“I shall spend the next several minutes thinking of better uses for these cakes. Perhaps as some sort of building material. Maybe I can build your fiancé a very pink birdhouse.”
“Well, while you do that, I am going to subject myself to some very dull conversations.”
* * *
Louisa sat in a profoundly uncomfortable chair and listened as Daniel regaled several other gentlemen with tales of his exploits birdwatching in the country.
Louisa liked birds, but not to this level. She liked waking up to birdsong or spotting a little group of sparrows hopping around in the park, but as Daniel explained his hunt for some rare bird that was not commonly spotted in England anymore, Louisa found her attention waning.
“One of my colleagues at Oxford has acquired a rare dodo bird skeleton,” said one of the gents. “This animal has been extinct for at least one hundred years and was only found on one island off the coast of Africa, but it is a marvelously odd-looking creature. Larger than a swan, physiologically closer to a pigeon, with a very odd beak.”
And so on.
She watched Fletcher idly build a tower out of the little pink cakes, which a Buckingham servant quickly disposed of, and then circle back to Eliza Harding, hand her a glass of lemonade, and engage in conversation. Louisa didn’t bother to hide that she was staring at him, and after a few minutes, he seemed to notice and looked her way. He finished what he wassaying to Eliza, kissed her knuckles, and then proceeded across the garden to Louisa.
That hadn’t been her intent, but if he wanted to come speak with this lot of dullards and not Eliza, that was fine with Louisa.
Fletcher said, “May I sit?” gesturing at the chair next to Louisa.
“Please do.”
Fletcher sat and then leaned toward Daniel. “What are we discussing?”
“Rare bird skeletons held in various collections around England,” said Daniel. He turned back to the group. “I had heard a rumor there was a taxidermy dodo held by an ornithologist in London, but I suppose that is too much to wish for.”
“Rare bird skeletons?” Fletcher said under his breath to Louisa.
She shrugged.
“Tell me, Greystone, what do you think of all this?”
“About rare bird skeletons?”
“Sure,” said Daniel. “Or collecting specimens. Scientific study. Any of that.”
“Well,” Fletcher said, sitting up a bit straighter. He paused, probably trying to formulate a response. “’Tis a shame that the rare birds are mostly confined to private collections. Should not some of these specimens be available for the general public to look at and learn from? For example, the British Museum displays antiquities that have been collected over the years, so could they not also display scientific specimens?”
“An interesting idea,” said Whitson, the Oxford professor. “I’m of two minds because I like having specimens on-hand when I teach, but it might be useful to have a broader catalogue of specimens all in one place. I am especially interested in extinct species, and since those are no longer available to us to see in the wild, it might be useful to have a place to display them for the public.”
“Indeed,” said Fletcher. “I’m no expert on ornithology, but I have a lot of interests, and I like to read. Sometimes books just cannot do justice to a thing, and it is helpful to see it with your own eyes.”
“Indeed,” said Whitson. “For example, there is a species of blue pigeon in Africa that I would very much like to get my hands on. There is some speculation that last year’s volcanic eruption disrupted its mating journey, and few have been seen this year, and I’d like to see one before it is gone.”
“Does the extinction of bird species not bother you?” Louisa asks.
“It bothers me immensely. But it is the circle of life.”
“Is it? Why did the dodo go extinct?”
The men all glanced at each other. Louisa took this to mean she had overstepped.
Daniel said, “We don’t know exactly. The dodo was isolated to a specific part of the world. It could be that, once sailors stumbled upon their habitat and took a few back to Europe, this depleted the population enough to limit the number of available mates. It could be a weather-related phenomenon, like last year’s volcanic eruption. And I’ll remind you, that occurred thousands of miles away, but we still felt it here in that it never grew hot last summer because there was too much ashin the air to let the sunlight through. A much smaller disruption could have ended the dodos. A flood or a fire or something.”
“All right.” Louisa regretted she’d asked.
“There is a lot in nature that we do not know or understand, which is why scientists continue to study it all,” said another gent, whom Louisa did not know.
“Understood,” said Louisa. “I was just curious. Especially since, if there is a species of bird you are interested in, would you not also be interested in making sure it does not go extinct?”
