Remarkable Creatures

by Tracy Chevalier

  He then went on to describe the beast in detail. By this point I was stifling coughs, and Johnny went down to the kitchen to fetch me some wine. He must have liked what he saw down there better than what he could hear on the landing, for after handing me a glass of claret he disappeared down the back staircase again, probably to sit by the fire and practice flirting with the serving girls brought in for the evening.

  Reverend Conybeare delineated the head and the vertebrae, dwelling for a time on the number in different sorts of animals, just as Monsieur Cuvier had done in his criticism of Mary. Indeed, he mentioned Cuvier in passing a few times; the great anatomist’s influence was emphasized throughout the talk. No wonder that Reverend Conybeare had been so horrified by Cuvier’s response to Mary’s letter. However, whatever its impossible anatomy, the plesiosaurus had existed. If Conybeare believed in the creature, he must believe in what Mary found too, and the best way to persuade Cuvier was to support her. It seemed obvious to me.

  It didn’t to him, however. Indeed, he did just the opposite. In the middle of a description of the plesiosaurus’s paddles, Reverend Conybeare added, “I must acknowledge that originally I wrongly depicted the edges of the paddles as being formed of rounded bones, when they are not. However, when the first specimen was found in 1821, the bones in question were loose, and had been subsequently glued into their present situation, in consequence of a conjecture of the proprietor.”

  It took me a moment to realize he was referring to Mary as proprietor, and suggesting she had made mistakes in putting together the bones of the first plesiosaurus. Reverend Conybeare only bothered to refer to her—still unnamed—when there was criticism to lay at her feet. “How ungentlemanly!” I muttered, more loudly than I had intended, for a number of the row of heads in front of me shifted and turned, as if trying to locate the source of this outburst.

  I shrank back in my seat, then listened numbly as Reverend Conybeare compared the plesiosaurus to a turtle without its shell and speculated on its awkwardness both on land and in the sea. “May it not therefore be concluded that it swam upon or near the surface, arching back its long neck like the swan, and occasionally darting it down at the fish which happened to float within its reach? It may perhaps have lurked in shoal water along the coast, concealed among the seaweed and, raising its nostrils to a level with the surface from a considerable depth, may have found a secure retreat from the assaults of dangerous enemies.”

  He finished with a strategic flourish I suspected he’d thought up during the earlier part of the meeting. “I cannot but congratulate the scientific public that the discovery of this animal has been made at the very moment when the illustrious Cuvier is engaged in, and on the eve of publishing, his researches on the fossil ovip ara: From him the subject will derive all that lucid order which he never has yet failed to introduce into the most obscure and intricate departments of comparative anatomy. Thank you.”

  In so saying, Reverend Conybeare linked himself favorably with Baron Cuvier, so that whatever criticism arose from the Frenchman would not seem to be directed at him.

  I did not join in with the clapping. My chest had become so heavy that I was having difficulty breathing.

  An animated discussion began, of which I did not follow every point, for I was feeling dizzy. However, I did hear Mr. Buckland at last clear his throat. “I should just like to express my thanks to Miss Anning,” he said, “who discovered and extracted this magnificent specimen. It is a shame it did not arrive in time for this most illustrious and enlightening talk by Reverend Conybeare, but once it is installed here, members and friends are welcome to inspect it. You will be amazed and delighted by this groundbreak ing discovery.”

  That is all she will get, I thought: a scrap of thanks crowded out by far more talk of glory for beast and man. Her name will never be recorded in scientific journals or books, but will be forgotten. So be it. A woman’s life is always a compromise.

  I did not have to listen any longer. Instead, I fainted.

  NINE

  The lightning that signaled my greatest happiness

  It was only by luck that I saw her go. Joe got me up. He come to stand over me one morning when Mam was out. Tray was lying next to me on the bed. “Mary,” he said.

  I rolled over. “What?”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked down at me. Anyone else would think Joe’s face was blank, but I could see he was bothered by me staying in bed when I weren’t ill. He was biting the inside of his cheek, little bites that tightened his jaw if you knew to look for it.

  “You can get up now,” he said. “Miss—Mam is fixing it.”

  “Fixing what?”

