by Marele Day
‘Then the whole world would be able to read them,’ James pointed out in his practical manner. Elizabeth knew that her husband gazed at the stars with a more scientific and navigational frame of mind, but they were still the same stars that she saw.
She looked into the great canopy of night and found the smatter of the Milky Way. So many stars, visible and invisible. There must be thousands and thousands of them. She pinpointed a small star at the edge of the formation, winking brightly. She named it Joseph, his eternal soul shining in God’s firmament.
Elizabeth stood there gazing at the night sky, at the little star of Joseph, one amongst so many. She imagined James, too, gazing at this sky, recalled her thought about beaming messages. In her mind she joined up stars to form words, making of them a letter to her husband.
‘My dearest James,’ she began. ‘Little Joseph survived but a month in this world but he will be a part of our family for as long as his star shines. I feel as if a limb has been severed. Although scar tissue has folded over the rupture it still aches in the place the limb should be. I now know the measure of grief at losing one who is our own flesh and blood. It is exactly equal to the love a mother feels for her newborn and that love is immense. How I wished for you to be with me during that terrible time, for you to be with me now. During the day your unseen presence is my constant companion and at night I sleep in the curve of your body. In my dreams you are so real that I can taste you, feel you so much that I am sure they are visitations not dreams, that the stars upon which I write this letter have guided you back to me.’
THE TELESCOPE
Elizabeth and Frances were taking great pains to prepare a supper that appeared as if no pains had been taken at all. Frances had suggested toasted cheese but Elizabeth pointed out that it would entail careful supervision at the fire right at the moment of eating, and if Frances wanted to look her best, that would not do. They had decided instead on individual pigeon pies, along with cheese and bread, and coffee. Apples from the tree in the back garden, and a few precious spears of asparagus that Elizabeth had succeeded in growing.
When James was in Newfoundland Elizabeth made sure there was always garden produce waiting for him when he returned. She buried carrots in sand to keep them fresh, and stored apples high up in a basket on top of their bed, which gave a pleasant aroma to the room. Hens inhabited the garden too and Elizabeth had a way of keeping eggs for two or three months by dipping them in boiling water for twenty seconds then packing them away in sawdust.
As well as the neighbours, a Mr Lieber was coming to the transit of Venus party. There had been frequent letters delivered by the penny post, with Frances rushing to the door whenever she heard the bell. When Frances took Jamie and Nat for walks along the green and played cricket with them, ‘a man’, as the boys described him, always seemed to be there too. Eventually Frances had sought permission to invite Mr Lieber to the house.
Elizabeth had asked Mama to come for this special evening but despite all her entreaties, Mama would not leave Shadwell. Mr Blackburn had passed away a few months before the transit, and Elizabeth regretted so much. Regretted glaring at him when she was a child, not extending more Christian love to him. She regretted that the children had lost their grandpapa. Most of all, she regretted what was happening to Mama. She seemed to love Mr Blackburn more in death than she ever had in life, and was drinking enough for both of them. Sprawled out along the sofa, the site of many memories, she resembled the woman on the steps in Hogarth’s Gin Lane: hair unkempt, stockings that needed darning, grinning benignly as her baby toppled to the ground. Elizabeth felt like that baby, understood the dismay, even horror, on its face, the baby’s hands reaching out as it toppled but finding nothing to hold on to. The only strength left in Mama was her determination to keep drinking.
Elizabeth kneaded the dough for the pies. She was not going to let dark clouds spoil the evening. She wondered if James was observing the transit at this very minute. His last letter had been from Rio de Janeiro. The people had taken to the sauerkraut so well that James had had to ration it. Not one life had been lost to scurvy. But he had met his first real challenge of the voyage, and it had come not from the men or the natives, or even the sea, but from the Portuguese officials.
When Elizabeth heard the name Rio she saw a big mountain shaped like a loaf of sugar behind a city that stretched into heat haze. Ornate Catholic churches, Benedictine convents, and statues of the Virgin on every street corner. Men with moustaches and pointy beards and ladies gliding along, their faces shrouded in black lace mantillas. She saw Portuguese, natives, Negro slaves, creoles. Black boys carried baskets of lemons yellow as plump pointy suns, bristling pineapples and curves of bananas. The markets were full of coffee beans, sugar, dark blue indigo and bright red pimiento.
