But there was no immediate opportunity of doing either. The weather was growing ever more dreadful, with winds whipping strong enough in recent days to tear off the roof of an abandoned shed on Deadwind Island and down upon one of the servants, who was knocked off his feet and then decapitated by the weather vane. A walk, where they might most easily separate themselves from the others, was therefore ill-advised; and though they met at least every other evening either at the Middleton’s estate or at Barton Cottage, they could not be supposed to meet for the sake of conversation. Such a thought would never enter either Sir John or Lady Middleton’s head; and therefore, very little leisure was ever given for particular discourse. They met for the sake of eating, drinking, oyster-shucking, laughing together, or playing any game that was sufficiently noisy.
Then one morning Sir John rowed up to the rebuilt dockside to beg, in the name of charity, that they would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to help re-bury the poor unfortunate who had been decapitated by the weather vane; the other servants had done so inadequately, and so the corpse had been dug up by hyenas and now lay rotting on the beach. Elinor immediately accepted the invitation; Marianne agreed more grudgingly. Margaret asked and received enthusiastic permission from her mother to join the party as well, and all were glad to see that the girl had regained some of her childish spirit. Weeks had passed since Margaret had last mentioned her skittering cave-people or the geyser of mysterious steam; they’d succeeded, Mrs. Dashwood hoped, in persuading the girl that it was all a matter of her imagination.
The insipidity of the evening at the Middletons was exactly as Elinor had expected; it produced not one novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and drawing-room. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then moved to pursue an amusement called Karankrolla, native to Lady Middleton’s homeland, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation with Miss Steele.
“I am glad,” said Lady Middleton to Lucy, as she opened an ivory chest and produced a bewildering array of multi-coloured game pieces, “that you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria’s ship-in-a-bottle this evening, for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work the miniatures by candlelight.”
This hint was enough. Lucy replied, “Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton. I am only waiting to know whether you have enough participants for your amusement without me, or I should have had out my miniature sail-trimming equipment already. I would not disappoint the little angel for all the world.”
“You are very good, I hope it won’t hurt your eyes—will you ring the bell for some working candles?”
Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to imply that she could taste no greater delight than in building a diminutive clipper ship within the confines of an emptied-out glass beer bottle for a spoilt child.
Lady Middleton explained the rules of Karankrolla, which no one present could comprehend except for Mrs. Jennings, who offered no assistance in elucidating them to the rest of the company. As best Elinor could understand, each participant had to win fourteen Ghahalas to make a Hephalon; earning a Ghahala was a simple matter of turning one’s Ja’ja’va shell three times round the Pifflestick; unless the wind was blowing from the northeast, in which case alternate rules were applied. All of this was detailed very rapidly by Lady Middleton, who concluded finally that if Karankrolla is not played for money, the gods are angered.
Out of politeness, no one made any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms of general civility, exclaimed, “Your Ladyship will have the goodness to excuse me—I shall go to the pianoforte; I have not touched it since it was tuned.” And without further ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument.
Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that she had never made so rude a speech, she did not bother to be offended by Margaret, who joined Marianne at the pianoforte, since the youngest Dashwood sister obviously had no money to wager. With no further warning, she shook the Flakala ball, pronounced herself the winner of the first Ghahala, and collected three sovereigns from the elder Miss Steele.
“Oh!” cried Miss Steele. “I shall hope for better luck next time.”
“Perhaps,” said Elinor apologetically, as shells were distributed for the next round, “if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in laying the planks of the ship-in-a-bottle.”
“I shall be obliged to you for your help,” cried Lucy, “for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was; and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after all.”
Their effusive efforts to hide the true nature of their desire to be together was unnecessary; all eyes were focused on the Karankrolla game, where Lady Middleton was collecting another three sovereigns from the elder Miss Steele.
The two fair rivals were thus seated side by side at the same table, and, with the utmost harmony, engaged in forwarding the same work. The pianoforte, where Marianne was wrapped up in her own music and her own thoughts, was so near them that Miss Dashwood now judged she might safely, under the shelter of its noise, introduce the interesting subject, without any risk of being heard at the Karankrolla table.
CHAPTER 24
IN A FIRM, THOUGH CAUTIOUS tone, Elinor began. “I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with, if I felt no further curiosity on its subject. Therefore I will not apologise for bringing it forward again.”
“Thank you for breaking the ice,” cried Lucy. “You have set my heart at ease. I was afraid I had offended you by what I told you Monday.”
“Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me,” and Elinor spoke it with the truest sincerity, “nothing could be further from my intention than to give you such an idea. Could you have a motive for the trust that was not honourable and flattering to me?”
“And yet I do assure you,” replied Lucy, her pupils dancing in her little sharp eyes like carp in two ponds, “there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your manner that made me quite uncomfortable.”
“Recall, dear Lucy, that at the time of your revelation, we were fending off the attentions of the massive, dicephalic, multitudinously-teethed Fang-Beast,” replied Elinor, grateful to have the monster attack as an excuse for her reticence. “It may have lessened my sympathy to your tale beyond what was appropriate.”
