Remarkable Creatures Part 7

"You've eaten mice!"

"Oh, yes. They are rather good on toast."

I wrinkled my nose at the thought, and at the smell of the bird. "But-the gull stinks, sir!"

Mr Buckland sniffed. "Does it?" For such a keen observer of the world, he often overlooked the obvious. "Never mind, I'll have them boil it up, and use the skeleton for my lectures. Now, what have you found today?"

Mr Buckland got very excited by the things I showed him-some golden ammos, a fish's scaly tail I would give to Miss Elizabeth, and a verteberry the size of a guinea. He asked so many questions, mixing in his own thoughts as he did, that I begun to feel like a pebble rolled back and forth in the tide. Then he insisted we turn round and go back to the landslip to look for more. The mare and I followed him until he stopped suddenly, just a stone's throw from the slip, and said, "No, no, I won't have time-I'm to meet Doctor Carpenter at the Three Cups shortly. Let's come back this afternoon."

"Can't, sir-the tide'll be in."

Mr Buckland looked puzzled, as if a high tide were nothing to consider.

"We can't reach the landslip along this side of the beach when the tide's high," I explained. "Because of the cliffs bulging out there. The beach gets cut off."

"What about coming from the Charmouth end?"

I shrugged. "We could-but we'd have to go all the way round along the road to get to Charmouth first. Or take the cliff path-but that's not stable now, as you can see, sir." I nodded towards the landslip.

"We can ride my mare to Charmouth-that's what she's here for. She'll take us quick as you like."

I hesitated. Though I had accompanied gentlemen upon beach, I had never ridden on a horse with one. The townsfolk would certainly have things to say about that. Though Mr Buckland's high spirits seemed innocent to me, they might not to others. Besides, I didn't like being upon beach at high tide, hemmed in between cliff and sea. If there were another slip there was nowhere to escape to.

It was hard arguing with Mr Buckland, for his enthusiasm ran roughshod over everything. However, I soon discovered he changed his mind so often that by the time he reached Lyme he'd had about a dozen other ideas of how to spend the afternoon, and we didn't return to the landslip at all that day.

Mr Buckland didn't get to see where I'd dug up the second croc, as the tide had covered the ledge by the time we pa.s.sed it. I did show him the cliff where the first one had come from, though, and he made a little sketch. He kept stopping to look at things-silly, some of them, like ammo impressions in the rock ledges that he had surely seen many times before-so I had to remind him of Doctor Carpenter waiting for him at the Three Cups, as well as the much more interesting specimen sitting in the workshop. "Did you know, sir," I added, "that Doctor Carpenter saved my life when I were a baby?"

"Did he, now? That is what doctors often do-dose babies when they have fevers."

"Oh, it was more than that, sir. I'd been struck by lightning, see, and Doctor Carpenter told my parents to put me in a bath of lukewarm water-"

Mr Buckland halted on the rock he was about to jump from. "You were struck by lightning?" he cried, his eyes wide and delighted.

I stopped as well, embarra.s.sed now that I had brought it up. I did not normally talk about the lightning to anyone, but had wanted to show off to this clever Oxford gentleman. This was the only thing I could think of that would impress him. It was silly, really, for it turned out later I were more than a match for him when it come to finding and identifying fossils, and his feeble grasp of anatomy sometimes made me laugh. I didn't know that at the time, though, and so I spent an uncomfortable time being questioned by him about what had happened to me in that field when I were a baby.

It did have its effect, though, for Mr Buckland clearly respected me for my experience. "That is truly remarkable, Mary," he said at last. "G.o.d spared you, and gave you an experience almost unique in the world. Your body housed the lightning and clearly benefited from it." He looked me up and down, and I blushed with the attention.

At last we got back, and I left Mr Buckland in the workshop, hopping round the crocodile and calling out questions to me even as I went up to the kitchen. Mam was at the range, boiling another family's linens. Doing laundry brought her just enough money for coal to keep the fire going so that she could wash another set of linens. She never liked it when I pointed out this circle to her.

"Who's that downstairs?" she demanded now, hearing Mr Buckland's voice. "You get tuppence off him to see it?"

