Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (9 page)

Elinor turned to Brandon, only to find that he had hastened to Marianne’s side. Instead she approached Sir John, who clutching his improvised torch was crouched beside the poor girl’s remains; this evidence he examined carefully, producing a monocle from an inside pocket and peering at the scene of the violence. It was not the bone and hair which seemed to draw his attention, however, but a small slick of blue-green slime glimmering in the moonlight, a few paces down the beach.

“What might that be, Sir John?” Elinor inquired. “Some noxious spray emitted by the malefic cnidaria as it murdered poor Marissa?”

“Worse still,” he said. And then, shaking his wizened head, repeated it. “Worse still. If I am right—the Fang-Beast … the dreaded Devonshire Fang-Beast …”

“I am sorry,” inquired Elinor, smoothing her skirts. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” responded Sir John. “Nothing at all. Have some punch, dear.”

AS THE PARTY WATCHED IN STUNNED HORROR, MISS BELLWETHER WAS WRAPPED INSIDE THE QUAVERING BLANKET-SHAPE OF THE BEAST AND CONSUMED.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Elinor and Marianne were walking home from the sad seaside ceremony, at which the remains of Miss Bellwether were gathered in a sachet bag and solemnly tossed into the ocean. Marianne took the occasion to communicate a piece of news to her sister, which surprised Elinor by its extravagant testimony of her sister’s imprudence and want of thought. Marianne told her with the greatest delight, that Willoughby had given her a domesticated sea horse—one that he himself had bred all man-hating instincts from, in his own aquatic experimentation tank in Somersetshire, among the few such tanks to be found outside Sub-Marine Station Beta—and which sea horse, with its iridescent multi-hued scaling, was exactly calculated to please a woman’s sensibilities. Marianne had accepted the present without hesitation—without considering that it was not her mother’s plan to keep any sea horse, and that its maintenance would require an appropriate aquarium, specially-designed exercise equipment, and a well-trained servant to tend it.

“He intends to dispatch his ship’s boy into Somersetshire immediately for it,” she added, “and when it arrives we will gaze at it and feed it algae every day. You shall share its use with me. Imagine to yourself, my dear Elinor, the delight of watching it describe little circles in its tank.”

Most unwilling was she to comprehend all the unhappy truths which attended the affair; and for some time she refused to submit to them. Elinor then ventured to doubt the propriety of her receiving such a present from a man so little, or at least so lately known to her. This was too much.

“You are mistaken, Elinor,” said Marianne warmly, “in supposing I know very little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, but
I am much better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the world, except yourself and Mama. It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. I should hold myself guilty of greater impropriety in accepting a sea horse from my brother, than from Willoughby. Of John I know very little, though we have lived together for years; but of Willoughby my judgment was formed the moment when first he hacked off the impossibly strong tentacle that had encircled me.”

Elinor thought it wisest to touch that point no more. She knew her sister’s temper. Opposition on so tender a subject would only attach her the more to her own opinion. But by representing the inconveniences which the tending of the sea horse would represent to their mother, Marianne was shortly subdued; and she promised not to tempt her mother to such imprudent kindness by mentioning the offer, and to tell Willoughby that it must be declined.

She was faithful to her word; and when Willoughby arrived in his swift, dashing one-man kayak later the same day, Elinor heard her express her disappointment to him in a low voice, on being obliged to forego the acceptance of the sea horse; he said, “What about a sea monkey? Or a starfish?” and she declined those as well. He replied, in the same low voice, “But, Marianne, the sea horse is still yours, though you cannot use it now. I shall keep it only till you can claim it. When you leave this desolate cove to form your own establishment in a more lasting home, King James the Sea Horse shall receive you.”

This was all overheard by Elinor, and in the whole of the sentence, and in his addressing her sister by her Christian name alone, she instantly saw a meaning so direct as marked a perfect agreement between them. From that moment she doubted not of their being engaged to each other; and was surprised that neither she, nor any of their friends, should be told of the fact directly.

Margaret related something to her the next day, which placed this matter in a still clearer light. Willoughby had spent the preceding evening with them, and Margaret, who had been sitting by herself in a corner of the parlour, sketching a rough map of Pestilent Isle as she now understood its dimensions, had had opportunity for observations, which, with a most important face, she communicated to her eldest sister, when they were next by themselves.

“Oh, Elinor!” she cried, “I have two secrets to tell you. The first relates to Marianne. I am sure she will be married to Mr. Willoughby very soon. For he has got a lock of her hair.”

“Take care, Margaret,” said Elinor. “It may be only the hair of some great uncle of
his
.”

“But, indeed, Elinor, it is Marianne’s. I am almost sure it is, for I saw him cut it off. Last night after tea, when you and Mama went out of the room, they were whispering and talking together as fast as could be, and he seemed to be begging something of her, and presently he took up her scissors and cut off a long lock of her hair, for it was all tumbled down her back; and he kissed it, and folded it up in a piece of white paper; and put it into his pocketbook.”

For such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not withhold her credit, but to Margaret’s
second
secret, though it pressed heavier on the child’s breast than the first, Elinor gave no credit at all—some complicated tomfoolery about a system of caves supposedly to be found on the island’s southern face, and a tribal race that dwelt therein… . Elinor, her mind caught up in Marianne’s engagement, chided Margaret for telling tall tales and sent her early and protesting, to bed.

Margaret’s sagacity as related to her sisters’ affections was not always displayed in a way so satisfactory to Elinor. One evening on Deadwind Island, Mrs. Jennings asked Margaret to supply the name of the young man who was Elinor’s particular favourite. Margaret answered by looking at her sister, and saying, “I must not tell, may I, Elinor?”

