Remarkable Creatures

by Tracy Chevalier

  I considered his reply. “Why, then, are they always coiled? I have never seen a live worm take such a shape. Or a snake, which some suggest is what they are.”

  Lord Henley shuffled his feet under his chair. “I expect you haven’t seen many people lying on their backs with their hands crossed on their chests, have you now, Miss Philpot? Yet that is how we bury them. The worms are coiled in death.”

  I held back a snort, for I had a vision of worms gathered around to roll one of their dead into a coil, as we prepare our own in death. It was clearly a ridiculous idea, and yet Lord Henley did not think to question it. I did not probe further, however, for down the table Margaret was shaking her head at me, and the man sitting across from me had raised his eyebrows at our indelicate talk.

  Now I know that ammonites were sea creatures rather like our modern nautilus, with protective shells and squidlike tentacles. I wish I could have told Lord Henley so at that dinner, with his assured talk of coiled worms. But at that time I had neither the knowledge nor the confidence to correct him.

  Later, when he showed me his collection, Lord Henley revealed more ignorance, not being able to distinguish one ammonite from another. When I pointed out one marked with straight, even suture lines crossing its spiral while on another each line had two knobs picking out the spiral shape, he patted my hand. “What a clever little lady you are,” he said, shaking his head at the same time and undercutting the compliment. I sensed then that he and I would not puzzle over fossils together. I had the patience and eye for detail needed to study them, where Lord Henley painted with a much broader brush and did not like to be reminded of it.

  James Foot was a friend of the Henleys, and our paths must have crossed at Colway Manor, certainly at the Christmas ball, when half of West Dorset came. But Louise and I first heard of him over breakfast after one of the summer dances at the Assembly Rooms.

  “I can eat nothing,” Margaret declared on sitting down at the table and waving away a plate of smoked fish. “I am too agitated!”

  Louise rolled her eyes and I smiled into my tea. Margaret often made such pronouncements after balls, and though we laughed at them, we would not have her stop, for these remarks formed our primary entertainment.

  “What is his name this time?” I asked.

  “James Foot.”

  “Indeed? And are his feet all you could hope for?”

  Margaret made a face at me and took a slice of toast from the rack. “He is a gentleman,” she declared, crumbling her toast into bits that Bessy would later have to throw onto the lawn for the birds. “He is a friend of Lord Henley’s, he has a farm near Beam inster, and he is a fine dancer. He has already asked me for the first dance on Tuesday!”

  I watched her fiddling with her toast. Although I had heard similar words often enough before, something about Margaret herself was different. She seemed more clearly defined and more self-contained. She kept her chin down, as if holding back extra words, and tucked into herself to listen to new feelings she was trying to comprehend. And though her hands were still busy, their movements were more controlled.

  She is ready for a husband, I thought. I gazed at the tablecloth—pale yellow linen embroidered at the corners by our late mother and now sprinkled with crumbs—and said a short prayer, asking God to favor Margaret as He had Frances. When I lifted my eyes I met Louise’s, and they must have reflected mine, both sad and hopeful. It was likely mine were more sad than hopeful, however. I had sent many prayers to God that had gone unanswered, and wondered sometimes whether or not my prayers had been received and heard at all.

  Margaret continued to dance with James Foot, and we continued to hear of him over breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper, out on walks, while trying to read at night. At last Louise and I accompanied Margaret to the Assembly Rooms so that we might see him for ourselves.

  I found him very agreeable to look at, more than I’d expected—though why shouldn’t Dorset produce men as fine-looking as any you’ll meet in London? He was tall and slim, and everything about him was tidy and elegant, from his newly cut curly hair to his pale, slim hands. He wore a beautiful chocolate brown tailcoat the same color as his eyes. It looked glorious against the pale green gown Margaret wore—which must have been why she wore it, and had taken the trouble to get me to sew on a new dark green ribbon at its waist, as well as fashion a new turban with feathers dyed to match. Indeed, since James Foot’s arrival in Lyme, she had begun to fuss even more over her clothes, buying new gloves and ribbons, bleaching her slippers to remove scuffs, writing to ask our sister-in-law to send cloth from London. Louise and I did not bother much about our own clothes, wearing muted shades—Louise dark blues and greens, I mauve and gray—but we were happy enough to allow Margaret to indulge in pastels and flowered patterns. And if there was money enough for only one new gown, we insisted she get it. Now I was glad, for she looked lovely dancing with James Foot in her green gown, with feathers in her hair. I sat and watched them, and was content.

