CHAPTER XV. VARIETIES.
Leaving the guilty pair to concert their schemes and indulge their atrocious hopes, we accompany Percival to the hovel occupied by Becky Carruthers.
On following Beck into the room she rented, Percival was greatly surprised to find, seated comfortably on the only chair to be seen, no less a person than the worthy Mrs. Mivers. This good lady in her spinster days had earned her own bread by hard work. She had captivated Mr. Mivers when but a simple housemaid in the service of one of his relations. And while this humble condition in her earlier life may account for much in her language and manners which is nowadays inconsonant with the breeding and education that characterize the wives of opulent tradesmen, so perhaps the remembrance of it made her unusually susceptible to the duties of charity. For there is no class of society more prone to pity and relieve the poor than females in domestic service; and this virtue Mrs. Mivers had not laid aside, as many do, as soon as she was in a condition to practise it with effect. Mrs. Mivers blushed scarlet on being detected in her visit of kindness, and hastened to excuse herself by the information that she belonged to a society of ladies for “The Bettering the Condition of the Poor,” and that having just been informed of Mrs. Becky’s destitute state, she had looked in to recommend her—a ventilator!
“It is quite shocking to see how little the poor attends to the proper wentilating their houses. No wonder there’s so much typus about!” said Mrs. Mivers. “And for one-and-sixpence we can introduce a stream of h-air that goes up the chimbly, and carries away all that it finds!”.
“I ‘umbly thank you, marm,” said the poor bundle of rags that went by the name of “Becky,” as with some difficulty she contrived to stand in the presence of the benevolent visitor; “but I am much afeard that the h-air will make the rheumatiz very rumpatious!”
“On the contrary, on the contrary,” said Mrs. Mivers, triumphantly; and she proceeded philosophically to explain that all the fevers, aches, pains, and physical ills that harass the poor arise from the want of an air-trap in the chimney and a perforated network in the window-pane. Becky listened patiently; for Mrs. Mivers was only a philosopher in her talk, and she had proved herself anything but a philosopher in her actions, by the spontaneous present of five shillings, and the promise of a basket of victuals and some good wine to keep the cold wind she invited to the apartment out of the stomach.
Percival imitated the silence of Becky, whose spirit was so bowed down by an existence of drudgery that not even the sight of her foster-son could draw her attention from the respect due to a superior.
“And is this poor cranky-looking cretur your son, Mrs. Becky?” said the visitor, struck at last by the appearance of the ex-sweeper as he stood at the threshold, hat in hand.
“No, indeed, marm,” answered Becky; “I often says, says I: ‘Child, you be the son of Sint Poll’s.’”
Beck smiled proudly.