Martin Chuzzlewit
price, which underpaid you are, quite diff’rent. Harris had it done
afore marriage at ten and six,” she says, “and wore it faithful next his
heart till the colour run, when the money was declined to be give back,
and no arrangement could be come to. But he never said it was a angel’s,
Sairey, wotever he might have thought.” If Mrs Harris’s husband was
here now,’ said Mrs Gamp, looking round, and chuckling as she dropped
a general curtsey, ‘he’d speak out plain, he would, and his dear wife
would be the last to blame him! For if ever a woman lived as know’d not
wot it was to form a wish to pizon them as had good looks, and had no
reagion give her by the best of husbands, Mrs Harris is that ev’nly
dispogician!’
With these words the worthy woman, who appeared to have dropped in
to take tea as a delicate little attention, rather than to have any
engagement on the premises in an official capacity, crossed to Mr
Chuffey, who was seated in the same corner as of old, and shook him by
the shoulder.
‘Rouge yourself, and look up! Come!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘Here’s company, Mr
Chuffey.’
‘I am sorry for it,’ cried the old man, looking humbly round the room.
‘I know I’m in the way. I ask pardon, but I’ve nowhere else to go to.
Where is she?’
Merry went to him.
‘Ah!’ said the old man, patting her on the check. ‘Here she is. Here she
is! She’s never hard on poor old Chuffey. Poor old Chuff!’
As she took her seat upon a low chair by the old man’s side, and put
herself within the reach of his hand, she looked up once at Tom. It
was a sad look that she cast upon him, though there was a faint smile
trembling on her face. It was a speaking look, and Tom knew what it
said. ‘You see how misery has changed me. I can feel for a dependant
NOW, and set some value on his attachment.’
‘Aye, aye!’ cried Chuffey in a soothing tone. ‘Aye, aye, aye! Never mind
him. It’s hard to hear, but never mind him. He’ll die one day. There
are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year--three hundred and
sixty-six in leap year--and he may die on any one of ‘em.’
‘You’re a wearing old soul, and that’s the sacred truth,’ said Mrs Gamp,
contemplating him from a little distance with anything but favour, as he
continued to mutter to himself. ‘It’s a pity that you don’t know wot you
say, for you’d tire your own patience out if you did, and fret yourself
into a happy releage for all as knows you.’
‘His son,’ murmured the old man, lifting up his hand. ‘His son!’
‘Well, I’m sure!’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘you’re a-settlin’ of it, Mr Chuffey.
To your satigefaction, sir, I hope. But I wouldn’t lay a new pincushion
on it myself, sir, though you ARE so well informed. Drat the old
creetur, he’s a-layin’ down the law tolerable confident, too! A deal he
knows of sons! or darters either! Suppose you was to favour us with some
remarks on twins, sir, WOULD you be so good!’
The bitter and indignant sarcasm which Mrs Gamp conveyed into these
taunts was altogether lost on the unconscious Chuffey, who appeared to
be as little cognizant of their delivery as of his having given Mrs
Gamp offence. But that high-minded woman being sensitively alive to any
invasion of her professional province, and imagining that Mr Chuffey had
given utterance to some prediction on the subject of sons, which ought
to have emanated in the first instance from herself as the only lawful
authority, or which should at least have been on no account proclaimed
without her sanction and concurrence, was not so easily appeased. She
continued to sidle at Mr Chuffey with looks of sharp hostility, and to
defy him with many other ironical remarks, uttered in that low key
which commonly denotes suppressed indignation; until the entrance of
the teaboard, and a request from Mrs Jonas that she would make tea at a
side-table for the party that had unexpectedly assembled, restored her
to herself. She smiled again, and entered on her ministration with her
own particular urbanity.
‘And quite a family it is to make tea for,’ said Mrs Gamp; ‘and wot a
happiness to do it! My good young ‘ooman’--to the servant-girl--‘p’raps
somebody would like to try a new-laid egg or two, not biled too hard.
Likeways, a few rounds o’ buttered toast, first cuttin’ off the crust,
in consequence of tender teeth, and not too many of ‘em; which Gamp
himself, Mrs Chuzzlewit, at one blow, being in liquor, struck out four,
two single, and two double, as was took by Mrs Harris for a keepsake,
and is carried in her pocket at this present hour, along with two
cramp-bones, a bit o’ ginger, and a grater like a blessed infant’s shoe,
in tin, with a little heel to put the nutmeg in; as many times I’ve seen
and said, and used for candle when required, within the month.’
As the privileges of the side-table--besides including the small
prerogatives of sitting next the toast, and taking two cups of tea to
other people’s one, and always taking them at a crisis, that is to
say, before putting fresh water into the tea-pot, and after it had been
standing for some time--also comprehended a full view of the company,
and an opportunity of addressing them as from a rostrum, Mrs Gamp
discharged the functions entrusted to her with extreme good-humour and
affability. Sometimes resting her saucer on the palm of her outspread
hand, and supporting her elbow on the table, she stopped between her
sips of tea to favour the circle with a smile, a wink, a roll of the
head, or some other mark of notice; and at those periods her countenance
was lighted up with a degree of intelligence and vivacity, which it was
almost impossible to separate from the benignant influence of distilled
waters.
But for Mrs Gamp, it would have been a curiously silent party. Miss
Pecksniff only spoke to her Augustus, and to him in whispers. Augustus
spoke to nobody, but sighed for every one, and occasionally gave himself
such a sounding slap upon the forehead as would make Mrs Todgers, who
was rather nervous, start in her chair with an involuntary exclamation.
