Elinor’s own heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this extraordinary conversation, was now softened again—yet she felt it her duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last. “This is not right, Mr. Willoughby. Remember that you are married. Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear.” As she chastised him, she gingerly poked with the toe of her boot at the fake plank Willoughby had just rigged, through which a pirate’s heavy boot would fall, sending him crashing into the quarterdeck.
“Marianne’s note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in former days, awakened all my remorse. I say awakened, because time and the delights of the Sub-Marine Station, had in some measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened rapscallion, fancying myself indifferent to her, and choosing to fancy that she too must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach, overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then, ‘I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well married.’ But this note made me know myself better. I felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than any other woman in the world, and that I was using her infamously. But everything was already settled between Miss Grey and me. To retreat was impossible. All that I had to do, was to avoid you both. I sent no answer to Marianne, intending by that to preserve myself from her further notice; and for some time I was even determined not to call in Berkeley Causeway. But at last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a cool, common acquaintance than anything else, I watched you all safely out of the docking station one morning, and left my hermit-crab shell.”
“Watched us out of the house!”
“Even so. You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered many a shop to avoid your sight, as the gondola glided past. Lodging as I did in Bond Causeway, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse of one or other of you; and nothing but a prevailing desire to keep out of sight could have separated us so long. I avoided the Middletons as much as possible, as well as everybody else who was likely to prove an acquaintance in common. If you can pity me, Miss Dashwood, pity my situation as it was then. With my head and heart full of your sister, I was forced to play the happy lover to another woman! Those three or four weeks were worse than all. Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you were forced on me; and what a sweet figure I cut! What an evening of agony it was! Aside from the feral lobsters that gouged a half dozen people to death, and I sad to not be in their number! Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me Willoughby in such a tone! Oh, God! Holding out her hand to me, asking for protection from the armored beasts, asking me for an explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such speaking solicitude on my face! And Sophia, jealous as the devil on the other hand, equally vulnerable to those hell-claws! Such an evening! I ran away as soon as I could, but not before I had seen Marianne’s sweet face as white as death. That was the last, last look I ever had of her—the last manner in which she appeared to me. It was a horrid sight! Among many horrid sights from that evening, it was the most horrid of all! Yet when I thought of her to-day as really dying—of malaria, and yellow fever, and lupus—”
“No, not lupus.”
“Really? Well, that’s good.”
“But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you anything to say about that?”
“Yes, yes, that in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, the next morning after the lobster attack at Hydra-Z. You saw what she said. I was breakfasting at the Ellisons—and her letter was brought to me there from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia’s eye before it caught mine— and its size, the elegance of the paper, the hand-writing altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion. Some had received some vague report of my attachment to a young lady in Devonshire, and what had passed at Hydra-Z had marked who the young lady was, and made her more jealous than ever. Affecting that air of playfulness, therefore, which is delightful in a woman one loves, she opened the letter directly, and read its contents. She was well paid for her impudence. She read what made her wretched. Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her passion—her malice—at all events it must be appeased. In short—what do you think of my wife’s style of letter-writing?”
“Your wife! The letter was in your own hand-writing.”
“Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as I was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own—her own happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do! I copied my wife’s words, and parted with the last relics of Marianne. Her three notes—un-luckily they were all in my pocketbook, or I should have denied their existence, and hoarded them forever—I was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them. And the lock of hair—that too I had always carried about me, which was now searched by Madam with the most ingratiating virulence—the dear lock—all, every memento was torn from me.”
Now they were finished in laying their traps and stood together again at the wheel, gazing out into the black of the nighttime sea. Monsieur Pierre gave a little monkey shake of the head, as if remembering the whole nasty business, and offering his beloved master every sympathy.
“I appreciate your able assistance in arming this craft, Mr. Willoughby, but you are very wrong—very blamable,” said Elinor, while her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion. “You ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne—nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience.”
“Do not talk to me of my wife,” said he with a heavy sigh. “She does not deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we married. Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be happy, and afterwards returned to Sub-Marine Station Beta, before it was destroyed, to be gay. And now do you pity me, Miss Dashwood? Or have I said all this to no purpose? Am I less guilty in your opinion than I was before? Have I offered you a yellowed map, which you may follow to a forgiving place in your heart?”
“Yes, you have proved yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly know—the misery that you have inflicted—I hardly know what could have made it worse.”
“Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have been telling you? Tell her of my misery and my penitence—tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever.”
“I will tell her all that is necessary. But you have not explained to me the particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness.”
