Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1

by B. L. Farjeon

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.