FREDERICK HOLDFAST'S STATEMENT (CONCLUDED).
Under these circumstances the obstacles before me became almost
insurmountable. The residents of the burning city were in a state of
the wildest confusion, and my anxious inquiries for my father were
fruitless; I could obtain no news of him; not a person to whom I spoke,
not even those connected with the hotel, could inform me whether a
gentleman named Holdfast, or one answering to my description of him, had
stopped at the Briggs' House.
I was perplexed how to act, but an idea that it would be well for me to
remain upon the spot, on the chance that I might yet learn something
of my father, caused me to resolve not to leave Chicago for awhile. To
this resolution I was pledged by my necessities. I was penniless, and
to return immediately to New York was a matter of impossibility.
I had no difficulty in obtaining sufficient to live upon from day to
day. Assistance and food poured into the city from all parts of the
States, and already upon the burning ruins men were beginning to rebuild
their stores and houses. Every pair of hands was valuable, and I worked
with the rest, never for a moment losing sight of the vital mission upon
which I was engaged. For a month I remained in Chicago, and having by
that time earned enough money to carry me to New York, and being also
satisfied that I had exhausted every channel open to me through which
I might hear of or from my father, I took the train back, and in
thirty-six hours reached the hotel in New York from which my father had
addressed his letters to me. It appeared as if I had taken the right
step, for on the very day of my arrival I saw among the "Personals" in
the _New York Herald_ the following advertisement:
"F.H.--The day before you leave America for England advertise in the
_Herald's_ Personal column the name of the ship in which you have
taken your passage. It is of the utmost importance. Implicit silence
until we meet."
Mysterious as was this communication, it afforded me satisfaction.
My father, doubtless, had his own good reasons for the course he was
pursuing, but it hurt me that he had not, by a few words which I alone
could have understood, removed from me the obligation entailed upon me
by my solemn oath to pass myself off under a false name. Until he asked
my forgiveness, or acknowledged his error, I could not resume my own.
I entered the hotel, and there another surprise awaited me. My father
had, during my absence in Chicago, lived at the hotel for nearly a
fortnight. In an interview with the manager, I was informed that the
description my father had received of my personal appearance had much
excited him. "I could not give him your name," said the manager, "as you
did not leave any. He made inquiries for you everywhere, and employed
detectives to discover you, but they were not successful. He appeared as
anxious to see you as you were to see him."
"He has been to Chicago, has he not?" I asked. "He was there at the time
of the fire, and stopped at the Briggs' House?"
"Not to my knowledge," replied the manager. "He has not spoken of it;
and it is one of the things a man _would_ speak of. Such a scene as
that!--and the Briggs' House burnt to the ground, too! No, I don't think
Mr. Holdfast went to Chicago."
I made no comment upon this; doubtless my father did not wish his
movements to be too widely known.
"Where is Mr. Holdfast now?" I inquired.
"Very near Liverpool," was the reply. "He left in the Germanic this day
week. There is a letter in the office for you which I was to deliver
into your hands in case you called. No one else could do so, as you see
no name is on the envelope, and as no other person but myself could
identify you."
The letter informed me that my father was returning to England, and
I was desired to follow him immediately. To enable me to do this he
enclosed Bank of England notes for £200, and in addition a draft for
£500 payable at sight to bearer at a bank in London. The concluding
words of the letter were "Upon your arrival in Liverpool go to the
Post-office there, where a letter will await you, instructing you how
to proceed."
Made happy by this communication, but still more than ever impressed by
the consciousness that a mystery existed which rendered it necessary
to be cautious, I thanked the manager of the hotel, and hastened to a
shipping office in Broadway, where I paid my passage in a steamer which
was to leave in a couple of days. Then I went to the _Herald_ office,
and paid for an advertisement in the Personal column, giving the name of
the ship in which I had taken passage, and the date of its departure.
Before the expiration of two weeks I landed in Liverpool, and applied at
the Post Office for a letter. One was handed to me in the handwriting of
my father. Imagine my astonishment at its contents. So as to make this
statement in a certain measure complete, I will endeavour to recall what
it contained.
"Frederick, and whatever other name you choose to call yourself by.
In sending you to Chicago, and causing you to follow me back to
England, I have had but one motive--to impress upon you that you
cannot escape the consequences of your slander upon the noblest
woman breathing. In whatever part of the world you may be, my hate
and curse shall follow you. Now, present yourself before me and beg
upon your knees for mercy and forgiveness; it will be another proof
of your currish spirit! I shall know how to receive you, Slanderer!"
