Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (13 page)

“Treasure dogs!” repeated Edward. “But why must you have treasure dogs? Everybody does not treasure hunt.”

Marianne coloured as she replied, “But most people do.”

“I wish,” said Margaret, turning for the first time in many hours from where she sat staring out the fog-crowded southerly window and the mysterious prospect without. “That somebody would give us all a large fortune a-piece.”

“Oh that they would!” cried Marianne, her cheeks glowing at the delight of such imaginary happiness.

“I wish also,” Margaret added in a quiet and trembling voice, though the conversation had already moved forward. “That we were far, far from
this queer and terrifying place, and that its secrets, whatever they may be, would remain buried here forever.”

“We are all unanimous in the wish for fortune, I suppose,” said Elinor, “in spite of the insufficiency of wealth. Only I wonder what one would do with it!”

Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point.

“What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London,” said Edward, “in such an event! What a happy day for booksellers, music-sellers, and driftwood collectors! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a general commission for every new chunk of wood to be sent you, so you might whittle them with your singular expertise—and as for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in London to content her. And books!—
The Encyclopedia of Accidental Drownings, The True Account of Roger Smithson’s Journey through the Bowel of a Whale
—she would buy them all: She would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands! Should not you, Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very saucy. I think this beverage is rather potent.”

“It comes to us from Sir John,” noted Mrs. Dashwood. “I would not recommend more than one cup.”

Turning again to Marianne, Edward concluded, “I was willing to show you that I had not forgot our old disputes.”

“I love to be reminded of the past, Edward—whether it be melancholy or gay, I love to recall it—and you will never offend me by talking of former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent—some of it, at least. My loose cash would certainly be employed in filling my shelves with disaster journals.”

“And the bulk of your fortune, perhaps, would be bestowed as a reward on that person who wrote the ablest defense of your favourite maxim—that no one can ever be in love more than once in their life. Your opinion on that point is unchanged, I presume?”

“Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.”

“Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see,” said Elinor, sipping slowly at her own cup of the strong rum puncheon. “She is not at all different.”

“She is only grown a little more grave than she was.”

“Nay, Edward,” said Marianne, “you need not reproach me. You are not very gay yourself.”

“Why should you think so!” replied he, with a sigh. “But gaiety never was a part of
my
character.”

“Nor do I think it a part of Marianne’s,” said Elinor; “I should hardly call her a lively girl—she is very earnest, very eager in all she does—sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation—but she is not often really merry.”

“I believe you are right,” he replied, “and yet I have always set her down as a lively girl.”

“I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes,” said Elinor. “Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge. Like flying fish, you know, don’t really fly; they merely leap extremely high.”

“Excellent point,” agreed Mrs. Dashwood.

“But I thought it was right, Elinor,” said Marianne, “to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people.”

“No, Marianne. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I have often wished you to treat people with greater attention; but when have I advised you to conform to their judgment in serious matters?”

“You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of general civility,” said Edward to Elinor. “Do you gain no ground?”

“Quite the contrary,” replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne.

“My judgment,” he returned, “is all on your side of the question; but I am afraid my practice is much more on your sister’s. I never wish to offend, but my shyness often seems to others as negligence, when I am
only kept back by my natural awkwardness. I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!”

“Marianne has no shyness to excuse her inattention,” said Elinor. “Excuse me—”

Elinor, though engaged in the direction of conversation, and eager to make herself understood, was distracted by a mysterious darkness at the corners of her vision.

“She knows her own worth too well for false shame,” replied Edward. “Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other; or sometimes the result of a tapeworm causing such discomfort that proper attention to others becomes impossible. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy.”

“But you would still be reserved,” said Marianne, “and that is worse.”

Elinor, while this conversation proceeded, rubbed at her eyes in an effort to dispel the darkness that clouded her sight. The room heaved, as if she were aboard a ship; her legs trembled; the conversation of the others dimmed into a dull background hum. Dark pinpoints of light now appeared in the swimming blackness and formed into a constellation: It was the same pattern again, the exact five-pointed star that had haunted her since their arrival at the island.

“Reserved!” Edward responded meanwhile. “Am I reserved, Marianne?”

“Yes, very.”

“I do not understand you,” replied he. “Reserved! How? In what manner?”

Elinor blinked as her proper vision suddenly restored itself, and she was flooded with relief—though for that the night still felt intolerably cold, and the fog that huddled around the bay windows of an ominous thickness. She drew her blankets up around her, and, trying to laugh off the clammy and damp fear that clutched at her, said to Edward, “Do not
you know my sister well enough to understand what she means? She calls every one reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself!”

Edward made no answer. His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him in their fullest extent—and he sat for some time silent and dull. Elinor shivered and wished for the night to end, and the sun to rise.

E
LINOR SAW WITH GREAT UNEASINESS
the low spirits of her friend. Edward’s visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction, because his own enjoyment in it appeared so imperfect. The only thing that seemed to raise his spirits was a visit to Deadwind Island, where strolling the seashore she showed him the spot where Miss Bellwether had met her grisly doom in the stomach of the beast. Still, his unhappiness was evident; she wished it were equally evident that he still felt the same affection for her which once she had felt no doubt of inspiring, but his preference seemed very uncertain.

