The Dragon in the Cliff (2 page)

Joseph and I looked up at the wall of Lias cliffs with their layer upon layer of rock and dirt. It seemed impossible to us that anyone could climb to the top. Only an occasional bush or tuft of grass softened their almost perpendicular ascent from the beach. I squeezed Papa's hand, glad that he had escaped and certain that I would never, never forget about the tide.

We walked on to the far end of Black Ven. “We'll work the slide today,” Papa said, pointing at a dark mound located at the foot of the cliff. “It's in slides like that one that I often find the best curiosities. It's easier than trying to get curiosities out of the cliff. That's hard work and it is dangerous. But if you have the patience to wait and let storms break down the edges of the cliff, then half your work is done for you.”

The slide, which hadn't looked very big from a distance, turned out to be a mound taller than Papa and several yards wide. What looked like dirt was actually a mixture of limestone, shale, clay, and dirt.

Papa and Joseph put down the tool bags and the curiosity basket, and I suddenly realized that I didn't have any tools. “What shall I do?” I asked Papa. “I have no hammer or chisel.”

“There are many curiosities to be found in a slide like this that are already free. If you find one that needs breaking out of the rock, we'll help you.”

I looked carefully at the slide, picking up bits and pieces of limestone and shale, turning them over to see if they contained anything, and tossing them aside, trying to find something that would impress Joseph and Papa.

The first one to find something was Papa, who called us over to look at a golden-colored stone disc with a pattern like a tightly coiled rope.

“It's a golden snail,” Joseph said.

“It's not gold and it's not a snail,” Papa corrected him. “It's an ammonite and it's only fool's gold. See, it's not yellow like gold, but a brassy color. It should fetch a pretty penny. People like ammonites and this is a nice-sized one.”

“How did the curiosity become yellow like that?” I asked Papa as he wrapped the ammonite in rags that he had brought from home.

“I'm not certain, my dear. Somehow the metal must have replaced the ammonite's hard shell. But how, I do not know.”

Now I wanted to find a fool's gold ammonite, too. But the first thing I found was not golden at all. It was a gray stone disc bigger than the palm of my hand, hollowed out in the middle with a ridge protruding from one side.

Joseph glanced over at it. “A verteberrie. Throw it away, Mary.”

I thought he was just being spiteful. I made a face at him and took the curiosity to Papa, who was splitting a piece of rock open with his hammer and chisel.

“Oh, that's a nice one,” Papa said. “Too bad the travelers don't buy them.” Seeing how disappointed I was, he added, “But the collectors are always interested in them. Perhaps Miss Philpot will want it for her collection. Wrap it up well so it doesn't break and put it in the basket, Mary.”

“What is it, Papa?” I asked.

“Part of the backbone of an animal.”

“What kind of an animal?”

“No one knows, my dear, but from the looks of it, it must have been a big one, a very big one, I'd say.”

“Has anyone ever found all the parts to a creature like that?”

“No, but if you keep looking, perhaps you will.”

Joseph called to us excitedly. He had found something. He climbed down the slide and handed me an irregular slab of gray rock to look at. On the rock, delicately outlined in reddish brown, was a small fish. Once it had been a fish that swam in the sea, but now it was a faint impression in a piece of rock. How strange! How wonderfully strange it was to hold a once-upon-a-time fish in your hand.

Joseph's brown eyes glowed with pride when he took the fish from me to show Papa. I went back to my hunting determined to find something valuable, too, anything that would convince Papa to let me come again. I looked at the dirt and rocks in front of me, searching for a sign, something that would tell me that a curiosity was there. I pulled the rocks out of the mound and looked at them with even more care than before to make certain that I missed nothing. But I only managed to find another thunderbolt before Papa called for us to stop. “The tide is well on its way in, children. See how high the water is on the Cobb,” he said, pointing to the breakwater and harbor.

I was quiet as we walked back. “See here,” Papa said, pointing to a section of the cliff. “That rock might give way if there is another storm. I tell you, that'll be a rich place to hunt. We should find some real beauties if we get down to the beach before the slide is washed away by the sea.” I glanced at where he pointed and turned away. It really was no concern of mine. I hadn't been useful. I would have to stay home with Mama and the little ones.