I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses. I trembled with
amazement and indignation. That such a trick should have been played
upon me was altogether so astonishing and incomprehensible that I looked
about me in bewilderment for a faithful heart upon whose sympathy I
could throw myself for consolation. I thought of you, and determined to
come to you, and ask for counsel and comfort. But before I started for
Exeter there was something to do which, to leave undone, would have
brought a life-long shame upon me. I took from the money remaining of
the £200 I received in New York as much as would carry me to your side;
the rest I enclosed in an envelope, with the sight draft for £500, and
sent it to my father's address in London, with these words: "May God
pardon you for the wrong you have done me! I will never seek you, nor,
if you seek me, will I ever come to you. The money I have spent of the
£200 I will endeavour to repay you; but what else, besides money, we owe
to each other can never be repaid in this world."
I posted this letter, and journeyed on to Exeter, and there another
grief awaited me. You had left the town; your mother was dead, had been
dead for weeks, and you had not informed me of it in your letters. I
will be frank with you. So overwhelmed was I by what had taken place,
so much was my spirit bruised, that it seemed as if faith in human kind
had entirely deserted me. For a moment, my dear, I doubted even you;
but then the better and truer hope dawned upon me that, knowing from my
letters how unfortunate and unhappy I had been, you had withheld from me
the news of your own deep trouble so that it might not add to mine.
What now was I to do? All that I could learn of you was that you had
gone to London; there, then, was my duty. To London I must go, and
endeavour to find you, and endeavour at the same time to hide myself
from my father who had so shamefully abused me. But I had no money--not
a shilling. I could raise a little, however. Before I left New York I
had provided myself with good clothes, and these were on me now. I went
to a vile shop in one of the worst parts of Exeter, and there I bartered
the clothes I stood upright in for a sum of money barely sufficient to
take me to London and to enable me to live there on dry bread for a few
days. Included in this bargain, to my necessity and advantage, was a
ragged suit of clothes in which I dressed, after divesting myself of
my better habiliments, and thus, clothed like a beggar, and with a
despairing heart beating in my bosom, I made my way to London. At the
end of a week I had not a penny left, and I was so hungry that I had to
beg for bread of a girl standing at the wooden gate of a poor-looking
house.
The girl's heart was touched--God bless her for it!--and she ran into
the house, and brought out a few pieces of stale bread and cheese,
wrapped in a bit of newspaper. I stood by a lamp-post, munching the
hard bread, and looking at the bit of newspaper the while. What I read
related to a mysterious, fearful murder which had been committed in
Great Porter Square. Nothing was known of the murdered man, and his
murderer had not been discovered. The names of both were shrouded in
mystery. "So might it be with me," I thought; "if I were murdered this
night, there is about me or upon me absolutely no mark or sign by which
I could be identified."
Ah, my dear, London's mysteries are many and terrible! Imagination
cannot compass or excel them.
It was a dark night, and I wandered aimlessly through the streets,
saving some of the bread for my supper later on. The hopelessness of
the task before me, that of discovering you, filled me with a deeper
despair. It was as though I were shut out from all sympathy with my
kind. By what I now believe to be a kind of fate, I wandered, without
knowing the direction I was taking, towards Great Porter Square. I came
to the Square itself, and looked up at the name in the endeavour to
read it. "Are you looking for Great Porter Square?" asked a woman who
was passing by. "That's it--where the murder was committed." Well, it in
no way concerned me. A man was murdered there. What of it? He was out of
his misery. That was the substance of my reflections. He was out of his
misery, as I wished I was out of mine. For the minutes were hours, every
one of which deepened my despair. I worked myself into a condition so
morbid and utterly wretched that I gave up all hope of finding you. I
had no place to lie in that night, and on the previous night I had slept
in the open. The morning light would shine upon me, penniless, starving,
and so woe-begone as to be a mark for men. I began to think I had had
enough of life. And all the while these gloomy thoughts were driving
me to the lowest depths I continued to walk round and about the
thoroughfares of the Square in which the murder had been committed.
