Remarkable Creatures (13 page)

The collection in the Egyptian Hall was even more startling. Displayed in the oval entrance hall were a variety of curious pieces from all over the world. There were African masks and feathered totems from Pacific islands; tiny warrior figures in clay and decorated with beads; stone weapons and fur-lined cloaks from northern climates; a long, thin boat called a kayak, which could hold just one person, with carved paddles decorated with designs burnt into the wood. An Egyptian mummy was displayed in an open sarcophagus painted with gold leaf.

The next room was much larger and housed a collection of unconvincing paintings “by the Old Masters,” we were told, though they looked to me to be copies done by indifferent Royal Academy students. More interesting were the cases of stuffed and mounted birds, from the plain English blue tit to the exotic red-footed booby brought back by Captain Cook from the Maldives. Margaret, Louise, and I were content to study them, as from living in Lyme we had all become more aware of birds than we had been in London.

Bored with birds, however, little Johnny had gone on with his mother to the Pantherion, the museum’s biggest room. He was gone but a moment before he came running back. “Auntie Margaret, come, you must see the enormous elephant!” He grabbed his aunt’s hand and pulled her into the next room. The rest of us followed, bemused.

Indeed, the elephant was enormous. I had never seen one before, nor a hippopotamus, an ostrich, a zebra, a hyena, or a camel. All were stuffed and grouped under a domed skylight in the center of the room, in a grassy enclosure dotted with palm trees, depicting their habitat. We stood and stared, for these were rare sights indeed.

Being young and not appreciating rarity, Johnny did not look for long but raced around the room. He ran up as I was inspecting a boa constrictor that had been wound around a palm tree above my head. “It’s your crocodilly, Auntie Elizabeth! Come and see it!” He tugged my arm and gestured at an exhibit at the far end of the room. My nephew knew about the Lyme beast, which he, like others, persisted in calling a crocodile. For his birthday I had done two watercolors of it for him, one of the fossil itself, the other of how I imagined the creature to have looked when it was alive. I went with Johnny now, curious to see a real crocodile and compare it with what Mary had found.

Johnny was not wrong, however: It was indeed “my” crocodile. I gaped at the display. Mary’s creature lay on a gravel beach next to a pool of water with reeds poking out along the edges. When Mary first uncovered it, it had been flattened, its bones jumbled, but she had felt that she should leave it as she found it, rather than try to reconstruct it. Apparently William Bullock felt no such constraint, having prized the whole body away from the slabs that held it, rearranged the bones so the paddles had clear forms, stacked the vertebrae in a straight line, and even added what were probably plaster-of-paris ribs where some had gone missing. Worse, they’d put a waistcoat around its chest, with the paddles sticking out of the arm holes, and perched an oversize monocle by one of its prominent eyes. Near its snout was spread a tempting array of animals a crocodile might feed on: rabbits, frogs, fish. At least they had not managed to prize open the mouth and stuff prey into its craw.

The label read:

I had always assumed the specimen was still in one of the many rooms at Colway Manor, mounted on a wall or set on a table. To see it in an exhibition in London, laid out in a dramatic tableau so alien to what I knew of it, and claimed by Lord Henley as his own discovery, was a shock that froze me.

It was Louise who spoke for me when the rest of the family joined Johnny and me. “That is an abomination,” she said.

“Why did Lord Henley buy it if he was just going to pass it on to this—circus?” I looked around and shuddered.

“I expect he made a pretty profit,” my brother said.

“How could he do that to Mary’s specimen? Look, Louise, they’ve straightened out its tail she worked so hard to preserve as she found it.” I gestured to the tail, which no longer had a kink three-quarters of the way along.

Perhaps the most upsetting thing about Mary’s creature being presented in this vulgar way was how much it cheapened the experience of seeing it. In Lyme people were impressed by its strangeness and gave it hushed respect. At Bullock’s Museum it was just another display amongst many, and not even the most awe-inspiring. Though I hated seeing it laid out and dressed so ludicrously, I grew angry at visitors who gave it just a quick glance before hurrying back to the flashier elephant or hippo.

