Kate complied, though not without some embarrassment, with this request, and Mrs. Wititterly took a languid survey of her countenance, which lasted some two or three minutes.
‘I like your appearance,’ said that lady, ringing a little bell. ‘Alphonse, request your master to come here.’
The page disappeared on this errand, and after a short interval, during which not a word was spoken on either side, opened the door for an important gentleman of about eight-and-thirty, of rather plebeian countenance, and with a very light head of hair, who leant over Mrs Wititterly for a little time, and conversed with her in whispers.
‘Oh!’ he said, turning round, ‘yes. This is a most important matter. Mrs Wititterly is of a very excitable nature; very delicate, very fragile; a hothouse plant, an exotic.’
‘Oh! Henry, my dear,’ interposed Mrs. Wititterly.
‘You are, my love, you know you are; one breath—’ said Mr. W., blowing an imaginary feather away. ‘Pho! you’re gone!’
The lady sighed.
‘Your soul is too large for your body,’ said Mr. Wititterly. ‘Your intellect wears you out; all the medical men say so; you know that there is not a physician who is not proud of being called in to you. What is their unanimous declaration? “My dear doctor,” said I to Sir Tumley Snuffim, in this very room, the very last time he came. “My dear doctor, what is my wife’s complaint? Tell me all. I can bear it. Is it nerves?” “My dear fellow,” he said, “be proud of that woman; make much of her; she is an ornament to the fashionable world, and to you. Her complaint is soul. It swells, expands, dilates—the blood fires, the pulse quickens, the excitement increases—Whew!”’ Here Mr. Wititterly, who, in the ardour of his description, had flourished his right hand to within something less than an inch of Mrs. Nickleby’s bonnet, drew it hastily back again, and blew his nose as fiercely as if it had been done by some violent machinery.
‘You make me out worse than I am, Henry,’ said Mrs. Wititterly, with a faint smile.
‘I do not, Julia, I do not,’ said Mr. W. ‘The society in which you move—necessarily move, from your station, connection, and endowments—is one vortex and whirlpool of the most frightful excitement. Bless my heart and body, can I ever forget the night you danced with the baronet’s nephew at the election ball, at Exeter! It was tremendous.’