Great Porter Square: A Mystery. Volume 1
TextCHAPTER XIX
THE “EVENING MOON” CONTINUES ITS ACCOUNT OF THE TRAGEDY, AND DESCRIBES THE SHAMEFUL PART ENACTED BY MR. FREDERICK HOLDFAST IN HIS FATHER’S HOUSE
WHEN a man of Mr. Holdfast’s age and wealth marries, for love, a lady thirty years younger than himself, his friends generally regard him with pity, and predict that the day must arrive when he will awake from his infatuated dream. “Warm-blooded May and cold-blooded December,” say Mrs. Grundy and her family; “what can be expected?” They are much more uncharitable towards the lady, if she happen to be poor, as in such cases she is almost certain to be. It is not possible for her to awake from her dream, for she is judged as having been very wide awake, and as having entrapped the poor man with wiles most artfully designed and carried out, fooling the doting old lover to the top of his bent, her eyes and heart set upon nothing but his money.
The judgment is too often correct. Beauty sacrificing itself at the altar of Mammon is no new subject for writer or painter whose satires are drawn from truth and nature. But an arrow tipped with these feathers of false feeling, and aimed at Mr. Holdfast and his lovely bride, would have fallen short of its mark. Their match, despite the disparity of age, was in the best sense of the word a love-match. On Mr. Holdfast’s side there could be no doubt of it; and as little doubt could there be of a creature so guileless as Lydia Wilson, who had been brought up in the most delightful ignorance of the value of money.
“We loved each other to the last,” says the innocent and much-wronged widow. “To have saved my dear husband’s life I would have sacrificed my own – willingly, joyfully have sacrificed it!”
By what strange roads, then, had so fair a commencement been conducted to so foul and tragic an end?
Reference has already been made to Mr. Holdfast’s son Frederick, and the sketch we have given of his character will be a sufficient indication of the kind of man he was. We speak of him in the past tense, for he is dead.
Shortly after Mr. Holdfast’s second marriage, he communicated to his son the news of his having chosen a beautiful and amiable woman as a companion. In his letter the father expressed a hope that his son, who had already done so much to wound a father’s heart, would not add to his misconduct by behaving other than dutifully and respectfully to his second mother. The son wrote back that he had no second mother, and would acknowledge none; but that he would soon be in London to embrace his father and shake hands with his father’s wife. Attention is directed to the terms of this expression of feeling. His father he would embrace, his father’s wife he would shake hands with. To one he would exhibit affection, to the other coldness. There was here at once struck the keynote to many strange family events (in one of which the affections were made to play a monstrous part), leading, there is reason to believe, to the untimely death of a father who sinned only on the side of indulgence and love.
“I had, from the first,” said the widow of the murdered man, “a mysterious foreboding about Frederick Holdfast. Do not ask me to account for it, for it is out of my power. I am a creature of feeling and fancy, but I am seldom wrong. I sometimes shudder when I pass a stranger in the street, and I know – something whispers within me – that that stranger has committed a crime, or is about to commit a crime. I sometimes feel glad when I meet a person for the first time, as I have met you” – (she was addressing our Reporter) – “and then I know that that person is an honourable man, and that I can confide in him. I had a foreboding for ill when I first heard the name of Mr. Frederick Holdfast. I shuddered and turned as cold as ice; and that was even before I knew that his father and he were not upon friendly terms. I tried to shake off the feeling, asking myself how was it possible there could be any real wickedness in the son of a man so noble as my dear lost husband? Alas! I have lived to discover that my foreboding of evil was but too true!”
Mr. Frederick Holdfast came to London, and made the acquaintance of his stepmother. He had rooms in his father’s house, but his habits were very irregular. He seldom dined with his father and his father’s wife, as he insisted upon calling her: he would not accompany them to ball or party – for, from the date of his second marriage, Mr. Holdfast led a new and happier life. He gave balls and parties at home, of which his wife was the queen of beauty; he went into society; the gloom which had been habitual with him departed from his heart. But the son would not share this happiness; he was the thorn in the side of the newly-married couple. We continue the narrative in the widow’s words.
“I did everything in my power,” she said, with touching plaintiveness, “to reconcile father and son. I made excuses for Frederick. I said, ‘Perhaps Frederick is in debt; it troubles him; you are rich.’ There was no occasion for me to say another word to such a generous gentleman as my husband. The very next day he told me that he had had a serious conversation with Frederick, who had confessed to him that he was deeply in debt. How much? Thousands. He showed me a list, but I scarcely looked at it. ‘Shall I pay these debts?’ my husband asked. ‘Of course,’ I replied; ‘pay them immediately, and fill Frederick’s pockets with money.’ ‘I have done that very thing,’ said Mr. Holdfast, ‘a dozen times already, and he has always promised me he would reform.’ ‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘perhaps he will keep his word this time. Pay his debts once more, and let us all live happily together.’ That was my only wish – that we should all be friends, and that Frederick should have no excuse to reproach me for having married his father. The debts were paid, and Mr. Holdfast brought his son to me, and said to him ‘Frederick, you have to thank this angel’ – (pray, pray do not think I am saying a word that is not true! My husband was only too kind to me, and loved me so much that he would often pay me extravagant compliments) – ‘You have to thank this angel,’ said Mr. Holdfast to his son, ‘for what has been done this day. You can now hold up your head with honour. Let bye-gones be bye-gones. Kiss Mrs. Holdfast, and promise to turn over a new leaf.’ I held out my cheek to him, and he looked at me coldly and turned away. I was scarlet with shame. Was it not enough to rouse a woman’s animosity? – such treatment! But it did not rouse mine – no; I still hoped that things would come right. Mr. Holdfast did not relate to me the particulars of the interview between himself and his son, and I did not inquire. Why should I pry into a young man’s secrets? And what right had I to do anything but try and make peace between my husband and my husband’s son? Frederick had been wild, but so have plenty of other college men. Many of them have turned out well afterwards; I have heard of some who were very bad young men, and afterwards became Judges and Members of Parliament. Why should not Frederick do the same – why should he not reform, and become a Judge or a Member of Parliament? My great wish was that Mr. Holdfast should keep his son with him, and that Frederick should marry some good girl, and settle down. I had tried to bring it about. I had given parties, and had invited pretty girls; but Frederick seldom made his appearance at my assemblies, and when he did, stopped only for a few minutes. On the very evening of the day upon which my husband, at my intercession, paid Frederick’s debts, I had a ball at my house. Is it wrong to be fond of parties and dancing? If it is, you will blame me very much, for I am very fond of dancing. With a good partner I could waltz all night, and not feel tired. Mr. Holdfast did not dance, but he had no objection to my enjoying myself in this way. On the contrary, he encouraged it. He would sit down to his whist, and when the ball was over I would tell him all the foolish things my partners had said to me. Well, on this night we were to have a grand ball, and I very much wished Frederick to be present, for I wanted to introduce him to some pretty girls I had invited. But in the morning he had insulted me, and had refused to kiss me as a sign of reconciliation. Upon thinking it over I said to myself that perhaps he did not think it proper to kiss me, because I was young and – well, not exactly bad-looking. I was always trying to make excuses for him in my mind. Though there could really be no harm in kissing one’s mother – do you believe there is? – even if your mother is younger than yourself! If I were a young man, I should have no objection! So I determined to ask Frederick to come to my ball, and bind him to it. He was to dine with us, and, for a wonder, he did not disappoint us. Over dinner I said, ‘Frederick, I should like you very, very particularly to come to my ball to-night.’ Contrary to his usual custom of pleading an excuse of another engagement – it was generally to meet some friend at his club – he said, quite readily, ‘I will come.’ I was surprised. ‘You have promised before,’ I said, ‘but you have almost always disappointed me. I shall take your promise now as a gentleman’s promise, and shall expect you to keep it. And you must not only come; you must stop and dance.’ He replied, without the slightest hesitation, ‘I will come, and I will stop and dance.’ ‘Now,’ I said, so glad at his amiability, ‘I will make it hard for you to forget. Here is my programme. You may dance two dances with me. I am sure you would not keep a lady waiting. Behave to me as you would to any other lady in society.’ I gave him my card, and he wrote upon it, and handed it back to me. I did not look to see the dances he had engaged; I was too pleased at my success. His father, also, was very much pleased, and our dinner on this evening was the pleasantest we had ever enjoyed together. Three hours later, my guests began to arrive. While I was dressing, one of my maids brought in the loveliest bouquet I had ever seen. From Mr. Holdfast? No. From his son, Frederick. Was not that a sign of perfect reconciliation, and had I not every reason to be happy? O, if I had known! I would have cast the flowers to the ground, and have trodden them under my feet! But we can never tell, can we, what is going to happen to us? I dressed, and went down to the ball room. I wore a pale blue silk, with flounces of lace, caught up here and there with forget-me-nots, and I had pearls in my hair. Mr. Holdfast said I looked bewitching. I was in the best of spirits, and felt sure that this was going to be one of the happiest evenings in my life. How shall I tell you what happened? I am ashamed and horrified when I think of it! But it was not my fault, and I did everything I could to lead Frederick away from his dreadful, sinful infatuation.”
Our Reporter himself takes up the narrative, and relates what followed in his own words. The beautiful widow was overcome by shame at the revelation she had to make, and it was only by considerate and skilful persuasion that our representative was able to elicit from her the full particulars of what she rightly called a dreadful, sinful infatuation.
The ball was a perfect success; there were many beautiful women among the guests, but the most beautiful of all was the hostess herself. A gentleman asked her to dance, and she handed him her card.
“How annoying!” he exclaimed. “You are engaged for every waltz.”
“No,” she replied, “only for two.”
“But look,” said the gentleman.
She glanced at her card, and found that Frederick had placed his name against every one of the six waltzes comprised in the programme.
“The foolish fellow!” she cried, “I promised him two, and he has appropriated six!”
“In that case,” observed the gentleman, “as you are much too precious to be monopolised, I may take the liberty of erasing Mr. Frederick Holdfast’s name from one waltz at least, and writing my own in its place.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Holdfast, “I will promise you one.”
Just as the gentleman had made the alteration in the card Frederick came up, and protested against being deprived of the waltz.
“You made me promise to stop and dance,” he said, “and I will dance with no other lady in the room but you.”
“Why,” said Mrs. Holdfast, “there are fifty pretty girls here, who will be delighted to dance with you.”
“I have no eyes for any lady but yourself,” he said, offering her his arm. “You wear the crown of beauty.”
Surprised as she was at this sudden change in him, it was so much better than the systematically cold manner in which he had hitherto treated her, that she humoured him and was quite disposed to yield to his caprices. He told her during the evening that he was jealous of any person dancing with her but himself; he paid her a thousand compliments; he was most devoted in his attentions.
“Frederick is a changed man,” she said to her husband, when he came from the whist to inquire how she was enjoying herself; “he has been the most attentive of cavaliers.”
Mr. Holdfast expressed his satisfaction to his son.
“You have commenced your new leaf well, Frederick,” he said; “I hope you will go on as you have begun.”
“I intend to do so, sir,” replied Frederick.
Had Mr. Holdfast understood the exact meaning of these words, his advice to his son would have been of a precisely opposite nature, and on that very night the severance of father and son would have been complete.
The evening progressed; music, pretty women, gallant men, brilliant lights, flowers, a sumptuous supper, a fascinating and charming hostess, formed the sum of general happiness. The ball was spoken of as the most successful of the season. In an interval between the dances Mrs. Holdfast found herself alone with Frederick in a conservatory. She had a difficulty in fastening one of the buttons of her glove. Frederick offered his assistance; she held out her white arm; his fingers trembled as he clumsily essayed to fasten the button.