Elizabeth pictured James, in full dress uniform, walking those streets, stopping at the markets, smelling the rich aroma of coffee, the fragrance of lemons, but he wrote none of these things. ‘You want a silk purse, and when it comes to writing, I am a sow’s ear,’ he’d said when she’d asked for vivid descriptions, for the smell and the taste, so that she could imagine herself in the places he visited. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was convinced that gentle persuasion would eventually produce a silk purse.
What James wrote in his letter was that the viceroy in Rio de Janeiro would allow James and no-one else off the Endeavour. Provisions must be purchased through an agent at five per cent, and there would be no ‘illicit trade’. When he came ashore he would be accompanied by an officer, as a ‘compliment’ he was told, but in reality as a guard. James was so frustrated by the viceroy and his restrictions that he finally elected to stay on board with the others, and engage the viceroy in a ‘paper war’. What reams of paper were wasted, what a barrier of polite phrases was erected, what obedience to the king of Portugal’s commands Don Antonio Rolim de Moura showed. The man could simply not understand that ‘His Britannick Majesty’s vessel’ was on a scientific expedition, thought they must be smugglers or spies. ‘When I explained the transit of Venus to him,’ wrote James, ‘he could form no other Idea of that Phenomenon than the North Star passing thro the South Pole.’ Elizabeth was amused by this; even Jamie and Nat seemed to have a better grasp of the transit than the viceroy. At the risk of being thrown into prison, Banks and the gentlemen had snuck ashore under cover of darkness, climbing out of the cabin window and lowering themselves by rope to a boat, then rowed to an unguarded part of the shore. They botanised all day and came back at night, Banks even purchasing from the friendly inhabitants a pig and muscovy duck for dinner.
Elizabeth was concerned that James’s difficulties with the Portuguese would reflect badly on his authority. His was the ultimate on the Endeavour but the men had seen it thwarted. If it was like this with a friendly European power, how would it be when he sailed to parts unknown?
‘Is it time yet?’ Nat was tugging at Elizabeth’s skirts, impatient for the transit to begin. She put the pies on to cook. ‘Time for you to get ready, young scallywag.’
‘It’s not just Papa and the astronomers, is it, Mama?’ said Jamie as Frances and Elizabeth helped the children dress. ‘There are men all over the world watching. In Siberia and India even.’
‘And England,’ added Nat. ‘We are too.’
‘Where is Papa watching from?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘Tahiti!’ said Eliza.
‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth, hugging the little one.
‘And where is Tahiti?’
‘Yorkshire!’ said Eliza.
Frances laughed. ‘Tahiti is in the South Seas, much further away than Yorkshire.’
Elizabeth went to check the pies, which were filling the house with a delicious aroma. At least if they didn’t see the transit they would have a good supper. But they were hoping to see something.
The boys had their own little telescope. James had told them how to care for it, stressing that it was not a plaything but an important instrument. They were not to fight over
it, and above all they were not to look directly at the sun through it. Elizabeth recalled watching James polish his telescope till the brass shone like burnished gold. How long ago that seemed, yet this evening, imagining her husband taking the instrument out of its case, she felt so close to James it was as if he had left only yesterday.
At least they would be watching the same star, or rather, planet, as James had corrected her. ‘Stars twinkle but the light of planets remains constant.’ Be that as it may, Elizabeth preferred to think of Venus as the evening star, the consort of the moon.
Mr Lieber was the first guest to arrive. From Frances’s glowing description, Elizabeth had expected a swashbuckling adventurer like Captain Kidd, and was surprised to find a short dark-haired man hidden behind an enormous bunch of flowers.
The house hummed with anticipation, and after the pigeon pies and asparagus had been polished off, Elizabeth announced that it was time to draw the curtains. Then she hesitated, not quite sure what was supposed to happen next, although she knew it involved shining the sun’s image onto the piece of card she had ready.