“On a fishing bank along the Thames, I ran against Sir John Middleton, and when he saw who I was—for the first time these two months— he spoke to me. His good-natured, honest, stupid soul, full of indignation against me, and concern for your sister, could not resist the temptation of telling me what he knew ought to—though probably he did not think it would—vex me horridly. As bluntly as he could speak it, therefore, he told me that Marianne Dashwood was dying of malaria, yellow fever—and I could have sworn he said, lupus, but if you say no, wonderful—at The Cleveland—a letter that morning received from Mrs. Jennings declared her danger most imminent—the Palmers are all gone off in a fright, etc. What I felt was dreadful! Thus my resolution was soon made, and at eight o’clock this morning I was preparing my kayak. Now you know all.”
He held out his hand. She could not refuse to give him hers—he pressed it with affection.
“And you do think something better of me than you did?”—said he, letting it fall, and leaning against the wheel as
if forgetting he was to go.
Elinor assured him that she did—that she forgave, pitied, wished him well—was even interested in his happiness—and added some gentle counsel as to the behaviour most likely to promote it. His answer was not very encouraging.
“As to that,” said he, “I must rub through the world as well as I can. Domestic happiness is out of the question. If, however, I am allowed to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may be the means—it may put me on my guard—at least, it may be something to live for. Marianne, to be sure, is lost to me forever. Were I even by any blessed chance at liberty again—were Sophia to meet with a giant octopus, say, and I not around.”
Elinor stopped him with a reproof. “Octopi seem to play an important role in your adventures, Mr. Willoughby.”
With a sheepish expression, Mr. Willoughby produced a long, slim cylinder from his pocket, marked along one side with a light sketch of an eight-armed figure.
“What—”
“’Tis an octopus whistle,” Willoughby slyly explained; “specially designed to emit a sound pitched to draw their attentions, no matter the weather or water. I have found that being rescued from the clasping, eight-tentacled embrace of a giant octopus tends to create—in a lady—a certain affection—”
Elinor shook her head, unsure of the words to express disapprobation at such a device, and slipped the cylinder into her pocket.
“Well,” he replied, “once more good-bye. I shall now go away and live in dread of one event.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your sister’s marriage.”
“You are very wrong. She can never be more lost to you than she is now.”
“But she will be gained by someone else. And if that someone should be the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear—but I will not stay to rob myself of all your compassionate goodwill, by showing that where I have most injured I can least forgive. Good-bye. God bless you—and—oh—one more thing—”
Without a further word, he removed from the sheath of his boot a razor-sharp dirk, and pressed its handle into Elinor’s hand. And then he stumbled down the gangplank, his orangutan companion trailing behind, leapt into his kayak, and sailed away.
Elinor’s stood swaying with the boat’s rocking motion, her thoughts silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind and character and happiness of Willoughby. The world had made him extravagant and vain—extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. From a reverie of this kind she was recalled by a most terrible sound—a long, harsh shriek, that she could not recognize until she looked through the spyglass—and would forever remember thereafter as the sound emitted by an orangutan when it is run through with a cutlass.
For here at last, fulfilling her every terrified expectation, was The Jolly Murderess, six black flags fluttering darkly in the moonlight, sailing unerringly forward for The Cleveland, rapidly narrowing the hundred or so yards between the crafts. And here was a jolly-boat, its oars manned by two cruel-eyed brigands sent as an advance party, yet closer; it was this small vessel that had intercepted Willoughby’s kayak. Elinor saw the limp body of Monsieur Pierre tossed like a ragdoll into the water; she saw the escaped Willoughby swimming furiously to shore. And she saw, as she again raised the spyglass from the jolly-boat to the ship itself, standing at the prow of The Murderess, the author of this latest and direst calamity— Dreadbeard himself.
The terrible pirate chieftain was massively tall, in a long and jet-black captain’s coat, a cap of scarlet and gold tilted at a rakish angle backwards on his big, bearded head, and a long mane of tar-black hair spilling from his hat and down his back. He stood beside the wheel, which was manned by a ragged, dirty-faced and hunched coxswain, who snarled and spat on the deck as he directed the ship on its course for The Cleveland. As for the hated captain, he stood stock still, his chest thrust forward, clutching in the fist of his left hand a gleaming double-edged cutlass, glinting like new-forged steel in the moonlight.
Elinor felt at once the ludicrousness of all Willoughby’s trapdoors and netting, of any such trifling defenses; the tiny dirk he had handed her felt like a toy in her hand. Elinor trembled; The Jolly Murderess plowed the black water. The massive figure at the prow threw back his head and laughed—a loud, cackling, hideous bellow that rolled across the water towards her in terrible waves.
Dreadbeard had arrived.
CHAPTER 45
WHEN ELINOR RUSHED BACK inside the cabin and up the stairs to the bedroom of the unconscious Marianne, she found her just awaking, refreshed by so long and sweet a sleep. Elinor’s heart, meanwhile, beat a rapid tattoo of terrified panic.
