The Conjurer's Bird

by Martin Davies

  She noticed their hesitation even though she had become accustomed to it. It was something that had become automatic to the people of Revesby. This time she saw that if they wished to reach the village, they had no option but to continue toward her, and she felt a growing coldness inside as she prepared for the encounter. Ten yards before she came up with them she fixed her eyes on the trees ahead. She would not leave the path; she knew they would. There could be no collision, as a collision was something they could not ignore. She heard the rustle of skirts as the two women stepped from the path and began to point out an object in the distance. Knowing that her way was clear, she continued unchecked as she had done many times before. But this time as she drew level, in the rarest of lapses, she allowed her eyes to flicker from the trees to their faces. She saw Miss Taylor’s chin lifted high and her face turned away, but with shock she realized that Miss Banks, like herself, had allowed her gaze to wander. Their eyes met for no more than a second, but before either could react she had passed by and without a word both parties continued on their way.

  It was the first time she had encountered anyone from Revesby Abbey since the news of Banks’s engagement. She found it hard to imagine him amid his family, hard even to imagine him indoors, surrounded by china and the clutter of a drawing room. As she walked toward the woods, she wished their eyes had not met.

  NEITHER OF the other women referred to the meeting as they continued toward the village, although Miss Banks studied the face of her friend carefully, as if to divine what thoughts were unspoken there. After walking the length of Revesby, they came eventually to the house that stood with its shutters closed. The autumn light seemed to accentuate its shabbiness. Together they took in the sight, unafraid of being observed, until Miss Taylor sniffed.

  “How good it will be when Mr. Ponsonby is able to let that house to someone else!”

  This caused the older woman to turn to her, puzzled.

  “Mr. Ponsonby? I had not realized he was the owner.”

  “You have not heard?” It was a state of affairs Miss Taylor seemed eager to remedy. “It falls to Mr. Ponsonby because of the debts he holds. In the months since the incident there has been no money to pay the interest and the house is now all but owned by him. It is only through his goodwill that the family is allowed to remain.”

  “His goodwill? Why should he feel any such thing? The man struck him at his own dinner table.”

  “Mama says it is a truly Christian act, as he seeks no credit for it. Only my father and Mr. Burrows know of it.”

  Sophia seemed thoughtful.

  “And yet is it right that a young woman on her own should be placed so very much in his debt when her father dies? I think, if I were her, it is not a situation I should enjoy.”

  Miss Taylor raised her eyebrows. “Her family is not famous for its principles, and she seems happy enough with the arrangement. We shall find out soon enough—Papa says her father cannot survive many more months. But let us not talk of such ugly things. The hedgerows are so pretty at this time of year, are they not, Sophia?”

  And the two women stepped through the fields, the one chattering, the other unusually silent.

  AFTER THAT day, winter came on quickly. Dr. Taylor called less frequently than before, but he came early one morning in February when the village was still white with frost and there was ice on the path to their door. The cold made ordinary things look different, and the doctor found himself noticing the footprints of birds on the pathway and a frozen spiderweb, partly broken now, hanging uncleared across one window.

  Inside he found the house cold, the fires small and newly lit. In the hallway, where he laid his hat and gloves, he could see his breath in short white bursts in front of his face. He found that only the sickroom was truly warm, and he could tell by the ash that the fire there had been tended through the night. His patient had, month by month, confounded the doctor’s expectations, but today he saw at once that it could not be very much longer. For many months his visits had been for the sake of the daughter, not the father.

  “What will you do?” he asked quietly, his examination complete. “It will be soon now.”

  “I will not think of it,” she said. “I won’t think him gone.” She reached out and took her father’s hand.

  The doctor nodded but after a short silence he spoke again. “I have only a few connections, but I know of someone…a family…children to teach…”

  She looked up. “You know what is said of me. They could not take me. They simply could not.” It was spoken quietly, without emotion.

  The doctor nodded again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, although what aspect of the world he was regretting he did not say.

  On his way out, the nurse, Martha, detained him at the front door with a hand on his arm and a gesture in the direction of the kitchen.

  “I can borrow no more in the village on her father’s name,” she said softly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and hesitated. He was not a wealthy man and he had a family of his own. But he would not have her bury her father for want of food. And surely it could only be a few days more. “Then you must borrow on my name,” he told her, and stepped outside into the frozen morning.

  THAT NIGHT she sat in the dark of her room and thought of the question the doctor had posed. She had opened the shutters and could feel the cold pressing in on her from the window. Beyond the glass, a half moon lit the meadow but left the great stand of trees in darkness. The grass was already sparkling with frost. She shivered and pulled her shawl closer to her neck. She knew there was only one answer to the doctor’s question, one that many would think she was lucky to have. It didn’t seem to matter to her so much now, as she sat there alone in the night with everything coming to an end.

