Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (10 page)

“Nonsense!” cried Mrs. Jennings. “What can you have to do on the Sub-Marine Station at this time of year?”

“My own loss is great,” he continued, “in being obliged to leave so agreeable a party; but I am the more concerned, as I fear my presence is necessary to enable your exploration of the sunken battleship.”

What a blow upon them all was this!

“We must go,” said Sir John. “It shall not be put off when we are so near it. You cannot go to the Station till to-morrow, Brandon, that is all.”

“I wish it could be so easily settled. But it is not in my power to delay my journey for one day!”

“Oh, do not allow your tentacles to become twisted! You would not be six hours later,” said Willoughby, “if you were to defer your journey till our return.” He wore his full diving costume and helmet for the expedition, and had left Monsieur Pierre, who was not a strong swimmer, at home.

“I cannot afford to lose
one
hour.”

Willoughby felt the disappointment all the more keenly than the others of the party, as he had heard rumours that a chest of treasure still sat in the captain’s cabin of the
Mary
, and it was his firm intention to find and crack it. Elinor heard him say, in a low voice to Marianne, “There are some people who cannot bear a party of pleasure. Brandon is one of them. He was afraid of catching cold, or being mistaken for a mating partner by a she-squid; and he invented this trick for getting out of the trip. I would lay fifty guineas the letter was of his own writing.”

“I have no doubt of it,” replied Marianne.

“There is no persuading you to change your mind, Brandon, I know of old,” said Sir John, “when once you are determined on anything. I can tell your resolution even now, by the way your appendages point towards the door. But, however, I hope you will think better of it.

Colonel Brandon again repeated his sorrow at being the cause of disappointing the party—but at the same time declared it to be unavoidable.

“Well, then, when will you come back again?”

“I hope we shall see you at Deadwind Island,” added her ladyship, “as soon as you can conveniently return to us from Sub-Marine Station Beta; and we must put off the party to the shipwreck till you return.”

“You are very obliging. But it is so uncertain, when I may have it in my power to return, that I dare not engage for it at all.”

“Oh! He must and shall come back,” cried Sir John. “If he is not here by the end of the week, I shall go after him.”

“Aye, so do, Sir John,” cried Mrs. Jennings, “and then perhaps you may find out what his business is.”

“I do not want to pry into other men’s concerns. I suppose it is something he is ashamed of.”

Colonel Brandon’s vessel was announced.

“Well, as you are resolved to go, I wish you a good journey,” said Sir John. “But you had better change your mind.”

“I assure you it is not in my power.”

He then took leave of the whole party.

“Is there no chance of my seeing you and your sisters at Sub-Marine Station Beta this winter, Miss Dashwood?”

“I am afraid, none at all. We have no business there or docking station of our own.”

“Then I must bid you farewell for a longer time than I should wish to do.”

To Marianne, he merely bowed, gave a polite tip of the tentacles, and said nothing. “Come Colonel,” said Mrs. Jennings, “before you go, do let us know what you are going about.”

He wished her a good morning, and attended by Sir John, left the room.

The complaints and lamentations which politeness had hitherto restrained, now burst forth universally; and they all agreed again and again how provoking it was to be so disappointed. Then Mrs. Jennings animatedly relayed what she suspected to be the reason of Colonel Brandon’s hasty departure.

“It is about Miss Williams, I am sure.”

“And who is Miss Williams?” asked Marianne.

“What! Do not you know who Miss Williams is? I am sure you must have heard of her before. She is a relation of the colonel’s, my dear; a very near relation. We will not say how near, for fear of shocking the young ladies.” Mrs. Jennings paused to make a leering, insinuating expression, and then said to Elinor, “She is his natural daughter.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, yes; and as like him as she can stare.”

“Like him?” said Marianne. “You mean …”

“She’s even got the …” echoed Elinor, trailing off and making a vague gesture towards her face.

“Oh yes,” Sir John confirmed. “I dare say the colonel will leave her all his fortune.”

