Чарльз Диккенс
Martin Chuzzlewit
With that he hung his head, and said no more, wasted and wretched, he was not a creature upon whom to heap reproaches that were unavailing.
‘Let him remain at hand,’ said Martin, turning from him; ‘but out of sight, in Heaven’s name!’
‘He will remain here,’ John whispered. ‘Come with me!’ Softly turning the key upon him as they went out, he conducted Martin into the adjoining room, in which they had been before.
Martin was so amazed, so shocked, and confounded by what he had heard that it was some time before he could reduce it to any order in his mind, or could sufficiently comprehend the bearing of one part upon another, to take in all the details at one view. When he, at length, had the whole narrative clearly before him, John Westlock went on to point out the great probability of the guilt of Jonas being known to other people, who traded in it for their own benefit, and who were, by such means, able to exert that control over him which Tom Pinch had accidentally witnessed, and unconsciously assisted. This appeared so plain, that they agreed upon it without difficulty; but instead of deriving the least assistance from this source, they found that it embarrassed them the more.
They knew nothing of the real parties who possessed this power. The only person before them was Tom’s landlord. They had no right to question Tom’s landlord, even if they could find him, which, according to Tom’s account, it would not be easy to do. And granting that they did question him, and he answered (which was taking a good deal for granted), he had only to say, with reference to the adventure on the wharf, that he had been sent from such and such a place to summon Jonas back on urgent business, and there was an end of it.
Besides, there was the great difficulty and responsibility of moving at all in the matter. Lewsome’s story might be false; in his wretched state it might be greatly heightened by a diseased brain; or admitting it to be entirely true, the old man might have died a natural death. Mr Pecksniff had been there at the time; as Tom immediately remembered, when he came back in the afternoon, and shared their counsels; and there had been no secrecy about it. Martin’s grandfather was of right the person to decide upon the course that should be taken; but to get at his views would be impossible, for Mr Pecksniff’s views were certain to be his. And the nature of Mr Pecksniff’s views in reference to his own son-in-law might be easily reckoned upon.
Apart from these considerations, Martin could not endure the thought of seeming to grasp at this unnatural charge against his relative, and using it as a stepping-stone to his grandfather’s favour. But that he would seem to do so, if he presented himself before his grandfather in Mr Pecksniff’s house again, for the purpose of declaring it; and that Mr Pecksniff, of all men, would represent his conduct in that despicable light, he perfectly well knew. On the other hand to be in possession of such a statement, and take no measures of further inquiry in reference to it, was tantamount to being a partner in the guilt it professed to disclose.
In a word, they were wholly unable to discover any outlet from this maze of difficulty, which did not lie through some perplexed and entangled thicket. And although Mr Tapley was promptly taken into their confidence; and the fertile imagination of that gentleman suggested many bold expedients, which, to do him justice, he was quite ready to carry into instant operation on his own personal responsibility; still ‘bating the general zeal of Mr Tapley’s nature, nothing was made particularly clearer by these offers of service.
It was in this position of affairs that Tom’s account of the strange behaviour of the decayed clerk, on the night of the tea-party, became of great moment, and finally convinced them that to arrive at a more accurate knowledge of the workings of that old man’s mind and memory, would be to take a most important stride in their pursuit of the truth. So, having first satisfied themselves that no communication had ever taken place between Lewsome and Mr Chuffey (which would have accounted at once for any suspicions the latter might entertain), they unanimously resolved that the old clerk was the man they wanted.
But, like the unanimous resolution of a public meeting, which will oftentimes declare that this or that grievance is not to be borne a moment longer, which is nevertheless borne for a century or two afterwards, without any modification, they only reached in this the conclusion that they were all of one mind. For it was one thing to want Mr Chuffey, and another thing to get at him; and to do that without alarming him, or without alarming Jonas, or without being discomfited by the difficulty of striking, in an instrument so out of tune and so unused, the note they sought, was an end as far from their reach as ever.
