Remarkable Creatures Part 3

"Think so."

I shuddered, one of them s.h.i.+vers that come over you when you're not even cold but you can't stop yourself. I didn't know crocodile eyes could be so big. In the picture Miss Elizabeth showed me the croc had little piggy eyes, not huge owly ones. It made me feel odd looking at that eye, like there was a world of curiosities I didn't know about: crocodiles with huge eyes and snakes with no heads and thunderbolts G.o.d threw down that turned to stone. Sometimes I got that hollowed-out feeling too when looking at a sky full of stars or into the deep water the few times I went out in a boat, and I didn't like it: it was as if the world were too strange for me ever to understand it. Then I would have to go and sit in Chapel until I felt I could let G.o.d take care of all the mysteries and the worry went away.

"How long is it?" I said, trying to make sense of the monster by asking questions.

"Dunno-three or four feet, just the skull." Joe ran his hand over the rock to the right of the jaw and eye. "Don't see the body."

Bits of loose shale tumbled down the cliff and fell near us. We looked up and stepped back, but nothing further come down.

I glanced at baby, wrapped up in his coc.o.o.n so he looked like a caterpillar. He'd stopped whimpering and was squinting into the grey sky. I couldn't tell if he were following the clouds that scudded across.

Far down the beach at Charmouth two men were pulling a row boat down to the sh.o.r.e, out to check lobster pots. Joe and I quick stepped back from the cliff, like children caught eyeing a plate of cakes. The men were too far away to see where we were or what we were doing, but we were still cautious. Though few hunted the way we did, people were sure to be interested in such a thing as the croc. And now I could see it, it was so obvious in the cliff, with its forest of teeth and saucer eye, that I was sure someone else would soon spot it.

"We got to dig out the croc," I said.

"We never dug anything this big," Joe said. "Could we even lift four feet of rock?"

He was right. I had used my hammer to get ammos out of rocks on the beach, and out of the cliff, but most of the time we let the wind and the rain wear away the cliff and release the curies for us.

"We need help," I said, though I did not like to admit it. We had already had so much help from the village since Pa's death, and it were hard to ask for more without paying, especially when it was to do with curies. f.a.n.n.y Miller weren't the only one who hated fossils. "Let's ask Miss Elizabeth what to do."

Joe frowned. Like Mam and Pa, he had always been suspicious of Elizabeth Philpot. He couldn't understand what a lady like her would want with curies, nor why she was willing to have anything to do with me. Joe didn't get the same feeling when he found a cury as Miss Elizabeth and I did, like we were discovering a new world. Even now, with something as amazing as the crocodile, he was quick losing his excitement, and only seeing the problems. I wanted to go to Miss Elizabeth not only because she could help us, but because she would be as thrilled as I was.

We stayed a long time, chipping at the croc with my hammer and talking about what to do. We spent so long there that the tide cut us off and we had to climb over the cliffs back to Lyme-not easy with baby in my arms. Poor mite. He died the following summer. I always wondered if it weakened him, being taken upon beach in the cold. Of course, so many of Mam's babies died that it were no surprise he didn't last. But I could have stayed inside with him, and gone the next day to see the croc. That's how fossil hunting is: it takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting.

I hadn't ever seen anything better than what Joe found that day, though. That brought the lightning straight through me, as if waking me from a long sleep. I was glad to see it. I just wished I had discovered it rather than Joe. It was a surprise to everyone that Joe found such an unusual specimen, for it weren't in his nature to look out for something new. That was what I was good at. I tried not to be jealous, but it was hard. Soon enough, people forgot it was Joe who found the croc, and made it my croc. I didn't stop them, and Joe didn't seem to mind. He was happy to step back from it and just be plain Joe Anning rather than a hunter who could find a monster. It was hard for him, being part of a family so talked about and judged. If he could have stopped being an Anning, I think he would have. Since he couldn't, he kept his thoughts to himself.

