Remarkable Creatures (5 page)

I was particularly frustrated, as the fossils I was finding were so very puzzling, and filled me with questions I wanted to air. Ammonites, for instance, the most visible and striking of the fossils found at Lyme: What exactly were they? I could not believe they were snakes, as so many unquestioningly did. Why would they curl up into balls? I had never heard of snakes doing such a thing. And where were their heads? I looked carefully each time I found an ammonite, but could discover no trace of a head. It was very peculiar that I could find so many fossils of them on the beach, and yet not see them alive.

This did not seem to bother others, however. I hoped someone might suggest to me over a cup of tea in our parlor, “Do you know, Miss Philpot, ammonites remind me rather of snails. Do you think they might be a sort of snail we haven’t seen before?” Instead they talked about the mud on the road from Charmouth; or what they were going to wear to the next ball; or the traveling circus they were going to Bridport to see. If they did say something about fossils, it was to question my interest. “How can you be so fond of mere stones?” a new friend Margaret brought back from the Assembly Rooms once asked.

“They’re not just stones,” I tried to explain. “They are bodies that have become stone, of creatures that lived long ago. When one finds them, that is the first time they have been seen for thousands of years.”

“How horrible!” she cried and turned to listen to Margaret play. Visitors often turned to Margaret when they found Louise too quiet and me too peculiar. Margaret could always entertain them.

Only Mary Anning shared my enthusiasm and curiosity, but she was too young to engage in such conversations. I sometimes felt in those early years that I was waiting for her to grow up so that I could have the companionship I craved. In that, I was right.

At first I thought I might talk about fossils with Henry Hoste Henley, Lord of Colway Manor and Member of Parliament for Lyme Regis. He lived in a large house set back at the end of an avenue of trees on the outskirts of Lyme, about a mile from Morley Cottage. Lord Henley had a large extended family; apart from his wife and many children, there were also Henleys in Chard, several miles inland, and Colway Manor brimmed with guests. We were occasionally invited too—to a dinner, to their Christmas ball, to watch the start of the hunt, where Lord Henley handed out port and whisky before the hunters rode out.

The Henleys were the closest to gentry that Lyme had, but Lord Henley still had mud on his boots and dirt under his nails. He had a collection of fossils too, and when he found out I was interested, he sat me at his side at dinner so that we could talk about them. Thrilled at first, I discovered after a few minutes that Lord Henley knew nothing about fossils other than that they were col lectible and made him appear worldly and intelligent. He was the kind of man who led with his feet rather than his head. I tried to draw him out by asking what he thought an ammonite was. Lord Henley chuckled and sucked in a great slug of wine. “Has no one told you, Miss Philpot? They are worms!” He banged his glass onto the table, a signal for a servant to refill it.

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.