Henry looked like a kicked dog but he did not bite back. He just saluted me and walked away.
‘That was rude,’ I said.
‘Well, he’s of no use to us, Mary. You must see that.’ Joseph’s face had gone very red.
‘He’s of use to me!’ I retorted. ‘He is company on my excursions and carries my finds.’ I nearly added that he brought me buns but decided that was best kept quiet as it would be another reason to make Joseph cross.
‘Well, how very pleasant for him that he does not have to work for a living. Unlike some of us. Used to be just me and you, Mary, thick as thieves. Now I am nothing but a pig in the middle.’
So, it was jealousy.
‘There is nothing to stop you coming out with us of an evening!’ I said.
‘When I am weary from a day’s labour?’ he replied.
There is no pleasing some people.
Mother had a saying: ‘No good deed goes unpunished’. She was right. The next three evenings, Joseph came too, and we got less work done than if it were just me on my own, for the boys argued and bickered and tried to outdo each other with the size of rock they’d attempt to move or the steepness of the cliff they’d try to climb.
I found all this very dull and annoying for they were very noisy at the same time, squawking away like gulls fighting over a bit of bread. Why do boys have to show off as if they are cockerels in a hen house? Tis easy to see why there be so many wars, with them so anxious to scrap with their own kind it’s hardly surprising that they rush to pick fights with folk who are different.
Why, even I have been learned to be afear’d of the French with all the tales of what they do to prisoners and how they eat all manner of disgusting things like frogs’ legs and snails. But then I got to thinking that they might be very poor and starving, even. Or maybe they just like eating them. After all, we eat whelks and cockles and what are they but snails of the sea? I couldn’t eat a frog’s leg, however hungry I felt. I was certain of that.
All the same, I prayed that Henry and Joseph were not called away to fight at sea, however much they seemed keen to fight on land, Joseph being the worse of the two for getting his fists out. When Joseph heard someone say that there were press gangs up the coast in Weymouth looking for poor souls to go and fight Napoleon, Mother forbade him to go out of the house for fear he’d be snatched and taken off for a Navy man. She knew that if they got him, they’d return him broken and useless or, worse, she’d never see him again alive. It was no adventure for a common sailor. No doubt it was different for the officers in all their finery and with all the money they made from the spoils of war. Anyway, Joseph was safe for the press gangs never came to Lyme and for that I was very glad.
I must admit that I was mightily relieved when Joseph tired of our company and decided to go fishing in the evenings instead. Peace and quiet returned.
I have always liked it to be quiet. Sometimes, when I am very intent on winkling out some curio or ferreting about in the mud for signs of something worth digging out, I find even the slap of the waves on the shore irritating. Inside my head there is so much questioning and enquiring. It’s as if I have got lots of extra Mary Annings running about in my brain, thinking and spying and wondering and trying to work things out and if any other sounds get in, it sends all those Marys quite mad. It sounds strange, I know, but that is how it is and just one tiny squeak can be too much when I am concentrating.
Sometimes, I concentrated so hard that I was in another world entirely and time passed without me even noticing. I forgot everything. I forgot to be hungry or thirsty (which is good as there was nothing to eat or drink unless Henry brought it) and I forgot about having a piss, so that when I got home I had to rush to find the chamber pot because I was bursting fuller than the biggest flagon you could ever imagine. I know that is not ladylike, but I am trying to explain how it was for me and besides, I am no lady, as well you know by now.
That was one good thing about Henry. He learned my funny ways and he changed his ways to suit mine. He would like to hum while he made his drawings but that was something I couldn’t abide. When first he did it, bumbling away like a bee on a buttercup, I looked at him with the most foul face I could muster. Then I threw mud at him and then I went and thumped him soundly and that stopped him. After that, I had only to look at him with what he called ‘the evil eye’ and he would stop his buzzing instantly, and after a while he never did it any more, so long as we were alone. When Joseph was there too, all my rules were disregarded and it fair made my head boil so that I was driven to move as far away from them as I could.
