Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1

by B. L. Farjeon

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.”