Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Jane Austen; Ben H. Winters

  Marianne was discovered, covered in suppurating sores, by a worried Elinor some three-quarters of an hour later, and put promptly into her bed. She woke the next morning with the swelling from the bites greatly decreased, but, alas, that major discomfort had been replaced by another—a set of the most violent symptoms. Prescriptions poured in from all quarters, and as usual, were all declined. Though heavy and feverish, with a pain in her limbs, and a cough, and a sore throat, headache, sweats, and vomiting, a good night’s rest was to cure her entirely; and it was with difficulty that Elinor prevailed upon her to try one or two of the simplest of the remedies.

  CHAPTER 43

  MARIANNE GOT UP the next morning at her usual time; to every inquiry replied that she was better, and tried to prove herself so, by engaging in her customary employments. But a day spent shivering on a hammock with a book in her hand, which she was unable to read, or in lying, weary and languid, on a sofa, did not speak much in favour of her amendment. When at last she went early to bed, more and more indisposed, Colonel Brandon was only astonished at her sister’s composure, who, though attending and nursing Marianne the whole day, trusted to the certainty and efficacy of sleep, and felt no real alarm.

  A very restless and feverish night, however, disappointed the expectation of both. When Marianne, after persisting in rising, confessed herself unable to sit up, and returned into the cottage and went voluntarily to her bed, Elinor was very ready to send for the Palmers’ apothecary, Mr. Harris.

  He came on a swift boat from inland, examined his patient, and, once having heard of the mosquitoes’ bites, swiftly determined that Marianne had malaria.

  Such a diagnosis gave instant alarm to Mrs. Palmer on the account of her baby. Mrs. Jennings, who was born and bred along a mosquito-plagued coast, had been inclined from the first to think Marianne’s complaint more serious than Elinor thought, now looked very grave on Mr. Harris’s report, and confirming Charlotte’s fears and caution, urged the necessity of her immediate removal with her infant. Her departure, therefore, was fixed on; and within an hour after Mr. Harris’s arrival, she set off, with her little boy and his nurse, for the house of a near relation of Mr. Palmer’s, who lived a few miles on the other side of Bath; whither her husband promised, at her earnest entreaty, to join her in a day or two; and whither she was almost equally urgent with her mother to accompany her. Mrs. Jennings, however, with a kindness of heart which made Elinor really love her, declared her resolution of not stepping foot off The Cleveland as long as Marianne remained ill, and of endeavouring, by her own attentive care, to supply to her the place of the mother she had taken her from.

  Poor Marianne, languid and low from her malaria, violently disgorging the contents of her stomach at irregular intervals in a silver chamber pot that was again and again rinsed and returned to her bedside, could no longer hope that to-morrow would find her recovered. The idea of what to-morrow would have produced, but for this unlucky illness, made every ailment severe; for on that day they were to have begun their journey home, ferried thereto by Palmer’s old companions aboard the Rusted Nail, and to have taken their mother by surprise on the following forenoon. The little she said was all in lamentation of this inevitable delay; though Elinor tried to raise her spirits, and make her believe, as she then really believed herself, that it would be a very short one.

  The next day produced little or no alteration in the state of the patient; she certainly was not better, and her body was covered from head to toe with deep, suppurating sores. Her right eye, which had been bitten directly by the largest of the insects, had swollen such that it was permanently shut, the eyelid layered with a crustulent glaze of pus.

  Their party was now further reduced; for Mr. Palmer was preparing to follow his wife; and while he was preparing to go, Colonel Brandon himself, with a much greater exertion, began to talk of going likewise. Here, however, the kindness of Mrs. Jennings interposed most acceptably; for to send the colonel away while his love was in so much uneasiness on her sister’s account, would be to deprive them both, she thought, of every comfort; and therefore, telling him at once that his stay at The Cleveland was necessary to herself, that she should want him to play at Karankrolla of an evening, while Miss Dashwood was above with her sister. She urged him so strongly to remain, that he, who was gratifying the first wish of his own heart by a compliance, could not long even affect to demur.

