Remarkable Creatures

by Tracy Chevalier

  “I’m afraid I cannot go with you, Mr. Buckland,” I said now. “I have a chesty cough and have been ordered by my sisters to stay by the fire.” This much at least was true.

  “A pity!” Mr. Buckland sat down again.

  “The newspaper says Mary’s find is unlike either the ichthyosaurus or the plesiosaurus—what has been guessed at about the latter, anyway.”

  “Oh no, it is a plesiosaurus,” Mr. Buckland declared. “This one has a head, and it is just as we’d imagined—so small compared with the rest of the body. And the paddles! I have made Mary promise to clean them first. But I have not told you why I have come to see you, Miss Philpot. It is this: I want you to persuade the Annings not to sell this specimen to Colonel Birch as they did the last one. He sold that on to the Royal College of Surgeons, and we would rather this one not go there as well.”

  “He sold it on? Why would he do that?” I gripped the arms of my chair. Any mention of Colonel Birch made me tense with nerves.

  Mr. Buckland shrugged. “Perhaps he needed the money. It is no bad thing for it to be on public display, but the college is full of men keen to exploit plesiosauri without the intelligence behind it. Conybeare is much more reliable in studying the specimen. He may want it brought to the Geological Society so that he can lecture on it as he did previously. I should think such a meeting would be very well attended. Did you know, Miss Philpot, that I am to become the Society’s president in February? Perhaps I can combine his lecture with my inauguration.”

  “According to the Post the Annings are considering the Bristol or the British Museum.” I was a little humiliated to be quoting the newspaper account to someone who had seen the specimen for himself. It was like describing London from a guidebook to someone who has lived there.

  “That is an indication of the newspaper’s inclination rather than the Annings’,” William Buckland said. “No, Molly Anning mentioned Colonel Birch to me just now and wouldn’t consider my suggestions.”

  “Did you tell her that Colonel Birch sold on the first specimen and probably for a pretty profit?”

  “She wouldn’t listen to me. That is why I have come to you.”

  I studied my hands. Despite my wearing fingerless gloves and applying Margaret’s salve daily, they were rough and scarred, with puckered fingers and a rim of blue clay under each nail. “I have little influence over the Annings and whom they choose to sell to. They run their own business now and would not welcome my interference.”

  “But will you try, Miss Philpot? Talk to her. She is certain to respect your judgment—as do we all.”

  I sighed. “Really, Mr. Buckland, if you want Molly Anning to sit up and take note, you must speak in the language she understands. Not museums and scientific papers, but money. Find her a collector who will pay her substantially more than Colonel Birch and she will gladly sell to them.”

  Mr. Buckland looked startled, as if the thought of money had not occurred to him.

  “Now,” I continued, determined to change the subject, “I’ve a case of fish on the landing you haven’t seen before, including the dorsal fin of a Hybodus that will amaze you, for the ridges along the spine truly resemble teeth! Come, I’ll show you.”

  When he was gone, I sat again by the fire and thought. Now William Buckland had enthused about the plesiosaurus, I wanted more than ever to see it. If I didn’t while it was still in Lyme, I might never get another chance, especially if he found a private buyer who would keep it in his house, inaccessible to someone like me.

  Mary would be cleaning and preparing the specimen for the next several weeks, rarely leaving it and not at predictable moments. I did not know how I could get to it without seeing her. However, I could not face her. I had grown used to not facing her, to not thinking about the superiority she felt to me. I did not want to open that wound again.

  On Sunday, however, I got an unexpected chance. We were walking along Coombe Street towards St. Michael’s when I saw ahead of us all three Annings enter the Congregationalist Chapel. I was used to seeing Mary in the distance. It no longer made me want to bolt, for she was doing her best to ignore me too.

  Once inside St. Michael’s, I sat with my sisters and Bessy, and while Reverend Jones led us in prayer, I thought about the Annings’ empty house just around the corner.

  I began to cough, first a stray one here and there, then building up so that it sounded as if I had a persistent tickle in my throat I could not get rid of. Neighbors shifted in their seats and glanced around, and Margaret and Louise looked at me with concern.

