Free Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters Page B

dissolved her flesh, emitting a sickening sizzling noise, followed by a sort of unholy belch. And then, as quickly as it had come, the creature dragged itself back into the sea; the tide withdrew; and all that was left of Miss Bellwether was a pile of corroded bones, a clump of hair, and a whalebone corset.
    Elinor turned to Brandon, only to find that he had hastened to Marianne’s side. Instead she approached Sir John, who clutching his improvised torch was crouched beside the poor girl’s remains; this evidence he examined carefully, producing a monocle from an inside pocket and peering at the scene of the violence. It was not the bone and hair which seemed to draw his attention, however, but a small slick of blue-green slime glimmering in the moonlight, a few paces down the beach.
    “What might that be, Sir John?” Elinor inquired. “Some noxious spray emitted by the malefic cnidaria as it murdered poor Marissa?”
    “Worse still,” he said. And then, shaking his wizened head, repeated it. “Worse still. If I am right—the Fang-Beast … the dreaded Devonshire Fang-Beast …”
    “I am sorry,” inquired Elinor, smoothing her skirts. “What did you say?”
    “Nothing,” responded Sir John. “Nothing at all. Have some punch, dear.”

    AS THE PARTY WATCHED IN STUNNED HORROR, MISS BELLWETHER WAS WRAPPED INSIDE THE QUAVERING BLANKET-SHAPE OF THE BEAST AND CONSUMED.

CHAPTER 12
    T HE NEXT MORNING , Elinor and Marianne were walking home from the sad seaside ceremony, at which the remains of Miss Bellwether were gathered in a sachet bag and solemnly tossed into the ocean. Marianne took the occasion to communicate a piece of news to her sister, which surprised Elinor by its extravagant testimony of her sister’s imprudence and want of thought. Marianne told her with the greatest delight, that Willoughby had given her a domesticated sea horse—one that he himself had bred all man-hating instincts from, in his own aquatic experimentation tank in Somersetshire, among the few such tanks to be found outside Sub-Marine Station Beta—and which sea horse, with its iridescent multi-hued scaling, was exactly calculated to please a woman’s sensibilities. Marianne had accepted the present without hesitation—without considering that it was not her mother’s plan to keep any sea horse, and that its maintenance would require an appropriate aquarium, specially-designed exercise equipment, and a well-trained servant to tend it.
    “He intends to dispatch his ship’s boy into Somersetshire immediately for it,” she added, “and when it arrives we will gaze at it and feed it algae every day. You shall share its use with me. Imagine to yourself, my dear Elinor, the delight of watching it describe little circles in its tank.”
    Most unwilling was she to comprehend all the unhappy truths which attended the affair; and for some time she refused to submit to them. Elinor then ventured to doubt the propriety of her receiving such a present from a man so little, or at least so lately known to her. This was too much.
    “You are mistaken, Elinor,” said Marianne warmly, “in supposing I know very little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, butI am much better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the world, except yourself and Mama. It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. I should hold myself guilty of greater impropriety in accepting a sea horse from my brother, than from Willoughby. Of John I know very little, though we have lived together for years; but of Willoughby my judgment was formed the moment when first he hacked off the impossibly strong tentacle that had encircled me.”
    Elinor thought it wisest to touch that point no more. She knew her sister’s temper. Opposition on so tender a subject would only attach her