The Dragon in the Cliff (16 page)

She led me up the stairs to a dark hallway with a closed door at the end. “Wait here,” she ordered, and turned around and went back downstairs. She came back several minutes later carrying a breakfast tray that she took into the room, still leaving me and the boy standing outside in the dark hallway holding the heavy box of fossils. Through the closed door I heard the tinkle of china as the table was laid. Then there was silence, which was suddenly shattered by a shout, “Idiot! I told you to send her up immediately.” The door opened, and the girl stuck her head out into the hall and said, “He wants to see you.”

Taking the box of fossils from the boy, I entered a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows at one end. The Reverend Buckland, a big, balding man, was sitting at the breakfast table with a napkin tucked into his shirt front like a bib. He said, “Mary.” I nodded my head in his direction, that being the best I could do with the box of fossils in my hands. He did not get up, nor did he introduce himself. He lifted his coffee cup to his lips and eyed me over the rim as he drank. He put his cup down and asked, “Have you brought the paddle along?”

I told him that I no longer had it, Mr. Johnson did. “He was with me when it was found, and he paid me for it,” I explained.

“Oh, I see,” the Reverend Buckland said, and I could see that he was disappointed. Reaching for a bun, he asked, “Are you the one who collects the fossils?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

He stopped and peered at me from under his brows. “A young girl like you on the beach and out on those ledges?”

Again I responded affirmatively, and he continued questioning me. He asked how I find fossils and how I extract them from the surrounding rock. He wanted to know whether it is I who clean and develop them or if someone else does it for me. It was evident that he found it surprising that I did these things. As little as a year ago I would have been delighted by his questions and his surprise at finding a female fossilist. Now his surprise made me feel as if I was doing something not only unexpected, but odd and strange—as if I was peculiar.

Having satisfied himself that I actually am a fossilist, he asked if I took people out on fossil-hunting expeditions. I told him that I did, and he said, “Well then, I shall have to go fossil hunting with you soon. It seems that is the only way to obtain the things I wish to collect.”

“At your convenience, sir,” I replied.

Finally, he noticed the very heavy box I had been struggling with all the while and asked what I brought. When I told him that they were crocodile bones, he corrected me and told me that it was not a crocodile, but some other creature whose nature was being determined by scientists. I knew this, of course, but called the fossil a crocodile for want of a better name. But I did not say anything. I could see that he believed that I did not know anything about the fossils except how to obtain them.

He got up from the table, eager to see what I had. I looked for some place to put the box so that I could take the bones out, but every place I looked was littered with rocks, fossils, books, letters, newspapers, silver tea things, muffins, rolls, butter, jam, papers, bags of dirt, and every other thing imaginable. I could see why the girl complained when she saw my box. The only clear space was a patch of the floor and I bent down and put the box there. The Reverend Buckland was immediately down on his hands and knees beside the box. He examined the bones carefully, especially the vertebrae and ribs, turning them over and over, but saying little, except “By Jove, wait till I write to Home about this,” or “What an idiot the man is!” which I could not make sense of. I did not yet know what he was going to write to Home or even who Home was.

Having made a preliminary examination of the bones, Buckland got to his feet, brushed off his trousers, and asked if he might keep the fossils for a while.

I said, “Yes, of course you may, sir,” though he had not made an offer to buy the bones. While he had them I could not sell them to anyone else.

Walking home afterward I regretted allowing the Reverend Buckland to keep the bones. I wished I had let him know that I was not the simple girl he thought I was. I wished I had been able to show him that I knew a thing or two about fossils. In other words, I wished that I had not been as silent, submissive, and subservient as I had been. Not because I wanted him to think better of me. I know people like him do not have it in them to give people of the lower classes their due. We are all little more than beasts placed on earth to serve the likes of him, or so they often seem to think. No, it is not that I wanted him to think better of me, but that I did not want him to make me feel as if I am what he thinks I am and nothing more. I am not just a hunting guide, a pointer who discovers fossils, instead of pheasants.

