Chapter 47
Chapter
Henry, in the end, was the victor.
The split was wider than we’d anticipated, even. Thirty-nine to twenty-three.
Buckland’s shoulders slumped, though he quickly set them back and shook Henry’s hand sportingly.
I hardly had time for it to sink in before Henry was reclaiming the podium, as president of the Geomagical Society of London. My heart started to race again as Henry thanked them for their confidence, and promised to lead well.
Then he smiled, and his gaze swept to mine.
“Now, before we proceed further, I have another order of business. Miss Anning? Would you join me on the stage?”
My stomach flipped. This hadn’t been part of the plan. Henry told me to stay backstage and out of sight for the vote. But now everyone was turning to look. I didn’t have much of a choice.
I ducked back the way I’d come and hurried down the stairs. I took a deep breath. And then I walked into the auditorium.
There was a central aisle with a red-and-gold carpet leading to the stage.
I kept my head high as I walked through the whispers and craning necks toward Henry.
This must be what it felt like to be a bride on her wedding day: the thrill and fear and the thundering of your heart with every step, walking into the future.
Henry met me at the stairs to the stage.
“Change of plan,” he whispered as he offered a hand.
I carefully avoided looking at Buckland in his front-row seat. Former President Davies was looking around disapprovingly and muttering, and I saw others frowning, too. But there were also smiles among the crowd.
I could hardly hear over the rushing in my ears as Henry directed the flustered Society secretary to retrieve the bylaws from the archives with haste.
“But, sir, she isn’t a member—technically, she shouldn’t even be in the same room as—”
“Collect them quickly, please. Or I’ll choose a secretary who will,” Henry said quietly. The man scampered off through the wings.
“Gentlemen,” Henry said, “before we proceed to other business, it is time we right a great wrong. You know Miss Anning. You know what she has done for this Society, and for our cause. Every tongue in England speaks of geomagic now, when they hardly knew the word before.
“Because of Mary, we have a living pterodactyl to study. My God! It is a miracle—and let us not forget how miraculous simply because you hear the beast’s call echo through our halls every morning. Rather, let that remind us how miraculous it is, indeed, that we might be grateful anew each day.”
He looked toward me, his eyes shining, and I nearly burst with pride.
“We are all of us, each one, in her debt, and I can think of only one way to repay that debt, and to honor her contributions to our field.”
The secretary reappeared at the edge of the stage, black velvet rippling behind him.
Henry waved him forward, and the moment he was visible, it was like a wave rushed through the crowd.
“You can’t. He can’t, can he?”
“What are you doing, Stanton?”
“Well, I say she deserves it.”
“But she’s a woman!”
The secretary held out a long, thin box to Henry. Henry touched the lid, and its lock sprang open. A scroll unfurled like a long yellow tongue, down to his feet. Bylaws of the Geomagical Society of London, it read, in an elaborate filigreed script.
He cleared his throat, ignoring the shouts and calls from the crowd.
“With the power vested in me as president of the Geomagical Society of London, I hereby amend section two of the bylaws of the Society. Henceforth, relating to qualifications for nomination and admission, let the amendment read: An exception shall be made for the nomination of Mistress Mary Anning of Lyme Regis, in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the field of geomagical studies.”
As he spoke, the words wrote themselves on the scroll in a matching elaborate flourish. And when he’d finished, he nodded, and the scroll rolled itself up and locked tight.
At least I finally understood why only the president—and the president alone—could amend the bylaws.
What followed was an uproar.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please,” Henry said calmly, as the secretary tried to bang his gavel over the shouts.
“All I have done now is amend the bylaws. The decision whether to admit Miss Anning remains in your hands. And hear this clearly now.”
The crowd quieted as Henry’s voice dropped, as if they didn’t want to miss what he said next.
“If it is not the will of this body that Miss Anning be a geomagician, well, I will resign immediately, and your next chosen president can undo my actions. Now—”
“I nominate Mary Elizabeth Anning”—William Buckland was standing, his fist across his heart—“of Lyme Regis, for membership in the Geomagical Society of London, with all rights and privileges hereof.”
There was no secret ballot. That meant I had to stand there, trembling hands clasped tightly behind my back, as the secretary took the roll. He called upon each geomagician in turn to cast his vote, and my fingers turned numb with the strength of my grip as he neared the end of the alphabet.
The vote would be close. Very close. Too close.
Conybeare voted against me. We’d expected that. Davies, too, by rights as an ordinary fellow, cast his vote with the nays, his face mottled purple with fury.