Next morning we took Miss Elizabeth to see the skull. It were one of those clear cold days that makes all the rocks look crisp, though it didn't last long, the winter sun just skimming the horizon past Lyme Bay. Despite the cold, Miss Elizabeth needed no convincing, but come out straightaway, though their servant Bessy muttered and Miss Margaret twittered that they had guests coming soon. Now I was getting older I'd begun to find Miss Margaret a little silly, preferring the quietness of Miss Louise or the tartness of Miss Elizabeth. Miss Elizabeth didn't care about guests, but wanted to see the monster.

When we reached the end of Church Cliffs, I almost gasped at how clear its peculiar outline was in the cliff face. Miss Elizabeth was silent. She took off her nice gloves and put on the work gloves with the tips cut off so that she could run her fingers along its long, pointy snout and its great jumble of teeth. At the end where the jaws were hinged, she prised off a flake of stone. "Look," she said, "there is a slight upturn of its mouth where it seems to be smiling. Do you recall that in the drawing I showed you of the crocodile in Cuvier's book?"

"Yes, ma'am. But look at its eye!" I used my hammer to tap carefully and reveal more of the ring of bones that overlapped like giant fish scales round an empty centre where the eyeball must have been once.

Miss Elizabeth stared. "Are you sure that is the eye?" She seemed disturbed by it.

"Don't know what else it could be," Joe said.

"That is not how the eye looked in Cuvier's drawing."

"Maybe this one had a problem with its eye," I suggested. "Like a disease. Or maybe the Frenchman drew it wrong."

Miss Elizabeth snorted. "Only a girl like you would dare question the work of the world's finest zoological anatomist."

I frowned. I didn't like this Cuvier.

Thankfully Miss Elizabeth didn't dwell on my stupidity, nor on the croc's eye. She was more concerned with practical matters. "How are you going to get this out of the cliff? It must be four feet long at least."

"It'll take digging like we've never done before, won't it, Joe?"

Joe shrugged.

"But four feet of rock-won't that be too heavy for you? What you need are men to help you. Strong men." Miss Elizabeth thought for a moment. "What about the men building the walkway along the beach to the Cobb? They know how to cut rock, and they're strong. Perhaps they could do it for you."

"Perhaps they could, ma'am," I said, "but we haven't the money to pay 'em."

"I will advance you the money, and you can pay me back when you have sold the specimen."

I brightened. "Oh, could you, Miss Elizabeth? We would be so grateful, wouldn't we, Joe?"

But Joe weren't listening. "Mary, Miss Philpot, step away from it!" he hissed. "It's Captain Cury!"

I looked back. Clambering round the bend that hid Lyme from us was the only other fossil hunter who might consider trying to get at our croc. While most respected other's finds, Captain Cury didn't care who had spotted something first. Once he took a giant ammonite Joe and me had begun digging out from a cliff on Monmouth Beach, and laughed in our faces when we told him it was ours. "Shouldn't have left it, then, should you? It were me finished the digging, so it's me as gets it," he'd said. Even when Pa went to talk to him about it, he swore he'd already seen it and marked it out, and that it were Joe and me that was wrong to do the digging when it was his.

Captain Cury mustn't see the croc. If he did, we would have to guard it all the time. I stepped back from the skull, picked up a likely nodule and moved down towards the water's edge where there was a flat stone good for hammering on. Joe headed in the Charmouth direction, then stopped fifty feet away to scrabble amongst small chunks of fool's gold, looking for a pyritised ammo. Golden serpents, we called them. Miss Philpot took several steps and begun studying the ground, then kneeled to pick up a stone. From under my bonnet rim I watched as Captain Cury approached the croc in the cliff face, his spade over one shoulder. Now that I had exposed its eye more clearly, the skull seemed to be staring and grinning to attract attention. Captain Cury's eyes skimmed the cliff, and he paused right where we had been standing. Joe's feet on the stones went quiet, and I stopped hammering.

Captain Cury bent over and picked up something. When he straightened, his face was just inches from the monster's eye. My heart begun to pound. Then he held out a glove. "Miss Philpot, is this yours? It's too fine for Mary."

