The Dragon in the Cliff (15 page)

A GREAT DISTANCE BETWEEN US

Henry did not return until the spring. It was Joseph who saw him first. He mentioned it to me in passing, and unable to contain myself, I asked in one breath, “Did Mr. de la Beche say anything about stopping by? How long has he been in town? How did he look?”

Joseph sighed and gave me a knowing look. “I did not talk to Mr. de la Beche, Mary. He was deep in conversation with Dr. Carpenter and only nodded in my direction. He looked”—here he chuckled—“he looked quite the young gentleman.”

I waited for some word from Henry. I expected a message asking me to meet him on the beach somewhere. I imagined that he might even slip it to me himself, bumping into me as if by chance on the street. I knew it would come. And I knew when he saw me it would be just as it was. Better, perhaps, I thought, remembering that he said that I was the only person he could be himself with, the only person who truly understood him. I imagined him saying, “I have been away and done what my mother wished and, now she understands that I belong here, that I am serious about geology … about you.” He would look into my eyes when he said this and take my hand in his.

Days passed in which I jumped at every passing footstep. I waited, but no message came.

It was by chance that I saw Henry on Church Cliff beach one day. He was sitting on a rock sketching. He did not see me. I started in his direction, then hesitated. The thought that he might be avoiding me, which I had managed to suppress for so long, seized me with its obviousness. His name died on my lips. At that moment he looked up, and called to me, “Miss Anning, hello.” Not Mary, but Miss Anning. Putting the sketchbook aside, he got to his feet and came over to greet me.

“Mr. de la Beche, you are back,” I said, welcoming him. “How long have you been here?”

“Ten days,” he said. “I was going to stop by the shop, but …” and his voice trailed off as he mumbled something about a family wedding. I said all the polite things one says on such occasions. I felt embarrassed, but I did not know how to break the conversation off. He asked me whether I had found any other crocodiles or pieces of the small-headed creature in his absence. I told him that I found an enormous crocodile skull and some ribs and vertebrae. He promised to stop by to see them.

“That would be nice,” I replied, unable to think of anything else to say, but still I did not go.

Neither did he. He smiled down at me for what seemed like minutes. His eyes looked sad and uncertain. A gust of wind riffled the pages of his sketch pad, and we turned in its direction. “I have to get back to work,” I said. He nodded and ran off to get his sketch pad before it blew away.

He stopped by the shop a few days later. Although he had only been gone for six months, he seemed different, as Joseph had said, more grown-up, more self-assured, more distant. He examined the bits and pieces of crocodile ribs and vertebrae methodically, while I looked on. He did not speculate as he used to. In fact, he said little. He did say that he would like to draw the pieces of crocodile I had. I suggested that he come the next day. “I could do a better job of it at home,” he replied, and I let him take some of it home.

We hunted for fossils over in the clay at Golden Cap. Although it was a long way from town and we were together for hours, there was no running along the beach, no slipping on the pebbles, no dashing between waves, no wild speculations about what we would find. It was serious and businesslike, with many silences and half-finished sentences. I started to point out a bed of belemnites to him and saw by his face that he already knew. We were not successful in the first place we chose to look and were moving on to another site when Henry said, as if he had just happened to think of it, “Did I tell you, I saw our crocodile jaw, the one that was stolen from Black Ven last year? I am certain that it is the same one.”

I was surprised by the casualness with which he had dropped this piece of information. “Where did you see it?” I asked. He told me that he went with Dr. Carpenter to visit the collection of a Mr. South who had taken lodgings in Charmouth in order to collect fossils from the Lias. “There it was, displayed along with all of his other fossils just as if it was rightfully his and not stolen. It is the centerpiece of his collection.”

“How did Mr. South come to have the jaw?” I asked, wondering if he was the gentlemen that Jim Greengrass had sold it to.

Henry seemed surprised by my question. “I couldn't very well inquire if he did not offer the information. That would not be proper. You do not accuse a gentleman of theft.”

