Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters Read Free Book Online

supplied her with endless wet-lipped, cackling amusement against them both. At the Deadwind Island she laughed at the colonel, and at Barton Cottage to Marianne. All in all, it was perfectly annoying to both of them. And when the object of raillery was understood by Marianne, she hardly knew whether to laugh at its absurdity, or censure its impertinence. It seemed an unfeeling reflection on the colonel’s advanced years and preposterous appearance, and on his forlorn condition as an old bachelor.
    Mrs. Dashwood, however, could not think of a man five years younger than herself so exceedingly ancient as he appeared to the youthful fancy of her daughter.
    “But you cannot deny the absurdity of the accusation, though you may not think it intentionally ill-natured. Colonel Brandon is old enough to be my father, and if he were ever animated to be in love, surely he has long outlived every sensation of the kind. In addition, he has to clothes-pin his tentacles to his ears in order to eat; it is perfectly nauseating. When is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity and the chance of him strangling his accuser with his rage-stiffened face-appendages, will not protect him?”
    “Infirmity!” said Elinor, “do you call Colonel Brandon infirm? Deformed, maybe; repulsive, certainly. More fish than man, face-wise, it cannot be argued. But infirm? I can easily suppose that his age may appear much greater to you than to my mother, but you can hardly deceive yourself as to his having the use of his limbs! In a way, he has more limbs than all of us put together.”
    “Good point,” agreed Mrs. Dashwood.
    “Did you not hear him complain of cartilage rot?” Marianne protested. “And is not that the commonest infirmity of declining life for a person with his affliction?”
    “My dearest child,” said her mother, laughing, “at this rate you mustbe in continual terror of my decay; and it must seem to a miracle that my life has been extended to the advanced age of forty.”
    “Mama, you are not doing me justice,” said Marianne, who could not be driven from her theme. “I know very well that Colonel Brandon is not old enough to make his friends apprehensive of losing him in the course of nature. He may live twenty years longer, long enough for those fleshy maxillae to turn green-grey and droop with age. But five and thirty has nothing to do with matrimony.”
    “Perhaps,” said Elinor, “five and thirty and seventeen had better not have anything to do with matrimony together. But if there should by any chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, and, say, visually impaired somehow, I should not think Colonel Brandon’s being five and thirty any objection to his marrying
her
.”
    “A woman of seven and twenty,” said Marianne, “can never hope to feel or inspire affection again. If her home be uncomfortable or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse or a ship’s wench. In his marrying such a woman, therefore, there would be nothing unsuitable. It would be a compact of convenience, and the world would be satisfied. In my eyes it would be no marriage at all; to me it would seem only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the expense of the other.”
    “It would be impossible, I know,” replied Elinor, “to convince you that a woman of seven and twenty could feel for a man of five and thirty anything near to love. But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon, merely because he chanced to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight cartilage rot in his face.”
    “But he talked of flannel waistcoats,” said Marianne; “and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble.”
    “Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him half so much. Confess, Marianne, is not there