“It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last,” the Secretary gently hinted, with a slight stress on the word.
“I hope it never will! It ain’t that I mean to give offence by being anyways proud,” said the old creature simply, “but that I want to be of a piece like, and helpful of myself right through to my death.”
“And to be sure,” added the Secretary, as a comfort for her, “Sloppy will be eagerly looking forward to his opportunity of being to you what you have been to him.”
“Trust him for that, sir!” said Betty, cheerfully. “Though he had need to be something quick about it, for I’m a getting to be an old one. But I’m a strong one too, and travel and weather never hurt me yet! Now, be so kind as speak for me to your lady and gentleman, and tell ’em what I ask of their good friendliness to let me do, and why I ask it.”
The Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was urged by this brave old heroine, and he presently repaired to Mrs. Boffin and recommended her to let Betty Higden have her way, at all events for the time. “It would be far more satisfactory to your kind heart, I know,” he said, “to provide for her, but it may be a duty to respect this independent spirit.” Mrs. Boffin was not proof against the consideration set before her. She and her husband had worked too, and had brought their simple faith and honour clean out of dustheaps. If they owed a duty to Betty Higden, of a surety that duty must be done.
“But, Betty,” said Mrs. Boffin, when she accompanied John Rokesmith back to his room, and shone upon her with the light of her radiant face, “granted all else, I think I wouldn’t run away.”
“ ’Twould come easier to Sloppy,” said Mrs. Higden, shaking her head. “ ’Twould come easier to me too. But ’tis as you please.”
“When would you go?”
“Now,” was the bright and ready answer. “Today, my deary, tomorrow. Bless ye, I am used to it. I know many parts of the country well. When nothing else was to be done, I have worked in many a market-garden afore now, and in many a hop-garden too.”
“If I give my consent to your going, Betty—which Mr. Rokesmith thinks I ought to do—”
Betty thanked him with a grateful curtsey.
“—We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you pass out of our knowledge. We must know all about you.”
“Yes, my deary, but not through letter-writing, because letter-writing—indeed, writing of most sorts hadn’t much come up for such as me when I was young. But I shall be to and fro. No fear of my missing a chance of giving myself a sight of your reviving face. Besides,” said Betty, with logical good faith, “I shall have a debt to pay off, by littles, and naturally that would bring me back, if nothing else would.”
“Must it be done?” asked Mrs. Boffin, still reluctant, of the Secretary.
“I think it must.”
After more discussion it was agreed that it should be done, and Mrs. Boffin summoned Bella to note down the little purchases that were necessary to set Betty up in trade. “Don’t ye be timorous for me, my dear,” said the stanch old heart, observant of Bella’s face: “when I take my seat with my work, clean and busy and fresh, in a country marketplace, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as ever a farmer’s wife there.”
The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practical question of Mr. Sloppy’s capabilities. He would have made a wonderful cabinetmaker, said Mrs. Higden, “if there had been the money to put him to it.” She had seen him handle tools that he had borrowed to mend the mangle, or to knock a broken piece of furniture together, in a surprising manner. As to constructing toys for the Minders, out of nothing, he had done that daily. And once as many as a dozen people had got together in the lane to see the neatness with which he fitted the broken pieces of a foreign monkey’s musical instrument. “That’s well,” said the Secretary. “It will not be hard to find a trade for him.”
John Harmon being buried under mountains now, the Secretary that very same day set himself to finish his affairs and have done with him. He drew up an ample declaration, to be signed by Rogue Riderhood (knowing he could get his signature to it, by making him another and much shorter evening call), and then considered to whom should he give the document? To Hexam’s son, or daughter? Resolved speedily, to the daughter. But it would be safer to avoid seeing the daughter, because the son had seen Julius Handford, and—he could not be too careful—there might possibly be some comparison of notes between the son and daughter, which would awaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to consequences. “I might even,” he reflected, “be apprehended as having been concerned in my own murder!” Therefore, best to send it to the daughter under cover by the post. Pleasant Riderhood had undertaken to find out where she lived, and it was not necessary that it should be attended by a single word of explanation. So far, straight.
But, all that he knew of the daughter he derived from Mrs. Boffin’s accounts of what she heard from Mr. Lightwood, who seemed to have a reputation for his manner of relating a story, and to have made this story quite his own. It interested him, and he would like to have the means of knowing more—as,
