Creation (8 page)

T
HE STORY OF MARIA,
the fact of Maria, began in the fall of 1831 when he was walking the streets of Charleston with his assistant, looking for a room to rent. He planned to stay until he could connect with a revenue cutter that would take him to the Floridas. Into his line of sight rolled a buggy loaded with baskets of artichokes, carrots and beans, bunches of tall chrysanthemums and roses sticking out of cones of paper, and, laid one over the other, braces of game, partridge, wild turkey, woodcock. It was a vision of plenty.

As he gazed the driver hailed him. He was John Bachman, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran church, a writer of books on nature himself, and a hunter. Bachman had a guileless bright blue eye and his enthusiasm was as generous as his buggy load of produce, gifts for his parishioners.

There were greetings, introductions, and warm exclamations — Painting the birds! I must be of assistance! — and the pastor insisted he could not let them go.

The artist and his boy climbed aboard and rode the rounds, eventually coming back with empty cart to Bachman’s house. It was a great
square mansion with balconies on two levels, set in brilliant gardens and fanned by a breeze off the sea. As they entered, a frail woman came briefly to greet them. This was his wife, Harriet, Bachman explained. Withdrawing, she called her younger sister to entertain. After she had faded down the hall he explained: the granddaughter of a Revolutionary hero, she had seven living children, two daughters and five sons. Five other children had died of tuberculosis. The exertions of producing this dozen, the combination of their living and their dying, had sent her almost permanently to her couch.

Into the parlour walked Miss Maria Martin, as quick as her sister was languid. She was tiny, like a child, but her face brought the light of day into the shuttered drawing room. She greeted Audubon in French, the language which was dear to him. As she put the two girls through their curtsies, and gave instructions to the slaves to accommodate their guests, he could not stop looking at her. She was not beautiful. Or not what he had ever thought of as beautiful. She was like a little brown sparrow. He was fascinated by the bright receptivity of each part of her face and figure to every voice, every nuance, each glance.

After dinner the men repaired to the low-ceilinged study on the ground floor. There, under the eye of the great stuffed horned owl, between the two giant globes, one of the earth and one of the stars, amid the leather-bound books, the bottled reptiles and freaks of nature, the caged screech-owl and the pet muskrat, they worked. Audubon and his new friend exchanged notes on birds while the boy assistant sat down to paint some backgrounds.

Later that night Audubon wrote Lucy, elated, of his good fortune in this friendly town, of his new friend John Bachman, the house full of children, and the sister-in-law, who he had been told was a promising artist.

How was it that Maria ended up in the library den working with the men? It must have been that she offered to help, and they found within hours that they could not do without her. Already she had been drawing flowers for Bachman’s books. She wanted to learn. Still, Audubon cannot claim his pleasure in teaching her to draw was free of the enjoyment he had in merely sitting across from her and looking at
her face. The down-turned eyes with their full lids, the tiny mouth set carefully, lips softly together but never pressed, the pointed chin and nose, the width of her forehead showing intelligence, the modesty disguising much strength. He drank it in.

Maria. He practised her name. It seemed too ordinary for her. But that was its magic, and hers, to be hidden in this modesty.

To feel this way was not new, to him.

There were women like her everywhere he landed. Intelligent, accomplished and lovely. They offered him their sympathies and he offered them his ardent admiration.

Maria tried inordinately to please; she would work for hours correcting a mistake. That, and all the household tasks that were hers — to teach the children French, to oversee the laundry and the cooking — ought to have tired her. But she could match his energy, and give it back to him. When all the others at last gave up trying to meet his demands, there she was, patient, calm, perfect. Attentive. And soon, affectionate.

They rose at dawn, before the children were up, to walk in the garden. He watched the birds and she named the flowers for him while the air was cool, and the household at bay, as the scent of the roses came on. They sat together; she sketched botanical specimens while he painted. She wanted to draw the birds, but he kept her busy with the cane vine, the loblolly bay. In the evenings the three of them, Maria, John Bachman and he, sat in the study and were happy, working.

In this way two months went by while he waited for that revenue cutter. The good reverend’s hospitality did not fail. The boy assistant had to be let go, as he quarreled with Maria. She was Audubon’s companion throughout the day, his confidant, his pet.

This much had happened before.

But another part was new, and unfamiliar. There were three of them. The third was the Reverend Bachman, who rapidly became Audubon’s dear friend. The reverend called Maria his sweetheart. Audubon followed his lead, daringly. The three of them were always laughing. I am not your sweetheart nor yours either, she would say to the men. But then she would be alone with Audubon, and they would
laugh and tease and kiss close against the back of her brother-in-law’s house, where they could not be seen from the window. He prayed that the revenue cutter would be delayed.

One day a caller came to Rutledge Avenue, a man by the name of Martin. Audubon did not connect the caller with his sweetheart; he was hardly aware of Maria as having another name. A servant announced him. The women scattered. Harriet shut her door and could not be roused. Maria for once lost her composure. She came to Audubon in the study. “Jean Jacques” — she spoke to him in French — “you must tell him to go away. Tell him there is no one at home who can see him. The Reverend Bachman is out on calls.”

Audubon went to the parlour, where the man waited. He was small, with a waistcoat that fairly bulged with entitlement. He wanted to see Maria. “You may not,” said Audubon. “The Reverend Bachman is out on calls.”

