Birdman's Wife

by Melissa Ashley

  ‘We’re all very excited, ma’am,’ said Mr Baker, looking up from his work of whisking preserving liquids together with a wooden stick.

  ‘Did you help with this?’ I asked him.

  ‘A little, ma’am, on the body. But Mr Gould wouldn’t let me near the tail feathers.’

  ‘Of course.’ I smiled.

  ‘No one has ever depicted the female,’ said John. ‘They’re exceedingly shy so I was lucky to obtain one. However, in my week-long wait I didn’t manage to find their nest, nor any samples of their clutches.’

  It was an exciting thought that the hen had never been drawn by an illustrator. As if the beauty of the male overwhelmed any interest in the mundane, domestic aspects of the species as a whole. But that was my husband, who never viewed the more spectacular sex in isolation from its mate. John wished to know the behaviour of the entire family, of the larger tribe, and how each individual’s role played out.

  I congratulated my husband and his team again and excused myself to return to my studio. As I hurried up the stairs, I became aware of the old itch to make marks on a fresh sheet of paper. I could not wait to begin the painstaking task of pencilling and colouring each plume and barb in the cock’s wondrous tail. My husband’s skill in restoring the two bedraggled specimens into such a convincing model gave me a renewed sense of purpose.

  Despite John’s success in recreating the pair of lyrebirds, his research had brought him no closer to discovering the appropriate family in which to classify the species. The taxonomic problem that the Menura novaehollandiae presented served to remind him of the complexity of the task he had set for himself in deciding to organise the tree of Australia’s birdlife. The precious skins we dissected and illustrated provided our most important clues. To John, the body of the lyrebird was a language he deeply wished to study, a mysterious script yet to be translated: the story of mimicry written in the muscular apparatus of the animal’s throat, the tale its large feet whispered while roaming the forest floor, the shy hen’s narrative of camouflaging plumage.

  I put aside the treecreepers to attend to the lyrebirds, sketching the composition in little time, pleased that John accepted my final design without alteration. When the printed plates were returned from Mr Hullmandel’s workshop free of error, I felt my spirits bolstered. I completed not one but two templates: one for the colourists and one to thank our dear printer for his unerring loyalty. We shared similar work ethics, never standing for less than perfection and never allowing a deadline to pass. Mr Hullmandel sent me a card of thanks for the gift, writing that he had mounted it in pride of place in the foyer of his office. Under his signature was scrawled a question, ‘Might you consider the enigmatic lyrebird for the frontispiece to The Birds of Australia?’ The choice of species for the title page drawing was an important consideration, and I thought it an excellent suggestion. I showed the card to John. He grasped my hands and squeezed them hard between his. ‘Of course!’ he said, smiling widely, as if the exemplary species had been staring at us all along. The superb lyrebird, with its magnificent plumes and sparkling voice, would figure as the emblem of our publication.

  Chapter 22

  white-fronted falcon

  Falco frontatus

  Golden Square, london 1840

  Early in December, we received a letter from Edward Lear. In his familiar, elaborate style he wrote of his life in Rome, joking about finding a wife of no more than twenty-eight years who was an adept pudding baker and pencil cutter. I smiled at his detailed requirements. He wrote that he dreamed often of visiting England, primarily to eat beefsteaks and ride the trains. And while on the topic of London, a friend of his, a brilliant young portraitist, was in search of clients. Might I be tempted to sit for the gifted gentleman? Lear was such a dear friend that I could not find it in my heart to refuse. John thought it a grand idea, confessing that he still held regrets at passing up an opportunity to have his own portrait painted for a series on gentlemen of science.

  Daisy accompanied me to my first meeting with Mr Richard Orleigh at his lodgings in Kensington. Waiting in the light snow for the door to be answered, Daisy looked like an uncomplaining Lady Justice balancing her knotted bundles of supplies for the day. In the most important, sandwiches, cake and a bottle of ginger beer for our luncheon, and in the other a novel and a book of verse just in case the mood in the studio waxed tedious. Once indoors, the snowflakes slicked off our cloaks in drips and we had to linger before the parlour fire for some time in order to thaw out.

  ‘Edward’s told me all about you,’ said Mr Orleigh, smiling warmly and beckoning us up a dark-stained staircase. He had set up his studio in what appeared to be the sunniest room in his parents’ townhouse.

