Remarkable Creatures

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When at last the cliff stopped moving and it grew quiet, I begun to cry. It weren’t just that I’d almost died. The landslip was now completely blocking the hole where the crocodile’s body was. We couldn’t get to it without years of digging. Captain Cury took a pewter flask from his pocket, unscrewed the top, took a swig and handed it to me. I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve, then drank. I’d never had strong spirits. It burned a road down my throat and made me cough, but I did stop crying.

“Thanks, Captain Cury,” I said, handing back the flask.

“All that hammering yesterday must have weakened the cliff and brought it down. There were a bit of it earlier, but I thought—” Captain Cury didn’t finish. “You’ll have the damnedest work ahead of you, getting anything out of there.” He nodded at the landslip. “My spade’s in there too. Looks like I’ll have to get another.”

It were almost comical how quickly hard work put him off looking for anything. Now it was my crocodile again – buried behind a pile of rubble.

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There are several people I have met throughout my life whom I have regarded with disdain, but none has angered me more than Henry Hoste Henley.

Lord Henley came to see me the day after the Days dug out the skull. He did not use the boot scraper, but trailed mud into our parlour. When Bessy announced him, Louise was out, Margaret was sewing and I was writing to our brother to tell him about the events on the beach the previous day. Margaret gave a little cry, bobbed at Lord Henley and excused herself, stumbling upstairs to her room. Although she often saw the Henleys at services at St Michael’s, she did not expect ever to find him breaching the safety of her own home, where she did not have to wear her brave, light-hearted public face.

Lord Henley looked so surprised at Margaret’s abrupt exit that it was clear he’d known nothing about what had gone on between her and his friend James Foot. Granted, that had taken place a few years before, and he might have expected Margaret to have got over it. Or he may have forgotten: he was not the sort of man to remember what women cared about.

Not Margaret, however. A spinster does not forget.

Nor, it appeared, had he noted our shunning of invitations to Colway Manor, or he would not have come to Morley Cottage. Lord Henley was a man of little imagination, who found it impossible to see the world through another’s eyes. It made his interest in fossils preposterous: truly to appreciate what fossils are requires a leap of imagination he was not capable of making.

“You must pardon my sister, sir,” I said now. “Just before you arrived she had been complaining of a cough. She would not want to inflict her illness on a visitor.”

Lord Henley nodded with an attempt at patience. Margaret’s health was clearly not why he was paying a visit. At my insistence he sat in the armchair by the fire, but on the edge, as if he would jump up at any moment. “Miss Philpot,” he said, “I have heard you discovered something extraordinary on the beach yesterday. A crocodile, is it? I should very much like to see it.” He looked about as if expecting it already to be on display in the room.

I wasn’t surprised that he knew about the Annings’ find. Though Lord Henley was rather grand to be included in Lyme’s circle of wagging tongues, he did often employ stone cutters, as he had land abutting the sea cliffs where he extracted stone for building. Indeed, he had obtained most of his best specimens from the quarrymen, who set aside finds for him from the stone they cut, knowing they would be paid extra. The Days must have told him of what they’d dug out for the Annings.

“Your information is almost accurate, Lord Henley,” I replied. “It was young Mary Anning who found it. I merely oversaw the extraction. The skull is at her house in Cockmoile Square.” Already I was leaving Joseph out of the story, as would happen for generations. Perhaps it was inevitable given his retiring nature, the very nature that would stop him correcting people when they spoke of the creature as solely Mary’s discovery.

Lord Henley knew of the Annings, for Richard Anning had sold him a few specimens. He was not the sort of man to go to their workshop, however, and he was clearly disappointed that the skull was not at Morley Cottage, which was a more acceptable house for him to visit. “Have them bring it to me so I can look at it,” he said, jumping to his feet, as if he suddenly realised he was wasting time with inconsequential people.