I shook my head. "Mr Buckland's not the tuppence type."

"Course he is. You don't let anyone see that thing without paying. Penny for the poor, tuppence for the rich."

"You ask him, then."

Mam frowned. "I will." Handing me the paddle she used to stir the linens, she wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n and headed downstairs. I poked at the was.h.i.+ng, happy enough for a little break from Mr Buckland's questions-though it would have been funny to see Mam try to cope with him. She was fine with some of the other gentlemen. Henry De La Beche, for instance, she bossed about like another son. But William Buckland defeated even my mam. She come up a time later, exhausted from his constant chatter, and without tuppence. She shook her head. "Your pa used to tell me when that man come to the workshop, he'd give up getting any work done and settle back for a sleep while Mr Buckland went on. Now, he wants you back down to tell him about the cleaning and what we're going to do with it. Tell him we want a good price, and don't want being cheated by a gentleman again!"

When I come in Mr Buckland was leaving by the door that led onto c.o.c.kmoile Square. "Oh, Mary, I'll just be a moment. I'm fetching Doctor Carpenter here to see this. And a few others this afternoon who I'm sure will be most interested in it."

"Just as long as it's not Lord Henley!" I called after him.

"Why not Lord Henley?"

I explained about the first croc, with its monocle, waistcoat and straightened tail as Miss Philpot had described it. "That idiot!" Mr Buckland cried. "He should have sold it to Oxford or the British Museum rather than to Bullock's. I'm sure I could have convinced either to take it. I shall do so with this one."

Without asking, Mr Buckland took over the selling of the croc from Mam and Miss Elizabeth. Before Mam could stop him he'd written enthusiastic letters to possible buyers. She were cross at first, but not once he'd found us a rich gentleman in Bristol who paid us forty pounds for it-the museums having said no. That made up for all that Mam and me had to put up with from Mr Buckland. For he was about all summer, fired with the idea of crocodiles entombed in the cliffs and ledges, waiting to be freed. While we had ours in the workshop, he was in and out all day as if the room were his, bringing with him gentlemen who poked about, measuring and sketching and discussing my croc. I noticed during all the talk, Mr Buckland never once called it a crocodile. He was like Miss Elizabeth that way. It made me begin to accept it were something else-though until we knew what that was, I would still call it a crocodile.

One day when it were just Mr Buckland and me in the workshop, he asked if he could clean a bit of the croc himself. He was always keen to try out new things. I surrendered my brushes and blade, for I couldn't say no to him, but I feared he would do real damage. He didn't, but that was because he kept stopping and examining and talking about the croc till I wanted to scream. We needed to eat; we needed to pay the rent. We still had debts of Pa's to pay, and the thought of ending up in the workhouse never left us. We couldn't spend the time talking. We needed to sell the croc.

Finally I managed to interrupt him. "Sir," I said, "let me do the work and you do the talking, or this creature will never be ready."

"You're quite right, Mary, of course you are." Mr Buckland handed me the blade, then sat back to watch me sc.r.a.pe along one of the ribs, freeing and brus.h.i.+ng away the limestone that clung to it. Slowly a clear line emerged, and because I went at it carefully, the rib weren't nicked or scored, but smooth and whole. For once he was quiet, and that made me ask the question I'd been wanting to for several days now. "Sir," I said, "is this one of the creatures Noah brought on his ark?"

Mr Buckland looked startled. "Well, now, Mary, why do you ask that?"

He didn't go chatting on as he normally would, and his waiting for me to speak made me shy. I concentrated on the rib. "Dunno, sir, I just thought..."

"What did you think?"

Maybe he had forgotten I weren't one of his students, but just a girl working to live. Still, for a moment I acted the student. "Miss Philpot showed me pictures of crocodiles drawn by Cruver-Cuver-the Frenchman who does all those studies of animals."

"Georges Cuvier?"