“You seem agitated,” she said to him, with a smile.
“I have behaved to you like a brute,” he muttered.
“Don’t think of the past,” she said sweetly, “we commence from this night.”
“It will be the commencement of heaven or hell to me!” he said, in a voice almost indistinct, with contrition as she supposed. “My father was right in calling you an angel. When I reflect upon my conduct this morning I can’t help thinking I must have been mad. To refuse to kiss a beautiful woman like you! Let me kiss you now, in token of my repentance.”
She offered him her cheek, and he seized her in his arms, and kissed her lips.
“I love you! I love you!” he whispered, and before she could release herself he had kissed her a dozen times. “That will make amends for my rudeness this morning,” he said, as he rushed from her presence.
She scarcely knew what to think; she was bewildered by his strange behaviour, but she was too pure-minded to put any but an innocent construction upon it. Poor lady! she had had no experience of that kind of man in whose eyes a woman’s good name is a thing to trifle with and destroy, and who afterwards exults in the misery he has brought upon an unsuspecting, confiding heart. She lived to learn the bitter lesson. Too soon did she learn it! Too soon did the horrible truth force itself upon her soul that her husband’s son loved her, or professed to love her – and that he was using all his artifices to prevail upon her to accept him as her secret lover. At first she refused to credit it; she had read of such things, but had never believed they could exist. To the pure all things are pure, and so for a time she cast away the suspicion which intruded itself that the heart of this young man could harbour such treachery towards a father too ready to forgive the errors which stain a man’s name with dishonour. Her position was most perplexing. Instead of absenting himself from home, Frederick was unremitting in his attendance upon her. When he came down to breakfast in the morning he kissed her, but never before his father. When he went out of the house he kissed her – but his father never saw the embrace. In private, when no one else was by, he called her “Lydia,” or “dear Lydia”; when his father or strangers were present, he addressed her as Mrs. Holdfast. He was so subtle in his devices that he wove around her and himself a chain of secrecy which caused her the greatest misery. She was no match for him. He was a man of the world; she, a young and innocent girl brought, for the first time, face to face with deliberate villainy. Her position was rendered the more embarrassing by the pleasure which Frederick’s outward conduct afforded her husband. He expressed his pleasure to her frequently. “Our union,” he said to her, “has brought happiness to me in more ways than one. Frederick has reformed; he is all I wish him to be; and I owe it to you that I can look forward now with satisfaction to his future.” How could she undeceive the fond father? She contemplated with shudders the effect of the revelation it was in her power to make. Could she not in some way avoid the exposure? Could she not bring the son to a true sense of his shameful and unmanly conduct? She would try – she would try; innocence and a good intent would give her strength and courage. She was not aware of the difficulty of the task she had set herself.
In its execution private interviews between Frederick and herself were necessary, and she had to solicit them. The eagerness with which he acceded to her request to speak with him in the absence of her husband should have been a warning to her – but she saw nothing but the possible success of a worthy design which was to save her husband from bitter grief. She spoke to Frederick seriously; she endeavoured to show him not only the wickedness but the folly of his passion for her; she told him that she loved his father, and that if he did not conquer his mad infatuation for her, an exposure must ensue which would cover him with shame. And the result of her endeavour to bring the young man to reason was a declaration on his part, repeated again and again, that he loved her more than ever. He had the cunning to hint to her that she was already compromised, and that she could not defend herself successfully against an imputation of guilt. Appearances were all against her; the very interviews which she herself had planned and solicited were proofs against her. These infamous arguments convinced her of the hopelessness of her task, and with grief she relinquished it. She had no alternative but to appeal for protection to her husband. We doubt whether in the annals of social life a more delicate and painful situation could be found.
