Great Porter Square: A Mystery. Volume 3

IN WHICH BECKY NARRATES HOW FANNY BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH MRS. LYDIA HOLDFAST

MY DEAR LOVE, – Again I beg of you, in reply to your expressions of anxiety in the letter Fanny brought to me this morning, not to give yourself unnecessary anxiety about me. You are alarmed at the position in which I have placed myself; you are alarmed because Richard Manx is in the same house with me; you are alarmed because I have bought a revolver. I assure you there is no reason why you should be so distressed. The position in which I have placed myself is, I am more than ever convinced, the only one which will enable me to reach the heart of this mystery. Richard Manx is but one person against many. I, and Mrs. Preedy, and Fanny, and the neighbours, and the policeman, with whom I am on friendly terms, are surely more than a match for him. You are alarmed because I have in my possession a toy pistol. Is not a woman, in an emergency, to be trusted with a weapon? In such circumstances as ours, why should not a woman have as much courage as a man? Why should not a woman undertake a task such as I have undertaken, when her heart is engaged in it, when the honour and safety of the man she loves are engaged in it, when the whole happiness of her life and his is engaged in it? That would be like saying that women are fit for nothing in the world but to wait upon men’s actions and to follow them, whichever way they lead. It is not so. In such a crisis as this a woman can do, and do better, what it would be out of the power of a man to accomplish. I would willingly relinquish my task if I thought it could be accomplished without my aid. But it cannot be. You are powerless; there is no one but myself capable and willing to carry it out; and indeed, indeed, I am in no danger! My dear, you underrate our sex. Read this letter carefully, and then confess that your fears are groundless, and that I am doing what is right and best to be done.

Fanny heard nothing last night. There was no sound in the next house. For a reason. Richard Manx was not in his room, and did not make his appearance until this afternoon. Then I remembered that last week, on the same day, it was the same. There is one night in the week, then, in which he has business elsewhere. I shall take advantage of that discovery.

When Fanny returned with your letter this morning, I prepared for a masterstroke. Its success depended much upon chance, much upon Fanny’s shrewdness. I cut her hair short, and fitted the wig I bought yesterday on her head. It is a wig of fair hair, with long curls. She looks lovely in it. When night fell, I dressed her in her new clothes, which were not new, but second-hand; and, covered with the waterproof, there she was, ready for her task.

My desire was that she should manage to become acquainted with Mrs. Lydia Holdfast, and so ingratiate herself with that person as to be able to bring me reports of her movements and proceedings. Having impressed this upon her, I asked her whether she would undertake the task. Her answer was that she would go through fire and water to serve me; that she knew exactly what I wanted, and was going to do it. I was so satisfied with her readiness that it was with a feeling of great confidence I sent her on her mission. I waited for my opportunity, and no one saw her leave the house. Whether what I called my masterstroke will really turn out to be one will be proved in a very short time. Something has already been achieved. Fanny has become acquainted with Mrs. Lydia Holdfast.

She returned an hour ago, and is now abed in old Mrs. Bailey’s room. Exactly at ten o’clock I went into the Square, and found Fanny waiting for me. I whipped off her wig, and brought her home. The nights are dark, and there is little fear of detection; and even in that case I have an amusing story ready, which will easily account for what will look like a harmless freak.

When she left Great Porter Square, Fanny went at once to the house in which your father lived, and which his widow still inhabits. She waited outside for a long time until at length a lady came out whom, from my description of her, Fanny recognised to be Mrs. Lydia Holdfast. A carriage was at the door, and as Mrs. Holdfast stepped towards it, Fanny pulled her dress. Mrs. Holdfast snatched her dress away impatiently, without speaking, and walked to her carriage, Fanny following her.

“If you please, ma’am,” said Fanny.

“What do you want? What do you want?” cried Mrs. Holdfast.

“I want to speak to you,” said Fanny.

“Well, speak!” exclaimed Mrs. Holdfast. “Don’t you see I’m in a hurry?”

A coachman stood at the carriage door to wait upon his mistress.

“I want to speak to you alone, please,” said Fanny.

“You can’t,” cried Mrs. Holdfast. “Take this beggar-girl away.”

The coachman endeavoured to obey the order, but little Fanny was too quick for him. She slipped between his arms, and again stood by the side of Mrs. Holdfast.

“Ain’t you Mrs. Holdfast?” she asked, looking up into the lady’s face.

“Yes,” was the reply.

“Mrs. Grace Holdfast,” said Fanny, as bold as brass. I think it would be difficult to find her equal.

Mrs. Holdfast, as she heard this name, Grace, which Fanny spoke loudly, gave a scream, and seizing Fanny by the arm, hurried back with her into the house. There were servants standing about, but Mrs. Holdfast took no notice of them; she put her hand on Fanny’s lips, and dragged her into an empty room. Closing the door, and locking it, she bent down to Fanny and shook her roughly.

Fanny did not speak or scream, but twisted herself as soon as she could from Mrs. Holdfast’s grip, and said,

“There! You have made my wig all crooked.”