After a time, the consciousness of this forced itself upon me, and the
idea entered my mind that I would go into the Square itself, and look
at the house. I followed out my idea, and walked slowly round the Square
until I came to No. 119. I lingered before it for a moment or two, and
then walked the entire circuit; and as I did so another suggestion
presented itself. From the appearance of the house I judged it to be
deserted. If I could gain admittance I should have, at least, a shelter
from the night for a few hours; if there were a bed in it I should have
a bed; the circumstance of the murder having been committed there had
no real terrors for me. I had arrived at this mental stage when I found
myself once more before the house; I was munching some bread at the
time. I ascended the steps and tried the street door, and as I laid my
hand upon the handle a policeman came up to me and endeavoured to seize
me. A sudden terror fell upon me, and I shook him off roughly, and flew
as though I were flying for my life; and, as I have already described to
you, as I flew, the fancy crept upon me that my presence in the Square,
my trying the door, and now my flight, had brought me into deadly peril
in connection with the murder. I heard the policeman running after
me. He sprang his rattle; the air seemed filled with pursuing enemies
hunting me down, and I flew the faster, but only to fall at last, quite
exhausted, into the arms of men, in whose remarks I heard a confirmation
of my fears. Then I became cooler, and was marched to a police station,
mocking myself as it were in a temper of devilish taunting despair, to
be accused of a crime of which no man living was more innocent. When I
was asked for my name by the inspector I did not immediately answer. My
own name I dared not give; nor could I give the name by which you knew
me. I would endeavour to keep my disgrace from your knowledge; so I gave
a false name, the first that occurred to me, Antony Cowlrick, and gave
it in such a way that the police knew it to be false. After that, I was
thrown into a cell, where in solitude I might repent of my crimes and
misdeeds. So bitter was my mood that I resolved to keep my tongue silent
and say no word about myself. I knew that I was an innocent man, and
I looked forward somewhat curiously to learn by what villainous and
skilful means my accusers could bring the crime of murder home to me.
I pass over the dismal weeks of my farce of a trial, and I come to our
meeting in Leicester Square.
It was my first gleam of sunshine for many a week, but another was to
warm me during the day. With you by my side my strength of mind, my hope
returned. The only money I had was the sovereign lent to me by the
Special Reporter of the "Evening Moon;" you were poorer than I, and had,
when we so happily met, exhausted your resources. The very engagement
ring I gave you had been pawned to enable you to live. Money was
necessary. How could I obtain it? Could I not apply to one of my former
friends? I ran over in my mind the list of those whose people lived in
London, and I paused at the name of Adolph, who had played so memorable
a part in the Sydney Campbell tragedy. His parents lived in London, and
were wealthy. If Adolph were home I would appeal to him, and solicit
help from him. We drove to his father's house, stopping on the way at
a barber's, by whose aid I made myself more presentable. Adolph was in
London, and luckily at home. I sent up my name, and he came to me, and
wished me to enter the house, and be introduced to his people; but I
pointed to my clothes and refused. He accompanied me from his house, and
when we were in a secluded spot I told him my story under a pledge of
secrecy. He has a good heart, and he expressed himself as owing me a
debt of gratitude which he should never be able to repay. I pointed out
to him how he could repay me, and the generous-hearted lad gave me not
only a hundred pounds, but a bill, long-dated, which a money-lender
discounted for me, and which placed me in possession of a comparatively
large sum of money. I hope to be able to pay this debt. I think I shall
be, in the course of time.
But Adolph served me in more ways than one, and in a way neither he nor
I could have dreamt of. The money-lender he recommended me to go to
lived in the City, and to reach his office I had to pass my father's
place of business. I drove there in a four-wheeled cab, and to avoid
notice I kept the windows up. But as I passed my father's City house
I could not help looking towards it, and I was surprised to find it
closed. My own name did not appear upon the bill, and the money-lender
and I were strangers to each other. I did not hesitate, therefore, when
our business was concluded, to inquire if he knew Mr. Holdfast, and
he replied that the name was well-known in the City. I then inquired
why his place of business was closed, and received, in answer, the
unexpected information that my father was in America, and had been there
for many months. Upon this, I said in a careless tone, as though it were
a matter in which I was but slightly interested, that I had heard that
Mr. Holdfast had returned from America two or three months ago.
"Oh, no," was the reply; "Mr. Holdfast had not yet come back."
This set me thinking, and added another link to the mystery and sorrow
of my life. I determined to assure myself whether my father was
really in London, and on the following day I sent to his house, by
a confidential messenger, an envelope. It was simply a test of the
money-lender's statement. The messenger returned to me with the envelope
unopened, and with the information that my father was in America. "I
inquired of the workpeople," said my messenger, "and was told that Mr.
Holdfast had not been seen in the neighbourhood for quite half a year."
What conclusion was I to draw from this startling disclosure? My father,
returning to England in the Germanic, had never been heard of either at
his house of business or at his home? What, then, had become of him?