OTHERS GET THE CREDIT

A few days after my call on the Reverend Buckland, Miss Philpot dropped by the shop with the news that there was a description of the crocodile in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
by a Sir Everard Home. “I have only just heard about it from Dr. Carpenter, who says that Buckland told him about it,” she told me excitedly. “He says that Buckland told him that Sir Home is a comparative anatomist, just the kind of man we have been hoping would get his hands on the fossil. Now we can find out for certain what kind of animal it was.”

Pulling out a stool and sitting down at the workbench, Miss Philpot continued, “Dr. Carpenter told me that Buckland has a copy of the paper, which he promised to lend him as soon as he is finished with it. Dr. Carpenter said that as soon as he has read it and passed it around among the other geological gentlemen of Lyme, he plans to have a little party so that they can discuss what this Sir Home wrote.”

“Please tell me what they say, Miss Philpot,” I said. “I am most eager to know everything.”

“I would, dear, but I cannot. I have not been invited; it will only be gentlemen, so we shall both have to depend on Dr. Carpenter's report.”

I was about to protest that she knew more about the crocodile than the other gentlemen, but before I could, she explained, “Dr. Carpenter says that if he invited the ladies it would change the nature of the discussion because they do not understand science, with the exception of me, of course. But, I can well see that he cannot invite me and no other ladies, so it will be gentlemen only.”

“And you are to be excluded,” I remarked, thinking it natural that I be excluded from such company.

“Yes, yes,” she said with a smile. “But, Mary, my dear, I do not intend to remain ignorant, I promise you that. I will obtain a copy of the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
, and when I do you shall see it.”

Miss Philpot was as good as her word. A week or so later she stopped by the shop with the volume in hand. “How did you manage to get your hands on it?” I asked, eyeing it hungrily.

She laughed. “Simple, everything is simple when you have something others want. The Reverend Buckland has heard that I have interesting fossils in my cabinet. He was eager to see them. I told Dr. Carpenter to tell Buckland that he could come and spend as long as he liked examining my collection if I could borrow his copy of the
Transactions
. He came with the copy. I must say I think that the Reverend Buckland got the better part of the deal. I am somewhat disappointed. This Home fellow …” She sighed. “I do not know what to say. I think it's better for you to read and form your own opinion.”

I began reading
“Some account of the fossil remains of an animal more nearly allied to Fishes than any of the other classes of animals”
as soon as the door closed behind Miss Philpot. I turned first to look at the beautifully done engravings of the fossil. After examining them carefully I turned to the text, which begins with the statement,

“The study of comparative anatomy is not confined to the animals that at present inhabit the earth, but extends to the remains of such as existed in the most remote periods of antiquity; among these may be classed the specimen which forms the subject of the present Paper.”

It seems that this Sir Home believes that the crocodile, as we have been calling it, is extinct. He states this simply as if it is evident to all reasonable people.

Home continues, stating that comparative anatomy

“not only brings to our knowledge races of animals very different from those with which we are acquainted, but supplies intermediate links in the gradation of structure, by means of which the different classes will probably be found so imperceptibly to run into one another, that they will no longer be accounted distinct, but only portions of one series
,
and show that the whole of the animal creation forms a regular and connected chain.”

I wonder whether he means that the fossil crocodile is different from anything we know now, and is, perhaps, somewhere in between fishes and lizards, a link between the two? He also seems to be saying that it is possible that when we discover other intermediate links like the fossil crocodile, we will see that instead of distinct classes of animals that are separate from one another in structure as there is now, there was once a regular, connected chain of animal life in which the structure of one class of animals subtly shaded into the next.

From this Home goes on to praise Bullock, in whose museum of natural history the fossil is displayed, for removing the surrounding stone. I cannot understand why Sir Home praises Bullock when it is I who have removed the stone so that the parts of the fossil can be seen. He also describes the situation in which the fossil was found, mentioning Squire Henley on whose estate it was entombed. I look in vain for my name or for some mention of the fossil being found by a girl, but there is none. It is as if I never hunted for the fossil, found it, dug it out, or prepared it; as if I was not part of it. As if I did not exist!