The question then became, who of those about the old clerk had had most influence with him that night? Tom said his young mistress clearly. But Tom and all of them shrunk from the thought of entrapping her, and making her the innocent means of bringing retribution on her cruel husband. Was there nobody else? Why yes. In a very different way, Tom said, he was influenced by Mrs Gamp, the nurse; who had once had the control of him, as he understood, for some time.
They caught at this immediately. Here was a new way out, developed in a quarter until then overlooked. John Westlock knew Mrs Gamp; he had given her employment; he was acquainted with her place of residence: for that good lady had obligingly furnished him, at parting, with a pack of her professional cards for general distribution. It was decided that Mrs Gamp should be approached with caution, but approached without delay; and that the depths of that discreet matron’s knowledge of Mr Chuffey, and means of bringing them, or one of them, into communication with him, should be carefully sounded.
On this service, Martin and John Westlock determined to proceed that night; waiting on Mrs Gamp first, at her lodgings; and taking their chance of finding her in the repose of private life, or of having to seek her out, elsewhere, in the exercise of her professional duties. Tom returned home, that he might lose no opportunity of having an interview with Nadgett, by being absent in the event of his reappearance. And Mr Tapley remained (by his own particular desire) for the time being in Furnival’s Inn, to look after Lewsome; who might safely have been left to himself, however, for any thought he seemed to entertain of giving them the slip.
Before they parted on their several errands, they caused him to read aloud, in the presence of them all, the paper which he had about him, and the declaration he had attached to it, which was to the effect that he had written it voluntarily, in the fear of death and in the torture of his mind. And when he had done so, they all signed it, and taking it from him, of his free will, locked it in a place of safety.
Martin also wrote, by John’s advice, a letter to the trustees of the famous Grammar School, boldly claiming the successful design as his, and charging Mr Pecksniff with the fraud he had committed. In this proceeding also, John was hotly interested; observing, with his usual irreverance, that Mr Pecksniff had been a successful rascal all his life through, and that it would be a lasting source of happiness to him (John) if he could help to do him justice in the smallest particular.
A busy day! But Martin had no lodgings yet; so when these matters were disposed of, he excused himself from dining with John Westlock and was fain to wander out alone, and look for some. He succeeded, after great trouble, in engaging two garrets for himself and Mark, situated in a court in the Strand, not far from Temple Bar. Their luggage, which was waiting for them at a coach-office, he conveyed to this new place of refuge; and it was with a glow of satisfaction, which as a selfish man he never could have known and never had, that, thinking how much pains and trouble he had saved Mark, and how pleased and astonished Mark would be, he afterwards walked up and down, in the Temple, eating a meat-pie for his dinner.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
IN WHICH MRS HARRIS ASSISTED BY A TEAPOT, IS THE CAUSE OF A DIVISION BETWEEN FRIENDS
Mrs Gamp’s apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, wore, metaphorically speaking, a robe of state. It was swept and garnished for the reception of a visitor. That visitor was Betsey Prig; Mrs Prig, of Bartlemy’s; or as some said Barklemy’s, or as some said Bardlemy’s; for by all these endearing and familiar appellations, had the hospital of Saint Bartholomew become a household word among the sisterhood which Betsey Prig adorned.
Mrs Gamp’s apartment was not a spacious one, but, to a contented mind, a closet is a palace; and the first-floor front at Mr Sweedlepipe’s may have been, in the imagination of Mrs Gamp, a stately pile. If it were not exactly that, to restless intellects, it at least comprised as much accommodation as any person, not sanguine to insanity, could have looked for in a room of its dimensions. For only keep the bedstead always in your mind; and you were safe. That was the grand secret. Remembering the bedstead, you might even stoop to look under the little round table for anything you had dropped, without hurting yourself much against the chest of drawers, or qualifying as a patient of Saint Bartholomew, by falling into the fire.
Visitors were much assisted in their cautious efforts to preserve an unflagging recollection of this piece of furniture, by its size; which was great. It was not a turn-up bedstead, nor yet a French bedstead, nor yet a four-post bedstead, but what is poetically called a tent; the sacking whereof was low and bulgy, insomuch that Mrs Gamp’s box would not go under it, but stopped half-way, in a manner which, while it did violence to the reason, likewise endangered the legs of a stranger. The frame too, which would have supported the canopy and hangings if there had been any, was ornamented with divers pippins carved in timber, which on the slightest provocation, and frequently on none at all, came tumbling down; harassing the peaceful guest with inexplicable terrors.
