Of the three it was I who thought of London most. 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. Often I had sat with my brother and his friends at dinner as they discussed Napoleon's prospects, or whether Pitt ought to have become Prime Minister again, or what should be done about the slave trade. I even occasionally contributed to the conversation.
In Lyme, however, I heard no such talk. Though I had my fossils to keep me occupied, there were few people I could discuss them with. When I read Hutton or Cuvier or Werner or Lamarck or other natural philosophers, I could not go around to friends to ask what they made of these men's radical ideas. The Lyme middle classes were surrounded by noteworthy natural phenomena, but they did not show much curiosity about them. Instead they talked about the weather and the tides, the fishing and the crops, the visitors and the season. You might think they would be concerned about Napoleon and the war with France, if only because of its effect on the small shipbuilding industry in Lyme. But local families discussed repairs to the sea wall that was taking a battering, or the bath house not long opened that was doing so well others were sure to copy it, or whether the town mill was grinding flour fine enough. Summer visitors we met at the Assembly Rooms or at church or over cups of tea at others' houses could sometimes be encouraged to discuss topics of more substance, but often they were travelling to get away from such talk, and relished local news and gossip.
I was particularly frustrated, as the fossils I was finding were so very puzzling, and filled me with questions I wanted to air. Ammonites, for instance, the most visible and striking of the fossils found at Lyme: what exactly were they? I could not believe they were snakes, as so many unquestioningly did. Why would they curl up into balls? I had never heard of snakes doing such a thing. And where were their heads? I looked carefully each time I found an ammonite, but could discover no trace of a head. It was very peculiar that I could find so many fossils of them on the beach, and yet not see them alive.
This did not seem to bother others, however. I hoped someone might suggest to me over a cup of tea in our parlour, "Do you know, Miss Philpot, ammonites remind me rather of snails. Do you think they might be a sort of snail we haven't seen before?"
Instead they talked about the mud on the road from Charmouth; or what they were going to wear to the next ball; or the travelling circus they were going to Bridport to see. If they did say something about fossils, it was to question my interest. "How can you be so fond of mere stones?" a new friend Margaret brought back from the Assembly Rooms once asked.
"They're not just stones," I tried to explain. "They are bodies that have become stone, of creatures that lived long ago. When one finds them, that is the first time they have been seen for thousands of years."
"How horrible!" she cried, and turned to listen to Margaret play. Visitors often turned to Margaret when they found Louise too quiet and me too peculiar. Margaret could always entertain them.
Only Mary Anning shared my enthusiasm and curiosity, but she was too young to engage in such conversations. I sometimes felt in those early years that I was waiting for her to grow up so that I could have the companionship I craved. In that, I was right.
At first I thought I might talk about fossils with Henry Hoste Henley, Lord of Colway Manor and Member of Parliament for Lyme Regis. He lived in a large house set back at the end of an avenue of trees on the outskirts of Lyme, about a mile from Morley Cottage. Lord Henley had a large extended family; apart from his wife and many children, there were also Henleys in Chard, several miles inland, and Colway Manor brimmed with guests. We were occasionally invited too--to a dinner, to their Christmas ball, to watch the start of the hunt, where Lord Henley handed out port and whisky before the hunters rode out.
The Henleys were the closest to gentry that Lyme had, but Lord Henley still had mud on his boots and dirt under his nails. He had a collection of fossils too, and when he found out I was interested, he sat me at his side at dinner so that we could talk about them. Thrilled at first, I discovered after a few minutes that Lord Henley knew nothing about fossils other than that they were collectible and made him appear worldly and intelligent. He was the kind of man who led with his feet rather than his head. I tried to draw him out by asking what he thought an ammonite was. Lord Henley chuckled and sucked in a great slug of wine. "Has no one told you, Miss Philpot? They are worms!" He banged his glass onto the table, a signal for a servant to refill it.
I considered his reply. "Why, then, are they always coiled? I have never seen a live worm take such a shape. Or a snake, which some suggest is what they are."
Lord Henley shuffled his feet under his chair. "I expect you haven't seen many people lying on their backs with their hands crossed on their chests, have you, now Miss Philpot? Yet that is how we bury them. The worms are coiled in death."
I held back a snort, for I had a vision of worms gathered around to roll one of their dead into a coil, as we prepare our own in death. It was clearly a ridiculous idea, and yet Lord Henley did not think to question it. I did not probe further, however, for down the table Margaret was shaking her head at me, and the man sitting across from me had raised his eyebrows at our indelicate talk.
Now I know that ammonites were sea creatures rather like our modern nautilus, with protective shells and squidlike tentacles. I wish I could have told Lord Henley so at that dinner, with his assured talk of coiled worms. But at that time I had neither the knowledge nor the confidence to correct him.
Later, when he showed me his collection, Lord Henley revealed more ignorance, not being able to distinguish one ammonite from another. When I pointed out one marked with straight, even suture lines crossing its spiral while on another each line had two knobs picking out the spiral shape, he patted my hand. "What a clever little lady you are,"
he said, shaking his head at the same time and undercutting the compliment. I sensed then that he and I would not puzzle over fossils together. I had the patience and eye for detail needed to study them, where Lord Henley painted with a much broader brush, and did not like to be reminded of it.
James Foot was a friend of the Henleys, and our paths must have crossed at Colway Manor, certainly at the Christmas ball, when half of West Dorset came. But Louise and I first heard of him over breakfast after one of the summer dances at the Assembly Rooms.
"I can eat nothing," Margaret declared on sitting down at the table and waving away a plate of smoked fish. "I am too agitated!"
Louise rolled her eyes and I smiled into my tea. Margaret often made such pronouncements after balls, and though we laughed at them, we would not have her stop, for these remarks formed our primary entertainment.
"What is his name this time?" I asked.
"James
Foot."
"Indeed? And are his feet all you could hope for?"
Margaret made a face at me and took a slice of toast from the rack. "He is a gentleman," she declared, crumbling her toast into bits that Bessy would later have to throw onto the lawn for the birds. "He is a friend of Lord Henley's, he has a farm near Beaminster, and he is a fine dancer. He has already asked me for the first dance on Tuesday!"
I watched her fiddling with her toast. Although I had heard similar words often enough before, something about Margaret herself was different. She seemed more clearly defined, and more self-contained. She kept her chin down, as if holding back extra words, and tucked into herself to listen to new feelings she was trying to comprehend. And though her hands were still busy, their movements were more controlled.