Читать книгу Dr. Wainwright's Patient. A Novel онлайн

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"Did you ever hear tell what was ezackly the matter wi' the Captain's lady, Mrs. Powler?" asked Mrs. Jupp mysteriously.

"Innards," said the old lady in a hollow voice, laying her hand on the big mother-o'-pearl buckle by which her broad sash was kept together.

"Ah, but what sort of innards?" demanded Mrs. Jupp, who was by no means to be put off with a general answer on such an important subject.

"That I dunno," said Mrs. Powler, unwillingly confessing her ignorance. "Dr. Barton attends her in a or'nary way, but I niver heerd him say."

"It must be one of them obstinit diseases as we women has," said Mrs. Jupp, "as though--not to fly in the face of Providence--but as though child-bearin' wasn't enough to have us let off all the rest!"

"She niver takes no med'cine," said Mrs. Powler, who firmly believed in the virtues of the Pharmacopoeia, and whose pride it was that the deceased Powler, in his last illness, had swallowed "quarts and quarts." "I know that from that fair-haired young chap that mixes Barton's drugs,--his mother was a kind o' c'nexion o' Fowler's, and I had 'im up to tea a Sunday week, and asked him."