_From Mrs. Gamp to Mrs. Prig_.
Mrs. Gamp nurses an old friend who is under a singular delusion.
Todgers’s.
MY PRECIOUS BETSY,—Which when last we parted it was not as I could wish,
but bearing malice in our hearts. But, as often and often Mrs. Harris
have said it before me, with the tears in her angel eyes—one of them
having a slight cast from an accident with the moderator lamp, Harris
being quick in his temper—often and often have she said to me: “Ah,
Sairey, the quarrels of friends is affection’s best restorer.” And good
reason to know it she have, with a husband as was ever true, and never
gave her no cause to form the wish to pizen them as has good looks, but,
for I will not deceive you, ready with his hands.
And so, between you and me may it be, Betsy Prig, as was constant
partners afore them Chuzzlewidges, and Nadgetts, and Lewsomses, and
Tiggses, and Chuffeys got that mixed and that aggerawating that to
remember who of them poisoned which or for why in a slime draught, it
makes my poor head go round, nor could such be soothing to the temper.
So let bygones be bygones between us. For, wanting of my Betsy, I am now
in a nice state of confusion, with a patient as was well beknown to me in
younger days, when there wasn’t so much of a shadder on this mortial
vial, {43} meaning Mr. Pecksniff. Which you will not forget of him, by
reason of his daughter as married that Jonadge, and his collars as mints
of money must have gone to the getting them up; but is now at Todgers’s,
and confused in his poor mind, thinking hisself Somebody else high in
Parliament. And wonder at it I do not, them Chuzzlewidges and Chuffeys
being that distracting, and ever proving to be some other pusson in
disguise, as would confuge a calkilating boy.
So being applied to for to nightly him, there in that very sick room—for
why should I deceive you?—I meets the daily nuss; and, Betsy, I was that
overcome to have such a pardner propoged to me as I had to ring and ask
the young woman immediate for a small glass of their oldest rum, being
what I am not accustomed to but having had a turn. For, will you believe
it, she was not a widger woman as has experience in the ways of men, but
a huzzy in a bragian cap like them the Nuns wear in “Mariar Monk,” as you
may have seen it in the small sweet-shops, at a penny. And her hands as
white as her papistry cap, and she a turning up of her nose at what I had
took, and a presuming to give _me_ advice about nussing, as St.
Pancradge’s Churchyard wouldn’t hold them I’ve seen comfortable to their
long homes, and no complaints made but ever the highest satigefaction.
So I ups and gives her a bit of my mind; and Mrs. Todgers coming down,
“It’s she goes or me,” says I, “for never will Sairey Gamp nuss, sick or
monthly, with a pardner as has not confidence in me, nor I in her, but
contrary.” Then _she_ says she’ll go and speak to the doctor about it;
and out she tramps with her nose in the air, and sneezing most awful, not
being accustomed to that which I take, find it strengthening, but as it
have been a cause of sorrow and strife let it be nameless between you and
me. For to have the name “Snuffey” brought forward it is what the heart
can forgive, but never forget in this valley of the shaddock.
I have nussed a many lunacies, Betsy, and in a general way am dispoged to
humour them rather than set them right up agin the fire when fractious.
But this Pecksniff is the tryingest creature; he having got it in his
mind as he is Somebody very high, and talking about the House, and Bills,
and clauses, and the “sacred cause of Universal Anarchy,” for such was
his Bible language, though meaning to me no more than the babe unborn.
Whereby Mrs. Harris she have often said to me, “What _do_ them blessed
infants occupy their little minds with afore they are called into that
condition where, unless changed at nuss, Providence have appointed them?”
And many a time have I said, “Seek not, Mrs. Harris, to diskiver; for we
know not wot’s hidden in our own hearts, and the torters of the
Imposition should not make me diwulge it.”
But Pecksniff is that aggravating as I can hardly heed the words I now
put on the paper.
“Some of my birds have left me,” says he, “for the stranger’s breast, and
one have took wing for the Government benches. {47} But I have ever
sacrificed my country’s happiness to my own, and I will not begin to
regulate my life by other rules of conduct now. I know the purity of my
own motives, and while my Merry, my little Sir William, playful warbler,
prattles under this patriarchal wing, and my Cherry, my darling Morley,
supports the old man’s tottering walk, I can do without my Goschy, my
dears, I can do without him.” And wants to borrer _my_ umbreller for
them “to rally round,” the bragian idgiot!
A chattering creature he always were, and will be; but, Betsy, I have
this wery momink fixed him up with a shoehorn in his mouth, as was lying
round providential, and the strings of my bonnet, and the last word as he
will say this blessed night was some lunacy about “denouncing the
clogeure,” as won’t give much more trouble now.
So having rung for a shilling’s worth of gin-and-water warm, and wishing
you was here to take another of the same, I puts my lips to it, and
drinks to one as was my frequent pardner in this mortial vale, and am, as
in old days, my Betsy’s own