Martin Chuzzlewit
the board, though some people say it was just going to be. Some believe
he was took in, and some believe he was one of the takers-in; but
however that may be, they can’t prove nothing against him. This morning
he went up of his own accord afore the Lord Mayor or some of them City
big-wigs, and complained that he’d been swindled, and that these two
persons had gone off and cheated him, and that he had just found out
that Montague’s name wasn’t even Montague, but something else. And they
do say that he looked like Death, owing to his losses. But, Lord
forgive me,’ cried the barber, coming back again to the subject of
his individual grief, ‘what’s his looks to me! He might have died and
welcome, fifty times, and not been such a loss as Bailey!’
At this juncture the little bell rang, and the deep voice of Mrs Prig
struck into the conversation.
‘Oh! You’re a-talkin’ about it, are you!’ observed that lady. ‘Well, I
hope you’ve got it over, for I ain’t interested in it myself.’
‘My precious Betsey,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘how late you are!’
The worthy Mrs Prig replied, with some asperity, ‘that if perwerse
people went off dead, when they was least expected, it warn’t no fault
of her’n.’ And further, ‘that it was quite aggrawation enough to be made
late when one was dropping for one’s tea, without hearing on it again.’
Mrs Gamp, deriving from this exhibition of repartee some clue to the
state of Mrs Prig’s feelings, instantly conducted her upstairs; deeming
that the sight of pickled salmon might work a softening change.
But Betsey Prig expected pickled salmon. It was obvious that she did;
for her first words, after glancing at the table, were:
‘I know’d she wouldn’t have a cowcumber!’
Mrs Gamp changed colour, and sat down upon the bedstead.
‘Lord bless you, Betsey Prig, your words is true. I quite forgot it!’
Mrs Prig, looking steadfastly at her friend, put her hand in her
pocket, and with an air of surly triumph drew forth either the oldest of
lettuces or youngest of cabbages, but at any rate, a green vegetable of
an expansive nature, and of such magnificent proportions that she was
obliged to shut it up like an umbrella before she could pull it out.
She also produced a handful of mustard and cress, a trifle of the herb
called dandelion, three bunches of radishes, an onion rather larger than
an average turnip, three substantial slices of beetroot, and a short
prong or antler of celery; the whole of this garden-stuff having been
publicly exhibited, but a short time before, as a twopenny salad, and
purchased by Mrs Prig on condition that the vendor could get it all into
her pocket. Which had been happily accomplished, in High Holborn, to
the breathless interest of a hackney-coach stand. And she laid so little
stress on this surprising forethought, that she did not even smile, but
returning her pocket into its accustomed sphere, merely recommended
that these productions of nature should be sliced up, for immediate
consumption, in plenty of vinegar.
‘And don’t go a-droppin’ none of your snuff in it,’ said Mrs Prig.
‘In gruel, barley-water, apple-tea, mutton-broth, and that, it don’t
signify. It stimulates a patient. But I don’t relish it myself.’
‘Why, Betsey Prig!’ cried Mrs Gamp, ‘how CAN you talk so!’
‘Why, ain’t your patients, wotever their diseases is, always asneezin’
their wery heads off, along of your snuff?’ said Mrs Prig.
‘And wot if they are!’ said Mrs Gamp
‘Nothing if they are,’ said Mrs Prig. ‘But don’t deny it, Sairah.’
‘Who deniges of it?’ Mrs Gamp inquired.
Mrs Prig returned no answer.
‘WHO deniges of it, Betsey?’ Mrs Gamp inquired again. Then Mrs Gamp, by
reversing the question, imparted a deeper and more awful character of
solemnity to the same. ‘Betsey, who deniges of it?’
It was the nearest possible approach to a very decided difference of
opinion between these ladies; but Mrs Prig’s impatience for the meal
being greater at the moment than her impatience of contradiction, she
replied, for the present, ‘Nobody, if you don’t, Sairah,’ and prepared
herself for tea. For a quarrel can be taken up at any time, but a
limited quantity of salmon cannot.
Her toilet was simple. She had merely to ‘chuck’ her bonnet and shawl
upon the bed; give her hair two pulls, one upon the right side and one
upon the left, as if she were ringing a couple of bells; and all was
done. The tea was already made, Mrs Gamp was not long over the salad,
and they were soon at the height of their repast.
The temper of both parties was improved, for the time being, by the
enjoyments of the table. When the meal came to a termination (which it
was pretty long in doing), and Mrs Gamp having cleared away, produced
the teapot from the top shelf, simultaneously with a couple of
wine-glasses, they were quite amiable.
‘Betsey,’ said Mrs Gamp, filling her own glass and passing the teapot,
‘I will now propoge a toast. My frequent pardner, Betsey Prig!’
‘Which, altering the name to Sairah Gamp; I drink,’ said Mrs Prig, ‘with
love and tenderness.’
From this moment symptoms of inflammation began to lurk in the nose of
each lady; and perhaps, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary,
in the temper also.
‘Now, Sairah,’ said Mrs Prig, ‘joining business with pleasure, wot is
this case in which you wants me?’
Mrs Gamp betraying in her face some intention of returning an evasive
answer, Betsey added:
‘IS it Mrs Harris?’
‘No, Betsey Prig, it ain’t,’ was Mrs Gamp’s reply.
‘Well!’ said Mrs Prig, with a short laugh. ‘I’m glad of that, at any
rate.’
‘Why should you be glad of that, Betsey?’ Mrs Gamp retorted, warmly.
