Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (23 page)

It was the lobsters—all had now broken formation and converged on the unfortunate trainer. In an instant, every exposed inch of his flesh came under assault by a dozen pairs of gigantic claws; huge chunks of meat were ripped from his arms and from his legs, the very scalp torn from his head. “Help! For God’s sake, help!!—” he managed to choke out, his crop flailing helplessly against the water, before the largest of the lobsters, in fluid motions no doubt learned from this very trainer, clawed himself up onto the man’s chest, wrapped its long, whip-like antennae around his neck, and cleanly garroted off his head. As the guests looked at each other, horrified and uncertain, the decapitated trainer’s arms thrashed, thrashed again, and then went still, as streams of blood gushed into the pool water from the stump of his neck.

Now, with a redoubling of their ungodly screech of a war cry, the lobsters climbed out of the water and advanced on the guests in a perfect, soldierly
V
formation.

“Willoughby!” cried Marianne in terror of the advancing wedge of warlike crustaceans.

“Willoughby!” cried the fashionable lady to whom he had been speaking a moment ago. The lobsters screeched louder and clacked their claws together like nightmarish rust-brown castanets.

Willoughby backpedaled from the water’s edge, as his complexion
changed and all his embarrassment returned; he contemplated the two ladies, both desperate for his protection and the affection it would imply. At last he turned on his heel and ran to the unknown young lady, where she had scampered up onto the closest row of seats. Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair. Elinor slapped her hard, three times, to get her moving; this was no time for a swoon. The lobsters grew closer by the instant, each one scuttling rapidly forward on five pairs of monstrous legs. One stopped abruptly in its forward march and clamped its terrible claws around the exposed neck of a young woman; a river of blood launched from her throat and poured down the bodice of her elegant swimming costume.

The guests, Elinor and Marianne among them, began a screaming stampede for the exit, shoving and fighting past one another to get out of the path of the death-lobsters; only Lady Middleton, who in her former life as an island princess had defended her people from such threats, was vigorously engaged in battle against the monsters. She grabbed one of the lobsters and snapped its bulging fore claw off at the joint, then used the limb to batter at the beast’s hideous cephalothorax. The lobster screeched in pain and rage, snapping in vain at the dexterous Lady Middleton with its remaining claw.

“Go to him, Elinor,” Marianne pleaded, insensible of the immediate peril, even as a lobster corralled the Careys, a handsome couple of Sir John’s acquaintance; with one claw the beast mauled Mr. Carey, carving large gashes from his torso, while simultaneously, with the other claw, it snapped off Mrs. Carey’s feet and hands with four snaps. “Force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again—must speak to him instantly. I cannot rest—I shall not have a moment’s peace till this is explained— some dreadful misapprehension or other. Oh, go to him this moment!”

“This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till to-morrow. We must go! We must go!” As a lobster scuttled menacingly towards them, Elinor drove the pointed heel of her fashionable boot into that vulnerable spot, a quarter of the way down the back of a crustacean, where the head meets the thorax. She felt the satisfying crunch of her boot heel driving past exoskeleton and into pure vulnerable meat—the beast was stopped in its scuttling tracks.

THE GUESTS BEGAN A SCREAMING STAMPEDE FOR THE EXIT, SHOVING AND FIGHTING PAST ONE ANOTHER TO GET OUT OF THE PATH OF THE DEATH-LOBSTERS.

With relief Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase, dragging the terrified young lady with him; and telling Marianne that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening as a fresh argument for her to be calm and join her in evacuating the premises immediately. The urgency of the situation was paramount; it seemed as if wherever she looked in Hydra-Z, lobsters were furiously clawing and snapping at the maimed and bloodied unfortunates who remained.

Elinor begged her sister to entreat Lady Middleton to rescue them and take them home, although that estimable lady seemed rather to be enjoying herself, picking up lobsters wholly and dashing them to the ground. But Elinor persisted and at last Lady Middleton acceded—the three reached the exit just as a joint command of hydro-zoologists and British marines, wearing thrice-reinforced danger suits, poured into the amphitheatre.

Scarcely a word was spoken by the Dashwoods during their return to Berkeley Causeway. Elinor was still quivering with the exertion of their near escape; Marianne was in a silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; and Lady Middleton was happily gnawing lobster meat from the giant claw she had earlier torn free from its bearer.

Mrs. Jennings was luckily not come home, so they could go directly to their own room, where water mixed with the contents of two wine powder packets restored Marianne a little to herself. She was soon undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings, had leisure enough for thinking over what had happened.

That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it, seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes,
she
could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension
of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it—but there was no doubt that such a regard had formerly existed.

As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could
esteem
Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby—in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.

