Birdman's Wife

by Melissa Ashley

  There was one part of the story that I had concealed from the professor. I had asked Miss Overland if she could take me to the morgue to observe a corpse, and she had regarded me as if I had two heads. ‘Do you have any idea of the trouble it caused me to bring you here today?’ It was then I discovered that in granting Miss Overland a membership ticket, the academy had bent its rules to appease her father. My admission for a drawing lesson was highly irregular. Sneaking me into the city morgue was out of the question. ‘Women aren’t welcome,’ Miss Overland explained. ‘At least, not as students and teachers. Only as subjects or victims. So, unless you plan to donate your body to science for the likes of those young gentlemen to gaze on, I suggest you accustom yourself to landscapes and botanical subject matter.’

  I watched Professor Owen’s hands as he carved the roast, recalling my frustration and disappointment. Perhaps the professor was right. By using my own methods I had managed to bend circumstances to my advantage. After all, I was now a celebrated zoological illustrator. Not just a wife and mother confined to her domestic quarters. What pride Professor Owen’s compliments opened in me. That he of all men should recognise my achievements.

  I pictured the anatomist at work, dissecting. As with John’s specimen descriptions, there was an art to the professor’s science. My husband would see a pouch, an eye-fold, an extra toe, which he related immediately to a question of function. What might this oversized bill, these thick thigh muscles, these excessively scaly feet, be in aid of? This was accompanied by observing the creature in its natural environment; by studying it at work and play, or indeed imagining it. What materials did it use to make its nest? How did it pluck worms from the ground, with what sort of eyes did it look upon its prey, its young, its mate? How fast did it run, how slowly did it fly or dive or swim? Where John made sense by comparing traits and behaviours across species and genera, Professor Owen moved beyond the creature’s morphological qualities to dissect and disassemble its interior tissue. Where my husband reconstructed and repaired, the professor stripped back to what lay beneath.

  Professor Owen possessed the knowledge of interpreting the connections within a bundle of sinew and bones. He gave names to tendons and muscles, ligaments and nerves. He catalogued, divided and examined, organising and describing the body’s functions and processes, the structures and systems that kept the machinery turning: organs and blood vessels, the system of nerves and lymph nodes, the spongy brain and the contraction and relaxation of the muscles. He was a scribe, his life’s work the translation of the book of the body. I smiled at the plate I was handed. The roast meat was arranged in thin, neat slices, nearly fine enough to be placed on glass slides and fitted beneath the lens of a microscope.

  Beside me, John and his dinner companions had settled into an ongoing debate in zoological circles: the classification of exotic species and genera in collections. The ornithologist and systematist Mr Hugh Strickland was involved in what I could only imagine was a tedious project of comparing the names of species across the European languages. I listened to John complain to Dr Eyton that the systematist had recommended he make of his Australian taxonomy a similarly excruciating inventory. There was every possibility that some of the interesting creatures that we had transported to England had been described by science in the fifty-year period prior to our expedition but had then been forgotten, obscured in a neglected catalogue in an ageing ornithomaniac’s dusty library. Without such a survey, Mr Strickland had written to John, the task of setting out Australia’s ornithological catalogue risked unnecessarily multiplying the identities attributed to her unique tribes.

  ‘I’ll be interested to hear what you find in the annals,’ said Professor Owen. ‘And I don’t envy your task. Forty years ago in his A General Synopsis of Birds, Dr Latham described and classified several Australian species from rough sketches and journal entries made by explorers – men who possessed little, if any, knowledge of our discipline.’

  ‘The vocation of classifying species is infinitely pleasing,’ said Dr Eyton, smiling warily.

  My husband and his colleagues dreamed that someday all of the animals in the compendium of nature would be fitted with their ideal and proper names, denoting the genera to which they belonged and the species that singled them out as unique. The trick was to find a robust feature – be it a breeding behaviour, a matter of appearance, an unusual ability or habit – and embed this quality in the scientific name, making it easier to identify and recall.

  ‘Particularly when the creature eludes all systematisation,’ said the conchologist, Mr Cuming.

  ‘Ah, the best part of all,’ said John.