  For a moment she thought of Joseph Banks sailing through a southern summer and she was happy to think of it, happy that unlike her he was not straitjacketed by the cold and cramped by the long hours of darkness. And with the loss of her father now so close and so real, she found herself for the first time glad of Banks’s engagement, glad he had found his happiness. It was then, as she looked out over the dark trees, that she understood the gift her father had given her by clinging so tenaciously to life. He had given her time. Time before their world fell apart for her to enjoy the woods and the summer; time to love a little; time to understand her loss so that the great, empty ache she would feel on his death was one she had already learned how to carry.

  WINTER IN Lincolnshire was very far from Banks’s mind. Among the smiling brown people of the southern seas he had found a new side to himself and a new value. Where others of the crew saw strangeness and barbarity, he saw only men and women. And where the islanders found in Cook’s officers an unnatural rigidity, they saw in Banks an openness of heart that they recognized as something of themselves. Without ever underestimating the differences in education and experience, Banks soon realized that quickness of thought was not confined to the white faces around him, that the crew of the Endeavour had no monopoly on honor and strength of character. Fascinated and delighted, he gave himself wholeheartedly to these people so different from him and so similar.

  And as well as the people he encountered, there was a strange new world of jungle and reef to entrance him. He never tired of watching the light change on the water and marveling at the colors and the sounds of the islands. The botanist in him was overwhelmed by the variety and abundance that crowded in on him. His collection of birds and plants and animals grew and grew until he began to realize that he had in his possession something unique and unprecedented.

  He never told her of the night in Otaheite when she came so strongly into his thoughts. There had been a feast and dancing and he had been at the center of both, laughing and shouting and clapping hands with every person there. Then as he paused for breath he caught a glimpse through the palms of moonlight on the sea and without a thought he slipped away to the water’s edge. There he stood for a while, strangely
detached from the noise behind him, suddenly aware of the night sounds: the wind in the trees, insect song, waves very far away breaking on rocks or a reef. And as he stood and absorbed the beauty of the place, he found himself suddenly filled with an overwhelming sadness, an aching melancholy that flooded out of him until it seemed to fill the night.

  At first he didn’t understand. But as he waited in the shadow of the trees, he began to realize it was the moment itself he was grieving for, that whispering moonlit night that could never be his to keep. No matter how many birds and plants he gathered together in the hold of the Endeavour, he could never take back with him the perfection of that moment in that place. And it was then he thought of her and her drawing, and he knew that if she had been there, then this was the place he would have found her: curled by the shore, quietly storing away every nuance of the night.

  AS IF TO make up for the long summer, the winter held on in Revesby until March was almost gone. Lent came in with streams still frozen and the ground too hard to dig, and she waited tight-lipped for spring to lift the siege. Her father’s breathing was quiet now, but each breath was painfully fought for. She became determined that he should feel one last spring. As she cleaned him she would talk of the coming thaw, painting warm, bright pictures, as if her words could breathe into him the need to be alive. When she had finished washing him she would walk to the window and peep out at the dark skies and the trees still not in bud.

  However, the first death in Revesby that year was not the one most expected. At the end of March, Dr. Taylor died, outlived by the man he had paid to keep alive. The village was stricken by its loss and the funeral was attended by mourners from five parishes. She sat at home and grieved by the bedside where he had so often sat. The shock of his death brought a new dimension to her loneliness.

  Martha looked at the pinched face of her patient and the ice on the windows and decided to stay. There was food in the larder now to last until spring, and time then to see what could be done. Preoccupied by loss, her mistress thanked her with her eyes but said very little. She had begun to worry where the money would come from for the next funeral.

  IN LONDON, Harriet Blosset was also waiting. In the first months of Banks’s absence she wore her situation like a mourning gown. At balls and dances she was fetching in her desolation and prettier than ever in all that it said and meant. She spent her days stitching him a great many waistcoats, but she found she was no Penelope, and as the season progressed she proved too pretty a widow to remain in black forever. No one she danced with was quite like Banks, she told herself, but they were pressing and charming and a great deal closer. She began to suffer in her own way, a way no less painful for its being particular to her. As month followed month she was learning for herself about time and how to measure it. On the day when her closest friend’s betrothal was announced, she waited until she was alone and then she wept.

  AND IN Revesby perhaps the dying man had listened to his daughter’s exhortations. There were yellow crocuses outside his front door on the night when she woke at his bedside and found him gone.

  It took me forty minutes to cancel three days’ worth of university appointments and another twenty to get my bike tuned up, ready for a journey. I was back in the kitchen boiling the kettle when Katya came in. I intercepted her in the hallway, then made her a cup of tea before I pushed the envelope over to her. She opened it cautiously, not sure if it was good news or bad.

  There were two photocopied sheets. The first showed the front of an envelope, grainily copied, the George V stamp clear, the postmark smudged and illegible. But the strong, sloping handwriting was easy to read.

