Under a Wild Sky (41 page)

In late September, Audubon again wrote to Lucy, this time from Manchester, where he was embarked on a tour of several cities to collect subscriptions as they came due. He told Lucy that she might expect further delay in joining him. “Dearest Friend,” he said, “Thou must not think me too tardy.” Audubon tried to reassure Lucy that the only reason he still hesitated was to make absolutely certain that their finances were in order. He told her he would send her money for passage to England, but that until he did so she and John Woodhouse should stay put. He admitted this must sound “cooler than usual,” but he insisted it really wasn't like that. On a happier note, Audubon informed Lucy that the king of England had become a subscriber. The third Number of
The Birds of America
—the first one done entirely by the Havells—was complete. It seemed to him much superior to the first two.

By the middle of November, Audubon was back in Edinburgh, well along on a tour that was taking him some eight hundred miles through Britain. He'd sold a subscription to the university in Glasgow, but was disappointed that many of his original subscribers in Scotland were balking at paying or had canceled entirely.
He said the Scottish people's reputation for being tight with their money was deserved. Even so, he said he still hoped he would be able to send for Lucy after the first of the year. The Havells, in a burst of productivity that pleased Audubon greatly, had finished two more Numbers—meaning that despite his change of engravers, he had completed five Numbers in less than a year. Best of all, the engravings were his, free and clear. He had paid £173 (about $780) to Lizars and more than £350 (about $1,575) to the Havells. Lizars, desperate to regain Audubon's business, told Audubon he would match the price the Havells were charging if only he could have some of the work. Audubon diplomatically put him off, thinking he now had an insurance policy in Lizars in case anything went wrong in London.

From Edinburgh, Audubon went back to Liverpool—pausing at Twizel House for a couple of days to shoot pheasants with Selby and Jardine.
Perhaps less certain of himself after the long and only partially successful
collecting trip, Audubon was thinking again about other ways to make money. One idea he had was to limit the number of subscribers to
The Birds of America
to 150, keeping those proceeds for himself. Additional copies would then be printed and bound for booksellers in London, Paris, and other large markets, with Audubon collecting some sort of royalty on sales. He thought this could work because it was now clear from the reactions of everyone who saw
The Birds of America
that it was unique. There'd never been anything like it and probably never would be again. In the meantime, Audubon could always earn a little extra by doing small paintings of birds. These sold quickly, he said, now that he knew “the tricks of the trade.” A few weeks later, Audubon changed his mind again, returning to his old idea of finding a permanent position as a resident artist—either with a public institution or a wealthy nobleman. He thought such a job might pay as much as £500 (about $2,250) a year, leaving all the money from
The Birds of America
as profit. That way, when the last engraving was done he and Lucy could go back to America to live out the rest of their lives at leisure. To Lucy, Audubon's talk about their joint “return” to America was premature, to say the least.

Audubon reported that his health was fine, and that he walked a good deal and still got up at dawn whenever he could, convinced that keeping to his habits from the woods was beneficial. But now Audubon, who was so often described as “simple” or “authentic,” and who had kept his composure through so many reversals, made a surprising confession to his wife.
He admitted that he was a hopeless perfectionist. After trying to paint in oils for years, he said he at last despaired of ever becoming competent in the medium. The only people who bought his oil paintings were friends, acting, he suspected, out of charity. This was so humiliating, he said, that he planned to give up oils for good. He knew he would regret this decision forever, he said, because “
Man
and
Particularly thy husband
, cannot easily bear to be outdone.” Audubon said he wished he had “another life to spend.”

Lucy could not have been entirely pleased with the way he was spending the one he had.
Audubon signed off saying he was due at Green Banks to see Mrs. Rathbone and Miss Hannah. He told Lucy that he wished very much that she would write to both women. They were kind and gentle ladies, he said, and ought to be “thought of often.” As if that weren't enough to make Lucy want to throttle him, Audubon added a warning so preposterous that Lucy must have wondered what he had been telling
people. Audubon said that Lucy should never intimate to the Rathbones—or to anyone else—that the Audubons were poor. It seemed that everyone in England was under the impression that Audubon was well off.