Sir John then changed the subject to the predicament of the cancelled
journey, observing that they must do something by way of being happy; and after some consultation it was agreed that they might procure a tolerable composure of mind by embarking on a brief pleasure tour of some of the tiniest specks of land that composed the outer ring of the archipelago. The yachts were then ordered; Willoughby’s was first, bearing proudly on its hull his distinctive monogram, a handsome
W
shaped from four treasure-digging shovels; and Marianne never looked happier than when she got into it. They were sailed by its expert crew through the inlet very fast, and they were soon out of sight; and nothing more of them was seen till their return, which did not happen till after the return of all the rest.

Some more came to dinner, and they had the pleasure of sitting down nearly twenty to table, which Sir John observed with great contentment. For this occasion, Lady Middleton took great pleasure in slow-roasting the bile ducts of a whole family of sloths. Willoughby took his usual place between the two elder Miss Dashwoods. Mrs. Jennings sat on Elinor’s right hand; and they had not been long seated, before she leant behind her and Willoughby, and said to Marianne, loud enough for them both to hear, “I have found you out in spite of all your tricks. I know where you spent the morning.”

Marianne coloured, and replied very hastily, “Where, pray?”

“Did not you know,” said Willoughby, “that we had been out touring the islands, like the others of the company?”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Impudence, I know that very well, and I was determined to find out
where
you had been to. I hope you like your house, Miss Marianne. It is a very large one, and well fortified!” She gave a satisfied wink and happily slurped a mouthful of her sloth bile.

Marianne turned away in great confusion. Mrs. Jennings laughed heartily and explained that in her resolution to know where they had been, she had actually made her own woman enquire of Mr. Willoughby’s yachtsman; by that method she had been informed that they had gone to the manor belonging to Willoughby’s aunt, on Allenham Isle, and spent a
considerable time there in admiring the hanging caverns and going all over the house.

Elinor could hardly believe this to be true, as it seemed very unlikely that Willoughby should propose, or Marianne consent, to enter the house while Mrs. Smith was in it, with whom Marianne had not the smallest acquaintance. As soon as they left the dining-room, Elinor enquired of her about it; and great was her surprise when she found that every circumstance suggested by Mrs. Jennings was perfectly true. Marianne was quite angry with her for doubting it.

“Why should you imagine, Elinor, that we did not go beach Willoughby’s yacht there or that we did not see the house? Is not it what you have often wished to do yourself?”

“Yes, Marianne, but I would not go while Mrs. Smith was there, and with no other companion than Mr. Willoughby and his French orangutan.”

“Mr. Willoughby is the only person who can show that house. I never spent a pleasanter morning in my life.”

“I am afraid,” replied Elinor, “that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.”

“On the contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it. If there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting wrong, and with such a conviction I could have had no pleasure.”

“But, my dear Marianne, as it has already exposed you to some very impertinent remarks, do you not now doubt the discretion of your own conduct?”

“If the impertinent remarks of Mrs. Jennings are to be the proof of impropriety in conduct, we are all offending every moment of our lives. I am not sensible of having done anything wrong in seeing Mrs. Smith’s house. It will one day be Mr. Willoughby’s, and—”

“If it were one day to be your own, Marianne, you would not be justified in what you have done.”

Marianne blushed at this hint, and after a ten minutes’ interval of
earnest thought, she came to her sister again, and said with great good humour, “Perhaps, Elinor, it was rather ill-judged in me to go to Allenham Isle and enter the home there; but Mr. Willoughby wanted particularly to show me the place; and it is a charming house, I assure you. I did not see it to advantage, for nothing could be more forlorn than the furniture, unless it was the moss that clings to the exterior staircases of the manor—but if it were newly fitted up—a couple of hundred pounds, Willoughby says, would make it one of the pleasantest island redoubts off the English coast.”

