‘Yes. It is horribly weak of me, I know, and I can scarcely believe it of myself, but one can’t abandon a child to a wretch like that, and he has the law on his side.’
‘Are you quite sure of that? He deserted her, I think you said. If you could establish that, or prove a conviction against him—’
‘Oh, I know she might be sent to an industrial school if I took it before a magistrate, but if the p. 195other alternative would be destruction, that would be misery to her. See—’ and there was a little tap at the door. ‘Come in, Cea. There, make your curtsey to his lordship.’
A pretty little fair-haired pale-cheeked girl, daintily but simply dressed, came in and made her curtsey very prettily, and replied nicely to Lord Northmoor’s good-natured greeting and information that Michael had sent her a basket of primroses and a cowslip ball, which she would find in the hall.
‘What do you say, Cea?’ said Bertha, anxious to demonstrate her manners.
‘Thank you, my lord, and Master Michael,’ she uttered, but she was evidently preoccupied with what she had to tell Miss Morton. ‘Oh’m, there was such a nasty man here! And he wanted me, and said he was my father, but he wasn’t. He was the same man that gave Master Mite and me the bull’s-eyes when we were naughty and Louisa went away.’
‘Are you sure, Cea?’ both exclaimed, but to the child of six the very eagerness of the question brought a certain confusion, and though more gently Lord Northmoor asked her to describe him, she could not do it, and indeed she had been only five when the encounter had taken place. The urgency of the inquiry somehow seemed to dispose her to cry, as if she thought she had been naughty, and she had to be dismissed to the cowslip ball.
‘If the child is right, that man cannot be her father at all,’ said Lord Northmoor. ‘That man’s name is Rattler, and he is well known at Westhaven.’
‘Should you know him?’
p. 196‘I never saw him, but I could soon find those who have done so.’
‘If we could only prove it! Oh, what a relief it would be! I dare not even send the child to school—as I meant to do, Northmoor, for indeed we don’t spoil her—for fear she should be kidnapped; and I don’t know if the school- board officer won’t be after her, and I can’t give as a reason “for fear she should be stolen by her father.”‘
‘Not exactly. It ought to be settled once for all. Perhaps the child will tell more when you have her alone.’
‘Is not Rattler only too like a nickname, or is he a native of Westhaven?’
This Lord Northmoor thought he could find out, but the dinner was hardly over before a message came that the man Jones had called again.
‘Perhaps I had better see him alone,’ said the guest, and Bertha was only too glad to accept the offer, so he proceeded to the little room opening into the hall, where interviews with tradesfolk or petitioners were held.
The man had a blue jersey, a cap, and an evidently sailor air, or rather that of the coasting, lower stamp of seaman; but he was tall, rather handsome, and younger-looking than would have been expected of Cea’s father. He looked somewhat taken aback by the appearance of a gentleman, but he stood his ground.
‘So I understand that you have been making demands upon Miss Morton,’ Lord Northmoor began.
‘Well, sir, my lord, a father has his feelings. p. 197There is a situation offered me in Canada, and I intend to take the little girl with me.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ And there was a pause.
‘Or if the lady has taken a fancy to her, I’d not baulk her for a sum down of twenty or five-and-twenty, once for all.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ again; then ‘What do you say is the child’s name?’
‘Jones, my lord.’
‘Her Christian name, I mean?’
He scratched his head. ‘Cissy, my lord—Celia—Cecilia. Blest if I’m sure!’ as he watched the expression of the questioner. ‘You see, the women has such fine names, and she was always called Baby when her poor mother was alive.’
‘Where was she baptized?’
‘Well, you see, my lord, the women-folk does all that, and I was at sea; and by and by I comes home to find my poor wife dead, and the little one gone.’
‘I suppose you are aware that you can have no legal claim to the child without full proof of her belonging to you—the certificate of your marriage and a copy of the register of her birth?’
The man was scarcely withheld from imprecations upon the work that was made about it, when Miss Morton had been quite satisfied on a poor fellow’s word.
‘Yes, ladies may be satisfied for a time, but legally more than your word is required, and you will remember that unless you can bring full proof that this is your child, there is such a thing as prosecution for obtaining money on false pretences.’
p. 198‘And how is a poor fellow to get the fees for them register clerks and that?’ said the man, in a tone waxing insolent.
‘I will be answerable for the fees, if you will tell me where the certificates are to be applied for.’
‘Well, how is a cove to know what the women did when he was at sea? She died at Rotherhithe, anyway, so the child will be registered there.’
‘And the marriage? You were not at sea then, I suppose?’
But the man averred that there were so many churches that there was no telling one from another, and with a knowing look declared that the gals were so keen after a man that they put up the banns and hauled him where