  “The cold is bothering my throat,” I whispered to Louise. “I’d best go home. But you stay—I’ll be fine.” I slipped into the aisle before she could argue. Reverend Jones gazed at me as I hurried away, and I swear he knew that I was putting fossils before church.

  Outside, I discovered that Bessy had followed me. “Oh Bessy, you needn’t come with me,” I said. “Go back inside.”

  Bessy shook her head stubbornly. “No, ma’am, I has to relight the fire for you.”

  “I am perfectly capable of lighting the fire myself. Some days I do, when I get up before you, as you well know.”

  Bessy frowned, displeased to be reminded that I sometimes caught her out. “Miss Margaret told me to come with you,” she muttered.

  “Well, go back in and tell Margaret I sent you back. Surely you’d rather stay so that you can say hello to your friends after?” Post-church gossip amongst servants was lively, I had noticed.

  I could see Bessy was tempted, but her natural suspicion made her study me with narrowed eyes. “You ain’t going out on the beach, are you, Miss Elizabeth? I won’t allow it, not after your cold. And it’s Sunday!”

  “Of course not. The tide is high.” I had no idea what the tide was doing.

  “Oh.” Although she had now lived in Lyme almost twenty years, Bessy still had little sense of the tides. With a few more words of encouragement, I convinced her to return to the church.

  Cockmoile Square and Bridge Street were deserted, as most of the town was at church or asleep. I could not hesitate or I would be caught or lose my nerve. Hurrying down the steps to Mary’s workshop, I got out the spare key I had seen Molly Anning hide under a loose stone, unlocked the door, and let myself in. I knew I should not do it, that it was far worse than my sneaking out to the auction at Bullock’s in London. But I could not help it.

  There was a whining, and Tray came up to me, sniffing my feet and wagging his tail. I hesitated, then reached down and petted him. His fur was coarse like coir, and he was covered in Blue Lias dust, a true Anning dog.

  I stepped around him to look at the plesiosaurus laid out in slabs on the floor. It was about nine feet long, and half that width, which accommodated the span of its massive diamond-shaped paddles. Much of its length was made up of its swanlike neck, and at the end was a surprisingly small skull, perhaps five inches long. The neck was so very long it didn’t make sense. Could an animal have a neck longer than the rest of its body? I wished I had my Cuvier volume on anatomy with me. The body was barrel-shaped of ribs, completed by a tail far shorter than the neck. All in all it was as unlikely looking as the ichthyosaurus with its enormous eye had been. It made me shiver and smile all at once. It also made me enormously proud of Mary. Whatever anger there was between us, I was delighted that she had found something no one ever had before.

  I walked around it, looking and looking, getting my fill, for I was unlikely to see it again. Then I looked around the workshop, which I had once spent so much time in and now hadn’t seen in a few years. It hadn’t changed. There was still little furniture, a great deal of dust, and crates overflowing with fossils that awaited attention. On top of one such pile there was a sheaf of papers in Mary’s hand. I glanced at the top sheet, then picked up the bundle and leafed through it. It was a copy of an article Reverend Conybeare had written for the Geological Society about Mary’s beasts. There were twenty-nine pages of text, as well as eight pages of illustrations, all of w
hich Mary had painstakingly copied out. She must have spent weeks doing this, night after night. I myself had not seen the article and found myself drawn in to reading parts of it and wishing I could borrow the copy from her.

  I could not stand in the workshop all day reading it, however. I flipped to the end to read the conclusion, and there discovered a note in small writing at the bottom of the last page. It read: “When I write a paper there shall not be but one preface.”

  It appeared Mary felt confident enough to criticize Reverend Conybeare’s wordiness. Moreover, she had plans to write her own scientific paper. Her boldness made me smile.

  Then Tray yipped, and the door opened, and Joseph Anning stood in the entrance. It could have been worse. It could have been Molly Anning, whose initial suspicion of me would have been revived. Of course it could have been Mary, and I would never have been able to justify such an intrusion to her.

