Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Jane Austen; Ben H. Winters

  He stopped himself, and his fleshy face fingers twisted themselves into knots of awkwardness.

  “Excuse me, Miss Dashwood. I believe I have been wrong in saying so much, but I hardly know what to do. Tell me that it is all absolutely resolved on, that any attempt, that in short concealment, if concealment be possible, is all that remains.”

  These words, which conveyed to Elinor a direct avowal of his love for her sister, affected her very much. She was not immediately able to say anything, and even when her spirits were recovered, she debated for a short time, on the answer it would be most proper to give. The real state of things between Willoughby and her sister was so little known to herself, that in endeavouring to explain it, she might be as liable to say too much as too little. Yet she thought it most prudent and kind to say more than she really knew or believed.

  She acknowledged, therefore, that though she had never been informed by themselves of the terms on which they stood with each other, of their mutual affection she had no doubt, and of their correspondence she was not astonished to hear.

  He listened to her with silent attention, nodding sadly so as to cause his tentacle-mass to shake limply. On her ceasing to speak, Brandon rose directly from his seat, and said in a voice of emotion, “to your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he may endeavour to deserve her.” Then he took leave and went away.

  Elinor derived no comfortable feelings from this conversation; she was left, on the contrary, with a melancholy impression of Colonel Brandon’s unhappiness. From the window she saw him pause and stare for several long seconds into the canal; it seemed to Elinor that Brandon contemplated abandoning his steed and simply diving in and swimming away—as if in the moment of his heart’s defeat he had become more fish than man.

  CHAPTER 28

  NOTHING OCCURRED during the next three or four days to make Elinor regret applying to her mother; for Willoughby neither came nor wrote. They were engaged about the end of that time to attend with Lady Middleton an event at Hydra-Z, more properly known as the Hydro-Zoological Laboratory and Exhibition Arcade. Admission to the spectacle was an enormous honour, one the Dashwoods could only enjoy through their connection with Sir and Lady Middleton. Hydra-Z was the very heart of the Station’s scientific facilities, where captured monsters were submitted to the most rigorous re-training and biological modification programs—and, when the results were satisfactory, brought before paying audiences to demonstrate how completely they had been made to do the will of man.

  As Elinor understood the intention of tonight’s amusement, they would be seated with the rest of the guests in an amphitheatre, arrayed semi-circularly before a vast pool, and be treated to a command performance by a dozen giant, super-intelligent, domesticated lobsters.

  For this spectacle, Marianne prepared wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming equally indifferent whether she went or stayed; she listlessly adjusted her Float-Suit and selected a pair of opera glasses from Mrs. Jennings collection. She sat in the drawing-room till the moment of Lady Middleton’s arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude, lost in her own thoughts, and insensible of her sister’s presence; and when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the door, she started as if she had forgotten that anyone was expected.

  They arrived in due time at Hydra-Z and were ushered to Amphitheatre Seven, where the spectacle was to unfold; they heard their names announced from one landing-place to another in an audible voice, and entered to find the whole pool, with surrounding seating area, splendidly lit up. They began to mingle in the crowd—the lobsters had not yet been led in, leaving time for other amusement until the performance began. Lady Middleton was able to organize a handful of strangers for a game of Karankrolla, by the sure method of not telling them exactly what it was; as Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and Elinor succeeded to the raked seating area, placing themselves at no great distance from the pool.

  They had not remained in this manner long, before it was announced that the lobsters were to be brought in. Enthusiastic applause welling up from the crowd, all eyes turned to the pool, into which the twelve magnificent, genetically enhanced Nephropidae were swimming from a small side stream. Trotting parallel to them at the water’s edge was a handsome trainer in a bathing costume and cap, holding an elongated lobster-crop in one hand and waving with the other to the crowd.

  It was then that Elinor perceived Willoughby, standing by the water’s edge within a few yards of them, in earnest conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman; startled, Elinor wondered at first if it was truly he, until she saw Monsieur Pierre, hopping gaily from one foot to another at Willoughby’s side. She soon caught his eye—Willoughby’s, not Monsieur Pierre’s—and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to speak to her or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her; and then continued his discourse with the same lady. Elinor turned involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by her. At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her.

  The lobsters had now all swum into the pool, each one half again as big as a cow. Elinor recoiled instinctually from the creatures, but then watched with fascination as, under the trainer’s command, they began to swim slow, precise figure eights in the pool. Still holding Marianne by the shoulder, she raised her opera glasses. Their enormous size magnified the disturbing appearance of the crustaceans—the twin antennae extending from beneath the beady eyes; the ribbed, mottled-brown exoskeletons; the army of skittering pereiopod lining the torso; and of course the claws, each pair like a gigantic brown-black nutcracker, except razor-sharp where it clacked together. Like privates being drilled by a sergeant, these hideous creatures dipped in and out of the water as they swam, bobbing up and down, snapping their oversized claws in the air each time they surfaced.