  Mr Orleigh suggested we begin by exploring the contents of a large trunk, overflowing with shawls and scarves and shoes for a suitable ensemble for my portrait. I hung back while Daisy and Mr Orleigh dived in, enthusiastically swapping ostrich plumes, masquerade masks and decorative walking canes.

  ‘Do come and see, ma’am,’ said Daisy, encouraging me to join in. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

  So I surrendered myself to playing the centrepiece in their game of adult dress-ups. They coaxed me into trying on a rajah’s orange turban and bejewelled jacket, then a judge’s wig and gown, then a summer dress with a parasol. I donned a wide-brimmed hat and hunting jacket, and Daisy helped me into high-topped boots, then exchanged them for kid-leather slippers. Earrings dangled from my earlobes and pendants on golden ropes flashed at my throat.

  ‘Turn around,’ said Mr Orleigh finally, a cigar clamped in his teeth. I must have tried on a dozen costumes. He swiped a neckcloth from the jumble of fabric and draped it across my shoulder, apparently satisfied with my appearance.

  Pink moccasins peeped like mice from beneath the hem of my amber ball gown. Mr Orleigh moved a basket of roses off the sitter’s chair and, with an authoritative click of his fingers, indicated that I should take a seat. When I flopped onto the cushion and removed my hat, a puff of white escaped my scalp. I could not help but smile at the cause of it. I had been frowning at my dirty hair roots in the mirror that morning, worrying about not having had time to wash it before the sitting, when John surprised me with a solution. Of course it had to be related to birds. Like people, some birds were liable to put on flesh during middle age, but this created a problem when stuffing them because the fatty deposits from their open abdomens smeared the pale belly feathers. He and his team had come up with the perfect antidote: sprinkles of kitchen flour were applied to soak up the fat and avoid a stain.

  ‘I’m no bird,’ I had protested. But when Daisy arrived to help me dress, I sent her to speak with Bessie. After applying a light dose of the kitchen’s powdery donation, my hair regained its life. Daisy arranged ringlets to frame my face, piling the remainder of my hair into two lobes and pinning them to my crown so that, from a certain angle, it seemed a giant butterfly had settled there. The style was a little elaborate for my tastes, but it was not every day that I had my portrait painted.

  Mr Orleigh asked me to pose with my face towards him, my torso facing the window. I glanced over at Daisy, who gave me a small nod of encouragement.

  Lear’s friend worked quickly with his pencils and was not shy of asking me to alter positions, having me straighten my neck, like so, and arch my shoulders. Once he rushed over and jabbed a paintbrush into my hair to keep a ringlet in its place.

  When Daisy and I made ready to leave, he offered us a glimpse of the preliminary drawing. My head was tilted to the left and my shoulders almost bare. My eyes looked away from the viewer and my lips were pursed. Though I had tried on many jewels in our dress-ups, I was sketched without adornment. The bodice of my borrowed gown with its elaborately pleated satin folds showed only the most rudimentary of details. Portraiture was a mystery to me, and I looked forward to observing Mr Orleigh as he worked up his sketch, creating the finer details of my features. From what I could see, he was as talented as Lear had said.<
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  While I was getting acquainted with my portraitist, John was preparing a presentation for the Zoological Society and needed a drawing of the white-fronted falcon, an Australian raptor, to illustrate his talk. The taxidermied mount on my desk bared its claws, moments from snatching the body of a small marsupial. I felt strangely attached to the specimen, which we had collected en route to Yarrundi. We had stopped for lunch, blankets were unrolled, the water boiled, and salted meat, hard biscuits and fresh apples from Sydney were being passed around. Then I saw a flare at the edge of my eye. I touched John’s elbow, and before there was time for regret, his hand grasped the stock of his musket. The falcon hovered above a grassy field, preparing to strike.

  Usually when I joined John’s collecting expeditions, I was the last in the party to spot anything of note. I had been trained for close indoor work, controlled light and absolute stillness. But during our coach journey from Maitland to Dart Mouth, I became aware of the sharpening of my senses. I enjoyed the hazy play of light and shadow gathered around the edges of eucalypt leaves, the ashy corolla that shimmered in the afternoon or early morning, an effect of its oil-rich leaves. Somehow I managed to reach my own state of attentive awareness, conducive to spotting potential specimens in the wild. I was alert to the smallest of movements – a quiver at the tip of an ear of grass, a twirl of falling leaf, a flash behind a grouping of cloud, a bird-shaped object perched on a protuberant branch.