This of course made everybody laugh; and Elinor tried to laugh too.
But the effort was painful. She was convinced that Margaret had fixed on a person whose name she could not bear to become a standing joke with Mrs. Jennings.

Marianne felt for her most sincerely; but she did more harm than good to the cause, by turning very red and saying in an angry manner to Margaret, “Remember that whatever your conjectures may be, you have no right to repeat them.”

“I never had any conjectures about it,” replied Margaret; “it was you who told me of it yourself.”

This increased the mirth of the company, and Mrs. Jennings pressed the young girl to say something more. “Oh! Pray, Miss Margaret, let us know all about it. I will help you get him, Elinor, by my troth—I know an incantation, which if said at the proper pace on a properly moonlit night, will win any man! Margaret, what is the gentleman’s name?”

“Margaret,” interrupted Marianne with great warmth, “you know that all this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in existence.”

“Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such a man once, and his name begins with an
F.
But I beg you all to dispense with such trivialities, given the dark truths that lie on this island, just beneath the surface of—”

But the assembled company, led by Mrs. Jennings, had degenerated into further raillery, and no one heard. Most grateful did Elinor feel to Lady Middleton for observing, as the laughter reached its apex, “that the odor of the rainfall is particularly sulfurous today,” though she believed this innocuous interruption to proceed less from any attention to her, than from her ladyship’s great dislike of all such inelegant subjects of raillery as delighted her husband and mother. The idea however started by her, was immediately pursued by Colonel Brandon, who was on every occasion mindful of the feelings of others; and much was said on the subject of rain, its persistence, and insufferable redolence by both of them. Willoughby took out his ukulele, and asked Marianne to perform a
highland fling; and thus amidst the various endeavours of different people to quit the topic, it fell to the ground. But not so easily did Elinor recover from the alarm into which it had thrown her.

A party was formed this evening for sailing on the following day on Sir John’s old three-master, the
Shell-Cracker
, to the sunken wreck of the HMS
Mary
, a grand battleship of the English armada that had been sunk in a fierce fight with a kraken some decades ago, and which sat mouldering on the sea floor a quarter-mile out from Skull Island, in the farthest reaches of the archipelago. The deserted ship, with coral and madrepore growing along its bulwarks, and the salt-corroded skeletons of its crew still tragically manning their battle stations, was declared to be a thing of wonder, and Sir John, who was particularly warm in its praise, might be allowed to be a tolerable judge, for he had formed parties to visit it at least twice every summer for the last ten years.

Colonel Brandon was designated the co-host of the expedition, for, as Sir John delicately explained to the Dashwoods, his
condition
allowed him to breathe underwater, and thus to lead the others of the party, one by one, in and out of the sunken hull, and swiftly swim them back to the surface when their lungs were depleted. This feat of sustained immersion, Sir John noted, was one Brandon did not undertake often, wishing not to remind his acquaintance of his peculiarity—as if anyone, Mrs. Jennings added impishly, could long forget it.

Cold provisions were to be taken, along with playing cards, harpoons, and many yards of mosquito netting; everything conducted in the usual style of a complete party of pleasure.

To some few of the company it appeared rather a bold undertaking, considering the time of year, and that it had rained that thick, sulfurous rain every day for the last fortnight; and Mrs. Dashwood, who had already a cold, was persuaded by Elinor to stay at home.

T
HEIR INTENDED EXCURSION
to the sunken ship turned out very different from what Elinor had expected. She was prepared to be wet through, fatigued, frightened, and possibly attacked, bitten, or maimed; but the event was still more unfortunate, for they did not go at all.

By ten o’clock the whole party was assembled at Sir John’s fortified establishment on Deadwind Island, where they were to breakfast. The morning was rather favourable, though it had rained all night, as the clouds were then dispersing across the sky, and the sun waged valiant battle against the low-hanging fog. They were all in high spirits and good humour, eager to be happy, and determined to submit to the greatest inconveniences and hardships rather than be otherwise.

While they were at breakfast the letters were brought in. Among the rest there was one for Colonel Brandon; he took it, looked at the return address, and changed colour. As they watched him read, his droopy facial appendages appeared to tie themselves into knots of emotion, and then he left the room.

“What is the matter with Brandon?” said Sir John.

Nobody could tell.

“I hope he has had no bad news,” said Lady Middleton. “It must be something extraordinary that could make Colonel Brandon leave my breakfast table so suddenly.”

In about five minutes, he returned.

“No bad news, Colonel, I hope,” said Mrs. Jennings, as soon as he entered the room.

“None at all, ma’am, I thank you. It came from Sub-Marine Station Beta, and is merely a letter of business.”

“But how came the hand to discompose you so much, if it was only a letter of business? Come, come, this won’t do, Colonel; so let us hear the truth of it.”

“My dear madam,” said Lady Middleton, “recollect what you are saying.”

“Perhaps it is to tell you that your cousin is married?” said Mrs. Jennings, without attending to her daughter’s reproof.

“No, indeed, it is not.”

“Well, then, I know who it is from, Colonel. And I hope she is well.”

“Whom do you mean, ma’am?” said he, his tentacles fluttering wetly with embarrassment.

“Oh! You know who I mean.”

“I am particularly sorry, ma’am,” said he, addressing Lady Middleton, “that I should receive this letter today, for it is on business which requires my immediate attendance at Sub-Station Beta.”