  It was still terrible, however. People do not enter others’ homes unless they are thieves. Not even a harmless spinster can do such a thing. “Joseph, I-I-I am so sorry,” I stammered. “I wanted to see what Mary found. I knew I could not come when she was here—it would be too awkward for us both. But I should never have let myself in. It is unforgivable, and I am sorry.” I would have rushed out, but he was blocking the doorway, the light behind him throwing his face in shadow so that I could not see his expression—if he had one. Joseph Anning was not known for showing emotion.

  He stood very still for a time. When he finally stepped forward he was not frowning or scowling, as one might have expected. Nor was he smiling. However, he was polite. “I’ve come back for another shawl for Mam. ’Tis cold at chapel.” How strange that Joseph should feel he owed me an explanation for being there. “What do you think of it, then, Miss Philpot?” he added, nodding at the plesiosaurus.

  I had not expected him to be so reasonable. “It is truly extraordinary.”

  “I hate it. It’s not natural. I’ll be glad when it’s gone.” That was Joseph through and through.

  “Mr. Buckland told me he has been in touch with the Duke of Buckingham, who wants to buy it.”

  “Maybe. Mary has other ideas.”

  I cleared my throat. “Not—Colonel Birch?” I couldn’t bear the answer.

  But Joseph surprised me. “No, not him. Mary’s let that go—she knows he’ll never marry her.”

  “Oh.” I was so relieved I almost laughed. “Who, then?”

  “She won’t say, not even to Mam. Mary’s got a swollen head these days.” Joseph shook his head, clearly disapproving. “She sent off a letter and said we’ve to wait for the answer before we tell Mr. Buckland.”

  “How odd.”

  Joseph shifted from one foot to the other. “I have to get back to chapel, Miss Philpot. Mam’ll want her shawl.”

  “Of course.” I glanced at the plesiosaurus once more, then set the paper Mary had copied back down on the pile of rocks in the crate. As I did so my eyes spied the tail of a fish. Then I saw a fin, and another tail, and realized the entire crate was full of fish fossils. A scrap of paper was stuck amongst them with “EP” in Mary’s hand. She was saving them for me. She must think that one day we would be friends again, that she would forgive me and want me to forgive her. The thought made my eyes brim.

  Joseph stood aside so that I could go. I paused as I passed him. “Joseph, I should be very grateful if you didn’t tell Mary or your mother that I have been here. There is no need to upset them, is there?”

  Joseph nodded. “I guess I owe you a favor anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “It were you suggested I become an apprentice after we sold the croc. That were the best thing ever happened to me. I thought once I started I wouldn’t never have to hunt curies again, but always something pulls me back into it. After this is sold”—he nodded at the plesiosaurus—“I’m done with curies for good. It’ll be upholstering and nothing else. I’ll be glad if I never have to go down upon beach again. So I will keep your secret for you, Miss Philpot.” Joseph smiled briefly—the only smile I had ever seen on his face. It brought out a touch of his father’s handsomeness.

  “I hope you will be very happy,” I said, using the words I hadn’t been able to say to his sister.

  THE RAPPING ON OUR front door interrupted us as we were eating. It was so sudden and loud that we all three jumped, and Margaret upset her watercress soup.

  Normally we let Bessy go to the door in her own ponderous fashion, but the knocks were so urgent that Louise sprang up and hurried down the passage to answer it. Margaret and I could not see whom she let in, but we heard low voices in the passage. Then Louise put her head around the door. “Molly Anning is here to see us,” she said. “She has said she will wait until we have finished eating. I’ve left her to warm by the fire and will get Bessy to build it up.”

  Margaret jumped up. “I’ll just get Mrs. Anning some soup.”

  I looked down at my own soup. I could not sit and eat it while an Anning waited in the other room. I got up as well, but stood uncertain in the doorway of the parlor.

  Louise saved me, as she often does. “Brandy, perhaps,” she said as she brushed past with a grumbling Bessy in tow.

