Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Jane Austen; Ben H. Winters

  The time could not pass quickly enough. By ten o’clock, Elinor trusted, or at least not much later, her mother would be relieved from the dreadful suspense in which she must now be travelling towards them. Oh! How slow was the progress of time which yet kept them in ignorance, and kept Elinor and Marianne within the prospect of danger they faced here!

  At seven o’clock, leaving Marianne still sweetly asleep, Elinor joined Mrs. Jennings in the drawing-room to tea. Of breakfast she had been kept by her fears, and of lunch by their sudden reverse, from eating much; and the present refreshment, therefore, with such feelings of content as she brought to it, was particularly welcome. Together she and Mrs. Jennings ate an entire tuna, head to fin, including all interior organs; Mrs. Jennings saved the roe for Elinor to consume on her own, which she did, managing to enjoy the salty treat despite the welter of anxiety in which she waited.

  The night was cold and stormy. The wind roared round the houseboat, tilting it violently back and forth in its moorings, and the rain beat against the windows. Marianne slept through every blast. The clock struck eight. Had it been ten, Elinor would have been convinced that at that moment she heard Brandon’s strong crawl stroke cutting through the tide, swimming unerringly back to the houseboat; and so strong was the persuasion that she did, in spite of the almost impossibility of their being already come, that she raced out to the verandah and peered through the spyglass, to be satisfied of the truth. She instantly saw that her ears had not deceived her. Something was approaching, but it was not Brandon cutting through the waves with her mother upon his back; the object that approached from the western horizon was long, much longer than a swimming man, and it cut through the sea much faster than any man, even one with powerful face-flippers to propel him. As she stared through the spyglass, she heard the sound of oars beating against the waves.

  Elinor’s joy died in her breast. This was not Brandon and her mother—this was a ship. Dreadbeard was come.

  Elinor swiveled the carronade and tried to fix aim on the fast-approaching enemy vessel; which boat, however, she soon noted seemed smaller than she would expect a three-masted pirate schooner. Judging that she would have better luck picking Dreadbeard and his men off at close range, once they had boarded—rather than trying to sink such a smallish craft with her untutored hand at a long gun—Elinor climbed quickly, hand over hand, down the trap to the hold, returning just as swiftly topside with Palmer’s hunting rifle. Adopting a position in the shadow of the massive captain’s wheel, she aimed the rifle at the gangplank of the houseboat, prepared to open fire as soon as the pirate crew climbed aboard.

  Elinor squeezed her eyes shut and uttered a brief prayer as she crouched in the shadow of the wheel. It was not her choice to aim a rifle, nor to die aboard The Cleveland on this dark night—but she would defend her recovered sister. The sound of a boot heel at the end of the gangplank assured Elinor that the first of her unwelcome guests had made free to come aboard the boat. Her fingers grew sweaty around the trigger of the rifle. The heavy booted footfalls grew nearer.

  She raised her gun, looked through the sight—and saw only Willoughby.

  CHAPTER 44

  ELINOR, STARTING BACK with a look of horror at the sight of him, did not lower her rifle. For one long second, her heart pounding and her head muddled, she considered the horrid possibility that Willoughby was Dreadbeard. Her hand remained on the trigger, and she even raised the barrel slightly—its action was suspended by his hastily advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than supplication,

  “Miss Dashwood, don’t shoot. For half an hour—for ten minutes— I entreat you to listen to me.” He raised his hands in surrender, as did Monsieur Pierre, the orangutan, whom Elinor now saw at Willoughby’s side, his hands held high over his head in a simian parody of Willoughby’s supplicating stance.

  “No, sir,” she replied with firmness, “I shall not listen. Your business cannot be with me. Mr. Palmer is not aboard the boat.”

  “Were Mr. Palmer and all his relations at the devil, it would not have turned me from this gangplank. My business is with you, and only you.”

  “With me! Well, sir, be quick—and if you can, less violent.”

  “You, too,” was his rejoinder, and, gathering his meaning, she slowly lowered the rifle, although she kept it grasped in her hands. “Sit down,” he said, “and I will be both.”

  She hesitated; she knew not what to do. The possibility of Colonel Brandon’s arriving and finding her there at the captain’s wheel, in conversation with Willoughby, came across her. But she had promised to hear him, and her curiosity no less than her honour was engaged. After a moment’s recollection, therefore, concluding that prudence required dispatch, and that her acquiescence would best promote it, she led Willoughby and his queer companion inside the cottage to the parlour, where they walked silently towards the table and sat down. He took the opposite chair, Monsieur Pierre squatted in the centre of the parlour rug, and for half a minute not a word was said by any of them.