"Yes, him. So we compared his drawings to this and found it were different in so many ways. Its snout is long and pointed like a dolphin's, while a croc's is blunt. And it's got paddles instead of claws, and they're turned outward rather than forward the way a croc's legs are. And of course, that big eye. No crocodile has eyes like that. So Miss Philpot and I wondered what it could be if it's not a croc. Then I heard you and a gentleman you brought here the other day, Reverend Conybeare. You was talking about the Flood-" actually they'd used the words "deluge" and "diluvian", and I'd had to ask Miss Elizabeth what they meant "- and it made me wonder: if this ain't a crocodile, which Noah would've had on the ark, then what is it? Did G.o.d make something that was on the ark we don't know about? So that's why I'm asking, sir."

Mr Buckland was silent for longer than I thought he could ever manage. I begun to worry he didn't understand what I meant, that I was too uneducated to make sense to an Oxford scholar. So I asked again, a slightly different question. "Why would G.o.d make creatures that don't exist any more?"

Mr Buckland looked at me with his big eyes, and I saw there a flickering worry.

"You are not the only person to ask this question, Mary," he said. "Many learned men are discussing it. Cuvier himself believes there is such a thing as the extinction of certain animals, in which they die away completely. I am not so sure of that, however. I cannot see why G.o.d would want to kill off what He has created." Then he brightened, and the worry left his eyes. "My friend the Reverend Conybeare says that while the Scriptures tell us that G.o.d created Heaven and Earth, they don't describe how He did it. That is open to interpretation. And that is why I'm here-to study this remarkable creature, and find more of them to study, and through careful contemplation arrive at an answer. Geology is always to be used in the service of religion, to study the wonders of G.o.d's creation and marvel at His genius." He ran a hand over the croc's spine. "G.o.d in His infinite wisdom has peppered this world with mysteries for men to solve. This is one of them, and I am hon-?floured to take on the task."

His words sounded fine, but he had given no answer. Perhaps there was no answer. I thought for a moment. "Sir, do you think the world was created in six days, the way the Bible says?"

Mr Buckland waggled his head-not a yes or a no. "It has been suggested that 'day' is a word that should not be interpreted literally. If one thinks instead of each day as an epoch during which G.o.d created and perfected different parts of Heaven and Earth, then some of the tensions between geology and the Bible disappear. After five epochs, during which all of the layering of rock and the fossilisation of animals occurred, then man was created. That is why there are no human fossils, you see. And once there were people, on the sixth 'day', the Flood came, and when it subsided, it left the world as we see it today, in all its grandeur."

"Where did all the water go?"

Mr Buckland paused, and I saw again that flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. "Back into the clouds from whence the rain came," he replied.

I knew I should believe him, as he taught at Oxford, but his answers did not feel complete. It was like having a meal and not getting quite enough to eat. I went back to cleaning the croc and did not ask more questions. It seemed I was always going to feel a little hollowed out round my monsters.

Mr Buckland stayed at the Three Cups in Lyme for much of the summer, long after the second crocodile had been cleaned, packed and sent to Bristol. He often called for me at c.o.c.kmoile Square, or asked me to meet him upon beach. He a.s.sumed I would accompany him and attend him, showing him where fossils could be found, sometimes finding them for him. He was particularly keen to find another monster, which he would take back to Oxford for his collection. While I wanted to find one too, I were never sure what would happen if we did discover one while out together. I had the eye and was more likely to spot it first. Would that mean Mr Buckland should pay me for it? It were never clear, as we didn't talk about money, though he was quick to thank me when I found curies for him. Even Mam didn't mention it. Mr Buckland seemed to be above money, as a scholar ought to be, living in a world where it didn't matter.

By then Joe was well into his apprentices.h.i.+p and never come out with me unless there was heavy lifting or hammering to do. Sometimes Mam come with us, and sat knitting while we ranged round her. But Mr Buckland wanted to go farther than she did, and she had laundry to do and the house to look after, and the shop-for we still set out a table of curies in front of the workshop, the way Pa used to, and Mam sold 'em to visitors.

