Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

  “Nonsense, nonsense. Be off, Mrs Gamp!” cried Mould. But in the height of his gratification he actually pinched Mrs Mould as he said it.

  “I'll tell you what, my dear,” he observed, when Mrs Gamp had at last withdrawn and shut the door, “that's a ve-ry shrewd woman. That's a woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in life. That's a woman who observes and reflects in an uncommon manner. She's the sort of woman now,” said Mould, drawing his silk handkerchief over his head again, and composing himself for a nap “one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing; and do it neatly, too!”

  Mrs Mould and her daughters fully concurred in these remarks; the subject of which had by this time reached the street, where she experienced so much inconvenience from the air, that she was obliged to stand under an archway for a short time, to recover herself. Even after this precaution, she walked so unsteadily as to attract the compassionate regards of divers kind-hearted boys, who took the liveliest interest in her disorder; and in their simple language bade her be of good cheer, for she was “only a little screwed.”

  Whatever she was, or whatever name the vocabulary of medical science would have bestowed upon her malady, Mrs Gamp was perfectly acquainted with the way home again; and arriving at the house of Anthony Chuzzlewit & Son, lay down to rest. Remaining there until seven o'clock in the evening, and then persuading poor old Chuffey to betake himself to bed, she sallied forth upon her new engagement. First, she went to her private lodgings in Kingsgate Street, for a bundle of robes and wrappings comfortable in the night season; and then repaired to the Bull in Holborn, which she reached as the clocks were striking eight.

  As she turned into the yard, she stopped; for the landlord, landlady, and head chambermaid, were all on the threshold together talking earnestly with a young gentleman who seemed to have just come or to be just going away. The first words that struck upon Mrs Gamp's ear obviously bore reference to the patient; and it being expedient that all good attendants should know as much as possible about the case on which their skill is brought to bear, Mrs Gamp listened as a matter of duty.

  “No better, then?” observed the gentleman.

  “Worse!” said the landlord.

  “Much worse,” added the landlady.

  “Oh! a deal badder,” cried the chambermaid from the background, opening her eyes very wide, and shaking her head.

  “Poor fellow!” said the gentleman, “I am sorry to hear it. The worst of it is, that I have no idea what friends or relations he has, or where they live, except that it certainly is not in London.”

  The landlord looked at the landlady; the landlady looked at the landlord; and the chambermaid remarked, hysterically, “that of all the many wague directions she had ever seen or heerd of (and they wasn't few in an hotel), THAT was the waguest.”

  “The fact is, you see,” pursued the gentleman, “as I told you yesterday when you sent to me, I really know very little about him. We were school-fellows together; but since that time I have only met him twice. On both occasions I was in London for a boy's holiday (having come up for a week or so from Wiltshire), and lost sight of him again directly. The letter bearing my name and address which you found upon his table, and which led to your applying to me, is in answer, you will observe, to one he wrote from this house the very day he was taken ill, making an appointment with him at his own request. Here is his letter, if you wish to see it.”

  The landlord read it; the landlady looked over him. The chambermaid, in the background, made out as much of it as she could, and invented the rest; believing it all from that time forth as a positive piece of evidence.

  “He has very little luggage, you say?” observed the gentleman, who was no other than our old friend, John Westlock.

  “Nothing but a portmanteau,” said the landlord; “and very little in it.”

  “A few pounds in his purse, though?”

  “Yes. It's sealed up, and in the cash-box. I made a memorandum of the amount, which you're welcome to see.”

  “Well!” said John, “as the medical gentleman says the fever must take its course, and nothing can be done just now beyond giving him his drinks regularly and having him carefully attended to, nothing more can be said that I know of, until he is in a condition to give us some information. Can you suggest anything else?”

  “N-no,” replied the landlord, “except—”

  “Except, who's to pay, I suppose?” said John.

  “Why,” hesitated the landlord, “it would be as well.”

  “Quite as well,” said the landlady.

  “Not forgetting to remember the servants,” said the chambermaid in a bland whisper.

  “It is but reasonable, I fully admit,” said John Westlock. “At all events, you have the stock in hand to go upon for the present; and I will readily undertake to pay the doctor and the nurses.”

