I had not accompanied John on his expedition to the Liverpool Plains, I had never seen the species move, nor heard its call.

  The stuffing room sprawled across most of the bottom floor, the centre taken up with a large bench around which the stuffers sat, each workspace lit by an oil lamp. John’s stuffers wore leather aprons, like butchers or cobblers and, at their elbows, as if silver laid out for a meal, were scattered the tools of their trade: forceps and scalpel handles, scissors, bone cutters and scrapers. There were trays of thread and twine and various grades of needle, grinding stones and glass canisters filled with preserving powders, goose quills cut into the shape of a scoop to remove the brains of small birds. The back wall was like an apothecary store with its bottles of coloured crystals and powders, the preserves rubbed inside the skins before stuffing to keep out clothes moths and their larvae, an infestation of which could destroy a whole cabinet of mounts. There was arsenic, camphor, salt of tartar, powdered chalk, musk, tanner’s bark, burnt alum, spirituous liquor and carbonate of potash. Each worker’s foot nudged a barrel filled with stuffing material – flax, tow and straw – all with different textures, such as horses’ hair, old women’s hair and the sparse black hair of elepha
nts. In the middle of the table teetered a mound of linen cloths, like napkins from an inn, at hand to sop the gravy of the bodies.

  I was making my way over to John, who was busy filling in the tag of a coachwhip bird, when I suddenly stopped, transfixed by the sight of his lyrebird diorama. Waiting for my inspection in the centre of the workbench, the mount comprised a cork tray lined with sand, onto which had been wired a thick stump with a sprig of fern at its base. John had composed the cock to stand on the perch, the flare of his tail displayed, while the hen sat beside him as if on a nest, her modest tail folded.

  I could not take my eyes from the plumes of the cock’s tail. John had fanned its individual feathers to match what he had seen in the field. Opened to their full flare, they stretched double the length of the animal’s body. Their barbs were filamented like an ostrich’s plumes, their twin outer fronds of a more complex design: the tip was black, the feathers near the vane a deep russet that bled into an almost banded straw and chestnut. The plumes had yellow notches and were curved like a vase. The effect of these outer framing feathers was to mimic the Grecian musical instrument from which the species had derived its common name.

  ‘Have you seen any creature that possesses such wondrous plumes?’ asked John. ‘Don’t you find it exceedingly dignified?’

  I nodded, lost for words, the fingers of my right hand reaching to feel the velvety, chocolate-coloured down feathers of the hen.

  Both specimens, said John, had presented the usual taxidermy challenges, in that the shot that killed the animals had torn holes in their skins that had to be repaired with needle and thread. John had gone carefully around the eye rings, which were delicate and, having been in alcohol for so long, softer than those on a fresh specimen.

  ‘Well, husband, once again you’ve succeeded in your alchemy of transformation,’ I said, at last finding my voice. ‘I’ll make you proud with my drawing.’