  Louise was less so. She said nothing at the Assembly Rooms, but when we were preparing for bed later—having left Margaret still dancing, with an assurance from friends that they would see her home—Louise declared, “He cares very much about appearances.”

  I secured my sleeping cap over my indifferent hair and got into bed. “So does Margaret.”

  Though it was too late to read, I did not blow out the candle, but watched the cobwebs flutter on the ceiling in the draft of heat from the flame.

  “It is not his clothes, though they are a reflection of his inclinations,” Louise said. “He wants things to be proper.”

  “We are proper,” I protested.

  Louise blew out her candle.

  I knew what she meant. I had felt it when James Foot was introduced to me. He was polite and straightforward—and conventional. I found myself trying to respond as blandly as possible. As we talked, his eyes flickered over the slight fraying on the neckline of my violet gown, and I felt a judgment clicked into a place in his head, a bit of information tucked away to be brought out and considered later. “Elizabeth Philpot does not attend to her gowns,” I could imagine him saying to his own sister.

  For Margaret’s sake I tried to be proper when James Foot visited us at Morley Cottage one day. James Foot himself was obliging too. He asked Louise to show him the garden and offered to send her cuttings of his hydrangeas when he found she had none. She did not tell him she detested them. He was keen to examine my fossil collection and knew more about fossils than Henry Hoste Henley. When he suggested that I go to Eype, farther east along the coast, near Bridport, to look for brittle stars, he added that I was welcome to visit his nearby farm. For myself, I did not quiz him about fossils as I wanted to, but let him lead the conversation, and it was pleasant enough.

  After he left, Margaret was in such a daze that we took her to bathe in the sea, hoping the cold shock would sharpen her. Louise and I stood on the shore while she paddled. The bathing machine, a little closet on a cart, had been pulled far out into the water to give her privacy, and Margaret swam with it between her and the shore, preserving her modesty. Once or twice we caught a glimpse of an arm, or a plume of water as she kicked.

  My eyes scanned the pebbles, though I did not expect to find any fossils amongst the chunks of flint. “I thought his visit was very successful,” I announced, aware of how uninspired I sounded.

  “He won’t marry her,” Louise said.

  “Why not? She’s as good as anyone, and much better than many.”

  “Margaret would bring little money to a marriage. That may not matter to him, but if there is no money, then the character of the family he marries into becomes important.”

  “But we did well today, didn’t we? Talking about the sorts of things he’d prefer, being agreeable but not too clever. And he was interested in us—he spent long enough with you in the garden!”

  “We did not flirt with him.”

  “Of course not—thankfully we could leave that to
Margaret!” Even as I protested, I knew what she meant. Sisters are expected to engage in sparkling conversation with their sister’s suitor, to assume a slight intimacy that anticipates a familial link. However I was meant to act with James Foot, I had been awkward and leaden rather than a naturally welcoming family member. He would dread each occasion, as I already did, when we must repeat such conversations. For it had been tiresome being careful in order to please a gentleman for an afternoon. After little more than a year in Lyme I’d come to appreciate the freedom a spinster with no male relatives about could have there. It already seemed more normal to me than twenty-five years of conventional life in London had.

  Of course Margaret felt differently. I watched her now as she floated into view for a moment on her back, her hands wafting about her like seaweed. She would be gazing up at the reddening afternoon sky and thinking of James Foot. I winced for her.

  Perhaps for Margaret’s sake I would have managed to temper my behavior and grown used to spending time with James Foot without it always feeling like a burden. A few weeks later, however, I had an encounter with him on the beach that undid all my previous efforts to be a benign sister.

