Jorrocks' Jaunts and JollitiesSurtees, Robert Smith
General
Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities
Surtees, Robert Smith
England -- Fiction; Fox hunting -- Fiction; Hunting stories
Mrs. Jorrocks, as we said before, was sitting in state at the far side
of the round table, on a worsted-worked ottoman exhibiting a cock
pheasant on a white ground, and was fanning herself with a red-and-white
paper fan, and turning over the leaves of an annual. How Mr. Jorrocks
happened to marry her, no one could ever divine, for she never was
pretty, had very little money, and not even a decent figure to recommend
her. It was generally supposed at the time, that his brother Joe and
he having had a deadly feud about a bottom piece of muffin, the lady's
friends had talked him into the match, in the hopes of his having a
family to leave his money to, instead of bequeathing it to Joe or his
children. Certain it is, they never were meant for each other; Mr.
Jorrocks, as our readers have seen, being all nature and impulse, while
Mrs. Jorrocks was all vanity and affectation. To describe her accurately
is more than we can pretend to, for she looked so different in different
dresses, that Mr. Jorrocks himself sometimes did not recognise her. Her
face was round, with a good strong brick-dust sort of complexion, a
turn-up nose, eyes that were grey in one light and green in another, and
a middling-sized mouth, with a double chin below. Mr. Jorrocks used
to say that she was "warranted" to him as twelve years younger than
himself, but many people supposed the difference of age between them was
not so great. Her stature was of the middle height, and she was of one
breadth from the shoulders to the heels. She was dressed in a flaming
scarlet satin gown, with swan's-down round the top, as also at the arms,
and two flounces of the same material round the bottom. Her turban was
of green velvet, with a gold fringe, terminating in a bunch over the
left side, while a bird-of-paradise inclined towards the right. Across
her forehead she wore a gold band, with a many-coloured glass butterfly
(a present from James Green), and her neck, arms, waist (at least
what ought to have been her waist) were hung round and studded with
mosaic-gold chains, brooches, rings, buttons, bracelets, etc., looking
for all the world like a portable pawnbroker's shop, or the lump of beef
that Sinbad the sailor threw into the Valley of Diamonds. In the right
of a gold band round her middle, was an immense gold watch, with a bunch
of mosaic seals appended to a massive chain of the same material; and a
large miniature of Mr. Jorrocks when he was a young man, with his hair
stiffly curled, occupied a place on her left side. On her right arm
dangled a green velvet bag with a gold cord, out of which one of
Mr. Jorrocks's silk handkerchiefs protruded, while a crumpled,
yellowish-white cambric one, with a lace fringe, lay at her side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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