John had a word with one of the attendants and discovered that the specimen had been on display since the previous autumn, meaning Lord Henley had only owned it for a few months before selling it on.

I was so angry that I could not enjoy the rest of the museum. Johnny grew bored with my mood, as indeed did everyone but Louise, who took me off to Fortnum’s for a cup of tea so that I could rant without disturbing the rest of the family. “How could he sell it?” I repeated, stirring my tea violently with a tiny spoon. “How could he take something so unusual, so remarkable, so linked to Lyme and to Mary, and sell it to a man who dresses it up like a doll and shows it off as if it is something to be laughed at! How dare he?”

Louise laid her hand over mine to stop me doing damage to one of Fortnum’s cups. I dropped the spoon and leaned forward. “Do you know, Louise,” I began, “I think—I think it’s not a crocodile at all. It doesn’t have the anatomy of a crocodile, but no one wants to say so publicly.”

Louise’s gray eyes remained clear and steady. “What is it, if not a crocodile?”

“A creature that no longer exists.” I waited for a moment, to see if God would bring the ceiling crashing down on me. Nothing happened, however, except for the waiter arriving to refill our cups.

“How can that be?”

“Do you know of the concept of extinction?”

“You mentioned it when you were reading Cuvier, but Margaret made you stop, for it upset her.”

I nodded. “Cuvier has suggested that animal species sometimes die out when they are no longer suited to survive in the world. The idea is troubling to people because it suggests that God does not have a hand in it, that He created animals and then sat back and let them die. Then there are those like Lord Henley, who say the creature is an early model for a crocodile, that God made it and rejected it. Some think God used the Flood to rid the world of animals He didn’t want. But these theories imply God could make mistakes and need to correct Himself. Do you see? All of these ideas upset someone. Many people, like our Reverend Jones at St. Michael’s, find it easiest to accept the Bible literally and say God created the world and all its creatures in six days and it is still exactly as it was then, with all of the animals still existing somewhere. And they find Bishop Ussher’s calculation of the world’s age as six thousand years comforting rather than limiting and a little absurd.” I picked up a langue de chat from the plate of biscuits between us and snapped it in two, thinking of my conversation with Reverend Jones.

“How does he explain Mary’s creature, then?”

“He thinks they are swimming about off the coast of South America, and we haven’t yet discovered them.”

“Could that be true?”

I shook my head. “Sailors would have seen them. We have been sailing around the world for hundreds of years and never had a sighting of such a creature.”

“And so you believe that what we were looking at in Bullock’s Museum is a fossilized body of an animal that no longer exists. It died out, for reasons that may or may not be God’s intention.” Louise said this carefully, as if to make it crystal clear to herself and to me.

“Yes.”

Louise chuckled and took a biscuit. “That would certainly surprise some members of the congregation at St. Michael’s. Reverend Jones might have to ask you to leave and join a Dissenting church!”

I finished the langue de chat. “I don’t know that Dissenters are any different, really. They may differ doctrinally from the Church of England, but the Dissenters I know in Lyme interpret the Bible just as literally as Reverend Jones does. They would never accept the idea of extinction.” I sighed. “Mary’s creature needs studying by anatomists, like Cuvier in Paris, or geologists from Oxford or Cambridge. They might be able to provide persuasive answers. But that will never happen while it is masquer ading as an exotic Dorset croc at Bullock’s!”

“It could be worse, tucked away in Colway Manor,” Louise countered. “At least here more people will see it. And if the right people—your learned geologists—see it and recognize its worth, they may think it worth studying.”

I had not thought of that. Louise was always more sensible than I. It was a relief to talk to her, and gave me a little comfort, but not enough to stem my fury at Lord Henley.

