fortnight.
'As long as ever you please,' she said. 'I am glad to have some one to sit opposite to me and tell me home news,' and they met at the station, she having been on an expedition on her own account, so that they drove home together.
No sooner were they within the house door than the parlour-maid began, 'That man has been here again, ma'am.'
'What, Jones?' said Bertha, in evident annoyance.
'Yes, ma'am, and I am sorry to say he saw little Cea. The child had run down after me when I answered the door, and he asked her if she did not know her own father, and if she would come with him. 'No,' she says, 'I'm Miss Morton's,' and he broke out with his ugly laugh, and says he, 'You be, be you, you unnatural little vagabond?'-those were his very words, ma'am-'but a father is a father, and if he gives up his rights he must know the reason why.' He wanted me, the good-for-nothing, to give him half a sovereign at once, or he would take off the child on the spot, but, by good luck, she had been frightened and run away, the dear, and I had got the door between me and him, so I told him to be off till you came home, or I would call for the police. So he was off for that time.'
'Quite right, Alice,' said Miss Morton, and then, leading the way upstairs and throwing herself down on a chair, she exclaimed, 'There, it ought to be a triumph to you, Northmoor! You told me that I should have trouble about poor little Cea's father, the brute!'
'Is he levying blackmail on you?'
'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 other 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?'
'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. There 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.'
'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 they would.
He was at last got rid of, undertaking to bring the proofs of his paternity, without which Lord Northmoor made it clear to him that he was to expect neither child nor money.
'I greatly doubt whether you will see any more of him,' said Lord Northmoor when describing the interview.
'Oh, Frank,' cried Bertha, calling him thus for the first time, 'I do not know how to thank you enough. You have done me an infinite kindness.'
'Do not thank me yet,' he answered, 'for though I do not in the least believe that this fellow is the child's father, he may find his way to the certificates or get them forged; and it would be well to trace what has become of the real Jones, as well as to make out about this Rattler. Is it true that the wife died at Rotherhithe?'
'Quite true, poor thing. I believe they had lived there since the marriage.'
'I will run down there if you can give me the address, and see if I can make out anything about her husband, and see whether any one can speak to his identity with this man.'
'You are a man of gold! To think of your taking all this trouble!'
'I only hope I may succeed. It is a return to old habits of hunting up evidence.'
