Page 53 of Birds of a Feather

Gerry gestured to Elise.

‘Daphne, this is Elise Simpson. Sorry, it’s Elise Evans. Force of habit.’

‘It’s so lovely to meet you, Elise,’ Daphne said, extending her hand for Elise to shake. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’

Elise felt a tickle of pride that Gerry – who had a catalogue of fascinating things to discuss and people to talk about – had chosen to talk to Daphne about her.

An older man at one of the nearby desks glared at the trio – theirs were the only voices in the library, and Elise assumed he heralded from a time when libraries were places for shh!

Daphne turned her back on him and surreptitiously rolled her eyes.

‘You must be so excited about seeing this,’ she whispered to Elise as she gestured to the items on the desk.

‘I’m afraid Gerry hasn’t told me what I’m here to see,’ she whispered back. ‘Today is full of surprises.’

‘We’re on a treasure hunt of sorts,’ Gerry offered.

‘Well, that makes it even more exciting,’ Daphne replied as she placed two big black foam wedges in front of Elise and then carefully lifted the oversized book onto them.

‘I understand you have an interest in John and Elizabeth Gould,’ she continued, ‘so Gerry thought you might enjoy seeing this …’

Elise looked down at the dark green leather-bound book. The leather around the edges of the book was slightly scuffed, and the spine was coming away from the cover at the top and bottom. The cover was decorated with an intricate gold pattern that bordered the edges, but offered no clues about the book’s contents. Elise, however, having been fascinated by Elizabeth Gould’s work for most of her life, knew exactly what it was.

She gasped.

‘This is the original The Birds of Australia by John Gould, which contains illustrations by the one and only Elizabeth Gould,’ Daphne confirmed.

Gerry nodded, smiling broadly.

‘Go ahead,’ Daphne said, gesturing to the book.

Elise beamed at Gerry as she carefully opened the cover.

The thick parchment inside the book was the colour of milky tea and was freckled with tiny brown splodges. It reminded Elise of when she’d helped Beth ‘age’ some paper using black tea for a history project. Every other page was marked with a small red stamp: ‘British Museum Natural History: ZD’. ZD stood for Zoological Department.

‘I’m going to leave you ladies to it,’ Daphne said, standing. ‘But I’ll be hovering around if you need me.’

‘Thanks so much, Daph,’ Gerry said warmly.

‘Yes, this is incredible, thank you very much,’ Elise gushed.

Elise slowly and tenderly turned the pages of the precious tome. She pored over the illustrations by John Gould and Henry Richter – the artist who worked on the series after Elizabeth passed away – and delighted in John Gould’s descriptions of the birds he encountered while in Australia.

Where the illustrations were particularly bold, they had transferred to the opposite page of text, creating a ghosting effect that looked like a watermark.

After a few minutes, Elise reached the illustration of a lyrebird – the first that carried the credit ‘J&E Gould’.

‘Oh! Here she is,’ she exclaimed, again attracting the glare of the older man.

‘It’s incredible to think Elizabeth Gould coloured this very work more than …’ she paused to calculate the book’s age, ‘170 years ago.’

Like so many species in the natural world, the male lyrebird’s plumage was resplendent compared to its female mate’s comparatively drab appearance. Elizabeth Gould’s tiny brushstrokes meticulously depicted its long tail feathers and captured the imperfections of the feathers.

Elise felt compelled to use her fingers to smooth where the feather barbs had split into sections. She chuckled as she read aloud Gould’s account of the lengths to which he went to collect a specimen.

While among the brushes I have been surrounded by these birds, pouring forth their loud and liquid calls, for days together, without being able to get a sight of them; and it was only by the most determined perseverance and extreme caution that I was enabled to effect this desirable object, which was rendered all the more difficult by their often frequenting the almost inaccessible and precipitous sides of gullies and ravines, covered with tangled masses of creepers and umbrageous trees.

‘Poor bugger,’ Elise whispered to Gerry. ‘Sounds like those lyrebirds made him really work for it.’

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