There was something else troubling about the night’s events: those lobsters, as best Elinor could tell, hadn’t even attempted to feast on their victims, only to savage them and then move on to the next. They were, in other words, mauling and killing human beings for pleasure—the foremost trait that was supposed to have been trained from them in the laboratories of Hydra-Z.

This disturbing fact competed with her contemplations of Marianne’s misfortune, until at last she fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep.

E
LINOR WOKE THE NEXT MORNING
with visions of rust-coloured claws still snapping menacingly in her head; her sister, contrastingly, seemed to have little remembrance of the homicidal lobsters and remained mired in her former preoccupation. Only half dressed, Marianne was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of all
the dim sea-green light that poured in from the swirling ocean outside the glass, and writing as fast as a continual flow of tears would permit her. She ignored the squid that sat slavering just outside the glass, watching her with its giant popeyes and dragging its tentacles against the Dome-glass. After observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety, Elinor asked in a tone of the most considerate gentleness:

“Marianne, may I ask—”

“No, Elinor,” she replied. “Ask nothing; you will soon know all.”

The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proof enough that she was writing for the last time to Willoughby.

Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power, She would have tried to soothe and tranquilize her still more, had not Marianne eagerly entreated her not to speak. In such circumstances, it was better for both that they should not be long together; and the restless state of Marianne’s mind not only prevented her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed, but requiring at once solitude and continual change of place, made her wander about the house, avoiding the sight of everybody.

At breakfast Marianne neither ate nor attempted to eat anything; her packets of tea powder and scone-and-jam-flavoured food loaf sat unopened on the table before her. They were just setting themselves in, after breakfast, round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room. Elinor knew that it must come from Willoughby, and she felt immediately such a sickness at heart as made her hardly able to hold up her head, and sat in such a general tremor as made her fear it impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings’s notice. But that good lady, much distracted by Elinor’s detailed description
of the mutant lobsters who had set upon them at Hydra-Z, saw only that Marianne had received a letter from Willoughby, which appeared to her a very good joke, and which she treated accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that she would find it to her liking.

“Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love in my life!
My
girls were foolish enough, running after this or that young princeling or shaman, until the day when Sir John’s adventuring party dragged us all away in sacks.” Here she laughed and then sighed with amused nostalgia before picking up the thread of her comment. “But as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won’t keep her waiting much longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn. Pray, when are they to be married?”

Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment, obliged herself to answer. “And have you really, Ma’am, talked yourself into a persuasion of my sister’s being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to imply more. I do assure you that nothing would surprise me more than to hear of their going to be married. If you had told me yesterday that monster-lobsters would rise from their pool and attempt to slay everyone present, I could not have found the notion more surprising—though obviously today I know differently.”

“For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! How can you talk so? Don’t we all know that it must be a match, that they were in love with each other from the first moment they met? Did not I see them together in Devonshire every day, and all day long, dancing jigs and singing shanties and carrying on? And did not I know that your sister came to the Sub-Station with me on purpose to buy wedding clothes at the Retail Embankment’s most fashionable shops? Come, come, this won’t do. Because you are so sly about it yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such thing, I can tell you, for it has been known all over the Station ever so long. I tell every body of it and so does Charlotte.”

“Indeed, Ma’am,” said Elinor, very seriously, “you are mistaken. Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report.”

Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more, and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand, and two or three others laying by her. Elinor drew near, but without saying a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed her affectionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of tears, which at first was scarcely less violent than Marianne’s. The latter, though unable to speak, put all the letters into Elinor’s hands; and then covering her face with her handkerchief, almost screamed with agony. A school of minnows observed her pitilessly from the other side of the glass. Elinor watched by her till this excess of suffering had somewhat spent itself, and then turning eagerly to Willoughby’s letter, read as follows:

Bond Causeway,
January
.

MY DEAR MADAM,

I have just had the honour of receiving your letter, for which I beg to return my sincere acknowledgments. I trust that you and your sister survived the crustaceous uprising unharmed, and are safely returned to your docking. I am much concerned to find there was anything in my behaviour last night that did not meet your approbation; if I should have offered you some measure of protection from the clawing onslaught, I regret that in the panic I was unable to do so. I shall never reflect on my former acquaintance with your family off the coast of Devonshire without the most grateful pleasure. My esteem for your whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself for not having been
more guarded in my professions of that esteem. That I should ever have meant more you will allow to be impossible, when you understand that my affections have been long engaged elsewhere, and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before this engagement is fulfilled. This treasure hunter has found that treasure which is most sought, and soon I am to dig it up. It is with great regret that I obey your commands in returning the letters with which I have been honoured from you, and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly bestowed on me.