What motive had he for mysterious concealment? Arguing, as I believed to
be the case when I received the first letter from him in New York, that
he had discovered the infamous character of the woman he had made his
wife, there _was_ perhaps a motive for his not living in the house to
which he had brought her; but it was surely reasonable to expect that
his return would be known at his place of business. I reflected upon the
nature and character of my father's wife, and upon the character of her
scheming lover, Mr. Pelham; I subjected them to a mental analysis of the
most searching kind, and I could arrive at but one conclusion--Foul
Play! Judging from what had occurred between them and my poor friend,
Sydney Campbell, there was no plot too treacherous for them to engage
in, no scheme too wicked for them to devise and carry out. Foul Play
rose before me in a thousand hideous shapes, until in its many-sided
mental guise it became a conviction so strong that I did not pause to
doubt it. Then arose another phase of the affair. If there had been
Foul Play with my father, was it not reasonable to suppose that I,
also, had been made the victim of clever tricksters? This, too, in a
vague inexplicable way, became a conviction. A number of conflicting
circumstances at once occurred to me in confirmation. The advertisement
in the _New York Herald_ desiring me to proceed to Chicago attached
itself to the statement of the manager of the hotel at which my
father stopped that Mr. Holdfast had not been in Chicago. The second
advertisement in the "Personal" column of the _Herald_ desiring me to
advertise the name of the ship I took passage in from New York to
Liverpool, attached itself to the circumstance that my father's letter,
handed to me by the hotel manager, contained no wish to know what ship I
sailed in. And upon this came the thought that at the time this last
"Personal," which I supposed was inserted by my father, appeared in the
columns of the _Herald_, my father was on the Atlantic. Fool that I was
to act without deliberation, to believe without questioning. Last of
all, the conflicting tone of the two letters I received from my father,
the one in New York, which was undoubtedly genuine, and the one from the
Liverpool post office, which may have been forged!--This completed it.
Conviction seemed added to conviction, confirmation to confirmation,
doubt to doubt--although every point in the evidence was circumstantial,
and, nothing as yet could be distinctly proved. How I regretted that I
had not kept the letters! When I received the last in Liverpool, I tore
up, in a fury of indignation, every letter my father had written to me,
and had therefore no writing of his in my possession by which I could
compare and judge. I find now, that it is too late, that there is no
wisdom in haste.
It weighed heavily upon me, as a duty not to be avoided, to endeavour to
ascertain whether my father arrived in the Germanic, and after that what
had become of him. And with the consciousness of this unmistakable duty
arose the memory of so many acts of tenderness and kindness from my
father to myself, that I began to accuse myself of injustice towards
him, and to believe that it was not he who had wronged me, but I who
had wronged him. With this grievous thought in my mind, I left you, and
proceeded to Liverpool.
My first visit was paid to the office of the White Star Line. There I
learned that my father had taken passage in New York on the date I gave,
that the Germanic arrived in Liverpool after a rapid passage of little
more than eight days, that no casualty occurred on the voyage, and that
there was no doubt that my father landed with the other passengers. This
point was settled by the books of the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. My
father had stopped there for six days, and his name was duly recorded.
Another point, quite as important, was established by reference to the
hotel books and by inquiring of persons employed in the hotel. When my
father left Liverpool, he took train to London. I had arrived at this
stage of my inquiries, and was debating on the next step to take, when
my attention was attracted by the cries of the newspaper street boys,
calling out at the top of their voices, fresh discoveries in the
_Evening Moon_ respecting the murder in Great Porter Square. With no
suspicion of the awful disclosure which awaited me, but naturally
interested in any new phase of the mysterious incident, I purchased the
paper and looked at the headings of the Supplement, and, casually at
the matter. Seeing my own name--the name of Holdfast--repeated over and
over again in the paper, I hurried from the street to the solitude of my
room, and there read the most wicked, monstrous, and lying romance that
human minds ever invented. And in addition to the horrible calumnies
which that "Romance of Real Life" contains in its references to me,
I learned, to my unutterable grief, that the man who was so foully
murdered in Great Porter Square was my own father.
My dear, for many minutes the terrible disclosure--the knowledge that my
dear father had met his death in a manner so awful and mysterious, took
such complete possession of my mind that I had no thought of myself. My
father was dead! The last time we met we parted in anger, using words
to each other such as bitter enemies would use. I swore in his presence
that he was dishonouring the name of Holdfast, and that I would never
use it until he asked my forgiveness for the cruel injustice he had done
me; and he drove me from his heart and from his house. My forgiveness he
could never ask for now; he was dead! And the wrong we each did to the
other in that hot encounter, in which love was poisoned by a treacherous
wanton's scheming, could never be repaired until we met in another
world. I wept bitter tears, and falling on my knees--my mind enlightened
by the strange utterances of a worthless woman, as reported in the
_Evening Moon_--I asked my father's forgiveness, as I had warned him to
ask mine. And yet, my dear, neither of us was wrong; he was right and I
was right; and if the question between us were put to a high and worthy
test, it would be found that we both were animated by impulses which,
under other circumstances, would have been an honour to our manhood.