“Of course. And yet, I felt sure that you were angry with me.”
“If I may be so impertinent as to re-enumerate: Fang-Beast; ooze-cloud; spinal column. My mind was elsewhere.”
“Of course,” said Lucy once more, carefully lashing together three toothpicks to serve for the flying jib of the Infinitesimal. “I am very glad to find it was only my own fancy. If you only knew what a consolation it was to me to relieve my heart speaking to you of what I am always thinking of every moment of my life.”
From the gaming table came a noise of happy surprise from Miss Steele. “O! I am beginning to comprehend! If I turn my Ja’ja’va thusly—”
“Oops,” said Mrs. Jennings suddenly. “I believe the wind just shifted.”
“Alternate rules!” cried Lady Middleton.
“Indeed,” Elinor continued to her friend and rival, “I can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you, to acknowledge your situation to me. Your case is a very unfortunate one; you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties. Mr. Ferrars, I believe, is entirely dependent on his mother.”
“He has only two thousand pounds of his own; it would be madness to marry upon that, though for my own part, I could give up every prospect of more without a sigh. I have been always used to a very small income; as girls we lived for a time in a turned-over rowboat, and wove our own clothes out of sea moss. I could struggle with any poverty for him;
but I love him too well to be the selfish means of robbing him, perhaps, of all that his mother might give him if he married to please her. We must wait, it may be for many years. With almost every other man in the world, it would be an alarming prospect; but Edward’s affection and constancy nothing can deprive me of, I know.”
Unsure how to respond, Elinor toyed uncomfortably with the beer bottle, soon to house the tiny clipper ship.
“That conviction must be everything to you; and he is undoubtedly supported by the same trust in yours.”
“Edward’s love for me,” said Lucy, “has been pretty well put to the test, by our long, very long absence since we were first engaged, and it has stood the trial so well, that I should be unpardonable to doubt it now. He has never given me one moment’s alarm on that account.”
Elinor, in her silent distress, so increased her grip on the beerbottle that it burst into a thousand pieces, burying shards of glass in her hand.
Lucy smiled forgivingly at this accident, took up a new bottle, and went on. “I have a jealous temper by nature, and from our continual separation, I was enough inclined for suspicion, to have found out the truth in an instant, if there had been the slightest alteration in his behaviour to me.”
“All this,” thought Elinor, as she went about the floor on hands and knees, gathering up stray pieces of glass, “is very pretty, but it can impose upon neither of us.” She looked away from Lucy, whose attention was focused on rigging the tiny mainsail with miniature tweezers.
“But what,” Elinor said after a short silence, “are your views? Or have you none but that of waiting for Mrs. Ferrars’s death? Is Edward determined to submit to this, and to the many years of suspense, rather than run the risk of her displeasure for a while by owning the truth?”
“Mrs. Ferrars is a very headstrong proud woman. In her first fit of anger, she would very likely secure everything to his brother Robert!”
“Do you know Mr. Robert Ferrars?” asked Elinor.
“Not at all—I never saw him; but I fancy he is very unlike his brother—silly and a great coxcomb.”
“A great coxcomb!” repeated the elder Miss Steele, looking up from the card-table, where she was writing out a promissory note to Lady Middleton, the decisive winner of seven straight rounds. “Oh, they are talking of their favourite beaux!”
“No sister,” cried Lucy, “you are mistaken there, our favourite beaux are not great coxcombs.”
“I can answer for it that Miss Dashwood’s is not,” said Mrs. Jennings, “for he is one of the modestest, prettiest-behaved young men I ever saw; but as for Lucy, she is such a sly little creature, there is no finding out who she likes.”
“Oh,” cried Miss Steele, looking significantly round at them, “I dare say Lucy’s beau is quite as modest and pretty-behaved as Miss Dashwood’s.”
Elinor blushed in spite of herself. Lucy bit her lip, and looked angrily at her sister. A mutual silence took place for some time.
Lucy resumed their conversation only once Marianne and Margaret were giving them the powerful protection of performing a very lively dockside polka on the pianoforte.
“I will honestly tell you of one scheme which has lately come into my head. I dare say you have seen enough of Edward to know that he would prefer to be a lighthouse keeper to every other profession. Now my plan is that he should find such a position as soon as he can, and then through your interest, which I am sure you would be kind enough to use out of friendship for him, and I hope out of some regard to me, your brother might be persuaded to give him the Norland Tower; which I understand is a very good one, and the present incumbent has been targeted as insolent by a pirate crew and is thus not likely to live a great while. That would be enough for us to marry upon, and we might trust to time and chance for the rest.”
“I should always be happy,” replied Elinor, “to show any mark of my esteem and friendship for Mr. Ferrars, but do you not perceive that my involvement would be perfectly unnecessary? Edward is brother to Mrs. John Dashwood—that must be recommendation enough to her husband.”