‘She is unbeknown to you except by hearsay, why should you be glad? If
you have anythink to say contrairy to the character of Mrs Harris, which
well I knows behind her back, afore her face, or anywheres, is not to be
impeaged, out with it, Betsey. I have know’d that sweetest and best of
women,’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her head, and shedding tears, ‘ever since
afore her First, which Mr Harris who was dreadful timid went and stopped
his ears in a empty dog-kennel, and never took his hands away or come
out once till he was showed the baby, wen bein’ took with fits, the
doctor collared him and laid him on his back upon the airy stones, and
she was told to ease her mind, his owls was organs. And I have know’d
her, Betsey Prig, when he has hurt her feelin’ art by sayin’ of his
Ninth that it was one too many, if not two, while that dear innocent was
cooin’ in his face, which thrive it did though bandy, but I have never
know’d as you had occagion to be glad, Betsey, on accounts of Mrs Harris
not requiring you. Require she never will, depend upon it, for her
constant words in sickness is, and will be, “Send for Sairey?”’
During this touching address, Mrs Prig adroitly feigning to be the
victim of that absence of mind which has its origin in excessive
attention to one topic, helped herself from the teapot without appearing
to observe it. Mrs Gamp observed it, however, and came to a premature
close in consequence.
‘Well, it ain’t her, it seems,’ said Mrs Prig, coldly; ‘who is it then?’
‘You have heerd me mention, Betsey,’ Mrs Gamp replied, after glancing in
an expressive and marked manner at the tea-pot, ‘a person as I took
care on at the time as you and me was pardners off and on, in that there
fever at the Bull?’
‘Old Snuffey,’ Mrs Prig observed.
Sarah Gamp looked at her with an eye of fire, for she saw in this
mistake of Mrs Prig, another willful and malignant stab at that same
weakness or custom of hers, an ungenerous allusion to which, on the part
of Betsey, had first disturbed their harmony that evening. And she saw
it still more clearly, when, politely but firmly correcting that lady
by the distinct enunciation of the word ‘Chuffey,’ Mrs Prig received the
correction with a diabolical laugh.
The best among us have their failings, and it must be conceded of Mrs
Prig, that if there were a blemish in the goodness of her disposition,
it was a habit she had of not bestowing all its sharp and acid
properties upon her patients (as a thoroughly amiable woman would have
done), but of keeping a considerable remainder for the service of her
friends. Highly pickled salmon, and lettuces chopped up in vinegar,
may, as viands possessing some acidity of their own, have encouraged and
increased this failing in Mrs Prig; and every application to the teapot
certainly did; for it was often remarked of her by her friends, that
she was most contradictory when most elevated. It is certain that her
countenance became about this time derisive and defiant, and that she
sat with her arms folded, and one eye shut up, in a somewhat offensive,
because obstrusively intelligent, manner.
Mrs Gamp observing this, felt it the more necessary that Mrs Prig should
know her place, and be made sensible of her exact station in society, as
well as of her obligations to herself. She therefore assumed an air of
greater patronage and importance, as she went on to answer Mrs Prig a
little more in detail.
‘Mr Chuffey, Betsey,’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘is weak in his mind. Excuge me
if I makes remark, that he may neither be so weak as people thinks, nor
people may not think he is so weak as they pretends, and what I knows,
I knows; and what you don’t, you don’t; so do not ask me, Betsey. But Mr
Chuffey’s friends has made propojals for his bein’ took care on, and has
said to me, “Mrs Gamp, WILL you undertake it? We couldn’t think,” they
says, “of trusting him to nobody but you, for, Sairey, you are gold as
has passed the furnage. Will you undertake it, at your own price, day
and night, and by your own self?” “No,” I says, “I will not. Do not
reckon on it. There is,” I says, “but one creetur in the world as I would
undertake on sech terms, and her name is Harris. But,” I says, “I
am acquainted with a friend, whose name is Betsey Prig, that I can
recommend, and will assist me. Betsey,” I says, “is always to be trusted
under me, and will be guided as I could desire.”’
Here Mrs Prig, without any abatement of her offensive manner again
counterfeited abstraction of mind, and stretched out her hand to the
teapot. It was more than Mrs Gamp could bear. She stopped the hand of
Mrs Prig with her own, and said, with great feeling:
‘No, Betsey! Drink fair, wotever you do!’
Mrs Prig, thus baffled, threw herself back in her chair, and closing the
same eye more emphatically, and folding her arms tighter, suffered her
head to roll slowly from side to side, while she surveyed her friend
with a contemptuous smile.
Mrs Gamp resumed:
‘Mrs Harris, Betsey--’
‘Bother Mrs Harris!’ said Betsey Prig.
Mrs Gamp looked at her with amazement, incredulity, and indignation;
when Mrs Prig, shutting her eye still closer, and folding her arms still
tighter, uttered these memorable and tremendous words:
‘I don’t believe there’s no sich a person!’
After the utterance of which expressions, she leaned forward, and
snapped her fingers once, twice, thrice; each time nearer to the face of
Mrs Gamp, and then rose to put on her bonnet, as one who felt that there
was now a gulf between them, which nothing could ever bridge across.
The shock of this blow was so violent and sudden, that Mrs Gamp sat
staring at nothing with uplifted eyes, and her mouth open as if she
were gasping for breath, until Betsey Prig had put on her bonnet and
her shawl, and was gathering the latter about her throat. Then Mrs Gamp
rose--morally and physically rose--and denounced her.
‘What!’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘you bage creetur, have I know’d Mrs Harris five
and thirty year, to be told at last that there ain’t no sech a person
livin’! Have I stood her friend in all her troubles, great and small,
for it to come at last to sech a end as this, which her own sweet picter