  Elinor realised too late the grave implication of Mr. Palmer’s departure. It was he who had saved the life of Dreadbeard, so many years past; it was he, therefore, whose presence guaranteed security against an invasion by that infamous king of the pirates. With his departure, the unfortunate circumstance of Marianne’s illness was compounded a hundredfold by the evaporation of that safety. Not wanting to worry the still gravely ill Marianne, nor impede the nurturing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, Elinor shared this distressing understanding to Colonel Brandon, whose ropy face tendrils grew rigid with concern. After Mrs. Jennings retired to her bedroom on the houseboat’s second floor; and Marianne, in the next room and overcome by a consuming fever, lay in her wracked, hacking quasi-sleep, murmuring hallucinatory inanities, Brandon and Elinor began the grim business of putting the vessel (as the colonel put it) on a battle footing: They gathered long curtains of moss and Sagittaria leaves and hung them from the gables of the houseboat to obscure their position; they draped black fabric over the French windows; and they moved along the rails, adjusting the long-guns and carronades in their quoins, and making sure each artillery piece had adequate wadding and balls at the ready.

  The next day, Marianne, even in her fleeting moments of alertness, was kept in ignorance of all these arrangements. She knew not that she had been the means of sending the owners of The Cleveland away, in about seven days from the time of their arrival, and what fresh peril their departure had engendered. It gave her no surprise that she saw nothing of Mrs. Palmer; and as it gave her likewise no concern, she never mentioned her name.

  Two days passed from the time of Mr. Palmer’s departure, and Marianne’s situation continued with little variation. Mr. Harris, who attended her every day, still talked boldly of a speedy recovery, but the expectation of the others was by no means so cheerful. Mrs. Jennings, having observed that the girl’s moments of consciousness were increasingly rare, and more fleeting when they came, arrived at the unfortunate conclusion that she had contracted not just malaria, but yellow fever as well—and that, in short, she would never recover. Colonel Brandon, who was chiefly of use in listening to Mrs. Jennings’s forebodings, was not in a state of mind to resist their influence. He tried to reason himself out of fears, and even spent hours each morning catching sardines out of the shallows with his own face, so Marianne might have sustenance readily available when her appetite returned; but the many hours of each day in which he was left entirely alone, were but too favourable for the admission of every melancholy idea, and he could not expel from his mind the persuasion that he should see Marianne no more.

  All the next day, Elinor sat perched on the deck of The Cleveland, manning the carronade, her attention torn between thoughts of her poor suffering sister where she lay feverish within the cabin; and her ever-growing terror of the mad pirate captain she felt with grim certainty would shortly be arriving to murder the lot of them, and toss their bodies to the monsters of the sea.

  The day ended even less auspiciously. For a time, Marianne seemed to recover, but in the evening she became ill again, growing more heavy, restless, and uncomfortable than before. Marianne’s sleep lasted a considerable time and Elinor resolved to sit with her during the whole of it, while Colonel Brandon took the night watch at the carronades and Mrs. Jennings went early to bed.

  As the night wore on, Marianne’s sleep became more and more disturbed; and her sister, who watched, with unremitting attention her continual change of posture, and heard the frequent but inarticulate sounds of complaint which passed her lips, was almost wishing to rouse her from so painful a slumber, when Marianne,
suddenly started up and cried out, “Is Mama coming?”

  “Not yet,” cried the other, concealing her terror, and assisting Marianne to lie down again, “but she will be here, I hope, before it is long. It is a great way, you know, from hence to Barton Cottage.”

  “But she must not go ‘round by Sub-Marine Station Beta!” cried Marianne, in the same hurried manner. “I shall never see her, if she goes by the Station.”