"I expect it is mine, Mr Lock," Miss Elizabeth answered. She never called him Captain Cury, but used his real name, the way she called Joe Joseph, and ammos ammonites, and not snakestones, and bellies belemnites rather than thunderbolts. She was formal like that. "Bring it here, please."

He went over and handed it to her. I could breathe again, now he were away from the croc. "Found anything?" he asked when she'd thanked him.

"Just a gryphaea. Devil's toenail to you."

"Let's see it." Captain Cury squatted next to her. Fossil hunting does that to people-it breaks down the rules. On the beach a hostler can speak to a lady in a way he wouldn't dream of doing anywhere else.

I hurried over to rescue her. "What are you doing here, Captain Cury?" I demanded.

He chuckled. "Same as you, Mary-looking out for curies to bring in a few pennies. Mind you, you need 'em more'n I do now, don't you, the way your father left you fixed. Here." He tossed something to me. It was a golden serpent.

"This is what I think of your curies, Captain Cury." I turned and threw it as hard as I could. Though the tide was out, I got it to land in the water.

"Hey, now!" Captain Cury glared at me. No one likes to have their curies wasted like that. It's like throwing coins in the sea. "What a nasty girl you become," he said. "Must've been that lightning shook you up and made you that way. You should've carried a thunderbolt to keep from getting hit. Instead you're so mean you'll grow up into a sour old spinster no man will look at."

I opened my mouth to respond, but Miss Elizabeth got there before me. "It's time you moved on, Mr Lock," she said.

Captain Cury's glittery eyes s.h.i.+fted from me to her. "Next time I won't bother to pick up your glove, ma'am," he sneered. By now Joe had come back, so he said no more, but swung his spade onto his shoulder and carried on down the beach towards Charmouth, glancing back now and then.

"Mary, you were very rude to him," Miss Elizabeth said. "I'm ashamed of you."

"He was ruder to me! And to you!"

"Nevertheless, you should show respect to your elders, else they will think the worse of you."

"Sorry, Miss Philpot." I didn't feel at all sorry.

"You two stay here until the tide comes in," Miss Elizabeth commanded, "in sight of the creature, to make sure William Lock doesn't come back and discover it. I will go to the Cobb to see about engaging the men to dig out the crocodile tomorrow-if it is a crocodile. Though what else could it be?"

I shrugged. Her question made me uneasy, though I couldn't say why.

"It be one of G.o.d's creatures, of course," Joe said.

"Sometimes I wonder..."

"Wonder what, ma'am?" I asked.

Miss Elizabeth looked at me and Joe and seemed to come to her senses, like she just realised it was us she was with. She shook her head. "Nothing. It is just an oddlooking crocodile." She glanced at the skull once more before she left.

Twin brothers, Davy and Billy Day, come the next afternoon to dig. It was a shame the tide was lowest in the early afternoon, for it was a busier time upon the beach than the early morning or evening. We would rather have done the digging when no one was about, at least until we knew what we had, and had it secure.

The Days were quarrymen who built roads and did repairs on the Cobb. They had block-like chests and ma.s.sive arms and short stocky legs, and they walked with their chests thrust forward and their a.r.s.es pinched. They didn't say much, nor show any surprise when they come to the crocodile staring at them from the cliff face with its saucer eye. They treated it as the work it was, for all the world like they were cutting a block of stone to be used as paving, or for a wall, and didn't have a monster locked in it.

They ran their hands over the stone round the skull, feeling for natural fissures they could hammer wedges into. I kept quiet, for they had more experience than me with cutting rock. I would learn much from them over the years, once my hunting begun to include cutting large specimens from the cliff face or stone ledges that were uncovered at low tide. The Days were to cut many monsters for me when I couldn't do it myself.

They took their time, despite the short afternoon light and the tide creeping up and them only given half a day off for the work. Before each blow, they studied the rock surface. Once deciding on where to place the iron wedge, they then talked about the angle and force needed before at last using the hammer. At times, each tap was delicate and seemed to have no effect on the rock. Then Billy or Davy-I could never tell which was which-used all his might to strike the blow that brought out another chunk of cliff.

