Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 2

by B. L. Farjeon

“You have heard bad news, sir,” I said.

“I have heard what I would have given my fortune and my life had never been spoken. It is incredible that one whom I loved should bring dishonour upon my name and shame into my house!”

Here I must pause for a moment or two. When I commenced this statement I had no idea that it would stretch out to its present length, and so anxious am I that it should reach you as early as possible that I will shorten the description of what remains to be told. Prepare to be shocked and amazed—as I myself was shocked and amazed at the revelation made to me that morning in my father’s study, on that last morning I ever spent in his house. You think you know the character of this woman who plays with men’s lives and honour as though they were toys to amuse an idle hour. You do not yet comprehend the depths of infamy to which such a nature as hers can descend. Nor did I until I left my father’s house, never to return.

She had, as she declared she would, made a confession to my father during the night; it was not a confession of her own shameful life, but an invention so horrible as almost, at the time I heard it, to deprive me of the power of speech. She accused me of playing the lover to her; she described me as a profligate of the vilest kind. She made my father believe that from the moment I saw her I filled her ears with protestations and proposals which I should be ashamed to repeat to one as pure and innocent as yourself. Day after day, hour after hour, she had followed out the plan she had devised to shut me from my father’s heart and deprive me of his love, and so skilfully and artfully were all the details guided by her wicked mind that, presented as they were to my father with tears, and sobs, and tremblings, he could scarcely avoid believing in their truth. Twice on the previous day—so her story ran—had I forced myself into her private room; once in the morning when my father was in his city office, and again in the night when she was about to retire to rest, and when I knew that my father was not in the house. Unfortunately, as she said, for she would have preferred that a scandal so shameful should have no chance of becoming public, her maid entered the room on both occasions, and witnessed portions of the scenes. In the morning, when her maid intruded herself, she had dismissed her, and thereafter implored me to leave her in peace. In the evening I was so violent that she had to seek protection from her maid. She called the maid, who corroborated her in every particular; and she produced other evidence against me in the shape of the locket I had worn on my chain. When she handed this locket to my father it contained a portrait of myself—a small head carefully cut from a photograph—and she declared that I had forced the likeness upon her, and had insisted upon her wearing it. She said that she had endeavoured by every means in her power to wean me from my guilty passion; that a dozen times she had been on the point of exposing me to her husband, but had always been prevented by a feeling of tenderness for him and by a hope, which grew fainter and fainter every day, that I might awake from my folly; that no woman had ever been subjected to such cruel persecution and had ever suffered so much as she had; and that, at length, unable to keep the horrible secret to herself, she had resolved to impart it to her husband, and throw herself upon his protection.

Nor was this all. I had threatened, if she would not receive me as her lover, that I would bring the most shameful charges against her, and by the aid of bribed assistants, whom I should call as witnesses, blast her reputation and ruin her happiness. The very words I had used to her in our interview on the previous day were repeated to me by my father, so artfully twisted as to render them powerless against herself and conclusive against me.

From this brief description you will be able to form some idea of the position in which I was placed during this interview with my father. I was allowed no opportunity of defence. My father’s wife had contrived to rouse to its utmost pitch the chivalry of his nature in her behalf. I doubt whether my father at that time would have received any evidence, however conclusive, against her, and whether, in the peculiar frame of mind into which she had worked him he would not have accepted every proof of her guilt as proof of her virtue.

His recital of his wife’s wrongs being at an end, he addressed himself to me in terms so violent, so unfatherly, so unjust, that I lost my self-command. Such a scene as followed is rare, I hope, between father and son. He discarded me; he swore he would never look upon me as a son; would never think of me; would never receive me. He forbade me ever to address or refer to him; he banished me from his house and his heart; he flung money at me, as he would have done at a beggar; he was in every way so insulting that my feelings as a man overcame my duty as a son; and we used such words to each other as men can scarcely ever forget or forgive. To such extremes and opposites can a false woman drive men ordinarily just, and kind, and temperate.

The scene ended thus. I repudiated my father as he repudiated me; I trampled his money under my feet; I told him that he would one day awake from his dream; and I swore that never, until he asked my forgiveness, would I use or acknowledge the name of Holdfast, which he, and not I, was dishonouring. He held me to my oath; in a fit of fury he produced a Bible, and bade me repeat it. I did so solemnly, and I kissed the sacred Book. He threw the door open wide, and pointed sternly.

“Go,” he said. “I turn you from my house. You and I have done with each other for ever.”

I went in silence, and as the sound of the shutting of the street door fell upon my ears, I felt as if I had cut myself from myself. I walked into the streets a forlorn and lonely man, with no name, no past, no friend. I did not meet any person who knew me; I called a cab, and drove to a remote part of London, where I hired a room in a common lodging-house. But I had not been there an hour before I discovered myself to be a mark for observation. My clothes, perhaps my manner, betrayed me. I left the house, and strolled into a railway station. I could not feel myself safe until I was in a place where I was utterly unknown and entirely free. Standing before a railway time-bill, the first name that attracted me was Exeter. The train was to start in half-an-hour, and I bought my ticket. Thus it was that, by a mere accident, I journeyed to the town in which I was to meet and love you. On my way I decided upon the name I would assume. Frederick was common enough, and I retained it; I added to it the name of Maitland. On my way, also, I reviewed my circumstances, and decided upon my plan of action. I had in money, saved from my father’s liberal allowance while I was at Oxford, nearly four hundred pounds. Business I did not understand, and was not fit for. I was competent to undertake the duties of a tutor. I determined to look out for such a situation, either in England or abroad, but on no account in any family likely to reside in London or Oxford. In Exeter I employed myself, for a few weeks, in writing for the press. I obtained introduction to a gentleman who occupied the position of editor of a small local newspaper, and him I assisted. I did not ask for pay, nor did I receive any. I was glad of any occupation to distract my thoughts. Through this friend I heard of a situation likely to suit me. A gentleman wanted a tutor for his son, whose ill-health compelled him to be much at home. I applied for the situation, and obtained it. In that family you were also employed, as music teacher, and thus you and I became acquainted.