Mrs. Gamp

“ The other ladies were not at all behind-hand in expressing similar sentiments; and the children, of whom some scores had now collected, hooted and defied Mr. Pecksniff quite savagely. So when Mrs. Gamp appeared, the unoffending gentleman was glad to hustle her with very little ceremony into the cabriolet, and drive off overwhelmed with popular execration.
Mrs. Gamp had a large bundle with her, a pair of pattens, and a species of gig umbrella; the latter article in colour like a faded leaf, except where a circular patch of a lively blue had been dexterously let in at the top. ”

“ He's as mad as a March hare!"
"Madder!" cried Mrs. Gamp. "A deal madder!"
"See to him, then; take care that he does no harm; and recollect what I have told you."
Leaving Mrs. Gamp in the act of repeating all she had been told, and of producing in support of her memory and trustworthiness, many commendations selected from among the most remarkable opinions of the celebrated Mrs. Harris, he descended to the little room prepared for him, and pulling off his coat and his boots, put them outside the door before he locked it. ”

“ Your lady looks a little tired with the journey, Mr Chuzzlewit, a pretty dear!’
‘She has bothered enough about it,’ grumbled Mr Jonas. ‘Now, show a light, will you?’
‘This way, ma’am, if you please,’ said Mrs Gamp, going upstairs before them. ‘Things has been made as comfortable as they could be, but there’s many things you’ll have to alter your own self when you gets time to look about you! Ah! sweet thing! But you don’t,’ added Mrs Gamp, internally, ‘you don’t look much like a merry one, I must say!’
It was true; she did not. ”

“ Gamp’s announcement of her appointment:
“There is a gent, sir, at the Bull in Holborn, as has been took ill there, and is bad abed. They have a day-nurse as was recommended from Bartholomew’s; and well I knows her, Mr. Mould, her name bein’ Mrs. Prig, the best of creeturs. But she is otherwise engaged at night, and they are in wants of night-watching; consequent she says to them, having reposed the greatest friendliness in me for twenty year, ‘The soberest person going, and the best of blessings in a sick room, is Mrs. Gamp. ”

“ Mould, the undertaker, has full reason for exclaiming, in regard to Mrs. Gamp, “I'll tell you what, that's a woman whose intellect is immensely superior to her station in life. That's a woman who observes and reflects in a wonderful manner.” Mr. Mould becomes so strongly impressed at last with a sense of her exceptional merits, that in a deliciously ludicrous outburst of professional generosity he caps the climax of his eulogium by observing, “She's the sort of woman, now, that one would almost feel disposed to bury for nothing—and do it neatly, too!” ”

“ 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’s-worth, ‘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! ”

“ Good arternoon, Mrs Mould! If I was Mr would I should be jealous of you, ma’am; and I’m sure, if I was you, I should be jealous of Mr Mould.’
‘Tut, tut! Bah, bah! Go along, Mrs Gamp!’ cried the delighted undertaker.
‘As to the young ladies,’ said Mrs Gamp, dropping a curtsey, ‘bless their sweet looks—how they can ever reconsize it with their duties to be so grown up with such young parents, it an’t for sech as me to give a guess at.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense. Be off, Mrs Gamp!’ cried Mould. But in the height of his gratification he actually pinched Mrs Mould as he said it. ”

“ Gamp were sufficient to have furnished forth a score of young lovers; and they were chiefly awakened by the sight of Tom Pinch and his sister. Mrs. Gamp was a lady of that happy temperament which can be ecstatic without any other stimulating cause than a general desire to establish a large and profitable connection. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before it was possible that an answer could be returned, Mrs Gamp, growing redder in the face, went on to say:
‘It is not a easy matter, gentlemen, to live when you are left a widder woman; particular when your feelings works upon you to that extent that you often find yourself a-going out on terms which is a certain loss, and never can repay. But in whatever way you earns your bread, you may have rules and regulations of your own which cannot be broke through. ”

“ ‘You had better go away, please!’ With a leer of mingled sweetness and slyness; with one eye on the future, one on the bride, and an arch expression in her face, partly spiritual, partly spirituous, and wholly professional and peculiar to her art; Mrs Gamp rummaged in her pocket again, and took from it a printed card, whereon was an inscription copied from her signboard. ”

“ By the exuberance of comic invention which gives his distinction to Mr. Pecksniff, Mrs. Gamp profits quite as much; the same wealth of laughable incident which surrounds that worthy man is upon her heaped to overflowing; but over and above this, by the additional invention of Mrs. Harris, it is all reproduced, acted over with renewed spirit, and doubled and quadrupled in her favour. This on the whole is the happiest stroke of humorous art in all the writings of Dickens. ”

“ Gamp is perhaps the most intensely original and the most thoroughly individualised. She is not only a creation of character, she is in herself a creator of character. To the Novelist we are indebted for Mrs. Gamp, but to Mrs. Gamp herself we are indebted for Mrs. Harris. That most mythical of all imaginary beings is certainly quite unique; she is strictly, as one may say, sui generis in the whole world of fiction. A figment born from a figment; one fancy evolved from another; the shadow of a shadow. If only in remembrance of that one daring adumbration from Mrs. ”