“You did very well,” Papa said, patting Joseph on the back. “It's a lucky day when you find a fish. Squire Henley will want to see it. It should go for a good price. You really are learning.” Then, noticing my silence, and guessing at my unhappiness, he said, “Don't be discouraged, Mary. Maybe next time you'll find the entire beast and not just the verteberrie.”

My heart leapt. Next time! He said I could come next time! I couldn't contain my happiness and raced ahead, scaring the sanderlings, who rose up with a shrill cry as I drew near. The sun broke through the morning fog, turning the sky a light blue, which the sea reflected in deeper shades. As if a curtain had been lifted, we could see the patchwork of green fields, edged with dark green hedgerows that stretch up the hills above the rocky cliffs. To the west, the thatched and slate-roofed buildings of Lyme climbed up the sides of the steep valley from the bay and spread out across the hilltops.

That night, lying in bed beside Ann, I was too excited to sleep. I was going to find that giant creature whose verteberries I found in the slide. How proud Papa would be. Everyone would come from miles around to see it. Seeing how good a curiosity hunter I was, Mama would let me go to the beach any time I wanted to. In the midst of these thoughts, I heard my name in the whispered conversation that Mama and Papa were having in their bed across the room.

“Richard, you're fooling yourself if you think you put an end to Mary's pestering about the curiosities. Did you see how excited she was when she came in? Couldn't wait to show me what she had found. Ran upstairs with all that mud still on her. It was foolish to let her go. Now there will be no end to this curiosity business with her.”

“Ah, there's no harm in it, Molly,” Papa replied.

And if anything ever really has a single beginning or a single cause, that was the beginning of my fossil hunting and the different turn my life has taken.

CHAPEL SCHOOL

Lizzie Adams, whom I used to consider my closest friend, now does not approve of me. She says I think that I am better than everyone in Lyme, that the fossils and my fame have made me proud and unyielding. She is by no means the only one of the people in this town who feels this way. From the beginning, there have been those who disapproved of my fossil hunting, who believed that it was not a proper pursuit for someone of my sex.

I had gone collecting with Papa only a few times before the Reverend Gleed's wife, a very large woman with powdery skin, a fleshy nose, and colorless, thin hair, called on Mama.

Mrs. Gleed came from Taunton to Lyme with her husband, the leader of the Dissenting congregation to which we and many other artisans' families in Lyme belong. Taunton being bigger and more prosperous than Lyme, which has fallen on hard times, Mrs. Gleed considered it her duty to enlighten us poor, backward souls. Hearing her in the hall downstairs, Mama, who was preparing dinner, quickly wiped her hands on her apron—which was none too clean—looked at her image in the glass, and straightened the cap on her honey-colored curls, all the while directing me. “Clear away the table. It is unsightly. Hurry, Mary.… Oh, John is crying. Pick him up and quiet him, please. Where is Ann? Is she into any mischief? Mrs. Gleed will be thirsty, she'll want some cider.”

Mama took John from my arms, and before I could finish clearing the table, Mrs. Gleed was standing in the middle of the room. “Mrs. Gleed, how nice of you to call,” Mama said pleasantly, greeting the reverend's wife, who was winded from climbing the stairs.

Mama offered her a chair, and Mrs. Gleed dropped into it with a sigh of relief. “My, my,” she said, shaking her head, “What a climb.”

Mama gave me a look, reminding me of the cider. On the way down the stairs to the scullery I heard Mrs. Gleed say, “Mrs. Anning, I don't know how you and Mr. Anning manage those stairs, they're so steep. I would call more often if it did not mean climbing up here to your little room.”

I heard Mama laugh nervously. Her discomfort made me realize for the first time that to some people our living arrangements, which are much the same as everyone else's that we know—a small scullery behind the shop, a large room above the shop, and another small room under the eaves for sleeping—are poor.

I opened the door to the scullery, filled a glass with cider from the jug, and brought it back upstairs, placing it on the table in front of Mrs. Gleed. She emptied the glass, wiped her lips with her handkerchief, and turned to ask me, “How old are you, Mary?”