  “Yes, yes.” I went and fetched the bottle and a glass.

  Molly Anning was sitting motionless by the fire, the center of all the activity around her, much as she had been when she came to see us with her letter to Colonel Birch. Bessy was poking the fire and glaring at our visitor’s legs, which she perceived to be in the way. Margaret was setting up a small table at her side for the soup, while Louise moved the coal scuttle. I hovered with the brandy bottle, but Molly Anning shook her head when I offered it. She said nothing while she ate her soup, sucking at it as if she didn’t like watercress and was eating it only to please us.

  As she mopped her bowl with a chunk of bread, I felt my sisters’ eyes on me. They had played their parts with the visitor, and were now expecting me to play mine. My mouth felt glued shut, however. It had been a very long time since I had spoken either to Mary or to her mother.

  I cleared my throat. “Is something wrong, Molly?” I managed at last. “Are Joseph and Mary all right?”

  Molly Anning swallowed the last of her bread and ran her tongue around her mouth. “Mary’s taken to her bed,” she declared.

  “Oh dear, is she ill?” Margaret asked.

  “No, she’s just a fool, is all. Here.” Pulling a crumpled letter from her pocket, Molly Anning handed it to me. I opened it and smoothed it out. A glance told me it was from Paris. The words “plesiosaurus” and “Cuvier” popped out at me, but I hesitated to read the contents. However, as Molly seemed to expect me to, I had no choice.

  Jardin du Roi

  Musée National

  d’Histoire Naturelle

  Paris

  Dear Miss Anning,

  Thank you for your letter to Baron Cuvier concerning a possible sale to the museum of the specimen you have discovered at Lyme Regis, and believe to be an almost compete skeleton of a plesiosaurus. Baron Cuvier has studied with interest the sketch you enclosed, and is of the opinion that you have joined together two separate individuals, perhaps that of the head of a sea serpent with the body of an ichthyosaurus. The jumbled state of the vertebrae just below the head seems to indicate the disjuncture between the two specimens.

  Baron Cuvier holds the view that the structure of the reported plesiosaurus deviates from some of the anatomical laws he has established. In particular, the number of cervical vertebrae is too great for such an individual. Most reptiles have between 3 and 8 neck vertebrae; yet in your sketch the creature appears to have at least 30.

  Given Baron Cuvier’s concerns over the specimen, we will not consider purchasing it. In future, Mademoiselle, perhaps your family might take more care when collecting and presenting specimens.

  Yours faithfully,

  Joseph Pentland, Esq.

  Assistant to Baron Cuvier

  I threw down the letter. �
�That is outrageous!”

  “What is?” Margaret cried, caught up in the drama.

  “Georges Cuvier has seen a drawing of Mary’s plesiosaurus and has accused the Annings of forgery. He thinks the anatomy of the animal is impossible and says that Mary may have put together two different specimens.”

  “The silly girl’s taken it as an insult to her,” Molly Anning said. “Says the Frenchman has ruined her reputation as a hunter. She’s gone to bed over it, says there’s no reason to get up and hunt curies now, as no one’ll buy them. She’s as bad as when she were waiting for Colonel Birch to write.” Molly Anning glanced sideways at me, gauging my reaction. “I come to ask you to help me get her out of bed.”

  “But . . .” Why ask me? I wanted to say. Why not someone else? On the other hand, perhaps Mary had no other friends Molly could ask. I had never seen her with other Lyme people of her age and class. “The trouble is,” I began, “Mary may well be right. If Baron Cuvier believes the plesiosaurus is a fake and makes public his view, it could cause people to question other specimens.” Molly Anning did not seem to respond to this idea, so I made it plainer. “You may find your sales will fall as people wonder whether Anning fossils are authentic.”

  At last I got through to her, for Molly Anning glared at me as if I had suggested such a thing myself. “How dare that Frenchman threaten our business! You’ll have to sort him out.”

  “Me?”

  “You speak French, don’t you? You’ve had learning. I haven’t, you see, so you’ll have to write to him.”

  “But it’s nothing to do with me.”