“It is not the Reverend Bachman I have come to see.” The man Martin laid his hand on his belly, over his watch chain.

Audubon was forced to insist that the man leave. When Martin said he would come back with a letter, Audubon determined that this letter would not make its way into Maria’s hands.

The next morning at dawn they walked in the garden. She told him that the man was her father. He had left his family when he fell in love with another woman. He had moved a hundred miles away and had a bastard child, perhaps more than one. Her mother had died of the shame and Maria was left dependent on Reverend Bachman’s kindness.

“You could have married?” breathed Audubon.

“It set me against marriage,” said Maria.

“Did you have a suitor?”

“I never met a man I could love,” she said. “I have my work. I will paint. I will learn with your help. If you do not think me too bold, I will come with you into the wild.”

The revenue cutter arrived, and Audubon had to go.

FOGBOUND

The fogs which accompany Easterly Gales extend high up into the atmosphere and cannot be looked over from any part of the rigging of a ship. They, however, are not so thick as those which occur in calms after a strong wind. These are frequently so dense as to conceal a vessel within hail. The former often, but not always, admit the land, or other objects, to be distinguished at the distance of half a mile, or more, in the day time. The Dense Fogs, which occur in calms, often extend only to small elevations above the sea. It sometimes happens that when objects are hidden at the distance of 50 yards from the deck they can be plainly seen by a person 50 or 60 feet up the rigging.

—
Sailing Directions for the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence
, Henry Wolsey Bayfield, Captain, Royal Navy

T
he
Gulnare
is trapped in fog. Captain Bayfield can do nothing else and therefore he tries to take the dimension, the measure of this fog.

The sea is perfectly calm. Captain Bayfield, or Henry, as he thinks sometimes thinks of himself (someone has to), has climbed to the very top of the
Gulnare
’s rigging. He loves to scale her heights, to top her, even now, when she is listless, her sails loose against the mast. In her “dishabills,” as the Irish seamen say.

Fog has its comforts; it affords a little privacy in the constricted quarters of a schooner. From here, he cannot see her deck below. Which means, of course, that no one on deck can see him above.

Hanging by one arm, with both feet tucked into rope loops, he can see the masts of the
Ripley
. Only a few hundred feet away, they protrude like tiny spires from the white billows. There is no one up the rigging of the other schooner; he alone is above and in a position to see over the fog. Like a bird, in fact. Where do the birds go in this fog? Can they fly without seeing? He wishes he could sail blind.

He swings out a little way, and gently back again, testing the strength of his arm. He feels playful though it has been years since he played like a boy. In fact, he does not remember ever playing like a boy. At Bayfield Hall there was the governess, the marshalled walks across the soggy fields, the forced silences for chapel. Then, the navy, and always, work. But today, there is a lightness in him. Despite his annoyance at being held hostage by fog, his impatience to get on with work, he is happy. He enjoys Mr. Audubon. His conversation is stimulating, something rare on shipboard. The man challenges his ideas. A captain of a schooner in the Royal Navy is not often challenged.

He changes arms and swings out farther, attempting a circle around the mast.

When he was packed off straight from Bayfield Hall to the
Pompée
as supernumerary volunteer, the nearest thing to play was the fighting action with the French privateer six hours after leaving port. He was slashed across the shoulder by a cutlass and would have lost his arm or worse if he, unarmed, hadn’t had the quickness of wit to dart under the man’s thrusts, staying so close to his feet that he couldn’t cut him, find a rope coiled in the lifeboat and whip it at his attacker’s knees. Then, when the man stumbled, to lash him in the face so that he could not see, and when the cutlass clattered to the deck, to steal it.

His arm was cut deeply at the shoulder. The same arm by which he now hangs. He cannot remember the pain of the cut. But he enjoyed the attention it gave him. In fact, in the rough company of men he keeps, it is the only time he can remember being tenderly treated.

The boy! The boy! the men called out when he was injured. For those few moments he became a boy, although he was an officer and in charge of grown men. They defeated the French pirates. The prisoners, in chains, were sent off to prison. The sailors wrapped Bayfield in warm blankets, and held a cup to his lips. He remembers the feel of the metal. He enjoyed being injured. Imagine that. No, if he is honest, he would say he enjoyed being tended to.

If one was married, one would be tended to whenever one liked.

And when one didn’t like.

He swings himself around the mast one more time, lazily.

Mr. Audubon is married.

God knows the Quebec matrons have tried to marry Bayfield off. Invitations to parties at the castle fall through his door too often. But those winters in the garrison are his working times. He has to admit that, when forced to be in society, he has noticed some attractive young ladies. There is one called Miss Fanny Wright. She is very young, not even twenty. She is white-skinned and black-haired and has a look of robust merriment. But what would a wife do but divide his emotions while he is away for five months of the year, then want his company when he is at home?

Mr. Audubon has lain with his wife night after night. Engendered two sons. His mind veers away. Family life is a mystery to him. He looks all around the horizon, or what would be the horizon if he could see it. In patches, mainland is visible. Mounds of rock here, penetrating the grey fuzz with their own grey, black and reddish brown, aged lichen and twisted trees that have seen ships like his come and go for centuries.