‘Then you need to put your mobile in your locker,’ she explained.
Morton slid his phone from the table and indignantly placed it in his pocket.
With another huff, Brenda returned to her desk, angling her computer screen in such a way that Morton fell squarely into her line of vision.
‘That’s a beheading offence,’ a male voice behind him joked.
Morton turned to see a researcher with a large grin poking out from under a monstrous white moustache and he reciprocated his conspiratorial smirk. Brenda Buxton looked up dourly but said nothing.
Turning the page, Morton found the examination record for the Lovekin sisters. He quickly typed up the initial preamble, then moved onto the statement made by Harriet Lovekin. On oath, she had repeated her assertion that her parents had been married in the parish of Westwell and that, to her knowledge, she and her sisters had been born there. Having fully expected to see the settlement examination confirm the Lovekin girls’ right to assistance, the next and final paragraph startled Morton.
Whereas it doth appear to us Walter Crouch and Joseph Hannay the Justices within named that Harriet, Keziah and Ann Lovekin, the paupers within ordered to be settled in the said Parish of Westwell have no legal right of settlement, unsuccessful searches having been made in the Parish registers for the aforementioned parents of the said Harriet, Keziah and Ann Lovekin. We do therefore hereby decline the execution of settlement in the said Parish of Westwell. Given under our hands the 1st day of May 1827.
Declined. The three orphaned sisters, having been forcibly removed from the America Ground, were then turned away on the same day from Westwell. But why, if Eliza had originated from there? And where did they go? Morton puzzled. He knew from his research that the America Ground was entirely cleared in 1835 and that the registration districts for both Ann’s 1839 marriage and Keziah’s 1892 death were in Hastings, so it stood to reason that perhaps they might have returned there.
As Morton typed up the entry, he began to work out his next course of action. The two Westwell Justices had failed to find any documentation in the parish records that provided the girls with any association with the village, but still, Morton needed to check for himself.
He finished typing the entry but wasn’t happy to not have a digital copy. Looking across to the help desk, Morton found it empty. With a surreptitious glance behind him, he spotted Brenda Buxton poring over a document, her back turned to him. Seizing the opportunity, he hastily took out his mobile and took a picture of the page.
‘Excuse me!’ Brenda called across the room irately. ‘I told you no photography.’
Morton tucked his mobile away as she hastened towards him.
‘Did you just take a photo?’ she demanded.
Morton looked up and smiled pleasantly. ‘No,’ he lied. ‘But I’d like to; you see, I only want a copy of this one page, and ten pounds seems rather steep.’ He watched as her jaw clenched in deliberation of her response.
‘It’s fifty pence per copy, so you see now that ten pounds for unlimited photography is actually very good value.’
‘Thank you,’ Morton said sweetly, handing her the relevant page. ‘A photocopy would be lovely.’
She wordlessly flipped around and sped through the door behind her desk.
When she returned a few seconds later, she handed Morton back the original but held onto the photocopy. ‘You can pay for it at the end,’ she explained haughtily.
Morton nodded, gathered up his things and returned to the main library area, taking a seat at the microfilm PC. Through the glass wall from the Archive Reading Room, he could still feel the admonishing glare of Brenda Buxton. He smiled charmingly and went to the shelves containing the parish register indexes.
Having jotted down references for Westwell marriages and baptisms, Morton collected the relevant film reel and sat at the PC. Fortunately for him, there had not been a change of staff and the agreeable man who was behind the desk still remained.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Yep, whenever you are,’ Morton answered, then sat listening carefully to the brief explanation of how the computer worked. ‘So what can it do that the others can’t?’
‘High resolution printouts, removal of background colour, amazing zoom function…plus a few other bits that we haven’t worked out how to do yet,’ he chuckled. ‘Right, I’ll leave you to it.’ He patted Morton on the back as he walked away. ‘Give me a shout if you have any problems.’
Knowing that Harriet, the eldest of the Lovekin girls, had been born around 1809, Morton zipped through the microfilm until he reached marriages 1751-1812. If ever he was going to find out about Eliza Lovekin’s early life, he needed to locate her marriage to Joseph and her baptism record. Morton wound steadily through the years, not truly believing that he would find their marriage. The village was small and, just over half an hour later, he had reached the end without success. He recalled the article from Hastings Library that had claimed that many of the America Ground residents had existed in a state of concubinage; he had just hoped that Joseph and Eliza hadn’t been among their number.
Despite the fact that the settlement examination had pre-empted his futile search, Morton still felt a pang of disappointment. He moved the film on to baptisms 1751-1815 and began to run his index finger down the screen over the surnames. No sign of an Eliza Smith.
A short while into his search, his mobile sounded a text alert. It was from Juliette. I know you’re an idiot xx. Morton grinned and knew that he’d been forgiven. He continued his search, then another text came in. Your text has been witnessed by two police officers—we