  “Pray be quick, sir,” said Elinor, impatiently. “I have no time to spare. Pirates stalk this ship, I have great reason to fear, and I should return to my station at the captain’s wheel.”

  He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to hear her.

  “Your sister,” said he, “is out of danger. The malaria is passed; I heard it from the apothecary’s servant. God be praised! But is it true? Is it really true?”

  Elinor would not speak. He repeated the inquiry with yet greater eagerness.

  “For God’s sake, tell me: Is she out of danger, or is she not?”

  “We hope she is.”

  He rose up, and walked across the room.

  “Had I known as much half an hour ago. But since I am here”— speaking with a forced vivacity as he returned to his seat—”what does it signify? For once, Miss Dashwood—it will be the last time, perhaps—let us be cheerful together. Tell me honestly: Do you think me most a knave or a fool?”

  Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to think that he must be in liquor; the strangeness of such a visit, and of such manners, and treasure hunters having a notorious fondness for spirits. With this impression she immediately rose, saying,

  “Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe—I am not at leisure to remain with you longer. Every moment we remain talking is a moment our enemies may take us unawares, which I cannot allow. Whatever your business may be with me, it will be better recollected and explained to-morrow.”

  “I understand you,” he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice perfectly calm. “And yes, I am very drunk.”

  But the steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he spoke, convinced Elinor that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to The Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication. She said, after a moment’s recollection, “Mr. Willoughby, you ought to feel, and I certainly do—that after what has passed—your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. By God, I would almost rather you were a pirate! What do you mean by it?”

  “I mean,” said he, with serious energy, “if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do now. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past. To open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a scallywag, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma—from your sister.”

  “Is this the real reason of your coming?”

  “Upon my soul it is,” was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. In the corner, Monsieur Pierre entered into a spirited liaison with an armchair.

  “If that is all, you may be satisfied already—for Marianne has long forgiven you.”

  “Has she?” he cried, in the same eager tone. “Then she has forgiven me befor
e she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. Now will you listen to me?”

  Elinor bowed her assent. As Willoughby began to speak, she peeked briefly out the black-curtained window of the parlour, and, seeing no incoming vessel, allowed herself the ease to attend his story.

  “I do not know,” said he, “how you may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me. It is worth the trial however, and you shall hear everything. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain on the Devonshire coast. Your sister’s lovely person and interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was astonishing. At first I must confess, only my vanity was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured to make myself pleasing to her, without any design of returning her affection.”

  Miss Dashwood, turning her eyes on him with the most angry contempt, stopped him by saying, “It is hardly worthwhile, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by anything. Do not let me be pained by hearing anything more on the subject.”

  “I insist on you hearing the whole of it,” he replied. “My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age had added to my debts. I was always searching for treasure and never finding it; always imagining it would be found the following year, always spending money freely with the expectation that it would be so. It had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of—and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty—which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much—I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it. But one thing may be said for me: Even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I did not then know what it was to love. But have I ever known it? Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? Or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers?”

  He paused for a moment in his narrative; Monsieur Pierre laid his head in his master’s lap and Willoughby indulgently scratched him.

  “But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost everything that could make it a blessing.”

  “Then you did,” said Elinor, a little softened, “believe yourself at one time attached to her?”

  “As surely as a piranha, once it has gripped its teeth into an explorer’s plump leg, will hardly let go until sated or killed, nor did I think my heart would ever be released! To have resisted her attractions, to have withstood such tenderness! Is there a man on earth who could have done it? The happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even then, however, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here—nor will I stop for you to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already bound. At last, however, my resolution was taken, and I had determined, as soon as I could engage her alone, to justify the attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly assure her of an affection which I had already taken such pains to display. But in the interim of the very few hours that were to pass, before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her in private—a circumstance occurred—an unlucky circumstance, to ruin all my resolution, and with it all my comfort. A discovery took place.” Here he hesitated and looked down, absently rubbing Pierre’s furry stomach. “Mrs. Smith had somehow or other been informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest it was to deprive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection—but I need not explain myself further,” he added, looking at her with an heightened colour and an enquiring eye. “You have probably heard the whole story long ago. A seller of cakes—an octopus—a girl left buried in the sand—”

  “Yes, yes,” returned Elinor, colouring likewise, and hardening her heart anew against any compassion for him. “I have heard it all. And how you will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I confess is beyond my comprehension.” The boat creaked wearily as it tossed in its mooring, and Elinor froze for a second, imagining she discerned the sound of a silvered boot heel pacing the deck outside; but the ominous noise was not repeated, and her heart after a moment unclenched.

  “Remember,” cried Willoughby, “from whom you received the account of my behaviour. Could it be an impartial one? I acknowledge that her situation and her character ought to have been respected by me. Her affection for me deserved better treatment, and I often, with great self-reproach, recall her tenderness. I wish—I heartily wish it had never been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have injured one, whose affection for me was scarcely less warm than hers; and whose mind was infinitely superior!”

  “Your indifference is no apology for your cruelly leaving her in such circumstances, abandoned by your affection and buried neck-deep by the shore. You must have known that while you were enjoying yourself in Devonshire pursuing fresh schemes, she was reduced to the extremest indigence—or even worse. The tide might have swallowed her whole!”

  “But, upon my soul, I did not know of her ultimate circumstances,” he warmly replied. “I did not recollect that I had omitted to give her my address; and common sense might have told her how to find it out.”

  “Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?”

  “Good woman! She offered to forgive the past, if I would marry Eliza. That could not be—and I was formally dismissed from her favour and her house.”

  “This, I must mention, is exactly as I suspected—though my mother insisted it was a ghost who had cursed you.”

  “The night following this affair—I was to go the next morning— was spent by me in deliberating on what my future conduct should be. The struggle was great—but it ended too soon. My affection for Marianne, my thorough conviction of her attachment to me—it was all insufficient to outweigh that dread of poverty. I had reason to believe myself secure of my present wife, if I chose to address her, and I persuaded myself to think that nothing else in common prudence remained for me to do. I have spent my life searching for treasure—I could not abandon one, once found. And so I went to Marianne, I saw her, and saw her miserable, and left her miserable—and left her hoping never to see her again.”

  “Then why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?” said Elinor. “A note would have answered every purpose. Why was it necessary to call?”

  “It was necessary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the Devonshire coast in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the neighbourhood, to suspect any part of what had really passed between Mrs. Smith and myself—and I resolved therefore on calling at the shanty. The sight of your dear sister, however, was really dreadful; and, to heighten the matter, I found her alone. You were all gone I do not know where. I had left her only the evening before, so fully, so firmly resolved within myself on doing right! A few hours were to have engaged her to me forever; and I remember how happy, how gay were my spirits, as I rowed from your shack back to Allenham Isle, satisfied with myself, delighted with everybody! But in this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense of guilt that almost took from me the power of dis
sembling. Her sorrow, her disappointment, her deep regret, when I told her that I was obliged to leave Devonshire so immediately—I never shall forget it. Oh, God! What a hard-hearted rogue was I! I hid behind the portcullis of my diving helmet! I could not meet her eye!”

  They were both silent for a few moments. Waves rattled the sides of the houseboat, and the old wood creaked again in the tide.

  “Well, sir,” said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew increasingly impatient for his departure. “And this is all? If so then pray allow me leave to return to the deck, and my spyglass, and my watch for the hated Dreadbeard.”

  “My God—Dreadbeard, you say?”

  The infamous name brought Willoughby to his feet, and seemed in an instant to clear his head and bring his eyes to full attention. “Miss Dashwood, think what you will of me—of my morals and of my depravity in my treatment of you and your relations—but I have spent my life in pursuit of buried treasures, and though I have never crossed paths with Dreadbeard, I have learned much about pirates. Come—let us booby-trap your boat.”

  Willoughby hurriedly strode out onto the verandah and from there down onto the foredeck. Asking firstly of Elinor where the hammocks were kept, he used them to rig neat mesh tiger-traps across each of the trap-doors.

  “That notorious letter,” he inquired of her, when they had travelled below-decks, where he splashed cooking oil across the locked door of the stores, so it could be lit to create an impassable wall of fire. “Did she show it you?”

  “Yes, I saw every note that passed.”

  “When the first of hers reached me, my feelings were very, very painful. Every line, every word was—in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid—a dagger to my heart.”