rough water. It was Fanny Miller, who had lately married Billy Day, one of the quarrymen who helped me dig out monsters.
Even the quarrymen were taken, then. Fanny stared at us. When she met my eye she clutched her husband's arm and hurried away along the street as fast as her game leg would let her.
Then I knew what I would do with Colonel Birch, widow lady or no. It would be my present to myself, for I was not likely to have another chance. I nodded at him. 'Go and see Mam, sir. She's been expecting you. I'll find you after.'
I did not want to watch him hand over the money. Though I was grateful for it, I did not want to see it. I only wanted to see him. When he had tied up the horse and gone inside, I packed away the curies, then went quick up Butter Market and followed Colonel Birch's path in reverse. I knew he would lodge as he always did at the Queen's Arms in Charmouth, and so would pass this way again. When I got to Lord Henley's field off Charmouth Lane I crossed to a stile and sat on it to wait.
Colonel Birch held his back so straight as he rode he looked like a tin soldier.
With the sun low behind him and casting a long shadow before, I could not see his face until he pulled up alongside me. As I climbed to the top rung of the stile and balanced there, he took my hand so that I would not fall.
'Mary, I cannot marry you,' he said.
'I know, sir. It don't matter.'
'You are sure?'
'I am. It is my birthday today. I am twenty-one years old and this is what I want.'
I was not a horse rider, but that day I had no fear as I reached over and swung into the space between his arms.
He took me inland. Colonel Birch knew the surrounding countryside better than I did, for I never normally went into the fields, but spent all of my time on the shore. We rode through dusk's shadows lit here and there with panes of sunlight, up to the main road to Exeter. Once across we headed down darkening fields. Along the way we did not murmur sweet words to each other like courting couples, for we were not courting. Nor did I relax in his arms, for the horse swayed and the saddle pushed hard against me and I had to concentrate so I wouldn't fall off. But I was where I wanted to be and did not mind.
An orchard at the bottom of the field waited for us. When I lay down with Colonel Birch it was on a sheet of apple blossom petals covering the ground like snow.
There I found out that lightning can come from deep inside the body. I have no regret discovering that.
I learned something else that evening, which come to me afterwards. I was lying in his arms looking up at the sky, where I counted four stars, when he asked, 'What will you do with the money I have given your family, Mary?'
'Pay off our debts and buy a new table.'
Colonel Birch chuckled. 'That is very practical of you. Will you not do something for yourself?'
'I suppose I could buy a new bonnet.' Mine had just been crushed under our coupling.
'What about something more ambitious?'
I was silent.
'For example,' Colonel Birch continued, 'you could move to a house with a bigger shop. Up Broad Street, for example, to where there's a good shop front, with a big window and more light in which to display your fossils. That way you would get more trade.'
'So you're expecting me to keep on finding and selling curies, are you, sir? That I'll never marry, but run a shop.'
'I did not say that.'
'It's all right, sir. I know I won't marry. No one wants someone like me for a wife.'
'That is not what I meant, Mary. You misunderstand me.'
'Do I, sir?' I rolled off his shoulder and lay flat on the ground. Even since we had been talking it seemed the sky had got darker, and more and more stars had joined the first scattering.
