Remarkable Creatures

We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.

What do you believe, Aunt Elizabeth?' 'I believe. . . I am comfortable with reading the Bible figuratively rather than literally. For instance, I think the six days in Genesis are not literal days, but different periods of creation, so that it took many thousands --- or hundreds of thousands of years --- to create. It does not demean God; it simply gives Him more time to build this extraordinary world.' 'And the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus?' 'They are creatures from long, long ago. They remind us that the world is changing. Of course it is. I can see it change when there are landslips at Lyme that alter the shoreline. It changes when there are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and floods. And why shouldn't it?

There was something different about her, though I could not say exactly what it was. It was as if she were more certain. If someone were sketching her they would use clear, strong lines, whereas before they might have used faint marks and more shading. She was like a fossil that’s been cleaned and set so everyone can see what it is.

I never said I didn't want to marry. It just didn't happen-Iam not the sort of lady a man chooses to marry, for I am too plain and too serious. Now I am reconciled to being on my own.

I had always thought of the sea as a boundary keeping me in my place on land. Now, though, it became an opening.

have noticed that people do not change which feature they lead with, any more than they change in character.

That’s how fossil hunting is: It takes over, like a hunger, and nothing else matters but what you find. And even when you find it, you still start looking again the next minute, because there might be something even better waiting.

he was a collector rather than a hunter, buying his knowledge rather than seeking it with his own eyes and hands. I

He made me feel an idiot, even when I knew he was a bigger one than I.

This was the sort of situation that she read about in the novels she favored, by authors such as Miss Jane Austen, whom Margaret was sure she’d met long ago at the Assembly Rooms the first time we visited Lyme. One of Miss Austen’s books had even featured Lyme Regis, but I did not read fiction and could not be persuaded to try it. Life itself was far messier and didn’t end so tidily with the heroine making the right match. We Philpot sisters were the very embodiment of that frayed life. I did not need novels to remind me of what I had missed.

But dying was no drama. Dying was cold and hard and painful, and dull. It went on too long. I was exhausted and growing bored with it. Now I had too much time to think about whether I was going to die from the tide

married women that I noticed, their solid smugness at not having to worry about the course of their future. Married women were set like jelly in a mold, whereas spinsters like me were formless and unpredictable. I patted my basket. “I have my own fossils,

For myself, it took only the early discovery of a golden ammonite, glittering on the beach between Lyme and Charmouth, for me to succumb to the seductive thrill of finding unexpected treasure.

Truly to appreciate what fossils are requires a leap of imagination he was not capable of making.

There is no need to fear," he said, "for you are here with me.

I have always admired most those who lead with their eyes, like Mary Anning, for they seem more aware of the world and its workings.

I knew I should believe him, as he taught at Oxford, but his answers did not feel complete. It was like having a meal and not getting quite enough to eat.

spent much of my life in Lyme with my eyes fixed to the ground in search of fossils. Such hunting can limit a person’s perspective.

had come to London for a reason, not to enjoy anonymity and solitude whilst eyeing the wider horizon.

I missed the currency of ideas. In London we had been part of a wide circle of solicitors’ families, and social occasions had been mentally stimulating as well as entertaining.

Life itself was far messier and didn’t end so tidily with the heroine making the right match.

While Molly and Joseph Anning suffered materially that winter, with many days of weak soup and weaker fires, Mary barely noticed how little she was eating or the chilblains on her hands and feet. She was suffering inside.

Although we kept the door ajar so that we could hear, we could not see beyond the gentlemen standing in front of the door in the crowded room. I felt trapped behind a wall of men that separated me from the main event.

God placed the fossils there when He created the rocks, to test our faith, he responded at last. As He is clearly testing yours Miss Philpot. It is my faith in you that is being tested, I thought.

We had not meant our choice to cut us off from our past, but it did. We had only the present and the future to think of in Lyme.

Margaret grasped on to the magic of novels because they held out hope that Mary—and she herself—might yet have a chance at marriage. While my own experience of life was limited, I knew such a thing would not happen. It hurt, but the truth often does.

I did not sleep well that night. I was not used to having the power to affect someone’s life so and did not easily carry its weight, as a man might have done.

Yes, Mary Anning, you are different from all the rocks on the beach.