Heaven only knows where this child got her wits from, but if she had been drilled for a month she could not have acted the spirit of her part with greater cleverness. The words I did not teach her; I simply told her what I wanted her to do, and left the rest to herself.

“There!” she cried. “You have made my wig all crooked.”

And she ran to the looking-glass and set it straight again. There must have been something in her manner which made Mrs. Holdfast laugh, but as Fanny described it, her laugh was broken off in the middle.

“Come here directly,” said Mrs. Holdfast.

Fanny obeyed. Mrs. Holdfast knelt upon the ground, and, holding Fanny’s face between her hands, looked long and hard at her.

“I don’t know you,” she said; and then she coloured up, for she saw that Fanny was returning the earnest gaze.

“If you please, my lady,” said Fanny, “I beg your pardon for calling you Grace; my sister said you wouldn’t like it, but you were running away, and I couldn’t help it.”

“Who is your sister?” asked Mrs. Holdfast.

And now imagine Fanny, instead of at once answering the question, fainting dead away. A real swoon? Not a bit of it. A sham, to gain time to study the ground of action.

Mrs. Holdfast, at first, did not appear to know what to do. She allowed Fanny to lie on the ground, and although the child’s eyes were nearly quite closed, she declares that not a movement nor an expression of Mrs. Holdfast escaped her. I am entirely inclined to believe every word spoken by Fanny as she related the adventure. She says that Mrs. Holdfast looked at her for a moment, then turned away for a moment, then looked at her again, as though wishing that she was dead. Upon which Fanny gave a sigh, and murmured something about being faint and hungry.

Mrs. Holdfast rang a bell, and going to the door, unlocked it, and spoke to a servant, from whom she received a decanter of wine. She locked the door again, and returning to Fanny, raised the child’s head, and put the decanter to her lips. Fanny allowed herself gradually to recover, and presently opened her eyes, and struggled to her feet.

“Now,” repeated Mrs. Holdfast, “who is your sister, and what has brought you here?”

CHAPTER XXXIII

IN WHICH BECKY NARRATES HOW FANNY BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH MRS. LYDIA HOLDFAST

BY this time Fanny had invented a cunning little story.

“If you please, my lady,” she replied, “my sister is an actress, and I’ve come here to ask you to help me.”

“But you don’t know me; you’ve never spoken to me before,” said Mrs. Holdfast.

“I’ve never spoken to you,” said Fanny, “but I remember you well. You used to go to the theatre in the country, where Nelly was engaged. That’s the reason she sent me to you.”

“Is Nelly your sister?”

“Yes, my lady. She was in the front row, and I used to come on in the crowd. I got a shilling a night, and Nelly had a pound a week. We lived near you in Oxford, and often saw you pass. Nelly was always talking of you, and saying how beautiful you were, and what a lady, and how lucky to have such swell friends. She used to wish she was like you, and when you went away she wondered where you had gone to. Well, things got bad, and Nelly and I came to London a month ago; and now she has left me, and I don’t know what I am to do.”

“Why didn’t your sister take you with her?” asked Mrs. Holdfast.

“She could tell you; I can’t, except that she said two’s company and three’s none. She said yesterday morning, ‘I’m off, Dot; I can’t stand this any longer. No engagement and no money. You must look after yourself, Dot. I tell you what to do if you’re hard up. You go to this address’ – (and she gave me the address of your house) – ‘and ask for Mrs. Holdfast. Don’t say Grace Holdfast – she mightn’t like it – and say I knew her in Oxford, and ask her to help you. She’ll do it. She’s got a kind heart, and knows what it is to be unfortunate.’ Well, that’s all – except that in the afternoon a gentleman came, and asked for Nelly. She goes down to him, and I hear what they say. It ain’t much. ‘Are you ready?’ the gentleman asks. ‘Oh, yes,’ says Nelly, in a kind of saucy way, ‘I’m ready enough.’ Then Nelly asked him for some money, and he gave her a sovereign. She runs up to me, whips on her hat, kneels down, kisses me, puts the sovereign in my hand, and says, ‘Good-bye, Dot, I can’t help leaving you; what’s the use of stopping here to starve? Get away from this house as soon as you can, for there’s rent owing that I can’t pay. Mrs. Holdfast will give you a lift if you want one.’ She kisses me quick, over and over again, and runs down stairs, and out of the house. Well, I’m crying and the landlady comes in and asks, sharp, where Nelly has gone, and when I tell her, she flies into a passion, and says there’s three weeks’ rent owing, besides other money. My hand is shut tight, with the sovereign in it, and the landlady must have seen it through my fingers, for she tries to force them open, but she can’t till she digs her knuckles into the back of my hand, when, of course, the sovereign rolls out. ‘Oh,’ says the landlady, ‘your sister’s left this on account. All right; I hope she’ll pay the rest when she comes back.’ She pockets the sovereign, and this morning she turns me out of the house, and tells me she has let the room. So I am obliged to go, and I didn’t know what else to do except to come to you.”

