That Stick

CHAPTER XXVIII

TWO BUNDLES OF HAY

Ida was, as all agreed, much improved in looks, style, and manners by her travels.  Her illness had begun the work of fining her down from the bouncing heartiness of her girlhood, and she really was a handsome creature, with dark glowing colouring; her figure had improved, whether because or in spite of her efforts in that way might be doubtful; and she had learnt how to dress herself in fairly good taste.

Though neither Mademoiselle Gattoni nor the boarding-house society she had frequented was even second-rate in style, still there was an advance over her former Westhaven circle, with a good deal more restraint, so that she had almost insensibly acquired a much more ladylike air and deportment.

Moreover, the two years’ absence had made some changes.  The young men who had been in the habit of exchanging noisy jests with Ida had mostly drifted away in different directions or sobered down; girl companions had married off; and a new terrace had been completed with inhabitants and sojourners of a somewhat higher grade, who accepted Mrs. and Miss Morton as well connected.

Mr. Rollstone’s lodgings were let to Mr. Deyncourt, a young clergyman who had come full of zeal to work up the growing district.  He had been for a short time in the Northmoor neighbourhood, and had taken the duty there for a few weeks, so that he heard the name of Morton as prominent in good works, and had often seen Lady Adela and Constance with the Sunday-school.  As Mr. Rollstone was not slow to mention the connection, he was not slow to call on Mrs. Morton and Miss Morton, in hopes of their co-operation, and as Mr. Rollstone had informed them that he was of ‘high family’ and of good private means, Mrs. Morton had a much better welcome for him than for his poor little predecessor, who lived over a shoemaker’s shop, and, as she averred, never came except to ask subscriptions for some nonsense or other.

Mr. Deyncourt was a tall fine-looking man, and did not begin by asking subscriptions, but talked about Northmoor, Constance, and Lady Adela, so that Ida found herself affecting much closer knowledge of both than she really had.

‘I found,’ he said, ‘that your sister is most valuable in the Sunday-school.  I wonder if you would kindly assist us.’

Mrs. Morton began, ‘My daughter is not strong, Mr. Deyncourt.’

And Ida simpered and said, hesitating, ‘I—I don’t know.’

If poor Mr. Brown had ever been demented enough even to make the same request, he would have met with a very different answer.

‘I do not think it will be very fatiguing,’ said Mr. Deyncourt.  ‘Do you know Mrs. Brandon?  No!  I will ask her to call and explain our plans.  She is kind enough to let me meet the other teachers in her dining-room once a week to arrange the lessons for the Sunday.  There are Miss Selwood and Mrs. and Miss Hume.’

These were all in the social position in which Ida was trying to establish her footing, and though she only agreed to ‘think about it,’ her mind was pretty well made up that it would be a very different thing from the old parish school where Rose Rollstone used to work among a set of small tradesmen’s daughters.

When she found herself quite the youngest and best-looking of the party, she was entirely won over.  There was no necessity for speaking so as to betray one’s ignorance during Mr. Deyncourt’s instructions, and she was a person of sufficient force and spirit to impose good order on her class; and thus she actually obtained the gratitude of the young clergyman as an efficient assistant.

Their domiciles being so near together, there were many encounters in going in and out, nor were these avoided on either side.  Ida had a wonderful amount of questions to ask, and used to lie in wait to get them solved.  It was very interesting to lay them before a handsome young clergyman with a gentle voice, sweet smile, and ready attention, and religion seemed to have laid aside that element of dulness and moping which had previously repelled her.

She was embroidering a stole for Easter, and wanted a great deal of counsel for it; and she undertook to get a basket of flowers for Easter decorations from Northmoor, where her request caused some surprise and much satisfaction in the simple pair, who never thought of connecting the handsome young mission priest with this sudden interest in the Church.

And Mr. Deyncourt had no objection to drop in for afternoon tea when he was met on the sands and had to be consulted about the stole, or to be asked who was worthy of broth, or as time went on to choose soup and practise a duet for the mission concert that was to keep people out of mischief on the Bank-holiday.

Ida had a voice, and music was the one talent she had cared to cultivate; she had had good lessons during her second winter abroad, and was an acquisition to the amateur company.  Besides, what she cared for more, it was a real pleasure and rest to the curate to come in and listen to her or sing with her.  She had learnt what kind of things offended good taste, and she set herself to avoid them and to school her mother into doing the same.

What Mr. Deyncourt thought or felt was not known, though thus much was certain, that he showed himself attentive enough to this promising young convert, and made Mrs. Brandon and other prudent, high-bred matrons somewhat uneasy.

And in the midst the Morna put in at Westhaven, and while Ida was walking home from Mrs. Brandon’s, she encountered Mr. Brady, looking extremely well turned-out in yachting costume and smoking a short pipe.

There was something very flattering in the sound of the exclamation with which he greeted her; and then, as they shook hands, ‘I should not have known you, Miss Morton; you are—’ and he hesitated for a compliment—‘such a stunner!  What have you been doing to yourself?’

At the gate of the narrow garden, Mr. Deyncourt overtook them, carrying Ida’s bag of books for her.  She introduced them, and was convinced that they glared at each other.

And there ensued a time of some perplexity, but much enjoyment, on Ida’s part.  Mr. Brady reviled the parson and all connected therewith in not very choice language, and the parson, on his side, though saying nothing, seemed to her to be on the watch, and gratified, if not relieved, when she remained steady to her parochial work.

