Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (35 page)

“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Jennings, “Understood.”

Lucy, finding the others less enthusiastic about pondering her happy future than she was, left to find her sister, who she had last seen desperately struggling to engage her Float-Suit. Elinor’s gladness at her departure lasted until the arrival of John Dashwood, whose recent experiences in the service of the Sub-Station laboratories had served him in good stead in the catastrophe, particular the prodigious swimming ability lent to him by his webbed toes and begilled lungs.

“Eight … eight minutes …”

“I am not sorry to see you alone,” he said to Elinor, “for I have a good deal to say to you.”

“Do not fear, brother—I have survived the wreck of the Sub-Station, as has Marianne. Margaret and our mother, as you know, are safe at home on Pestilent Island and so were spared this ungodly calamity.” Even as she said the words, Elinor recalled the distressing news of Margaret she had had in her mother’s last missive, and she silently fingered the torn patch of thin paper, with its grim Biblical quotation, still tucked inside her bodice and miraculously (or was it ominously?) preserved in the flood.

“Oh, yes, yes, that,” said Mr. Dashwood dismissively. As always, financial matters, for him, trumped all considerations, even the destruction of the foremost British city by an army of all-destroying fish. “This lighthouse provided by Colonel Brandon’s—can it be true? Has he really given it to Edward? I was coming to you on purpose to enquire further about it when all of this began.”

“It is perfectly true. Colonel Brandon has given the lighthouse at Delaford to Edward.”

“Really! Well, this is very astonishing! No relationship! No connection between them! And now that lighthouse posts fetch such a price! What was the value of this?”

“About two hundred a year.”

“It is truly astonishing!” he cried, after hearing what she said. “What could be the colonel’s motive?”

“A very simple one—to be of use to Mr. Ferrars.”

“Well, well; whatever Colonel Brandon may be, Edward is a very lucky man. You will not mention the matter to Fanny, however, for though I have broke it to her, and she bears it vastly well, she will not like to hear it much talked of. If she survived all this, of course,” he added, a shadow of distress passing over his face. “You haven’t seen her, have you? No? Ah, well.”

“Seven… . Gather your belongings, if any you may still possess.”

“Mrs. Ferrars,” added Mr. Dashwood, lowering his voice so as not to be heard by the white-coated ferry servant counting down the minutes to the emergency ferry’s Ascension, “knows nothing about it at present, and I believe it will be best to keep it entirely concealed from her as long as may be. When the marriage takes place, I fear she must hear of it all.

“My God!” Elinor replied. “Can such an elderly personage have survived this calamity?”

“Indeed,” he answered. “I saw her with my own eyes; her Float-Suit engaged and she kicked with a strength quite startling in someone of her advanced age.” Elinor reflected that someone who took such evident displeasure in all aspects of life should fight so stubbornly against death.

“It is doubtless, Elinor,” John continued, “that when Edward’s unhappy match takes place, depend upon it, his mother will feel as much as if she had never discarded him; and, therefore, every circumstance that may accelerate that dreadful event, must be concealed from her as much as possible. Mrs. Ferrars can never forget that Edward is her son.”

“You surprise me. I should think it must nearly have escaped her memory by
this
time.”

“Six …”

“You wrong her exceedingly. Mrs. Ferrars is one of the most affectionate mothers in the world.”

Elinor was silent.

“We think
now
,” said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, “of
Robert’s
marrying Miss Morton. If, that is, Robert has survived, and Miss Morton has survived.” For a moment, John and Elinor hung their heads in silence, as the overwhelming nature of this great tragedy struck them like a blow. So much death—so much destruction.

Elinor at last summoned the fortitude to calmly reply, “The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair.”

“Choice!—how do you mean?”

“Five minutes,” called the servant, “All aboard … all aboard for emergency Ascension …”

They continued their conversation as they climbed aboard the Emergency Ferry, a one-hundred-foot iron-hulled submarine with a vast interior cabin, wide as a cow-pasture, lined with uncomfortable, utilitarian wooden benches.