I am not in a position to describe the exact effect this story, as related by Fanny, produced upon Mrs. Holdfast. For my part, I was amazed at the child’s ingenuity. I doubt whether she could have invented anything that would be likely better to serve our purpose. I am of opinion that Mrs. Holdfast was both amused and frightened, and I think she has some plan in her head with reference to Fanny. At all events, she gave Fanny five shillings, and bade her come again to-morrow, in the evening; and before Fanny left her, she made the child promise not to mention to a soul in the world anything about ever having seen her anywhere else but in London. Fanny promised, and left the house. To come straight home to me? No. The cunning little creature waited outside Mrs. Holdfast’s house until the lady came out. She watched her get into her carriage, and when it started she ran ahead of the horses until she was out of breath. Then she called a cab, and paying the man out of her five shillings, told him to follow the carriage. It stopped at the Criterion Theatre, and Fanny, jumping from the cab, saw Mrs. Holdfast enter the theatre.

That is all I have to tell you to-night. You may be assured that Mrs. Holdfast does not feel any poignant grief at the loss of her husband. Otherwise she would keep from theatres for a little while. The state of widowhood is evidently one which gives her satisfaction. I wonder what the Reporter of the newspaper who wrote the “Romance of Real Life,” partly from her own lips, would say, if he saw Mrs. Holdfast laughing in the theatre so shortly after the discovery of the murder of her husband. Because the piece they are playing at the Criterion is taken from the French, and is intended to make you laugh. All the actors and actresses who play in it are comedians, and do their best to create fun. The Reporter would put on his “Considering Cap,” as the children’s books say. If she had gone to see a tragedy, where she could cry her eyes out, she might have offered some excuse. But a laughable play, the morality of which is not very nice! That is a different pair of shoes. Undoubtedly it is a risk for Mrs. Holdfast to run; but unless I am much mistaken in her, she loves to run risks. She could not live without excitement. Your father’s widow, my dear, was not cut out for a nun.

I feel like a person with a chess board before her, in the middle of a game which, to lose, would ruin her. I shall not lose it. Every hour the position of the pieces is becoming more clear to me, and I am discussing in my mind the advisability of two or three bold moves. But I will wait a little; something of importance will very soon be revealed to me. Good night, my dear. Sleep well. Every moment that passes brings our happiness nearer and nearer.

CHAPTER XXXIV

MR. PELHAM MAKES HIS APPEARANCE ONCE MORE

MY DEAR LOVE, – My note written last night was short, because I had scarcely anything to say, and I postponed what I had to tell until to-night. Mrs. Holdfast did not detain Fanny long yesterday. She asked but one question, which, if the little girl had not been prepared to answer, would have removed Fanny from the game, and increased the difficulties of our task. In the story Fanny invented for the mystification of Mrs. Holdfast I saw one great danger. Mrs. Holdfast is not playing alone; there is a master mind behind her. Who that master mind is it was necessary for me to discover, and I have made the discovery. I shall not be surprised if, in the letter I shall write to you to-morrow night I am able to tell you something of the very greatest moment.

Fanny’s danger was this: She had told a clever story; had invented a sister, and had furnished a tolerably fair excuse for forcing herself upon a lady of Mrs. Holdfast’s position. But she had spoken of herself and her sister living in lodgings in London. If there is one thing Mrs. Holdfast desires at present to avoid it is the slightest chance of anything coming before the public which would tend to prove that she and Grace who destroyed Sydney Campbell are one and the same person. Perhaps the only person who, in an indirect way, is aware of this fact (that is, to Mrs. Holdfast’s knowledge) is Fanny. Here was a risk; and between Fanny’s first and second visit to Mrs. Holdfast, the suggestion had in some way arisen that the little girl might have been instructed in her part by an unseen enemy. It was necessary, therefore, to test the truth of Fanny’s story, and there was only one point which could be seized upon. In what street in London, in what house, did Fanny and her sister live before the sister ran away? This occurred to my sharp mind before it had been suggested to Mrs. Holdfast, and I determined to manufacture evidence. I enlisted Mrs. Preedy on my side. I bought her a new gown, a cloak, and a hat, and I made her a present of them. Then, having entirely won her heart – she told me that she looked upon me as a daughter – I cautiously imparted to her what I wanted her to do for me. It appeared that nothing was easier. For a few shillings a friend of Mrs. Preedy, living half a mile from Great Porter Square, undertook, in case a lady called to ask there, to give certain answers to certain questions about two lodgers, one called Nelly and the other Dot. The lesson was a simple one, and was easily learned. Armed with the address, Fanny went to Mrs. Holdfast, according to appointment. I may inform you that I am placing fuller reliance than ever upon little Fanny, and that I have related to her a great deal of Grace’s life in Oxford, which, in case of need, she can turn to useful account. As I anticipated, Mrs. Holdfast asked Fanny in what house she and her sister lived in London. Without hesitation, Fanny gave the address of Mrs. Preedy’s friend, and Mrs. Holdfast dismissed her, desiring her to call again on the following day – this morning. I ascertained to-day that Mrs. Holdfast called at the address, and received the answers prepared for her.