 

 

 

WHEN WE RETURNED TO Lyme the following month, I went to confront him, even before I saw Mary Anning. I did not announce my visit nor tell my sisters where I was going, but strode across the fields between Morley Cottage and Colway Manor, ignoring the wildflowers and blooming hedgerows I’d missed while in London. Lord Henley was not at home, but I was directed to one of the boundaries of his property, where he was overseeing the digging of a drainage ditch. It had been a rainy spring while we were away, and my shoes and the hem of my dress were sodden and muddy by the time I reached him.

Lord Henley was sitting on his gray horse, watching his men work. It annoyed me that he did not get down and stand amongst them. By then, anything he did would have made me cross, for I’d had a whole month during which to fuel my anger. He did dismount for me, however, bowing and welcoming me back to Lyme. “How was your stay in London?” As he spoke, Lord Henley eyed my muddy skirt, probably thinking his wife would never be seen publicly in such dirty clothes.

“It was very good, thank you, Lord Henley. I was astonished, however, by something I saw at Bullock’s Museum. I thought the specimen you bought from the Annings was still at Colway Manor, but I discovered you sold it on to Mr. Bullock.”

Lord Henley’s face lit up. “Ah, the crocodile is on display, then? How does it look? I trust they spelled my name correctly.”

“Your name was there, yes. I was rather surprised not to see Mary Anning named, however, nor even Lyme Regis.”

Lord Henley looked blank. “Why would Mary Anning be named? She didn’t own it.”

“Mary found it, sir. Have you forgotten that?”

Lord Henley snorted. “Mary Anning is a worker. She found the crocodile on my land—Church Cliffs are part of my property, you know. Do you think these men”—he nodded at the men shifting mud—“do they own what is on this land simply because they dig it up? Of course not! It belongs to me. Besides which, Mary Anning is a female. She is a spare part. I have to represent her, as indeed I do many Lyme residents who cannot represent themselves.”

For a moment the air seemed to crackle and buzz, and Lord Henley’s piggish face bulged at me. It was my anger distorting everything. “Why did you make such a fuss to obtain the specimen, then, if you were only going to sell it on?” I demanded when I had finally mastered my emotions.

Lord Henley’s horse was becoming restless, and he stroked its neck to calm it. “It was cluttering up my library. It’s much better where it is.”

“Indeed it is, if that is the casual attitude you took towards it. I did not expect such fickle behavior from you, Lord Henley. It demeans you. Good day, sir.” I turned before I could see the effect of my feeble words on him, but as I stumbled away across the field I heard his bark of laughter. He did not call out to me, as other men might have. Doubtless he was glad to see the back of me, a bedraggled spinster scattering mud and bile.

As I walked, I cursed under my breath and then began to do so out loud, for there was no one about to hear me. “God damn you, you bloody idiot.” I had never said such words aloud, nor even thought them, but I was so angry that I had to do something out of the ordinary. I was furious at Lord Henley for riding roughshod over scientific discovery; for turning a mystery of the world into something banal and foolish; for throwing my sex back at me as something to be ashamed of. A spare part, indeed.

But I was angrier at myself. I had lived nine years in Lyme Regis by then and had come to value my independence and forth- rightness. However, I had not learned to stand up to the Lord Henleys of the world. I could not tell him what I thought of his selling Mary’s creature in a way that he understood. Instead he ridiculed me and made me feel it was I who had done something wrong. “Idiot. Bloody idiot,” I repeated.

“Oh!”

I looked up. I was crossing a small bridge over the river just as Fanny Miller was coming along the path that led down to the center of town. She had clearly heard me, for her cheeks were bright red and her brow wrinkled, and her girlish eyes were wide, like shallow puddles with no depth.

I glared at her and did not apologize. Fanny hurried away, glancing back now and then as if she feared I might follow her and swear some more. Though horrified, she was doubtless also keen to tell family and friends what the queer Miss Philpot had said.