The bed itself was decorated with a patchwork quilt of great antiquity; and at the upper end, upon the side nearest to the door, hung a scanty curtain of blue check, which prevented the Zephyrs that were abroad in Kingsgate Street, from visiting Mrs Gamp’s head too roughly. Some rusty gowns and other articles of that lady’s wardrobe depended from the posts; and these had so adapted themselves by long usage to her figure, that more than one impatient husband coming in precipitately, at about the time of twilight, had been for an instant stricken dumb by the supposed discovery that Mrs Gamp had hanged herself. One gentleman, coming on the usual hasty errand, had said indeed, that they looked like guardian angels ‘watching of her in her sleep.’ But that, as Mrs Gamp said, ‘was his first;’ and he never repeated the sentiment, though he often repeated his visit.
The chairs in Mrs Gamp’s apartment were extremely large and broad-backed, which was more than a sufficient reason for there being but two in number. They were both elbow-chairs, of ancient mahogany; and were chiefly valuable for the slippery nature of their seats, which had been originally horsehair, but were now covered with a shiny substance of a bluish tint, from which the visitor began to slide away with a dismayed countenance, immediately after sitting down. What Mrs Gamp wanted in chairs she made up in bandboxes; of which she had a great collection, devoted to the reception of various miscellaneous valuables, which were not, however, as well protected as the good woman, by a pleasant fiction, seemed to think; for, though every bandbox had a carefully closed lid, not one among them had a bottom; owing to which cause the property within was merely, as it were, extinguished. The chest of drawers having been originally made to stand upon the top of another chest, had a dwarfish, elfin look, alone; but in regard of its security it had a great advantage over the bandboxes, for as all the handles had been long ago pulled off, it was very difficult to get at its contents. This indeed was only to be done by one or two devices; either by tilting the whole structure forward until all the drawers fell out together, or by opening them singly with knives, like oysters.
Mrs Gamp stored all her household matters in a little cupboard by the fire-place; beginning below the surface (as in nature) with the coals, and mounting gradually upwards to the spirits, which, from motives of delicacy, she kept in a teapot. The chimney-piece was ornamented with a small almanack, marked here and there in Mrs Gamp’s own hand with a memorandum of the date at which some lady was expected to fall due. It was also embellished with three profiles: one, in colours, of Mrs Gamp herself in early life; one, in bronze, of a lady in feathers, supposed to be Mrs Harris, as she appeared when dressed for a ball; and one, in black, of Mr Gamp, deceased. The last was a full length, in order that the likeness might be rendered more obvious and forcible by the introduction of the wooden leg.
A pair of bellows, a pair of pattens, a toasting-fork, a kettle, a pap-boat, a spoon for the administration of medicine to the refractory, and lastly, Mrs Gamp’s umbrella, which as something of great price and rarity, was displayed with particular ostentation, completed the decorations of the chimney-piece and adjacent wall. Towards these objects Mrs Gamp raised her eyes in satisfaction when she had arranged the tea-board, and had concluded her arrangements for the reception of Betsey Prig, even unto the setting forth of two pounds of Newcastle salmon, intensely pickled.
‘There! Now drat you, Betsey, don’t be long!’ said Mrs Gamp, apostrophizing her absent friend. ‘For I can’t abear to wait, I do assure you. To wotever place I goes, I sticks to this one mortar, “I’m easy pleased; it is but little as I wants; but I must have that little of the best, and to the minute when the clock strikes, else we do not part as I could wish, but bearin’ malice in our arts.”’
Her own preparations were of the best, for they comprehended a delicate new loaf, a plate of fresh butter, a basin of fine white sugar, and other arrangements on the same scale. Even the snuff with which she now refreshed herself, was so choice in quality that she took a second pinch.
‘There’s the little bell a-ringing now,’ said Mrs Gamp, hurrying to the stair-head and looking over. ‘Betsey Prig, my – why it’s that there disapintin’ Sweedlepipes, I do believe.’