But these kindly feelings passed away in the indignation which a sense
of monstrous injustice inspired. To see my name so blackened, so
defamed, my character so outraged and malformed, inflamed me for a time
to a pitch of fury which threatened to cloud my judgment and my reason.
What brought me to my senses? My love for you. I should have been
reckless had I only myself to protect, to provide for; but a dearer self
than myself depended upon me, and my honour was engaged to you. It was
due to you that I should clear myself of these charges. Herein, my dear,
came home to me, in the most forcible manner in which it could have been
presented, the value of responsibilities. They tend to check our selfish
impulses, and to indicate to us our line of action--straight on.
At this time I had written to you my half-disapproval of the step you
had taken in disguising yourself as a maid-of-all-work, and obtaining a
situation next to that in Great Porter Square in which the murder had
been committed--Great God! I cannot write it with calmness--the murder
of my father. But after I had read the Romance in Real Life in the
_Evening Moon_ and had somewhat calmed myself, I seemed to see in your
action a kind of Providence. Before these insanely-wicked inventions of
my father's widow were made public, before it was known that the man who
was murdered in Great Porter Square was my father, it was comparatively
unimportant that I should be cleared of a charge of which I was
innocent; it was then, so to speak, a side issue; now it is a vital
issue. And the murderer must be discovered. I say it solemnly--_must_ be
discovered! He will be. Not by the Government, nor by the police, nor by
any judicial agency, but by one whose honour, whose future, whose faith
and love, are dragged into this dread crisis. And I see that it will
be so--I see that you have been guided by a higher than a human impulse
in your love-directed and seemingly mad inspiration to transform and
degrade yourself, for the purpose of clearing me from a wicked and cruel
accusation. At one time I doubted whether truth and justice were more
than words; I doubt no longer; reflecting over certain incidents and
accidents--accidents as I believed them to be--I see that something more
than chance directed them, and that of our own destinies we ourselves
are not the sole arbiters.
In the extraordinary narration presented to the readers of the _Evening
Moon_ I read that I am dead. Well, be it so. How the falsehood was
invented, and led up to, and strengthened by newspaper evidence,
scarcely interests me in the light of the more momentous issue which
affects my future and yours. Involved in it, undoubtedly, were wonderful
inventive powers, much painstaking, and immense industry--the result of
which was a newspaper paragraph of a few lines, every word of which is
false. That the woman who _was_ my father's wife, that the man who _is_
her lover, believe that I am dead, appears to be beyond doubt. Let them
continue in their belief until their guilt is brought home to them. To
all intents and purposes, to all useful ends at present in the service
of truth and justice, it will be best that it should be believed that
I _am_ dead. So let it be, then, until the proper time comes. It will
come, I believe and hope.
To one end I am pledged. I will avenge my father's murder, if it is in
my power. I will bring his murderer to justice, if it is in my power.
Help me if you can, and if after you peruse this strange narrative,
every word of which is as faithful and true as though an angel, instead
of an erring mortal, wrote it, you can still believe in me, still have
faith in me, I shall bless you all my life, as I shall love you all my
life, whether you remain faithful to me or not.
To my own heart, buoyed as I am with hope, stricken down as I am with
despair, it seems treason to me to doubt; but all belief and faith,
human and divine, would fall into a dark and hopeless abyss if it did
not have some image, human or divine, to cling to; and I cling to you!
You are my hope and my anchor!
I will not attempt to describe, as dimly I comprehend it now, the
character of the woman who has brought all this misery upon me. She is
fair and beautiful to look upon; innocence appears to dwell in her face;
her eyes meet yours frankly and smilingly; her manners are the manners
of a child; her voice is as sweet as the voice of a child. Were she and
I to appear before a human tribunal, accused of a crime of which she was
guilty and I innocent, she would be acquitted and I condemned.
I am in your hands. Judge me quickly. If you delay, and say, "My faith
is not shaken," I am afraid I should not be satisfied, because of your
delay. In hope, as in despair,
I am, for ever yours,
FREDERICK.