‘Here,’ said Mr Curtis, coming to the rescue. ‘We’ll poke the telescope out through the curtains and then,’ he said, looking around at the guests, ‘perhaps Mr Lieber would like to hold the card behind the eyepiece.’
‘Don’t crowd them,’ Elizabeth whispered, holding the boys back. ‘We’ll all be able to see.’
While Mr Curtis tried to get this little telescope to find the sun, Elizabeth thought of the barrage of instruments that James and Mr Green, the astronomer, had at their disposal. The Royal Society had supplied two reflecting telescopes and wooden stands for them with polar axes suited to the equator; also an astronomical quadrant made by Mr Bird, a brass Hadley’s sextant, barometer, journeyman clock, thermometer, and a dipping needle. Added to this were James’s own instruments—telescope, theodolite, plane table, a brass scale, a double concave glass, parallel ruler, a pair of proportional compasses, stationery and markers to the value of £48 10 s. He had sent the account to the Admiralty.
‘Look, there it is!’ shouted Jamie.
‘No, it’s a fly spot,’ said Mrs Curtis.
In the darkness of the room, Elizabeth made out the hands of the clock. It was getting late, the sun almost on the point of setting.
‘That’s right, Mr Curtis, you have it now. Keep it steady,’ cried Mr Lieber, adjusting the position of the card. Then everyone went silent, looking at the reflected image of the sun, and the small smudge of Venus. It lasted about a minute, then the card went blank.
‘Where did it go?’ cried Nat.
Mr Curtis took a peek out the curtains. The sun has set,’ he announced. ‘That’s the end of it.’ But they had seen the transit, if only a minute of it, here in the living room with the boys’ telescope and a piece of card.
Gradually the party dispersed. ‘I’ll see Mr Lieber to the door,’ said Frances.
‘Me too,’ offered Nat.
‘It’s bedtime for little boys,’ Elizabeth told him, leaving Frances and Mr Lieber a moment to themselves.
Frances must have gone further than the door because when Elizabeth came downstairs there was no-one about. She put muslin over the remains of the cheese, then began clearing up.
Frances’s face was flushed when she finally came in. ‘He asked me to marry him,’ she announced, sinking contentedly onto the sofa.
‘I think I can guess the reply.’
‘Yes,’ Frances sighed.
Elizabeth hugged her cousin. ‘I am so pleased.’
‘I’ll not leave you alone, Elizabeth. We’re taking lodgings nearby, we can see each other every day.’
‘Of course,’ said Elizabeth. She was genuinely pleased for Frances but number 8 Assembly Row would not be the same without her. She so cheerily went about everything she did. When baby Joseph died it was Frances who eased Elizabeth out of her grief. And she was James’s cousin. Having a member of James’s family living here was some consolation for James’s absence. Now she was going.
‘Then we plan to try our fortunes in America.’ It was a good time to go. The new Prime Minister, Lord North, had repealed all taxes, save the tax on tea, and relations between England and the colonies were improving. ‘In a year or two,’ added Frances. ‘After James has returned.’
There’d been no news for months. After the transit James was to sail in search of the Great South Land. It was as extraordinary as setting sail for the moon, thought Elizabeth, as she went upstairs to bed. She wasn’t even sure he had found Tahiti, such a small island on the other side of the world. Still, there were men aboard who had travelled the South Seas before—midshipman Charles Clerke, from Essex, an adventurous fellow with a roving eye. He had become famous along the riverside during the war with France for having been on the mizzen-top when the Bellona’s mast was shot away by the Courageux and having crawled up the chains almost dead from drowning. Beneath his derring-do he had mathematical ability and shared James’s interest in scientific navigation. The American-born Lieutenant John Gore had sailed with both Wallis and Lord Byron, and had more experience of the South Seas than anyone else on the Endeavour.
‘What does Gore say of Tahiti?’ Elizabeth had asked one night, when the rest of the house was sleeping.
‘Paradise,’ her husband answered.
‘That’s what they all say. I want more, James, a word-picture, so that I can imagine you in Tahiti when you are away.’ He said nothing. ‘Perhaps you will find it easier with the candle out.’ She snuffed the candle. It wasn’t easy, but eventually she coaxed it out of him.
