Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (38 page)

Elinor continued by the side of her sister, with little intermission the whole afternoon, calming every fear, satisfying every inquiry of her
enfeebled spirits, supplying every succour, and watching almost every look and every breath. The possibility of a relapse would in some moments occur to remind her of what anxiety was—but she saw, on her frequent and minute examination, that every symptom of recovery continued, and even her tumescent eye was beginning to return to its accustomed shape, and the layer of crust that had overlaid it had fallen away. Marianne, at six o’clock, sunk into a quiet, steady, and to all appearance comfortable, sleep, and Elinor silenced every doubt.

The time was now drawing on, when Colonel Brandon might be expected back; Elinor felt a stinging consciousness that she only had to keep them safe, only had to keep Marianne alive, until Brandon could return with their mother and the group of them could proceed to Barton Cottage, far from
The Cleveland
, far from fever, and far from Dreadbeard. As she sat with Marianne in the second-floor bedroom of the cabin, she imagined that she heard with every noise from without, every splash of tide against rock, the terrible sound of the pirate’s silver boot heels on the foredeck.

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.

E
LINOR, 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 before 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—”