So, as long as I could keep Joseph and Henry apart that long summer, I preferred Henry to be with me. For the fact was, Henry really was very useful. He could draw a thing so that it almost looked real. He took out a measure and wrote down exactly how big the item was and made sure his drawing matched that faithfully. He said it was ‘scientific’ (a word I pretended not to hear) and that we must keep a proper record of all that we had found and where we had found it.
It was very useful when he made a drawing of a particular spot on the cliff so that we could find it again if we needed to when we returned. Usually I remembered exactly where I had left something interesting but, of course, the sea, the wind and the rain could rearrange things so that all looked different, even in the summer. Unless there had been a terrible storm or a big landslip, the top of the cliff stayed constant, so Henry looked for a landmark, like a tree or an odd-shaped bush or rock and sketched it and wrote little notes like ‘three paces along from this’. And that’s where he would mark down an arrow pointing to the drawing of the crooked tree or the rock that looked like a face or whatever thing had caught his eye as a clue.
He was teaching me to draw too, and to label things. It pleased me to see his drawings, so plain and so clear. He called them sketches but I called mine scratches because the pen nib made a scratching noise as I wrote and caught on the paper, near enough ripping it like a cat’s claw. I wished I could write as fair as he did, but I had not had the learning nor the practice so I had to do the best I could and try to get better.
When we had had a good day, there was nothing that pleased me more than when we sat down to go through all we had found and sort them into their kind and make a record of their number and size.
‘What do you think these really are?’ Henry asked me one day as we stood in the shallows, washing the mud off the curios. I looked at the objects he had in his hand.
‘Devil’s toenails and Devil’s fingers of course! You know that!’ I wondered at him asking such a question after all this time. He must have made drawings of twenty or thirty, maybe more.
‘But they aren’t, are they? Devil’s toenails and fingers. I mean, how many toes does the Devil have, if any? Doesn’t the Devil have a cloven hoof, like a goat? So what are they? Have you ever seen creatures like this alive?’
‘I know they aren’t toenails... but they do have a look of a toenail and the fancy folk do love to think they have the Devil’s toe clippings in their hands. You must have marked how the ladies scream and wrinkle up their noses! They find delight in being disgusted, seems to me! And the fingers, dark as they be, are more like to be the finger of a devil than a lady.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Henry. ‘But we need to be more scientific! What are they? The toenails look to me like oysters or mussels but they are not the same as either. They resemble them but no more. Have you ever seen an oyster like this in all your days in Lyme? No! And neither have I! This is some ancient creature, dead for years and years!’
‘We’d get no money for an old oyster. You do understand how trade works by now, don’t you?’ I asked.
‘I do, but I also understand that you have a strong liking for truth, Mary, and I should think you would want to know what a thing really was and not to sell it as something it is not. And these’ – he held up more of the Devil’s toenails – ‘are not toenails and these’ – he pointed to the
sorted heaps on the ground – ‘are not serpents or ladies’ fingers or crocodile teeth, are they? So what are they? And where are they now? The living ones, I mean.’
These were questions I had asked myself so many times and I felt pleased and cross that Henry was asking them too; pleased because we thought alike, but cross because I had never spoken of these mysteries before and Henry might think I was copying him.
He stared at me intently, awaiting my answer, but I did not know what to say for my head went suddenly empty and then very full again with all sorts of ideas and notions, none of which I could get hold of for long enough to give it words.
He sighed. ‘You are right, though. People want to believe what they want to believe; but we, Mary, we are going to be scientists and we will make studies and work out just what these things really are and what they mean about all of this!’ He swung around, pointing at the sea, the sky and the cliff. ‘What they mean about life and this Earth.’
Scientists! A word not to be said out loud. A word and a notion as bad as any talk of the Devil and yet, alongside the shiver of fear at its mention, I felt a flicker of a flame leap in my chest and there was a moment of white light in my head, as if the lightning was striking me a second time. Henry must have seen something in my face, for he smiled.