Edward joined her and Marianne in the kitchen the next morning before the others were down to aid in their stirring of the gigantic pot of stew, thickened with shark cartilage, which would serve as that day’s breakfast, and the next day’s, and the next’s; and Marianne, who was always eager to promote their happiness as far as she could, soon left them to themselves, which was considerate on the one hand, but most inconvenient as stirring cartilage stew properly is, as is well known, an effort requiring three people at the very least. And before Marianne was half way upstairs she heard the kitchen door open, and, turning round, was astonished to see Edward himself come out.

“As you are not yet ready for breakfast; I will go for a walk and be
back again presently.” And from the kitchen Marianne heard the unmistakable grunts of exertion, as her sister thickened the stew alone.

* * *

Edward returned to them with fresh admiration of the surrounding country, and a note of caution.

“As I paused on a charming table of land to admire the prospect, about a mile southwesterly from the cottage, and in the shadow of that craggy hill in the island’s centre, I noticed with concern that the ground had become rather less steady than one might wish a patch of ground to be. In the moment it took me to understand that this was not a charming expanse of ground, but a pit of quicksand, my feet and ankles were already well immersed in the shifting terrain. With disorienting rapidity I found myself submerged, to the knees, and then to the waist, and then to the very torso.”

“Oh dear!” interjected Elinor.

“I found, moreover, that the more I struggled to free myself from its deadly embrace, the more the sands drew tighter around me. It was only as the suffocating sands rose to my neck, and threatened soon to cover my mouth and nose, and thusly steal my life, that I noticed a vine dangling just overhead; it is fortuitous, indeed, for whatever my life may be worth, that I had thought to raise my hands above my head before the sand covered my midsection, and could grasp the dangling limb and laboriously tug myself to freedom.”

“Fortuitous indeed,” Elinor agreed. “We are mightily grateful for your survival.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, I mention the incident not to earn your compliments, but only to explain why I am wearing this tattered sail instead of pants; mine were thoroughly soiled by the muddy quicksand, and so I discarded them rather than sully your parlour.”

The subject ensured Marianne’s attention, though it was Edward’s
passing mention of the admirable prospect, more so than the deadly ground which had nearly consumed him, that she found of greater interest, and she pressed him for more detail.

“You must not enquire too far, Marianne—remember I have no knowledge in the picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance and want of taste if we come to particulars. And it was impossible to pay the appropriate attention to the peculiar beauty of the surroundings, so concerned was I with keeping my mouth above the point where oxygen would no longer be accessible to me. You must be satisfied with such admiration as I can honestly give. I call this a very fine island—the hills are steep, what trees one finds are full of shrieking, unfamiliar birds; the small caverns lined with handsome bats that hang like so many black, red-eyed stalactites; and none of the frogs I encountered bore claws nor attempted to leap at my throat. No—in fact—one did. Only the one, though. The island exactly answers my idea of a fine place, because it unites strange beauty with utility—I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me. I know nothing of the picturesque.”

“I am afraid it is but too true,” said Marianne; “but why should you boast of it?”

“I suspect,” said Elinor, “that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another. Because he believes many people pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, he affects greater indifference in viewing them himself than he possesses. He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own.”

“It is very true,” said Marianne, “that admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon. I detest jargon of every kind, except for sailor’s argot and pirate slang. I have kept my feelings to myself when I could find no fresh language to describe them.

The subject was continued no further; and Marianne remained thoughtfully silent until a new object suddenly engaged her attention. She was sitting by Edward, and in taking his tea from Mrs. Dashwood, he
unknowingly revealed a decorative compass, with a plait of hair in the centre, hanging from a watch chain on the inside of his tailcoat.

“I never saw you wear a compass before, Edward,” she cried. “Is that Fanny’s hair?”

When Marianne saw how much she had pained Edward, she was vexed at her want of thought. He coloured very deeply, and giving a momentary glance at Elinor, replied, “Yes, it is my sister’s hair. The glass of the compass-case always casts a different shade on it, you know.”

Elinor had met his eye, and felt vexed as well. That the hair was her own, she instantaneously felt as well satisfied as Marianne; what Marianne considered as a free gift from her sister, Elinor was conscious must have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself.

Edward’s embarrassment lasted some time, and it ended in an absence of mind still more settled. He was particularly grave the whole morning; he had only one bite of shark cartilage stew. Before the middle of the day, they were visited by Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, who, having heard of the arrival of a gentleman at the cottage, came to take a survey of the guest. With the assistance of his mother-in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name of Ferrars began with an
F
, and this prepared a future mine of raillery against the devoted Elinor. But the mirth was rapidly dispelled when Sir John recalled the weathered old Tahitian fortune-teller who long ago had warned him of an intruder bearing that initial, who would appear at first to be a friend, and then murder him in his sleep. Sir John, with a celerity belying his advanced age, leapt upon Edward, yanked up his shirtfront, and drew his scaling knife to disembowel his adversary. But then Mrs. Jenkins fortuitously recalled that the murderous stranger would have the
F
beginning his
Christian
name, not his surname, and so the incident was ended satisfactorily. Apologies and laughter naturally followed, and Mrs. Dashwood brought out more punch for all.

Sir John never came to the Dashwoods without either inviting them to dine at Deadwind Island the next day, or to come by for a talismanic
salamander bloodletting ceremony that evening. On the present occasion, for the better entertainment of their visitor, he wished to engage them for both.