One day when it were just Mr Buckland and me in the workshop, he asked if he could clean a bit of the croc himself. He was always keen to try out new things. I surrendered my brushes and blade, for I couldn’t say no to him, but I feared he would do real damage. He didn’t, but that was because he kept stopping and examining and talking about the croc till I wanted to scream. We needed to eat; we needed to pay the rent. We still had debts of Pa’s to pay, and the thought of ending up in the workhouse never left us. We couldn’t spend the time talking. We needed to sell the croc.
Finally I managed to interrupt him. “Sir,” I said, “let me do the work and you do the talking, or this creature will never be ready.”
“You’re quite right, Mary, of course you are.” Mr Buckland handed me the blade, then sat back to watch me scrape along one of the ribs, freeing and brushing away the limestone that clung to it. Slowly a clear line emerged, and because I went at it carefully, the rib weren’t nicked or scored, but smooth and whole. For once he was quiet, and that made me ask the question I’d been wanting to for several days now. “Sir,” I said, “is this one of the creatures Noah brought on his ark?”
Mr Buckland looked startled. “Well, now, Mary, why do you ask that?”
He didn’t go chatting on as he normally would, and his waiting for me to speak made me shy. I concentrated on the rib. “Dunno, sir, I just thought…”
“What did you think?”
Maybe he had forgotten I weren’t one of his students, but just a girl working to live. Still, for a moment I acted the student. “Miss Philpot showed me pictures of crocodiles drawn by Cruver-Cuver-the Frenchman who does all those studies of animals.”
“Georges Cuvier?”
“Yes, him. So we compared his drawings to this and found it were different in so many ways. Its snout is long and pointed like a dolphin’s, while a croc’s is blunt. And it’s got paddles instead of claws, and they’re turned outward rather than forward the way a croc’s legs are. And of course, that big eye. No crocodile has eyes like that. So Miss Philpot and I wondered what it could be if it’s not a croc. Then I heard you and a gentleman you brought here the other day, Reverend Conybeare. You was talking about the Flood-” actually they’d used the words “deluge” and “diluvian”, and I’d had to ask Miss Elizabeth what they meant “- and it made me wonder: if this ain’t a crocodile, which Noah would’ve had on the ark, then what is it? Did God make something that was on the ark we don’t know about? So that’s why I’m asking, sir.”
Mr Buckland was silent for longer than I thought he could ever manage. I begun to worry he didn’t understand what I meant, that I was too uneducated to make sense to an Oxford scholar. So I asked again, a slightly different question. “Why would God make creatures that don’t exist any more?”
Mr Buckland looked at me with his big eyes, and I saw there a flickering worry.
“You are not the only person to ask this question, Mary,” he said. “Many learned men are discussing it. Cuvier himself believes there is such a thing as the extinction of certain animals, in which they die away completely. I am not so sure of that, however. I cannot see why God would want to kill off what He has created.” Then he brightened, and the worry left his eyes. “My friend the Reverend Conybeare says that while the Scriptures tell us that God created Heaven and Earth, they don’t describe how He did it. That is open to interpretation. And that is why I’m here-to study this remarkable creature, and find more of them to study, and through careful contemplation arrive at an answer. Geology is always to be used in the service of religion, to study the wonders of God’s creation and marvel at His genius.” He ran a hand over the croc’s spine. “God in His infinite wisdom has peppered this world with mysteries for men to solve. This is one of them, and I am hon-?floured to take on the task.”
His words sounded fine, but he had given no answer. Perhaps there was no answer. I thought for a moment. “Sir, do you think the world was created in six days, the way the Bible says?”
Mr Buckland waggled his head-not a yes or a no. “It has been suggested that ‘day’ is a word that should not be interpreted literally. If one thinks instead of each day as an epoch during which God created and perfected different parts of Heaven and Earth, then some of the tensions between geology and the Bible disappear. After five epochs, during which all of the layering of rock and the fossilisation of animals occurred, then man was created. That is why there are no human fossils, you see. And once there were people, on the sixth ‘day’, the Flood came, and when it subsided, it left the world as we see it today, in all its grandeur.”
“Where did all the water go?”
Mr Buckland paused, and I saw again that flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. “Back into the clouds from whence the rain came,” he replied.
I knew I should believe him, as he taught at Oxford, but his answers did not feel complete. It was like having a meal and not getting quite enough to eat. I went back to cleaning the croc and did not ask more questions. It seemed I was always going to feel a little hollowed out round my monsters.
Mr Buckland stayed at the Three Cups in Lyme for much of the summer, long after the second crocodile had been cleaned, packed and sent to Bristol. He often called for me at Cockmoile Square, or asked me to meet him upon beach. He assumed I would accompany him and attend him, showing him where fossils could be found, sometimes finding them for him. He was particularly keen to find another monster, which he would take back to Oxford for his collection. While I wanted to find one too, I were never sure what would happen if we did discover one while out together. I had the eye and was more likely to spot it first. Would that mean Mr Buckland should pay me for it? It were never clear, as we didn’t talk about money, though he was quick to thank me when I found curies for him. Even Mam didn’t mention it. Mr Buckland seemed to be above money, as a scholar ought to be, living in a world where it didn’t matter.
By then Joe was well into his apprenticeship and never come out with me unless there was heavy lifting or hammering to do. Sometimes Mam come with us, and sat knitting while we ranged round her. But Mr Buckland wanted to go farther than she did, and she had laundry to do and the house to look after, and the shop-for we still set out a table of curies in front of the workshop, the way Pa used to, and Mam sold ’em to visitors.
Other times Miss Elizabeth went hunting with us. It weren’t as it had been with the other gentlemen, though, where she and I had laughed at the men behind their backs when they kept making beginner’s mistakes, picking up beef or thinking a bit of fossilised wood was a bone. Mr Buckland was smarter, and kinder too, and I could see Miss Elizabeth liked him. I felt sometimes that she and I were two women competing for his attention, for I weren’t a child any more. I would look up from my hunting and see her eyes lingering on him, and want to tease her about it, but knew it would hurt her. Miss Elizabeth was clever, which Mr Buckland appreciated. She could talk to him about fossils and geology, and read some of the scientific papers he lent her. But she was five years older than him, too old to start a family, and without the money or the looks to tempt him anyway. Besides, he was in love with rocks, and would fondle a pretty bit of quartz more likely than flirt with a lady. Miss Elizabeth hadn’t a chance. Not that I did, either.
When we were together she become quieter, and sharper when she did speak. Then she made excuses, leaving us to walk farther down the beach, and I would see her in the distance, her back very straight, even when she stooped to examine something. Or she would say she preferred to hunt at Pinhay Bay or Monmouth Beach rather than by Black Ven, and disappear altogether.