Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier Read Free Book Online Page B

Margaret—or at least, he would not be specific about my gloves or the belemnite. He was enough of a gentleman not to mention such a thing. But it would have been clear enough to the Henleys that we were not an appropriate family for him to marry into.
    Margaret continued to attend Assembly Rooms balls and cards evenings, but she had lost her glow, and the times I went with her I sensed she had slipped from the top rung of the social ladder she had been climbing. A snub from a gentleman, whether or not it is justified, does a subtle damage to a young lady. Margaret was not asked to dance every set, and compliments on her gown and hair and complexion were less frequent. By the time the season ended she looked weary and dull. Louise and I took her to London for a few weeks to try to cheer her, but Margaret herself knew something had shifted. She had lost her best opportunity to marry, and she didn’t know why.
    I never told her about meeting James Foot on the beach. It might have brought some comfort to Margaret to know that my eccentricity had contributed to his decision not to continue to court her. But she would have sensed too that even if I had given up my fossils and bought new gloves, it would not have been enough. A man chooses a wife by taking an intricate measure of her and her family; it takes more than an unusual sister to throw off the calculation. James Foot had decided that the Philpots had neither the money nor the social standing for him to pursue Margaret. My brandishing stained gloves and a suggestively shaped fossil only confirmed what he had already determined.
    I was upset for Margaret, but I did not regret James Foot’s withdrawal. I suspected he would always have looked at me as if my gloves were soiled. And if he judged me, how would he judge my sister? Would he suck the liveliness right out of her? I could not have borne it if my sister married such a man.
    Years later I ran into James Foot at Colway Manor. Margaret always had a headache coming on when we were invited to their parties and suppers, and out of loyalty Louise and I wouldn’t attend without her. But once when I had gone to discuss some fossil business for the Annings with Lord Henley, I came upon James Foot and his wife arriving as I was leaving. She was small and pale and trembled like a pansy; she would never wear a turban to a ball. I knew then that it was just as well Margaret had been kept from that fate.
    The summer of James Foot had been the height of Margaret’s potential. The following season she was treated as a fine gown that has dated in storage, the neckline now too high or low, the cloth a touch faded, the cut no longer so flattering. We were surprised that this could happen as easily in Lyme as London, yet there was little we could do to change it. Margaret kept her friends and made new ones from the seasonal visitors. But she no longer returned at night with a sparkle and a dance around the kitchen. In time the turbans she persisted in wearing seemed less daring and more a Philpot peculiarity. She did not manage to escape into marriage like Frances, but sank into spinsterhood beside Louise and me.
    There are worse fates.

THREE
    Like looking for a four-leaf clover

    I don’t remember there ever being a time when I weren’t out upon beach. Mam used to say the window was open when I was born, and the first thing I saw when they held me up was the sea. Our house in Cockmoile Square backed onto it next to Gun Cliff, so as soon as I could walk I’d be out there upon the rocks, with my brother Joe, but a few years older, to look after me and keep me from drowning. Depending on the time of year, there’d be plenty of others about, walking to the Cobb, looking at the boats, or going out in the bathing machines, which looked like privies on wheels to me. Some even went in the water in November. Joe and me laughed at them, for the swimmers would come out wet and cold and miserable, like dunked cats, but pretending it was good