'It were sudden. They got word Miss Elizabeth is taken ill and dropped everything to go.'
'No!' I clenched my fists and leaned against the door. It seemed whenever I found something, I lost something else. I found an ichthyosaurus and lost Fanny. I found Colonel Birch and lost Miss Elizabeth. I found fame and lost Colonel Birch. Now I thought I'd found Miss Elizabeth again, only to lose her, perhaps forever.
I could not accept it. My life's work was finding the bones of creatures that had been lost. I could not believe that I would not find Miss Elizabeth again too.
I did not take the crate of fossil fish back to Cockmoile Square, but left it round the back in Miss Louise's garden, by the giant ammonite I'd once helped Miss Elizabeth bring back from Monmouth Beach. I was determined that she would one day sift through them and choose the best for her collection.
I wanted to hop on the next coach to London, but Mam wouldn't let me. 'Don't be a fool,' she said. 'What help could you be to the Philpots? They'd just have to waste their time looking after you rather than their sister.'
'I want to see her, and say sorry.'
Mam tutted. 'You're treating her like she's dying and you want to make your peace with her. Do you think that will help her to get well, with you sitting there with a long face saying sorry? It'll send her to her grave quicker!'
I hadn't thought of it that way. It was peculiar but sensible, like Mam herself.
So I didn't go, though I vowed one day I would get to London, just to prove I could. Instead Mam wrote to the Philpots for news, her hand being less upsetting to the family than mine. I wanted her to ask about Cuvier's accusation and the Geological Society meeting too, but Mam wouldn't, as it weren't polite to be thinking about myself at a time like this. Also, it would remind the Philpots of why Miss Elizabeth had gone to London, and make them angry at me all over again.
Two weeks later we got a brief letter from Miss Louise, saying Miss Elizabeth were over the worst of it. The pneumonia had weakened her lungs, though, and the doctors thought she would not be able to return to live in Lyme because of the damp sea air.
'Nonsense,' Mam snorted. 'What do we have all those visitors for if not for the sea air and water being good for their health? She'll be back. You couldn't keep Miss Elizabeth away from Lyme.' After years of suspicion of the London Philpots, now Mam were their biggest supporter.
As certain as she seemed, I weren't so sure. I was relieved Miss Elizabeth had survived, but it looked like I'd lost her anyway. There was little I could do, though, and once Mam had written again to say how glad we all was, we didn't hear anything more from the Philpots. Nor did I know what had happened with Monsieur Cuvier. I had no choice but to live with the uncertainty.
Mam likes to repeat that old saw that it don't rain but pour. I don't agree with her when it comes to weather. I been out upon beach for years and years in days where it don't pour, but spits now and then, the sky never making up its mind what it wants to do.
With curies, though, she were right. We could go months, years, without finding a monster. We could be brought to our knees with how poor we were, how cold and hungry and desperate. Other times, though, we would find more than we needed or could work on. That was how it was when the Frenchman come.
It were one of those glorious days in late June when you know from the sun and the balmy breeze that summer has come at last and you can begin to let go of the tightness in your chest that's kept you fighting against the cold all winter and spring. I was out on the ledges off Church Cliffs, extracting a very fine specimen of
Mam had already written to Mr Buckland asking him to tell the Duke of Buckingham, who we knew wanted an ichie as company to the plesie.
Someone come to stand near me as I worked. I was used to visitors looking over my shoulder and seeing what the famous Mary Anning were up to. Sometimes I could hear them talking about me from a distance. 'What do you think she's found there?'
they'd say. 'Is it one of those creatures? A crocodile or, what was it I read, a giant turtle without its shell?'
Though I smiled to myself, I didn't bother to correct them. It was hard for people to understand that there had lived creatures they could not even imagine, and which no longer existed. It had taken me years to accept the idea, even when I had seen the evidence so plainly before me. Though they respected me more now I'd found two kinds of monsters, people were not going to change their minds simply because Mary Anning told them so. I had learned that much from taking out curious visitors. They wanted to find treasure upon beach, they wanted to see monsters, but they did not want to think about how and when those monsters lived. It challenged their idea of the world too much.
Now the spectator moved so that he blocked the sun and his shadow fell on the ichie, and I had to look up. It was one of the burly Day brothers, Davy or Billy, I wasn't sure which. I laid down my hammer, wiped my hands and stood.