  Elinor perceived with alarm that she was not quite herself. There seemed little point in reminding her, at such a moment, that the Station had been swallowed into the sea. While calmly attempting to soothe her, Elinor felt her sister’s pulse. It was lower and quicker than ever! She knew she must send instantly for Mr. Harris, and dispatch a messenger to Barton Cottage for her mother. To consult with Colonel Brandon on the best means of effecting the latter; as soon as Elinor had rung up Mrs. Jennings to take her place by her sister, she exited the cabin and found Brandon at his battle station. It was no time for hesitation. Her fears and her difficulties were immediately before Colonel Brandon. He listened to them in silent despondence, sternly stroking his appendages—but her difficulties were instantly obviated, for with a readiness that seemed to speak the occasion, and the service pre-arranged in his mind, he offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood. It was a decision as terrible as it was necessary: Though Brandon’s departure would leave Elinor and Mrs. Jennings alone to defend the ship against Dreadbeard, his going was the surest and quickest way to bring Mrs. Dashwood hence.

  “I can navigate those waters faster than any boat could sail it,” he said.

  Though she knew what emotional exertion Brandon required to so embrace the fishy part of his nature, Elinor made no resistance that was not easily overcome. She thanked him with brief, though fervent gratitude, and while he went to perform the elaborate stretching exercises necessary to prepare his body for such a lengthy swim, she wrote a few lines to her mother.

  The comfort of such a friend at that moment as Colonel Brandon— or such a companion for her mother, how gratefully was it felt! A companion whose judgment would guide, whose attendance must relieve, whose friendship might soothe her! As far as the shock of such a summons could be lessened to her, his presence, his manners, his assistance, everything but his grotesque physical appearance, would lessen it.

  He, meanwhile, whatever he might feel, acted with all the firmness of a collected mind, performed his stretches with the utmost dispatch, and calculated with exactness the time in which she might look for his return. Not a moment was lost in delay of any kind. After pressing her hand with a look of solemnity, and a few words spoken too low to reach her ear, Colonel Brandon leapt from the prow of the houseboat and began a sturdy, athletic crawl stroke to the south-southwest. Elinor went back into the cottage and up to her sister’s room to wait for the arrival of the apothecary, and to watch by her the rest of the night. It was a night of almost equal suffering to both. Hour after hour passed away in sleepless pain and delirium on Marianne’s side, and in the most cruel anxiety on Elinor’s. The ideas in Marianne’s fever-wracked brain were still, at intervals, fixed incoherently on her mother, and whenever she mentioned her name, it gave a pang to the heart of poor Elinor, who, reproaching herself for having trifled with so many days of illness, and wretched for some immediate relief, fancied that all relief might soon be in vain, that everything had been delayed too long, and pictured to herself her suffering mother arriving too late to see this darling child, or to see her rational.

  She was on the point of sending again for Mr. Harris, or if he could not come, for some other advice, when the former arrived. His opinion, however, made some little amends for his delay, for though acknowledging a very unexpected and unpleasant alteration in his patient, he would not allow the danger to be material. He placed leeches all along Marianne’s forearms, and laid the largest of the creatures directly on her inflamed eye— then, leaving the salutary bloodsuckers to do their work, he promised to call again in the course of three or four hours, and left both the patient and her anxious attendant more composed than he had found them.

  With strong concern, and with many reproaches for not being called to their aid, did Mrs. Jennings hear in the morning of what had passed. Her heart truly grieved. Marianne lay with her eyes closed, breathing shallowly, covered in the blood-sucking leeches that now represented her only hope of a return to health. The rapid decay, the early death of a girl so young, so lovely as Marianne, must have struck a less interested person with concern. On Mrs. Jennings’s compassion she had other claims. She had been for three months her companion, was still under her care, and she was known to have been greatly injured, and long unhappy. The distress of her sister too, particularly a favourite, was before her—and as for their mother, when Mrs. Jennings considered that Marianne might probably be to her what Charlotte was to herself, her sympathy in her sufferings was very sincere.

