Martin Chuzzlewit
tongue to relate what had followed; but remembering how easily it might
be carried to his master’s ears, and the repeated cautions he had had
from Mr Crimple ‘not to chatter,’ he checked himself; adding, only, ‘She
was sitting up, expecting him.’
‘And all things considered,’ said Mrs Gamp sharply, ‘she might have
know’d better than to go a-tirin herself out, by doin’ anythink of the
sort. Did they seem pretty pleasant together, sir?’
‘Oh, yes,’ answered Bailey, ‘pleasant enough.’
‘I’m glad on it,’ said Mrs Gamp, with a second sniff of significance.
‘They haven’t been married so long,’ observed Poll, rubbing his hands,
‘that they need be anything but pleasant yet awhile.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Gamp, with a third significant signal.
‘Especially,’ pursued the barber, ‘when the gentleman bears such a
character as you gave him.’
‘I speak; as I find, Mr Sweedlepipes,’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘Forbid it should
be otherways! But we never knows wot’s hidden in each other’s hearts;
and if we had glass winders there, we’d need keep the shetters up, some
on us, I do assure you!’
‘But you don’t mean to say--’ Poll Sweedlepipe began.
‘No,’ said Mrs Gamp, cutting him very short, ‘I don’t. Don’t think I do.
The torters of the Imposition shouldn’t make me own I did. All I says
is,’ added the good woman, rising and folding her shawl about her, ‘that
the Bull’s a-waitin, and the precious moments is a-flyin’ fast.’
The little barber having in his eager curiosity a great desire to see
Mrs Gamp’s patient, proposed to Mr Bailey that they should accompany
her to the Bull, and witness the departure of the coach. That young
gentleman assenting, they all went out together.
Arriving at the tavern, Mrs Gamp (who was full-dressed for the journey,
in her latest suit of mourning) left her friends to entertain
themselves in the yard, while she ascended to the sick room, where her
fellow-labourer Mrs Prig was dressing the invalid.
He was so wasted, that it seemed as if his bones would rattle when they
moved him. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes unnaturally large. He
lay back in the easy-chair like one more dead than living; and rolled
his languid eyes towards the door when Mrs Gamp appeared, as painfully
as if their weight alone were burdensome to move.
‘And how are we by this time?’ Mrs Gamp observed. ‘We looks charming.’
‘We looks a deal charminger than we are, then,’ returned Mrs Prig, a
little chafed in her temper. ‘We got out of bed back’ards, I think, for
we’re as cross as two sticks. I never see sich a man. He wouldn’t have
been washed, if he’d had his own way.’
‘She put the soap in my mouth,’ said the unfortunate patient feebly.
‘Couldn’t you keep it shut then?’ retorted Mrs Prig. ‘Who do you think’s
to wash one feater, and miss another, and wear one’s eyes out with all
manner of fine work of that description, for half-a-crown a day! If you
wants to be tittivated, you must pay accordin’.’
‘Oh dear me!’ cried the patient, ‘oh dear, dear!’
‘There!’ said Mrs Prig, ‘that’s the way he’s been a-conductin of
himself, Sarah, ever since I got him out of bed, if you’ll believe it.’
‘Instead of being grateful,’ Mrs Gamp observed, ‘for all our little
ways. Oh, fie for shame, sir, fie for shame!’
Here Mrs Prig seized the patient by the chin, and began to rasp his
unhappy head with a hair-brush.
‘I suppose you don’t like that, neither!’ she observed, stopping to look
at him.
It was just possible that he didn’t for the brush was a specimen of
the hardest kind of instrument producible by modern art; and his very
eyelids were red with the friction. Mrs Prig was gratified to observe
the correctness of her supposition, and said triumphantly ‘she know’d as
much.’
When his hair was smoothed down comfortably into his eyes, Mrs Prig and
Mrs Gamp put on his neckerchief; adjusting his shirt collar with great
nicety, so that the starched points should also invade those organs, and
afflict them with an artificial ophthalmia. His waistcoat and coat
were next arranged; and as every button was wrenched into a wrong
button-hole, and the order of his boots was reversed, he presented on
the whole rather a melancholy appearance.
‘I don’t think it’s right,’ said the poor weak invalid. ‘I feel as if I
was in somebody else’s clothes. I’m all on one side; and you’ve made one
of my legs shorter than the other. There’s a bottle in my pocket too.
What do you make me sit upon a bottle for?’
‘Deuce take the man!’ cried Mrs Gamp, drawing it forth. ‘If he ain’t
been and got my night-bottle here. I made a little cupboard of his coat
when it hung behind the door, and quite forgot it, Betsey. You’ll find a
ingun or two, and a little tea and sugar in his t’other pocket, my dear,
if you’ll just be good enough to take ‘em out.’
Betsey produced the property in question, together with some other
articles of general chandlery; and Mrs Gamp transferred them to her own
pocket, which was a species of nankeen pannier. Refreshment then arrived
in the form of chops and strong ale for the ladies, and a basin of
beef-tea for the patient; which refection was barely at an end when John
Westlock appeared.
‘Up and dressed!’ cried John, sitting down beside him. ‘That’s brave.
How do you feel?’
‘Much better. But very weak.’
‘No wonder. You have had a hard bout of it. But country air, and change
of scene,’ said John, ‘will make another man of you! Why, Mrs Gamp,’
he added, laughing, as he kindly arranged the sick man’s garments, ‘you
have odd notions of a gentleman’s dress!’
‘Mr Lewsome an’t a easy gent to get into his clothes, sir,’ Mrs Gamp
replied with dignity; ‘as me and Betsey Prig can certify afore the Lord
Mayor and Uncommon Counsellors, if needful!’
