Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (32 page)

“Not at all, I believe, with you.”

“That is a good thing. And Lady Middleton, is
she
angry?”

“I cannot suppose it possible that she should be.”

“I am monstrous glad of it. Good gracious! I have had such a time of it! I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. Oh, dear—are you quite well? I would leave it alone, dear.”

The last remark was in response to Elinor’s wince of pain; she had ventured to lift off one of her bandages, and found in doing so that the pain of her neck was as sharp as when the sea scorpion had originally connected itself to her.

“Well, but Miss Dashwood,” Miss Steele continued triumphantly, “people may say what they choose about Mr. Ferrars declaring he would not have Lucy, for it is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such ill-natured reports to be spread abroad. Whatever Lucy might think about it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set it down for certain.”

“I never heard anything of the kind hinted at before, I assure you,” said Elinor.

“Oh, did not you? But it
was
said, I know, and by more than one! At the man versus giant catfish event on Thursday evening, in Hydra-Z, Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses could expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with thirty thousand pounds to her fortune, and heir to the Sub-Station Alpha Family besides, for Lucy Steele that had nothing at all.”

“I believe in my heart Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother’s docking Wednesday, and we saw nothing of Mr. Ferrars not all Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and did not know what was become of him. Once Lucy thought to write to him, but then her spirits rose against that. However this morning he came and it all came out, how he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Piscina, and been talked to by his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before them all that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he have.

“As soon as he had went away from his mother’s house, and Ascended
the Station entirely and taken off in his own personal submarine, he stayed at an inn all Thursday and Friday just to get the better of it. And after thinking it all over and over again, he said that it would be quite unkind to keep her on to the engagement. If he was to become a poor lighthouse keeper, how were they to live upon that? Edward could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the matter directly, and leave him shift for himself. I heard him say all this as plain as could possibly be. And it was entirely for
her
sake, and upon
her
account, that he said a word about being off, and not upon his own. I will take my oath he never dropped a syllable of being tired of her, or of wishing to marry Miss Morton, or anything like it. But Lucy would not give ear to such kind of talking. She told him directly (with a great deal about sweet and love, you know, and all that— one can’t repeat such kind of things), she had not the least mind in the world to be off, for she could live with him upon a trifle, and how little so ever he might have, she should be very glad to have it all. So then he was monstrous happy, and talked on some time about what they should do, and they agreed he should become a lighthouse keeper directly, and they must wait to be married till he got some good, desolate monster-wracked beach in need of able lighthouse keeping. And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin called from below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come ‘pon her tortoise, and would take one of us to the Gardens; so I was forced to go into the room and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go.”

“I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them,” said Elinor. “You were all in the same room together, were not you?”

“No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love when anybody else is by? You must know better than that! No, no, they were shut up in the drawing-room together, and all I heard was by holding the funnel end of a seashell up to the door and listening in the pointy end.”

“How!” cried Elinor. “Have you been repeating to me what you
only learnt yourself by listening at the door? I am sorry I did not know it before; for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me particulars of a conversation which you ought not to have known yourself. How could you behave so unfairly by your sister?”

“Oh, there is nothing in
that
. I only stood at the door, and heard what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me; for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets together, Lucy never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a chimney-board, or once even in the hollowed-out corpse of a walrus on purpose to hear what we said.”

Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be kept beyond a couple of minutes from what was uppermost in her mind.

“What an ill-natured woman his mother is, ain’t she? And your brother and sister were not very kind! However, I shan’t say anything against them to
you
; and to be sure they did send us home in their own gondola, which was more than I looked for.”

Elinor finished now unwinding the bandages, and, as Anne continued to speak she looked long at herself in the mirror—a deep gouge now marked her across the neck, exactly where her flesh had been torn free by the lobster-like claw of the scorpion. She gently drew a finger along the wound.

“Oh! Here come the Richardsons. I had a vast deal more to say to you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer.” Elinor gladly assented to Anne’s departure. She was left in possession of knowledge which might feed her powers of reflection for some time, though she had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and fore-planned in her own mind. Edward’s marriage with Lucy was as firmly determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely uncertain, as she had concluded it would be.

As they made their way home by gondola, Mrs. Jennings was so eager for information, it seemed as though she had forgotten that Elinor’s head had nearly been torn from her body by a demonically animated sea
scorpion. As Elinor wished to spread as little as possible intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as she felt assured that Lucy would choose to have known. The continuance of their engagement, and the means that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following natural remark.

“Wait for his having a good lighthouse! Aye, we all know how
that
will end. They will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it, will set down as keeper of some sad mud-pond at fifty pounds a year. Then they will have a child every year! And Lord help ‘em! How poor they will be! Dancing for fried-cakes and living beneath overturned canoes! I must see what I can give them towards furnishing their house.”

The next morning’s post-kayak brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from Lucy herself. It was as follows:

I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the liberty I take of writing to her; I know your friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such a good account of myself and my dear Edward. Though we have suffered dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy as we must always be in one another’s love. We have had great trials, and great persecutions, of the heart and, in my Edward’s case, of the feet also, but gratefully acknowledge many friends, yourself not the least among them. I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our parting, though earnestly did I urge him to it for prudence sake. Our prospects are not very bright, to be sure, but we must wait and hope for the best. Should it ever be in your power to recommend him to anybody that has an open lighthouse in need of keeping, I am very sure you will not forget us. I am almost out of squid ink; begging to be most
gratefully and respectfully remembered to Mrs. Jennings, and to Sir John and Lady Middleton, and the dear children, when you chance to see them, and love to Miss Marianne,

I am, etc., etc.

