CHAPTER XVIII
THE “EVENING MOON” RE-OPENS THE SUBJECT OF THE GREAT PORTER SQUARE MURDER, AND RELATES A ROMANTIC STORY CONCERNING THE MURDERED MAN AND HIS WIDOW
A few hours before Becky wrote this last letter to the man she loved, the Evening Moon presented its readers with a Supplement entirely devoted to particulars relating to the murder in No. 119, Great Porter Square. The Supplement was distinguished by a number of sensational headings which the street news-vendors industriously circulated with the full force of their lungs: —
THE MURDER IN GREAT PORTER SQUARE
A ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE
A HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS
WEALTH, BEAUTY, AND LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
After a lapse of several weeks, we re-open the subject of the murder in Great Porter Square. Although the murderer is still at large, the affair has advanced another and most important stage, and one element of mystery in connection with it is satisfactorily cleared up. We are about to disclose the name of the murdered man, and at the same time to lay before our readers certain interesting information relating to him which without doubt will be eagerly read. For this information we are again indebted to the Special Reporter, whose graphic account of the trial and of his subsequent adventures in relation to Antony Cowlrick, the person accused of the murder, has been circulated far and wide.
Until now, the murder in Great Porter Square has been distinguished by two unsatisfactory features. The first and most important is that the murderer was undiscovered. Unhappily no light has been thrown upon this part of the affair. The second, and most interesting feature, was that the man who was murdered was unknown. We do not remember a parallel case. But the murdered man is now identified, and his widow is lamenting his cruel and untimely death. Before our readers reach the end of our article, which, for the purpose of better description, we throw into narrative form, they will indeed admit that truth is stranger than fiction.
There lived in the West of London, near to one of our most fashionable parks, a gentleman of the name of Holdfast. He was a widower, having lost his wife a year before the commencement of our narrative. He had but one child, a son named Frederick, who was at Oxford, with a liberal allowance. The son is described as a young gentleman with engaging manners, and of a lively disposition; it was whispered also, that he was given to dissipation, and had made his father’s purse suffer to a woeful extent. There is nothing extraordinary in this. What are rich fathers good for in this world if they send their sons to college and keep their pockets buttoned? Money lenders must live, and they take especial good care to thrive and grow fat. Young gentlemen must see life, and they take especial good care to drink deep of the intoxicating cup, and to sow a plentiful crop of wild oats. It is an old story, and our readers will have no difficulty in supplying certain accessories in the shape of pretty women, late suppers, horse racing, gambling, kite flying, post obits, and the thousand and one other commonplace but important elements in the younger days of manhood in the life of an only son.
The death of Mr. Holdfast’s wife was a severe blow to him; his son was left to him, truly; but what comfort to the bereaved father could a son have been who was endowed with vicious tastes, and whose career of dissipation was capped by a depraved association with degraded women – especially with one with whom he formed a close connection, which would have broken his father’s heart, had that father himself not been of a self-sustaining, proud, and high-minded disposition. The news of his son’s disgraceful connection, although it did not break the father’s heart, was the means of effecting a breach between the father and son which was destined never to be healed. Before, however, this severance took place, an important change occurred in Mr. Holdfast’s household. Mr. Holdfast married again, a very lovely woman, whose name, before she became Mrs. Holdfast, was Lydia Wilson.
The lady was young, and an orphan. Her relatives were far away in the country, and she was alone in London. Her entire wealth amounted to about five hundred pounds in United States bonds. It was while she was on a visit to the City, with the intention of converting these bonds into English money, that she and Mr. Holdfast first met. The Royal Exchange does not suggest itself as the most likely place in the world in which a gentleman of Mr. Holdfast’s age and character would fall in love at first sight. It happened, however. He saw the young lady looking about her, perplexed and bewildered by the bustling throng of clerks, brokers, and speculators; it was the busiest time of the day, and it could not escape Mr. Holdfast’s notice, his attention having been first arrested by the loveliness of her face and figure, that she was utterly unused to the busy scene in which she found herself. The young lady made an attempt to cross the road between the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange; she became confused amid the bewildering tangle of vehicles, and was in danger of being run over, when Mr. Holdfast hastened to her rescue. The road safely crossed, she looked into Mr. Holdfast’s face and thanked him. So there, in the midst of the world’s busiest mart, the story of a romance was commenced which might serve novelists with a tempting theme. For the particulars of the story we are now relating we are indebted to the lady herself, still young and beautiful, but plunged into the deepest grief by the murder of her husband. It is difficult for us to appropriately describe her modesty and innocent confidence in the interview between her and our Reporter. It is not that she is beautiful, and one of England’s fairest daughters, but it is that truth dwells in her face and eyes. Her voice is peculiarly soft and sweet, and to doubt her when she speaks is an impossibility.