  Richard Anning had just given his daughter a special hammer he’d made, its wooden points covered with metal. Mary was keen to show me how to use it to slice open lozenge-shaped stones, called nodules, to reveal crystallized ammonites, and sometimes fish. I did not tell her I’d never handled a hammer before, though she must have realized it when she saw my first feeble attempts to swing it. She made no comment, simply corrected me until I improved, a surprisingly patient young teacher.

  Although it was a fair September day, there was a chilling breeze that reminded me autumn had chased away the summer. I was on my knees, aiming sharp taps along the edge of a nodule, which I held against a flat rock. Mary was leaning over, watching and guiding. “There, Miss Elizabeth. Not too hard or it’ll split the wrong way. Now, cut that bit off the end so you can prop it and hold steady. Oh! Are you all right, ma’am?”

  The hammer had slipped and knocked the tip of my index finger. I popped it in my mouth to suck on it and remove the sting.

  At that moment I heard stones rattle behind me and made the mistake of turning towards the sound with my finger still in my mouth. James Foot was a few feet away, gazing down at me with a peculiar look on his face of distaste overlaid with a mask of civility. I pulled my finger out of my mouth with a squelching pop that made me blush with shame.

  James Foot held out a hand to help me to my feet. As I scrambled up Mary backed away, instinctively knowing how much respectful distance to give us and yet allow her to remain my guide and chaperone.

  “I was just opening that stone to see if it held any ammonites,” I explained.

  James Foot’s eyes were not on the nodule, however. He was staring at my gloves. To protect my hands from the cold and from drying clay, I often wore gloves, as in any case would be expected of a lady outdoors, whatever the weather. While first out fossil hunting I had ruined several pairs, stained with Blue Lias clay and seawater. Now I had a pair set aside to use on the beach, ivory kid leather that was soiled and hardened from the water, with the fingers cut off to the knuckle so that I could handle things more easily. They looked odd and ugly but they were useful. I also kept a more respectable pair with me that I could slip on when visitors approached, but James Foot had not given me the time to do so.

  He himself was well turned out in a double-breasted burgundy tailcoat with polished silver buttons and a brown velvet collar. His own gloves were in matching brown. His riding boots shone, as if mud didn’t dare to come near.

  At that moment I acknowledged to myself that I did not like James Foot, with his clean boots, and his collar and gloves matching, and his judging eye. I could never trust a man whose dominant feature was his clothes. I did not like him, and I suspected he did not like me—though he was far too polite to show it.

  I clasped my hands behind my back so that he would not have to continue to stare at the offending gloves. “Where is your horse, sir?” I could think of nothing better to say.

  “At Charmouth. A boy is taking him over to Colway Manor. I decided to walk the last stretch along the beach, as it is so fine.”

  Mary was waving at me behind James Foot’s back. When she caught my eye she vigorously rubbed her cheek. I frowned at her.

  “What have you found today?” James Foot asked.

  I hesitated. To show him what I had would mean bringing out my gloved hands again for him to inspect. “Mary, fetch the basket and show Mr. Foot what we have found. Mary knows a great deal about fossils,” I added as she brought the basket to James Foot and pulled out a heart-shaped gray stone impressed with a delicate five-petal pattern.

  “This is a sea urchin, sir,” she said. “And here’s a Devil’s toenail.” She held out a bivalve in the shape of a claw. “Best, though, is the biggest belemnite I ever seen.” Mary held up a beautifully preserved belemnite at least four inches long and an inch wide, its tip perfectly tapered.

  James Foot looked at it and went bright red. I could not think why until Mary giggled. “It looks like my brother’s—”

  “That’s enough, Mary,” I managed to interrupt in time. “Put it away, please.” I too turned red. I wanted to say something but to apologize would only make things worse. I am sure James Foot thought I had deliberately set out to embarrass him. “Will you be at the Assembly Rooms tonight?” I asked, trying to put the belemnite out of mind.

  “I expect so—unless Lord Henley has other plans for me.”

