As he said this, the bald-headed Doctor would lean back with evident self-satisfaction in the easy chair, and swing his watch-seals round and round like a watchman’s rattle. Then he usually proceeded to explain how every human creature was burning away, in the process of respiration, at the least one pound of charcoal per diem; that every meal was, when viewed with the philosophic eye, nothing more than throwing another shovelful or two of coals on to the ever-consuming fire; and that for himself, he did not care in what form the charcoal was introduced into the system, but one pound of it he must really insist upon being swallowed daily.
Mrs. Quinine—who, by-the-bye, never lost an opportunity of impressing upon strangers that her name was pronounced Keneen, even as the Beauvoirs, the Cholmondeleys, the Majoribanks, and the Cockburns, insist upon being called Beavers, Chumleys, Marchbanks, and Coburns—Mrs. Quinine, we repeat, agreed with the rest of the female world in her estimation of the dear old Doctor Twaddles. Nor was it to be wondered at, for the Doctor certainly did his best to make the lady’s indisposition as pleasant and profitable as possible to her.
True to his dietetic discipline, the loveable old Physician gave the lady to understand that all she required was nourishing food, and accordingly his prescriptions consisted of a succession of the most agreeable and toothsome delicacies; so that the fair invalid having merely to submit to a course of high feeding, gave herself up to the care of the dear Doctor with the most exemplary patience.
At six in the morning, Mrs. Quinine began her dietetic course with a cup of homœopathic cocoa, that was kept simmering through the night in a small teapot, resting (heaven knows why!) on the turrets of a china castle, in the porcelain donjon of which burnt a melancholy spirit lamp. This it was her husband’s duty to give the lady immediately her eyes were opened. Her breakfast, which was mostly taken in bed, consisted of coffee, procured, according to the express injunctions of the Doctor, from a house where analysis had proved it to be unadulterated, and made, after Doctor Twaddles’ own receipt, entirely with milk, obtained from an establishment where the Doctor could vouch for its being genuine. The coffee was sometimes accompanied with the lean of a mutton-chop, “cut thick,” and “done with the gravy in it;” sometimes with a rasher or two of “Dr. Gardner’s digestive bacon,” and sometimes with the wing of a cold chicken; while the bread of which she partook was of the unfermented kind, had fresh every day from the Doctor’s own man in the City. At twelve the invalid rose, and descended to a light lunch of either oysters, a small custard pudding, or some calf’s-foot jelly made palateable and strengthening with wine; and with this, and an egg or two beaten up with milk, and flavoured with a glass of Madeira, the delicate lady was enabled to linger on till the more substantial meal of the day.
Mrs. Quinine’s dinner, for the most part, was made up of a “little bit” of fish and a “mouthful or two” of game; for the lady condescended but seldom to partake of butcher’s meat, and, when she did so, it was solely of the more delicate and expensive kinds, known as Southdown or Welsh mutton; while the digestion of these was assisted either with “Rumford ale,” or “India pale,” or “Guinness,” or some other agreeable and stimulating form of dietetic medicine, procured from establishments which were noted for supplying only the very best articles.
Her supper was usually eaten in bed, for the invalid was strictly enjoined to retire to rest at an early hour; and long before she did so, a fire was lighted in her bed-room, so that she might not suffer from the shock of going into a cold apartment: for the same reason, the lady’s bed was well warmed previous to her entering it; and when she had been comfortably tucked up by her maid, a hot water bottle swathed in flannel was placed at her feet. Here the invalid was consoled either with a glass of warm white-wine-whey, or a posset, or arrowroot bought expressly for her at Apothecaries’ Hall; and thus the poor delicate lady was enabled to keep body and soul together until the morrow.
But the course of diet followed by the lady was far from settled, for Doctor Twaddles paid great attention to what he termed “the voice of Nature,” and consequently gave strict orders that whatever his patient fancied she was to have. Accordingly, Mrs. Quinine continually felt convinced that her system required change, and that she needed some most expensive and agreeable article of diet. Now her mouth was parched, and nothing but strawberries, though they cost a guinea a pint, or a bunch or two of hot-house grapes, could relieve her; then she would give the world for just a taste of spring lamb and new potatoes; and then nothing would satisfy her but a mouthful or two of turbot, even though it were impossible to buy less than a whole one.
All these little fancies Doctor Twaddles dignified by the name of “instincts,” and declared that they were simply the out-speakings of exhausted Nature.
Mrs. Quinine was, of course, too weak to walk abroad, so Doctor Twaddles enjoined a daily airing in the park, when the weather was mild, in an open carriage; or, if the lady preferred it, he would advise a little horse exercise; and as Mrs. Quinine thought she looked extremely well in a habit and “wide-awake,” she seldom stirred out unless mounted on a “palfrey” from the neighbouring livery stables.
Now these and other similar prescriptions of Doctor Twaddles made illness so pleasant, that, coupled with the interesting character of the invalid costume (Mrs. Quinine wore the prettiest of nightcaps, trimmed with the most expensive of lace, when she received visitors in her bed-room), the lady naturally felt disposed to feel indisposed. And it was odd how the several complaints to which she professed herself subject, came and went with the fashionable seasons. In winter she was “peculiarly susceptible” to bronchitis, so that this necessitated her being in town at the gayest period of the metropolis. Doctor Twaddles would not take upon himself to answer for the consequences if Mrs. Quinine passed a winter in the provinces: and—what was a severe calamity—the poor lady could go nowhere in the summer for change of air, but to the fashionable and lively watering-places, for she was always affected with the hay fever if she visited the more retired and consequently duller parts of the country.