  “Ah!” cried Mrs Gamp. “A rayal gentleman!”

  She groaned her admiration so audibly, that they all turned round. Mrs Gamp felt the necessity of advancing, bundle in hand, and introducing herself.

  “The night-nurse,” she observed, “from Kingsgate Street, well beknown to Mrs Prig the day-nurse, and the best of creeturs. How is the poor dear gentleman to-night? If he an't no better yet, still that is what must be expected and prepared for. It an't the fust time by a many score, ma'am,” dropping a curtsey to the landlady, “that Mrs Prig and me has nussed together, turn and turn about, one off, one on. We knows each other's ways, and often gives relief when others fail. Our charges is but low, sir'—Mrs Gamp addressed herself to John on this head—'considerin” the nater of our painful dooty. If they wos made accordin” to our wishes, they would be easy paid.”

  Regarding herself as having now delivered her inauguration address, Mrs Gamp curtseyed all round, and signified her wish to be conducted to the scene of her official duties. The chambermaid led her, through a variety of intricate passages, to the top of the house; and pointing at length to a solitary door at the end of a gallery, informed her that yonder was the chamber where the patient lay. That done, she hurried off with all the speed she could make.

  Mrs Gamp traversed the gallery in a great heat from having carried her large bundle up so many stairs, and tapped at the door which was immediately opened by Mrs Prig, bonneted and shawled and all impatience to be gone. Mrs Prig was of the Gamp build, but not so fat; and her voice was deeper and more like a man's. She had also a beard.

  “I began to think you warn't a-coming!” Mrs Prig observed, in some displeasure.

  “It shall be made good to-morrow night,” said Mrs Gamp “Honorable. I had to go and fetch my things.”She had begun to make signs of inquiry in reference to the position of the patient and his overhearing them—for there was a screen before the door—when Mrs Prig settled that point easily.

  “Oh!” she said aloud, “he's quiet, but his wits is gone. It an't no matter wot you say.”

  “Anythin” to tell afore you goes, my dear?” asked Mrs Gamp, setting her bundle down inside the door, and looking affectionately at her partner.

  “The pickled salmon,” Mrs Prig replied, “is quite delicious. I can partlck'ler recommend it. Don't have nothink to say to the cold meat, for it tastes of the stable. The drinks is all good.”

  Mrs Gamp expressed herself much gratified.

  “The physic and them things is on the drawers and mankleshelf,” said Mrs Prig, cursorily. “He took his last slime draught at seven. The easy-chair an't soft enough. You'll want his piller.”

  Mrs Gamp thanked her for these hints, and giving her a friendly good night, held the door open until she had disappeared at the other end of the gallery. Having thus performed the hospitable duty of seeing her safely off, she shut it, locked it on the inside, took up her bundle, walked round the screen, and entered on her occupation of the sick chamber.

  “A little dull, but not so bad as might be,” Mrs Gamp remarked. “I'm glad to see a parapidge, in case of fire, and lots of roofs and chimley-pots to walk
upon.”

  It will be seen from these remarks that Mrs Gamp was looking out of window. When she had exhausted the prospect, she tried the easy-chair, which she indignantly declared was “harder than a brickbadge.”Next she pursued her researches among the physic-bottles, glasses, jugs, and tea-cups; and when she had entirely satisfied her curiosity on all these subjects of investigation, she untied her bonnet-strings and strolled up to the bedside to take a look at the patient.

  A young man—dark and not ill-looking—with long black hair, that seemed the blacker for the whiteness of the bed-clothes. His eyes were partly open, and he never ceased to roll his head from side to side upon the pillow, keeping his body almost quiet. He did not utter words; but every now and then gave vent to an expression of impatience or fatigue, sometimes of surprise; and still his restless head—oh, weary, weary hour!—went to and fro without a moment's intermission.

  Mrs Gamp solaced herself with a pinch of snuff, and stood looking at him with her head inclined a little sideways, as a connoisseur might gaze upon a doubtful work of art. By degrees, a horrible remembrance of one branch of her calling took possession of the woman; and stooping down, she pinned his wandering arms against his sides, to see how he would look if laid out as a dead man. Her fingers itched to compose his limbs in that last marble attitude.

