Such is the case of the Black Bull that once stood in Holborn. It was here that the two estimable females, Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig, professionally attended Mr. Lewsome in his illness. Mr. Lewsome, it will be remembered, was the young man who sold the drugs to Jonas Chuzzlewit with which old Anthony was poisoned, and who after the death of the latter made a voluntary confession of the fact, impelled to do so by the torture of mind and dread of death he himself endured by his severe sickness.
This is Mrs. 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. Send a boy to Kingsgate Street,’ she says, ‘and snap her up at any price, for Mrs. Gamp is worth her weight and more in goldian guineas.’ My landlord brings the message down to me, and says, ‘Bein’ in a light place where you are, and this job promising so well, why not unite the two?’”
Dickens then describes how Mrs. Gamp went to her private lodgings in Kingsgate Street close to the tavern, “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.”
At a suitable moment she ventured the remark, “Ah! a rayal gentleman!” and, advancing, introduced herself, observing:
“The night nurse from Kingsgate Street, well beknown to Mrs. Prig the day-nurse, and the best of creeturs.... It ain’t the fust time by many score, ma’am,” dropping a curtsy to the landlady, “that Mrs. Prig and me has nursed together, turn and turn about, one off, one on. We knows each other’s ways, and often gives relief when others failed.”
Regarding herself as having now delivered her inauguration address, Mrs. Gamp curtsied 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.”
Having learned from Mrs. Prig that the pickled salmon was quite delicious, that the cold meat tasted of the stables, that the drinks were all good, that “the physic and them things is on the drawers and mankleshelf,” and other valuable bits of information, thanked her and entered upon her occupation. “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.” Mrs. Gamp was looking out of the window at the time, and the observations she made then applied to the view seen from the same window during a visit to it just before the inn was destroyed.