  Without a whisper of fuss, John brought the falcon down. He showed it to me later, cotton dabbed on the shoulder wound. It had been a poor shot, the wing just grazed, the bird dying of fright soon after it fell. Benstead wrapped the body in flax and stowed it in one of the canisters he kept with him, sprinkling arsenic around the seal to keep the ants away. While I was glad to have added such a prize to our collection, I could not help but feel a terrible guilt at initiating the bird’s demise. With the preserved skin brought into my studio for a likeness, I was all too aware of my duty to make a faithful representation. We had taken its life, so I had best ensure that the exchange was not in vain, that at the very least the splendid animal would live on in my drawing.

  To help with colour selection, John had given me his form descriptions, written on a scrap of notepaper jammed under the mount: back and shoulders bluish horn; belly margined with buff; cere tinged green; irides sienna yellow; crown ash grey; mandible smoke grey. He added a note that if it were not so rare, the species would be ideal for training a lady falconer. His thought pleased rather than irked me, as when he included in his notes the taste of a particular animal’s flesh. Falco, Latin for sickle, referred to the shape of the family’s talons, with which it captured and killed its prey. Working with raptors, I had learned to recognise their feet – powerful, with long, thick claws. Instantly identifiable, too, was the reptilian skin of the legs, composed of a mosaic of tiny scales. Rather than work up the falcon’s proportions, I began my study by making a detail of the talon’s grip, taking care with my technique to record the long middle toe, deployed to keep a firm hold of dinner during the lengthy flight to its nest.

  Although John intended the drawing initially for the gentlemen of the Zoological Society, I needed to create a pose that could be reused for a lithographic plate. We did not have the time to duplicate designs. It was important to keep in mind the necessities of zoological illustration, making sure that I always emphasised the distinguishing features to allow for precise identification.

  The pose I wished to present the falcon in was yet to crystallise. In search of inspiration, I went to the bookshelf and scanned the spines of our collections of pictorial specimens. I removed Dr Latham’s volume of early colonial illustrations – copied, as was his habit while compiling the many editions of A General Synopsis of Birds, from the drawings of colonists from every walk of life: soldiers, convicts, surgeons and professional painters. As I opened the journal, a note drifted out, landing on the floor. It was an etching of a woman, her elbow resting on a table, a pencil in one hand, a piece of paper in the other. To her right was a white cockatoo, its feet grasping a perch. Her hair curled to her shoulders, framing a beautiful gown, cinched at the waist with a low bodice. I turned the paper over and read the inscription, ‘S. Stone’. It could be none other than the watercolour painter Sarah Stone, I realised. Miss Stone had illustrated parts of surgeon John White’s First Fleet Journal, one of my husband’s primary references, and during my apprenticeship in painting Australian species, she had often entered my thoughts. How had Miss Stone felt, being one of the first people from England to encounter the newly established penal colony’s natural treasures? What thoughts did she have, casting her eyes over those poorly preserved specimens: the black cockatoo, the rainbow lorikeet, the swift and king parrots? Miss Stone’s owlet nightjar and blue wren plates were as familiar to me as my own lithographs. I had passed many a pleasant hour poring over her compositions for clues to create my own perches and designs.

  My discovery had me recall a portrait of the entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian on the frontispiece of her folio Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. This portrait had been made later in life, her face hollowed with age. She was pictured with objects symbolising her achievements: a globe on a pile of books, two framed prints of shells and flowers, and a butterfly flying about a thick-leafed plant she had brought back from Suriname to Europe. She wore a corseted bodice and yards of impractically arranged fabric, a style typical of the era.

  I thought of Mr Orleigh’s sketch. My predecessors were presented with authority – surely my own likeness warranted a reflection, however small, of my occupation as an artist who specialised in birds?

  Latham’s illustrations, produced in his home by his untrained wife and daughters, showed the awkwardness of the amateur, making no impression on my imagination. I returned the volume to the shelf and indulged my weakness for myths and wives’ tales by paging through Gesner’s almanac. Turning to the entry about raptors, I read that the species possessed the ability to rejuvenate. There was a story about an ageing falcon who placed herself in the light of the sun’s rays, waiting until her feathers caught fire. She then plunged into the ocean, causing her plumage to smoulder and blacken. After a time she rose from the water, clothed in bright new feathers and stronger than ever before.