  Mr. Harris was punctual in his second visit, but he came to be disappointed in his hopes of what the last would produce. Even as he plucked free the leeches, fat from gorging on Marianne’s diseased blood, it was clear that the remedy had failed. The fever was unabated, and Marianne only more quiet—not more herself—remained in a heavy stupor. Elinor, catching all his fears in a moment, proposed to call in further advice. But he judged it unnecessary: he had still another antipyretic to try, of whose success he was as confident as the last, and his visit concluded with encouraging assurances which reached the ear, but could not enter the heart of Miss Dashwood. Slowly, with the physician’s customary deliberateness, he encased Marianne’s body, from head to toe, in layer upon layer of slimy seaweed, leaving only a small slit at mouth-level for his patient to breathe.

  “The salted leaves of kelp will draw the illness and fever from her,” explained Mr. Harris. “And if she dies, her skin shall be smooth in death.”

  Elinor accepted the explanation, and was calm, except when she thought of her mother; but she was almost hopeless; and in this state she continued till noon, scarcely stirring from her sister’s bed, her thoughts wandering from one image of grief, one suffering friend, to another. And what of Dreadbeard? Had it somehow escaped the attention of that infamous brigand that Mr. Palmer had departed? Could they be so fortunate, that he had decided to leave undisturbed this floating boat where it sat moored—along with the defenseless girls, one of them ill unto death, that sat upon it like ripe fruit, waiting to be plucked? Surely not—surely the monster was biding his time, toying with her, waiting to strike. Such considerations gave fresh misery to her reflections.

  About noon, however, she began to hope she could perceive a slight amendment in her sister’s pulse. She lifted up a tiny corner of the seaweed wrap from Marianne’s face and looked at her left, unswollen eye. Seeing in it signs of life and intelligence for the first time in days, Elinor waited, watched, and examined Marianne again and again. Soon she hazarded to inspect the inflamed eye and found signs of life in it as well. Even Mrs. Jennings was forced to acknowledge a temporary revival, but she tried to keep her young friend from indulging a thought of its continuance— and Elinor told herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already entered, had caught the lip of her soul like a barbed hook; and feeling all its anxious flutter, she bent over her sister to watch—she hardly knew for what. Half an hour passed away, and the favourable symptom yet blessed her. Others even arose to confirm it. Her breath, her skin, her lips, all flattered Elinor with signs of amendment; and Marianne fixed her eyes on her with a rational, though languid, gaze. Anxiety and hope now oppressed her in equal degrees, and left her no moment of tranquility till the arrival of Mr. Harris at four o’clock—promptly he cut away the tight wrapping of dried sargassum; and his assurances, his felicitations on a recovery in her sister even surpassing his expectation, gave her confidence, comfort, and tears of joy.

  Marianne was in every respect materially better, and Mr. Harris declared her entirely out of danger. He indulged in one m
ore application of leeches, in order to be certain, which final treatment Marianne bore bravely. Even Mrs. Jennings allowed herself to trust in his judgment, and admitted, with unfeigned joy, the probability of an entire recovery.

  Elinor continued by the side of her sister, with little intermission the whole afternoon, calming every fear, satisfying every inquiry of her enfeebled spirits, supplying every succour, and watching almost every look and every breath. The possibility of a relapse would in some moments occur to remind her of what anxiety was—but she saw, on her frequent and minute examination, that every symptom of recovery continued, and even her tumescent eye was beginning to return to its accustomed shape, and the layer of crust that had overlaid it had fallen away. Marianne, at six o’clock, sunk into a quiet, steady, and to all appearance comfortable, sleep, and Elinor silenced every doubt.

  The time was now drawing on, when Colonel Brandon might be expected back; Elinor felt a stinging consciousness that she only had to keep them safe, only had to keep Marianne alive, until Brandon could return with their mother and the group of them could proceed to Barton Cottage, far from The Cleveland, far from fever, and far from Dreadbeard. As she sat with Marianne in the second-floor bedroom of the cabin, she imagined that she heard with every noise from without, every splash of tide against rock, the terrible sound of the pirate’s silver boot heels on the foredeck.