Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Jane Austen; Ben H. Winters

  “It is certainly an unpleasant thing,” replied Mr. Dashwood, “to have those kinds of yearly drains on one’s income. One’s fortune, as your mother justly says, is not one’s own. To be tied to the regular payment of such a sum on every rent day, like Odysseus lashed to the mast, is by no means desirable: It takes away one’s independence.”

  “Undoubtedly, and you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely.”

  “I believe you are right, my love. It will be better that there should be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father.”

  “To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth I am convinced that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them.”

  Their conversation was cut short by the clang of the monster bell; the servants were arriving in a mad panic and bringing up the drawbridge. The front coil of a fire-serpent had been spotted by the night watchman through his spyglass; the beast was some leagues out to sea, but it was uncertain how far inland such creatures could deliver a fireball.

  “Perhaps it is best we cower in the attic for the time being,” suggested John Dashwood to his wife, who most readily agreed, pushing past him as they rushed up the stairs.

  This conversation gave to Mr. Dashwood’s intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and by the time they emerged to find, to their relief, that only a small woodland parcel on the outskirts of the estate had been singed, he had resolved that it would be absolutely unnecessary to do more for the widow and children of his father than he and his wife had determined.

  CHAPTER 3

  MRS. DASHWOOD WAS INDEFATIGABLE in her enquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland, somewhere at a similar remove from the shoreline, if not the same elevation, as their current residence; for to remove from the beloved spot was impossible. But she could hear of no situation that at once answered her notions of comfort and ease, and suited the prudence of Elinor, whose steadier judgment rejected several houses as too large for their income, or too hard by the water’s edge.

  On the tragic night that Henry Dashwood was murdered by the hammerhead, Mrs. Dashwood had glimpsed what her mutilated husband scrawled in the sand and heard John’s solemn promise in their favour; she considered that it gave what comfort it could to her husband’s last earthly reflections. She doubted the sincerity of this assurance no more than he had doubted it himself, and she thought of it for her daughters’ sake with satisfaction. For their brother’s sake, too, for the sake of his own heart, she rejoiced, and she reproached herself for being unjust to his merit before, in believing him incapable of generosity. His attentive behaviour to herself and his sisters, stopping by their rooms in the evening to run his hands along the window frames, feeling for the tiny, blight-bearing water bugs that would sneak their way in through the smallest opening, convinced her that their welfare was dear to him. She firmly relied on the liberality of his intentions.

  The contempt which she felt for her daughter-in-law was very much increased by the further knowledge of her character, which half a year’s residence in her family afforded. She was astonished to hear Margaret harshly scolded for helping herself to a second generous portion of craw-fish stew; where Fanny Dashwood saw a gluttonous and unmannered girl-child, her mother-in-law saw a young woman taking appropriate enjoyment in every opportunity to dine upon the hated foe. In short, the two Mrs. Dashwoods had as much mutual antipathy as two barracudas trapped in the same small tank. They might have found it impossible to have lived together long, had not a particular circumstance occurred to give still greater eligibility to their continuance at Norland.

  This circumstance was a growing attachment between her eldest girl and the brother of Mrs. John Dashwood, who was introduced to their acquaintance soon after his sister’s establishment at Norland, and who had since spent the greatest part of his time there.

  Some mothers might have encouraged the intimacy from motives of interest, for Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died very rich, having amassed a vast fortune from the manufacture and sale of sterling-silver lobster tongs; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence, for the whole of his fortune depended on the will of his mother. But Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either consideration. It was enough for her that he appeared to be amiable, that he loved her daughter, and that Elinor returned the partiality. It was contrary to every doctrine of hers that difference of fortune should keep any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of disposition; life was too short, and too many dangers lurked under every sea-slimed rock, to act otherwise. Of course, that Elinor’s merit should not be acknowledged by everyone who knew her was impossible to comprehend.

  Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. But when his natural shyness was overcome, his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart. His understanding was good, and his education had given it solid improvement. But he was neither fitted by abilities nor disposition to answer the wishes of his mother and sister, who longed to see him distinguished—as—they hardly knew what. They wanted him to make a fine figure in the world in some manner or other. His mother wished to interest him in political concerns, to get him into government, perhaps, or into aquatic engineering on the great freshwater canals of Sub-Marine Station Beta. Mrs. John Dashwood wished it likewise, but in the meanwhile it would have quieted her ambition to see him managing a gondola fleet.