Peeking out the black-curtained window, she saw that the advance boat was nearly in boarding range of The Cleveland. She heard Dreadbeard’s terrible laughter through the windows of the cabin, and then again, ever louder, nearer and nearer with every moment. The hideous sound threw her into an agitation of spirits which kept off every indication of fatigue, and made her only fearful of betraying her terror to her sister. “Go back to sleep, dear Marianne,” she murmured in her ear. “Only sleep a while longer.”
She raced back out onto the verandah, just in time to see the pair of foul mercenaries in their dinghy bump up against the hull and begin their ascent of the Jacob’s ladder and onto The Cleveland.
“Avast, ye hearties!” they hollered as they climbed, “We be requestin’ the pleasure of your company this fine evening!”
In Elinor’s left hand she still clutched the little knife that Willoughby had pressed upon her—with her right she now snatched up Palmer’s hunting rifle and aimed it at the gangplank; as soon as the kerchiefed head of the first invader appeared over the side, she squeezed the trigger. The force of the gun pushed Elinor backwards with tremendous force into the cabin-rail; and, furthering her distress, the shot missed entirely. The intended target, a lanky, filthy tar in a ragged, patched coat, laughed wickedly as the ball sailed harmlessly over his head. He hopped insouciantly over the side and advanced across the deck. Elinor backed up against the cabin-rail, squeezed off a second ball, and this time with greater success: the second pirate took the shot directly in his face as he appeared over the side rail; his head exploded in a burst of gore, and his body flew backwards into the sea.
But before she could rise to her feet, Elinor felt the calloused hands of the filthy first pirate at her neck, squeezing with brutal force; all the pain of the throat wound she had received from the sea scorpion recurred, only to be supplanted by the terrifying sensation of the air being choked from her body. She stared up into the dirty face of the pirate, and conceived with a desperate melancholy that this would be the last sight ever to greet her eyes. Oh, she wished she had granted her full attention, when gentlemen of fortune were the fashion in-Station, to the mock fights she had seen. Oh, how she wished she had some knowledge of how to repulse the cruel attentions of a pirate!
As if in answer to her desperate thoughts, she heard the bellowing voice of Mrs. Jennings: “Whittle! Whittle him!”
Indeed, such was a form of knowledge she knew well—and, moreover, she had the proper tool to hand: Willoughby’s dirk, a hilted blade, five inches long, could most assuredly approximate a driftwood sculpting knife! She raised the dagger and began to cut away at the brigand’s dirty grimace—one cut, then another, then another, a series of fierce slashes, imagining his hideous nut-brown face was nothing but a chunk of old driftwood she was shaping into a figurine.
As she slashed away, blood rained down out of the pirate’s face directly onto hers; she spat his black blood from her mouth. Shortly, his grip relaxed, for she had stabbed the man to death. Mrs. Jennings, in her nightclothes and cap, rushed to her side and helped Elinor to her feet. “We must hurry,” she sputtered. “We face—”
“Dreadbeard, dear. I know.” She pointed to where The Jolly Murderess still sai
led forward, now not more than thirty feet away; Dreadbeard still at the prow, cutlass in hand, seemingly unperturbed by the dispatch of his advance party. But then, as they watched, The Murderess stopped in its forward motion, and for a long moment simply sat in the water. Elinor thought for one joyful, fleeting second, that her adversaries were, for some blessed reason, preparing to turn and sail back out to sea. She raised the spyglass again, just in time to see Dreadbeard raise his huge cutlass overhead as a signal and let out an unholy shout; at which signal his crew— from their various positions, arrayed along the bow, huddled in the poop-deck, even hanging from the riggings—raised bows and let loose a bombardment of arrows.
Elinor and Mrs. Jennings ducked behind the captain’s wheel as the deadly projectiles whizzed in a thick deadly blur around them.
“Surrender!” cried Dreadbeard’s guttural voice from the prow of the Murderess. “Surrender—and mayhaps I’ll spare ya keelhaulin’, and only slit your throats and feed your guts to the sharks. You bein’ ladies and all. Or then again, mayhaps I won’t.”
At this bit of piratical levity, his fellow mercenaries laughed in a ragged chorus.
Elinor summoned the courage to poke her head up from behind the wheel and shout, “We shall never—” only to have her sentence caught short by blinding pain as an arrow, one of a second round let loose by her adversaries, struck her in the arm. Mrs. Jennings then demonstrated that her apprehension of pirates was as keen as Elinor’s, and her ability to fight them if anything more assured.
With a mighty wail she leapt to the guns and fired The Cleveland’s carronade with deadly accuracy; soon several of the enemy had fallen under a hail of round shot, collapsing mortally wounded to the deck. But the ship, even at that moment, resumed its forward progress as Dread-beard’s men threw the pieces of their former shipmates overboard.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters Page 30