“But Mrs. John Dashwood would not much approve of Edward’s becoming a lighthouse keeper. The family still hopes for him to be a great politician or Sub-Station engineer.”
“Then I rather suspect that my involvement would do very little.”
They were again silent for many minutes. At length Lucy exclaimed with a deep sigh, “I believe it would be wisest to end the business by dissolving the engagement. We seem so beset with difficulties on every side, that though it would make us miserable for a time, we should be happier perhaps in the end. But you will not give me your advice, Miss Dashwood?”
“No,” answered Elinor, with a smile; her feelings were evident only in her fingers, which twirled the tiny ship’s flag in an agitated fashion, as if the wee clipper ship was sailing steadily against an ill wind. “On such a subject I certainly will not. You know very well that my opinion would have no weight with you, unless it were on the side of your wishes.”
“Indeed you wrong me,” replied Lucy, with great solemnity; “I know nobody of whose judgment I think so highly as I do of yours; and I do really believe, that if you was to say to me, ‘I advise you by all means to put an end to your engagement with Edward Ferrars, it will be more for the happiness of both of you,’ I should resolve upon doing it immediately.”
Elinor, vexed, said nothing. At the card-table, a new round of Karankrolla was beginning, and the elder Miss Steele removed her earrings and locket to offer as collateral.
“’Tis because you are an indifferent person,” Lucy continued, “that your judgment might justly have such weight. If you were biased in any respect by your own feelings, your opinion would not be worth having.”
Elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this, lest they might provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve. Another pause therefore of many minutes’ duration succeeded this speech before Lucy ended their silence.
“Shall you be docking in Sub-Marine Station Beta this winter, Miss Dashwood?” said she with all her customary complacency.
“Certainly not.”
“I am sorry for that,” returned the other. “It would have gave me such pleasure to meet you there! To be sure, your brother and sister will ask you to come to them.”
“It will not be in my power to accept their invitation if they do.”
“How unlucky that is! I had quite depended upon meeting you there. My sister and I will be meeting some relations who have been wanting us to visit them for several years! And though I have some curiosity about the most recent alterations to the Sub-Station, and have heard of marvelous new displays at the Aqua-Museo-Quarium, I go mainly for the sake of seeing Edward. He will be there in February, otherwise the Station would have few charms for me.”
Elinor sat down at the Karankrolla table with the melancholy persuasion that Edward was not only without affection for the person who was to be his wife; but that he had not even the chance of being tolerably happy in marriage. Her mood was not improved by the rounds of play that followed, in which Mrs. Jennings took her for three Ghahalas before Elinor had even got to shake her Pifflestick.
The visit of the Miss Steeles at Deadwind Island was lengthened far beyond what the first invitation implied. But the subject of Lucy and Edward’s engagement was never revived by Elinor; when entered on by Lucy, who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it, she treated it with calmness and caution, and dismissed it as soon as civility would allow; she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which Lucy did not deserve, and which were dangerous to herself. Nearly as dangerous, in fact, as playing Karankrolla, which Elinor was fastidious in avoiding in future.
CHAPTER 25
THOUGH MRS. JENNINGS WAS IN THE HABIT of spending a large portion of the year at the houses of her children and friends, her settled habitation was at Sub-Marine Station Beta, where she spent every winter in a docking station along one of the canals near Portman Grotto. Towa
rds this undersea habitation, she began on the approach of January to turn her thoughts, and thither she one day abruptly asked the elder Misses Dashwood to accompany her. Elinor immediately gave a grateful but absolute denial for both. The reason alleged was their determined resolution of not leaving their mother. Mrs. Jennings received the refusal with some surprise, and repeated her invitation immediately.
“Oh, pngllgpg!” she emitted, a phrase from her native tongue translating, roughly, to “don’t be a foolish pile of elephant excrement.”
“I am sure your mother can spare you very well, and I do beg you will favour me with your company. Don’t fancy that you will be any inconvenience to me, for I shan’t put myself at all out of my way for you. We three shall be able to go in my personal submarine; and when we arrive at the Station, there will be so much to do. The Aqua-Museo-Quarium is said to have added a wealth of new creatures this season, and Kensington Undersea Gardens is expanded and more splendid than ever! I am sure your mother will not object to the journey; and if I don’t get at least one of you married before I have done with you, it shall not be my fault. I shall speak a good word for you to all the young men, you may depend upon it.”
“I thank you, ma’am,” said Marianne, with warmth. “Your invitation has insured my gratitude for ever, and it would give me such happiness to accept it. But my mother, my dearest, kindest mother—nothing should tempt me to leave her!”
Elinor understood that her sister’s eagerness to be with Willoughby was creating a total indifference to almost everything else. She therefore ventured no further direct opposition to the plan, and merely referred it to her mother’s decision. On being informed of the invitation, Mrs. Dashwood was persuaded that such an excursion would be productive of much amusement to both her daughters. She would not hear of their declining the offer upon her account; insisted on their both accepting it directly.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Page 14