Conversation however was not wanted, for Sir John was very chatty, and Lady Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old, with Sir John’s same eyes and nose, but with Lady Middleton’s imposing stature and bearing. They had to enquire his name and age, admire his beauty, and ask him questions which his mother answered for him, while he hung about her and held down his head. On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse, or in extreme cases, if someone needs to be thrown overboard to satisfy the piranhas trailing the boat. In the present case it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy was most like his father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of course everybody differed, and everybody was astonished at the opinion of the others.
Sir John and Lady Middleton would not leave the house and be rowed back to Deadwind Island without securing their promise of dining there the next day.
CHAPTER 7
A TEAM OF BRAWNY OARSMEN was thoughtfully dispatched by Sir John to convey the Dashwoods to Deadwind Island, about six mile’s steady row due east from Pestilent Isle; the ladies had passed near it in their inbound journey, and Elinor had even remarked upon the enormous, ramshackle estate, marked around its perimeter with tiki torches and the skulls of alligators set upon pikes.
Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance and extravagance of her table, and of all her domestic arrangements; she loved to surprise her English visitors with displays of hospitality native to her homeland, such as flavoring her soups with monkey urine and not telling anyone she had done so until the bowl had been drained. But Sir John’s satisfaction in society was much more real; he delighted in collecting about him more young people than his house would hold, and the noisier they were the better he was pleased. He was especially fond of relating long tales of his days at sea, stories of riding recalcitrant crocodiles even as he throttled them, or of the time he got scurvy and had to be held down on the deck while his rotting front teeth were knocked out with a spyglass.
The arrival of a new family in the islands was always a matter of joy to him; and in every point of view he was charmed with the inhabitants he had now procured for his rickety little shanty on Pestilent Isle. The Miss Dashwoods were young, pretty, and unaffected. It was enough to secure his good opinion; for to be unaffected, or to have one of those facial piercings that grotesquely extends the lower lip, as he had seen in Africa, were the two things he found most captivating in a young girl.
Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the dock-end by Sir John, his pate glistening in the sun, laughing jovially, leaning casually on his oaken cane, and stroking his waist-length white beard. He welcomed them to Deadwind Island with unaffected sincerity as he settled each into an oversized sealskin-leather sofa; the only suspension in his cheerful attitude came upon hearing the tale of their inward journey and of Mrs. Dashwood’s dispatching the monster that attacked them; “I hope,” he muttered, “That you did not invoke the wrath of the Fang-Beast.”
“The what?”
“Never mind, never mind,” he muttered into his beard, and changed the subject to a favourite concern, that of being unable to get any smart young men to meet them. They would see, he said, only one gentleman there besides himself; a particular friend who was staying on the island, and who was—and here Sir John paused, and took a long, uncomfortable breath—a bit unusual in his appearance. Luckily, Lady Middleton’s mother, who had been abducted at the same time and from the same Edenic tropical homeland as Lady Middleton, had arrived at Deadwind Island within the last hour; she was a very cheerful, agreeable woman. The young ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly satisfied with having two entire strangers of the party and wished for no more.
Lady Middleton’s mother was referred to as “Mrs. Jennings,” simply because Sir John thought it amusing; her real name was some fourteen or more syllables in length, containing a series of consonant strings impregnable by the English tongue. She was an elderly widow who talked a great deal; her dialogue was peppered with bits of her inscrutable native language, accompanied by a wide supplementary vocabulary of winks, nudges, and suggestive hand gestures. Before dinner was over she had said many witty things on the subjects of lovers and husbands and hoped laughingly that the Dashwood sisters had not left their hearts (or possibly their genitalia—the relevant hand gesture was not entirely clear) behind them in Sussex. Marianne was vexed at this inarticulate teasing for her sister’s sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor to see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave Elinor far more pain than could arise from such commonplace raillery as that leveled by Mrs. Jennings.
Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, suffered from a cruel affliction, the likes of which the Dashwood sisters had heard of, but never seen firsthand. He bore a set of long, squishy tentacles protruding grotesquely from his face, writhing this way and that, like hideous living facial hair of slime green. There was, in addition, some odd aura about him, indefinable but undeniably disquieting, even beyond these perverse appendages; one sensed that to look him in the eye would be to catch a terrifying glimpse of all the terrors that lie, unknowable and unimaginable, beyond the world that we can see and feel. Otherwise, he was very pleasant. His appearance, besides the twitching tentacles that overhung his chin, was not unpleasing, despite being an absolute old bachelor; for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty. He was silent and grave, but his countenance was sensible and his address was particularly gentlemanlike.
There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods; but the haughty diffidence of Lady Middleton was so particularly unpleasant, that in comparison to it the gravity of Colonel Brandon, the squidishness of his visage notwithstanding, was interesting. Elinor leveled a silencing glance at her sister when she sensed Marianne’s intention to indecorously enquire of their new acquaintance how he came to bear his peculiar facial stigmata. Such physiognomic eccentricities were variously whispered to result from one’s mother drinking sea-water while confined, or a hex, laid upon the bearer by a sea witch. It was not, in any case, a topic appropriate to polite company, and certainly not in the presence of one so afflicted.
Margaret returned from a long ramble on the grounds of Sir John’s estate, out of breath and bursting with wild-eyed excitement. “I—I—I have seen . . . something!” she shouted. “Something . . . incredible . . . upon the island!”
COLONEL BRANDON, THE FRIEND OF SIR JOHN, SUFFERED FROM A CRUEL AFFLICTION, THE LIKES OF WHICH THE DASHWOOD SISTERS HAD HEARD OF, BUT NEVER SEEN FIRSTHAND.
“Tell me, then, dear girl, and I shall explain,” offered Sir John. “I know Deadwind Island, and all its odd crevices, as I do the scars on the back of my own hand.”
“No,” replied Margaret. “Something upon our island—on Pestilent Isle. I saw, as I wandered along the shore here, a thick spiral of steam, shooting up from the mountain that sits in the centre of Pestilent Isle.”
All laughed merrily. “The mountain?”
“Well, the hill is more like,” said Margaret, blushing. “But as I gaze upon it from my window at night, I have taken to calling it a mountain. Mount Margaret, I have dubbed it, and it is there that—”
“Upstairs, young lady!” interrupted Mrs. Dashwood. “And clean yourself for dinner. No more talk of mountains, or queer spirals of steam, or other childish fantasies.” Reluctantly, Margaret obeyed.
Shortly thereafter, Marianne was discovered to be musical and invited to play. At their request she performed a ballad in thirty-seven verses that Sir John had composed about his discovery of, infatuation with, and subsequent abduction of Lady Middleton. The performance was highly applauded. Sir John was loud in his admiration at the end of every verse, banging his cane on the ground, and as loud in his conversation with the others while the verses continued. Colonel Brandon alone, of all the party, heard Marianne sing without being in raptures. He paid her
only the compliment of attention, and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless want of taste. He sat in silence, his tentacles writhing; his hands folded in his lap, making only the low gurgling noise that his sinuses always emitted, unbidden, from his lunatic’s nightmare of a face.
CHAPTER 8
MRS. JENNINGS WAS A WIDOW, her husband and male children having been ruthlessly slaughtered in the same raid during which she and her daughters were carried off in a sack by Sir John and his men. She had now, therefore, nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world. In her promotion of this object she was zealously active, as far as her ability reached; and missed no opportunity of projecting weddings among all the young people of her acquaintance. Mrs. Jennings also possessed a vast trove of island lore relating to getting and keeping male attention, which she vigorously recommended to such ladies as she drew into her circle.
