Fanny was with us all summer. Usually she sat on rocks away from us, or followed at a distance when we were wandering. Though she didn’t complain, I knew she hated it when we went farther, to Charmouth or beyond. She preferred remaining close to Lyme, by Gun Cliff or Church Cliffs. Then a friend might come out to see her, and Fanny cheered up and become more confident. The two would sit and peek round their bonnets at us and whisper and giggle.

Mr Buckland tried to interest Fanny in what we found, or to show her what to look for, but she always said she had other things to do, and brought out lace or sewing or knitting. “She thinks they’re the Devil’s works,” I finally explained in a low voice, when Fanny had once again rebuffed him and gone to sit with her lace. “They scare her.”

“But that’s absurd!” Mr Buckland said. “They are God’s creatures from the past, and there is nothing to be frightened of.”

He got up from his knees as if he would go to her, but I caught his arm. “Please, sir, leave her be. It’s better that way.”

When I looked over at Fanny she was staring at my hand on Mr Buckland’s sleeve. She always seemed to notice when his hand touched mine as he passed me a fossil, or when I grabbed his elbow when he stumbled. She gasped outright when Mr Buckland hugged me the afternoon we managed to get the croc jaw out of the cliff. In that way her accompanying us made things worse, for I suspect Fanny spread plenty of gossip. We might have been better off alone, without a witness to report back everything she saw that she didn’t understand. I still had funny looks from townspeople, and laughter behind my back.

Poor Fanny. I should be kinder to her, for she paid a price, going out with us.

My trade is best done in bad weather. Rain flushes fossils out of the cliffs, and storms scrub the ledges clean of seaweed and sand so more can be seen. Joe may have left fossils for upholstery because of the weather, but I was like Pa-I never minded the cold or the wet, as long as I was finding curies.

Mr Buckland also wanted to go out even when it was raining. Fanny had to come with us, and would huddle wretched in her shawl, curling up amongst the boulders to shelter against the wind. We were often the only folk upon beach then, for in poor weather visitors preferred to go to the bath houses, which had heated water, or to play cards and read the papers at the Assembly Rooms, or to drink at the Three Cups. Only serious hunters went out in the rain.

One rainy day towards the end of the summer, I was upon beach with Mr Buckland and Fanny. There was no one else on that stretch of shore, though Captain Cury passed by at one point, nosing about to see what we were doing. Mr Buckland had discovered a ridge of bumps not far from where we’d dug out the jaw in Church Cliffs, and thought they might be a row of verteberries from the same animal.

I was chiselling away at it to try and uncover the bones when Mr Buckland left my side. After a minute Fanny come to stand close by, and I knew Mr Buckland must be pissing in the water. He was always careful not to embarrass me, and slipped off to do his business far enough away that I didn’t have to see. I was used to him doing that, but it always bothered Fanny, and it were the one time she come up to the cliff by me. Even after several weeks in his company, she was still a little scared of Mr Buckland. His friendliness and constant questions were too demanding for someone like Fanny.

I felt sorry for her. The rain was coming down hard, and dripping on her face from her bonnet rim. It was too wet for her to sew or knit, and there’s nothing worse than having nothing to do in the rain. “Why don’t you just turn away when he’s down there?” I said, trying to be helpful. “He’s not going to wave it in your face. He’s too much of a gentleman for that.”

Fanny shrugged. “You ever seen one?” she said after a moment. I think it was the first question she’d asked me in ten years. Maybe the rain had wore her down.

I thought of the belemnite Miss Elizabeth showed James Foot on this beach years before and smiled. “No. Just Joe’s, when he were little. You?”

I didn’t think she would answer, but then she said, “Once, at the Three Cups, a man got so drunk he dropped his trousers in the kitchen, thinking it were the privy!”

We both laughed. For a second I wondered if we might be starting to get on better.

We’d no chance for that. There were no warning, no pebbles raining down or the groan of stone splitting from stone. It were that sudden that one moment Fanny and I were laughing about men’s parts by the cliff, and the next the cliff just dropped, and I was knocked down and buried in the thick, rocky clay.

Though I don’t remember doing it, I’d thrown my hand up to my mouth as the cliff come down on me, and that made a little space for me to breathe in. I couldn’t see anything, and though I struggled I couldn’t move at all, for the clay was cold and wet and heavy, and it held me fast. I couldn’t even call out. All I could do was think that I was going to die and wonder what God would say to me when He met me.

There was a long, long time when nothing happened. Then I heard a scrabbling and felt hands clawing at me and wiping my eyes, and I opened them and saw Mr Buckland’s terrified face, and I thought maybe I would not meet God yet.

“Oh, Mary!” he cried.

“Sir. Get me out, sir!”

“I-I-” Mr Buckland pulled at the rocks and mud but could not move them. “It’s too heavy, Mary. I can’t get you with no tools.” He was in a kind of daze, as if he couldn’t think straight.

We heard a cry then. We had forgot about Fanny. She was just a few feet from us, and weren’t so heavily buried as me, but there was blood on her face. She begun to scream, and Mr Buckland jumped up and went to her. The clay was looser round her and he managed to shift it enough that he could pull her out. He wiped the blood from her face, and in doing so knocked the bonnet from her head, for he was scared and clumsy. It got caught up in a gust of wind and rolled away down the beach. Losing her bonnet seemed to upset Fanny more than anything else. “My bonnet!” she cried. “I need my bonnet. Mam will kill me if I lose it!” Then she screamed again as Mr Buckland tried to move her.

“Her leg is broken,” Mr Buckland panted. “I’m going to have to leave you to get help.”

At that moment part of the cliff further along crumbled and crashed to the ground. Fanny screamed again. “Don’t leave me, sir, please don’t leave me in this godforsaken place!”

I did not want to be left either, but I did not cry out. “Best to carry her, sir, if you can. At least you can save one of us.”

Mr Buckland looked horrified. “Oh, I don’t think I should do that. It wouldn’t be proper.” It seemed even he, who ate field mice and carried a bright blue sack and pissed in the sea, was uneasy about holding a girl in his arms. But now was not the time for worrying about what was proper.

“Put an arm round her shoulders and one under her knees and lift, sir,” I coached. “She’s a little thing-you should be able to carry her, even a scholar like you.”

Mr Buckland did what I said and heaved Fanny into his arms. She screamed again, in pain and shame. Letting her arms flop wide, she turned her head away from him.

“For God’s sake, Fanny, put your arms round him!” I cried. “Help the man or he’ll never get you back.”

Fanny obeyed me, throwing her arms round his neck and burying her head against his chest.

“Take her to the bath house-that’s the closest place-and send people straight back with spades.” I wouldn’t normally direct a gentleman so, but Mr Buckland seemed to have lost his wits. “Hurry, please, sir. I can’t bear being alone like this.”

As he nodded, another section of cliff fell away with a crash. Mr Buckland flinched, terror written all over his face. I fastened my eyes on his. “Sir, pray for me. And if I die, tell Mam and Joe-”