  Marianne could not be distracted, even by the elegant athletic turns of the lobsters. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Why does he not look at me? Why cannot I speak to him?”

  “Pray be composed,” cried Elinor, “and do not betray what you feel to everybody present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet.”

  This, however, was more than she could believe herself; and to be composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected every feature. In the pool, the trainer shouted a rough command, and the lobsters were in an instant up on their caudal furca in the shallow water, claws extended upwards in a comically servile posture like so many hunting dogs begging for scrap. The lobsters waited at bay for their next command, their antennae wavering tremulously in the air, as the trainer produced from a small valise a croquet ball and hurled it up towards them. The first of the lobsters in the line reached out a claw and deftly crushed the croquet ball to powder. The crowd cheered its approval.

  Next the trainer produced a billiard ball, and tossed it before the next lobster in the line, who dispatched it with similar ease. Elinor saw that Willoughby applauded heartily along with his fellow spectators; could he be so at ease?

  Now from the valise came the skull of some animal—Elinor thought it was a sheep. After this grim object had been tossed, and destroyed with a swift claw-snap from another of the monster lobsters, Willoughby at last turned round, and regarded the sisters; Marianne started up, and pronouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand to him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe her attitude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and asked how long they had been in-Station. Elinor was robbed of all presence of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word. As her mind tried in vain to alight on an appropriate response, she saw over Willoughby’s shoulder that one of the lobsters had, for some reason, broken
the neat line and resumed its natural position, belly in the water.

  Marianne was too focused on Willoughby’s strange behaviour to note this aberration in the program; her feelings were instantly expressed. Her face was crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, “Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not received my letters? Will you not shake hands with me?”

  Poolside, the scowling trainer set down the enormous ripe casaba melon he was about to throw to the lobsters and jumped in to corral his errant charge.

  Willoughby, meanwhile, could not now avoid the insisted-upon handshake, but Marianne’s touch seemed painful to him, and he held her hand only for a moment. During all this time he was evidently struggling for composure. Elinor watched his countenance and saw its expression becoming more tranquil. After a moment’s pause, he spoke with calmness.

  “I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Causeway last Tuesday, and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My hermit-crab card was not lost, I hope: It’s the one with the shovels formed into a W.”

  “But have you not received my notes?” cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. “Here is some mistake I am sure—some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven’s sake tell me, what is the matter?”

  Before her tormentor could proffer an answer, all conversation was stilled by a most terrible and unnatural sound emerging from the direction of the pool, and echoing through the vast room. It was a sound, thought Elinor as she clutched her ears against it, like the squeal of a rat amplified a thousandfold and merged with the screams of a frightened child.

  It was the lobsters—all had now broken formation and converged on the unfortunate trainer. In an instant, every exposed inch of his flesh came under assault by a dozen pairs of gigantic claws; huge chunks of meat were ripped from his arms and from his legs, the very scalp torn from his head. “Help! For God’s sake, help!!—” he managed to choke out, his crop flailing helplessly against the water, before the largest of the lobsters, in fluid motions no doubt learned from this very trainer, clawed himself up onto the man’s chest, wrapped its long, whip-like antennae around his neck, and cleanly garroted off his head. As the guests looked at each other, horrified and uncertain, the decapitated trainer’s arms thrashed, thrashed again, and then went still, as streams of blood gushed into the pool water from the stump of his neck.

  Now, with a redoubling of their ungodly screech of a war cry, the lobsters climbed out of the water and advanced on the guests in a perfect, soldierly V formation.

  “Willoughby!” cried Marianne in terror of the advancing wedge of warlike crustaceans.

  “Willoughby!” cried the fashionable lady to whom he had been speaking a moment ago. The lobsters screeched louder and clacked their claws together like nightmarish rust-brown castanets.

  Willoughby backpedaled from the water’s edge, as his complexion changed and all his embarrassment returned; he contemplated the two ladies, both desperate for his protection and the affection it would imply. At last he turned on his heel and ran to the unknown young lady, where she had scampered up onto the closest row of seats. Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair. Elinor slapped her hard, three times, to get her moving; this was no time for a swoon. The lobsters grew closer by the instant, each one scuttling rapidly forward on five pairs of monstrous legs. One stopped abruptly in its forward march and clamped its terrible claws around the exposed neck of a young woman; a river of blood launched from her throat and poured down the bodice of her elegant swimming costume.