‘Yes, it’s me,’ said the barber in a faint voice; ‘I’ve just come in.’
‘You’re always a-comin’ in, I think,’ muttered Mrs Gamp to herself, ‘except wen you’re a-goin’ out. I ha’n’t no patience with that man!’
‘Mrs Gamp,’ said the barber. ‘I say! Mrs Gamp!’
‘Well,’ cried Mrs Gamp, impatiently, as she descended the stairs. ‘What is it? Is the Thames a-fire, and cooking its own fish, Mr Sweedlepipes? Why wot’s the man gone and been a-doin’ of to himself? He’s as white as chalk!’
She added the latter clause of inquiry, when she got downstairs, and found him seated in the shaving-chair, pale and disconsolate.
‘You recollect,’ said Poll. ‘You recollect young – ’
‘Not young Wilkins!’ cried Mrs Gamp. ‘Don’t say young Wilkins, wotever you do. If young Wilkins’s wife is took – ’
‘It isn’t anybody’s wife,’ exclaimed the little barber. ‘Bailey, young Bailey!’
‘Why, wot do you mean to say that chit’s been a-doin’ of?’ retorted Mrs Gamp, sharply. ‘Stuff and nonsense, Mrs Sweedlepipes!’
‘He hasn’t been a-doing anything!’ exclaimed poor Poll, quite desperate. ‘What do you catch me up so short for, when you see me put out to that extent that I can hardly speak? He’ll never do anything again. He’s done for. He’s killed. The first time I ever see that boy,’ said Poll, ‘I charged him too much for a red-poll. I asked him three-halfpence for a penny one, because I was afraid he’d beat me down. But he didn’t. And now he’s dead; and if you was to crowd all the steam-engines and electric fluids that ever was, into this shop, and set ‘em every one to work their hardest, they couldn’t square the account, though it’s only a ha’penny!’
Mr Sweedlepipe turned aside to the towel, and wiped his eyes with it.
‘And what a clever boy he was!’ he said. ‘What a surprising young chap he was! How he talked! and what a deal he know’d! Shaved in this very chair he was; only for fun; it was all his fun; he was full of it. Ah! to think that he’ll never be shaved in earnest! The birds might every one have died, and welcome,’ cried the little barber, looking round him at the cages, and again applying to the towel, ‘sooner than I’d have heard this news!’
‘How did you ever come to hear it?’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘who told you?’
‘I went out,’ returned the little barber, ‘into the City, to meet a sporting gent upon the Stock Exchange, that wanted a few slow pigeons to practice at; and when I’d done with him, I went to get a little drop of beer, and there I heard everybody a-talking about it. It’s in the papers.’
‘You are in a nice state of confugion, Mr Sweedlepipes, you are!’ said Mrs Gamp, shaking her head; ‘and my opinion is, as half-a-dudgeon fresh young lively leeches on your temples, wouldn’t be too much to clear your mind, which so I tell you. Wot were they a-talkin’ on, and wot was in the papers?’
‘All about it!’ cried the barber. ‘What else do you suppose? Him and his master were upset on a journey, and he was carried to Salisbury, and was breathing his last when the account came away. He never spoke afterwards. Not a single word. That’s the worst of it to me; but that ain’t all. His master can’t be found. The other manager of their office in the city, Crimple, David Crimple, has gone off with the money, and is advertised for, with a reward, upon the walls. Mr Montague, poor young Bailey’s master (what a boy he was!) is advertised for, too. Some say he’s slipped off, to join his friend abroad; some say he mayn’t have got away yet; and they’re looking for him high and low. Their office is a smash; a swindle altogether. But what’s a Life Assurance office to a Life! And what a Life Young Bailey’s was!’
‘He was born into a wale,’ said Mrs Gamp, with philosophical coolness. ‘and he lived in a wale; and he must take the consequences of sech a sitiwation. But don’t you hear nothink of Mr Chuzzlewit in all this?’
‘No,’ said Poll, ‘nothing to speak of. His name wasn’t printed as one of 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.