As they worked, a crowd gathered, both people who had been out upon beach already and children who seemed to know we were there almost before we arrived-including f.a.n.n.y Miller, who would not look at me, but hung back with her friends. It's impossible to keep secrets in Lyme-the place is too small and the need for amus.e.m.e.nt too great. Even a freezing winter day won't stop people coming out to watch something new. The children ran along the sh.o.r.e, skimming stones and scrabbling about in the mud and sand. Some of the grown ups searched for fossils, though few knew what they were doing. Others stood and chatted, and a few men gave advice to Davy and Billy about how to cut the rock. Not everyone remained the four hours it took to get the skull out, for once the sun went behind the cliffs it got even colder. But quite a number did stay.

In the crowd was Captain Cury, come up the beach from Charmouth. When the Days finally managed to prise loose the skull, in three sections-two of the snout and eye, one with part of the head behind the eye socket-and laid it out on a stretcher made from cloth hung between two poles, Captain Cury stood over it with the others and examined the monster. He was paying special attention to the jumble of verteberries at the back of the skull. Their presence hinted at a body that must have been left behind in the cliff. It was too dark now to see back into the hole where the skull had been. We would have to come back when it was light again to look for the body.

I hated Captain Cury being so nosy but didn't dare be rude again, for he frightened me. "Don't like him here," I whispered to Miss Elizabeth. "Don't trust him. Can't you get the Days to bring it home now, ma'am?"

Billy and Davy were sitting on a rock, pa.s.sing a jug and a loaf of bread between them. They looked as if they would not budge, though it was twilight, and frost was already covering the rocks and sand. "They deserve their rest," Miss Elizabeth said. "The tide will move them along soon enough."

At last the brothers wiped their mouths and stood. Once they'd picked up the stretcher, Captain Cury vanished into the gloom towards Charmouth. We headed in the opposite direction, back to Lyme, following the Days as if they were carrying a coffin to its grave. Indeed, we took the path that led into town through St Michael's graveyard, and then down b.u.t.ter Market to c.o.c.kmoile Square. Along the way people stopped to peer at the slabs of stone on the stretcher, and there were murmurs of "crocodile" all along the street.

The day after we got the skull out, I run back to Church Cliffs as soon as the tide let me, but Captain Cury had already got there. He was willing to wade through water and freeze his feet so he would be first. I couldn't challenge him, for I was on my own-Joseph had been hired to do a day's work at Lyme's mill, where one of the workers had taken ill, and couldn't give up the chance to earn us a day's bread. I hid and watched Captain Cury poking into the great hole the skull had left in the cliff. Cursing him, I hoped a rock would fall from above and hit his head.

Then I had a wicked, wicked idea, and I'm ashamed to say I followed it. I never told anyone how bad I was that day. I run back along the beach, then climbed the path above Church Cliffs, creeping along it to where I was just above the crocodile hole. "G.o.d d.a.m.n you, Captain Cury," I whispered, and pushed a loose rock the size of my fist over the edge. I heard him give a shout, and smiled as I lay flat on the ground to be sure he wouldn't see me. Though I did not mean to hurt him, I did want to scare him off.

He would be standing away from the cliff now, watching to see what more would come down. I chose a larger rock and shoved it over, along with a handful of dirt and pebbles to make it seem like an avalanche. This time I heard nothing, but kept low. If he knew what I was doing he would punish me, I was sure.

Then it occurred to me he might come looking. Though it was common for rocks to fall, Captain Cury was the suspicious sort. I crept back from the cliff and hurried back down the path. Just in time I darted behind a clump of tall gra.s.s as he come past with a face full of fury. Somehow he'd worked out the stones weren't naturally falling. I hid till he was out of sight, then nipped down the path to the beach and run along the cliff to the crocodile hole. With luck I could have a quick look before he come back, just to see if we would need to get the Day brothers digging again.

In the clear daylight it was easier to see back into the hole Billy and Davy had made. The skull had come out at an angle, and the body, depending how long it was, could extend far into the stone. With a head four foot long it could easily be ten to fifteen feet into the cliff. I crawled into the s.p.a.ce and felt near the spot where I remembered the skull's verteberries ended. I touched a long ridge of k.n.o.bbly rock and begun to sc.r.a.pe at it to get the dirt and clay off.

Then Captain Cury rushed up behind me in a rage. "You! Not surprised to find you here, you nasty little b.i.t.c.h."

I shrieked and jumped out of the hole, then flattened myself against the cliff, terrified to be caught alone with him. "Get away from me-it's my croc!" I cried.

Captain Cury grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. He were strong for an old man. "Trying to kill me, was you, girl? I'll teach you a lesson!" He reached behind him for his spade.

I never found out what he would have taught me, for at that moment the cliff come to my aid. In the years since I've many times felt it my enemy. That day, though, the cliff sent down a shower of rocks near by, some of them as large as those I'd rolled over, accompanied by a slide of pebbles. Captain Cury, who'd been about to hurt me, suddenly become my saviour, jerking me away from the cliff as a rock smashed down where I'd just been standing. "Quick!" he cried, and we clung onto each other as we stumbled towards the water to a safe distance. Then we looked back to see that the whole section of cliff I'd been standing on top of not long before had crumbled, turning from solid ground into a river of stones raining down. The roar of it was like the thunder I'd heard as a baby, but it lasted longer and rushed through me like darkness rather than the bright buzz of lightning. It took at least a minute for the rocks and scree to finish falling to the bottom of the cliff. Captain Cury and I remained frozen, watching and waiting.

When at last the cliff stopped moving and it grew quiet, I begun to cry. It weren't just that I'd almost died. The landslip was now completely blocking the hole where the croc-odile's body was. We couldn't get to it without years of digging. Captain Cury took a pewter flask from his pocket, unscrewed the top, took a swig and handed it to me. I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve, then drank. I'd never had strong spirits. It burned a road down my throat and made me cough, but I did stop crying.

"Thanks, Captain Cury," I said, handing back the flask.

"All that hammering yesterday must have weakened the cliff and brought it down. There were a bit of it earlier, but I thought-" Captain Cury didn't finish. "You'll have the d.a.m.nedest work ahead of you, getting anything out of there." He nodded at the landslip. "My spade's in there too. Looks like I'll have to get another."

It were almost comical how quickly hard work put him off looking for anything. Now it was my crocodile again-buried behind a pile of rubble.

That is an abomination

There are several people I have met throughout my life whom I have regarded with disdain, but none has angered me more than Henry Hoste Henley. Lord Henley came to see me the day after the Days dug out the skull. He did not use the boot sc.r.a.per, but trailed mud into our parlour. When Bessy announced him, Louise was out, Margaret was sewing and I was writing to our brother to tell him about the events on the beach the previous day. Margaret gave a little cry, bobbed at Lord Henley and excused herself, stumbling upstairs to her room. Although she often saw the Henleys at services at St Michael's, she did not expect ever to find him breaching the safety of her own home, where she did not have to wear her brave, light-hearted public face.

Lord Henley looked so surprised at Margaret's abrupt exit that it was clear he'd known nothing about what had gone on between her and his friend James Foot. Granted, that had taken place a few years before, and he might have expected Margaret to have got over it. Or he may have forgotten: he was not the sort of man to remember what women cared about.

Not Margaret, however. A spinster does not forget.

Nor, it appeared, had he noted our shunning of invitations to Colway Manor, or he would not have come to Morley Cottage. Lord Henley was a man of little imagination, who found it impossible to see the world through another's eyes. It made his interest in fossils preposterous: truly to appreciate what fossils are requires a leap of imagination he was not capable of making.

"You must pardon my sister, sir," I said now. "Just before you arrived she had been complaining of a cough. She would not want to inflict her illness on a visitor."