  “Ah!” said Mrs Gamp, walking away from the bed, “he'd make a lovely corpse.”

  She now proceeded to unpack her bundle; lighted a candle with the aid of a fire-box on the drawers; filled a small kettle, as a preliminary to refreshing herself with a cup of tea in the course of the night; laid what she called “a little bit of fire,” for the same philanthropic purpose; and also set forth a small tea-board, that nothing might be wanting for her comfortable enjoyment. These preparations occupied so long, that when they were brought to a conclusion it was high time to think about supper; so she rang the bell and ordered it.

  “I think, young woman,” said Mrs Gamp to the assistant chambermaid, in a tone expressive of weakness, “that I could pick a little bit of pickled salmon, with a nice little sprig of fennel, and a sprinkling of white pepper. I takes new bread, my dear, with just a little pat of fresh butter, and a mossel of cheese. In case there should be such a thing as a cowcumber in the “ouse, will you be so kind as bring it, for I'm rather partial to “em, and they does a world of good in a sick room. If they draws the Brighton Old Tipper here, I takes THAT ale at night, my love, it bein” considered wakeful by the doctors. And whatever you do, young woman, don't bring more than a shilling's-worth of gin and water-warm when I rings the bell a second time; for that is always my allowance, and I never takes a drop beyond!”

  Having preferred these moderate requests, Mrs Gamp observed that she would stand at the door until the order was executed, to the end that the patient might not be disturbed by her opening it a second time; and therefore she would thank the young woman to “look sharp.”

  A tray was brought with everything upon it, even to the cucumber and Mrs Gamp accordingly sat down to eat and drink in high good humour. The extent to which she availed herself of the vinegar, and supped up that refreshing fluid with the blade of her knife, can scarcely be expressed in narrative.

  “Ah!” sighed Mrs Gamp, as she meditated over the warm shilling'sworth, “what a blessed thing it is—living in a wale—to be contented! What a blessed thing it is to make sick people happy in their beds, and never mind one's self as long as one can do a service! I don't believe a finer cowcumber was ever grow'd. I'm sure I never see one!”

  She moralised in the same vein until her glass was empty, and then admistered the patient's medicine, by the simple process of clutching his windpipe to make him gasp, and immediately pouring it down his throat.

  “I a'most forgot the piller, I declare!” said Mrs Gamp, drawing it away. “There! Now he's comfortable as he can be, I'm sure! I must try to make myself as much so as I can.”

  With this view, she went about the construction of an extemporaneous bed in the easy-chair, with the addition of the next easy one for her feet. Having formed the best couch that the circumstances admitted of, she took out of her bundle a yellow night-cap, of prodigious size, in shape resembling a cabbage; which article of dress she fixed and tied on with the utmost care, previously divesting herself of a row of bald old curls that could scarcely be called false, they were so very innocent of anything approaching to deception. From the same repository she brought forth a night-jacket, in which she also attired herself. Finally, she produced a watchman's coat which she tied round her neck by the sleeves, so that she become two people; and looked, behind, as if she were in the act of being embraced by one of the old patrol.

  All these arrangements made, she lighted the rush-light, coiled herself up on her couch, and went to sleep. Ghostly and dark the room became, and full of lowering shadows. The distant noises in the streets were gradually hushed; the house was quiet as a sepulchre; the dead of might was coffined in the silent city.

  Oh, weary, weary hour! Oh, haggard mind, groping darkly through the past; incapable of detaching itself from the miserable present; dragging its heavy chain of care through imaginary feasts and revels, and scenes of awful pomp; seeking but a moment's rest among the long-forgotten haunts of childhood, and the resorts of yesterday; and dimly finding fear and horror everywhere! Oh, weary, weary hour! What were the wanderings of Cain, to these!

  Still, without a moment's interval, the burning head tossed to and fro. Still, from time to time, fatigue, impatience, suffering, and surprise, found utterance upon that rack, and plainly too, though never once in words. At length, in the solemn hour of midnight, he began to talk; waiting awfully for answers sometimes; as though invisible companions were about his bed; and so replying to their speech and questioning again.