Nothing was more natural than that Mr. Holdfast, having thus far assisted the young lady, should inquire if he could be of any further use to her. Miss Lydia Wilson really was in quest of a broker, to whom she had been recommended to negotiate the sale of her bonds, but in her confusion and terror she had forgotten both name and address. Ascertaining the nature of her mission, Mr. Holdfast offered to introduce her to a respectable firm; she accepted his offer, and they walked together to the broker’s office. On the way they conversed, and Mr. Holdfast learnt, among other particulars, that the young lady was an orphan, and that these bonds represented all that she had in the world to depend upon. In the broker’s office the young lady produced her securities and gave them to the principal of the firm. He sent out at once to ascertain the exact price of the market; the clerk departed, with the bonds in his possession, and was absent longer than he was expected to be. At length he returned, and requested a private interview with his employer. The interview took place, and the broker presently returned, and inquired of Miss Wilson how she became possessed of the bonds.
The lady replied haughtily that she was not in a broker’s office to be catechised by a stranger about her private affairs; and upon that Mr. Holdfast also spoke warmly in the lady’s behalf. The broker rejoined that Miss Lydia Wilson was as much a stranger to him as he was to her. Again, Mr. Holdfast, seeing that the lovely woman who had been thrown upon his protection was agitated by the broker’s manner, interposed.
“You forget,” he said, “that it was I who introduced this lady to your firm. Is not my introduction a sufficient guarantee?”
“Amply sufficient,” said the broker. “But business is business; such securities as these cannot easily be disposed of.”
“Why?” inquired Mr. Holdfast.
“Because,” said the broker, “they are forgeries.”
“Then I am ruined!” cried the young lady.
“No,” said Mr. Holdfast. “If the bonds are forgeries, you shall not be the loser – that is, if you will confer upon me the honour of accepting me as your banker.”
The young lady could not continue so delicate a conversation in the presence of a man who seemed to doubt her. She rose to leave the broker’s office, and when she and Mr. Holdfast were again in the open air, he said:
“Allow me to know more of you. I shall undoubtedly be able to assist you. You cannot conceal from me that the unexpected discovery of this forgery is likely to deeply embarrass you. Do not consider me impertinent when I hazard the guess that you had an immediate use for some part of the money you expected to receive from the sale of these securities.”
“You guess rightly,” said the young lady; “I wished to discharge a few trifling debts.” Her lips trembled, and her eyes were filled with tears.
“And – asking you to pardon my presumption – your purse is not too heavily weighted.”
“I have just,” said the young lady, producing her purse, and opening it, “three shillings and sixpence to live upon.”
Now, although this was a serious declaration, the young lady, when she made it, spoke almost merrily. Her lips no longer trembled, her eyes were bright again. These sudden changes of humour, from sorrow to gaiety, from pensiveness to light-heartedness, are not her least charming attributes. Small wonder that Mr. Holdfast was captivated by them and by her beauty!
“What a child you are!” he exclaimed. “Three shillings and sixpence is not sufficient to keep you for half a day.”
“Is it not?” asked the young lady, with delightful simplicity. “What a pity it is that we cannot live like fairies.”
“My dear young lady,” remarked Mr. Holdfast, taking her hand in his, “you sadly need a protector. Have you really any objection to letting me hear the story of these bonds?”
She related it to him without hesitation. It was simple enough. Some years ago, being already motherless, her father died, and left her in the care of his sister, a married woman with a family. The orphan girl had a guardian who, singular to say, she never saw. He lived in London, she in the country. The guardian, she understood from her father’s last words, held in trust for her a sum of money, represented by bonds, which she would receive when she became twenty-one years of age. In the meantime she was to live with her aunt, who was to be paid from the money due from time to time for interest on the bonds. The payment for her board and lodging was forwarded regularly by the young lady’s guardian, and she looked forward impatiently to the time when she would become her own mistress. She was unhappy in the house of her aunt, who treated her more like a dependent than a relative and a lady.
“I think,” said Mrs. Holdfast to our Reporter, “that she was disappointed the money had not been left to her instead of me, and that she would have been glad if I had died, so that she might obtain possession of it as next of kin. It would not have benefited her, the bonds being of no value, for it was hardly likely she would have met with such a friend as Mr. Holdfast proved to me – the best, the most generous of men! And I have lost him! I have lost him!”
Bursts of grief such as this were frequent during the interview, which we are throwing into the form of a narrative, with no more licence, we hope, than we are entitled to use.
The story went on to its natural end. The young lady’s position in the house to which her father confided her became almost unendurable, but she was compelled to suffer in silence. A small allowance for pocket money was sent to her by her guardian, and the best part of this she saved to defray the expenses to London and to enable her to live for a while; for she was resolved to leave her aunt on the very day she reached the age of twenty-one.
