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.
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