“Asking him where he bought it or found it is not an accusation,” I retorted.

“But it has that undertone, does it not?” I could see that he was annoyed at me for being insistent. “A gentleman does not need to explain himself, and so I did not ask nor did he offer any information. What does it matter where he bought it? He has it now.”

I had to admit that he was right. In one sense,
Henry's
sense, it did not matter how Mr. South came to have the crocodile jaw; it only mattered that it existed and was available for study. For a moment I felt small for caring. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. It did matter, for me at least. The bread on our table is purchased with the money I earn from such finds. Only Henry's wealth could make him so removed from the cares and thoughts of others and so blind to my situation.

“It is spectacular,” he continued, not noticing that I had fallen silent. “South says it was not a crocodile, but it was some kind of lizard. The joint between the lower jaw and the skull is different from a crocodile's.”

How distant we are. I realized that it would never be the same again, not just because of the talk in town. The differences between us are too great to overcome—he is, after all, an educated young man who has a considerable fortune, and I am penniless, a cabinetmaker's daughter. But still I am sad, more than sad, desolate. He is the only other person my age I know who cares about the same things I do. Despite our differences, I admire him, I loved him (though it is painful to write it, even now), and consider him a friend, which I always will. Yet feeling as I do, I have separated myself from others and made myself miserable. It is, as I have put down here, all because of the fossils. They have led me into these places, places where I have no business being.

Unfortunately, wishing things had been different does not make them so. A stain on one's reputation is not soon erased. My neighbors and the members of our meeting strongly disapproved of my relations with Henry de la Beche and saw them in the worst possible light. They thought I was being wild and willful in refusing to listen to Mama. They were relieved when Henry went away, thinking that I had narrowly escaped ruin. They hoped that with him no longer there to lead me astray, I would eventually come to my senses.

It is no wonder then that all eyes were on us when Henry and I went out together to Golden Cap that day. Not knowing anything about the change in our relations, our friends and neighbors were certain that we were taking up where we had left off. This time, they decided, if Mama was too weak to stop me, they would. Mrs. Gleed took it upon herself to talk to me.

I was in my shop, working on a fossil the day after our excursion, when the bell on the door rang. I looked up to see Mrs. Gleed entering the shop. I greeted her, telling her that Mama was not in.

“I know that she is not in, and that is why I have come now. I do not wish to upset your poor, dear mama. She already has enough to bear. I wish to speak to you alone, Mary,” she said.

I immediately guessed why she had come, and my face reddened with shame and anger. I tried to gain control of my feelings as I got up from the workbench saying, “Please come upstairs, Mrs. Gleed. It would be more comfortable for us to talk in the house.”

She refused, saying that she preferred to remain where she was.

I offered her a stool to sit on.

“Trying to be polite now will not deter me, Mary,” she said, placing herself at the end of my workbench and staring at me with eyes like daggers. “What I have to say to you can be said standing; I do not wish to spend much time in the company of a girl whose honor is in question.”

Though I had expected Mrs. Gleed to scold me, I was not prepared for so direct an attack. “My honor? What, what …?” I stammered.

“Your honor, Mary. Your behavior has given others cause to talk.”

“But I have done nothing wrong,” I began, in an attempt to defend myself.

She cut me off, “Giving others cause to talk is wrong. Your behavior is unseemly. You have been observed walking on the beach alone with young de la Beche. You have been with him many times. Your mama tried to talk to you, but you would not listen. You tried to hide behind the curiosities. You even had your mama convinced that you were no longer seeing him. But I have it on good authority that you continued to meet him on the beach in secluded places until he went to London.”

“We did nothing wrong. We were hunting curiosities,” I said. “He pays me for what we find. It is my livelihood.”

She sniffed. “Is that what he pays you for, miss?”

“You know that is so!” I cried out. “How could you even suggest otherwise?”