Audubon did not send for Lucy in January.
Back in London and again cozily established on Great Russell Street, Audubon instead bought her a piano, which he had shipped to New Orleans. He said he hoped she would give it to Victor when he at last sent for her to come to England. But now he told Lucy he “dare not yet invite Thee,” even though he continued to make progress with new subscribers and the sixth Number was under way.

Audubon did not send for Lucy in February, or in March.
He did mention that he was thinking of going to Paris for a while. He reported selling several subscriptions to
The Birds of America
on a trip he'd made to Cambridge. Audubon was happy to learn that Victor had visited Lucy. His son had even taken a moment to add a few words to him in one of her letters.
Evidently Lucy worried that Victor was too skinny. Audubon assured her that he was only tall, and would soon enough put on weight.
In another letter a few days later—addressed once more to “My Dearest Friend”—Audubon said he was still “imperfect in my thoughts” as to Lucy joining him in England. He didn't send for her in April, either, nor in May, nor all summer long. He had now been gone for more than two years.
In August he wrote to say that the Havells were starting on the tenth Number. But although everyone continued to speak glowingly of
The Birds of America
, Audubon found that he had to spend more and more time replacing subscribers who canceled their orders.
Once again, he told his “dearest friend” that he was miserable without her. “My anxiety to have thee with me as thou may well expect is greater every day,” he said. “We are growing older and have been parted so long that I feel as if abandoned to myself.”

About this time, Audubon again mentioned that he needed more drawings to complete his ornithology.
But instead of contemplating a return to America for this purpose, he once more implored Lucy to make John Woodhouse practice his drawing. Audubon said he would gladly send money for drawing supplies. He didn't explain whether he thought Johnny's drawings could go directly into
The Birds of America
or serve only as references for his own depictions. He also asked that, in whatever
spare time remained to him, John Woodhouse shoot and skin as many birds as he could—and ship them to England as soon as possible. Audubon said he was in need of turkeys and cranes and hawks, plus some other species. But he said Johnny was not to worry about what was gotten and was instead to shoot and carefully skin every bird he could, no matter what it was.

Audubon now began to talk about what a help Lucy would be to him in London, especially when he had to be away on subscription calls. Wearingly, he said he was still worried about money and wasn't ready yet to send for her.

Lucy was understandably mystified.
In June she'd written to Victor to confess that she no longer knew what to make of Audubon's apparent indifference to a separation that seemed more permanent by the day. She said she could not decipher the many conflicting messages that floated among the disjointed lines he wrote to her. Audubon had warned her, she told Victor, that it would be a very long time before
The Birds of America
was finished and that he would most certainly want her and John Woodhouse to join him in England just as soon as it was possible. At the same time, he told Lucy that England was “not what it was” and that she might not care for it at all. If she decided
not
to come he would understand.

“What he really means I cannot tell,” Lucy wrote to Victor. “Those are his words and we must interpret them as we can.”

Lucy chose to interpret them thus: She wrote to Audubon and told him any thought she had of coming to England was now indefinitely on hold. Audubon wrote back and told her, his “dearest friend,” to please “make up thy mind.”

But he did not ask her to come.

Audubon's mood was up and down.
He heard that he was being made fun of back in Philadelphia, where everyone was shocked at his success overseas. In London, there were likewise people who thought his work over-rated. Subscriptions ebbed and flowed, cancellations and new orders staying in a precarious balance.
Feeling especially low one day, Audubon got out his painting of the white-headed eagle and altered it on the spot, replacing the goose the eagle was shown feeding on with a lowly catfish.