I won Samuel Enys, James Gilbert, and Adam Harrelson, all Buckland loyalists, but I lost Thomas Reed and Anton Purser, who’d voted with Henry for the presidency.
Mantell and Goldsmild both offered generous words with their votes of aye that made me blush with gratitude.
“A genius the likes of whom we are lucky to walk among, and never will again, I think,” Goldsmild said, which made my face so hot, I thought I’d faint.
But then Edward Phillips had to be removed from the auditorium when his name was called. He’d leapt onto his chair and tried to throw a cane at my head, shouting that I was a Jezebel, and probably a sorceress, too.
“She’s bewitched you! She’s bewitched you all, you fools, with her womanly ways!” he cried. I was a little offended, frankly; we’d once had a very nice conversation about glacial formations in the Alps.
“I’m terribly sorry about this,” his friend Richard Browning mumbled, as he caught Phillips under the armpits and dragged him back to the doors, heels kicking. Browning had voted against me, but at least he hadn’t thrown anything. The bar was getting low indeed.
“You let a woman in and you damn us all,” Phillips screamed, as the doors banged shut.
Jonas Finch rose next, into the awkward silence. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a Jezebel, Miss Anning,” he said, twisting his hands. My heart sank. “But I don’t think a woman is fit to be a geomagician, either. Nay.” He sat quickly.
I’d started to worry by this point, and after a few more names were called, all nays, I began to lose hope.
Any hope I had left withered in my hand when Matthew Turner shook his head. “Nay,” he whispered. He couldn’t look me in the eye.
And that was it. My tiny, quivering lead was gone. The tally now stood evenly at thirty to thirty.
There was no way I could win. Only two geomagicians had yet to vote: Augustus Ward and Thomas Whaley.
I suddenly regretted, with every inch and fiber and hair of my being, that I’d ever told Thomas Whaley that his bezoar was actually petrified feces.
I held my breath as Ward rose in his seat, his face tense. He was one of Henry’s allies, but he didn’t look at Henry now. He looked down at his palms instead. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.
It was almost funny, really.
Would it have changed, if they knew the truth? What if these men knew that two streets over, Henry Stanton’s townhouse was filled with living, breathing, swimming Jurassic creatures, raised by my own hand?
Would the vote have fallen out differently? Or would more have cast their votes in my favor? Or would more have called me sorceress and summoned the Inquisitors?
The worst of it, I think, was that even without Ajax—without any magic or witchery at all—I deserved to join these men.
I was more than qualified. I’d read nearly every book on geomagic; I’d studied every paper published here and abroad. I knew all the discoveries, all the finds, all the players. Even if I’d never found Ajax, never reanimated a damn thing, I was qualified. And everyone here knew it.
But it wasn’t enough. It still wasn’t enough, because nothing would ever be.
I was a woman.
I felt a smile cracking, and had to work to wipe my face blank. It really was hilarious.
“I abstain,” said Ward.
My first instinct was to look at Henry, and his was to look back at me. Our eyes met, a shared spark of hope.
But too brief. The secretary called on Mr. Thomas Whaley, and I closed my eyes, luxuriating in the black for a moment, imagining I could erase all of this.
Wishing I could go back to the day in Lucy’s cottage when I’d insisted on coming to London.
When I’d foolishly declared I could win them over, if only I had the chance.
Buckland had known. All those times he told me to be patient. To wait. To work slowly and thoughtfully. He’d known it would come to this—to a public humiliation. But I just had to push, didn’t I? Well, now I was reaping the harvest of that pride, all right.
Whaley stood. His eyes were hard. “I don’t think it’s any secret that I don’t particularly care for you, Miss Anning.”
He stared straight at me, as if I were the only person in the room. I wanted to melt right into the stage.
“But you’re a damn fine scholar, and fossil hunter, and theoretician. I vote aye.”
The rest was a blur. Henry shook my hand, pumping my arm with delight, and then I was shaking other hands, grinning and laughing, and men were thumping me on the back, and each other, and even the ones who’d voted against me were smiling and offering congratulations—well, some did—because I was one of them now. I was a geomagician at last.
Buckland caught my eye, through the crowd, as he made for the back doors. He nodded, once, and I felt it all. All the years he’d taught me, helped me, fought with me. Cared for me.
I have to go to him, I thought, urgently, wildly, and I started to push through the crowd, craning my neck to try and catch his eye again.
But by the time I broke through, stumbling to the edge of the stage, Buckland was gone.