  But Edward had no turn for great men or gondolas; his ambition was more modest. All his wishes centered in domestic comfort and the quiet of private life. He was an avid scholar who had spent many years elaborating a personal theory of the Alteration. Edward Ferrars was skeptical of the poison-stream theory, which had seduced Mr. Henry Dashwood to set off, with such tragic results, in search of the mythic headwaters; he believed the calamity’s origins could be located in the time of the Tudors, when Henry VIII turned his back on the Holy Church. God in his vengeance, thought Edward, had smote the English race for this impertinence and set the beasts of the sea against them.

  Such scholarly theorizing was dismissed by Fanny and their mother as a waste of time and potential; fortunately Edward had a younger brother who was more promising.

  Edward had been staying several weeks in the house before he engaged much of Mrs. Dashwood’s attention. She was, at that time, in such affliction as rendered her careless of surrounding objects. When at last she noticed him, she saw only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it. He did not disturb the wretchedness of her mind with ill-timed conversation.

  She was called to observe and approve Edward further by a reflection which Elinor chanced one day to make on the difference between him and his sister. It was a contrast which recommended him most forcibly to her mother.

  “It is enough,” said Mrs. Dashwood, as they sat at the breakfast table one morning, “to say that he is unlike Fanny. It implies everything amiable. I love him already.”

  “I think you will like him,” replied Elinor, “when you know more of him.”

  “Like him!” replied her mother with a smile. “I can feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love.”

  “You may esteem him!”

  “I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem and love.”

  Mrs. Dashwood now took pains to get acquainted with Edward Ferrars. Her manners were attachin
g and soon banished his reserve. She speedily comprehended all his merits; the persuasion of his regard for Elinor perhaps intensified the natural process of her affection, were slightly less unsettling when she knew his heart was warm and his temper affectionate.

  No sooner did she perceive any symptom of love in his behaviour to Elinor than she considered their serious attachment as certain, and looked forward to their marriage as rapidly approaching.

  “In a few months, my dear Marianne,” said she, as they sat one day, carefully skinning catfish flanks and cutting the meat into bite-size chunks, “Elinor will, in all probability, be settled for life. We shall miss her, but she will be happy.”

  “Oh, Mama, how shall we do without her?”

  “My love, it will be scarcely a separation. We shall live within a few miles of each other, and shall meet every day of our lives. You will gain a brother, a real, affectionate brother. I have the highest opinion in the world of Edward’s heart. But you look grave, Marianne; do you feel some burden of sympathy for the beasts we painstakingly prepare and are soon to consume? Never forget that each bite represents a victory that must be savored, exactly as they would savor a victory over us. Or is it that you disapprove your sister’s choice?”

  “Perhaps both,” said Marianne. “I may consider the match with some surprise. Edward is very amiable, and I love him tenderly. But yet—he is not the kind of young man—there is a something wanting—his figure is not striking. It has none of the grace which I should expect in the man who could seriously attach my sister. His eyes want all that spirit, that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence. And besides all this, I am afraid, Mama, he has no real taste. Music seems scarcely to attract him; and, though he admires Elinor’s driftwood statuettes very much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their worth. He admires as a lover, not as a connoisseur. To satisfy me, those characters must be united, like two sea horses amorously intertwined in their watery rendezvous. I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings: the same books, the same music must charm us both. Oh Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward’s reading to us of the diary of those shipwrecked sailors last night. Even during the passage where the doomed sun-mad protagonist realises with a start that the fellow seaman upon whom he has relied for comfort and protection is but a bucket balanced on the end of a mop! To hear those haunting lines, which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!”

  “He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant prose. I thought so at the time; but you had to give him the diary of the shipwrecked sailors!”

  “Well, it really is my favourite. But we must allow for differences. Elinor has not my feelings, and therefore she may overlook it, and be happy with him. But it would have broken my heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility. Mama, the more I know of the world the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love, and rely upon to protect me! I require so much!”

  “I know, dear.”

  “The man I choose must have all Edward’s virtues, and his person and manners must ornament his goodness with every possible charm.”

