‘Was your wife a Cornish woman, Mr. Elgood?’ asked Maurice.
‘No; she was born within the sound of Bow bells, poor soul. Her father was a bookbinder in Clerkenwell. She had a pretty voice, and a wonderful ear for music; and some one told her she would do very well on the stage. Her home was dull and poor, and she felt she ought to earn her living somehow. So she began to act at a little amateur theatre near Coldbath Fields, and having a bright pretty way with her, she got a good deal of notice, and was offered an engagement to play small singing parts at Sadler’s Wells. I was a member of the stock company there at the time, and her pretty little face and her pretty little ways turned my stupid head somehow, and I told myself that two salaries thrown into one would go further than they would divided; never considering that managers would want to strike a bargain with us—lump us together on the cheap—when we were married; or that when two people are earning no salary it’s harder for two to live than one. Well, we married, and lived a hard life afterwards; but I was true to my poor girl, and fond of her to the last; and when hunger was staring us in the face we were not all unhappy.’
‘Justina is like her mother, I suppose,’ said Maurice, ‘as she doesn’t at all resemble you?’
‘No,’ replied Matthew, ‘my wife was a pretty woman, but not in Justina’s style.’
‘What made you hit upon such an out-of-the-way name as Justina? Mind, I like the name very much, but it is a very uncommon one.’
Mr. Elgood looked puzzled.
‘I dare say it was a fancy of my wife’s,’ he said. ‘But I really don’t recollect anything about it.’
‘I’ll tell you why I ask the question,’ pursued Maurice. ‘While I was in Cornwall, staying at a farm called Borcel End, I came across the name.’
The comedian almost dropped his teacup.
‘Borcel End!’ he exclaimed, ‘you were at Borcel End?’