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.

The bell on the door rang and a well-dressed man entered the shop. I wiped away my tears with my sleeve. He picked through the fossils on the shelves. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” I asked, coming to help him from the workbench. He did not say anything, but continued. “I see you are determined to amuse yourself by making work for me,” I said. The man colored. “You do not have what I am looking for,” he mumbled, and retreated. Immediately I was sorry that I had driven him away. The man had done nothing wrong, and I attacked him and lost his trade. My head hurt, and I felt hot.

I told Mama I was going out and asked her to mind the shop. I walked. I walked without purpose or destination, oblivious to all I passed. I walked out of town and along the undercliffs until I was exhausted from walking and turned back toward home. As I was crossing Coombe Street someone shouted, and I looked up just in time to see a carriage drawn by a pair of horses racing toward me. I was dashed against the wall in my efforts to escape. My cheek was scraped and bleeding, and I was stunned with pain. Onlookers scolded me for not watching where I was going, telling me that I might have been killed. I nodded, agreeing with them, and walked away.

When I returned, Mama was still in the workshop where I left her. My strange behavior had made her anxious, and she was alarmed by the sight of my cheek. But when she asked what was the matter, I only nodded wearily and told her that it was a little scrape that I would wash off. She followed me to the scullery and watched as I poured some water on a towel and wiped my face.

“You are not well,” she remarked. “Perhaps you had better lie down.” I only nodded and started up the stairs. She locked the door to the shop and followed me up. She watched anxiously as I took off my shoes, stockings, and dress. She did not know what to think. I have never gone to bed in the middle of the day before. When I was lying down, she covered me. She sat on the end of the bed for a while before going back to her work.

I fell into a dream-filled sleep. I dreamt that I was in the marketplace with my basket. It is filled with fossils. Gentlemen in top hats come by and help themselves to the fossils, without saying a word to me. Soon I have no more fossils, but they continue to come and come until the marketplace is filled with men in black coats and top hats. They take away my clothes. When I have no clothes, they cut at my hair. Soon they are pounding at my arms and legs with geological hammers. Someone has taken a chisel and hammer to my head. I plead with them to stop, but they do not seem to be able to hear me. I cry, but still they continue. With great effort I stand up, throwing them off. Surprised, the gentlemen step away from me. They proceed to point at me and talk among themselves about me. “Go away! Leave me alone! I am a person, not a curiosity,” I yell. They laugh and run away, leaving me alone in the deserted marketplace.

I dreamt that I was talking to the Reverend Buckland about Home’s paper. I have something very important to tell him, and he is eager to hear what I have to say. I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out, I am mute.

I stayed in bed for the remainder of that day. That night and all of the next day I thought over what happened. I could not go on as I had been, scorned by all, with no one who understood me. I kept telling myself that I must find something else to do. It was madness to keep on working at something that caused me such pain. I could learn to make lace like Mama, she would be glad to teach me. She had been teaching Ann—poor, dear Ann. I could learn another trade, any other trade. But each time I thought of some other pursuit, I found fault with it. I was confused and lost.

It was dark outside. The day had passed. Across the room I could hear Mama’s even breathing. I grabbed a shawl and threw it round my shoulders. I stole down the stairs barefoot. I lit a candle from the coals in the fireplace, opened the door, and went to my workshop. There I took out this daybook given to me for my fifteenth birthday by Joseph and began this account.