Now we were to go, and wait in the king’s rooms—now in the gentlemen’s—now in Dr. Willis’s—her own—and this, in the end, took place.
In our way we encountered Mr. Fairly. He asked where we were going. “To my own parlour!” she answered.
He accompanied us in; and, to cheer the gloom, seized some of the stores of Dr. Willis,—sandwiches, wine and water, and other refreshments,—and brought them to us, one after another in a sportive manner, recommending to us to break through common rules, on such an occasion, and eat and drink to warm ourselves. Mrs. Schwellenberg stood in stately silence, and bolt upright, scarce deigning to speak even a refusal; till, upon his saying, while he held a glass of wine in his hand, “Come, ma’am, do something eccentric for once—it will warm you,” she angrily answered, “You been reely—what you call—too much hospital!”
Neither of us could help laughing. “Yes,” cried he, “with the goods of others;—that makes a wide difference in hospitality!” Then he rattled away upon the honours the room had lately received, of having had Mr. Pitt, the Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, etc., to wait in it. This she resented highly, as seeming to think it more honoured in her absence than presence. At length we took our miserable airing, in which I was treated with as much fierce harshness as if I was being conveyed to some place of confinement for the punishment Of some dreadful offence!
She would have the glass down on my side; the piercing wind cut my face; I put my muff up to it: this incensed her so much, that she vehemently declared “she never, no never would trobble any won to air with her again but go always selfs.”—And who will repine at that? thought I.
Yet by night I had caught a violent cold, which flew to my face, and occasioned me dreadful pain.
March 10.—I have been in too much pain to write these last five days; and I became very feverish, and universally ill, affected with the fury of the cold.
My royal mistress, who could not but observe me very unwell, though I have never omitted my daily three attendances, which I have performed with a difficulty all but insurmountable, concluded I had been guilty of some imprudence: I told the simple fact of the glass,—but quite simply, and without one circumstance. She instantly said she was surprised I could catch cold in an airing, as it never appeared that it disagreed with me when I took it with Mrs. Delany.
“No, ma’am,” I immediately answered, “nor with Mrs. Locke; nor formerly with Mrs. Thrale:—but they left me the regulation of the glass on my own side to myself; or, if they interfered, it was to draw it up for me.”
This I could not resist. I can be silent; but when challenged to speak at all, it must be plain truth.