“ Gamp looked out of window, and the sun was rising cheerfully. Lighter and lighter grew the sky, and noisier the streets; and high into the summer air uprose the smoke of newly kindled fires, until the busy day was broad awake.
Mrs. Prig relieved punctually, having passed a good night at her other patient's. Mr. Westlock came at the same time, but he was not admitted, the disorder being infectious. The doctor came too. The doctor shook his head. It was all he could do, under the circumstances, and he did it well.
"What sort of a night, nurse!"
"Restless, sir," said Mrs. Gamp. ”

“ This preparation was easily made, as it required nothing more than the snuffy black bonnet, the snuffy black shawl, the pattens, and the indispensable umbrella, without which neither a lying-in nor a laying-out could by any possibility be attempted. When Mrs. Gamp had invested herself with these appendages she returned to her chair, and sitting down again, declared herself quite ready.
"It's a appiness to know as one can benefit the poor sweet creetur," she observed, "I'm sure. It isn't all as can. The torters Betsy Prig inflicts is frightful." ”

“ Mrs Gamp made no response to Mr Mould, but curtseyed to Mrs Mould again, and held up her hands and eyes, as in a devout thanksgiving that she looked so well. She was neatly, but not gaudily attired, in the weeds she had worn when Mr Pecksniff had the pleasure of making her acquaintance; and was perhaps the turning of a scale more snuffy.
‘There are some happy creeturs,’ Mrs Gamp observed, ‘as time runs back’ards with, and you are one, Mrs Mould; not that he need do nothing except use you in his most owldacious way for years to come, I’m sure; for young you are and will be. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Gamp is supposed to have meant mask, "is off that creetur's face, I do not think it ever would have done. There are reagions in families for keepin things a secret, Mr. Westlock, and havin only them about you as you knows you can repoge in. Who could repoge in Betsey Prig, arter her words of Mrs. Harris, settin in that chair afore my eyes!"
"Quite true," said John: "quite. I hope you have time to find another assistant, Mrs. Gamp——"
Between her indignation and the tea-pot, her powers of comprehending what was said to her began to fail. ”

“ The precise connection between these observations and the glass of rum, did not appear; for Mrs Gamp proposing as a toast ‘The best of lucks to all!’ took off the dram in quite a scientific manner, without any further remarks.
‘And what’s your news, Mrs Gamp?’ asked Mould again, as that lady wiped her lips upon her shawl, and nibbled a corner off a soft biscuit, which she appeared to carry in her pocket as a provision against contingent drams. ‘How’s Mr Chuffey?’
‘Mr Chuffey, sir,’ she replied, ‘is jest as usual; he an’t no better and he an’t no worse. ”

“ Some people,’ said Mrs Gamp, again entrenching herself behind her strong point, as if it were not assailable by human ingenuity, ‘may be Rooshans, and others may be Prooshans; they are born so, and will please themselves. ”

“ They said no more in the house, for Mrs Gamp put on her bonnet, Mr Sweedlepipe took up her box; and Mr Bailey accompanied them towards Kingsgate Street; recounting to Mrs Gamp as they went along, the origin and progress of his acquaintance with Mrs Chuzzlewit and her sister. It was a pleasant instance of this youth’s precocity, that he fancied Mrs Gamp had conceived a tenderness for him, and was much tickled by her misplaced attachment. ”

“ Gamp's remains for the benefit of science. But it should be added, in fairness, that this had happened twenty years ago; and that Mr. and Mrs. Gamp had long been separated, on the ground of incompatibility of temper in their drink.
"You have become indifferent since then, I suppose?" said Mr. Pecksniff. "Use is second nature, Mrs. Gamp."
"You may well say second nater, sir," returned that lady. "One's first ways is to find sich things a trial to the feelings; and so is one's lasting custom. ”

“ Gamp. She had been traced to an original in real life, but her literary right to stand on her own legs has been most properly vindicated against any supposition of likeness to the different type, the subject of Leigh Hunt’s Monthly Nurse—a paper, by-the-way, distinguished by shrewdness as well as feeling. Imagination has never [Pg 57] taken bolder flights than those requisite for the development of Mrs. Gamp’s mental processes ”

“ Here is a very singular old female dropping curtseys on my right,’ said Montague, breaking off in his discourse, and looking at Mrs Gamp, ‘who is not a friend of mine. Does anybody know her?’
‘Ah! Well they knows me, bless their precious hearts!’ said Mrs Gamp, ‘not forgettin’ your own merry one, sir, and long may it be so! Wishin’ as every one’ (she delivered this in the form of a toast or sentiment) ‘was as merry, and as handsome-lookin’, as a little bird has whispered me a certain gent is, which I will not name for fear I give offence where none is doo! ”

“ And don’t trust him at any time; for when he seems most rational, he’s wildest in his talk. But that you know already. Let me see the other.’
‘The t’other person, sir?’ said Mrs Gamp.
‘Aye! Go you to him and send the other. Quick! I’m busy.’
Mrs Gamp took two or three backward steps towards the door, and stopped there.
‘It is your wishes, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ she said, in a sort of quavering croak, ‘to see the t’other person. Is it?’
But the ghastly change in Jonas told her that the other person was already seen. ”

“ Gamp, hurrying to the stair-head and looking over. "Betsy 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-going 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? ”