  The guests, Elinor and Marianne among them, began a screaming stampede for the exit, shoving and fighting past one another to get out of the path of the death-lobsters; only Lady Middleton, who in her former life as an island princess had defended her people from such threats, was vigorously engaged in battle against the monsters. She grabbed one of the lobsters and snapped its bulging fore claw off at the joint, then used the limb to batter at the beast’s hideous cephalothorax. The lobster screeched in pain and rage, snapping in vain at the dexterous Lady Middleton with its remaining claw.

  “Go to him, Elinor,” Marianne pleaded, insensible of the immediate peril, even as a lobster corralled the Careys, a handsome couple of Sir John’s acquaintance; with one claw the beast mauled Mr. Carey, carving large gashes from his torso, while simultaneously, with the other claw, it snapped off Mrs. Carey’s feet and hands with four snaps. “Force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again—must speak to him instantly. I cannot rest—I shall not have a moment’s peace till this is explained— some dreadful misapprehension or other. Oh, go to him this moment!”

  “This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till to-morrow. We must go! We must go!” As a lobster scuttled menacingly towards them, Elinor drove the pointed heel of her fashionable boot into that vulnerable spot, a quarter of the way down the back of a crustacean, where the head meets the thorax. She felt the satisfying crunch of her boot heel driving past exoskeleton and into pure vulnerable meat—the beast was stopped in its scuttling tracks.

  THE GUESTS BEGAN A SCREAMING STAMPEDE FOR THE EXIT, SHOVING AND FIGHTING PAST ONE ANOTHER TO GET OUT OF THE PATH OF THE DEATH-LOBSTERS.

  With relief Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase, dragging the terrified young lady with him; and telling Marianne that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening as a fresh argument for her to be calm and join her in evacuating the premises immediately. The urgency of the situation was paramount; it seemed as if wherever she looked in Hydra-Z, lobsters were furiously clawing and snapping at the maimed and bloodied unfortunates who remained.

  Elinor begged her sister to entreat Lady Middleton to rescue them and take them home, although that estimable lady seemed rather to be enjoying herself, picking up lobsters wholly and dashing them to the ground. But Elinor persisted and at last Lady Middleton acceded—the three reached the exit just as a joint command of hydro-zoologists and British marines, wearing thrice-reinforced danger suits, poured into the amphitheatre.

  Scarcely a word was spoken by the Dashwoods during their return to Berkeley Causeway. Elinor was still quivering with the exertion of their near escape; Marianne was in a silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; and Lady Middleton was happily gnawing lobster meat from the giant claw she had earlier torn free from its bearer.

  Mrs. Jennings was luckily not come home, so they could go directly to their own room, where water mixed with the contents of two wine powder packets restored Marianne a little to herself. She was soon undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings, had leisure enough for thinking over what had happened.

  That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it, seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes, she could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it—but there was no doubt that such a regard had formerly existed.

  As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could esteem Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby—in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.

  There was something else troubling about the night’s events: those lobsters, as best Elinor could
tell, hadn’t even attempted to feast on their victims, only to savage them and then move on to the next. They were, in other words, mauling and killing human beings for pleasure—the foremost trait that was supposed to have been trained from them in the laboratories of Hydra-Z.

  This disturbing fact competed with her contemplations of Marianne’s misfortune, until at last she fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep.

  CHAPTER 29

  ELINOR WOKE THE NEXT MORNING with visions of rust-coloured claws still snapping menacingly in her head; her sister, contrastingly, seemed to have little remembrance of the homicidal lobsters and remained mired in her former preoccupation. Only half dressed, Marianne was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of all the dim sea-green light that poured in from the swirling ocean outside the glass, and writing as fast as a continual flow of tears would permit her. She ignored the squid that sat slavering just outside the glass, watching her with its giant popeyes and dragging its tentacles against the Dome-glass. After observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety, Elinor asked in a tone of the most considerate gentleness:

  “Marianne, may I ask—”

  “No, Elinor,” she replied. “Ask nothing; you will soon know all.”

  The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proof enough that she was writing for the last time to Willoughby.

  Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power, She would have tried to soothe and tranquilize her still more, had not Marianne eagerly entreated her not to speak. In such circumstances, it was better for both that they should not be long together; and the restless state of Marianne’s mind not only prevented her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed, but requiring at once solitude and continual change of place, made her wander about the house, avoiding the sight of everybody.