  ‘We have come a long way,’ said Mr Cuming. ‘Our men of science once considered the behaviours and morphology of creatures they could not comprehend as signs of God’s playful side. The scorings inside the lip of a seashell were undiscovered languages; the pattern of crosses on slices of fruit placed under a microscope confirmed our Lord’s omnipotence. Utterly mysterious objects like fossilised ferns and fish were little gifts, moulded to aid a man in contemplating our Creator’s wonder.’

  ‘How poetic!’ I exclaimed, delighted by such imaginings.

  ‘We must keep in mind that our task of classification is never complete,’ said Dr Eyton. ‘The listing of attributes, comparing typical and atypical features, anomalies that fit nowhere, is ongoing. Though one aspires to a tidy ordering, in reality our collections are forever in need of tweaking.’

  ‘You need not remind me,’ said Mr Cuming.

  ‘The last quarter of a century has been an extraordinary period for the development of ornithology,’ said John. ‘And yet we have much further to go. Our current taxonomic models do not adequately provide for the avian arrangements of Australia. The continent is filled with tribes that fail to obey the rules governing Mr Swainson and Mr Vigors’s quinary system. Many of the continent’s species bear no relation whatsoever to European families. For instance, the mound builders such as the brush turkey, the satin birds and the enchanting lyrebird. Despite devoting countless hours to describing the lyrebird species, I continue to be undecided about the order to which it belongs.’ John sighed.

  ‘According to my observations,’ interjected Professor Owen, who had dissected two lyrebird specimens for John, ‘our lovely menura is not related to the pheasant, nor to the paradise family. Indeed, I’m wondering if it might be most singularly aligned with the tribe of passerines.’

  ‘Aha,’ said John, delivering a sliver of pheasant into his mouth, nodding with pleasure. He rested his fork across his plate. ‘There is the creature’s extraordinary ability at mimicry, which I had the pleasure to listen to. Perhaps therein hides the clue to its classification. You’ve given me food for thought. I must say, my quibbles don’t conclude with the lyrebird. I’m beginning to attend my South Australian collection, which includes sixteen specimens peculiar to the area. I discovered several new species and genera, including the purple-gaped honeyeater – a rather pretty sort and, dare I suggest, an entirely new family.’

  At this Dr Eyton’s eyes widened, and he appeared to have trouble swallowing. Discovering a new family was a significant achievement indeed.

  ‘Elizabeth is attempting to figure it, the collared plains wanderer. I have but two skins of this peculiar creature. We failed to collect its nest, its eggs, or to obtain a male specimen. It’s the oddest little bird, solitary in nature, secreting itself among the scanty herbage of the plains it inhabits. At all costs, it avoids flying, preferring to run on its long legs, which give it the appearance of a diminutive bustard. When standing, it resembles the much larger, flightless emu. It even produces a similar drum-like call in its chest, though at a fainter volume. Presently, I’ve classified it with the quails, though I cannot be satisfied due to its hind toe. All in all, he’s quite a puzzling chap.’

  I could not agree more. I had much difficulty depicting the collared plains wanderer, with its fixed stare and strange feet, its long neck and wader’s bill.
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  The conversation moved on to a play visiting the Royal Theatre from Moscow, the gas inventions of Mr Davey, a new monograph published by Wordsworth, a hot-air balloon festival underway in France and a gorilla, a species of ape bigger than a man, discovered in Eastern Africa. There was much spirited talk of invention, scientific gossip and endless exclamations at the extraordinary courses served. Between each delicacy we refreshed our palates with lemon sorbet and wine. We ate savoury pastries arranged like a flotilla of geese on a silver tray, and to conclude our feast we were each presented with a meringue shaped to resemble a tiny satin bird’s bower. After champagne and brandy, dancing, many compliments and much more chatter, we finally said our goodbyes.

  John led me from the dining hall towards the society’s back exit, the lamps affixed to the long, dim corridor burning low.

  ‘Goodness,’ I said, ‘whatever is this?’

  ‘Welcome to the society’s private museum.’ John smiled.