‘Aha! I see you understand me, Mary. Here. Let’s make a pact. Let us promise that we will be scientists – secret scientists, if you prefer – and solve these mysteries together! You have a genius for finding the evidence, while I have a modest talent for recording it. Together, our two brains can fathom out what all of this means. Do I have your promise?’
He stretched out his hand (not so white as once it was) and I shook it. I felt his determination in that firm grip and I squeezed his hand back hard as I could to show him mine. Scientists! We were to be secret scientists!
10
FRIENDSHIP LOST
Only a week later and my good spirits were destroyed.
We had just finished our first day of being scientists since our pact. Autumn had brought winds and rain which kept us off the cliff for days and the mud was such that our finds were few, even with my genius for discovery. We were going back nearly empty-handed and I was not best pleased.
Henry was running to keep up as I walked off homeward at my usual brisk pace.
‘Wait, Mary. There is something I must say. I want to thank you. I have had so much enjoyment and learned so much in the past few months and you’ve helped me to forget my grief. I am eternally grateful. More than you can ever know.’
‘Well, I am glad of that,’ I replied. ‘For grief is a sorry waste of time in my opinion. It does not bring back the dead nor does it entertain the living.’
He smiled a little at this for, even after so much time has passed, he still could not entirely accept my plain talk.
‘I want you to have this.’ He handed me the little leather-bound book of his sketches, and I leafed through the drawings: a fine record of our many hours of treasure-hunting.
‘Why are you giving me this?’ I asked. ‘There are still pages to fill and our studies have scarce begun!’
He looked downcast. ‘I have been keeping something from you, Mary. I did not want to spoil everything. But the day has arrived. My time here is at an end. I am to go to the Royal Military College in Great Marlow in January and Mother and I are returning to London to visit relatives and make preparations before I go. I must be fitted out with all manner of uniforms and accoutrements! I shall be quite the popinjay!’
‘But you are only a boy!’ For in truth, he looked a deal younger than Joseph even though he was two years older. Maybe it was his golden curls that made him appear like a child.
‘Joseph has been apprenticed and working for months. What is my excuse? I will be fourteen in a few months and the time has come. Besides, we are at war, Mary. I must do my duty.’
‘But you are to be a scientist! We are to be scientists! You cannot go to be a soldier! You promised! We made a pact! You promised!’
He looked away. Crying again, I supposed. ‘It’s not my choice. It is what is expected. Demanded. I am sorry. It was as big a shock to me as it is to you now. Even though it was always the plan. Life cannot be so carefree for ever. You know that better than most.’
I felt a terrible feeling go through me. I did not know what it was and I still do not. I felt as if I could be sick or faint or scream or shout or do something... something violent. Before I knew it, I had thumped him hard on the chest and sent him reeling, coughing and gasping.
‘Well, go, then. I shall be glad to be rid of you, for you are nothing but an encumbrance’ – this is a very good big word I have learned from my mother – ‘and a burden. Take your stupid scribblings too, for I’ve no need of them.’
I threw his book at him. He did not catch it, but just let it fall into the mud, where he gazed on it sorrowfully.
‘I will miss you, Mary. You have been a friend to me. I will never forget you. Ever. Mark my words, you will be a famous scientist one day. A celebrated geologist. You’ll solve the mystery of life on Earth and how these creatures came to be entombed in rock. You’ll find monsters, treasures beyond anything we have uncovered so far. Of that, I am sure. Please, Mary! Will you not shake hands? I want us to part as friends. Please.’
There was entreaty in his voice. I am not in the habit of being swayed by emotion, but I was gripped by such a storm of feelings myself that I barely knew what I was doing. I stuck out my hand, muddy and covered in scratches, nails black with Blue Lias clay and then snatched it away again.
‘You said we would be scientists together. You promised! A week ago! Just one week ago! You are a liar!’
I threw the few finds we had made to the ground where they joined his sketchbook. Then I gathered up my skirts and turned to run.