  Mrs Gamp awoke, and sat up in her bed; presenting on the wall the shadow of a gigantic night constable, struggling with a prisoner.

  “Come! Hold your tongue!” she cried, in sharp reproof. “Don't make none of that noise here.”

  There was no alteration in the face, or in the incessant motion of the head, but he talked on wildly.

  “Ah!” said Mrs Gamp, coming out of the chair with an impatient shiver; “I thought I was a-sleepin” too pleasant to last! The devil's in the night, I think, it's turned so chilly!”

  “Don't drink so much!” cried the sick man. “You'll ruin us all. Don't you see how the fountain sinks? Look at the mark where the sparkling water was just now!”

  “Sparkling water, indeed!” said Mrs Gamp. “I'll have a sparkling cup o” tea, I think. I wish you'd hold your noise!”

  He burst into a laugh, which, being prolonged, fell off into a dismal wail. Checking himself, with fierce inconstancy he began to count—fast.

  “One—two—three—four—five—six.”

  “One, two, buckle my shoe,” said Mrs Gamp, who was now on her knees, lighting the fire, “three, four, shut the door,”—I wish you'd shut your mouth, young man—”five, six, picking up sticks.” If I'd got a few handy, I should have the kettle boiling all the sooner.”

  Awaiting this desirable consummation, she sat down so close to the fender (which was a high one) that her nose rested upon it; and for some time she drowsily amused herself by sliding that feature backwards and forwards along the brass top, as far as she could, without changing her position to do it. She maintained, all the while, a running commentary upon the wanderings of the man in bed.

  “That makes five hundred and twenty-one men, all dressed alike, and with the same distortion on their faces, that have passed in at the window, and out at the door,” he cried, anxiously. “Look there! Five hundred and twenty-two—twenty-three—twenty-four. Do you see them?”

  “Ah! I see “em,” said Mrs Gamp; “all the whole kit of “em numbered like hackney-coaches, an't they?”

  “Touch me! Let me be sure of this. Touch me!”

  “You'll take your next draught when I've made the kettle bile,” retorted Mrs Gamp, compose
dly, “and you'll be touched then. You'll be touched up, too, if you don't take it quiet.”

  “Five hundred and twenty-eight, five hundred and twenty-nine, five hundred and thirty. —Look here!”

  “What's the matter now?” said Mrs Gamp.

  “They're coming four abreast, each man with his arm entwined in the next man's, and his hand upon his shoulder. What's that upon the arm of every man, and on the flag?”

  “Spiders, p'raps,” said Mrs Gamp.

  “Crape! Black crape! Good God! why do they wear it outside?”

  “Would you have “em carry black crape in their insides?” Mrs Gamp retorted. “Hold your noise, hold your noise.”

  The fire beginning by this time to impart a grateful warmth, Mrs Gamp became silent; gradually rubbed her nose more and more slowly along the top of the fender; and fell into a heavy doze. She was awakened by the room ringing (as she fancied) with a name she knew:

  “Chuzzlewit!”

  The sound was so distinct and real, and so full of agonised entreaty, that Mrs Gamp jumped up in terror, and ran to the door. She expected to find the passage filled with people, come to tell her that the house in the city had taken fire. But the place was empty; not a soul was there. She opened the window, and looked out. Dark, dull, dingy, and desolate house-tops. As she passed to her seat again, she glanced at the patient. Just the same; but silent. Mrs Gamp was so warm now, that she threw off the watchman's coat, and fanned herself.

  “It seemed to make the wery bottles ring,” she said. “What could I have been a-dreaming of? That dratted Chuffey, I'll be bound.”

  The supposition was probable enough. At any rate, a pinch of snuff, and the song of the steaming kettle, quite restored the tone of Mrs Gamp's nerves, which were none of the weakest. She brewed her tea; made some buttered toast; and sat down at the tea-board, with her face to the fire.

  When once again, in a tone more terrible than that which had vibrated in her slumbering ear, these words were shrieked out: