Under a Wild Sky (35 page)

Flustered, Audubon produced his portfolio and nearly fainted when Lord Stanley spread the contents on the floor and then got down on his hands and knees to examine them. They were excellent, Lord Stanley said, utterly beautiful. Noticing one drawing in need of a minor correction, Stanley pointed out the error to Audubon, furthering Audubon's already high estimation of Stanley's ornithological sophistication. Stanley spent a full five hours going over the collection. Afterward, as they dined and Audubon allowed himself to relax ever so slightly, Stanley told him his work deserved recognition by the Crown. On taking his leave, Stanley invited Audubon to call at his home in London whenever his travels took him there.

In less than a month's time, Audubon had accomplished more in Liverpool than he had dreamed possible. It was as if he had been reborn after the long, watery journey that had brought him from America. Everyone urged him to exhibit his drawings across the three kingdoms of Britain. Each day seemed to bring a fresh extravagance. Private carriages waited on him for every engagement. He visited grand homes and lingered over sumptuous banquets long into the evening. He consumed wine and ale in quantities to which he was unaccustomed. Occasionally he took a little snuff with the men after dinner. Handsome, smitten wives and daughters drew near the long-haired woodsman and asked for stories of the American frontier. When asked how he had escaped death by the attack of some fearsome beast of the forest, Audubon assured his hosts that nothing more notable than a tick or a mosquito had ever bothered him in the wild. He imitated bird calls upon request and one evening drew the Rathbones a sketch of himself, bearded and dressed head-to-toe in buckskins, with a hatchet in his belt, a gun in one hand, and a brace of freshly killed geese slung over his shoulder. The further his experiences diverged from those of the tidy, citified people he entertained, the more fascinated by him they seemed to be. Liverpool was the perfect inverse of Philadelphia. Projecting the very same persona—half artist, half man of action—that had earned him scorn from America's scientific elite made him a hero in England. More important, the drawings that had been called
inaccurate and outlandish by the followers of Alexander Wilson were now viewed with awe by men of far greater wealth and knowledge.

For Audubon, the overnight success was exhilarating—and also disorienting. Within days of his first exhibition, Audubon's nerves were frayed. His mood grew erratic. Late at night, he sat in his room at the Commercial and confided to his journal that he was tormented by inexplicable fits of despair. Aududon's daily entries were increasingly dominated by episodes of loneliness and a free-floating anxiety that repeatedly overpowered him, often in the dead of night. Once, while visiting the Hodgsons, he was awakened at three in the morning by the call of a blackbird. Unable to go back to sleep, Audubon dressed and tiptoed from the house, wandering the fields all the way to the seaside before returning for breakfast and a hasty return to his own quarters.

Just as in the journal Audubon kept six years earlier on his way to Louisiana, his daily diary took the form of an extended letter to his family—but this time he spoke exclusively to Lucy. He missed her terribly and still had not received any word from home. Every ship that arrived from America without a letter from Lucy was a crushing disappointment. The thought that he was on the verge of accomplishing what he'd set out to do only intensified his unhappiness at their separation. Although he was gratified by the attention and admiration of his influential new friends, he could not get over his shyness and discomfort in their presence. Sometimes, as he walked to the Rathbones' or the Hodgsons', his knees would weaken and Audubon would feel as if he wanted to run back to his hotel. He spent occasional restorative overnights at Green Bank. Though it was only three miles outside the city, Green Bank was a relief from the bustle of Liverpool—which had at first been so welcome but had just as quickly begun to wear on Audubon. Now the streets of the city seemed jarring and frightening. Discordant winds howled outside his rooms at night, keeping him awake and jittery. Audubon was distressed by the beggars and prostitutes who wandered the city. Looking out from his room at the Commercial, he could not believe the same moonlight illuminating the city outside the window also fell on the quiet countryside at Green Bank. And even out there, he was dismayed by the many areas posted against trespassers. Audubon was used to going wherever he pleased. Here people guarded their property with notices and dogs and sometimes guns booby-trapped to fire at anyone who, unawares, came
too close. The more time he spent in Liverpool, the more claustrophobic it felt. Audubon visualized great throngs of people moving through the city, jostling and “encroaching” on one another, coming together in a whirling mix, like crosscurrents in a powerful flood.

Audubon also could not get used to the pace of his new life. The late dinners and rich fare of the people who entertained him disrupted his routine. He began taking breakfast at eight in the morning, a full two hours later than he was accustomed. Sometimes he slept too late for the walk he usually took at dawn. Audubon tried to draw, but found himself distracted and unable to get down on paper anything he thought was any good. Sorting through his emotions one morning when he managed to get out for an early stroll, Audubon stumbled into a confrontation that unnerved him even further.

As he walked along the banks of the Mersey River toward the ocean, Audubon saw a small boat haul up on shore. A stooped, disheveled man climbed out carrying a sack. Certain at once that the man was a smuggler, Audubon drew the sword concealed in his walking stick and yelled at the man to stop where he was. The man instead dropped the sack and took off at a run. But he was no match for Audubon, and an instant later was cowering before the wild-haired American. Audubon, only slightly out of breath, ordered the man to go back and pick up the sack, noticing as the pathetic figure trudged ahead of him that he seemed poorer and more beaten down than even the slaves Audubon had encountered in America. While the man retrieved the bag, Audubon watched in disgust as the accomplices pulled on their oars and fled the scene. The sack turned out to be filled with about fifty pounds of American tobacco. Audubon berated the man, telling him a smuggler was an enemy to his own country. Scared, eyes bulging, the man begged for mercy and offered Audubon the tobacco if only he would let him go. Audubon, who never smoked in his life, instead eyed a pair of pistols he hadn't noticed before in the man's belt. Seeing this, the man assured Audubon that his guns were not loaded. Audubon didn't believe him. But the man was so pitiful that Audubon began to feel less righteous by the moment. Reaching into his pockets, Audubon held out a handful of pennies to the man and commanded him to look him squarely in the face. With a warning to never do anything like this again, Audubon told him to get lost. The man croaked out a thank-you and ran off toward a hedge, where he vanished. Back at
his hotel, as he was cleaning the mud from his boots, Audubon suffered a delayed reaction. What if the man had shot him?

As it was, Audubon was well supplied with his own demons without going looking for trouble. One evening about this same time, he returned to his room and began to record the day's events in his journal.
Suddenly Audubon put down his pen and stared into space. At first he thought vaguely of America, and then in a frightening rush, as if he were being propelled through space, Aububon felt his whole consciousness transported by a mysterious force to the other side of the ocean. The sensation was not pleasant. A nameless dread flashed into his mind and Lucy appeared before him in a terrifying vision, cloaked in hideous garments. Frozen in place, Audubon could not move for an hour. At last he stumbled to his bed and fell onto his pillow sobbing.

By day, Audubon somehow held himself together for the business at hand. After first resisting the idea, Audubon had been persuaded to renew his exhibition at the Royal Institution with an admission charge of one shilling (about twenty cents). An advertisement was prepared for the papers. But Audubon continued to worry that this was a mistake, that his drawings would now fall under the unforgiving eyes of “the critics.” He needn't have been concerned. People still came and the papers reviewed the exhibition favorably. Audubon was still the talk of the town. Even more important to him by now was the continuing affection shown him by the Rathbones, who in late August convinced him to give up his room at the Commercial and move in temporarily at Green Bank. Audubon had felt the Rathbones' hospitality was something he could trust ever since his first visit to Green Bank, when he overheard Richard Rathbone telling another guest that Audubon was a “simple intelligent,” a description that flattered Audubon. The women of the Rathbone clan, including Richard and William's mother—the “Queen Bee,” as Audubon called her—as well as their wives and daughters, were also taken with him. One daughter in particular, the lovely Miss Hannah, beguiled Audubon and evidently encouraged his attentions whenever they were together. Audubon, with a surprising lack of husbandly empathy, wrote to Lucy in his journal that she would surely like Hannah if only she could see the young girl's beautiful eyes, her smile, or the way she blushed when Audubon stared at her. Late one evening under a full moon, the Rathbone ladies invited Audubon on a walk that lasted until sunrise. Rambling across dewy meadows, they spoke of metaphysics, of the timeless imponderables
of the universe, and of human volition and whence it comes. Back at Green Bank, Audubon slept only four hours afterward.