  Shelves were built into the walls to house a visual celebration of nature’s mistakes, extravagances and abominations. I peered at the glass-protected cabinets, unable to turn away. Inside glass bottles filled with alcohol the colour of pickling water were severed heads showing an extra eye, deformed palates, noses that cleaved towards heaven, appendages covered in thick hair, limbs with excess fingers, faces lacking nostrils and eyelids, limbs without skin or nerves, animals joined at the hip, two-headed voles and cyclopean sheep. There were things with six legs and three eyes; knots of flesh, cysts and lumps, boils and growths, tumours, cancers, all manner of abnormalities. Bits floated – a patch of hair lifted off the skin, a nail, a fleck of grit, a bug or louse from the animal’s intestine – clouding the liquid. Each display was carefully labelled: the date of collection, the species of animal represented, the class of injury or deformity.

  ‘I hope the carriage is waiting.’ I shuddered, unable to fathom why my husband had dragged me through such a display.

  ‘Come,’ said John, taking my hand.

  It was an immense relief to step from the cloistered corridor and into the cool night. The string of burning lamps and the near-deserted streets soothed me.

  Home at last, I removed my gloves and cloak, glancing up at my portrait, which now hung inside the entryway, giving visitors to our home an indelible first impression. It was a calling card to draw in subscribers, a more subtle pressure to invest in The Birds of Australia than that applied by John’s well-rehearsed arts of persuasion. Gazing at my image was like encountering a stranger. I recalled Professor Owen’s compliment that I had found my calling. But the Eliza who comported herself with elegance and poise, the Eliza of dinner parties and publication launches was not the same woman who now swayed with fatigue on the Turkish carpet, puff-ankled, her cheeks a rude red. How was I to reconcile the two?

  ‘Are you proud of me?’ I asked John, suddenly feeling a need for reassurance.

  ‘I’m immensely proud, Eliza. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I am worn out, I suppose.’ I rested my head against his chest.

  ‘Come now,’ he said, drawing me into his arms, ‘I have you. Shall we go upstairs?’

  Seated before my dressing mirror, I began removing the first of many pins holding my hair in place.

  ‘You made an excellent impression on the Prince.’ John met my gaze in the glass, the candlelight casting deep shadows under his eyes.

  ‘Thank you. I was so nervous, but then I let myself relax and enjoy the moment. Joanne and Graham saved me. But it wasn’t the company that tested me tonight. It was the assemblage of preserved creatures you showed me.’

  A quiver ran along my insides at the memory. Riding home in the carriage, I had not been able to push the bottled monsters from my thoughts. They haunted me in the same way some bird specimens did when I was overtired and working to a deadline – beaks opening and snapping shut in the restless dark, cold reptilian eyes glaring and wings frantically flapping. Though the horrors of the society’s museum had triggered a different sort of fear.

  ‘You see it every day and probably don’t notice. But it filled me with terror. Do you have any idea what’s written about such things in my woman’s book?’

  ‘Which book?’ John frowned.

  ‘Dr Bull’s Hints to Mothers. You know the one.’

  ‘Ah,’ said John, comprehension dawning. ‘That book.’ He took the brush from my hand and ran it through my hair.

  ‘The very one,’ I said, trying to catch his eye in the mirror.

  John settled his palms on my shoulders and smiled. ‘So it’s true, then? I wondered as much. Congratulations, my darling Eliza. I’m glad for us. How do you feel?’

  ‘I have to confess that I’m apprehensive, if you must know. Those displays of dead things will prey on my dreams tonight. Such sights affect the sensibilities of a woman with child. According to Dr Bull, if I encounter a deformed person, our infant might be born with such an injury. And this evening I had the honour of viewing every misshapen, deformed, half-cooked abomination known to man!’

  John trembled with laughter. ‘But these are the superstitions of the uneducated. They are folk beliefs. How far gone are you?’

  ‘Don’t mock me. It’s still early. I have only just felt the quickening. Have some sympathy. We cannot always be the cold masters of our minds.’

  ‘Enough!’ said John, holding up his hand. ‘You can use this as an experiment to disprove that quack’s theories when our child is born without blight.’ Seeing my face, his voice became tender. ‘I’m so sorry, Eliza. Forgive me for being so dismissive. I should show more concern for your sensitivities.’

  Having won the argument, I felt myself soften. ‘I always do, you dear fool.’