Other times Miss Elizabeth went hunting with us. It weren't as it had been with the other gentlemen, though, where she and I had laughed at the men behind their backs when they kept making beginner's mistakes, picking up beef or thinking a bit of fossilised wood was a bone. Mr Buckland was smarter, and kinder too, and I could see Miss Elizabeth liked him. I felt sometimes that she and I were two women competing for his attention, for I weren't a child any more. I would look up from my hunting and see her eyes lingering on him, and want to tease her about it, but knew it would hurt her. Miss Elizabeth was clever, which Mr Buckland appreciated. She could talk to him about fossils and geology, and read some of the scientific papers he lent her. But she was five years older than him, too old to start a family, and without the money or the looks to tempt him anyway. Besides, he was in love with rocks, and would fondle a pretty bit of quartz more likely than flirt with a lady. Miss Elizabeth hadn't a chance. Not that I did, either.

When we were together she become quieter, and sharper when she did speak. Then she made excuses, leaving us to walk farther down the beach, and I would see her in the distance, her back very straight, even when she stooped to examine something. Or she would say she preferred to hunt at Pinhay Bay or Monmouth Beach rather than by Black Ven, and disappear altogether.

Mostly, then, Mr Buckland and me were alone. Though we were fixed only on finding curies, our being together so often was too much even for Lyme folk. Eventually town gossip caught up with us-fuelled, I was sure, by Captain Cury. In the years since the landslip that almost killed him and me and buried the first crocodile, he had let me be. But he had never managed to find himself a complete croc, and still liked to spy on what I was doing. Once I begun hunting with Mr Buckland, Captain Cury got jealous. He would make sly comments as he pa.s.sed us upon beach, clanging his spade against the rock ledge. "Having fun here on your own, you two?" he'd say. "Enjoy being alone?"

Mr Buckland mistook Captain Cury's attention as interest, and hurried over to show him the fossils we'd found, and baffle him with scientific terms and theories. Captain Cury stood there uncomfortable, then made an excuse to get away. He loped down the beach, sneering at me over his shoulder, ready to tell everyone that he'd seen us together.

I ignored the talk, but one day Mam overheard someone in the Shambles calling me a gentleman's wh.o.r.e. She marched straight down to Church Cliffs where Mr Buckland and I were prising out the jaw of a crocodile. "Get your things and come back with me," she ordered, ignoring Mr Buckland's greeting.

"But, Mam, we've only an hour left to dig till the tide's in. Look, you can see all the teeth here."

"Come away, you. Do as I say." Mam made me feel guilty when I hadn't even done anything. I stood up quick and brushed the mud off my skirt. Mam glared at Mr Buckland. "I don't want you out here alone with my daughter." I had never heard her be so rude to a gentleman.

Luckily Mr Buckland was not easily offended. Perhaps it was because he misunderstood her, for he was not the sort of man to think as the town did. "Mrs Anning, we have found a most splendid jaw!" he cried. "Here, feel the teeth, they are as even as a comb's. I promise you, I'm not wasting Mary's time. She and I are engaged in tremendous scientific discovery."

"I don't care nothing for your scientific so-and-so," Mam muttered. "I've my daughter's reputation to think of. This family's been through enough already-we don't need Mary's prospects ruined by a gentleman with no concern other than what he can get out of her."

Mr Buckland turned to look at me as if he'd never thought of me in that way before. I flushed and hunched my shoulders to hide my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Then he looked down at his own chest, as if suddenly reconsidering himself. It would be comical, if it weren't already tragical.

Mam begun picking her way back across the beach, skirting pools of water. "Come along, Mary," she said over her shoulder.

"Wait, ma'am," Mr Buckland called. "Please. I have the greatest respect for your daughter. I would never want to compromise her reputation. Is it our being alone that is the problem? For that is easily solved. I shall find us a chaperone. If I ask at the Three Cups I'm sure they can spare us someone."

Mam stopped but didn't look round. She was thinking. So was I. Mam's words had given me an idea about myself I had never really considered. I had prospects. A gentleman could be interested in me. I might not always be so poor and needy.

"All right," Mam said at last. "If Miss Elizabeth or me ain't with you, you take someone else. Come, Mary."

I picked up my basket and hammer.

"But what about this jaw? Mary?" Mr Buckland looked a little frantic.