Mrs Todgers was occupied in knitting, and seldom spoke. Poor Merry held
the hand of cheerful little Ruth between her own, and listening with
evident pleasure to all she said, but rarely speaking herself, sometimes
smiled, and sometimes kissed her on the cheek, and sometimes turned
aside to hide the tears that trembled in her eyes. Tom felt this change
in her so much, and was so glad to see how tenderly Ruth dealt with her,
and how she knew and answered to it, that he had not the heart to make
any movement towards their departure, although he had long since given
utterance to all he came to say.
The old clerk, subsiding into his usual state, remained profoundly
silent, while the rest of the little assembly were thus occupied, intent
upon the dreams, whatever they might be, which hardly seemed to stir
the surface of his sluggish thoughts. The bent of these dull fancies
combining probably with the silent feasting that was going on about him,
and some struggling recollection of the last approach to revelry he had
witnessed, suggested a strange question to his mind. He looked round
upon a sudden, and said:
‘Who’s lying dead upstairs?’
‘No one,’ said Merry, turning to him. ‘What is the matter? We are all
here.’
‘All here!’ cried the old man. ‘All here! Where is he then--my old
master, Mr Chuzzlewit, who had the only son? Where is he?’
‘Hush! Hush!’ said Merry, speaking kindly to him. ‘That happened long
ago. Don’t you recollect?’
‘Recollect!’ rejoined the old man, with a cry of grief. ‘As if I could
forget! As if I ever could forget!’
He put his hand up to his face for a moment; and then repeated turning
round exactly as before:
‘Who’s lying dead upstairs?’
‘No one!’ said Merry.
At first he gazed angrily upon her, as upon a stranger who endeavoured
to deceive him; but peering into her face, and seeing that it was indeed
she, he shook his head in sorrowful compassion.
‘You think not. But they don’t tell you. No, no, poor thing! They don’t
tell you. Who are these, and why are they merry-making here, if there is
no one dead? Foul play! Go see who it is!’
She made a sign to them not to speak to him, which indeed they had
little inclination to do; and remained silent herself. So did he for
a short time; but then he repeated the same question with an eagerness
that had a peculiar terror in it.
‘There’s some one dead,’ he said, ‘or dying; and I want to knows who it
is. Go see, go see! Where’s Jonas?’
‘In the country,’ she replied.
The old man gazed at her as if he doubted what she said, or had not
heard her; and, rising from his chair, walked across the room and
upstairs, whispering as he went, ‘Foul play!’ They heard his footsteps
overhead, going up into that corner of the room in which the bed stood
(it was there old Anthony had died); and then they heard him coming down
again immediately. His fancy was not so strong or wild that it pictured
to him anything in the deserted bedchamber which was not there; for he
returned much calmer, and appeared to have satisfied himself.
‘They don’t tell you,’ he said to Merry in his quavering voice, as
he sat down again, and patted her upon the head. ‘They don’t tell me
either; but I’ll watch, I’ll watch. They shall not hurt you; don’t be
frightened. When you have sat up watching, I have sat up watching too.
Aye, aye, I have!’ he piped out, clenching his weak, shrivelled hand.
‘Many a night I have been ready!’
He said this with such trembling gaps and pauses in his want of breath,
and said it in his jealous secrecy so closely in her ear, that little
or nothing of it was understood by the visitors. But they had heard
and seen enough of the old man to be disquieted, and to have left
their seats and gathered about him; thereby affording Mrs Gamp,
whose professional coolness was not so easily disturbed, an eligible
opportunity for concentrating the whole resources of her powerful mind
and appetite upon the toast and butter, tea and eggs. She had brought
them to bear upon those viands with such vigour that her face was in the
highest state of inflammation, when she now (there being nothing left to
eat or drink) saw fit to interpose.
‘Why, highty tighty, sir!’ cried Mrs Gamp, ‘is these your manners? You
want a pitcher of cold water throw’d over you to bring you round; that’s
my belief, and if you was under Betsey Prig you’d have it, too, I do
assure you, Mr Chuffey. Spanish Flies is the only thing to draw this
nonsense out of you; and if anybody wanted to do you a kindness, they’d
clap a blister of ‘em on your head, and put a mustard poultige on your
back. ‘Who’s dead, indeed! It wouldn’t be no grievous loss if some one
was, I think!’
‘He’s quiet now, Mrs Gamp,’ said Merry. ‘Don’t disturb him.’
‘Oh, bother the old wictim, Mrs Chuzzlewit,’ replied that zealous lady,
‘I ain’t no patience with him. You give him his own way too much by
half. A worritin’ wexagious creetur!’
No doubt with the view of carrying out the precepts she enforced, and
‘bothering the old wictim’ in practice as well as in theory, Mrs Gamp
took him by the collar of his coat, and gave him some dozen or two of
hearty shakes backward and forward in his chair; that exercise being
considered by the disciples of the Prig school of nursing (who are very
numerous among professional ladies) as exceedingly conducive to repose,
and highly beneficial to the performance of the nervous functions.
Its effect in this instance was to render the patient so giddy and
addle-headed, that he could say nothing more; which Mrs Gamp regarded as
the triumph of her art.
‘There!’ she said, loosening the old man’s cravat, in consequence of his
being rather black in the face, after this scientific treatment. ‘Now,
I hope, you’re easy in your mind. If you should turn at all faint we