“Only cause by some wile a man to shed tears,” she recommended to the astonished Dashwood sisters, “and catch three of his teardrops in an emptied jam jar. Mix these salty effusions with your own sputum, and smear the resulting ointment on your forehead before taking to bed. His heart shall soon enough be your own.”
She was remarkably quick in the discovery of attachments. This kind of discernment enabled her, soon after her arrival on the Barton Isles, to insinuate that Colonel Brandon was very much in love with Marianne Dashwood. She rather suspected it to be so, on the very first evening of their being together, from his listening so attentively while Marianne sang to them; and when the visit was returned by the Middletons’ dining at the cottage, the fact was ascertained by his listening to her again. It must be so. She was perfectly convinced of it. It would be an excellent match, for he was rich and she was handsome. Mrs. Jennings had been anxious to see Colonel Brandon well married, ever since her connection with Sir John first brought him to her knowledge; and she was always anxious to get a good husband, even one marked by a bizarre octo-face, for every pretty girl.
The immediate advantage to herself was by no means inconsiderable, for it supplied her with endless wet-lipped, cackling amusement against them both. At the Deadwind Island she laughed at the colonel, and at Barton Cottage to Marianne. All in all, it was perfectly annoying to both of them. And when the object of raillery was understood by Marianne, she hardly knew whether to laugh at its absurdity, or censure its impertinence. It seemed an unfeeling reflection on the colonel’s advanced years and preposterous appearance, and on his forlorn condition as an old bachelor.
Mrs. Dashwood, however, could not think of a man five years younger than herself so exceedingly ancient as he appeared to the youthful fancy of her daughter.
“But you cannot deny the absurdity of the accusation, though you may not think it intentionally ill-natured. Colonel Brandon is old enough to be my father, and if he were ever animated to be in love, surely he has long outlived every sensation of the kind. In addition, he has to clothes-pin his tentacles to his ears in order to eat; it is perfectly nauseating. When is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity and the chance of him strangling his accuser with his rage-stiffened face-appendages, will not protect him?”
“Infirmity!” said Elinor, “do you call Colonel Brandon infirm? Deformed, maybe; repulsive, certainly. More fish than man, face-wise, it cannot be argued. But infirm? I can easily suppose that his age may appear much greater to you than to my mother, but you can hardly deceive yourself as to his having the use of his limbs! In a way, he has more limbs than all of us put together.”
“Good point,” agreed Mrs. Dashwood.
“Did you not hear him complain of cartilage rot?” Marianne protested. “And is not that the commonest infirmity of declining life for a person with his affliction?”
“My dearest child,” said her mother, laughing, “at this rate you must be in continual terror of my decay; and it must seem to a miracle that my life has been extended to the advanced age of forty.”
“Mama, you are not doing me justice,” said Marianne, who could not be driven from her theme. “I know very well that Colonel Brandon is not old enough to make his friends apprehensive of losing him in the course of nature. He may live twenty years longer, long enough for those fleshy maxillae to turn green-grey and droop with age. But five and thirty has nothing to do with matrimony.”
“Perhaps,” said Elinor, “five and thirty and seventeen had better not have anything to do with matrimony together. But if there should by any chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, and, say, visually impaired somehow, I should not think Colonel Brandon’s being five and thirty any objection to his marrying her.”
“A woman of seven and twenty,” said Marianne, “can never hope to feel or inspire affection again. If her home be uncomfortable or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse or a ship’s wench. In his marrying such a woman, therefore, there would be nothing unsuitable. It would be a compact of convenience, and the world would be satisfied. In my eyes it would be no marriage at all; to me it would seem only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the expense of the other.”
“It would be impossible, I know,” replied Elinor, “to convince you that a woman of seven and twenty could feel for a man of five and thirty anything near to love. But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon, merely because he chanced to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight cartilage rot in his face.”
“But he talked of flannel waistcoats,” said Marianne; “and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble.”
“Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him half so much. Confess, Marianne, is not there something interesting to you in the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever? It is imminent danger that excites you! I swear by the northern lights, when that bosun’s mate was being consumed by those devil fish, you looked upon his rapidly disappearing corpse with a blush of interest upon your cheek.”
Soon after this, upon Elinor’s leaving the room, Marianne spoke again. “Mama,” she began, “I have an alarm on the subject of illness which I cannot conceal from you. I am sure Edward Ferrars is not well. We have now been here almost a fortnight, and yet he does not come. Nothing but real indisposition—perhaps Asiatic cholera?—could occasion this extraordinary delay. What else can detain him at Norland? Must we assume he was dispatched by a giant serpent, perhaps cousin to the one that launched itself against us on our inward journey?”
“Had you any idea of Edward’s coming so soon?” said Mrs. Dashwood. “I had none. On the contrary, if I have felt any anxiety at all on the subject, it has been in recollecting that he sometimes showed a want of pleasure and readiness in accepting my invitation to visit. Does Elinor expect him already?”
“I have never mentioned it to her, but of course she must.”
“I rather think you are mistaken, for when I was talking to her yesterday of getting a new, tightly meshed grate for the guest bedchamber, she observed that there was no immediate hurry for it, as it was not likely that this room would be wanted for some time.”
“How strange it is! What can be the meaning of it! But the whole of their behaviour to each other has been unaccountable! How cold, how composed were their last adieus! How languid their conversation the last evening of their being together! In Edward’s farewell there was no distinction between Elinor and me: It was the good wishes of an affectionate brother to both. Twice did I leave them purposely together in the course of the last morning, and each time did he most unaccountably follow me out of the room. And Elinor, in quitting Norland and Edward, cried not as I did. Even now her self-command is invariable. When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to avoid society or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?”
Margaret at that moment returned from a
long morning of exploring the coastline and rough interiors of Pestilent Isle, and stood in the doorway in uncharacteristic silence, contemplating a fresh mystery she had encountered as she made her way around their habitation.
“Mother?” Margaret began tremulously. “There is something I must—”
She was interrupted by a rumble of thunder loud enough to shake the little cottage like a child’s toy. Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne rose and stared out the front window, where in the cove below the cottage the waves were rushing up against the rocks; and a low, ominous fog could be seen, miles out to sea but drawing nearer with the tide.
Margaret, for her part, stood staring out the southerly vantage, which took in the whole unwholesome geography of Pestilent Isle: the rutted swamps and sloping flats and jagged promontories—and that rock-pocked, ugly hill she had dubbed Mount Margaret.
“We are not alone here,” she whispered. “We are not alone.”
CHAPTER 9
THE DASHWOODS WERE NOW SETTLED at Barton Cottage with tolerable comfort to themselves. The shanty upon its jutting ridge, the fetid, wind-tossed tidewaters below, the muddy beaches dotted by clumps of brackish algae, were all now become familiar. They had strung the encircling fence with garlands of dried kelp and lamb’s blood, which Sir John Middleton had proscribed as the surest method to ward off the attentions of whatever hydrophilic malevolencies might prowl the coast.
There was no other families on the island; no village; no human habitation but for themselves. Fortunately, the whole of Pestilent Isle abounded in intriguing walks. Black and rugged hills, overrun with marsh vegetation, challenged them from almost every window of the cottage to seek the enjoyment of air on their summits; towards one of these hills did Marianne and Margaret one memorable morning direct their steps, attracted by the rare appearance of sunshine in the claustrophobic gloom of their surroundings. Margaret was insistent on trekking to the centre of the island to ascend Mount Margaret and find the source of the column of steam she still swore she had seen, and Marianne was pleased to oblige. This opportunity, however, was not tempting enough to draw the others from their pencil and their book; Mrs. Dashwood sat composing short verses about sailors dying of influenza, whilst Elinor drew again and again a cryptic five-pointed symbol that had appeared to her in a fever dream on the night they first arrived in the islands.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Page 4
