though, is the biggest belemnite I ever seen.' Mary held up a beautifully preserved belemnite at least four inches long and an inch wide, its tip perfectly tapered.
James Foot looked at it and went bright red. I could not think why until Mary giggled. 'It looks like my brother's--'
'That's enough, Mary,' I managed to interrupt in time. 'Put it away, please.' I too turned red. I wanted to say something, but to apologise would only make things worse. I am sure James Foot thought I had deliberately set out to embarrass him. 'Will you be at the Assembly Rooms tonight?' I asked, trying to put the belemnite out of mind.
'I expect so--unless Lord Henley has other plans for me.'
James Foot normally spoke very definitely about what he was and wasn't doing, but now I had the feeling he was giving himself a little room to get away. I thought I knew why, but to be sure I said, 'I will tell Margaret to look out for you.'
Though James Foot did not move, he gave the impression of stepping away from my statement. 'If I can, I will come. Please give my regards to your sisters.' He bowed, and moved away down the shore towards Lyme.
I watched him skirt a rock pool and murmured, 'He will never marry her.'
'Ma'am?' Mary Anning looked puzzled. And she was calling me 'ma'am' now.
Spinster or not, I had outgrown 'miss.' Ladies were called 'miss' while they still had a chance of marrying.
'Nothing, Mary.' I turned to her. 'What was it you wanted before? You were dancing about and rubbing your face as if you'd been stung.'
'You got mud on your cheek, is all, Miss Elizabeth. I thought you'd want to wipe if off so the gentleman wouldn't stare so.'
I felt my cheek. 'Oh dear, that as well?' I took out a handkerchief and spat on it, then began to laugh, so that I would not cry instead.
James Foot did not come to the Assembly Rooms that night. Margaret was disappointed, but did not become alarmed until the next day, when he sent word--without delivering it himself--that he had been called to Suffolk to tend to family business and would be gone some weeks. 'What family?' Margaret demanded of the hapless messenger--one of Lord Henley's many cousins. 'He said nothing to me about family in Suffolk!'
She wept and moped and found excuses to visit the Henleys, who could not or would not help her. I doubted James Foot had told them why he'd gone off Margaret--or at least, he would not be specific about my gloves or the belemnite. He was enough of a gentleman not to mention such a thing. But it would have been clear enough to the Henleys that we were not an appropriate family for him to marry into.
Margaret continued to attend Assembly Rooms balls and cards evenings, but she had lost her glow, and the times I went with her I sensed she had slipped from the top rung of the social ladder she had been climbing. A snub from a gentleman, whether or not it is justified, does a subtle damage to a young lady. Margaret was not asked to dance every set, and compliments on her gown and hair and complexion were less frequent. By the time the season ended she looked weary and dull. Louise and I took her to London for a few weeks to try to cheer her, but Margaret herself knew something had shifted. She had lost her best opportunity to marry, and she didn't know why.
I never told her about meeting James Foot on the beach. It might have brought some comfort to Margaret to know that my eccentricity had contributed to his decision not to continue to court her. But she would have sensed too that even if I had given up my fossils and bought new gloves, it would not have been enough. A man chooses a wife by taking an intricate measure of her and her family; it takes more than an unusual sister to throw off the calculation. James Foot had decided that the Philpots had neither the money nor the social standing for him to pursue Margaret. My brandishing stained gloves and a suggestively shaped fossil only confirmed what he had already determined.
I was upset for Margaret, but I did not regret James Foot's withdrawal. I suspected he would always have looked at me as if my gloves were soiled. And if he judged me, how would he judge my sister? Would he suck the liveliness right out of her? I could not have borne it if my sister married such a man.
Years later I ran into James Foot at Colway Manor. Margaret always had a headache coming on when we were invited to their parties and suppers, and out of loyalty Louise and I wouldn't attend without her. But once when I had gone to discuss some fossil business for the Annings with Lord Henley, I came upon James Foot and his wife arriving as I was leaving. She was small and pale and trembled like a pansy; she would never wear a turban to a ball. I knew then that it was just as well Margaret had been kept from that fate.
The summer of James Foot had been the height of Margaret's potential. The following season she was treated as a fine gown that has dated in storage, the neckline now too high or low, the cloth a touch faded, the cut no longer so flattering. We were surprised that this could happen as easily in Lyme as London, yet there was little we could do to change it. Margaret kept her friends and made new ones from the seasonal visitors. But she no longer returned at night with a sparkle and a dance around the kitchen. In time the turbans she persisted in wearing seemed less daring and more a Philpot peculiarity. She did not manage to escape into marriage like Frances, but sank into spinsterhood beside Louise and me.
There are worse fates.
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