  Gesner’s tale brought me comfort. Despite my esteem for the purity of scientific observation, I had to confess that I was more readily enchanted by the beliefs of unenlightened men. The richness of the almanac’s collection of stories, symbols, emblems and recipes, all jumbled together, acted on my imagination like a door thrown open.

  En route to my next appointment with Mr Orleigh, I was to deliver a suite of templates to Mr Jacob Banfield, the gentleman who made hand-coloured copies of my lithographs. The watercolour templates of the helmeted frigatebird, the grey falcon, the square-tailed kite and the blue-faced honeyeater, three of which were new species, were ready for his team of copyists. I provided colour keys for the pigments I had mixed, ensuring that the application of the washes and fixes, highlights and tints were correct.

  We had secured 150 subscribers for The Birds of Australia. A week after arriving home, John advertised the prospectus in The Times. Less than three months later we had completed the lithographs for Part One, producing a finished hand-coloured plate – sketched, designed, composed, fine-drawn, transferred onto stone, printed and coloured as a template – at the rate of one per week. I was not altogether sure how I had met my husband’s and the printer’s deadlines but, as always, somehow I managed. Included in Part One were several curious species: the chestnut-backed quail thrush, the red-backed kingfisher and the Mallee fowl. It was our hope that the illustrations of these exotic subjects would whet the appetites of future subscribers.

  When we arrived at Mr Banfield’s residence there was no one home. Anxious that the precious templates should not be damaged, I decided to take them with me to my portrait sitting. Immediately curious about the bundles I had ferried into his studio, whe
n Mr Orleigh discovered that they contained my artwork he insisted on an inspection. ‘I must know more about you, Mrs Gould, and what better way than through your work?’

  Like my husband, Mr Orleigh could be extremely persuasive. But I was secretly pleased to gain the artist’s attention and easily overcame my reluctance. My works could be counted on to impress, and I was not immune to flattery.

  My portraitist clucked over the blue-faced honeyeater, with its jewel-studded cheek, thinking it an oddly designed species indeed. I explained that the pigment we used was made from grinding the copper ore found in an African stone. His curiosity satisfied, Mr Orleigh helped me to repackage the prints. Later, when I had taken my place in the posing chair, I glanced up to find my portraitist wearing a puzzled expression.

  ‘Whatever is it, Mr Orleigh?’

  ‘It appears I need to begin again.’

  To my relief, Mr Orleigh suggested representing me with an object that reflected ‘our profession’ in symbolic form. Those playful words transformed my spirits instantaneously. His recognition of my occupation became an invitation to confess my admiration for the portraits of Sarah Stone and Maria Sibylla Merian. I did my best to describe the symbols and tropes in each picture. Mr Orleigh loosened his cravat. Of Miss Stone he had heard not a jot; Merian’s composition was centuries out of date and would not do. Enflamed with purpose, my portraitist clipped a fresh cigar. He commanded me to move to the western corner of the studio, where the light fell more intensely against the curtains he had set up. He draped a swatch of orange fabric under my chin and held his paintbrush vertically along the line of my nose, nodding to himself.

  Back in my Golden Square studio I was kept from idleness by transferring designs of the raptor tribe onto stone. After such a punishing schedule, I counted down the days until I could exchange my workwoman’s twill for the amber ball gown Mr Orleigh had allowed me to borrow, and to submit to Daisy’s slow combing and pinning of my hair. Overflowing with curiosities, Mr Orleigh’s studio gave me permission to forget, if only for an afternoon, that there were such creatures in the world as birds. I even anticipated the entrance of Mr Orleigh’s servant, an elderly man dressed in a frayed Chinese jacket who bowed too deeply and lingered too long as he served our tepid tea and soggy lettuce sandwiches. As the season softened into spring, I relished my time lounging on the posing chaise, my head tilted towards the window, dreaming of all manner of things that had nothing to do with my daily routine. Daisy petted the household’s blue-eyed Persian cat while Mr Orleigh chatted of his intentions to travel to the continent or an up-and-coming gallery exhibition.