Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

by Jane Austen; Ben H. Winters

  It was agreed that not a word of this would be imparted to Marianne, for fear of unsettling the course of her recovery. Indeed, the next morning produced no abatement in her happy symptoms.

  “When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength,” said Marianne, “we will take long walks together every day. We will walk to the dunes at the water’s edge; we will travel to Deadwind Island and wander through Sir John’s exotic gardens; we will again slog through the marshy fens and climb the lightning-scarred trees. I know we shall be happy. I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to be later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for anything beyond mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at Sir John’s estate; and there are others of more modern production which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. I shall learn engineering; I shall study hydrology and biology and aeronautics; I shall endeavour to understand Mendel’s principles and comparative zoology.”

  “But of what use will be such knowledge?” inquired Elinor with a smile meant to offer encouragement, but from which she could not hide a small measure of teasing.

  “Someone,” replied Marianne, looking away shyly, “will need to build Sub-Marine Station Gamma.”

  Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this; though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining, now at work in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and virtuous self-control. Her smile however changed to a sigh when she felt, still cosseted in her bosom, the octopus whistle, and remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled. Willing to delay the evil hour, she resolved to wait till her sister’s health were more secure before she appointed it. But the resolution was made only to be broken.

  They had been three days at home when the ever-present sea mist lifted enough for an invalid to venture out. Marianne, leaning on Elinor’s arm, was authorized to walk as long as she could without fatigue, down the wandering lane that led inland from the shanty.

  The sisters set out at a slow pace, and they had advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the hill when Marianne calmly said, “There, exactly there, into that rolling brook, where the octopus set upon me—there did I first see Willoughby.”

  Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added, “I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the spot! Shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor? Or will it be wrong? I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought to do.”

  Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.

  “As for regret,” said Marianne, “I have done with that, as far as he is concerned. I do not mean to talk to you of what my feelings have been for him, but what they are now. If I could be satisfied on one point—if I could be allowed to think that he was not always acting a part, not always deceiving me; but above all, if I could be assured that he never was so very wicked as my fears have sometimes fancied him, since the story of that unfortunate girl—”

  She stopped. Elinor joyfully treasured her words as she answered, “If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy.” They paused in their walk to sit together on a large, jagged rock on the edge of mist-enshrouded little pool. “But how would you account for his behaviour?”

  “I would suppose him only fickle. Very, very fickle.”

  Elinor said no more. She was debating within herself on the eligibility of beginning her story directly, or postponing it till Marianne were in stronger health. As they sat, the pool filled to a height of some inches with cloudy water, fed by some underground spring; in the next moment the water receded, revealing the muddy bottom of the basin. They sat for a few minutes in silence, during which time the pool emptied and filled again; the repetitive action of the water in the pond struck a familiar chord with Elinor, but she could not recall why. Perhaps it was nothing; perhaps it was only fancy. She could not forget that Margaret was missing, and wished with a pang of longing that her whole family might be safe and reunited.

  “I am not wishing him too much good,” said Marianne at last with a sigh, “when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant than my own. He will suffer enough in them.”

  “Do you compare your conduct with his?”

  “No. I compare it with what it ought to have been. I compare it with yours.”

  “Our situations have borne little resemblance.”

  “They have borne more than our conduct. Do not, my dearest Elinor, let your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure. My illness has made me think—and weep, and itch terribly, and have these weird feverish visions of parakeets pecking at my eyes—but it also made me think. Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I was perfectly able to reflect. I considered the past: I saw in my own behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of kindness to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me to the grave. And I saw, as I have mentioned, whole great swooping flocks of multi-coloured parakeets, as vicious as they were colourful, descending on my eyes again and again. My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself by such negligence of my own health.”

  “Your illness was brought on by mosquitoes.”

  “Yes, brought on by myself and also by the mosquitoes. But had I died, it would have been self-destruction. I did not know my danger till the danger was removed; but with such feelings as these reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery—wonder that the very eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for atonement to my God, and to you all, did not kill me at once. Whenever I looked towards the past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing indulged. Everybody seemed injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles—

  At the mention of the Steeles, Elinor had a fleeting but distinct pain in her forehead—the five pointed symbol shot back into her mind’s eye for one painful moment and then disappeared. Why? Why again?

  The mist in the pond breathed out again, and then in. Marianne continued her oration.

