“No!”
“Yes! ‘Tis one startling coincidence among several. And then he had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had buried her in the sand in a playful fashion, as lovers do when sporting; and then, without digging her up, he had gone off, he said, to buy them lemonades; he never returned. She had been found and dug up three days later by a travelling party from Switzerland, who were in search of charming seaside English vistas and instead found a ruined girl with a faint moustache, buried in the sand.”
“This is beyond everything!” exclaimed Elinor.
“His character is now before you: expensive, dissipated, and worse than both. Knowing all this, as I have known it many weeks, guess what I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever? On being assured that she was to marry him? But what could I do? I had no hope of interfering; and sometimes I thought your sister’s influence might yet reclaim him. But now, after such dishonourable usage, who can tell what were his designs on her! Use your own discretion, however, in communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what will be its effect; but had I not seriously believed it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family afflictions.”
Elinor’s thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness; attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to Marianne, from the communication of what had passed. “Have you seen Mr. Willoughby since you left him on Deadwind Island?”
“Yes,” he replied gravely, “once I have. One meeting was unavoidable.”
Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,
“What? Have you met him to—”
“I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to Sub-Marine Station Beta, which was within a fortnight after myself, we were to meet by appointment, he to defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the meeting, therefore, never got abroad.
Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this, but to a man and a soldier she presumed not to censure it.
“Such,” said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, “has been the unhappy resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! And so imperfectly have I discharged my trust!”
Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion and esteem for him, and entirely absent the gastric discomfort that usually attended his presence.
CHAPTER 32
WHEN THE PARTICULARS of this conversation were repeated by Miss Dashwood to her sister, as they very soon were, the effect was not entirely such as the former had hoped to see. Marianne did not appear to distrust the truth of any part of it, for she listened with steady and submissive attention, attempted no vindication of Willoughby, and seemed to show by her tears that she felt such vindication to be impossible—especially when Elinor arrived at the dénouement, in which poor seduced and lightly mustachioed Eliza was left buried to her neck in summer sand, and abandoned to the whims of the tide.
But though Marianne’s reaction assured Elinor that the conviction of this guilt was carried home, she did not see her less wretched. Her mind did become settled, but it was settled in a gloomy dejection. She still sang no shanties, and turned no happy reels, as Elinor was accustomed to see her undertake at odd intervals; still she sat sighing for hours out the Dome-glass, her head held in the crook of her arm, occasionally letting slip an admiring murmur regarding the midnight blues and emerald greens of the deep-sea flora.
To give the feelings or the language of Mrs. Dashwood on receiving and answering Elinor’s letter would be only to give a repetition of what her daughters had already felt and said, and would furthermore require a tremendous variety of words ill-suited for public consumption, such as those shouted by sailors off their decks while trying to keep their ship righted in a maddening gale. Suffice it to report in her a disappointment hardly less painful than Marianne’s, and an indignation even greater than Elinor’s, and a wide vocabulary of uncharactaristic profanity. Long letters from her, quickly succeeding each other, arrived to tell all that she suffered and thought; to express her anxious solicitude for Marianne, and entreat she would bear up with fortitude under this misfortune.
Against the interest of her own individual comfort, Mrs. Dashwood had determined that it would be better for Marianne to be anywhere, at that time, than the little rickety shanty on Pestilent Isle, where everything within her view would be bringing back the past in the strongest and most afflicting manner, by constantly placing Willoughby before her, such as she had always seen him there. She recommended it to her daughters, therefore, by all means not to shorten their visit to Mrs. Jennings at Sub-Marine Station Beta. A variety of occupations and company which could not be procured at Barton Cottage, would be inevitable there, along with the wide menu of hydrophilial amusements on offer in-Station; these might yet, she hoped, cheat Marianne into some interest beyond herself.
From all danger of seeing Willoughby again, her mother considered her to be at least equally safe at the Station as back on the islands, since his acquaintance must now be dropped by all who called themselves her friends. Design could never bring them in each other’s way: negligence could never leave them exposed to a surprise; and chance had less in its favour in the crowd of the Station than even in the retirement of Barton Cottage, where it might force him before her while paying that visit at Allenham Isle on his marriage.
She had yet another reason for wishing her children to remain where they were; a letter from her son had told her that he and his wife were to Descend before the middle of February, and she judged it right that they should sometimes see their brother.
Mrs. Dashwood closed the letter by noting that, without wanting to increase the burden of what was clearly a difficult time, there was further news of their sister’s condition. Margaret had returned from her latest midnight ramble with no hair on her body. In answer to Mrs. Dashwood’s frantic enquiries, Margaret had refused to utter a word—and, indeed, had not spoken so much as a syllable since.
