“He sold it on? Why would he do that?” I gripped the arms of my chair. Any mention of Colonel Birch made me tense with nerves.
Mr Buckland shrugged. “Perhaps he needed the money. It is no bad thing for it to be on public display, but the College is full of men keen to exploit plesiosauri without the intelligence behind it. Conybeare is much more reliable in studying the specimen. He may want it brought to the Geological Society so that he can lecture on it as he did previously. I should think such a meeting would be very well attended. Did you know, Miss Philpot, that I am to become the Society’s President in February? Perhaps I can combine his lecture with my inauguration.”
“According to the Post the Annings are considering the Bristol or the British Museums.” I was a little humiliated to be quoting the newspaper account to someone who had seen the specimen for himself. It was like describing London from a guidebook to someone who has lived there.
“That is an indication of the newspaper’s inclination rather than the Annings’,” William Buckland said. “No, Molly Anning mentioned Colonel Birch to me just now, and wouldn’t consider my suggestions.”
“Did you tell her that Colonel Birch sold on the first specimen, and probably for a pretty profit?”
“She wouldn’t listen to me. That is why I have come to you.”
I studied my hands. Despite my wearing fingerless gloves and applying Margaret’s salve daily, they were rough and scarred, with puckered fingers and a rim of blue clay under each nail. “I have little influence over the Annings and whom they choose to sell to. They run their own business now, and would not welcome my interference.”
“But will you try, Miss Philpot? Talk to her. She is certain to respect your judgement-as do we all.”
I sighed. “Really, Mr Buckland, if you want Molly Anning to sit up and take note, you must speak in the language she understands. Not museums and scientific papers, but money. Find her a collector who will pay her substantially more than Colonel Birch and she will gladly sell to them.”
Mr Buckland looked startled, as if the thought of money had not occurred to him.
“Now,” I continued, determined to change the subject, “I’ve a case of fish on the landing you haven’t seen before, including the dorsal fin of a Hybodus that will amaze you, for the ridges along the spine truly resemble teeth! Come, I’ll show you.”
When he was gone, I sat again by the fire and thought. Now William Buckland had enthused about the plesiosaurus, I wanted more than ever to see it. If I didn’t while it was still in Lyme, I might never get another chance, especially if he found a private buyer who would keep it in his house, inaccessible to someone like me.
Mary would be cleaning and preparing the specimen for the next several weeks, rarely leaving it, and not at predictable moments. I did not know how I could get to it without seeing her. However, I could not face her. I had grown used to not facing her, to not thinking about the superiority she felt to me. I did not want to open that wound again.
On Sunday, however, I got an unexpected chance. We were walking along Coombe Street towards St Michael’s when I saw ahead of us all three Annings enter the Congregationalist Chapel. I was used to seeing Mary in the distance. It no longer made me want to bolt, for she was doing her best to ignore me too.
Once inside St Michael’s, I sat with my sisters and Bessy, and while Reverend Jones led us in prayer, I thought about the Annings’ empty house just around the corner.
I began to cough, first a stray one here and there, then building up so that it sounded as if I had a persistent tickle in my throat I could not get rid of. Neighbours shifted in their seats and glanced around, and Margaret and Louise looked at me with concern.
“The cold is bothering my throat,” I whispered to Louise. “I’d best go home. But you stay-I’ll be fine.” I slipped into the aisle before she could argue. Reverend Jones gazed at me as I hurried away, and I swear he knew that I was putting fossils before church.
Outside, I discovered that Bessy had followed me. “Oh Bessy, you needn’t come with me,” I said. “Go back inside.” Bessy shook her head stubbornly. “No, ma’am, I has to relight the fire for you.”
“I am perfectly capable of lighting the fire myself. Some days I do, when I get up before you, as you well know.”
Bessy frowned, displeased to be reminded that I sometimes caught her out. “Miss Margaret told me to come with you,” she muttered.
“Well, go back in and tell Margaret I sent you back. Surely you’d rather stay so that you can say hello to your friends after?” Post-church gossip amongst servants was lively, I had noticed.
I could see Bessy was tempted, but her natural suspicion made her study me with narrowed eyes. “You ain’t going out on the beach, are you, Miss Elizabeth? I won’t allow it, not after your cold. And it’s Sunday!”
“Of course not. The tide is high.” I had no idea what the tide was doing.
“Oh.” Although she had now lived in Lyme almost twenty years, Bessy still had little sense of the tides. With a few more words of encouragement, I convinced her to return to the church.
Cockmoile Square and Bridge Street were deserted, as most of the town was at church or asleep. I could not hesitate or I would be caught or lose my nerve. Hurrying down the steps to Mary’s workshop, I got out the spare key I had seen Molly Anning hide under a loose stone, unlocked the door and let myself in. I knew I should not do it, that it was far worse than my sneaking out to the auction at Bullock’s in London. But I could not help it.
There was a whining, and Tray came up to me, sniffing my feet and wagging his tail. I hesitated, then reached down and petted him. His fur was coarse like coir, and he was covered in Blue Lias dust, a true Anning dog.
I stepped around him to look at the plesiosaurus laid out in slabs on the floor. It was about nine feet long, and half that width, which accommodated the span of its massive diamond-shaped paddles. Much of its length was made up of its swan-like neck, and at the end was a surprisingly small skull perhaps five inches long. The neck was so very long it didn’t make sense. Could an animal have a neck longer than the rest of its body? I wished I had my Cuvier volume on anatomy with me. The body was a barrel-shaped mass of ribs, completed by a tail far shorter than the neck. All in all it was as unlikely looking as the ichthyosaurus with its enormous eye had been. It made me shiver and smile all at once. It also made me enormously proud of Mary. Whatever anger there was between us, I was delighted that she had found something no one ever had before.
I walked around it, looking and looking, getting my fill, for I was unlikely to see it again. Then I looked around the workshop, which I had once spent so much time in and now hadn’t seen in a few years. It hadn’t changed. There was still little furniture, a great deal of dust, and crates overflowing with fossils that awaited attention. On top of one such pile there was a sheaf of papers in Mary’s hand. I glanced at the top sheet, then picked up the bundle and leafed through it. It was a copy of an article Reverend Conybeare had written for the Geological Society about Mary’s beasts. There were twenty-nine pages of text, as well as eight pages of illustrations, all of which Mary had painstakingly copied out. She must have spent weeks doing this, night after night. I myself had not seen the article, and found myself drawn in to reading parts of it and wishing I could borrow the copy from her.
I could not stand in the workshop all day reading it, however. I flipped to the end to read the conclusion, and there discovered a note in small writing at the bottom of the last page. It read: “When I write a paper there shall not be but one preface.”
It appeared Mary felt confident enough to criticise Reverend Conybeare’s wordiness. Moreover, she had plans to write her own scientific paper. Her boldness made me smile.