As soon as Elinor had finished the letter, she performed what she concluded to be its writer’s real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs. Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and praise.

“Very well indeed! How prettily she writes! Aye, that was quite proper to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy. Poor soul! I wish I
could
get him an open lighthouse, with all my heart. She calls me
dear
Mrs. Jennings, you see. She is a good-hearted girl as ever lived. That sentence is very prettily turned. O! Elinor! There is blood dripping from your neck. Here—hold this sponge to the wound—I am sorry I keep forgetting.”

T
HE MISS DASHWOODS HAD NOW BEEN
living in Sub-Station Beta for more than two months, and Marianne’s impatience to be gone increased every day. She sighed for the air, the liberty, the noxious but comforting sea-wind of Pestilent Isle; and fancied that if any place could give her ease, rickety old Barton Cottage must do it.

Elinor was hardly less anxious for their removal, but she was conscious of the difficulties of so long a journey, which Marianne could not be brought to acknowledge. She began to turn her thoughts towards its accomplishment, and had already mentioned their wishes to their kind hostess, who resisted them with all the eloquence of her good-will, when a plan was suggested, which, though detaining them from home yet a few
weeks longer, appeared to Elinor altogether much more eligible than any other. The Palmers were to remove to their houseboat,
The Cleveland
about the end of March, for the Easter holidays; and Mrs. Jennings, with both her friends, received a very warm invitation from Charlotte to go with them.

When Elinor told Marianne what she had done, however, her first reply was not very auspicious.

“
The Cleveland
!” she cried, with great agitation. “No, I cannot be moored upon
The Cleveland
.”

“You forget,” said Elinor gently, “that it is not in the neighbourhood of …”

“But it is moored off Somersetshire. I cannot go into Somersetshire! No, Elinor, you cannot expect me to go there.”

Elinor would not argue upon the propriety of overcoming such feelings; she only endeavoured to counteract them by working on others; represented it, therefore, as a measure which would fix the time of her returning to that dear mother, whom she so much wished to see. As they spoke, they noticed various of the household servants rushing by in great haste—Elinor endeavoured to stop one to inquire as to its cause, but was rebuffed; whatever the cause of their hurry, it could not brook surcease, even for a moment’s conversation.

Elinor returned to her entreaties. From
The Cleveland
, which was within a few miles of Bristol, the distance to the Devonshire coast was not far; and as there could be no occasion of their staying above a week aboard
The Cleveland
, they might now be at home in little more than three weeks’ time. As Marianne’s affection for her mother was sincere, it must triumph with little difficulty, over the imaginary evils she had started.

Mrs. Jennings was so far from being weary of her guests that she pressed them very earnestly to return with her again from
The Cleveland
. Elinor was grateful for the attention, but it could not alter her design; everything relative to their return was arranged as far as it could be; and Marianne found some relief in drawing up a statement of the hours that
were yet to divide her from their beloved shanty high atop the wind-swept cliffs of Pestilent Isle.

The issue was settled, and now Elinor was allowed luxury to discover the cause of agitation among the servants, who were still rushing hither and thither, and one of whom was donning his Ex-Domic Float-Suit and being outfitted with a pair of shiny gutting knives. By way of answer to Elinor’s enquiries, the newly costumed servant merely gestured with his knives to the back wall of the Dome-glass, where a half dozen swordfish were tapping steadily, and with military precision, against the glass. As Elinor watched, a seventh joined their school, and then an eighth. Looking closer, Elinor saw the true root of the servants’ distress and quick action: A clearly discernible and rapidly spreading network of tiny cracks in the Dome-glass, with its epicenter where the swordfish continued at their unending labour.

Tap, tap, tap … tap tap tap … taptaptap …

She gave the servant an encouraging smile, and watched as he disappeared down the small hallway that led to the emergency exit chamber. By then, Colonel Brandon had arrived, and Mrs. Jennings had apprised him of the Dashwoods’ plan for Ascending the Sub-Station and returning home, via a visit to the Palmers.

“Ah! Colonel Brandon, I do not know what you and I shall do without the Miss Dashwoods,” was her plaintive address to him, “for they are quite resolved upon going home from the Palmers—and how forlorn we shall be, when I come back! Lord! We shall sit and gape at one another as dull as two cats; one old, slightly crazy cat, and one cat with a mass of writhing slimy tentacles in place of whiskers!”

Perhaps Mrs. Jennings was hoping, by this vigorous sketch of their future ennui, to provoke Colonel Brandon to make that offer which might give himself an escape from it—and if so, she had soon afterwards good reason to think her object gained; for, on Elinor’s moving to the aquarium glass to watch the knife-bearing servant’s efforts to dispatch the ever-multiplying number of swordfish, he followed her to it with a look of
particular meaning, and conversed with her there for several minutes. But his subject was not, as Mrs. Jennings hoped, romantic affection; all over the Sub-Station, Colonel Brandon confided to Elinor, outer-ring residents were reporting similar pecking swordfish massing outside the Dome, and all were sending out their own servants to do battle with them.