  “Your problem with the Frenchman.”

  I sat up, clutching the blanket to me, for it was freezing, even with Tray’s warmth beside me. “How’s she doing that?”

  “She didn’t say. But you should get up. I don’t want to have to go back upon beach again.”

  I felt so guilty then that I got up, Tray barking his joy. And I was relieved too. After a day in bed it had got dull, but I felt like I needed someone to tell me to get up before I would do it.

  I got dressed and took my hammer and basket and called to Tray, who had stayed with me while I was abed and was eager to get outside. When Colonel Birch give him to me, just before he left Lyme forever, he promised that Tray would be faithful to me. He’d been right.

  I stepped outside, my breath turning to fog round my face, it was so cold. The gray sky threatened snow. The tide was in, and Black Ven and Charmouth cut off, so I went the other way, where a narrow strip of land would still be uncovered by the cliffs at Monmouth Beach. Though I had rarely found monsters in those cliffs, sometimes I carted back giant ammonites, like them that were embedded in the Ammo Graveyard but prized loose from the cliff layers.

  Tray run ahead of me along the Walk, his claws clicking on the frozen ice. Sometimes he come back to sniff at me and make sure I was following and not going back home. It felt good to be outside, no matter the cold. It was as if I had emerged from a fuzzy fever into a hard, crisp world.

  When I drew opposite the end of the Cobb, I saw the Unity docked there, being loaded for a journey. This weren’t unusual, but what caught my eye amongst all the men rushing about were the silhouettes of three women—two wearing bonnets, the third an unmistakable turban stuck with feathers.

  Tray come running back, barking at me. “Shh, Tray, hush now.” I grabbed him, fearful they would look over and see me, and I ducked behind an overturned rowboat used to ferry people out to anchored ships.

  I was too far away to make out the Philpot sisters’ faces, but I could see Miss Margaret handing something to Miss Elizabeth, which she put in her pocket. Then there were hugs and kisses, and Miss Elizabeth took a step away from her sisters, and there was a break in the men running up and down the plank that led on board, and then she was walking up it, and then she was standing on deck.

  I couldn’t recall Miss Elizabeth ever going on a ship or even a little boat, despite living by the sea and hunting so often on its beaches. Nor had I but once or twice, for that matter. Though they could go by ship to London, the Philpots always chose to go by coach. Some people are meant for water, others land. We were land people.

  I wanted to run along the Cobb and call out to them, but I didn’t. I stayed behind the rowboat, Tray whining at my feet, and watched as the crew of the Unity unfurled the huge sails and cast off. Miss Elizabeth stood on deck, a brave, straight figure in a gray cloak and purple bonnet. I had seen ships leave Lyme many times, but not with someone on board who meant so much to me. Suddenly the sea seemed a treacherous place. I recalled Lady Jackson’s body washed up from a shipwreck years before and wanted to call out for Miss Elizabeth to come back, but it was too late.

  I tried not to fret, but to go about my business. I did not look in the papers for news of shipwrecks, nor word of the plesiosaurus’s arrival in London, nor of Monsieur Cuvier’s doubts about it. This last I k
new was not likely to be in the papers, as not being important to most. There were times I wished the Western Flying Post would reflect what mattered to me. I wanted to see announcements like “Miss Elizabeth Philpot Safely Arrived in London”; “Geological Society Celebrates Lyme Plesiosaurus”; “Monsieur Cuvier Confirms Miss Anning Has Discovered a New Animal.”

  One afternoon I run into Miss Margaret outside the Assembly Rooms, going in to play whist, for even in winter they played cards there once a week. Despite the cold she wore one of her outdated feathered turbans, which made her look the part of an aging eccentric spinster with a strange hat. Even I thought that, who had admired Miss Margaret all my life.

  When I wished her good day, she started like a dog when its tail is trodden on. “Have you—have you heard from Miss Elizabeth?” I asked.

  Miss Margaret give me a funny look. “How did you know she was away?”

  I did not say I had seen her ship embark. “Everybody knows. Lyme’s small for secrets.”

