4

A SALE AND A SPY

I was never one for toys or dolls. After my hammer, my snakestone necklace was my most prized possession. It was a comfort to me to stroke it as I shut my eyes and imagined myself somewhere on the beach, alone or with Father, finding curiosities amongst the seaweed, mud and stones.

The children at Sunday School mocked me, as they always did:

‘Mary Anning got no bread!

All she’s got is a stone instead!

Mary, Mary! Can’t eat stones!

Never mind, she’ll chew on bones! ’

They thought themselves so clever with their rhymes. I reckon they were jealous of my treasure.

It was true that we did not have much food. Nobody did, except the farmers’ children. Why those invading Frenchies would ever want to come here I never did understand, for most of the time there wasn’t much in Lyme more than mud and babies dying and folk scraping along, best they could. Leastways, in the winter months.

One Sunday in March, not two months before my tenth birthday, I went on Black Ven by myself, after school. I ignored the girls who asked me where I was going. I pretended not to hear the taunts and jeers of the boys. I put them all behind me as I raced round the streets and onto the path behind the church.

I just had a feeling that I was going to be lucky, going to find something really big or really beautiful or both, and nobody was going to stop me.

I thought I’d find a treasure really quickly – and I did! A big lump of clay seemed to be waiting for me in my path. A few pushes and prods with my fingers to prise the mud away and there was a rock as big as a gull’s egg and just as smooth. Two sharp taps of my hammer and there was one of the finest ram’s horns I ever did see. I whooped with joy and then looked around to check no one had heard me. Not that I really expected anyone to be there, as Joseph was helping Father in the workshop and nobody else was inclined to fossicking ever since old Cruickshanks had jumped into the sea. Yet, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a movement and then I saw a head of blond curls ducking down behind a rock.

‘Come out!’ I cried. ‘Show yourself! I know you are there!’

But the figure did not come out. Instead, I heard footsteps, gradually getting fainter as my spy ran away from me.

‘Coward!’ I shouted, quite proud to have frightened the intruder away.

I returned to my find. How splendid it looked, curled and ridged like the finest twisty horn you will ever see on a sheep itself.

There’s many as believe exactly what it says in the Bible: that God created this whole world and everything that is in it all in just six days. Father said that couldn’t be. He said learned folk had worked out that days meant something else, and that it was six thousand years not days. But he also said he had heard that others were beginning to talk of many times that number. ‘As much as seventy-five thousand!’ Father said, though it was hard for me to imagine how much time that was, for even a day in my life passed slowly sometimes.

We only talked of these matters on the beach or cliffs, where we could not be heard, because there were people who would have said Father’s thoughts were the Devil’s work and against the truth in the Good Book. There are many things I could not understand (and still cannot) and which made me think that not everything in the Bible was completely true. It says God created everything at once, but why have some things vanished? Why don’t we find live snakestones and scuttles? Why create a thing and then make no more of it? Especially something so beautiful. Makes no sense to me.

And where are all the bones of men and horses and sheep and the like in the rocks? We only find those on the beach when the sea washes them up and she’s only had them long enough to feed the fishes and wash the bones clean as a peeled potato. They haven’t been buried deep in the earth as these curiosities have been. So did the rocks split open to fit the treasures in? How? It’s a mystery.

I stroked the treasure and then took it down to the water to wash off the last of the mud. It was as big as the palm of my hand.

I was lost in wonder.

Then a wave of fear passed through me. The sun had dipped. The sea was menacing up the shoreline, snapping her great jaws at my ankles. I was late. Maybe too late!

I ran for all I was worth, clutching my prize. Up and down the slippery path, clambering up the bank into the churchyard, pleased to feel solid earth beneath my feet. As I rounded the last gravestone, I smacked straight into the billowing skirts of a lady and dropped my treasure! Dropped it on her foot!

She gave a little yelp but I also heard another sound. A snigger. A little stifled laugh. I looked round, furious and no doubt red with embarrassment. Who was laughing at me?

‘Mercy me, child! You are in a rush!’ said the lady, in kind tones.

‘Begging pardon, mistress,’ I muttered, staring all the while at her feet.

‘Now! What have we here?’ The lady stooped to pick up my find. ‘Well, well! What a pretty thing! Where did you get this?’ she asked.

I looked up at her. A grand lady, no doubt about that. Quite young. Clothes that must have cost a pretty penny. A grave expression on her face, which I thought mighty suitable since we were in the churchyard.

‘I didn’t steal it,’ says I, as I snatched it back from her.

‘Did I say that you did?’ she returned, with a smile on her lips and in her eyes. She seemed kind enough.

‘I found it. Back there. On Black Ven. Don’t you be like to go and look there, though. Tis too dangerous for the likes of you. And’ – here I looked at her very pretty leather shoes – ‘very muddy. Very muddy indeed. And the tide’s coming in.’

She laughed. ‘What a funny creature you are! I have no mind to risk my life or my shoes, I can assure you. But I do have a mind to own this pretty thing. How much will you take for it? A shilling?’ She stared intently at me. ‘Ah, I see by your face that a shilling will not do it. Half a crown, then? Will that persuade you?’