“I am seven, ma'am,” I answered with a curtsy.

“Old enough to attend school so that she can learn to read and write,” Mrs. Gleed said to Mama.

“I already know how to read,” I told her proudly. But I was speaking out of turn, and Mrs. Gleed paid no attention to me.

“I've been teaching her myself,” Mama said.

“School attendance is daily. She will make more progress there.”

“She is doing well here, Mrs. Gleed,” Mama said quietly, holding firmly onto John, who was struggling to get out of her arms. “I've begun to teach her to make lace. She has a deft hand and learns quickly. She helps me with the little ones so that I can do my work.”

I took John from her arms and put him on the floor where he could practice walking and I could watch him without being sent away.

“That may be, Mrs. Anning,” Mrs. Gleed said, “but what I hear from others is that the child goes down to the beach to collect curiosities. It is even said that she sometimes goes there by herself.”

Red blotches appeared on Mama's cheeks. “She does not go to the beach alone, only with Mr. Anning and her brother Joseph. And that is because she cries and begs until we let her go. She loves her brother and wishes to do whatever he does.”

“Her will must be broken,” Mrs. Gleed insisted. “And the school will do it if you are too fond to do it yourself. Spoiled children are ripe for the devil's harvesting.”

Mama sighed, “I suppose you are right, Mrs. Gleed.” She looked down at her hands. “It seemed no harm. She is but little still and she so wants to go.…” She stopped for a moment. Then in a low voice as if speaking to herself, she said, “Sometimes it seems a pity that she is a girl, she is so quick.”

Mrs. Gleed's face did not soften. Rising from her chair, she replied, “Mrs. Harris will take care of that. She will teach her what is proper.” At the door Mama said, “I must speak to Mr. Anning about it.”

“If you explain it to him, Mr. Anning will see that it is for the girl's own good,” Mrs. Gleed replied.

When Mama told Papa that people did not think it right that I went to the beach to hunt for curiosities, he replied scornfully, “There are always people who think they know how others should live, people who would hold everyone to their own narrow, ignorant ideas of what is proper. Let me see them live their own lives as they should, and then I will follow their good advice. The child is under my roof, and it is my duty to raise her as I think best. I see no harm in her gathering curiosities on the beach.”

Mama met his icy blue glare with her own gentle gaze. “But the child must live among these people, Richard, and they talk and condemn her for it.”

“Who are these people you speak of?” Papa asked angrily. “Ignorant old gossips who know nothing of science, care nothing for knowledge, and foolish young ones who follow them. Certainly Miss Philpot does not say anything against curiosity hunting, and she is respectable. I have seen her on the beach myself. I have even seen some of the London ladies venture out to hunt for curiosities.”

“But Mary is not the daughter of a wealthy London merchant as is Miss Philpot, nor is she a London lady,” Mama countered. “She is a cabinetmaker's daughter who lives here among people who disapprove.”

The result of this discussion was a compromise: I was allowed to go curiosity hunting, but I was also enrolled in the chapel school, where Joseph was already a pupil in the boys' class. There, in that low building behind the chapel, I spent my days in a small, noisy room filled with girls, learning to read the Holy Scriptures, to write, sum, embroider, and knit. School was daily, except Sunday, when we went to chapel in the morning and again in the afternoon. The result was that only rarely did we have a chance to go the beach with Papa.

I went to school for almost three years, during which time every effort was made to break my will, as Mrs. Gleed predicted. I remember one such incident with pain to this day.

It happened soon after I started school. There was a storm that lasted for several days, soaking the town and the surrounding cliffs with rain and lashing the beach with ferocious tides. Except for our forays to school, where we arrived wet through to the skin, Joseph and I stayed at home. We grew increasingly irritable with each other as one rainy day followed another. The rain finally came to a stop on a Sunday, and though it is customary to do little that day but go to chapel and read the Bible, Papa, Joseph, and I were eager to get out of doors. “To stretch our legs,” Papa said to Mama. “We'll return in time for the Reverend Gleed's sermon.”