The Dragon in the Cliff (17 page)

The bell on the door rang and a well-dressed man entered the shop. I wiped away my tears with my sleeve. He picked through the fossils on the shelves. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” I asked, coming to help him from the workbench. He did not say anything, but continued. “I see you are determined to amuse yourself by making work for me,” I said. The man colored. “You do not have what I am looking for,” he mumbled, and retreated. Immediately I was sorry that I had driven him away. The man had done nothing wrong, and I attacked him and lost his trade. My head hurt, and I felt hot.

I told Mama I was going out and asked her to mind the shop. I walked. I walked without purpose or destination, oblivious to all I passed. I walked out of town and along the undercliffs until I was exhausted from walking and turned back toward home. As I was crossing Coombe Street someone shouted, and I looked up just in time to see a carriage drawn by a pair of horses racing toward me. I was dashed against the wall in my efforts to escape. My cheek was scraped and bleeding, and I was stunned with pain. Onlookers scolded me for not watching where I was going, telling me that I might have been killed. I nodded, agreeing with them, and walked away.

When I returned, Mama was still in the workshop where I left her. My strange behavior had made her anxious, and she was alarmed by the sight of my cheek. But when she asked what was the matter, I only nodded wearily and told her that it was a little scrape that I would wash off. She followed me to the scullery and watched as I poured some water on a towel and wiped my face.

“You are not well,” she remarked. “Perhaps you had better lie down.” I only nodded and started up the stairs. She locked the door to the shop and followed me up. She watched anxiously as I took off my shoes, stockings, and dress. She did not know what to think. I have never gone to bed in the middle of the day before. When I was lying down, she covered me. She sat on the end of the bed for a while before going back to her work.

I fell into a dream-filled sleep. I dreamt that I was in the marketplace with my basket. It is filled with fossils. Gentlemen in top hats come by and help themselves to the fossils, without saying a word to me. Soon I have no more fossils, but they continue to come and come until the marketplace is filled with men in black coats and top hats. They take away my clothes. When I have no clothes, they cut at my hair. Soon they are pounding at my arms and legs with geological hammers. Someone has taken a chisel and hammer to my head. I plead with them to stop, but they do not seem to be able to hear me. I cry, but still they continue. With great effort I stand up, throwing them off. Surprised, the gentlemen step away from me. They proceed to point at me and talk among themselves about me. “Go away! Leave me alone! I am a person, not a curiosity,” I yell. They laugh and run away, leaving me alone in the deserted marketplace.

I dreamt that I was talking to the Reverend Buckland about Home's paper. I have something very important to tell him, and he is eager to hear what I have to say. I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out, I am mute.

I stayed in bed for the remainder of that day. That night and all of the next day I thought over what happened. I could not go on as I had been, scorned by all, with no one who understood me. I kept telling myself that I must find something else to do. It was madness to keep on working at something that caused me such pain. I could learn to make lace like Mama, she would be glad to teach me. She had been teaching Ann—poor, dear Ann. I could learn another trade, any other trade. But each time I thought of some other pursuit, I found fault with it. I was confused and lost.

It was dark outside. The day had passed. Across the room I could hear Mama's even breathing. I grabbed a shawl and threw it round my shoulders. I stole down the stairs barefoot. I lit a candle from the coals in the fireplace, opened the door, and went to my workshop. There I took out this daybook given to me for my fifteenth birthday by Joseph and began this account.

A GEOLOGICAL TEA PARTY

I have been stealing down to the shop at night to write for several weeks now. At last, I believe I have reached my destination—the present. All that remains is for me to include here a description of the event that brought me out of my despair and helped me to see my life more clearly.

Miss Philpot had a tea party to which everyone in the district who took an interest in geology was invited, including Mr. de la Beche and me, Miss Mary Anning. At first, I was doubtful about accepting the invitation. I felt that I did not belong at such an affair. I am younger than everyone else invited, except for Henry, by at least ten years. I was certain that I would be uncomfortable at such a gathering. And yet I wanted to go. Aside from Miss Mary Philpot, Miss Elizabeth's older sister, everyone who was to be there was interested in fossils. All of them had bought fossils from me and talked with me about them. And despite everything, my isolation, the slurs and insults, I very much wanted to hear what was said.