Lord Henley nodded with an attempt at patience. Margaret's health was clearly not why he was paying a visit. At my insistence he sat in the armchair by the fire, but on the edge, as if he would jump up at any moment. "Miss Philpot," he said, "I have heard you discovered something extraordinary on the beach yesterday. A crocodile, is it? I should very much like to see it." He looked about as if expecting it already to be on display in the room.

I wasn't surprised that he knew about the Annings' find. Though Lord Henley was rather grand to be included in Lyme's circle of wagging tongues, he did often employ stone cutters, as he had land ab.u.t.ting the sea cliffs where he extracted stone for building. Indeed, he had obtained most of his best specimens from the quarrymen, who set aside finds for him from the stone they cut, knowing they would be paid extra. The Days must have told him of what they'd dug out for the Annings.

"Your information is almost accurate, Lord Henley," I replied. "It was young Mary Anning who found it. I merely oversaw the extraction. The skull is at her house in c.o.c.kmoile Square." Already I was leaving Joseph out of the story, as would happen for generations. Perhaps it was inevitable given his retiring nature, the very nature that would stop him correcting people when they spoke of the creature as solely Mary's discovery.

Lord Henley knew of the Annings, for Richard Anning had sold him a few specimens. He was not the sort of man to go to their workshop, however, and he was clearly disappointed that the skull was not at Morley Cottage, which was a more acceptable house for him to visit. "Have them bring it to me so I can look at it," he said, jumping to his feet, as if he suddenly realised he was wasting time with inconsequential people.

I stood as well. "It is rather heavy, sir. Did the Days tell you the skull is four feet long? They had enough to do to get it to c.o.c.kmoile Square from Church Cliffs. Certainly the Annings couldn't manage the hill to Colway Manor."

"Four feet? Splendid! I will send my coach for it tomorrow morning."

"I am not sure-" I stopped myself. I did not know what Mary and Joseph planned to do with the skull, and decided it was best not to speak for them until I did know.

Lord Henley seemed to think the specimen was his to claim. Perhaps it was-the cliffs where it was found were on Henley's land. Yet he should pay the hunters for their work and their skill at finding and extracting the fossil. I did not appreciate this proprietary att.i.tude of the collector, who pays for others to find specimens for him to display. As I noted the greedy glitter in Lord Henley's eyes, I vowed to get Mary and Joseph a good price for the crocodile-for I knew he would want to deal with me rather than the Annings. "I will speak to the family and see what I can arrange, Lord Henley. You may be sure of it."

When he had gone and Bessy was sweeping up the mud he'd left behind, Margaret came downstairs, her eyes red. She sat at the piano and began to play a melancholy song. I patted her shoulder and tried to comfort her. "You would not have been happy with that set."

Margaret shrugged off my hand. "You don't know how I would have felt. Just because it suits you not to marry doesn't mean the rest of us feel the same way!"

"I never said I didn't want to marry. It just didn't happen-I am not the sort of lady a man chooses to marry, for I am too plain and too serious. Now I am reconciled to being on my own. I thought you were too."

Margaret was crying again. I could not bear it, for she would make me cry as well, and I do not cry. I left her to take refuge in the dining room with my fossils. Let Louise comfort her when she returned.

Later that day I used Lord Henley's visit as an excuse to go down to c.o.c.kmoile Square. I wanted to discuss with the Annings his interest in the skull, and also to hear about what Mary had found back on the beach, for she'd told me she was going to look for the crocodile's body. When I arrived, I went first to the kitchen to speak to Mary's mother. Molly Anning was a tall, gaunt woman wearing a mop cap and a grubby white ap.r.o.n. She stood at the range, stirring what smelled like oxtail broth, while a baby squalled without conviction in a drawer in the corner.

I set down a bundle. "Bessy made too many rock cakes and thought you might like some, Mrs Anning. There's a round of cheese in there too, and part of a pork pie." The kitchen was cold, with the fire in the range feeble. I should have brought coal as well. I did not tell her that Bessy had made the rock cakes only because I ordered her to. Whatever their hards.h.i.+ps, Bessy did not like the Annings, feeling-like other good families in Lyme, I expect-that our a.s.sociation with them demeaned us.