“Do I look older?” she asked of our Reporter.
He replied, with truth and gallantry, that he would have scarcely taken her for that.
“You flatter me,” she said, with a sad smile; “I feel as if I were fifty. This dreadful blow has made an old woman of me!”
To conclude the story she related to Mr. Holdfast, the day before she was twenty-one she received a packet from her guardian in London, and a letter saying that he was going abroad, to America she believed, perhaps never to return, and that he completed the trust imposed upon him by her father by sending her her little fortune. It was contained in the packet, and consisted of the United States bonds which had that day been declared to be forgeries. The departure of her guardian did not cause her to waver in her determination to leave her aunt’s home the moment she was entitled to do so. Her life had been completely wretched and unhappy, and her only desire was to place a long distance between herself and her cruel relative, so that the woman could not harass her. The day arrived, and with a light heart, with her fortune in her pocket, Lydia Wilson, without even wishing her aunt good-bye or giving the slightest clue as to the direction of her flight, left her home, and took a railway ticket to London. “Not all the way to London first,” said the young lady; “I broke the journey half-way, so that if my aunt followed me, she would have the greater difficulty in discovering me.” The young lady arrived in London, and took a modest lodging in what she believed to be a respectable part of the City. When she met Mr. Holdfast, she had been in London five weeks, and the little money she had saved was gone, with the exception of three shillings and sixpence. Then she fell back upon the bonds, and considered herself as rich as a princess.
“But even this money,” said Mr. Holdfast to her, “would not last for ever.”
“O, yes, it would,” insisted the young lady; “I would have made it last for ever!”
What was to be done with so impracticable and charming a creature, with a young lady, utterly alone and without resources, and whose tastes, as she herself admits, were always of an expensive kind?
Mr. Holdfast saw the danger which beset her, and determined to shield her from harm. To have warned her of the pitfalls and traps with which such a city as London is dotted would have been next to useless. To such an innocent mind as hers, the warning itself would have seemed like a trap to snare the woman it was intended to save.
“Have you any objection,” said Mr. Holdfast, when the young lady’s story was finished, “to my endeavouring to find the guardian who has wronged you? America is now a near land, and I could enlist the services of men who would not fail to track the scoundrel.”
But to this proposition the young lady would not consent. The bonds might have been given to her guardian by her dead father. In that case, the honour of a beloved parent might be called into question. Anything in preference to that; poverty, privation, perhaps an early death! Mr. Holdfast was touched to his inmost soul by the pathos of this situation.
“I will keep the bonds,” he said, “and shall insist upon your accepting the offer of my friendship.”
“Promise me, then,” said the young lady, conquered by his earnestness and undoubted honesty of intention, “that you will take no steps to compromise the honoured name of my dear father. Promise me that you will not show the bonds to strangers.”
“No eye but mine shall see them,” said Mr. Holdfast, opening his safe and depositing the prized securities in a secret drawer. “And now,” he continued, “you bank with me, and you draw from me fifty pounds, represented by eight five-pound notes and ten sovereigns in gold. Here they are. Count them. No? Very well. Count them when you get home, and take great care of them. You little know the roguery of human nature. There’s not a day that you cannot read in the London papers accounts of ladies having their pockets picked and their purses stolen. Let me see your purse. Why, it is a fairy purse! You cannot get half of this money into it. My dear young lady, we cannot live like the fairies. Human creatures are bound to be, to some small extent, practical. Take my purse – it is utterly unfit for your delicate hands, but it will answer its present purpose. See. I pack the money safely in it; take it home and put it in a place of safety.”
“How can I repay you?” asked the young lady, impressed no less by this gentleman’s generosity than by his wonderful kindness of manner.
“By saying we are friends,” he replied, “and by promising to come to see me soon again.”
“Of course, I must do that,” she said, gaily, “to see that my banker does not run away.”
The next thing he asked for was her address, but she was not inclined, at first, to give it to him; he appreciated the reason for her disinclination, and said that he had no intention of calling upon her, and that he wanted the address to use only in the event of its being necessary to write to her.
“I can trust you,” she said, and complied with his wish.
To his surprise and gratification the young lady, of her own accord, paid him a visit on the following day. She entered his office with a smiling face, causing, no doubt, quite a flutter in the hearts of Mr. Holdfast’s clerks and bookkeepers. It is not often so fair a vision is seen in a London’s merchant’s place of business.
From the young lady’s appearance Mr. Holdfast was led to believe that she had news of a joyful nature to communicate, and he was therefore very much astonished when she said, in the pleasantest manner:
“I have lost your purse.”
“With the money in it?” he inquired, his tone expressing his astonishment.
“Yes, I am sorry to say,” she replied, laughing at his consternation, “with the money in it. I did not like to come back yesterday, for fear you would scold me.”