And what was her mind?  Personally, she had come to like and approve Mr. Deyncourt the most, and to have a sense that there was satisfaction in that to which he could lead her, while the better taste that had grown in her was sometimes offended, almost insulted, by Tom Brady’s tendency to coarseness, and to treating her not as a lady, but as the Westhaven belle he had honoured with his attentions two years before.  Yet she had an old kindness for him as her first love.  And, moreover, he could give her eventually a title and very considerable wealth, a house in London, and all imaginable gaiety.  While, as to Mr. Deyncourt, he was not poor and had expectations, but the utmost she could look to for him with confidence was Northmoor Vicarage after Mr. Woodman’s time, and anywhere the dull, sober, hard-working life of a clergyman’s wife!

Which should she choose—that is, if she had her choice, or if either were in earnest?  She was not sure of the curate, and therefore perhaps longed most that he should come to the point, feeling that this would anyway increase her self-esteem, and if she hesitated to bind herself to a life too high, and perhaps too dull, there was the dread, on the other hand, that his family, who, she understood, were very grand people, would object to a girl with nothing of her own and a governess sister.

On the other hand, the Bradys were so rich that they had little need to care for fortune—only, the richer people were, the greater their expectations—and she was more at ease with Tom than with Mr. Deyncourt.  They would probably condone the want of fortune if she could write ‘Honourable’ before her name, or had any prospect of so doing, and the governess-ship might be a far greater drawback in their eyes than in those of the Deyncourts.  ‘However, thank goodness,’ said she to herself, ‘that won’t begin for two or three years, and one or other will be hailed long before that—if—  Oh, it is very hard to be kept out of everything by an old stick like Uncle Frank and a little wretch like Mite, who, after all, is a miserable Tyrolese, and not a Morton at all!  It really is too bad!’

CHAPTER XXIX

JONES OR RATTLER

When Lord Northmoor had occasion to be in London he usually went alone, for to take the whole party was too expensive, and not good for little Michael.  Besides, Bertha Morton had so urgently begged him to regard her house as always ready for him, that the habit had been established of taking up his quarters there.

Some important measures were coming on after Easter, and he had some other business, so that, in the form of words of which she longed to cure him, he told her that he was about to trespass on her hospitality for a week or 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.’

Bertha was able to give the address of the lodging-house where poor Mrs. Jones had died, and the next morning produced another document, which had been shut up in the Bible that had been rescued for the child, namely the marriage lines of David Jones and Lucy Smith at the parish church of the last Lord Northmoor’s residence in town.

To expect a clergyman or clerk to remember the appearance of a bridegroom eight years ago was too much, even if they were the same who had officiated; but Bertha undertook to try, and likewise to consult a former fellow-servant of poor Lucy, who was supposed to have abetted her unfortunate courtship.  Frank, after despatching a letter of inquiry to his sister-in-law about ‘Sam Rattler,’ set forth by train and river steamer for Rotherhithe.

When they met again in the evening, Bertha had only made out from the fellow-servant that the stoker was rather small, and had a reddish beard and hair, wherewith Cea’s complexion corresponded.

The Rotherhithe discoveries had gone farther.  Lord Northmoor had penetrated to the doleful den where the poor woman had died, and no wonder! for it seemed, as Bertha had warned him, a nest of fever and horrible smells.  The landlady remembered her death, which had been made memorable by Miss Morton’s visits; but knew not whence she had come, though, stimulated by half-a-crown, she mentioned a small grocery shop where more might be learnt.  There the woman did recollect Mrs. Jones as a very decent lady, and likewise her being in better lodgings until deserted by her husband, the scamp, who had gone off in an Australian steamer.

At these lodgings the inquiry resulted in the discovery of the name of the steamer; and there was still time to look up the agent and the date approximately enough to obtain the list of the crew, with David Jones among them.  It further appeared that this same David Jones had fallen overboard and been drowned, but as he had not entered himself as a married man, his wife had remained in ignorance of his fate.  It was, however, perfectly clear that the little girl was an orphan, and that Bertha might be quite undisturbed in the possession of her.

And thus Lord Northmoor came home a good deal fagged, and shocked by the interior he had seen at Rotherhithe, but quite triumphant.

Bertha was delighted, and declared herself eternally grateful to him; and she could not but entertain the hope that the soi-disant parent would make another application, in which case she was quite prepared to give him into custody; and she proceeded to reckon up the number of times that he had applied to her, and the amount that he had extracted, wondering at herself for not having asked for proofs, but owning that she had been afraid of being thus compelled to give up the child to perdition.

The applications had all been within the last year, so that the man had probably learnt from Louisa Hall, the nursery-maid, that Cea was the child of a deserted wife.

A letter from Mrs. Morton gave some of the antecedents of Sam Rattler, as learnt from Mrs. Hall, the charwoman, whose great dread he was.  His real surname was Jones, and he was probably a Samuel Jones whose name Lord Northmoor had noted as a boy on board David’s ship.  He belonged to a decent family in a country village, but had run away to sea, and was known at Westhaven by this nickname.  He had a brother settled in Canada, who had lately written to propose to him a berth on one of the Ontario steamers, and it was poor Mrs. Hall’s dread that her daughter should accompany him, though happily want of money prevented it.  As to his appearance, as to which there had been special inquiries, he was a tall fine-looking man, with a black beard, and half the girls at Westhaven were fools enough to be after him.

All this tallied with what had been gathered from the child, and this last had probably been a bold attempt to procure the passage-money for his sweetheart.

He never did call again, having probably been convinced of the failure of his scheme, and scenting danger, so that every day for a fortnight Bertha met her cousin with a disappointed ‘No Rattler!’