He told her that in Tahiti the air was always warm, even in winter. The colours were brighter than any Englishman had seen, the ocean a blue as deep as her eyes. Closer in, the water became turquoise as the blue washed over yellow coral. A volcanic upthrust, green and wooded, jutted into the sky, and sometimes it wore a necklace of mist. With his fingers James drew the picture on her body, tracing a line to the upthrust of her breast. ‘There are beaches of black sand and supple coconut trees that lean windward over the water. When the breeze moves through them the fronds rustle like straw,’ he said, blowing gentle tropical breezes onto her belly.
‘And what did Mr Gore say about the women?’ she had asked drawing him closer.
‘I don’t recall.’
Elizabeth was alert to a small coughing sound coming from Eliza’s crib. She tiptoed over to the child, who thankfully had not woken. Elizabeth got back into bed, her arm resting on the side where James slept, and imagined him on the tiny cot in his cabin. She saw the folding table of Spanish mahogany, his pens and inks, a sheet of paper which might have written on it: ‘Dear Elizabeth’. He said he would write every week. Almost a year’s worth of letters now.
She could not sleep. She took the telescope and found Venus. Six hours of transit. Perhaps James was watching now. She beamed her loving thoughts into the stars. God keep and preserve you, my darling, and may you soon be home.
‘Mama?’ Elizabeth saw the small silhouette of Nat beside her. ‘Won’t your eyes burn out?’
‘What are you looking at?’ Jamie had joined them. She gave him the telescope and helped him find Venus. ‘It’s so bright,’ he said.
‘Let me see,’ begged Nat, trying to wrestle the telescope away from his brother.
‘What did Papa tell you? It’s not a plaything.’ Eliza began to stir. ‘You can both have a turn. Venus is not going to disappear in a minute like its image did.’
Elizabeth went to the crib, gently lifted Eliza out, wrapped a blanket around her, and brought her to the window with the boys.
The family took turns at the telescope, seeing the same planet that James was watching half a world away. Eventually, when the eastern sky was paling and the stars fading, the children fell asleep. Elizabeth kept watch, till all the stars had disappeared.
BINGLEY’S JOURNAL, FRIDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 1770
Elizabeth’s mother died two months after the transit of Venus, s
urviving Mr Blackburn by less than a year. No amount of cajoling on Elizabeth’s part had been able to deter Mama from her path. She would not return from mourning. Nothing worked, not even little Eliza’s soft caresses or her invitations to Grand-mama to play dolls with her. Mama had closed the door and would not let Elizabeth, or anyone else, in.
‘What a pale little child that is,’ Mama said, staring at Eliza as if she were a stranger. When she spoke, Mama’s breath smelled like Mr Blackburn’s. ‘Almost blue. Send her to the country at once!’ Eliza ran and hid in the safety of her mother’s skirts.
Though Mama refused to come and live with them in Mile End, Elizabeth persevered, visiting her mother almost daily, leaving Eliza and the boys with Frances. Sometimes Mama consented to a little soup or bread, but Elizabeth suspected it was only to give her strength to go for the next drink. Elizabeth prayed, an imploring prayer that Mama would see the sin of what she was doing, that as long as there was breath she must keep living, and accept God’s will.
On the last day Elizabeth came to her mother’s house, she had trouble getting in. ‘Mama, it’s me.’ But the door remained unanswered. It was pointless looking in the windows because Mama always kept the curtains drawn, even when Elizabeth suggested she should let some light into the house. She went around to the back and found a way in.
The cat immediately started meowing around Elizabeth’s feet, and there was a terrible, acrid smell.
Mama was lying on the sofa in the parlour, from which she’d barely shifted over the last few months, face down in vomit. Elizabeth felt the sobs wrenching out of her. She had come too late.
They interred Mary Blackburn at St Paul’s. As Elizabeth threw soil onto the coffin, she thought of that day they’d walked to St Paul’s for Jamie’s christening, Mama helping her carry the baby. She felt betrayed. Mama had left her and now she was an orphan. It did not matter that Elizabeth was a grown woman. Mama’s death made her feel as helpless as a little child. It was so unnecessary. Couldn’t Mama see the wake of grief her passing would leave?