“You lost it yesterday, then?”
“Yes, within an hour of my leaving your office.”
“How on earth did it happen?”
“In the simplest manner possible. You were quite right, Mr. Holdfast, in saying that I did not know the roguery of human nature. I was standing at a cake shop, looking in at the window – I am so fond of cakes! – and two little girls and a woman were standing by my side. The children were talking – they would like this cake, they would like that – and such a many round O’s fell from their lips that I could not help being amused. Poor little things! They looked very hungry, and I quite pitied them. Some one tapped my left shoulder, and I turned round to see who it was – when, would you believe it? – your purse, which was in my right hand, was snatched from me like lightning. And the extraordinary part of the affair is, that I saw no one behind me, nor any person except the woman and two children within yards of me!”
She related the particulars of the robbery as though it had not happened to her and did not affect her, but some stranger who had plenty of money, and would not feel the loss.
“What did you do?” asked Mr. Holdfast.
“I laughed. I couldn’t help it – it was so clever! Of course I looked about me, but that did not bring back your purse. Then I took the poor children into the cake shop, and treated them to cakes, and had some myself, and gave them what money remained of my three shillings and sixpence, and sent them home quite happy.”
“And left yourself without a penny?” said Mr. Holdfast, almost overcome with delight, as he afterwards told her, at her childish innocence, simplicity and kindness.
“Yes,” she replied, overjoyed that he did not scold her, “I left myself without a penny.”
“You will have to buy me another purse,” he said.
The young lady exhibited her own little fairy porte-monnaie, and turned it out – there was not a sixpence in it. “You must give me some money to do it with,” she said.
“You are not fit to be trusted with money,” he said; “I really am puzzled what to do with you.”
Upon this she burst into tears; her helpless position, and his goodness and tenderness, overcame her.
“If you cry like that,” he said softly, “I shall never forgive myself.”
Her depression vanished; her sunny look returned; and they conversed together thereafter as though they had known each other for years – as though he had been her father’s friend, and had nursed her on his knee when she was a child. Needless to say, he made matters right with this simple, innocent, confiding young lady, and that from that time there existed between them a bond which was destined to ripen into the closest and most binding tie which man and woman can contract. At first she looked upon him as her second father, but insensibly there dawned upon her soul a love as sweet and strong as if he had been a twenty years younger man than he was. When he asked her to be his wife, telling her that he most truly loved her, that he would devote himself to her and make her the happiest woman in the world, she raised a thousand objections.
“One objection would be sufficient,” he said, sadly, “if you cannot forget it. My age.”
She declared, indeed, that that was not an obstacle – that she looked up to him as she could to no other man – that he was the noblest being who had ever crossed her path of life, and that she could never, never forget him. Mr. Holdfast urged her then to explain to him in plain terms the precise nature of her objections.
“I can make you happy,” he said.
“You could make any woman happy,” she replied.
“And I should be the happiest man – you would make me so.”
“I would try,” she replied, softly.
“Then tell me why you raise cruel obstacles in the way of our happiness. I will marry you by force if you are not candid with me.”
“You know nothing of my family,” she said; “my parents are dead, and the few relatives I have I would not allow to darken the threshold of your door.”
“Nor shall they. You shall be the mistress and the master of my house, and I will be your slave.”
“For shame to talk in that way to a foolish girl like me – to a girl who is almost nameless, and who has not a shilling to her fortune!”
“Have I not more than enough? Do you wish to make me believe that you do not understand my character?”
“No; I do understand it, and if you were poor like me, or I were rich like you – But even then there would be an obstacle hard to surmount. Your son is but a few years older than myself – he might be my brother. I should be ashamed to look him in the face. He would say I married you for your money. Before the wedding day, were he to say a word to me, were he to give one look, to touch my pride, I would run away, and you would never, never find me. Ah! let us say good-bye – let us shake hands and part! It is best so. Then I shall never have anything to reproach myself with. Then I should not be made to suffer from the remarks of envious people that I tricked you into a marriage with a penniless, friendless girl!”
“As God is my judge,” he cried, “you shall be my wife, and no other man’s! I will not let you escape me! And to make matters sure, we will give neither my son – who would bring my name to shame – nor envious people the power to say a word to hurt your feelings. We will be married privately, by the registrar. Leave all to me. I look upon you as my wife from this day. Place your hand in mine, and say you will marry me, or I will never more believe in woman’s truth.”
His impetuosity carried the day – he spoke with the fire of a young man of twenty-five. She placed her hand in his, and said,
“I am yours.”
Three weeks afterwards, Lydia Wilson became Mr. Holdfast’s wife, and his son Frederick was in ignorance that he had married again. The date of the marriage was exactly two years to the day before the fatal night upon which Mr. Holdfast was found murdered in No. 119 Great Porter Square.