Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1

by B. L. Farjeon

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.