DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATIONS

Soon after we brought the crocodile’s body up from the beach, I sent another message to Squire Henley informing him that I now had the complete fossil. Still the squire did not come.

Weeks passed and I worked on the fossil, cleaning away some of the Lias in which it was embedded so that it stood out better. The more I worked on the fossil, the more I doubted that it was a crocodile.

My doubts and the squire’s failure to appear made me anxious. I had been counting on selling the fossil to him. Had I simply misunderstood him that day when he had jumbled the vertebrae? I so desperately wanted to make money that it was possible that I heard him say what I wished him to say. After all, he was the richest man in the district, and also a collector. What if he did not come? Would I dare sell the fossil to someone else when he was our landlord and he had made me promise to keep it for him? Others besides Miss Philpot had made offers. What if I sold it and then he appeared?

My anxiety was not helped by the advice of our friends and neighbors. Thanks to Mama, they knew of Miss Philpot’s offer, and they all had something to say about how I should deal with the squire.

Mr. Littlejohn told me to ask at least sixty-five pounds. “He won’t give you that, but if you start high, you’ll end up high,” he said.

When I went to Mr. Adams to have the chisels sharpened I was told, “You were searching for the body for more a year. The squire should make it worth your while. It is not as if he can buy petrified crocodiles elsewhere.”

“Don’t let him get away with giving you less because you’re a lass,” Mrs. Lapham at the market told me when I went to buy cheese. “Let Joseph do the talking for you.” She shook her head and corrected herself, “No, he won’t do, too young. Your mama should talk for the family. Oh, if only your papa was alive, he would know how to get the most out of Henley. Richard Anning always knew how to deal with the gentry.”

Finally, shortly after the new year began, the squire came marching into the shop unannounced. Spying the fossil that was laid out on the workshop floor, he went directly to it and dropped to his knees beside it. “So the talk is true! It really does exist! Amazing!”

He examined the fossil for some time in silence while I looked on anxiously. “I believe this is the fossil that you had in mind, sir. And as I promised, I have saved it for you.” He grunted and continued his examination. Anxious, I went on, “But I do not think it is a crocodile.”

At this he looked up. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

I explained that its shape wasn’t like the picture of a crocodile I had seen in a book. It did not have feet, or at least I could not find them. Also its nostrils were in the wrong position. Then realizing that he might not want it if it was not a crocodile, I added, “But it is a spectacular curiosity, all the same, sir. The biggest I have heard about, seventeen feet when you measure it with all of its vertebrae. You remember, sir, it was the vertebrae that caught your eye that day when you told me that you would buy the creature from me, if ever I found it.”

“Yes indeed, it is spectacular. Seventeen feet, you say? It will cause quite a sensation.” Then looking at me sharply, he asked, “Where did you say you found this fossil?”

Not understanding the importance of the question, I told him that I found it at the far end of Church Cliffs.

“It was in a piece of the cliff that broke off and fell to the beach, was it not?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

I only understood why he was asking these questions a few minutes later when he offered me twenty pounds, saying, “That would be a fair price for the thing, especially since it was in the cliffs on my land to begin with. Generous I should think.”

Hearing this figure that was less, much less than I had hoped for and less than Miss Philpot offered, my face reddened and I was upset, though I tried to remain calm.

Seeing my response, Squire Henley cleared his throat. “No, I think twenty pounds is too little, twenty-three pounds would be a better price.”

And twenty-three pounds it was. I could do nothing but accept, since he claimed that it came from his land. I was angry at myself for allowing him to get the better of me, and for allowing myself to get carried away with empty dreams. What a fool I had been!

I heard that Squire Henley bought the crocodile on behalf of Bullock’s Egyptian Hall, a giant exhibition hall in Piccadilly Circus in London. People come there to see the wonders of natural history that Mr. Bullock has collected from the South Seas, North and South America, and Africa. My fossil is their most popular exhibit.