I walked backwards so I could look at him. "You have a go at it, sir. You been collecting fossils all these years, you don't need me."

"But I do, Mary, I do!"

I smiled. Swinging my basket, I turned and followed Mam.

That was how f.a.n.n.y Miller come back into my life. When Mr Buckland collected me from home the next morning, f.a.n.n.y was hovering behind him, looking about as miserable as a coachman in the rain. She kept her eyes on her boots, scuffing them on the cobblestones of c.o.c.kmoile Square to get the mud off. Like me, she were growing into a young woman, her curves a little softer than mine, her face the shape of an egg, framed by a battered bonnet trimmed with a blue ribbon to match her eyes. Though poor, she was so pretty I wanted to slap her.

Mr Buckland didn't seem to notice that, though, nor the frosty look that pa.s.sed between her and me. "There, you see," he said, "I've brought us a chaperone. She works in the Three Cups' kitchen, but they said they could spare her for a few hours while the tide is out." He beamed, clearly pleased with himself. "What is your name, my girl?"

"f.a.n.n.y," she said, so soft I weren't sure Mr Buckland even heard.

I sighed, but there was nothing I could do. After all the fuss Mam made about him getting someone to come out with us, I couldn't complain about his choice. I would just have to put up with her-and she with me. f.a.n.n.y were sure to be just as unhappy as I was that she had to come upon beach with us, but she needed the work, and would do as she was told.

We went back to the jaw in Church Cliffs, f.a.n.n.y trailing behind us. As we worked she sat some way away, sifting through the stones at her feet. Maybe she still liked s.h.i.+ny pebbles. She looked so bored and frightened I almost pitied her.

So did Mr Buckland. Perhaps he felt idleness was an evil anyone would want to avoid. When he saw her playing with the stones he went over to talk "undergroundology", as he liked to call geology. "Here-f.a.n.n.y, is it?" he said. "Would you like me to tell you what those stones are you're arranging? Most of what you've got there is limestone and flint, but that pretty white bit is quartz, and the brown with the stripe is sandstone. There are several different layers of rock along this beach, you see, like this." He took up a stick and drew in the sand the different layers of granite, limestone, slate, sandstone and chalk. "All over Great Britain, and indeed on the Continent as well, we are discovering these layers of rock, always in the same order. Isn't that surprising?"

When f.a.n.n.y did not respond, he said, "Perhaps you would like to come and see what we're digging out."

f.a.n.n.y approached reluctantly, glancing up at the cliff face. She seemed not to have overcome her fear of falling rocks.

"Do you see this jaw?" Mr Buckland ran his finger along it. "Beautiful, isn't it? The snout is broken off, but the rest is intact. It will make an excellent model to use during my lectures on fossil discoveries." He peered at f.a.n.n.y as if to savour her response, and looked puzzled when she screwed up her face with disgust. Mr Buckland found it hard to understand that others didn't feel as he did about fossils and rocks.

"You saw the creatures Mary discovered when they were on display in town, did you not?" he persisted.

f.a.n.n.y shook her head.

He tried once more to draw her in. "Perhaps you would like to help? You may hold the hammers. Or Mary can show you how to look for other fossils."

"No, thank you, sir. I've my own work." As she turned to go back to her safe seat away from the cliff, f.a.n.n.y's face was full of spite. If I were younger I would have pinched her. But she had punishment enough, being out upon beach with us, her presence allowing for the discovery of the very things she despised most. She must have hated that, and would have preferred to scrub any number of pots in the kitchen of the Three Cups.

Later Miss Elizabeth come along, hunting on her own. She frowned at f.a.n.n.y, who now had out some lace she was making-though how she could keep it clean with so much mud about I didn't know. "What is she doing here?" Miss Elizabeth demanded.

"Chaperone," I said.

"Oh!" Miss Elizabeth watched her for a moment, then shook her head. "Poor girl," she murmured, before pa.s.sing on.