As Elinor considered what psychic ailment or indisposition might have caused this further alteration in their sister, Marianne’s attention remained focused upon their mother’s suggestion that they continue in-Station. She had promised to be guided by her mother’s opinion, but it proved perfectly different from what she expected. By requiring her longer continuance at Sub-Marine Station Beta, her mother deprived her of the only possible alleviation of her wretchedness—the personal sympathy of her mother.
Elinor took great care in guarding her sister from ever hearing Willoughby’s name mentioned; neither Mrs. Jennings, nor Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer herself, ever spoke of him before her. Elinor wished that the same forbearance could have extended towards herself, but that was impossible, and she was obliged to listen day after day to the indignation of them all.
Sir John could not have thought it possible. “I wish him at the devil with all my heart!” he cried, gesticulating angrily with his huge, bear-paw-like hands. Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. She was determined to drop his acquaintance immediately. She hated him so much that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody she saw, how good-for-nothing he was.
What appeared to be calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton towards the entire affair arose in fact from her preoccupation with her latest scheme to escape and return to her home country. Some weeks ago she had discovered, in a deserted warehouse in the Dome’s northwesterly quadrant, an ancient but still operable single-hull, one-person submarine. She had laboriously dragged this hunk of ancient metal back to her docking, where it lay hidden behind cartons of unused drink packets;
every night, after Sir John retired to their bedchamber, Lady Middleton climbed inside the ancient submarine’s cockpit and studied the dashboard, attempting to decipher its instruments, dreaming of the day when she would find her moment to pilot the thing out of the Station and all the way home to her native isle.
Thus, whilst the others were assailing Elinor with their tiresome indignation, Lady Middleton was lost in thought, contemplating the details of her propulsion system or plotting her coordinates. Her apparent disregard for the situation was a happy relief to Elinor’s spirits, oppressed as they were by the clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her to be sure of exciting no interest in one person at least among their circle of friends: a great comfort to know that there was one who would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars or any anxiety for her sister’s health. “Dive depth . . .” Lady Middleton once muttered, when the two happened to be alone. “There is still the question of dive depth . . .” And when Elinor said, “Pardon me?” Lady Middleton only gave a haughty, enigmatic smile and wandered away.
Early in February, within a fortnight from the receipt of Willoughby’s letter, Elinor had the painful office of informing her sister that he had been married in a great gala at Station Beta’s most eloquent catering hall before departing in an elegant forty-five-foot skiff—and, most cuttingly of all, the theme of the reception had been Shipwrecked Sailors. Marianne received the news with resolute composure; at first she shed no tears, but after a short time they would burst out, and for the rest of the day, she was in a state hardly less pitiable than when she first learnt to expect the event.
The Willoughbys left town as soon as they were married; and Elinor now hoped to prevail on her sister to go out again, to enjoy the under-sea amazements of the Sub-Station and stroll the canalside shops of the Retail Embankment.
About this time the two Miss Steeles, lately arrived in-Station, were welcomed by them all with great cordiality. Elinor only was sorry to see them—not least because, the moment her eyes met those of Lucy Steele, she experienced a sensation like a dagger’s sharp edge slashing at the edges of her mind, and felt a rising darkness in her thoughts that she struggled with difficulty to suppress.
“I suppose you will go and stay with your brother and sister, Miss Dashwood, when they Descend to the Sub-Station,” said Lucy.
“No, I do not think we shall,” Elinor replied.
“Oh, yes, I dare say you will. What a charming thing it is that Mrs. Dashwood can spare you both for so long a time together!”
“Long a time, indeed!” interposed Mrs. Jennings. “Why, their visit is but just begun!”
Lucy was silenced. Elinor, closing her eyes to gather her thoughts, experienced a resurgence of the slashing pain, along with a sudden flash— a symbol—the symbol—the five-pointed symbol—forcing itself before her mind’s eye.
What could it mean, Elinor wondered, her head throbbing in agony as the exchange of trivialities continued about her. Why had this misery recurred? Why did the presence of the Miss Steeles engender in her this vision, coupled with such agonizing discomfort? Elinor resolved to put the question to Colonel Brandon, who was so wise in so many ways; before recalling in the next moment the sad tale that he had lately related and determining that the misfortunate colonel had enough to worry him.
“I am sorry we cannot see your sister, Miss Dashwood,” said Miss Steele, for Marianne had left the room on their arrival.
“You are very good,” Elinor responded, glad for the interruption that had drawn her attention back to her immediate reality, and away from the mystifying five-pointed polyhedron that danced menacingly in her mind’s eye. “My sister will be equally sorry to miss the pleasure of seeing you; but she has been very much plagued lately with nervous headaches, which make her unfit for company or conversation.”
“Oh, dear, that is a great pity! But such old friends as Lucy and me! I think she might see us; and I am sure we would be as quiet as a bucket of clams.”
“But less malodorous,” added Lucy hastily.
Elinor, with great civility, declined the proposal. Her sister was perhaps laid down upon the bed, or in her dressing gown, and therefore not able to come to them.
CHAPTER 33
THAT NIGHT, Marianne slept but restlessly, her mind wracked by terrifying dreams. The Dashwoods were somehow installed again at Norwood, and Willoughby was there with them. She strolled with him along the beach, Monsieur Pierre hopping happily alongside them. They stopped, gazed into each other’s eyes, and Willoughby extended an affectionate hand—he was himself again, he whom she had so loved at Barton Cottage. But when Marianne reached for that hand, grasped it lovingly and pressed it against her cheek, it transmogrified from a hand to an octopus’s tentacle, purple and writhing, closing its powerful sucker over her mouth. Choking, desperate for breath, Marianne awoke with tears streaming down her face.
Elinor, too, was plagued by nightmares. In her dreamscape, the five-pointed figure came yet more vividly to life, dancing cruelly about in her mind, pulsating and quivering in a nightmare pallet of purple-blacks and blood-scarlets.
Sometime after midnight she woke with a start and rose from her bed, her body atremble, her brow slick with sweat, and sat till morning staring out into the inky depths of the sea beyond the observation glass. Her terrifying visions, she felt, were doing more than scaring her—it was warning her—but of what? Of Willoughby’s treachery? Too late, surely, for that alarm!
In the dim bioluminescence of a passing gulper eel, Elinor spied a tiny crack in the Dome-glass, at the very spot where she had seen the little swordfish tapping away at the glass; her mind still troubled by the dream’s ill-imagery, her body by the exertion of suffering through same, she hardly marked the small spider web of cracks before the gulper eel swam off in pursuit of a hapless school of copepods, and the sea was plunged again in darkness.
MARIANNE STROLLED WITH WILLOUGHBY ALONG THE BEACH, AND MONSIEUR PIERRE HOPPED HAPPILY ALONGSIDE THEM.
Just as the dawn’s light reached its long fingers from the Surface-Lands into the depths of Sub-Station, a fog-horn bleated noisily through the Dome. The sounding of the horn meant that a merman had been reported, and the accused would soon be brought to the Justice Embankment for testing and—if veracity were found in the accusation—execution by gutting knife.
After some opposition, Marianne yielded to her sister’s entreaties, and consented to go out with her and Mrs. Jennings to watch the solemnities.
Sir John, as a respected elder who knew much of the watery part of the world, was in charge of the proceedings. As a crowd gathered, many training opera glasses on the proceedings, Sir John lined seven suspected mermen along the water’s edge, where they stood quivering in fear. Narrowing his piercing grey eyes, the old man leveled an accusing finger at the first suspect, who was quickly wrapped by three Station attendants in secure netting, as if he were naught but an oversized marlin—which, in a sense, he may indeed have been. Sir John then bodily lifted the net-wrapped man, and with a grunt of determined exertion, tossed him screaming into the canal.
“What—?” began Elinor.
“It’s simple,” said Mrs. Jennings, clapping delightedly along with the rest of the crowd as the suspected merman thrashed helplessly within the net. “If he is truly a merman, he will reveal his tail rather than drown, at which point Sir John will fish him from the water and slice him from crotch to throat. If no tail appears, and he is proved thereby to be human through and through, your uncle will fish him from the water and slice him from his crotch to his throat, as a warning to the others.”
“Pardon me?” said Elinor. “It strikes me that—”
“Best not to ask questions, dear,” cautioned Mrs. Jennings.
After the gruesome exhibition—at which three of the suspected proved indeed to be mermen, and the other four innocent, and all were duly executed by Sir John—even Marianne agreed that a calming walk would do well to clear their minds of the grim
ritual they had just witnessed. All proceeded to the Retail Embankment, where Elinor was carrying on a negotiation for the exchange of a few old-fashioned pearl-strings of her mother’s.
When they stopped at the door of the shop, Mrs. Jennings recollected that there was a lady at the far end of the Causeway on whom she ought to call; and she got back in the gondola, announcing that she would pay her visit and return for them.
The Miss Dashwoods found so many people before them in the room, that there was not a person at liberty to tend to their orders; and they were obliged to wait. All that could be done was to sit down at that end of the counter; only one gentleman was standing there. He was giving orders for a customised Float-Suit for himself; the design of the suits were strictly regulated under Station law, but it was common practice for those with means to have theirs customised and inlaid with all manner of fashionable modifications. Till its size, shape, and ornaments were determined, the clerk had no leisure to bestow any other attention on the two ladies, but at last the affair was decided. The ivory, gold, and pearls would spell out Hail on one inflatable arm-band, and Britannia on the other. Then the gentleman left with a happy air of real conceit and affected indifference.
Elinor lost no time in bringing her business forward, and she had nearly concluded it when another gentleman presented himself at her side. She found him with some surprise to be her brother.
Their affection and pleasure in meeting was just enough to make a very creditable appearance in the shop. Elinor found that he and Fanny had been in town two days.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Page 20
