Remarkable Creatures

'And I wonder where Elizabeth is,' Miss Margaret added, tears welling. 'I still feel we should never have let her onto that ship. If it is so easy to run aground as the Dispatch did, what might have happened to the Unity?' Now she was weeping, and I patted her shoulder. She did not want comfort from me, though, and pulled away, glaring.

'Elizabeth would never have gone if it hadn't been for you!' she cried, before turning on her heel and hurrying into the Assembly Rooms.

'What do you mean?' I called after her. 'I don't understand, Miss Margaret!' I couldn't follow her into the rooms, however. They were not for the likes of me, and the men standing in the doorway gave me unfriendly looks. I lingered near by, hoping to catch a glimpse of Miss Margaret in the bay window, but she did not appear.

That was the first I knew that Miss Elizabeth went to London on account of me.

But I didn't know why until Miss Louise come to explain. She rarely visited to our house, preferring living plants to fossils. But two days after I met Miss Margaret she appeared at the workshop door, ducking her head because she was so tall. I was cleaning a small ichthyosaurus I'd found just before discovering the plesie. It weren't complete-- the skull was in fragments and there were no paddles--but the spine and ribs were in a good state.

'Don't get up,' Miss Louise said, but I insisted on clearing a stool of bits of rock and wiping it clean before she sat down. Tray come then and lay on her feet. She did not speak right away--Miss Louise never were a talker--but studied the heaps of rocks ranged round her on the floor, all containing fossils waiting to be cleaned. Though I always had specimens all round me, now there were even more from waiting while I had been getting the plesie ready. She said nothing about the mess, or the film of blue dust covering everything. Others might have, but I suppose she was used to dirt from her gardening, and from Miss Elizabeth's fossils.

'Margaret told me she saw you and you wanted to know about our sister. We had a letter from her today, and she has arrived safe at our brother's in London.'

'Oh, I'm so glad! But--Miss Margaret said Miss Elizabeth went to London for me.

Why?'

'She was planning to go to the Geological Society meeting and ask the men there to support you against Baron Cuvier's claim that you fabricated the plesiosaurus.'

I frowned. 'How did she know about that?'

Miss Louise hesitated.

'Did the men tell her? Did Cuvier write to one of them--Buckland or Conybeare--and they wrote to Miss Elizabeth? And now they're all talking about it in London, about--about us Annings and what we do to specimens.' My mouth trembled so much I had to stop.

'Hush, Mary. Your mother came to see us.'

'Mam?' Though relieved it was not from the men, I was shocked Mam went behind my back.

'She was worried about you,' Miss Louise continued, 'and Elizabeth decided she would try to help. Margaret and I could not understand why she felt she had to go in person rather than write to them, but she insisted it was better.'

I nodded. 'She's right. Them men don't always respond quick to letters. That's what Mam and I found. Sometimes I can wait over a year for a reply. When they want something they're quick, but they soon forget me. When I want something...' I shrugged, then shook my head. 'I can't believe Miss Elizabeth would go all the way to London--on a ship--for me.'

Miss Louise said nothing, but looked at me with her grey eyes so direct it made me drop mine.

I decided to visit Morley Cottage a few days later, to say sorry to Miss Margaret for taking her sister away. I brought with me a crate full of fossil fish I had been saving for Miss Elizabeth. It would be my gift to her for when she come back from London.

That wouldn't be for some time, as she was likely to stay there for her spring visit, but it were a comfort to know the fish would be there waiting for her return.

I lugged the crate along Coombe Street, up Sherborne Lane, and all the way up Silver Street, cursing myself for being so generous, as it was heavy. When I reached Morley Cottage, however, the house was buttoned up tight, doors locked, shutters drawn, and no smoke from the chimney. I knocked on the front and back doors for a long time, but there was no answer. I were just coming round to the front again to try and peer through the crack in the shutters when one of their neighbours come out. 'No point looking,' she said. 'They're not there. Gone to London yesterday.'

'London!

Why?'