The doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leaving the turnkey to return
to the lock, and made for the debtor's room. All the ladies in the
prison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some of them
had already taken possession of the two children, and were hospitably
carrying them off; others were offering loans of little comforts from
their own scanty store; others were sympathising with the greatest
volubility.
The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a
disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked,
to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now
complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others,
with several stories between them, interchanged sarcastic references to
the prevalent excitement. It was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between the
high walls.
In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and
messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but
was the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had
volunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls
and ceiling were blackened with flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden
device, with one hand fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with
the other set traps of vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time
enunciating sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory nature,
adapted to the occasion.
'The flies trouble you, don't they, my dear?' said Mrs Bangham. 'But
p'raps they'll take your mind off of it, and do you good. What between
the buryin ground, the grocer's, the waggon-stables, and the paunch
trade, the Marshalsea flies gets very large. P'raps they're sent as a
consolation, if we only know'd it. How are you now, my dear? No better?
No, my dear, it ain't to be expected; you'll be worse before you're
better, and you know it, don't you? Yes. That's right! And to think of
a sweet little cherub being born inside the lock! Now ain't it pretty,
ain't THAT something to carry you through it pleasant? Why, we ain't
had such a thing happen here, my dear, not for I couldn't name the time
when. And you a crying too?' said Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more
and more.
'You! Making yourself so famous! With the flies a falling into
the gallipots by fifties! And everything a going on so well! And here if
there ain't,' said Mrs Bangham as the door opened, 'if there ain't your
dear gentleman along with Dr Haggage! And now indeed we ARE complete, I
THINK!' The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient
with a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the
opinion, 'We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall
come out of this like a house afire;' and as he and Mrs Bangham took
possession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody else and anybody else
had always done, the means at hand were as good on the whole as better
would have been. The special feature in Dr Haggage's treatment of the
case, was his determination to keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark.