“I wished to call upon you yesterday,” said he, “but it was impossible, for we were obliged to take Harry to see the otter fights at Exeter Exchange; it’s really quite remarkable; they’ve trained the slippery little fellows to go after each other with straight razors. But to-morrow I think I shall certainly be able to call, and be introduced to your friend, Mrs. Jennings. I understand she is a woman of very good fortune, except for the unfortunate circumstance of her extended husband and sons being slaughtered, and her two daughters dragged off into marital servitude. And the Middletons too, you must introduce me to them. They are excellent neighbours to you on the islands, I understand.”
“Excellent indeed. Their attention to our comfort, their friendliness in every particular, is more than I can express. Sir John’s knowledge of sea-monster habit and vulnerability has kept us safe many times over.”
The next day, Mr. Dashwood’s visit was duly paid. His manners to them, though calm, were perfectly kind; to Mrs. Jennings, most attentively civil; and on Colonel Brandon’s coming in soon after himself, he started and grabbed a kitchen knife, but laid it down promptly when it was explained that this was a human being, facial features notwithstanding.
After staying with them half an hour, he asked Elinor to take him to be introduced to Sir John and Lady Middleton. The weather was remarkably fine, and she readily consented. As soon as they were out of the house, his enquiries began.
“Who is Colonel Brandon? Is he a man of fortune? What in the name of the Father and the Son is wrong with his face?”
“He has very good property in Dorsetshire. And, it is reported, a sea-witch curse.”
“Well, he seems a most gentlemanlike man; and I think, Elinor, I may congratulate you on the prospect of a very respectable establishment in life.”
“Me, brother! What do you mean?”
“He likes you. I am convinced of it.”
“I am very sure that Colonel Brandon has not the smallest wish of marrying me.”
“You are mistaken, Elinor; you are very much mistaken. Perhaps just at present he may be undecided; the smallness of your fortune may make him hang back; his friends may all advise him against it. But some of those little attentions and encouragements which ladies can so easily give will fix him, in spite of himself. Brush those tentacles of his as if by accident with the back of your hand; adjust his cravat, wipe the excretions from his chin. It is a match that must give universal satisfaction. Your friends are all truly anxious to see you well settled; Fanny particularly, for she has your interest very much at heart, I assure you. And her mother too, Mrs. Ferrars, a very good-natured woman, I am sure it would give her great pleasure; she said as much the other day.”
Elinor would not vouchsafe any answer.
“It would be something remarkable, now,” he continued, “if Fanny should have a brother and I a sister settling at the same time.”
At this surprising declaration from her brother, the five-pointed star flashed in Elinor’s mind with the suddenness and violence of a pistol shot; and then was gone again.
“Is Mr. Edward Ferrars,” said Elinor, with resolution, “going to be married?”
“It is not actually settled, but there is such a thing in agitation. His mother will come forward and settle on him a thousand a year, if the match takes place. The lady is the Honourable Miss Morton, only daughter of the late Lord Morton, the very engineer and public hero who over-saw the creation of Sub-Marine Station Alpha. It is a very desirable connection on both sides, and I have not a doubt of its taking place in time. A thousand a year is a great deal for a mother to give away, but Mrs. Ferrars has a noble spirit. On occasion, I tell you confidentially, she puts bank-notes into Fanny’s hands; I find this extremely acceptable, for we must live at a great expense while we are here. But I am also finding ways to earn a bit extra.”
“Oh?”
“Indeed. I am—participating.”
Elinor, having lived in the Station now for a period of weeks, knew the meaning of the expression; her brother was submitting himself to the attentions of the Station’s government scientists, in their ongoing efforts to enhance human beings, to provide us advantages over the sea-borne beasts determined to bedevil our race. John was giving his sister to understand, in short, that he was allowing his body to be experimented upon, in exchange for financial recompense. Having now said enough to make his poverty clear, and to do away the necessity of buying a pair of ear-rings for each of his sisters, John inquired after Marianne. “She looks very unwell,” he said.
“She has had a nervous complaint on her for several weeks.”
“I am sorry for that. At her time of life, anything of an illness destroys the bloom forever! She was as handsome a girl last September, as I ever saw; and as likely to attract the man. I question whether Marianne now, will marry a man worth more than five or six hundred a year, at the utmost, and I am very much deceived if you will not do better.”
Elinor tried very seriously to convince him that there was no likelihood of her marrying Colonel Brandon; but he was really resolved on seeking an intimacy with that gentleman, and promoting the marriage by every possible attention, before at last he put on his Float-Suit and departed.
CHAPTER 34
MRS. JOHN DASHWOOD had so much confidence in her husband’s judgment, despite his chemically altered perceptions, that she waited the very next day on Mrs. Jennings and her daughter. Her confidence was rewarded by finding the woman with whom her sisters were staying most worthy of her notice; and as for Lady Middleton, she found her one of the most charming women in the world, even if she had been married, as the saying has it, out of a bag!
Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood. There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides, a desire to escape, on the one hand, from pecuniary anxiety, and on the other, from civilization as a whole, which mutually attracted them.
To Mrs. Jennings, however, Mrs. Dashwood was a mere pxtypyp; that is, a little proud-looking woman of uncordial address. She met her husband’s sisters without any affection, and almost without having anything to say to them; for of the quarter of an hour bestowed on Berkeley Causeway, she sat at least seven minutes and a half in silence.
Elinor wanted very much to know, though she did not choose to ask, whether Edward was in town; but nothing would have induced Fanny voluntarily to mention his name before her. The intelligence she would not give, however, soon flowed from another quarter. Lucy came very shortly to claim Elinor’s compassion on being unable to see Edward, though he had arrived in-Station with Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood. Despite their mutual impatience to meet, they could do nothing at present but write.
Edward assured them himself of his being in town, within a very short time, by twice calling in Berkeley Causeway. His hermit-crab shell calling card was found on the table when they returned from a diverting morning at Mr. Pennywhistle’s Aqua-Museo-Quarium, where they had spent an hour and a quarter mesmerised by the antics of a troupe of flying fish who had been trained in sub-aqueous acrobatics. Elinor was pleased that Edward had called; and still more pleased that she had missed him.
The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons that they determined to give them a dinner; soon after their acquaintance began, they invited them to dine in Harley Piscina, where they had taken a very good docking for three months. Their sisters and Mrs. Jennings were invited likewise, and John Dashwood was careful to secure Colonel Brandon. Always glad to be where the Miss Dashwoods were, he received his civilities with some surprise, but much more pleasure. He prepared his best dress uniform and neatly combed his tentacles.
They were to meet Mrs. Ferrars; but Elinor could not learn whether her sons were to be of the party. The expectation of seeing her, however, was enough to make her interested in the engagement.
The evening promised other amusements as well. Given the minimal time required for the preparation and consumption of foodstuffs, the custom of dinner parties in Sub-Marine Station Beta
placed a large emphasis on the after-dinner entertainment. As taken as was Fanny Dashwood with the Middletons, it came as no surprise to Elinor that she intended to present for them the most rarified of amusements—namely of arranging for their domestic servants to compete in various contests of skill and strength against enhanced sea creatures.
The important Tuesday arrived, and Elinor found Lucy professing a state of extreme anxiety as they disembarked from their gondola at the home of the Dashwoods.
“Pity me, dear Miss Dashwood!” said Lucy. “There is nobody here but you that can feel for me. I declare I can hardly stand. Good gracious! In a moment I shall see the person that all my happiness depends on— that is to be my mother!”
Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman, upright in her figure, and serious in her aspect. Her complexion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and naturally without expression. As Fanny presented her with that evening’s main course, an elegantly presented large loaf of beef-steak–flavoured gelatin paste, she felt it unnecessary to present a peroration on the deficiencies of Station cuisine; she simply wrinkled her sour nose and said “Ick.” Of the few syllables that did escape her that evening, not one fell to the share of Miss Dashwood, whom she eyed with the spirited determination of disliking her at all events.
Elinor could not now be made unhappy by this behaviour. A few months ago, it would have hurt her exceedingly; but it was not in Mrs. Ferrars’s power to distress her by it now; and the difference of her manners to the Miss Steeles, a difference which seemed purposely made to humble her more, only amused her. She could not but smile to see the graciousness of both mother and daughter towards Lucy, the very person whom of all others (had they known as much as she did) they would have been most anxious to mortify.
She herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which it sprung without thoroughly despising them all four, and idly trying to recall a method of swiftly murdering a person with two fingers pressed to the throat, which she had once been taught by a drunken Sir John.
The dinner was a grand one, the servants were numerous, and everything bespoke the Mistress’s inclination for show, and the Master’s ability to support it. The after-dinner entertainment was truly remarkable; first came a display in which a household servant played three hands of Jeu d’enfer against a sea horse; and then one in which their housemaid was caged inside a giant razor-clam from which she had to fight her way out. Mrs. Ferrars, not to be satisfied, pronounced the clamshell a weak one, its razors dull, and averred that, were she a younger woman, she might have broken free much quicker.
Before departing Norland, Elinor had whittled out of flotsam a very pretty pair of parakeets for her sister-in-law; and these birds, catching the eye of John Dashwood on his following the other gentlemen into the room, were officiously handed by him to Colonel Brandon for his admiration.
“These are done by my eldest sister,” said he, “and you, as a man of taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them. I do not know whether you have seen any of her Elinor’s work before, but she is reckoned to whittle extremely well.”
The colonel, though disclaiming all pretensions to connoisseurship, warmly admired the driftwood budgies, as he would have done anything created by Miss Dashwood, and they were handed round for general inspection. Mrs. Ferrars, not aware of their being Elinor’s work, particularly requested to look at them; and after they had received gratifying testimony of Lady Middleton’s approbation, Fanny presented them to her mother, considerately informing her, at the same time, that they were done by Miss Dashwood.
“Hum,” said Mrs. Ferrars, “very pretty,” and dropped them on the ground, causing one of the parakeet’s tailfeathers to snap off.
Perhaps Fanny thought for a moment that her mother had been quite rude enough, for, colouring a little, she immediately said, “They are very pretty, ma’am—ain’t they?” But then again, the dread of having been too civil, too encouraging herself, probably came over her, for she dropped the other parakeet (causing its tail to fall off) and presently added, “Do you not think they are something in Miss Morton’s style of whittling, Ma’am? She does sculpt most delightfully! How masterfully her diorama of the late, lamented Sub-Marine Station Alpha was done! One nearly felt that one was there!”
“Beautifully indeed! But she does every thing well. Have you seen her peel a banana? It is like listening to a symphony.”
Marianne could not bear this. She was already greatly displeased with Mrs. Ferrars, and such ill-timed praise of another, at Elinor’s expense, though she had not any notion of what was principally meant by it, provoked her immediately to say with warmth, “This is admiration of a very particular kind! What is Miss Morton to us?” And so saying, she took the parakeets out of her sister-in-law’s hands, and reattached their dismembered tailfeathers with bandages she removed for the purpose from the still-bleeding, shell-sliced housemaid.
“It is Elinor of whom we think and speak,” Marianne continued angrily. “Who knows, or who cares, for this Miss Morton!”
Mrs. Ferrars looked exceedingly angry, and drawing herself up more stiffly than ever, pronounced in retort this bitter philippic, “Miss Morton is Lord Morton’s daughter. The Lord Morton! He, the great hydraulic engineer of his or any age; he who was so dreadfully betrayed!”
It was not necessary for Mrs. Ferrars to relate the details; all present were familiar with the tragic story of Lord Morton and Sub-Marine Station Alpha. The great man had been commissioned by the Crown to create the original underwater fortress, and his plans for the Station had been flawless, his execution exemplary. How could Lord Morton have known that Sir Bradley, his faithful amanuensis and chief engineer, was a merman in disguise, an ally to the sea creatures bent on the destruction of all mankind? This Bradley, cursed be the name, had waited patiently, tail disguised, for the entire Station to be constructed and inhabited by a city’s worth of good English souls, before he triggered the gate-failure that flooded Morton’s masterwork in an instant, and took the lives of so many brave undersea pioneers, Lord Morton included. The fortunate ones had been drowned, while the rest were shortly feasted upon by the swimming army of deep-sea murder-beasts that poured into the breached gate.
For Marianne to sully the name of Lord Morton in such company was a grave faux pas; Fanny looked very angry, and her husband was all in a fright at his sister’s audacity. Elinor was much more hurt by Marianne’s warmth than by what produced it; but Colonel Brandon’s eyes, as they were fixed on Marianne, declared that he noticed only what was amiable in it, the affectionate heart which could not bear to see a sister slighted in the smallest point. His tentacles performed a sort of gentle, romantic sway as he gazed upon her.
Marianne’s feelings did not stop here. She moved to her sister’s chair, and putting one arm round her neck, and one cheek close to hers, said in a low, but eager, voice, “Dear, dear Elinor, don’t mind them. Don’t let them make you unhappy.”
She could say no more; her spirits were quite overcome, and hiding her face on Elinor’s shoulder, she burst into tears. Mrs. Jennings, with a very intelligent “Ah! poor dear,” immediately gave her her salts, and Sir John instantly changed his seat to one close by Lucy Steele, and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of the whole shocking Willoughby affair.
And then the bell was rung for the next act of the floor show, in which a man was to play badminton against a fur seal.
CHAPTER 35
ELINOR’S CURIOSITY TO SEE Mrs. Ferrars was satisfied, as was her curiosity to know how a fur seal might wield a badminton racquet. She had found in Mrs. Ferrars everything that could make a further connection between the families undesirable. She had seen enough of her pride, her meanness, and her determined prejudice, to comprehend all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise free.
�
�My dear friend,” cried Lucy, as soon as they met the next day, “I come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering as Mrs. Ferrars’s way of treating me yesterday? So exceeding affable as she was! Arranging me a seat up front, where I could best view the floorshow, but draping me considerately with a poncho. You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her; but the very moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her behaviour. She had quite took a fancy to me. Now was not it so? You saw it all; and was not you quite struck with it?”
“She was certainly very civil to you.”
“Civil! Did you see nothing but civility? I saw a vast deal more. Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me!”
Elinor wished to talk of something else; rifling through her mind for other topics of interest, she recalled the subject of the swordfish and the tiny cracks she had noticed in the Dome, and enquired whether Lucy had ever seen such a crack before, during her time in-Station—but Lucy would not allow the subject to be changed; she still pressed her to admit she had reason for her happiness, and Elinor was obliged to go on.
“If they had known your engagement,” said she, “nothing could be more flattering than their treatment of you; but as that was not the case—”
“I guessed you would say so,” replied Lucy quickly, “but there was no reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did not. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming woman, and so is your sister-in-law. They are both delightful women, indeed! I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was!”
To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any.
“Are you ill, Miss Dashwood? You seem low. You don’t speak. Sure you ain’t well?”
“I never was in better health.” In truth, as the conversation on the hated topic continued, Elinor felt the familiar terrifying darkness swimming about her eyes, saw the familiar star pattern begin to form itself in her mind. She took a series of deep breaths, in desperate hope that she could keep the eerie vision at bay. What was this torment? Why would it not leave her be?
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Page 21
