"I am sorry you do not happen to know Mrs. Ferrars."

"I am sorry I do not not," said Elinor, in great astonishment, "But for now the subject must be dropped, and we must focus our attentions-"

But Lucy was lost in her reverie. Even as Elinor snapped her oar over her knee with the intention of repeating her mother's trick of dispatching the vast beast that had attacked their boat on the way to Barton Cottage, the other girl continued her peroration. "Mrs. Ferrars is certainly nothing to me at present-but the time may may come-how soon it will come must depend upon herself-when we may be very intimately connected." come-how soon it will come must depend upon herself-when we may be very intimately connected."

Lucy looked down as she said this, amiably bashful, with only one side glance at her companion to observe its effect on her.

"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, swinging her oar towards the flat head of the Fang-Beast, as astonished by the sheer size of the creature she faced, as by her dawning understanding of Lucy Steele's meaning. "What do you mean? Are you acquainted with Mr. Robert Ferrars? Can you be?" The Fang-Beast, meanwhile, easily avoided the strike of the oar, which splashed uselessly on the surface of the water.

"No," replied Lucy, "not to Mr. Robert Robert Ferrars. I never saw him in my life; but to his elder brother." Ferrars. I never saw him in my life; but to his elder brother."

Elinor turned towards Lucy in silent amazement, and it was in that moment that a second second great head reared out of the surface of the water, compounding Elinor's shock. While the first of the Fang-Beast's monstrous faces hissed fiercely, this second long head slid up onto their boat and caught Elinor at the knees in a coil of its slimy neck. She went into the water, and landed with a gasp, her mouth filling with the thick mucous cloud that emanated from the Beast. great head reared out of the surface of the water, compounding Elinor's shock. While the first of the Fang-Beast's monstrous faces hissed fiercely, this second long head slid up onto their boat and caught Elinor at the knees in a coil of its slimy neck. She went into the water, and landed with a gasp, her mouth filling with the thick mucous cloud that emanated from the Beast.

"You may well be surprised," continued Lucy, and then stopped short, at last noticing that something was amiss, and she stood alone in the vessel. "Elinor?"

Elinor, suffocating in the cloud of slime, caught in the hideous rubbery embrace of the Fang-Beast, was struggling to keep her head above the surface of the water. She recalled as she struggled for breath the lore she had learned from Sir John when in his cups: There is a certain strain of overgrown monster-fish that takes its sustenance from fog like infants from their mother's milk. Thus the lately suffocating weather pattern could be no coincidence-this fearsome, two-headed beast had been thriving in this dank weather, expanding its bulk, awaiting its chance to strike.

This knowledge was useless to Elinor now-all she could do was earnestly hope for a.s.sistance from Lucy, who at last was through unburdening herself of her secret and attentive to their unenviable circ.u.mstance. To Elinor's considerable surprise, the younger Miss Steele proved equal to the task. Tucked into the calf of her stylish travelling boot was a long serrated fish-knife; without the slightest hesitation, she wrapped her fist around its handle and plunged the business end into the churning cove-water to slash violently at the neck coil that was wrapped python-like around Elinor's waist.

But while the coil tightened around Elinor, the Fang-Beast's first head slunk along the floor of the boat to within striking distance of Lucy Steele; she deftly stomped on its flat snout with the heel of her boot, bringing forth an eruption of slime and blood from its nostril and causing the thing to withdraw in pain. Thus emboldened, Lucy redoubled her a.s.sault on the first head, and soon she had hacked Elinor free; with each strike, more slime poured from the neck of the Beast, until both girls were covered with the noxious emanation. At last, the Fang-Beast, maimed but not, evidently, unto death, sunk back beneath the water's surface and away.

THIS FEARSOME, TWO-HEADED BEAST HAD BEEN THRIVING IN THIS DANK WEATHER, EXPANDING ITS BULK, AWAITING ITS CHANCE TO STRIKE.

In a few moments more, the little craft b.u.mped against the sh.o.r.e below Barton Cottage, and the two girls lay flopping and heaving for breath, like fish plucked from a stream and tossed on the riverbank. But before Elinor could begin to recover herself, Lucy picked up the thread of her engagement story.

"I dare say Edward never dropped the smallest hint of our engagement to you because it was always meant to be a great secret. Not a soul of all my relations know of it but Anne, and I never should have mentioned it to you, if I had not felt the greatest dependence in the world upon your secrecy; and I really thought my behaviour in asking so many questions about Mrs. Ferrars must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained. And I do not think Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you, because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as his own sisters."

Elinor for a few moments remained silent; her frame was still quivering from muscular exertion and sheer fright, and her soul was shaken even more by the information Lucy had imparted. At length forcing herself to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner, "May I ask if your engagement is of long standing?"