  Chapter 24

  Mistletoebird

  Dicaeum hirundinaceum

  Egham, Surrey 1841

  What does the pelican perceive on its languid flight above the laneway beside the Thames that bends and curves from Windsor Castle all the way to Hampton Court Palace? Though these are human landmarks, how might the fish-driven pelican pick its path? For the animal notices the wicker chair, dug into the alluvial gravel of the riverbank. An airborne trawler, it shifts the hull of its body, the fingers of its wingtips plying wind currents like the oars of a Saxon longboat. And then, suddenly, the pelican banks a slow turn, arcing in a half-circle above the holidaying party making the most of the dawn-lit river.

  The pelican scans the man in his wide-brimmed hat, sideburns curling, the strings that fasten his cotton shirt loose at his chest. The soles of his Wellington boots planted in the pebbly shallows. His cigar smoke drifts to the pussywillow and bulrushes, weaving a pungent spider’s web that quickly disperses. The pelican sees the young boys dressed in similar shirts, the catgut lines a thread of light from their fishing poles down to the river’s surface. The three have undertaken a quest to land the fattest trout this bend of Egham conceals. The pelican observes the wicker basket of tackle, the scaling knives and sinkers, the paper package of barbed hooks, the wooden pail flashing silver baitfish.

  What does the bird make of the feminine arrangement downstream? Of the wicker chair on which a woman, her middle engorged, rests. Her thick dark hair falls in wet snakes around her cotton-clad shoulders. She wears white drawers and a chemise, and shivers as she fights the droplets of water that trickle along her shoulders and dangle like jewels from her earlobes. She has wrapped her arms across her belly, a fleshy shield for the child in her womb.

  Behind the pregnant woman stand two girls. One is dark haired and plump, the other blonde and thin. Halfheartedly they hold up a sheet, screening the waxwing and crossbill, the yellow-browed warbler and whinchat from the scantily outfitted woman. It seems they do not wish to disturb the birds, hunting for worms and beetles, blackberries and grass seeds; nor the voles and rabbits, the buck and doe badgers, the squadron of lazy ducks drifting at the bank’s edge. But the sisters weary of their assignment. Their arms falter under the weight of the sh
eet. The distractions of the shoreline are many: bleached snail shells and leaf skeletons, spiked seed husks, fish bones, crab pincers, shards of pottery, the slow meander of a land tortoise. All compete with the girls’ task of hiding their mother. Tiredness prickles at the masts of their arms, poised in their unnatural uprising.

  A bucketful of water splashed my back, returning me to the materiality of the riverbank. At this late stage of my confinement, I could slip in and out of the present, observing exchanges with my children as if detached from my body. I drifted into a waking trance. I became aware of my skin shrivelling into goosebumps, the hairs on my arms bristling. The shock of cold water was good for my circulation, according to my London accoucheur.

  When I climbed from bed each morning my mouth felt sticky, my eyes thick with sleep. The walls of our holiday cottage were built of lime-washed straw, the dwelling so much smaller than our London home that it seemed flimsy, as if the ceilings were too light and airy. I viewed my reflection in a hand glass: circles beneath my eyes, strands of hair falling from my scalp as I drew the brush through it. Soon, my ordeal would be over. My teeth would stop hurting and I could again enjoy my meals. I would have a new sibling to introduce to my children.

  I heard Daisy coming up behind me and a swish of water. ‘Here comes the next bucket!’ yelled Louisa.

  ‘One, two, three,’ said Lizzie.

  I was a witch, clad in white, enduring a dowsing. I imagined the soft-boiled eggs I would eat at breakfast, the hot coffee I would sip to warm my purpled limbs. My feet, though hidden in socks, were fat and slippery as eels, the shining skin fluid-tight. My lips were blue-rimmed, a sea anemone. Did my accoucheur mean for me to steep like celery in soup stock, the skin of my fingers softened and puckered like scalded tomatoes?

  The water treatment completed, Daisy rubbed me vigorously with a flannel. The girls folded the sheet and placed it further up the bank. Daisy supported my back with one arm, scrubbing with the other hand, coaxing the blood back to the surface. My frozen limbs began to thaw. My hair – like fine sable bristles, detached from its pins – left purple squiggles of cold flesh wherever the ends touched skin: across my forehead, down my upper back and along my arms.