John at that moment was standing close in front of the sick man, in the
act of releasing him from the torture of the collars before mentioned,
when he said in a whisper:
‘Mr Westlock! I don’t wish to be overheard. I have something very
particular and strange to say to you; something that has been a dreadful
weight on my mind, through this long illness.’
Quick in all his motions, John was turning round to desire the women to
leave the room; when the sick man held him by the sleeve.
‘Not now. I’ve not the strength. I’ve not the courage. May I tell it
when I have? May I write it, if I find that easier and better?’
‘May you!’ cried John. ‘Why, Lewsome, what is this!’
‘Don’t ask me what it is. It’s unnatural and cruel. Frightful to think
of. Frightful to tell. Frightful to know. Frightful to have helped in.
Let me kiss your hand for all your goodness to me. Be kinder still, and
don’t ask me what it is!’
At first, John gazed at him in great surprise; but remembering how very
much reduced he was, and how recently his brain had been on fire with
fever, believed that he was labouring under some imaginary horror or
despondent fancy. For farther information on this point, he took an
opportunity of drawing Mrs Gamp aside, while Betsey Prig was wrapping
him in cloaks and shawls, and asked her whether he was quite collected
in his mind.
‘Oh bless you, no!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘He hates his nusses to this hour.
They always does it, sir. It’s a certain sign. If you could have heerd
the poor dear soul a-findin fault with me and Betsey Prig, not half an
hour ago, you would have wondered how it is we don’t get fretted to the
tomb.’
This almost confirmed John in his suspicion; so, not taking what had
passed into any serious account, he resumed his former cheerful manner,
and assisted by Mrs Gamp and Betsey Prig, conducted Lewsome downstairs
to the coach; just then upon the point of starting. Poll Sweedlepipe
was at the door with his arms tight folded and his eyes wide open, and
looked on with absorbing interest, while the sick man was slowly
moved into the vehicle. His bony hands and haggard face impressed Poll
wonderfully; and he informed Mr Bailey in confidence, that he wouldn’t
have missed seeing him for a pound. Mr Bailey, who was of a different
constitution, remarked that he would have stayed away for five
shillings.
It was a troublesome matter to adjust Mrs Gamp’s luggage to her
satisfaction; for every package belonging to that lady had the
inconvenient property of requiring to be put in a boot by itself, and
to have no other luggage near it, on pain of actions at law for heavy
damages against the proprietors of the coach. The umbrella with the
circular patch was particularly hard to be got rid of, and several times
thrust out its battered brass nozzle from improper crevices and chinks,
to the great terror of the other passengers. Indeed, in her intense
anxiety to find a haven of refuge for this chattel, Mrs Gamp so often
moved it, in the course of five minutes, that it seemed not one umbrella
but fifty. At length it was lost, or said to be; and for the next five
minutes she was face to face with the coachman, go wherever he might,
protesting that it should be ‘made good,’ though she took the question
to the House of Commons.
At last, her bundle, and her pattens, and her basket, and everything
else, being disposed of, she took a friendly leave of Poll and Mr
Bailey, dropped a curtsey to John Westlock, and parted as from a
cherished member of the sisterhood with Betsey Prig.
‘Wishin you lots of sickness, my darlin creetur,’ Mrs Gamp observed,
‘and good places. It won’t be long, I hope, afore we works together, off
and on, again, Betsey; and may our next meetin’ be at a large family’s,
where they all takes it reg’lar, one from another, turn and turn about,
and has it business-like.’
‘I don’t care how soon it is,’ said Mrs Prig; ‘nor how many weeks it
lasts.’
Mrs Gamp with a reply in a congenial spirit was backing to the coach,
when she came in contact with a lady and gentleman who were passing
along the footway.
‘Take care, take care here!’ cried the gentleman. ‘Halloo! My dear! Why,
it’s Mrs Gamp!’
‘What, Mr Mould!’ exclaimed the nurse. ‘And Mrs Mould! who would have
thought as we should ever have a meetin’ here, I’m sure!’
‘Going out of town, Mrs Gamp?’ cried Mould. ‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’
‘It IS unusual, sir,’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘But only for a day or two at most.
The gent,’ she whispered, ‘as I spoke about.’
‘What, in the coach!’ cried Mould. ‘The one you thought of recommending?
Very odd. My dear, this will interest you. The gentleman that Mrs Gamp
thought likely to suit us is in the coach, my love.’
Mrs Mould was greatly interested.
‘Here, my dear. You can stand upon the door-step,’ said Mould, ‘and take
a look at him. Ha! There he is. Where’s my glass? Oh! all right. I’ve
got it. Do you see him, my dear?’
‘Quite plain,’ said Mrs Mould.
‘Upon my life, you know, this is a very singular circumstance,’ said
Mould, quite delighted. ‘This is the sort of thing, my dear, I wouldn’t
have missed on any account. It tickles one. It’s interesting. It’s
almost a little play, you know. Ah! There he is! To be sure. Looks
poorly, Mrs M., don’t he?’
Mrs Mould assented.
‘He’s coming our way, perhaps, after all,’ said Mould. ‘Who knows! I
feel as if I ought to show him some little attention, really. He don’t
seem a stranger to me. I’m very much inclined to move my hat, my dear.’
‘He’s looking hard this way,’ said Mrs Mould.
‘Then I will!’ cried Mould. ‘How d’ye do, sir! I wish you good day. Ha!
He bows too. Very gentlemanly. Mrs Gamp has the cards in her pocket, I
have no doubt. This is very singular, my dear--and very pleasant. I am
not superstitious, but it really seems as if one was destined to pay him
those little melancholy civilities which belong to our peculiar line of
business. There can be no kind of objection to your kissing your hand to
him, my dear.’
Mrs Mould did so.
‘Ha!’ said Mould. ‘He’s evidently gratified. Poor fellow! I am quite