Mr. Bailey was good enough to continue to bear him company, and to entertain him, as they went, with easy conversation on various sporting topics; especially on the comparative merits, as a general principle, of horses with white stockings and horses without. In regard to the style of tail to be preferred, Mr. Bailey had opinions of his own, which he explained, but begged they might by no means influence his friend’s, as here he knew he had the misfortune to differ from some excellent authorities. He treated Mr. Sweedlepipe to a dram, compounded agreeably to his own directions, which he informed him had been invented by a member of the Jockey Club; and, as they were by this time near the barber’s destination, he observed that, as he had an hour to spare, and knew the parties, he would, if quite agreeable, be introduced to Mrs. Gamp.
Paul knocked at Jonas Chuzzlewit’s; and, on the door being opened by that lady, made the two distinguished persons known to one another. It was a happy feature in Mrs. Gamp’s twofold profession, that it gave her an interest in everything that was young as well as in everything that was old. She received Mr. Bailey with much kindness.
“It’s very good, I’m sure, of you to come,” she said to her landlord, “as well as bring so nice a friend. But I’m afraid that I must trouble you so far as to step in, for the young couple has not yet made appearance.”
“They’re late, ain’t they?” inquired her landlord, when she had conducted them downstairs into the kitchen.
“Well, sir, considern’ the Wings of Love, they are,” said Mrs. Gamp.
Mr. Bailey inquired whether the Wings of Love had ever won a plate, or could be backed to do anything remarkable; and being informed that it was not a horse, but merely a poetical or figurative expression, evinced considerable disgust. Mrs. Gamp was so very much astonished by his affable manners and great ease, that she was about to propound to her landlord in a whisper the staggering inquiry, whether he was a man or a boy, when Mr. Sweedlepipe, anticipating her design, made a timely diversion.
“He knows Mrs. Chuzzlewit,” said Paul aloud.
“There’s nothin’ he don’t know; that’s my opinion,” observed Mrs. Gamp. “All the wickedness of the world is Print to him.”
Mr. Bailey received this as a compliment, and said, adjusting his cravat, “reether so.”
“As you knows Mrs. Chuzzlewit, you knows, p’raps, what her chris’en name is?” Mrs. Gamp observed.
“Charity,” said Bailey.
“That it ain’t!” cried Mrs. Gamp.
“Cherry, then,” said Bailey. “Cherry’s short for it. It’s all the same.”
“It don’t begin with a C at all,” retorted Mrs. Gamp, shaking her head. “It begins with a M.”
“Whew!” cried Mr. Bailey, slapping a little cloud of pipe-clay out of his left leg, “then he’s been and married the merry one!”
As these words were mysterious, Mrs. Gamp called upon him to explain, which Mr. Bailey proceeded to do; that lady listening greedily to everything he said. He was yet in the fullness of his narrative when the sound of wheels, and a double knock at the street door, announced the arrival of the newly married couple. Begging him to reserve what more he had to say for her hearing on the way home, Mrs. Gamp took up the candle, and hurried away to receive and welcome the young mistress of the house.
“Wishing you appiness and joy with all my art,” said Mrs. Gamp, dropping a curtsey as they entered the hall; “and you, too, sir. 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. The death that had gone before the bridal seemed to have left its shade upon the house. The air was heavy and oppressive; the rooms were dark; a deep gloom filled up every chink and corner. Upon the hearthstone, like a creature of ill omen, sat the aged clerk, with his eyes fixed on some withered branches in the stove. He rose and looked at her.
“So there you are, Mr. Chuff,” said Jonas carelessly, as he dusted his boots; “still in the land of the living, eh?”
“Still in the land of the living, sir,” retorted Mrs. Gamp. “And Mr. Chuffey may thank you for it, as many and many a time I’ve told him.”
Mr. Jonas was not in the best of humours, for he merely said, as he looked round, “We don’t want you any more, you know, Mrs. Gamp.”
“I’m a-going immediate, sir,” returned the nurse; “unless there’s nothink I can do for you, ma’am. Ain’t there,” said Mrs. Gamp, with a look of great sweetness, and rummaging all the time in her pocket; “ain’t there nothink I can do for you, my little bird?”
“No,” said Merry, almost crying. “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.
“Would you be so good, my darling dovey of a dear young married lady,” Mrs. Gamp observed, in a low voice, “as put that somewheres where you can keep it