Caught between my desire to go, and the certainty that I should not, I did not respond to Miss Philpot's invitation. The next day Miss Philpot stopped by the shop to see if I was ill. She found me looking well, working at my usual place. She tried to ferret out my reason for not responding to her invitation. We chatted for a few minutes, but I did not explain myself. As she was leaving, she said, “I will be very disappointed if you do not come to tea, Mary. I am counting on you to help my sister Margaret and me show these men that the female sex is capable of understanding science and that we are not the empty-headed, foolish creatures they take us to be.”

I did not tell her that I thought that she would fail, that all such attempts are doomed from the start. How could I, when she is so cheerfully persistent and such a good friend to me? I realized that I had to go because she believed that I could make a difference, even if I did not believe it.

On the appointed day I put on my best gown, which has a blue-flowered pattern on a white ground, new shoes with stand-up heels, new stockings, a blue tippet with frills all round, and my bonnet with the sky blue underside and blue ribbons. I started out for the Philpots' house on Silver Street at about four o'clock and made my way up Broad Street with a mixture of dread and anticipation. The invitation was for four-thirty and Lyme being such a small place, I was early. I was admitted by Betty, who told me that the Philpot sisters were still dressing and would be down shortly. She led me into the empty drawing room. Through the door I could see the tea table laden with ham, pickles, cheese, cakes, cream, sweetmeats, and the good Lord only knows what else.

I waited, growing more anxious with every passing moment. Miss Mary entered first and came over to welcome me. She was wearing a sheer white muslin gown with many tucks. Next to her elegance, my printed cotton gown seemed simple and poor. I wished I had not come, but it was too late to leave. Dr. Carpenter, the Reverend Buckland, and Henry de la Beche all arrived at once, followed by Mr. Johnson and Mr. South. If any of the gentlemen were surprised to find themselves in my company, they did not show it, but greeted me cordially, calling me Miss Anning.

Almost at once, they entered into a heated conversation about how the earth had been shaped. I was ignorant of the theories that they were discussing and sat quietly, listening. I was acutely aware that Henry was standing only a few feet away. He, for his part, seemed to be oblivious to my presence as he talked with Mr. South about the different strata of the cliffs in our neighborhood. How sure of himself he seems, I thought, feeling miserable. He belongs here, but I do not. I should never have come. It was a mistake.

The conversation died down, and we went in to tea. I found that I was seated at the far end of the room from Henry, beside the Reverend Buckland. He turned toward me so that we were facing one another. “We have all been talking about your fossil, Miss Anning,” he said, making polite conversation with me. “It must have been quite an extraordinary thing to discover something like that. A shock, I would think. What did you think when you first saw it?”

I was determined to say little, but he smiled at me in such an encouraging, warm way that I found myself telling him that I did not see the entire thing all at once, only the eye and a few teeth, “… but when I saw it I knew that I had found what people called the crocodile, sir. As it turned out, it was only the head. It took almost a year before I found the body.”

The Reverend Buckland helped himself to a large piece of ham from the platter that was being passed around by Betty. “People had been talking about a crocodile, then?” he asked.

“We had been finding very large fossil vertebrae for some time,” I continued, forgetting myself as I took food from the platter. “People said that they belonged to a crocodile or a dragon. At least that is what my father told me when I found a vertebrae the first time I went out curiosity hunting with him. He said there was talk of a large creature buried in the cliffs.”

“Since you are not very old now, you must have been quite young at the time,” the Reverend Buckland said, encouraging me to continue.

“I am fifteen years old, sir,” I responded, glowing with pride. “I have been hunting fossils since I was seven. I first went out with my father.” The Reverend Buckland shook his head sympathetically and smiled at me, making me wonder how I could ever have disliked him or been angry at him, though he still had not paid for the fossils I had left with him.