  Miss Martha Ainsby,

  The Old Manor,

  Stamford,

  Lincs

  The second sheet was a copy of a letter written in the same sloping hand.

  The Savoy Hotel,

  17th January 1915

  My dear Martha,

  Colonel Winstanley was as good as his word and here I am in London. Sadly the arrangements were hasty and there was no time to write and warn you, still less time to visit. I have been here little more than eight hours but the papers are delivered to General Winters and at dawn tomorrow I set off to rejoin the regiment.

  Your letter followed me around France and only caught up with me two days ago. What sad news! The old man was a great character and a good friend to us both. I’m glad the end was peaceful. He deserved as much.

  It was great quick thinking to secure that precious bird of his. You know how I have always coveted it. Even without the connections to Cook and Banks, even without its subsequent history, it would still be the most remarkable and romantic object imaginable.

  When I’m able to return for a proper visit, you and I shall record all its details and write to the Natural History Museum. It’s only fair they are made aware of the survival of a specimen unique to science. Until then, guard it with your life—I don’t want to return and find that young Vulpes of yours has snatched it from my grasp!

  This brief glimpse of London has done me a power of good. My spirits are high and I’m certain this job will be all done shortly so I can return to your side.

  Until then, remember me to everyone,

  Your loving brother,

  John

  When Katya had finished reading we looked at each other across the table. She was sitting quite still but I could feel her suspense.

  “The Ulieta bird,” she said quietly. “That’s what he’s writing about, isn’t it?” Her whole face asked the question.

  “It could be.”

  She made a little impatient face and looked down at the letter.

  “What do you mean, it could be? A specimen unique to science—connected to Cook, to Banks—It must be.”

  “No, it just could be. And this letter could be the one that has got Anderson so excited. He’d be crazy to look for a stuffed bird that hasn’t been seen for two hundred years, but a specimen that was safe and sound eighty years ago…”

  “Then it can be found!” She clutched my arm. “It means we’ve got as much chance as he has!”

  I held up my hand. I wanted to keep things under some sort of control.

  “Wait a minute, a lot has happened since 1914. The Blitz, death duties, an awful lot of rising damp. We can’t be certain of anything.”

  “But if it was still in one piece back then…”

  “Yes, if it survived till then, there’s a chance it might still be around. Anderson obviously thinks so. But if this is Anderson’s big clue, who sent it to us? I can’t imagine Anderson dropping it in just to make sure he doesn’t have an unsporting advantage.”

  Katya was still holding the photocopied sheets in front of her, as if they could ward off my doubts. “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Who else knew about it?”

  I immediately thought of Gabby. She’d promised to pass on anything she found, and it looked as though she was keeping her word. By now she’d be somewhere in Germany, but her raincoat was still behind my door. I reached over and took the papers out of Katya’s hands.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “That’s easy,” I told her. “I’m going to Stamford to find out if these are real.”

  “Very good,” she replied brightly. “I’m coming, too.”

  We set out the next morning. Now that there were two of us traveling, I had to leave the bike, but Geoff, from the Hammer and Sickle pub, had a car I often borrowed—a small, rusty object the color of a fading lemon. We packed a bag each while it was still dark and then we were off, nosing out into the London traffic just as the rush hour began.

  It was a slow journey, but we were childishly elated. The rain made it hard to see anything, and the pained creaking of the windscreen wipers meant we had to shout to be heard. Inside the car, the radio didn’t work and the heating only did enough to stop the windows from steaming up. On the outskirts of London we gave in, pulled over, and put on our coats. Katya’s was long and black, with
a collar turned up around her face. Mine was old and tatty and made me look quite a lot like an extra from Doctor Zhivago. Under the coat, inside me, there was a little pulse of optimism that refused to be dampened. What if that bird had survived all this time? It might have. It just might. Coming suddenly to a stretch of open road, I plunged my foot down and the speedometer crept very slowly up to sixty-five.

  Outside London the rain began to ease, and when I turned off the wipers the noise of the car settled to a low growl.

  “You know this is crazy, don’t you?” I asked her, my voice still a little raised.

  “Of course.” She nodded with a smile. “But it feels good, setting off in search of something.”

  I smiled, partly at her, partly at the road ahead of me. “That’s what I always used to say to people. I spent six years in the rain forest, looking for things.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  “Birds, plants. Connections. It was a genetic impulse. My grandfather was the same. And my father. Do you know, they both have beetles named after them? How could I possibly follow that?”

  I laughed and Katya laughed with me.

  “So what did you discover?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing much. When I was twenty-five I published a paper that showed how a certain species of tree frog was being badly affected by logging operations three hundred miles upstream. It was quite big news at the time—well, big news if you were into that sort of thing. I did some lectures about it. The thing is, they carried on logging anyway. When I next went back there were no frogs left.”

  Katya looked at me for a moment, not sure of my tone. “But still, you’d done good work, hadn’t you?”