"We have been engaged these four years."

"Four years!" A pain in Elinor's spine, where the Fang-Beast had tightened its grasp around her, throbbed with the shock of this revelation.

"Our acquaintance is of many years. He was under my uncle's care for a considerable while."

"Your uncle!"

"Yes, Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?"

"I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, her body pulsing with discomfort and dismay.

"He was four years with my uncle, and it was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me were often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."

"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment's reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward's honour and love, "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me. Surely there must be some mistake of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars."

"We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow that I I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who all my happiness depends." am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who all my happiness depends."

"It is strange," replied Elinor, "that I should never have heard him even mention your name."

"Considering our situation, it was not strange. Our first care has been to keep the matter secret. You knew nothing of me, or my family, and, therefore, there could be no occasion occasion for ever mentioning my name to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister's suspecting anything, for ever mentioning my name to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister's suspecting anything, that that was reason for his not mentioning it." was reason for his not mentioning it."

She was silent. Elinor's security sunk; but her self-command did not sink with it.

"Four years you have been engaged," said she with a firm voice.

"Yes; and heaven knows how much longer we may have to wait. Poor Edward! It puts him quite out of heart." Then taking a small miniature from her pocket, she added, "To prevent the possibility of mistake, be so good as to look at this face. It does not do him justice, to be sure, but yet I think you cannot be deceived as to the person it was drew for. I have had it above these three years."

She put it into her hands as she spoke; Elinor returned it almost instantly, acknowledging the likeness.

"I have never been able," continued Lucy, "to give him my picture in return, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been always so anxious to get it! But I am determined to set for it the very first opportunity."

"You are quite in the right," replied Elinor calmly. They struggled to their feet now, and began the walk on unsteady legs, up the stairs to the door of the shanty.

"I am sure," said Lucy, "I have no doubt of your faithfully keeping this secret, because you must know of what importance it is to us, not to have it reach his mother; for she would never approve of it, I dare say. I shall have no fortune, and I fancy she is an exceeding proud woman."

"Your secret is safe with me," a.s.sured Elinor.

As she said this, she looked earnestly at Lucy, hoping to discover something in her countenance; perhaps the falsehood of the greatest part of what she had been saying; but Lucy's countenance suffered no change. For a fleeting moment, Elinor wished that the Fang-Beast had succeeded in eating her or, better yet, in eating Lucy; such was her distress and anxiety over what she had heard.

"I was afraid you would think I was taking a great liberty with you," Lucy continued, "As soon as I saw you, I felt almost as if you were an old acquaintance. And I am so unfortunate, that I have not a creature whose advice I can ask. I only wonder that I am alive after what I have suffered for Edward's sake these last four years. Everything in such suspense and uncertainty; and seeing him so seldom-we can hardly meet above twice a-year. I wonder my heart is not quite broke."

Here she took out her handkerchief, but Elinor did not feel very compa.s.sionate.

"Sometimes," continued Lucy, after wiping her eyes, "I think whether it would not be better for us both to break off the matter entirely. What would you advise me to do in such a case, Miss Dashwood? What would you do yourself?"

"Pardon me," replied Elinor, startled by the question; "but I can give you no advice under such circ.u.mstances. Your own judgment must direct you."

They had by now ascended the stairs and reached the door of the shanty, and agreed it was wise to sponge their bodies of all traces of the foul spew that had emanated from the Fang-Beast. They stood at a modest distance from one another as they removed their sodden clothing and undergarments. Meanwhile, Lucy continued her self-pitying tale. "To be sure, his mother must provide for him sometime or other; but poor Edward is so cast down by it! Did not you think him sadly out of spirits when he was here?"

"We did, indeed, particularly so when he first arrived."

"I begged him to exert himself for fear you should suspect what was the matter; but it made him so melancholy, not being able to stay more than a fortnight with us, and seeing me so much affected. Poor fellow! I gave him a lock of hair set in a ship's compa.s.s when he was at Longstaple last, and that was some comfort to him. Perhaps you might have noticed it when you saw him?"

"I did," said Elinor, with a composure of voice, under which was concealed an emotion and distress beyond anything she had ever felt before. Glancing up in her shock, she was confronted with the strangest sight of all: Miss Steele was lacing up her whale-bone corset and there, on the small of her back, was etched a tattoo in scarlet ink; it was the cryptic five-pointed pattern, exactly as had appeared to Elinor so many times, in such darkly portentous fashion, since her arrival on Pestilent Isle.