  “Remember, my love, that you are not seventeen. It is yet too early in life to despair of such a happiness. Why should you be less fortunate than your mother?”

  CHAPTER 4

  WHAT A PITY IT IS, Elinor,” said Marianne, “that Edward should have no taste for fashioning attractive miniatures out of driftwood.”

  “No taste for it!” replied Elinor. “Why shouldn’t you think so? He does not whittle driftwood himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in observing and admiring the efforts of other people; and I assure you he is by no means deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of improving it. Had he ever been in the way of learning, of instruction on the handling of a long bent knife, I think he would have whittled very well. He distrusts his own judgment in such matters so much that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on a model of a building, or vessel, created out of a lump of raw flotsam; but he has an innate simplicity of taste, which directs him perfectly right. I do think that given proper instruction, he could whittle, and be a great whittler indeed.”

  Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject, but the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the driftwood figurines crafted by other people was to her mind very far from that rapturous, wide-eyed delight which could alone be called taste. Yet, though smiling within herself at Elinor’s mistake, she honoured her sister for that partiality towards Edward which produced it.

  “I hope, Marianne,” continued Elinor, “you do not consider him as deficient in general taste. For if that were your opinion, I am sure you could never be civil to him.”

  Marianne hardly knew what to say, and she was additionally attempting to dislodge a catfish bone from where it had become lodged in her throat since lunch. She could not wound the feelings of her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was impossible. At length she coughed, pounded a bit on her breastbone, and replied:

  “Do not be offended if my praise of him is not in everything equal to your sense of his merits. I have not had so many opportunities of estimating the minute propensities of his mind, as you have; but I have the highest opinion in the world of his goodness and sense. I think him everything that is worthy and admirable.”

  “I am sure,” replied Elinor with a smile, “that his dearest friends, could not be dissatisfied with such praise. I do not perceive how you could express yourself more warmly.”

  Marianne hacked three times vigorously and—a-ha!—out came the catfish bone. It ricocheted against the opposite wall and went skittering across the floor.

  “Of Edward’s sense and his goodness,” Elinor continued, “no one can be in doubt who has seen him often enough to engage him in unreserved conversation. He has favoured me with his most intriguing theory of the Alteration, and he possesses a wide range of knowledge of that which is most important to our common safety. He can list most species of cirripedes, to provide just one example, and classify them by phylum and subphylum. The excellence of his understanding and his principles is concealed only by his shyness, which too often keeps him silent. I have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, his enjoyment of books exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and correct, and his taste delicate and pure. His abilities in every respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person. At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, and yet—I am sorry, dear sister, but that is most distracting!”

  Marianne, who had become involved in an effort to pick her teeth with the newly ejected catfish bone, smiled.

  “I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I do not now. When you tell me to love him as a brother, I shall no more see imperfection in his face than I now do in his heart.” She smiled and renewed her attack upon her back molars.

  Elinor, meanwhile, started at Marianne’s use of the word “brother” and was sorry for the warmth she had been betrayed into. Edward stood very high in her opinion, and she believed the regard to be mutual. But she required certainty of it to make Marianne’s conviction of their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next—that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister.

  “I do not attempt to deny,” said she, “that I think very highly of him—that I greatly esteem, that I like him.”

  Marianne here set down her catfish bone and burst forth with indignation—

  “Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hear
ted Elinor! Oh! Worse than cold-hearted! Snake-hearted! Lizard-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise! Use the words such as ‘esteem’ again, and I will leave the room this moment.”

  Elinor could not help laughing. “Excuse me,” said she; “and be assured that I meant no offense to you by speaking in so quiet a way of my own feelings. But I am in no means assured of his regard for me. There are moments when the extent of it seems doubtful; and till his sentiments are fully known, you cannot wonder at my wishing to avoid any encouragement of my own partiality, by believing or calling it more than it is. In my heart I feel little—scarcely any doubt of his preference. But there are other points to be considered besides his inclination. He is very far from being independent. What his mother really is we cannot know; but, from Fanny’s occasional mention of her conduct and opinions, we have never been disposed to think her amiable; and I am very much mistaken if Edward is not himself aware that there would be many difficulties in his way, if he were to wish to marry a woman without an estate sufficiently inland to protect against whatever bloodthirsty selachian might one morning drag itself out of the tide.”