I could hear him shouting to me. Something about writing to me. I did not look behind me once and his words were lost on the wind and the rushing in my ears.
I ran as fast as I could, sometimes stumbling on the cliff path, sometimes slipping on the mud, and as I ran I felt a great hatred for the cliffs and for Henry and for all that wasted time making my first friend, only to lose him.
My mother tried to stop me as I tore through the kitchen but I would not be stopped. I threw myself on the bed and screamed into the blanket. I screamed and screamed and screamed and I did not know why I felt so much pain. I had no wound. I had no broken bones. I had pain, pain that made me scream so that I did not know how to stop.
But I did stop at last. I had screamed enough for a lifetime. I could scream no more. I slept. Wild dreams filled my head. Henry and me, buried beneath that landslip. Henry sucked out to sea, shouting to me. Me, sinking in mud, fighting to break free.
The next day, I went to Black Ven and found his sketchbook where it lay in the mud, a little dampened by the dew, surrounded by the scattered treasures. I hid the book in a hole in the graveyard wall where I had first met Henry De la Beche. Frenchie.
I already missed him.
11
THE TREACHERY OF
BLACK VEN
For a while, I lost the will to go treasure-hunting. With Henry gone and Father busy making a dining table and chairs for Squire Stock and his wife, I stopped going out on the seashore. I flipped and flopped about the house until Mother despaired and sent me on an errand to see if Harry May, Father’s fisherman friend, had a few mackerel to spare.
I found him on the Cobb, cleaver raised to strike the head from an eel. As the blade fell, the beast wriggled and twisted and, leaving its head gushing blood, escaped Harry’s grip and tumbled back into the harbour. It was like it was alive, only it was stone dead. Or so Harry said. Stone dead at the bottom of the sea, in the mud, while its head with all its monstrous teeth sat oozing on the wall, all mouth and no monster. Harry was mighty cross with himself, I can tell you, and swore like one of the rough sailors who fall out of the alehouses pretty much the sam
e way as the eel fell off the Cobb wall. Some of them drown too.
‘That conger would have been supper for a fair few,’ Harry said sadly. He had promised me a bit if I liked, as he swung the cleaver. I did not like, as it happens, for it looked like a serpent to me and it was as slimy as a bucket of slugs. I was not sorry to see it tumble into the water.
But I could not take my eyes off the head.
‘Could I have it?’ I asked Harry.
He looked at me as if I was mad! ‘Have what? The head?’
‘Yes. Please.’
I do not know why I wanted it but I had that feeling in my bones. That same feeling that lets me know when there is a treasure in a rock. Perhaps I was feeling like a scientist, even without Henry with me.
‘Well, you are a strange child to be sure, but I never took you for a bloodthirsty type! Still, you can have it once the missus has boiled the meat off for a broth. Might be a few days afore it’s ready and it’ll be only the skellington, mind!’
He meant the skull, but I did not correct him. The skull was all I wanted. I did not want the blackish greenish hide or the coating of grey slime, or the thick red cord of blood that ran through the skull or the great dead eyes. I just wanted to see how that head worked, with its huge jaws and teeth.
I nodded my yes and went home, ideas buzzing in my head. I had seen plenty of fish bones and found the skulls of sheep and cows in the grass beyond the graveyard. These were strange enough compared with the live beasts. I thought a sheep had a small mouth. If you watch it eating, it just twists its nose to and fro like a baby on the breast or Mother chewing a piece of bread with her mouth tight-closed (not like Joseph who eats with his mouth open so you can see the bread tossed around like a knot of seaweed in the waves). When you see the skull, the teeth go near up to its great eye hole. Sometimes you just find the bottom bit, fallen away from the skull. The teeth are all flat like the stone for milling flour at the Town Mill. If I feel my jaw when I am chewing, I can feel it right up to my ear and it must be on a hinge like the lid of a box. How are the two parts attached? Why do they come apart in death?
Lightning Mary Page 6