At this point Mr. South, who was seated on my other side, joined in the conversation, telling the Reverend Buckland that it was he who first introduced my father to fossil hunting. “You know that Mr. Anning was a cabinetmaker, but in a small town like Lyme there isn't much call for the fine work he did, and he had to find some means of adding to his income. He was quick to learn and good at finding fossils and preparing them. An honest fellow.”

Complimentary though it was, I was discomforted by Mr. South's description of Papa in this setting. But before I could change the topic, Miss Elizabeth, who had overheard Mr. South, added, “Many of us here can testify to Mr. Anning's fine craftsmanship. But I believe that his finest accomplishment is his daughter, Mary, whom he trained. Without her keen eye and her careful workmanship we would not all be here discussing the crocodile today.”

Hearing the word “crocodile,” I seized the opportunity to turn the conversation away from personal matters and asked the Reverend Buckland whether it was known when the crocodile lived. It was something that I had been wondering about ever since I became aware of its existence.

At this question, the Reverend Buckland put down his knife and fork, straightened and turned to address the room. “As you know from Sir Home's paper, it was not a crocodile, but an animal allied with the fishes,” he said, his voice no longer intimate and soft, but loud and authoritative. “No doubt it lived before the flood. Lyme's cliffs were under the sea then and that is why you find fossils of creatures that lived in the sea entombed in the cliffs. When God pulled back the waters after the deluge, the cliffs became part of the land.”

“Sir, are you speaking of Noah's Flood?” Miss Mary asked.

“It is unlikely to have been Noah's Flood,” I interjected, not thinking about the effect such a comment might have on Miss Mary.

“Why do you say that?” Miss Mary demanded, turning to face me angrily.

Seeing how upset she was, I was immediately sorry that I had said anything, and though all eyes were on me, waiting for my reply, I could not think of what to say next.

Henry, whose eyes had been avoiding mine up until that moment, now looked directly at me across the expanse of the room and smiled in a way that seemed to say, we've talked about this before, Mary, haven't we? “It stands to reason that if it was Noah's Flood that covered the cliffs, there should be some signs of human existence left behind,” he said, as everyone turned from me to him. “But Miss Anning has never seen any traces of man or fossilized human bones mixed in with the creatures she finds in the cliffs. That is why she says it is unlikely that it was Noah's Flood.”

Finished with his explanation, he glanced to see what my response was. I gave him an approving smile. It had been a difficult moment for me and he had understood.

After Henry's explanation, the Reverend Buckland moved forward in his chair, recapturing the attention of the group. “It seems that there was a deluge as described in the Holy Scriptures, Miss Philpot, but Mr. de la Beche and Miss Anning are correct that there is some doubt that it was the very same one. The earth has gone through several changes during its long history, and God has created new forms of life suitable for the new conditions on earth each time.”

Miss Mary Philpot put her teacup down on the table with a clatter, interrupting the Reverend Buckland. He stopped and looked to her as did the rest of us. There were scarlet patches on her cheeks, and her voice was high with tension, “Sir, need I remind you that the Holy Bible speaks of only one creation and that one was accomplished in six days.”

“Now, Mary,” Miss Elizabeth said soothingly, “you know that it doesn't do to mix up geology with the Holy Scriptures. We must not be too literal in our reading of the Scriptures.”

“Your sister is correct, Miss Philpot,” the Reverend Buckland added. “The Holy Bible was not written to teach scientific truth, but to reveal God to us and to instruct us in divine life. It took a long time to create the world we live in, an unimaginable length of time. Perhaps the beginning that is spoken of in the Scriptures is all the time before the creation of man. The facts of geology do not dispute the Scriptures. In fact they show us everywhere the benevolence of our Creator.”

Mary Philpot shook her head in disagreement and whispered something into her sister Margaret's ear, something disapproving evidently, because she soon got up and with much fluttering left the room.