  Miss Margaret sighed. “We’ve not had a letter, but the post has not got through for three days, the roads are so bad. No one has had letters. However, a neighbor has just ridden from Yeovil and brought a new Post. There is news that the Dispatch ran aground near Ramsgate. That is the ship before Elizabeth’s.” She shivered, the ostrich feathers in her turban quivering.

  “The Dispatch?” I cried. “But the plesiosaurus is on it! What happened to it?” I had a horrible vision of my beast sinking to the seabed and being lost to us forever—all of my hard work, as well as the £100 from the Duke of Buckingham, gone.

  Miss Margaret frowned. “The paper said both passengers and cargo are safe and are being transported to London by land. There’s no need to fret—though you might have a thought for those on board first rather than the cargo, however precious it is to you.”

  “Of course, Miss Margaret. Of course I’m thinking of the people. God bless them all. But I do wonder where my—the duke’s—plesie is.”

  “And I wonder where Elizabeth is,” Miss Margaret added, tears welling. “I still feel we should never have let her onto that ship. If it is so easy to run aground as the Dispatch did, what might have happened to the Unity?” Now she was weeping, and I patted her shoulder. She did not want comfort from me, though, and pulled away, glaring. “Elizabeth would never have gone if it hadn’t been for you!” she cried, before turning on her heel and hurrying into the Assembly Rooms.

  “What do you mean?” I called after her. “I don’t understand, Miss Margaret!” I couldn’t follow her into the rooms, however. They were not for the likes of me, and the men standing in the doorway gave me unfriendly looks. I lingered nearby, hoping to catch a glimpse of Miss Margaret in the bay window, but she did not appear.

  That was the first I knew that Miss Elizabeth went to London on account of me. But I didn’t know why until Miss Louise come to explain. She rarely visited to our house, preferring living plants to fossils. But two days after I met Miss Margaret she appeared at the workshop door, ducking her head because she was so tall. I was cleaning a small ichthyosaurus I’d found just before discovering the plesie. It weren’t complete—the skull was in fragments and there were no paddles—but the spine and ribs were in a good state. “Don’t get up,” Miss Louise said, but I insisted on clearing a stool of bits of rock and wiping it clean before she sat down. Tray come then and lay on her feet. She did not speak right away—Miss Louise never were a talker—but studied the heaps of rocks ranged round her on the floor, all containing fossils waiting to be cleaned. Though I always had specimens all round me, now there were even more from waiting while I had been getting the plesie ready. She said nothing about the mess, or the film of blue dust covering everything. Others might have, but I suppose she was used to dirt from her gardening and from Miss Elizabeth’s fossils.

  “Margaret told me she saw you and you wanted to know about our sister. We had a letter from her today, and she has arrived safe at our brother’s in London.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad! But—Miss Margaret said Miss Elizabeth went to London for me. Why?”

  “She was planning to go to the Geological Society meeting and ask the men there to support you against Baron Cuvier’s claim that you fabricated the plesiosaurus.”

  I frowned. “How did she know about that?”

  Miss Louise hesitated.

  “Did the men tell her? Did Cuvier write to one of them—Buckland or Conybeare—and they wrote to Miss Elizabeth? And now they’re all talking about it in London, about—about us Annings and what we do to specimens.” My mouth trembled so much I had to stop.

  “Hush, Mary. Your mother came to see us.”

  “Mam?” Though relieved it was not from the men, I was shocked Mam went behind my back.

  “She was worried about you,” Miss Louise continued, “and Elizabeth decided she would try to help. Margaret and I could not understand why she felt she had to go in person rather than write to them, but she insisted it was better.”

  I nodded. “She’s right. Them men don’t always respond quick to letters. That’s what Mam and I found. Sometimes I can wait over a year for a reply. When they want something they’re quick, but they soon forget me. When I want something . . .” I shrugged, then shook my head. “I can’t believe Miss Elizabeth would go all the way to London—on a ship—for me.”

  Miss Louise said nothing, but looked at me with her gray eyes so direct it made me drop mine.

  I decided to visit Morley Cottage a few days later, to say sorry to Miss Margaret for taking her sister away. I brought with me a crate full of fossil fish I had been saving for Miss Elizabeth. It would be my gift to her for when she come back from London. That wouldn’t be for some time, as she was likely to stay there for her spring visit, but it were a comfort to know the fish would be there waiting for her return.