  “I had been insolent and unjust; with a heart hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their very attention. To John, to Fanny, yes, even to them, little as they deserve, I had given less than their due. But you above all, above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew your heart and its sorrows; yet to what did it influence me? Did I imitate your forbearance? No!”

  Here ceased the rapid flow of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor, impatient to soothe, though too honest to flatter, gave her instantly that praise and support which her frankness and her contrition so well deserved. Marianne pressed her hand and replied, “If I could but know his heart, everything would become easy.”

  Elinor, with a hand resting lightly on Willoughby’s whistle, reflected on the propriety or impropriety of speedily hazarding her narration; and perceiving that as reflection did nothing, resolution must do all, soon found herself leading to the fact. She prepared her anxious listener with caution; related simply and honestly the chief points on which Willoughby grounded his apology; did justice to his repentance, and softened only his protestations of present regard. She described that as he spoke, Willoughby’s appearance had seemed genuinely penitent, and Monsieur Pierre’s as well. Marianne said not a word. She trembled, her eyes were fixed on the ground, and her lips became whiter than even sickness had left them. A thousand inquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not urge one. She caught every syllable with panting eagerness; her hand, unknowingly to herself, closely pressed her sister’s, and tears covered her cheeks.

 
Elinor led her towards home; and till they reached the door of the shanty, talked of nothing but Willoughby and their conversation together. As soon as they entered and tugged off their mud boots, Marianne with a kiss of gratitude and the words “Tell Mama” withdrew from her sister and walked slowly up stairs. Elinor would not attempt to disturb a solitude so reasonable as what she now sought; and so she turned into the parlour to fulfill her parting injunction. The conversation felt momentous; it felt like Marianne’s very heart had shifted in her chest; indeed, it seemed to Elinor—even as she watched her sister trudge wearily up to her room—that the very island they stood on had moved beneath their feet.

  CHAPTER 47

  MRS. DASHWOOD DID NOT HEAR unmoved the vindication of the self-satisfied treasure hunter who had been her favourite. She rejoiced in his being cleared from some part of his imputed guilt. She was sorry for him; she wished him happy. But the feelings of the past could not be recalled. Nothing could do away the knowledge of what Marianne had suffered through his means, nor remove the guilt of his conduct towards Eliza. Nothing could replace him, therefore, in her former esteem, nor injure the interests of Colonel Brandon.

  Had Mrs. Dashwood, like her daughter, heard Willoughby’s story from himself—had she witnessed his distress, and seen the pitiable, semi-human expression upon the face of his orangutan, now sadly slain, it is probable that her compassion would have been greater. But it was neither in Elinor’s power, nor in her wish, to rouse such feelings in another as had at first been called forth in herself. Reflection had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of Willoughby’s deserts. She wished, therefore, to declare only the simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his character, without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy astray.

  In the evening, when they were all three together, Marianne began to speak of him again—but it was not without an effort. Her unsteady voice plainly showed. “I wish to assure you both,” said she, “that I see everything as you can desire me to do.”

  Mrs. Dashwood would have interrupted her instantly with soothing tenderness, had not Elinor, who really wished to hear her sister’s unbiased opinion, by an eager sign, engaged her silence. Marianne slowly continued, “It is a great relief to me—what Elinor told me this morning—I have now heard exactly what I wished to hear.” For some moments her voice was lost; but recovering herself, she added, and with greater calmness than before, “I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish for no change. Do you—do you hear that?”

  Elinor could not deny that she did hear it, and could see by her mother’s troubled expression that she heard it as well: the distinct sound of voices chanting together, but very lightly as though far off in the distance. She cocked her head for a moment, but the sound died away; Mrs. Dashwood wrung her hands and looked desperately to Elinor—Margaret was out there, somewhere on the island, they knew—and whatever the source of that chanting, it also held the key to her whereabouts.

  The sound faded; Marianne, too caught up in her unburdening to linger on its mystery, continued. “In short, I never could have been happy with him, after knowing, as sooner or later I must have known, all this. I should have had no confidence, no esteem. Nothing could have done it away to my feelings.”

  “I know it—I know it,” cried her mother, whose natural passion on the subject of her child’s welfare was further riled by uncertainty of her youngest daughter’s situation. “Happy with a man of libertine practices! With one who so injured the peace of the dearest of our friends, and the best of men! No, my Marianne has not a heart to be made happy with such a man! Her conscience, her sensitive conscience, would have felt all that the conscience of her husband ought to have felt.”