“I only mean that I suppose,” Eleanor continued as they squeezed into spots, “from your manner of speaking, it must be the same to Miss Morton whether she marry Edward or Robert.”

“Certainly, there can be no difference; for Robert will now to all intents and purposes be considered as the eldest son; and as to anything else, they are both very agreeable young men: I do not know that one is superior to the other.”

Elinor said no more, and John was also for a short time silent; they felt the powerful engines of the submarine engage, and Elinor breathed an interior sigh of relief that the vessel hadn’t been sabotaged by sea monsters, or simply waterlogged in the catastrophe.

“Of
one
thing, my dear sister,” John said, kindly taking her hand, and speaking in an awful whisper, “I have good reason to think—indeed I have it from the best authority, or I should not repeat it, for otherwise it would be very wrong to say anything about it—”

“Four minutes!”

“You best summon the ability to reveal it, dear brother.”

“I have it from the very best authority—not that I ever precisely
heard Mrs. Ferrars say it herself—but her daughter
did
, and I have it from her—that in short, whatever objections there might be against a certain— a certain connection—you understand me—it would have been far preferable to her, it would not have given her half the vexation that
this
does. But however, all that is quite out of the question—not to be thought of or mentioned—as to any attachment you know—it never could be— all that is gone by. But I thought I would just tell you of this, because I knew how much it must please you. Not that you have any reason to regret, my dear Elinor. There is no doubt of your doing exceedingly well. Has Colonel Brandon been with you lately?”

Elinor had heard enough to agitate her nerves and fill her mind, and she was glad to be distracted by the powerful sensation of the submarine’s thruster-propellers whirring to life beneath the vast hull. She was spared from the necessity of saying much in reply herself, and from the danger of hearing anything more from her brother, by the entrance of Mr. Robert Ferrars, panting and out of breath, lugging an oversized wooden trunk on his back like a mule.

“I made it!” he cheered gaily. “By God I made it, and barely nicked the good china along the way!”

“Three …” came the voice of the servant, and it was instantly echoed by the voice of the captain, hollering along the long cabin of the submarine. “Three minutes to Ascension.”

“Three! My God!” hollered John Dashwood, and hastened away to make a last-minute search for Fanny and their child. Elinor was left to improve her acquaintance with Robert, who, by the happy self-complacency of his manner on this most desperate of occasions, was confirming her most unfavourable opinion of his head and heart.

As he buckled himself in to an adjoining ferry bench, Robert promptly began to speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the posting at the Delaford lighthouse, and was very inquisitive on the subject. Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as she had given them to John; and their affect on Robert, though very different, was not less striking than it had
been on
him
. He laughed most immoderately. The idea of Edward’s being a mere lighthouse keeper, and tracking the movements of some second-rate Loch Ness Monster, diverted him beyond measure; he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.

“Two minutes!”

Elinor, even as she gritted her teeth and prepared for the lurching motion of the great submarine’s departure, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed on Robert with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited.

“We may treat it as a joke,” said he, at last, recovering from the affected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety of the moment—”but, upon my soul, it is a most serious business. Poor Edward! He is ruined forever. I am extremely sorry for it—for I know him to be a very good-hearted creature. You must not judge of him, Miss Dashwood, from
your
slight acquaintance. Poor Edward! His manners are certainly not the happiest in nature. But we are not all born, you know, with the same powers. Poor fellow!—to see him in a circle of strangers!— among
lake
people! But upon my soul, I believe he has as good a heart as any in the kingdom; and I declare and protest to you I never was so shocked in my life, as when it all burst forth. My mother was the first person who told me of it; and I, feeling myself called on to act with resolution, immediately said to her, ‘My dear madam, I do not know what you may intend to do on the occasion, but as for myself, I must say, that if Edward does marry this young woman, I never will see him again.’ Poor Edward! He has done for himself completely, shut himself out for ever from all decent society! But, as I directly said to my mother, I am not in the least surprised at it; from his style of education, it was always to be expected. My poor mother was half frantic.”

