That Stick ...

‘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?’

p. 199‘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! p. 200for 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 p. 201for 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.