Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 2

by B. L. Farjeon

“I knew you were sharp and quick,” said Becky. “You are a little cousin of mine, if Mrs. Preedy asks you, and you have no mother or father. Give me those matches. I throw them into the fire, one after another. What a blaze they make! Your mother died last week, and you, knowing I was in service here, came to ask me to help you. You never sold matches, Fanny.”

“Never! I’ll take my oath of it!”

“That is all I shall say to-night, Fanny. I am tired, and I want to think. Go into that room—it is my bedroom; here is a light. You will see a nest of drawers in the room; open the top one, and take out a clean nightdress; it will be too long and too large for you, but that doesn’t matter, does it? Give yourself a good wash, then pop into bed, and go to sleep. To-morrow morning, before you are up, I shall buy you some clothes. Poor little Fanny! Poor little Fanny!” The child had fallen on her knees, and had bowed her face on Becky’s lap. Her body was shaken with sobs. “Now then, go, or Mrs. Preedy may come back before you are a-bed.”

Fanny jumped to her feet, and kissing Becky’s hands, took the candle, and went into Becky’s bedroom.

Becky’s attention, diverted for a while by this adventure, returned to the subject which now almost solely occupied her mind. She had not yet looked at the copies of the last Evening Moon she had bought of the newsboy in the Square an hour ago. She opened one of the papers, and saw, in large type, the heading, “Frederick Holdfast,” and beneath it the following letter, addressed to the editor of the Evening Moon:—

“Sir,—I have read the thrilling Romance in Real Life which your Special Reporter, in a style which does not speak highly for his culture or good taste, has so temptingly dished up for your numerous readers. It not only reads like a romance, but, with reference to one of the characters it introduces to a too curious public, it is a romance. The character I refer to is Frederick Holdfast, the son of the ill-fated gentleman who was murdered in Great Porter Square. That he is dead there appears to be no reason to doubt; and, therefore, all the more reason why I, who knew him well and was his friend, should step forward without hesitation to protest against the charges brought against him in your columns. I declare most earnestly that they are false.

“Here, at once, I find myself in a difficulty. When I say that the colours in which Frederick Holdfast is painted are false colours, that the character given to him is a false character, and that the charges brought against him are false charges, it appears as if I myself were bringing an accusation against Mrs. Lydia Holdfast, a lady with whom I have not the pleasure of being acquainted. I prefer not to do this. I prefer to bring the accusation against your Reporter, who must have allowed his zeal and enthusiasm to play tricks with his judgment when he sat down to describe, in his captivating manner, certain statements made to him by a lady in distress. He was writing a romance—there was a villain in it (a necessity); necessary, therefore, that this villain should be painted in the blackest colours, to rival other villains in the Penny Awfuls which obtain so strong a hold over young people among our poorer classes. The parallel is not a fair one. The villains in the Penny Awfuls are imaginary creatures; they live only in the brains of the cheap novelist; to vilify them, to defame them, can hurt the feelings, can do injury, to no living being. But the villain your Reporter has depicted in his Romance of Real Life is a man who lived, who was honoured, and who had at least one firm and true friend in the person of him who is now tracing these lines. To defame and vilify the dead is an act of the grossest injustice, and of this injustice your Reporter is guilty.

“I was at Oxford with Frederick Holdfast, and shared in his pleasures and his studies. We were cronies. We had few secrets from each other, and our close intimacy enabled me not only to gain an insight into Frederick’s character, but to form a just estimate of it. And I solemnly declare that my dead friend was as guiltless of the charges brought against him by Mrs. Holdfast and your Reporter in his Oxford career as I believe him to be incapable of the baseness imputed to him in his father’s house in London. Of the latter I can speak only from presumption. Of the former I can speak with certainty, but my conviction in the one case is as strong as it is in the other.

“It is a monstrous falsehood to describe Frederick Holdfast’s ‘career of dissipation’ as being ‘capped by degraded association with degraded women.’ His estimate of woman was high and lofty; he was almost quixotic in the opinion he entertained of her purity, and even when he felt himself compelled to condemn, there was invariably apparent in his condemnation a touch of beautiful pity it was an experience to meet with in this shrug-shoulder age, in which cynicism and light words upon noble themes have become the fashion. That he was free from faults I do not assert, but his errors had in them nothing of that low kind of vice which your Reporter has so glibly attached to his name.

“I have already said I have not the pleasure of an acquaintance with Mrs. Lydia Holdfast; neither was I acquainted with her murdered husband, my dead friend’s father. But I have heard Frederick speak of his father, and always with respect and love. I can go further than this. I have read letters which Mr. Holdfast in London wrote to his son in Oxford, and I cannot recall a sentence or a word which would imply that any difference existed between father and son. These facts go far to prove the accusation I bring against your Reporter of libelling the dead. He, in his turn, may find justification for the picture he has drawn in the statements made to him by Mrs. Lydia Holdfast. With this I have nothing to do; I leave them to settle the matter between them. My duty is to vindicate the honour of my friend, who cannot speak for himself. I ask you to insert this letter, without abbreviation, in your columns, and I ask those papers at a distance which have quoted from your Romance in Real Life, to copy the letter, to prevent injustice to a dead man’s memory. I enclose my card, as a guarantee of good faith; but I do not wish my name to be published. At the same time, should public occasion demand it, I shall be ready to come forward and personally substantiate the substance of this communication.