CHAPTER 23

WHAT LUCY HAD a.s.sERTED to be true Elinor dared not doubt, supported as it was on every side by such probabilities and proofs, and contradicted by nothing but her own wishes. Their opportunity of acquaintance in the house of Mr. Pratt was a foundation for the rest, and Edward's uncertain behaviour towards herself overcame every fear of condemning him unfairly, and established as a fact his ill-treatment of herself. Her resentment of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time made her feel only for herself; but other ideas, other considerations, soon arose. Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he feigned a regard for her which he did not feel? Was his engagement to Lucy an engagement of the heart? to be true Elinor dared not doubt, supported as it was on every side by such probabilities and proofs, and contradicted by nothing but her own wishes. Their opportunity of acquaintance in the house of Mr. Pratt was a foundation for the rest, and Edward's uncertain behaviour towards herself overcame every fear of condemning him unfairly, and established as a fact his ill-treatment of herself. Her resentment of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time made her feel only for herself; but other ideas, other considerations, soon arose. Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her? Had he feigned a regard for her which he did not feel? Was his engagement to Lucy an engagement of the heart?

Such thoughts swirled about in Elinor's mind as, standing before her bedroom mirror, she slowly worked a rough patch of red alder bark over her entire body, a salutary measure dictated by Sir John to remove any lingering traces of the Fang-Beast's viscous emissions from her skin.

"It stings," she cried, reacting to both the pain of Lucy's revelation and the infinite small abrasions of the tree bark upon her flesh-though somewhat more to the latter. "O, it stings."

And yet, whatever might once have been, Elinor could not believe Edward loved Lucy at present. His affection was all her own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother, sisters, f.a.n.n.y, all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. Elinor proceeded to the second step of Sir John's cleansing protocol, wringing a bolt of worsted in warm, fresh water and pressing it delicately against every inch of her abraded skin.

Could Edward ever be tolerably happy with Lucy Steele? Could he, with his integrity, his delicacy, and well-informed mind, be satisfied with a wife like her-illiterate, artful, too selfish to notice even when her own kayak was about to be bit to splinters by a two-headed, forty-foot-long sea serpent exuding a cloud of malodorous sludge? Elinor did not have the answer. The youthful infatuation of nineteen would naturally blind Edward to everything but Lucy's beauty and good nature; but the four succeeding years must have opened his eyes to her defects of education, while the same period of time had perhaps robbed her of that simplicity which might once have leant interesting character to her beauty.

Then there was the matter of the tattoo-that strange shape that had called to Elinor from her nightmares, only to appear, writ in the very flesh of her rival's lower back. The thought of it pained Elinor's mind as much as did the rough scratch of the worsted wool upon her arms.

As these considerations occurred to her in painful succession, she wept for Edward more than for herself, and only stopped weeping when the salt of her tears burned like acid on her tenderized cheeks. Consoled by the belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought she could command herself to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother and sisters. When she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have supposed from the appearance of herself, that Elinor was mourning in secret over obstacles; her face glowed red from neither embarra.s.sment nor grief, but only from the punctilious removal of a dermal layer.

The necessity of concealing from her mother and Marianne, what Lucy had entrusted in confidence to herself was no aggravation of Elinor's distress. She knew she could receive no a.s.sistance from them. So she gave out to them only the details of the Fang-Beast's attack and the nearness of their escape; this adventuresome anecdote led to a warm discussion of whether the girls should sew balloons into their bustles, to keep them buoyed if occasion should knock them from their vessels; thusly did the conversation drift forward through the dessert course, which was taffy.

Much as she had suffered from her first conversation with Lucy on the subject, Elinor soon felt an earnest wish of renewing it. She wanted to hear many particulars of their engagement repeated again; she wanted more clearly to understand what Lucy really felt for Edward; and she particularly wanted to convince Lucy, by her readiness to enter on the matter again, that she was no otherwise interested in it than as a friend. And also, then, from some dim part of her mind came a dark, insistent voice, demanding she find some means of again inspecting the mysterious tattoo on Lucy's back, and discovering its origins.

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 pa.s.sed 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 partic.i.p.ants for your amus.e.m.e.nt without me, or I should have had out my miniature sail-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance in elucidating them to the rest of the company. As best Elinor could understand, each partic.i.p.ant had to win fourteen Ghahalas to make a Hephalon; earning a Ghahala was a simple matter of turning one's Ja'ja'va sh.e.l.l 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 G.o.ds 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 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 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, p.r.o.nounced herself the winner of the first Ghahala, and collected three sovereigns from the elder Miss Steele. 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, p.r.o.nounced 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 sh.e.l.ls 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." 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 a.s.sure 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 ma.s.sive, dicephalic, mult.i.tudinously-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. 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." "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 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, "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.