  I lugged the crate along Coombe Street, up Sherborne Lane, and all the way up Silver Street, cursing myself for being so generous, as it was heavy. When I reached Morley Cottage, however, the house was buttoned up tight, doors locked, shutters drawn, and no smoke from the chimney. I knocked on the front and back doors for a long time, but there was no answer. I were just coming round to the front again to try and peer through the crack in the shutters when one of their neighbors come out. “No point looking,” she said. “They’re not there. Gone to London yesterday.”

  “London! Why?”

  “It were sudden. They got word Miss Elizabeth is taken ill and dropped everything to go.”

  “No!” I clenched my fists and leaned against the door. It seemed whenever I found something, I lost something else. I found an ichthyosaurus and lost Fanny. I found Colonel Birch and lost Miss Elizabeth. I found fame and lost Colonel Birch. Now I thought I’d found Miss Elizabeth again, only to lose her, perhaps forever.

  I could not accept it. My life’s work was finding the bones of creatures that had been lost. I could not believe that I would not find Miss Elizabeth again too.

  I did not take the crate of fossil fish back to Cockmoile Square, but left it round the back in Miss Louise’s garden, by the giant ammonite I’d once helped Miss Elizabeth bring back from Monmouth Beach. I was determined that she would one day sift through them and choose the best for her collection.

  I wanted to hop on the next coach to London, but Mam wouldn’t let me. “Don’t be a fool,” she said. “What help could you be to the Philpots? They’d just have to waste their time looking after you rather than their sister.”

  “I want to see her, and say sorry.”

  Mam tutted. “You’re treating her like she’s dying and you want to make your peace with her. Do you think that will help her get well, with you sitting there with a long face saying sorry? It’ll send her to her grave quicker!”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. It was peculiar but sensible, like Mam herself.

  So I didn’t go, though I vowed one day I would get to London, just to prove I could. Instead Mam wrote to the Philpots for news, her hand being
less upsetting to the family than mine. I wanted her to ask about Cuvier’s accusation and the Geological Society meeting too, but Mam wouldn’t, as it weren’t polite to be thinking about myself at a time like this. Also, it would remind the Philpots of why Miss Elizabeth had gone to London, and make them angry at me all over again.

  Two weeks later we got a brief letter from Miss Louise, saying Miss Elizabeth were over the worst of it. The pneumonia had weakened her lungs, though, and the doctors thought she would not be able to return to live in Lyme because of the damp sea air.

  “Nonsense,” Mam snorted. “What do we have all those visitors for if not for the sea air and water being good for their health? She’ll be back. You couldn’t keep Miss Elizabeth away from Lyme.” After years of suspicion of the London Philpots, now Mam was their biggest supporter.

  As certain as she seemed, I weren’t so sure. I was relieved Miss Elizabeth had survived, but it looked like I’d lost her anyway. There was little I could do, though, and once Mam had written again to say how glad we all was, we didn’t hear anything more from the Philpots. Nor did I know what had happened with Monsieur Cuvier. I had no choice but to live with the uncertainty.

  MAM LIKES TO REPEAT that old saw that it don’t rain but pour. I don’t agree with her when it comes to weather. I been out upon beach for years and years in days where it don’t pour, but spits now and then, the sky never making up its mind what it wants to do.

  With curies, though, she were right. We could go months, years, without finding a monster. We could be brought to our knees with how poor we were, how cold and hungry and desperate. Other times, though, we would find more than we needed or could work on. That was how it was when the Frenchman come.

  It were one of those glorious days in late June when you know from the sun and the balmy breeze that summer has come at last and you can begin to let go of the tightness in your chest that’s kept you fighting against the cold all winter and spring. I was out on the ledges off Church Cliffs, extracting a very fine specimen of Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris—I can say that now, for the men have identified and named four species, and I know each one just from a glance. There were no tail or paddles, but it had tightly packed vertebrae, and long, thin jaws reaching a point, with the small, fine teeth intact. Mam had already written to Mr. Buckland asking him to tell the Duke of Buckingham, who we knew wanted an ichie as company to the plesie.