It's your fault she's here, I thought. If you weren't so funny about Mr Buckland you could stay with us and release f.a.n.n.y from her torment. And my torment too that she's sitting there reminding me of the sort of woman I'll never be.

f.a.n.n.y was with us all summer. Usually she sat on rocks away from us, or followed at a distance when we were wandering. Though she didn't complain, I knew she hated it when we went farther, to Charmouth or beyond. She preferred remaining close to Lyme, by Gun Cliff or Church Cliffs. Then a friend might come out to see her, and f.a.n.n.y cheered up and become more confident. The two would sit and peek round their bonnets at us and whisper and giggle.

Mr Buckland tried to interest f.a.n.n.y in what we found, or to show her what to look for, but she always said she had other things to do, and brought out lace or sewing or knitting. "She thinks they're the Devil's works," I finally explained in a low voice, when f.a.n.n.y had once again rebuffed him and gone to sit with her lace. "They scare her."

"But that's absurd!" Mr Buckland said. "They are G.o.d's creatures from the past, and there is nothing to be frightened of."

He got up from his knees as if he would go to her, but I caught his arm. "Please, sir, leave her be. It's better that way."

When I looked over at f.a.n.n.y she was staring at my hand on Mr Buckland's sleeve. She always seemed to notice when his hand touched mine as he pa.s.sed me a fossil, or when I grabbed his elbow when he stumbled. She gasped outright when Mr Buckland hugged me the afternoon we managed to get the croc jaw out of the cliff. In that way her accompanying us made things worse, for I suspect f.a.n.n.y spread plenty of gossip. We might have been better off alone, without a witness to report back everything she saw that she didn't understand. I still had funny looks from townspeople, and laughter behind my back.

Poor f.a.n.n.y. I should be kinder to her, for she paid a price, going out with us.

My trade is best done in bad weather. Rain flushes fossils out of the cliffs, and storms scrub the ledges clean of seaweed and sand so more can be seen. Joe may have left fossils for upholstery because of the weather, but I was like Pa-I never minded the cold or the wet, as long as I was finding curies.

Mr Buckland also wanted to go out even when it was raining. f.a.n.n.y had to come with us, and would huddle wretched in her shawl, curling up amongst the boulders to shelter against the wind. We were often the only folk upon beach then, for in poor weather visitors preferred to go to the bath houses, which had heated water, or to play cards and read the papers at the a.s.sembly Rooms, or to drink at the Three Cups. Only serious hunters went out in the rain.

One rainy day towards the end of the summer, I was upon beach with Mr Buckland and f.a.n.n.y. There was no one else on that stretch of sh.o.r.e, though Captain Cury pa.s.sed by at one point, nosing about to see what we were doing. Mr Buckland had discovered a ridge of b.u.mps not far from where we'd dug out the jaw in Church Cliffs, and thought they might be a row of verteberries from the same animal.

I was chiselling away at it to try and uncover the bones when Mr Buckland left my side. After a minute f.a.n.n.y come to stand close by, and I knew Mr Buckland must be p.i.s.sing in the water. He was always careful not to embarra.s.s me, and slipped off to do his business far enough away that I didn't have to see. I was used to him doing that, but it always bothered f.a.n.n.y, and it were the one time she come up to the cliff by me. Even after several weeks in his company, she was still a little scared of Mr Buckland. His friendliness and constant questions were too demanding for someone like f.a.n.n.y.

I felt sorry for her. The rain was coming down hard, and dripping on her face from her bonnet rim. It was too wet for her to sew or knit, and there's nothing worse than having nothing to do in the rain. "Why don't you just turn away when he's down there?" I said, trying to be helpful. "He's not going to wave it in your face. He's too much of a gentleman for that."

f.a.n.n.y shrugged. "You ever seen one?" she said after a moment. I think it was the first question she'd asked me in ten years. Maybe the rain had wore her down.

I thought of the belemnite Miss Elizabeth showed James Foot on this beach years before and smiled. "No. Just Joe's, when he were little. You?"

I didn't think she would answer, but then she said, "Once, at the Three Cups, a man got so drunk he dropped his trousers in the kitchen, thinking it were the privy!"

We both laughed. For a second I wondered if we might be starting to get on better.