“You dare to ask me how I can say such a thing? Look to your own conduct. It is your behavior that leads me and others to think such things. If you had not given us cause, there would be no such talk. You are being wicked and willful just as I warned your mother you would be if you were not curbed. And your poor mother has not been up to the task of breaking your will. So it falls on others to do it for her,” she said with a sigh.

I had disliked Mrs. Gleed since the day she had come to talk to Mama about sending me to the chapel school. Now her self-righteous sigh made me defiant. “Did you talk to Mama? Did Mama ask you to talk to me?” I demanded, the tears running down my cheeks. “Her food is bought with the money de la Beche and others like him pay me.”

Mrs. Gleed continued without answering me. “I am speaking on behalf of our meeting and those who care for your mother and the memory of your father. On their behalf I am warning you. You are bringing shame down upon your family. You must no longer see this young gentleman. It is for your own good that I am telling you this, Mary.”

My eyes held hers as I struggled to regain my self-control. “You are telling me for my own good what others say. What do they know about hunting curiosities or of making a living doing so? Nothing! They know nothing of what I do, except to talk maliciously about it and about me. It is not fair! They would be happy to see me fail, to see us thrown upon the parish. I tell you that I did nothing wrong in going curiosity hunting with Mr. de la Beche.”

“It is not a pleasant task to come here to reason with you, miss,” she said, returning my gaze. “I might just as easily let you slide into sin if it were not for your mama and her good name. If you do not want to be shunned by your friends and neighbors you must no longer be seen with him.”

“But what of my livelihood? I am paid to take him curiosity hunting. Am I to stop earning a living just because of some idle talk?” I demanded angrily. And then, realizing that my anger would only make things worse, I softened. “We did nothing wrong, I tell you. Nothing!”

“I can see there is no talking to you, miss,” she snapped. “You are determined to continue being willful and wicked and will not repent. But do not say that you have not been warned.” With that, she turned on her heel, and picking her way through the clutter of the shop with exaggerated care, she opened the door and left.

For a fleeting instant I thought, It isn't fair to punish me so, not now, not after he is lost to me. Perhaps I should have confessed to Mrs. Gleed that things had changed between Henry and me. Our relations were now purely professional. She could be assured that nothing unseemly would ever happen between us. But immediately I rejected the thought, knowing that such a confession would not have helped me. I was glad that I had not stooped so low. Mrs. Gleed would not have believed me no matter what I said. She was determined in her bad opinion of me as long as I went fossil hunting.

It was with some bitterness that I realized that I would never be accepted by our neighbors and belong among them unless I gave up the curiosities altogether. I wish I could give them up. I wish I had never laid eyes on them. I wish Papa had listened to Mama when she objected to my going with him. Then I would be like Lizzie, like the others, and life would be simple and clear.

A DEMEANING FIRST MEETING

Other things happened to make me think that I have taken a wrong turn and am lost in a lonely wilderness from which I must find a way out.

When I was out with Mr. Johnson, who comes from Bristol to Lyme to collect every year, I found a paddle that I thought belonged to the crocodile. If it does indeed belong to the crocodile (which it seems to), it is one more piece of evidence that the fossil differed from modern-day crocodiles, which do not have paddles for swimming, but legs. My find attracted the attention of many people, including the Reverend Buckland, who was in Lyme to collect fossils for Oxford University. I am told that he has started to give lectures there on geology.

The Reverend Buckland stopped by the shop when I was out, leaving a message asking me to send all the pieces of the crocodile I have in my possession to his lodgings early the next morning for examination. I found it an odd and inconvenient request. But since he is a collector and collectors are my best customers, I did my best to comply.

When I arrived at his lodgings on Broad Street, I and the boy who was helping me were admitted by a girl about my age who, upon seeing the box of fossils, grumbled, “More bones. How am I supposed to keep his room tidy? He hasn't even enough room left to turn around in.”

I realized that I was not the first fossilist to visit the Reverend Buckland. I was curious about what the others had brought and whether they had anything as interesting as I had.