T
HE SUDDEN AND MYSTERIOUS
termination of Colonel Brandon’s visit to the archipelago raised the wonder of Mrs. Jennings for two or three days, and she babbled and chattered about it constantly. She was a great wonderer, as everyone must be who takes a lively interest in the comings and goings of all their acquaintance. She wondered, with little intermission, what could be the reason of it; was sure there must be some bad news, and thought over every kind of distress that could have befallen him; and she even acted out her favourites, which were “his grandfather was seized by pirates” and “his prized post-chaise was accidentally driven into a tar pit.”

“Whatever the cause, something very melancholy must be the matter, I am sure,” was her conclusion. “I could see it in his face.”

The rest wondered aloud how Mrs. Jennings could see anything in Colonel Brandon’s face, besides a living reproach never to displease a sea witch. But all agreed they would give anything to know the truth of it.

Lady Middleton put an end to the wondering talk by declaring with an air of finality, “Well, I wish him out of all his trouble with all my heart,
and a good wife into the bargain. And”—with a meaningful glance towards her husband—“not one smuggled from her ancestral homeland in an enormous burlap sack.” At this sidelong reproach, Sir John merely chuckled into his beard.

While Elinor felt interested in the welfare of Colonel Brandon, she could not bestow so much wonder on his going so suddenly away; she was more intrigued by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on the subject of their engagement. As this silence continued, every day made it appear more strange and more incompatible with the disposition of both. Elinor could not imagine why they should not openly acknowledge to her mother and herself, what their constant behaviour to each other declared to have taken place.

She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately in their power; for though Willoughby was independent, there was no reason to believe him rich. His estate had been rated by Sir John at about six or seven hundred a year; but he lived at an expense to which that income could hardly be equal—between maintaining a small pack of treasure-seeking dogs, and the care and feeding of his collection of aquatic exotica. Willoughby lived in the constant anticipation and sure expectation of one day finding a buried treasure that would render him independent, but in the meantime he had himself often complained of his poverty. But Elinor could not account for this strange kind of secrecy relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all; and it was so wholly contradictory to their general opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind of their being really engaged.

Nothing could be more expressive of attachment to them all than Willoughby’s behaviour. To Marianne it had all the distinguishing tenderness which a lover’s heart could give, and to the rest of the family it was the affectionate attention of a son and a brother. Their little rickety shanty perched on the rocks above the cove seemed to be considered and loved by him as his home; many more of his hours were spent there than at his aunt’s manor on Allenham Isle; and if no general engagement
collected them on Deadwind Island, his morning treasure hunt was almost certain of ending there. The rest of the day was spent at Marianne’s side, with Monsieur Pierre hanging familiarly from her midsection.

Though his attention was most firmly focused on Marianne, Willoughby was genial to Mrs. Dashwood and to Elinor, and he was even teasingly tolerant of young Margaret, how she was always underfoot, wandering about the house, muttering darkly about “Them” and “It”—and staring for hours at a time out the southerly window, her eyes locked on the desolate summit of Mount Margaret.

On one occasion did this fascination turn perilous, and Willoughby had his second opportunity of saving a Dashwood from imminent peril. The family was assembled in the second-floor parlour, listening to Marianne play upon the pianoforte, when they heard Margaret screaming from below.

“
K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah!
” she shouted. “
K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah!”

“What can those words signify?” wondered Elinor.

“And to whom is she screaming?” added Mrs. Dashwood. “There is not a soul on this island but us.”

They then heard the front door slam closed; rushing to the front door, Elinor, Willoughby, and Mrs. Dashwood saw Margaret running feverishly down the rain-slicked wooden stairs that connected the cliff-side to the shore. “Mind your step, Margaret!” Mrs. Dashwood shouted.

“I must find them! I must find them!” And then, calling out deliriously over the island’s echoing hills, “
K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah!
”

Marianne heard all this clamour from without, but did not move from where she had risen from the pianoforte—for, in rising, she had happened to look out the southerly window, and saw it: A column of steam, pouring forth with great force from the hill that sat at the centre of the island. “Elinor …” she said in a tremulous whisper. “Elinor?”