  James Foot normally spoke very definitely about what he was and wasn’t doing, but now I had the feeling he was giving himself a little room to get away. I thought I knew why, but to be sure I said, “I will tell Margaret to look out for you.”

  Though James Foot did not move, he gave the impression of stepping away from my statement. “If I can, I will come. Please give my regards to your sisters.” He bowed and moved away down the shore towards Lyme.

  I watched him skirt a rock pool and murmured, “He will never marry her.”

  “Ma’am?” Mary Anning looked puzzled. And she was calling me “ma’am” now. Spinster or not, I had outgrown “miss.” Ladies were called “miss” while they still had a chance of marrying.

  “Nothing, Mary.” I turned to her. “What was it you wanted before? You were dancing about and rubbing your face as if you’d been stung.”

  “You got mud on your cheek, is all, Miss Elizabeth. I thought you’d want to wipe if off so the gentleman wouldn’t stare so.”

  I felt my cheek. “Oh dear, that as well?” I took out a handkerchief and spat on it, then began to laugh, so that I would not cry instead.

  James Foot did not come to the Assembly Rooms that night. Margaret was disappointed but did not become alarmed until the next day, when he sent word—without delivering it himself—that he had been called to Suffolk to tend to family business and would be gone some weeks. “What family?” Margaret demanded of the hapless messenger—one of Lord Henley’s many cousins. “He said nothing to me about family in Suffolk!”

  She wept and moped and found excuses to visit the Henleys, who could not or would not help her. I doubted James Foot had told them why he’d gone off Margaret—or at least, he would not be specific about my gloves or the belemnite. He was enough of a gentleman not to mention such a thing. But it would have been clear enough to the Henleys that we were not an appropriate family for him to marry into.

  Margaret continued to attend Assembly Rooms balls and cards evenings, but she had lost her glow, and the times I went with her I sensed she had slipped from the top rung of the social ladder she had been climbing. A snub from a gentleman, whether or not it is justified, does a subtle damage to a young lady. Margaret was not asked to dance every set, and compliments on her gown and hair and complexion were less frequent. By the time the season ended she looked weary and dull. Louise and I took her to London for a few weeks to try to cheer her, b
ut Margaret herself knew something had shifted. She had lost her best opportunity to marry, and she didn’t know why.

  I never told her about meeting James Foot on the beach. It might have brought some comfort to Margaret to know that my eccentricity had contributed to his decision not to continue to court her. But she would have sensed too that even if I had given up my fossils and bought new gloves, it would not have been enough. A man chooses a wife by taking an intricate measure of her and her family; it takes more than an unusual sister to throw off the calculation. James Foot had decided that the Philpots had neither the money nor the social standing for him to pursue Margaret. My brandishing stained gloves and a suggestively shaped fossil only confirmed what he had already determined.

  I was upset for Margaret, but I did not regret James Foot’s withdrawal. I suspected he would always have looked at me as if my gloves were soiled. And if he judged me, how would he judge my sister? Would he suck the liveliness right out of her? I could not have borne it if my sister married such a man.

  Years later I ran into James Foot at Colway Manor. Margaret always had a headache coming on when we were invited to their parties and suppers, and out of loyalty Louise and I wouldn’t attend without her. But once when I had gone to discuss some fossil business for the Annings with Lord Henley, I came upon James Foot and his wife arriving as I was leaving. She was small and pale and trembled like a pansy; she would never wear a turban to a ball. I knew then that it was just as well Margaret had been kept from that fate.

  The summer of James Foot had been the height of Margaret’s potential. The following season she was treated as a fine gown that has dated in storage, the neckline now too high or low, the cloth a touch faded, the cut no longer so flattering. We were surprised that this could happen as easily in Lyme as London, yet there was little we could do to change it. Margaret kept her friends and made new ones from the seasonal visitors. But she no longer returned at night with a sparkle and a dance around the kitchen. In time the turbans she persisted in wearing seemed less daring and more a Philpot peculiarity. She did not manage to escape into marriage like Frances, but sank into spinsterhood beside Louise and me.