Unmoved by this appeal to empathy for Mrs. Ferrars, and indeed weary of the whole line of conversation, Elinor happened to look outside the window of the Ferry, where a universe of fish now swam and darted happily through the ruins of the elaborate civilization that had been built on their turf. She happened to spy, as she looked disconsolately
at the wreck of the Sub-Station, a small, cigar-shaped one-person submarine of an old-fashioned design, whooshing rapidly by in a spray of bubbles. Behind the wheel was Lady Middleton, who—for the first time since she had made that worthy’s acquaintance—was smiling; indeed, grinning from ear to ear, and, or so Elinor thought, whooping loudly with pleasure.

Recovering herself from this remarkable sight, Elinor rejoined her conversation with Robert Ferrars. “Have you ever seen Edward’s intended?” she asked.

“Yes; once, while she was staying in our house, I happened to drop in for ten minutes; and I saw quite enough of her. The merest awkward country girl, without style, or elegance, and almost without beauty. Just the kind of girl I should suppose likely to captivate poor Edward. I offered immediately, as soon as my mother related the affair to me, to talk to him myself, and dissuade him from the match; but it was too late
then
, I found, to do anything. But had I been informed of it a few hours earlier—I think it is most probable—that something might have been hit on. I certainly should have represented it to Edward in a very strong light. ‘My dear fellow, you are making a most disgraceful connection, and such a one as your family are unanimous in disapproving.’ But now it is all too late. He must be starved, you know—that is certain; absolutely starved. He would have been better off,
if
he lived through what has just occurred, to have drowned instead.”

Elinor thought she could bear no more of this, when the grave voice of the public address reached its conclusion.

“ONE … be braced …”

And the turbines revved up to their full capacity, and the propellers whirred faster, and the seat rumbled beneath her as the Ascension Station discharged the emergency ferry, with all its passengers aboard; Elinor looked around, and saw that, two benches over, Marianne was looking out the window of the ferry with the same sentimental regard she looked upon all places, at all times, on leaving them—no matter what level of
affection she may have bore during her time there. On this occasion, however, Elinor shared in her moist-eyed regard.

Sub-Marine Station Beta was no more.

T
HERE WAS NO SENSE
in further discussion; continuance on Sub-Station Beta having been rendered a tragic impossibility, every circumstance now dictated that the Dashwood sisters, in company with Mrs. Jennings, proceed to
The Cleveland
, from where they would proceed after a suitable interval back to Pestilent Isle and the comforts of Barton Cottage. The two parties who would be travelling hence, disembarked from Emergency Ferry No. 12 and met on a small atoll, three nautical miles from the former location of Sub-Marine Station Beta. For the convenience of Charlotte and her child, they were to be more than two days on their journey. Colonel Brandon, travelling separately, was to join them aboard
The Cleveland
soon after their arrival.

They would travel to
The Cleveland
aboard the
Rusted Nail
, the hearty old two-masted pirate schooner which Mr. Palmer captained in his buccaneering youth; their escort was an assortment of Palmer’s former crewmen, with whom he had fortuitously been assembled on an island redoubt for a reunion holiday at the time of the Sub-Station’s collapse. These gentlemen of fortune were the usual assortment of colourful characters, each with their own affable eccentricities; there was, besides Mr. Palmer, by now well known to the Dashwoods, McBurdry, the genial and foul-smelling ship’s cook; One-Eyed Peter, who had two working eyes, and Two-Eyed Scotty, who had one; Billy Rafferty, the cabin boy; and the first mate, Mr. Benbow, a massively tall half-blood Irishman with
feathers sewn into his beard; Benbow was as famous a curmudgeon as any man on the seas, and he looked so dourly upon the prospect of passengers that, whenever he encountered Mrs. Palmer, her child, or either Dashwood, he made the sign of the cross and spat thickly on the foredeck.

As eager as Marianne had been to quit the Station, she could not bid adieu to the now-extinct undersea paradise in which she had for the last time enjoyed her confidence in Willoughby. Elinor’s only consolation was her expectation that the company of the
Nail
’s crew would provide the pirate-enthusiast Marianne with a pleasurable distraction from her thorough-going melancholy.