“What do you mean?”

“I made a mistake with the Colonel. I knew I were making it, and I done it anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t-”

“Mary worked with the Colonel all summer, found him a good croc and all sorts of curies for his collection, and never had any money off him. I didn’t ask him for any neither, for I thought he’d give her something at the end.”

I had suspected no money changed hands between Colonel Birch and the Annings, but only now was it confirmed. I twisted the ends of my shawl, enraged that he could be so callous.

“But he didn’t,” Molly Anning continued. “He just went off with his croc and his curies and all he give her were a locket.” I knew only too well about the locket: Mary wore it under her clothes, but pulled it out to show Margaret whenever they discussed Colonel Birch. It contained a lock of his thick hair.

Molly Anning sucked at her tea as if she were drinking beer. “And he hasn’t written since he left. So I wrote him. That’s where I need your help.” She reached into the pocket of an old coat she wore-it had probably been Richard Anning’s-and pulled out a letter, folded and sealed. “I already wrote it, but I don’t know if it’ll reach him like this. It would if it were going to a place like Lyme, but London be that much bigger. Do you know where he lives?” Molly Anning thrust the letter at me. “Colonel Thomas Birch, London ” was written on the outside.

“What have you said in the letter?”

“Asked him for money for Mary’s services.”

“You didn’t mention-marriage?”

Molly Anning frowned. “Why would I do that? I’m no fool. Besides, that be for him to say, not me. I did wonder about the locket, but then there’s no letter, so…” She shook her head as if to rid it of a silly notion like marriage, and returned to the safer topic of payment for services rendered. “He owes us not only for all the time he took Mary away from hunting curies, but for the loss now. That be the other thing I wanted to say to you, Miss Philpot. Mary’s not finding curies. It were bad enough this summer that she give everything she found to the Colonel. But since he went she ain’t found anything. Oh, she goes upon beach every day, but she don’t bring back curies. When I ask her why not she says there’s nothing to find. Times I go with her, just to see, and what I see is that something’s changed about her.”

I had noticed it too when I was out with Mary. She seemed less able to concentrate. I would look up and catch her eyes wandering over the horizon or across the outline of Golden Cap or the distant hump of Portland, and knew her mind was on Colonel Birch rather than on fossils. When I questioned her she simply said, “I haven’t got the eye today.” I knew what it was: Mary had found something to care about other than the bones on the beach.

“What can we do to get her finding curies again, Miss Philpot?” Molly Anning said, running her hands over her lap to smooth out her worn skirt. “That’s what I come to ask-that and how to get the letter to Colonel Birch. I thought if I wrote and he sent money, that would make Mary happy and she would do better upon beach.” She paused. “I’ve wrote plenty of begging letters these last years-they take their time paying up at the British Museum-but I never thought I would have to write one to a gentleman like Colonel Birch.” She took up her cup and gulped the rest of her tea. I suspect she was thinking about him kissing her hand, and cursing herself for being taken in.

“Why don’t you leave the letter to us and we’ll have it sent to London?” Louise suggested.

Molly Anning and I both looked at her gratefully for this neat solution: Molly because responsibility for the letter reaching its destination was taken out of her hands, I because I could decide what to do without having to reveal to her that Colonel Birch had written to me. “And I shall take Mary out hunting,” I added. “I’ll keep an eye on her and encourage her.” And put what fossils I find in her basket, until she has recovered her senses, I added to myself.

“Don’t tell Mary about the letter,” Molly ordered, pulling at her coat.

“Of course not.”

Molly looked at me, her dark eyes moving back and forth over my face. “I weren’t always sure of you Philpots,” she said. “Now I am.”

When she’d gone-seeming spryer now that she was no longer weighed down with the letter-I turned to Louise. “What shall we do?”

“Wait for Margaret,” was her reply.

On our sister’s return in the evening, we three sat by the fire and discussed Molly Anning’s letter. Margaret was in her element. This was the sort of situation that she read about in the novels she favoured by authors such as Miss Jane Austen, whom Margaret was sure she’d met long ago at the Assembly Rooms the first time we visited Lyme. One of Miss Austen’s books had even featured Lyme Regis, but I did not read fiction and could not be persuaded to try it. Life itself was far messier, and didn’t end so tidily, with the heroine making the right match. We Philpot sisters were the very embodiment of that frayed life. I did not need novels to remind me of what I had missed.

Margaret held the letter in both hands. “What does it say? Is it really only about money?” She turned it over and over, as if it might magically open and reveal its contents.

“Molly Anning wouldn’t waste the time to write about anything else,” I said, knowing my sister was thinking about marriage. “And she wouldn’t lie to us.”

Margaret ran her fingers over Colonel Birch’s name. “Still, Colonel Birch must see it. It may remind him of what he has left behind.”

“He’ll be reminded that I received his letter and never responded. For if I add to the address he’ll know it’s I who has been meddling-no one else in Lyme would have his address.”

Margaret frowned. “This is not about you, Elizabeth, but about Mary. Don’t you want him to get this letter? Or would you prefer he live in perfect ignorance of Mary’s circumstances? Don’t you want the best for both parties?”

“You sound like one of your lady author’s novels,” I snapped, then stopped. I was gripping a copy of the Geological Society Journal Mr Buckland had sent me. To calm myself I took a breath. “I believe Colonel Birch is not an honourable man. Sending the letter will just raise Molly Anning’s hopes for the outcome.”

“You and Louise have already done that very thing by taking the letter off her and promising to post it!”

“That is true, and I am beginning to regret saying we would. I don’t want to play a part in a fruitless, humiliating plea.” I knew my arguments were swinging all about.

Margaret waved the letter at me. “You’re jealous of Mary gaining his attention.”

“I am not!” I said this so sharply that Margaret ducked her head. “That is ridiculous,” I added, trying to soften my tone.

There was a long silence. Margaret set the letter down, then reached over and took my hand. “ Elizabeth, you mustn’t stand in Mary’s way of getting something you were never able to.”

I pulled my hand from her grasp. “That is not why I’m objecting.”

“Why, then?” I sighed.

“Mary is a young working girl, uneducated apart from what little we and her church have taught her, and from a poor family. Colonel Birch is from a well-established Yorkshire family with an estate and a coat of arms. He would never seriously consider marrying Mary. Surely you know that. Molly Anning knows it-that is why she has only written about the money. Even Mary knows it, though she won’t say it. You are only encouraging her. He has used her to enhance his collection-for free. That is all. She’s lucky he didn’t do worse. To ask him for money, or to reestablish the connection, just prolongs the Annings’ agony. We mustn’t do so just to please your and Mary’s romantic notions.”

Margaret glared at me.

“Your Miss Austen would never allow such a marriage to take place in her novels you so love,” I went on. “If it can’t happen in fiction, surely it won’t happen in life.”