She faced her duty bravely. She had full confidence in the honour and justice of her husband, and her confidence was not misplaced. Suffering most deeply himself, he pitied her for the suffering she experienced in being the innocent cause of what could not fail to be a life-long separation between himself and his son. “You have done your duty,” he said, “and I will do mine. I am not only your husband and lover; I am your protector.” He called his son to him and they were closeted together for hours. What passed between them, the wife never knew. Upon that subject husband and wife maintained perfect silence. At the end of the interview Frederick Holdfast left his father’s house, never to return. The echo of the banished son’s footsteps still lingered in Lydia Holdfast’s ears when her husband called her into his study. His pale face showed traces of deep suffering. Upon the writing table was a small Bible, with silver clasps.
“Lydia,” said Mr. Holdfast, “this Bible was given to me by my first wife. Two children she bore me – first, the man who has but now left my house, and will not enter it again; then a girl, who died before she could prattle. It were better that my son had so died, but it was otherwise willed. In this Bible I wrote the record of my first marriage – my own name, the maiden name of my wife, the church in which we were married, and the date. It is here; and beneath it the record of my marriage with you. Upon a separate page I wrote the date of the birth of my son Frederick; beneath it, that of my second child, Alice, dead. That page is no longer in the sacred Book. I have torn it out and destroyed it; and as from this Bible I tore the record of my son’s birth, so from my life I have torn and destroyed his existence. He lives no longer for me. I have now no child; I have only you!” He paused awhile, and continued. “It is I, it seems,” he said, pathetically, “who have to turn over a new leaf. With the exception of yourself – my first consideration – there is but one engrossing subject in my mind; the honour of my name. I must watch carefully that it is not dragged in the mud. From such a man as my son has grown into – heaven knows by what means, for neither from myself nor from his mother can he have inherited his base qualities – I am not safe for a moment. Between to-day and the past, let there be a door fast closed, which neither you nor I will ever attempt to open.”
Then this man, whose nature must have been very noble, kissed his young wife, and asked that she would not disturb him for the remainder of the day. “Only one person,” he said, “is to be admitted to see me – my lawyer.” In the course of the afternoon that gentleman presented himself, and did not leave until late in the night. His business is explained by the date of a codicil to Mr. Holdfast’s will, whereby the son is disinherited, and Mr. Holdfast’s entire fortune – amounting to not less than one hundred thousand pounds – is left unreservedly to his wife.
To avoid the tittle-tattle of the world, and the scandal which any open admission of social disturbances would be sure to give rise to, Mr. Holdfast insisted that his wife should mingle freely in the gaieties of society. She would have preferred to have devoted herself to her husband, and to have endeavoured, by wifely care and affection, to soften the blow which had fallen upon him. But he would not allow her to sacrifice herself. “My best happiness,” he said, “is to know that you are enjoying yourself.” Therefore she went more frequently into society, and fêted its members in her own house with princely liberality. When people asked after Mr. Holdfast’s son, the answer – dictated by the father himself – was that he had gone abroad on a tour. It appeared, indeed, that the compact between father and son was that the young man should leave England. In this respect he kept his word. He went to America, and his father soon received news of him. His career in the States was disgraceful and dissipated; he seemed to have lost all control over himself, and his only desire appeared to be to vex his father’s heart, and dishonour his father’s name. Events so shaped themselves that the father’s presence was necessary in America to personally explain to the heads of firms with whom he had for years transacted an extensive business, the character of the son who, by misrepresentations, was compromising his credit. When he communicated to his wife his intention of leaving her for a short time, she begged him not to go, or, if it were imperative that the journey should be undertaken, to allow her to accompany him. To this request he would not consent; he would not subject her to the discomfort of the voyage; and he pointed out to her that her presence might be a hindrance instead of a help to him.
“Not only,” he said, “must I set myself right with my agents in America, but I must see my son. I will make one last appeal to him – I will speak to him in the name of his dead mother! It is my duty, and I will perform it. The wretched man, hearing of my arrival, may fly from the cities in which it is necessary that I shall present myself. I must follow him until we are once more face to face. Cannot you see that I must be alone, and entirely free, to bring my mission to a successful issue.”
Mournfully, she was compelled to confess that he was right, and that it was imperative his movements should not be hampered. She bade him an affectionate farewell, little dreaming, as he drove away from the house, that she had received his last kiss.
He wrote regularly – from Queenstown, from ship-board, from New York. His letters were filled with expressions of affection; of his business he merely said, from time to time, that matters were not so serious as they were represented to be. As he had suspected, his son flew before him, and, resolute in his intention of having a last interview with him, he followed the young man from city to city, from State to State. Weeks, months were occupied in this pursuit, and it happened, on more than one occasion, that Mrs. Holdfast was a considerable time without a letter from her husband. She wrote to him again and again, entreating him to give up the pursuit and come home, but strong as was his affection for her, she could not shake his resolve. In one of his letters he hinted that his son was not alone – that he was in company with a woman of more than doubtful character; in another that this woman, having deserted the misguided young man, had appealed to Mr. Holdfast himself for assistance to enable her to return to England. “I did not refuse her,” he wrote; “I was only too happy to break the connection between her and Frederick. I supplied her with money, and by the time you receive this she is most probably in her native land.” Actions such as this denoted the kindness of his heart, and there is no doubt, had his son thrown himself at his father’s feet, and, admitting the errors of the past, promised amendment in the future, that Mr. Holdfast would have helped him to commence a new and better career. Mr. Holdfast spoke of this in his letters. “There are other lands than England and America,” he said, “where a man may build up a name that shall be honoured, and live a life of usefulness and happiness. In one of the Australian colonies, or in New Zealand, he may work out his repentance, under conditions which offer almost a certainty of a bright and honourable future.”
This was the father’s aim – a wise and merciful design, altogether too good in its intentions for the man it was to benefit.
At length a letter arrived conveying the intelligence that Mr. Holdfast had tracked his son to Minnesota, one of the Western States of America, and was journeying onward in pursuit of him. This letter was not in Mr. Holdfast’s writing; it was written by a stranger, at his dictation, and a satisfactory explanation of this circumstance was given. “Although I am wearied in spirit,” it said, “and sometimes feel that but for you I would give up the world and its trials with thankfulness, I am not really ill. My right hand has been wounded by the shutting of the door of a railroad car, and I am unable to use it. For this reason you must not feel uneasy if you do not hear from me for some time. I do not care to entrust, even to a stranger, the particulars of my private troubles. Good bye, and God bless you! Be happy!” These tender words were the last she ever received from him. When she read them she was oppressed by an ominous foreboding, and a voice within her whispered: “You will never see him more!” But for one thrilling circumstance, nothing in the world could have prevented her from taking instant passage to America to nurse and comfort her dear husband. She was about to become a mother. Now, indeed, she could not risk the perils of the voyage and the feverish travelling in the States. Another and a dearer life claimed her care and love.
Within a week of the receipt of this last letter she learnt, from a newspaper forwarded to her from a small town in Minnesota, that her husband’s quest was over. On the banks of the laughing waters of Minne-haha the dead body of a stranger was found. He had not met his death by drowning; from marks upon the body it was certain that he had been killed – most likely in a drunken brawl. A gentleman travelling through the district identified the body as that of Frederick Holdfast, with whom he was well acquainted in Oxford. The occurrence excited no comment, and simply supplied the text for an ordinary newspaper paragraph. The body was buried, and in that distant part of the world the man was soon forgotten. Thus was ended the shameful life of Frederick Holdfast, a young man to whom fortune held out a liberal hand, and whose career was marred by a lack of moral control.
Shocked as Mrs. Holdfast was by the tragic news, she could not but feel happy in the thought of the calmer future which lay before her. “My husband will soon be home!” she thought, and her heart beat with glad anticipation.