Audubon had a friend named William Swainson.
They'd met after Audubon was approached by a man named John Loudon, who was
launching a magazine about natural history, to be called
Loudon's
. Loudon wanted Audubon to write something for the magazine. Of more interest to Audubon was Loudon's suggestion that Swainson, a zoologist who lived north of London in the country near St. Albans, write a review of
The Birds of America
for the inaugural issue in May. Audubon and Swainson had become close, thanks in part to the questionable arrangement Swainson proposed with respect to this review.
Swainson bluntly told Audubon that he would compose a highly favorable notice if Audubon would provide him “at cost” with a full set of
The Birds of America
as so far completed. Audubon, who was more than happy to strike a deal, had a laugh. Despite the hopeful calculations he'd been relaying to Lucy, the truth was that subscriber numbers had not yet reached the breakeven point, and
The Birds of America
was still being produced at a loss. He sent Swainson a note promising him a copy of
The Birds of America
at a fair price that he would figure out.
“I assure you my dear sir,” he told Swainson, “that was I to take you at your word it would be a low bargain for you as the amount would be very nearly double that for which it is sold to my subscribers.” A couple of weeks later, Swainson invited Audubon to dinner at his home in London.
Audubon, who still suffered occasional bouts of paralyzing shyness, sent a note saying he would come at six that evening if it was convenient, nervously adding, “I am an extremely plain man, and always anxious not to be an Intruder.”

After the flattering review appeared, Audubon let his guard down with Swainson—although he was briefly shocked to learn that Swainson had been corresponding for a number of years with an American colleague by the name of George Ord. Audubon, dying to unburden himself to a willing ear, confided to Swainson that his marriage had become an extended transatlantic misunderstanding. He told Swainson time passed “heavily” for him in London.
He hoped someday that he and Lucy would call on Swainson at home in the country, but added that it would depend on “if I ever see my wife again.”

At the beginning of July, Audubon sent a note thanking Swainson for having supplied him with a small white lamb that had been delivered “alive in a basket.” The lamb now existed only on canvas in the “effigy” Audubon had painted of it being attacked by a golden eagle. Audubon said he'd also been hard at work on new versions of the turkey and the white-headed eagle, painting feverishly day and night. Apparently, Swainson didn't care much for the lamb-and-eagle painting, as he never said anything about it
after visiting Audubon at his new apartment. Audubon had taken rooms on Newman Street, directly above the Havells' shop. It was handy, Audubon said, though he missed the open spaces of Bloomsbury.

By August of 1828, Lucy's growing impatience sent Audubon into a new tailspin.
She informed him that she had borrowed some money from her brother William and had sent John Woodhouse to attend a school in Louisville. Lucy said she planned to follow him there and, unless she heard otherwise from Audubon, to make her own way in the world going forward. Audubon's already “despondent spirits” sank lower still.
He told Swainson that thoughts of suicide had swept over him.
Then, out of the blue, he asked Swainson if he would accompany him on a trip to Paris. He told Swainson he had put away his brushes, unable to even think about working. He said they could go to France whenever Swainson was free, and stay there as long as he cared to.
Audubon spent the next few weeks researching travel options.

Audubon, accompanied by William Swainson and Swainson's wife, spent two months in Paris. Fourteen new subscribers signed up for
The Birds of America
. The trip was otherwise forgettable. Audubon had worried almost constantly that the story of his birth and adoption would be discovered. Returning to London in November, he was excited to find two letters from Victor waiting for him.
He wrote back to say that he was happy to know that both Victor and now John Woodhouse were well situated in Kentucky. But he told Victor that it was unlikely he would visit them there anytime soon. Unless “some accident” befell his drawings, he had quite enough to carry on for the foreseeable future. He said he had 144 subscribers and was free of debt. He had begun to think about a “perpetual” exhibition of the oil copies of his birds now under way with Joseph Kidd in Edinburgh. Audubon thought he might send the collection to Russia for a while before establishing it permanently in London. In spite of it all, Audubon said, Lucy was resistant to the idea of joining him in England before he had acquired a “great fortune.”