  Marianne sighed, and repeated, “I wish for no change.”

  “You consider the matter,” said Elinor, “exactly as a good mind and a sound understanding must consider it. I dare say you perceive reason enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you in many certain troubles and disappointments. Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought on distresses which would not be the less grievous to you—”

  Elinor was interrupted by the noise, the same noise they had heard before, only louder this time, rolling across the hillside; and now the syllables were distinct enough to be heard: K’yaloh D’argesh F’ah!

  “My God!” said Marianne now, her attention drawn for the moment from Willoughby. “That is the ghastly refrain that so agitated our dear Margaret—and indeed, where is Margaret?

  Elinor, with a cautioning look to her mother, returned the conversation to its course.

  “To abridge Willoughby’s enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart, and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such difficulties?”

  Marianne’s lips quivered, and she repeated the word “Selfish?” in a tone that implied—“do you really think him selfish?” Mrs. Dashwood, meanwhile, stared worriedly out the window, hoping or fearing to see what she knew not.

  “The whole of his behaviour,” replied Elinor, “from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton Cottage. His own enjoyment was his ruling principle.”

  “It is very true. My happiness never was his object.”

  “At present,” continued Elinor, “he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it? Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed. He suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself. But does it follow that had he married you, he would have been happy? He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He always would have been poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance than the mere temper of a wife.”

  “I have not a doubt of it,” said Marianne, “and I have nothing to regret—nothing but my own folly.”

  “Rather say your mother’s imprudence, my child,” said Mrs. Dashwood, turning at last away from the window, for the chanting had again abated. “She must be answerable.”

  Marianne would not let her proceed; and Elinor, satisfied that each felt her own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that might weaken her sister’s spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first subject, immediately continued:

  “One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the story—that all Willoughby’s difficulties have arisen from the first offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams. That crime has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present discontents.”

  Marianne assented most feelingly to the remark; and her mother was led by it to an enumeration of Colonel Brandon’s injuries and merits, warm as friendship and design could unitedly dictate. Her daughter did not look, however, as if much of it were heard by her.

  Elinor, according to her expectation, saw on the two or three following days, that Marianne did not continue to gain strength as she had done; but while her resolution was unsubdued, and she still tried to appear cheerful and easy, her sister could safely trust to the effect of time upon her health. Every day the pustules that marked her skin were healing, and the cool (though malodorous) sea winds that swept through the windows of Barton Cottage seemed to do her spirits well.

  Elinor grew impatient for some tidings of Edward. She had heard nothing of him since the destruction of the
Sub-Marine Station, nothing new of his plans, nothing certain even of his present abode. Some letters had passed between her and her brother, in consequence of Marianne’s illness; and in the first of John’s, which otherwise related the lingering after effects of his experiments in Station, including an insatiable appetite for grub worms, there had been this sentence: “We know nothing of our unfortunate Edward, and can make no enquiries on so prohibited a subject,” which was all the intelligence of Edward afforded her by the correspondence, for his name was not even mentioned in any of the succeeding letters. She was not doomed, however, to be long in ignorance of his measures.

  Their man-servant, Thomas, had been ordered one morning to row to Exeter on business. Later that afternoon, while serving a bowl of Mrs. Dashwood’s latest culinary specialty—a lobster bisque served in the hollowed-out skull of a porpoise—Thomas offered the following voluntary communication: “I suppose you know, ma’am, that Mr. Ferrars is married.”

  Marianne gave a violent start, fixed her eyes upon Elinor, saw her turning pale, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. Mrs. Dashwood, whose eyes had intuitively taken the same direction, was shocked to perceive by Elinor’s countenance how much she really suffered.

  Elinor’s mind was aflame; her entire spirit throbbed with distress. The five-pointed symbol, that totem of agony, returned at the servant’s news in its most intense incarnation yet, twirling and throbbing in her mind’s eye.

  “Ah,” she cried out, clutching with two hands at her skull. “The pain—”

  Though desperate for further information, Elinor was unable in such a condition to ask Thomas for the source of his intelligence. Mrs. Dashwood immediately took that trouble on herself; and Elinor had the benefit of the information without the exertion of seeking it.

  “Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?”

  “I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma’am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady too, Miss Steele as was.”