Chapter 7
DOWN TO BUSYNESS
‘Folded and crumpled as were the wings it looked a large creature to have occupied so small a cocoon. Astonishment grew as the crumpled wings were gently lifted up and down, inflating and spreading, until they were dry and firm enough for flight.’
September 1926
After breakfast Edith walks down the corridor to her office and closes the door firmly behind her. Her desk looks out of the window over the last of the blue climbing peas, Lathyrus pubescens, which scramble over the early buds of hydrangeas. Morning light streams in from the large front windows, blue from the flowers and the sky reflecting inside, as if she was swimming underwater. Those blooms would look marvellous in the little yellow vase, set against the rich cream of the hallway. But she resists the temptation to go outside. Once in the garden, hours can pass without even noticing and she would never get her work done.
What was once a formal sitting room is now her ‘Busyness Room’ and it is busyness that is needed. She sits at her desk and looks at the neat piles of paper in front of her. It was wonderful to go away camping for the week, but work had piled up in her absence. A stack of letters sits to the left, all opened, read and organised in order of priority. There are at least twenty to answer or write today. Then there is the article for the newspaper, which must be posted tomorrow, although who knows when they might print it. Sometimes it is months, even a year, before it appears. And then there is the article for the Victorian Naturalist. They were always most enthusiastic for her papers, not just on orchids but on any topic – birds in the garden, nature walks in the national park or even the interesting habits of a water scorpion that she had observed in a jar. And quick to publish too. The editor was always kind and encouraging.
‘Just the thing, Mrs Coleman,’ he enthused at the monthly meetings. ‘We need more work like this.’
She must write to Dr and Mrs Rogers from Adelaide, thanking them for their company on the trip to Wilsons Promontory. She and Dorothy had such a lovely time with their guests. James had been too busy at work and would not, in any case, have enjoyed quite so much conversation about orchids. Gladys had her husband to look after, and her studies to complete. Despite being so early in the season they managed to collect thirty-three orchid species – eleven of the Pterostylis greenhoods, an abundance of gnat orchids (Cyrtostylis reniformis) and some fine mosquito orchids (Acianthus caudatus) – even some rare green ones. Two of the pterostyles were probably hybrids and another Dr Rogers believed to be a new species entirely. She will have to look for more when they go up to Healesville. If it is to be confirmed as a new species, he will need more specimens. A shame it was a little early for the more striking orchids – the Diuris donkey orchids, the Caladenia spider orchids and Thelymitra sun orchids. Most were visible only from leaves or buds. But Dr Rogers was a true orchid lover – he did not mind whether they were pretty or not. How nice to finally meet him, and his wife, and be able to put a face to the name she had written to so often.
Edith looks around at the walls of her office, lined with homemade bookshelves, wedged between wooden kerosene boxes stacked sideways. A pile of books sits on the floor. She must speak to James about more shelving. There are reprints to paste in her exercise books too, along with a pile of clippings from magazines and newspapers, all grouped by topic and squashed flat between bulging pages. A specialist library of which she is the only librarian. Edith frowns, looking at her incomplete sequence of the Victorian Naturalist and Southern Science Record. Several early editions are still missing. How she would love her own copy of Comstock’s Spider Book, so beautifully illustrated by his talented wife, Anna. Perhaps this afternoon she would have time to visit the bookseller, to see if anything new has come in for her. After visiting the Public Library, where all the latest publications might be found.
Edith picks up her pen, and starts to write.
ON THE EVENING of Monday, 11 September 1922, in the grand hall of the Royal Society, Edith Coleman was elected to the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. After some anxious discussion of the live bird trade, Edith rose to read her first paper to the gathered members. ‘Some autumn orchids’ is a detailed description of the orchids around Healesville. The work is obviously based on many years of observation, at the very least since 1920. I am reminded of Richard Jefferies’ comment about Gilbert White.
‘He gathered his facts very slowly,’ wrote Jefferies. ‘They were like experience, which takes a lifetime to grow. You cannot sit down and make up experience, and write it as a thesis; it must come, and this is what he did – he waited until things came. His book, for this reason, reads as if it had been compiled in the evening.’
Edith presented at her first official meeting as a fully-fledged naturalist – already an expert on her subject matter.
This was not