I was deeply hurt, but I continued reading. Sir Home wrote that the bones in which the nostril is situated are broken, although I know they are not. The nostrils are the same in the skull I most recently found. There is no bony separation between them. He says that such nostrils correspond to those in fishes, but I disagree. They seem more like those in birds. He concludes that while the jaws, which extend backward beyond the skull, are more like those of the crocodile than like any fishes that are presently known, in other particulars such as the way in which the lower jaw is connected to the skull, the way in which the ribs are connected to the vertebrae, and the bony coat of the eye the fossil resembles a fish.

I pushed Home's account aside. It may not have been a crocodile, but it certainly was not a fish! Even I know that, and I am no comparative anatomist. He does not know what it is, except to say that it has features of both. We had been waiting for this account for so long, and it turned out to be so disappointing and inconclusive.

Miss Philpot asked me what I thought of Sir Home's description when I returned the
Transactions
to her. I said little, afraid of sounding bitter.

“I can see that you do not think much of it,” she said with a laugh. “Now you shall have to find another specimen so that he has more evidence and can fill in the blanks and correct his errors.”

“I don't care to,” I said. “What does it matter if I do find another, or if I disagree with him and think he has things wrong? He would not listen to me. He does not even know that I exist. Nor do the others, and they do not care because I do not matter to them.” I wanted to say I hate the whole lot of them, but I didn't.

“Buckland is aware of your existence, that is for certain. He told me that he has some ribs and vertebrae from you and that he was most impressed with them and with you. If you point out what you think Home's errors are to him, perhaps he will write to Home and inform him,” she said.

I nodded as if I agreed, but said nothing. Of course Buckland would write to Home. And he would get the credit for it. Why should I tell him? Why should I tell anyone? I want to get credit for what I do. Why shouldn't I? Because I am a female? Because I am a person who earns her bread by her own labor? I did the work, and I do not want to be robbed of my due by “geological gentlemen” or by anyone else.

Why am I in this business? I must be mad to continue. I am scorned by the townspeople and by our friends and neighbors who do not understand me or sympathize with me. They think I am strange to do such work, an oddity, not quite respectable. And the gentry, the “geological gentry,” agrees. I shall not forget that interview with the Reverend Buckland, his surprise at finding that it was I who found the fossils and dug them out, his certainty that I am little more than a dumb beast who sniffs out fossils but does not care or know what they are. Nor will I forget my interview with Lizzie that day in the shop or the more recent scolding from Mrs. Gleed. I shall not forget Robert Cruikshanks's glee when the fossil I found was stolen, either. No, I shan't forget.

Henry de la Beche is the only one who understands my work, but he does not understand that it is my livelihood, nor does he care for me. I must be mad. Why can't I just give it up and be like others?

I slept little that night. I tossed and turned and woke exhausted. At breakfast Mama said something about my looking poorly. I confessed that I was not feeling well, but I did not tell her it was because I had been made to feel small, insignificant, an oddity by the very gentlemen who buy my fossils. That would be unthinkable. That was precisely what she was afraid of. Did she not warn Papa when he wanted to take me out fossil hunting that it was not a proper pursuit for girls? Did she not warn me that I had no place with the gentry? Yet she is always glad enough for the money I earn selling fossils to the gentry, isn't she? My porridge grew cold in the bowl in front of me.

I could do nothing right in the shop. I started to work on a fossil and put it down. I found that I had spent the morning staring into space. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, and I made no effort to wipe them away. I was not crying in sorrow, but in anger, anger at my life, at everyone—at Lizzie Adams, at Caroline Gleed, Jane Lovell, Adam Garrison, William Trowbridge, Robert Cruikshanks, Mrs. Harris the schoolteacher, at Mrs. Gleed, at the housekeeper at High Cliffs, and all the rest of them who have made my life a misery, for their lack of understanding, their mean-spirited gossip, their cruelty, their hurts. I was angry at Henry de la Beche for being a coward, for being so much “the young gentleman” he is, for not being what I wanted him so much to be. I was angry at Squire Henley for taking advantage of me by paying me little when he has so much; at Mr. South for not caring how he comes by his fossils; at Sir Everard Home, at everyone. It was a long list of pain that I was recalling, and I was breathing as hard with the exertion of remembering as if I had scaled a cliff.