Half a crown! I could see in a flash that this lady’s half-crown could work all sorts of magic. First, it would buy some much-needed food; second, it would make my father proud; third, it would make Joseph jealous; and last and best of all, it would buy me peace from Mother, who would have been like to give me such a hiding for going to Black Ven in the first place but could scarce punish me now.

‘I’ll let you have it for that sum,’ I said. ‘But only because it dropped on your foot and I am sorry. Otherwise it would be five shillings.’

An audible gasp came from the bushes and I looked sharply in their direction.

The lady seemed not to have heard this interruption to our dealings. She laughed again, in a quite unladylike fashion, her head thrown back and her white teeth flashing, before reaching into her little silk pouch and drawing out the large silver coin that would be the ransom due my mother.

‘Here you are, child. You are quite the little businesswoman! You’ll go far, I am sure!’

‘Father could split it in two and polish it... like this one.’ I pulled out my treasure from under my scarf and showed her.

‘Oh no, I like it just as it is. True to itself. Just as the Lord made it and you found it.’

‘I doubt it was this dead stone when the Lord made it,’ said I. ‘Must have been a creature in it, like a snail or some such.’

‘Nevertheless, I shall enjoy it as it is. Thank you. Who are you, child?’

‘Mary. Mary Anning. The first Mary was burned up in a fire. I am nearly ten. I was struck by lightning and survived.’ I don’t know why I told her all that, but it seemed to amuse her.

‘My! What a story, Mary! No wonder you are such a spirited thing! Take care that that spirit of yours does not lead you into danger!’ With that she patted me on the head rather as if I was a dog (which made me somewhat vexed) and was gone.

‘Now, villain!’ I turned my attention to the bush. ‘Come out this instant!’

That very same blond hair appeared, atop a pink and white face that betokened some rich child accustomed to much soap and water. A boy in a blue velvet jacket. Older than me by two, maybe three years, but still a boy. Wide-eyed as a rabbit or a mackerel. He stood gawping, open-mouthed as any idiot. And then he fled. Again.

‘Coward!’ I shouted, for the second time that day.

 

I should have felt a little cowardly myself as I sneaked in the back door and took off my muddy boots.

Mother was in the kitchen, peeling turnips, her face as black as thunder.

‘And where’ve you been, miss?’ She slammed the blade of the knife down on a poor turnip as if she’d like to murder it.

I held out the coin. It shone like a mirror. It shone like something magic, because Mother’s face cleared like the sky over the Cobb when the dark clouds are chased away by the wind and the blue returns.

Then the thunder was back.

‘Where’d you get that, then?’

I felt a little thrill of pride and defiance go through me.

‘Sold a treasure! Sold a treasure of my own finding.’

‘Have you no shame to be doing business on the Sabbath?’ Mother thundered.

‘I had quite forgot and so had the lady. A great lady. She did not mind at all. She was very pleased and she said that I would go far!’

‘Oh, you’ll go far, all right,’ retorted Mother. ‘Far out to sea and into Davy Jones’s locker. Tis your father’s fault! I knew he should never have taken ’e to Black Ven and given ’e a taste for it. There’ll be tragedy. You mark my words!’

‘Not tragedy... just treasure! Half a crown, Mother! Now is that a tragedy? Tomorrow, shall I go and buy a bit of mutton for our tea? I’m good at bargaining.’

Mother could not help smiling, though I could tell she was fighting to stay fierce. ‘Very well. Maybe that customer of yours was right! But when you go, mind you don’t get distracted by any treasures on your way! There isn’t a scrap of mutton to be found on Black Ven, is there, madam? And don’t you go telling me of sheep fallen over the cliff, neither. Now. Make yourself useful and clean all that mud off the front step.’

 

The next day we had a mutton stew as tasty as you like and all thanks to me and my treasure. I was indulging in the sin of pride and did I care? I did not!

My pleasure was short-lived. As we washed and dried our bowls, Joseph started nudging me in the ribs and winking. It seemed my own brother was a spy himself. When Mother was distracted, he hissed in my ear, ‘You’ve got an admirer!’

I was about to give him a good dig with my elbow but he just laughed and went outside, forcing me to follow him to find out what he knew.

He said he had seen my spy following me around like a lovesick spaniel and then he started to talk all sorts of nonsense which I tried with all my might to ignore. Did I like the velvet finery? Was I taken with the boy’s golden curls? Did I want to kiss him? As Joseph well knew, I never had time for fancy clothing and have always thought that boys in silk and frills look even sillier than the girls. And as for kissing – ugh! I gave Joseph a thump for his talk of kissing and told him I neither knew nor cared about the creature who hid in bushes and spied on me and knew nothing whatever about him.

I made my fiercest face at Joseph and drew my finger across my throat as Mother came out to see why we were neglecting our chores.

Joseph just smiled and winked again.

Boys are so annoying!