The Rathbones had encouraged Audubon to stay with them in the hope that he would find Green Bank more conducive to his drawing and painting. He did. Audubon worked on a magnificent drawing of the turkey cock—the one Mrs. Richard Rathbone had him reduce so she could have a seal bearing the image made for him. She was much less taken with a painting he did especially for her.

It was his bloody picture of an otter, which Audubon now boldly attempted in oils. As was the case with many of his drawings, which he copied and recopied many times over, this was a new version of a painting he'd first done in watercolor years before. In fact, it was the same picture he'd been in the middle of back in Henderson on the day the eccentric Constantine Rafinesque had shown up looking for him. Like many of his drawings, this one was meant to convey the ferocity of nature. It is arguably one of his most startling and gruesome images. Audubon depicted the otter in profile. One of its forelegs is caught in a leghold trap. The animal's head is turned toward the viewer, its mouth agape in a snarling grimace of pain. Audubon, whose head was filled with such violent images, was at least sensitive enough to consider the possibility that Mrs. Rathbone would find the picture disquieting. He wrote her a pleading note, hoping she would not be offended and would not feel obliged to accept the painting merely out of courtesy.
Still, he was disappointed when the Rathbones offered only perfunctory thanks for the picture—which was promptly donated to the Royal Institution.

By the start of September, Audubon was preparing to take his drawings to Manchester, a milling and manufacturing center in the English midlands about forty miles east of Liverpool. He now carried many letters of introduction that would see him across Britain, and had also been assured of finding exhibition space at Royal Institution galleries in several cities. Audubon still had not received a letter from Lucy. He felt “desolate and alone,” he wrote in his journal. It was almost as if his beloved wife had never existed.
He wrote to Victor, who was still in Louisville, imploring him to let Lucy know he was desperate for news from her. In the month he'd been in Liverpool, at least eight ships had arrived from New Orleans. Audubon could not understand her silence.
In a letter to Lucy,
Audubon said his latest exhibition had done well—how well he didn't go into—but that his concern about her was making it increasingly hard for him to write to her. Audubon said he wished their boys could someday see England, as he was most impressed by the education and manners of the young men he had met. He asked Lucy to make sure that John Woodhouse, now almost fourteen, tended to his lessons and that he practiced drawing from nature in the way Audubon had instructed him.

Manchester was much more crowded than Liverpool. Audubon didn't like it. The economy was depressed, the streets narrow and dirty. People were less friendly, it seemed, and having got used to the company of proper English ladies, Audubon was now sorry to be without it. In fact, respectable women in Manchester appeared to be outnumbered by the poor streetwalkers he encountered everywhere. Audubon rented exhibition space and even hired a boy to collect admission. But attendance was modest and his reception indifferent. Audubon caught a cold. Time passed slowly.

Then, on September 16, Audubon got two letters from Lucy—one from late May and the other from early June. He admitted in his journal that every time he'd thought of their last farewell, it had occurred to him that he might never see her again.
Now he was much relieved, feeling the stirrings of optimism for the first time in many weeks. One of the letters included a small treasure, a drawing by John Woodhouse. Audubon promptly sent it to Hannah Rathbone, asking that she put it in her scrap-book. Lucy's letters cheered Audubon tremendously. “Thanks,” he rhapsodized in his journal, “thanks to thee, my dear wife, for thy kindness!!” The only thing that would have made him happier at that moment, Audubon said, would have been to be in America and exhibiting his drawings there.

The actual plan, which had taken some time to coalesce, was for Audubon to carry on with a slow tour of England and Scotland until March. He intended to exhibit his work as long as there was an acceptable profit in it—meaning an income approximately four times greater than expenses, he said. At the end of the tour, if “accident or circumstances” did not alter his purpose, he would finish with a bigger, longer exhibition in London. While touring, he could continue to work on his paintings. At the conclusion of all this, he meant to find a publisher for his work, either in London or Paris.
Recognizing that this last undertaking implied a stay of considerable length, Audubon wrote to Lucy urging
her to finish up her current term at Beech Woods and then move to Shippingport—or better still, New York City, where communication between them would be easier. Most preferable would be for her to join him in England, and to bring John Woodhouse with her. Audubon regretted not having had them come over with him in the first place and was now eager to put things right.
If, for some reason, she could not come, then he believed he would now be able to send her enough money to live anywhere in the United States that suited her.