The wise doctor was proprietor of Brighton’s most renowned Oriental healing emporium and was one of the few practitioners Mina trusted, since his late sister Eliza had also suffered from scoliosis and he had made a special study of the condition. Other less knowledgeable doctors encased their patients in steel corsets or plaster waistcoats, browbeat them into believing that the distortion of the spine was their own fault, and even advocated highly speculative surgery to sever their back muscles. Dr Hamid’s treatments consisted of medicated vapour baths, soothing massages and stimulating exercise, his lady patients enjoying the sensitive care of his sister Anna. Mina would emerge from the baths where she made her weekly visit relaxed and refreshed and, for a time at least, free of the aches that were her daily plague.
Rose showed Dr Hamid to Mina’s bedside where she lay bundled in blankets and shawls, a thoroughly unhappy and unwilling patient, since she found the enforced inactivity desperately frustrating. Although her mind insisted that she should be up and about and doing something interesting, her body was sending urgent messages that it was too weary to do much more than rest. She could not stop shivering, although the room was well warmed.
Dr Hamid used the time taken to approach her bedside to study Mina carefully. Their meetings, even those of a social nature, always began with a general enquiry after her health, but this time he did not ask, and she sensed that the look had told him all he needed to know. Although his greeting was friendly and sympathetic, he was unable to conceal a deep anxiety for his frail patient.
‘It’s only a cold,’ Mina protested, defiantly, although it was a searingly wretched effort to speak at all. ‘But I suppose I had better stay indoors for a while.’
‘You certainly should,’ he said. ‘Do you have much pain?’
‘Only when I breathe.’ Mina coughed into a handkerchief and winced at a sharp stab through her breastbone. There was a rasping in her chest that was sounding like that of the man she had been seated beside in the theatre. She wondered if he was still alive.
‘Rose, help me lift Miss Scarletti to sit a little higher. It will help ease the breathing,’ said Dr Hamid. Each took an arm and raised her up with no more difficulty than settling a small child, and Rose plumped and rearranged the pillows. ‘Is that better?’
Mina tried to catch her breath, failed, and nodded instead.
Dr Hamid placed the palm of his hand to her forehead for a few moments, said ‘hm’ then handed a thermometer to Rose and instructed her to position it under Mina’s armpit — a procedure which involved much delving though layers of wool and linen. He took Mina’s wrist in a firm grip and consulted his watch, then used his smart new binaural stethoscope to listen carefully to the action of her lungs. He looked at her once more, frowned, and made some notes in a little book, but made no comment concerning what he had observed.
‘Plenty of fluids,’ he said, with a nod to Rose, ‘especially nourishing drinks such as beef tea. Warm linseed poultices on the chest, twice a day, and inhalations of hot medicated vapour whenever necessary. I will prescribe the drops you require and a mixture to soothe the throat. Miss Scarletti is not to be moved from her bed until I say it is safe to do so.’ Rose retrieved the thermometer and Dr Hamid studied and noted the result. ‘The temperature is slightly elevated but not dangerous.’
‘Will I live?’ asked Mina. It was not a frivolous question and she saw from his expression that he knew it.
‘That is the intention. Try and keep your spirits up.’
‘As I lie here idle? That will be hard.’
‘I can imagine,’ he said wryly. ‘You may indulge in gentle amusements. Reading, and — well, reading. Poetry perhaps. Or sermons. But no excitement and no exertion,’ he added firmly. ‘I shall expect Rose to inform me if you attempt to go beyond my advice, and I will not be pleased if you do.’
Rose looked at Mina sternly and steadily. The reluctant patient was left in no doubt that the maid would attend diligently to Dr Hamid’s directions.
Mina was left hoping for signs of improvement to appear soon, and eager to find herself restored to health in a few days at the most. She was all for indulging in a good book and Rose saw that she was suitably supported in a position to read and provided with a volume of religious essays. The next morning, however, Mina was feverish with a bounding pulse, and a cough that seemed to be trying to drag all her insides outwards. Unable to move, gasping for breath, she lay helpless, sunken into the pillows.
Despite this, Mina did not fully realise how ill she was until her mother arrived. Louisa Scarletti had spent most of the previous few months in London, acting as an ineffectual nurse, grim counsellor and general aggravator to her younger daughter Enid Inskip. Enid’s solicitor husband was abroad on business and, having already been blessed with twin boys, she was anticipating an addition to the family, but not with any great pleasure. Once settled in, Louisa’s main contribution to Mina’s sickroom was to sit by the bed, her face buried in a handkerchief, whimpering, until Rose persuaded her to leave.
Dr Hamid visited twice a day, and soon after the arrival of Mina’s mother he was accompanied by a young woman in a plain grey gown, a long white apron and a starched cap. ‘This is Miss Cherry,’ he said.
‘Where is Rose?’ asked Mina, in a breathy whisper.
‘Rose is attending to Mrs Scarletti in addition to her household duties. You need someone experienced who can be by your side at all times. Miss Cherry is a nurse with the most impeccable credentials. I thoroughly recommend her.’
Mina looked at Miss Cherry, who was very tidy and had an air of quiet competence. ‘Miss Cherry, I will try not to trouble you too much.’
Miss Cherry gave a neat bob of a curtsey.
Dr Hamid made the usual checks of Mina’s temperature and pulse and listened to her chest.
‘I am still feverish, am I not?’ asked Mina.
He hesitated.
‘I would prefer honest bad news to unrealistic reassurance.’
He smiled briefly. ‘Yes, you are.’
‘Then I may not be troubling anyone for much longer.’
‘You must not lose hope,’ he said. ‘You are young yet.’
Mina burst into a new coughing fit and Miss Cherry acted at once, applying friction to her patient’s back until the painful spasms subsided sufficiently for a teaspoonful of sedative mixture to be swallowed. She then poured water into a basin, dampened a cloth and applied it to Mina’s brow and lips.
‘I expected to die young,’ said Mina, as she reclined on the pillows once more. ‘I just didn’t expect it to hurt this much.’
Miss Cherry said nothing, but as soon as Dr Hamid had left, she stamped her presence on the household. The Scarlettis employed a charlady to do the heavier domestic cleaning, and she did it well, but Miss Cherry did not consider this good enough for a sickroom. She therefore set about scrutinising every surface in Mina’s bedroom, assessing each item therein for its cleanliness and suitability. Anything that might harbour dust or have an irritating scent was packed into boxes and stored away until the patient was strong enough to endure them.
There was some puzzlement over the small dumbbells that lay concealed at the bottom of the wardrobe and Mina was obliged to explain that she used them in the calisthenic exercises she had been taught by Anna Hamid. Miss Cherry commented dryly that they would not be needed for a while, rubbed them well with a cloth and replaced them. The little wedge-shaped cushion that Mina used to enable her to sit upright on chairs was taken away to be cleaned.