Sense and sensibility and sea monsters by Ben H. Winters & Jane Austen

Author:Ben H. Winters & Jane Austen [Ben H. Winters & Jane Austen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humour
ISBN: 9781594744426
Published: 2009-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

MRS. JENNINGS CAME IMMEDIATELY to their room on her return.

“How do you do, my dear?” said she in a voice of great compassion to Marianne, who turned away her face without answering. “Rashes? Joint pain? Itching?” she inquired, naming some of the symptoms often attending to aeroembolism—though she knew well that Marianne’s trouble was one of the heart, not one caused by the precipitation of dissolved bubbles within the body accompanying rapid compression or decompression.

“Poor thing!” Mrs. Jennings continued. “She looks very bad. No wonder. Aye, it is but too true. He is to be married very soon—a good-for-nothing scoundrel! I have no patience with him. Mrs. Taylor told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed it. I wish with all my soul his wife may be like a tapeworm to him: May she dwell symbiotically in the digestive tract of his existence, consuming all joy, causing him writhing pain at odd intervals, until she is finally defecated out. And so I shall always say, my dear, you may depend on it; I love to repeat a parasite metaphor, once I first have invented it. But there is one comfort, my dear Miss Marianne; he is not the only young man in the world; and with your pretty face, strong back, and noticeable lung capacity, you will never want admirers.”

She then went away, walking on tiptoe out of the room, as if she supposed her young friend’s affliction could be increased by noise.

Marianne, to the surprise of her sister, determined on dining that night with Mrs. Jennings and her guests. When there, though looking most wretchedly, she managed to choke down several cubes of rack-of-lamb paste, and was calmer than Elinor had expected. Mrs. Jennings saw that Marianne was unhappy, and felt that everything was due to her which might make her less so. She treated her with all the indulgent fondness of a parent towards a favourite child on the last day of its holidays. Marianne was to have the best seat, looking right out at the Dome-glass, and to be amused by the relation of all the news of the day. There had been news of a particularly dramatic shipwreck, in which a fully outfitted French frigate was beset by a tempest and capsized in the shark-infested waters off eastern Tasmania; Mrs. Jennings relayed the tale to Marianne with particular zest, acting out the terrified “mon dieu!”s and “aidez-moi!”s of the sailors as they were surrounded by the befinned man-consumers. But soon Marianne could stay no longer. With a sign to her sister not to follow her, she directly got up and hurried out of the room.

“Poor soul!” cried Mrs. Jennings, as soon as she was gone, “Never have I known of spirits so low they could not be raised by hearing of a Frenchman eaten by a shark! I am sure if I knew of anything she would like, I would send all over the Sub-Marine Station for it.

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