Great Porter Square: A Mystery. Volume 2

Becky took the letter from her dress, kissed it, and replaced it in her bosom. “I do not need this,” she said, “to assure me of his worth and truth.”

She proceeded with her task and wrote: “Frederick Holdfast went to America. His father also went to America.”

And answered it with, “My Frederick went to America, and his father followed him.”

Upon the paper then she wrote: “Mr. Holdfast and his son Frederick both returned to England.”

“As my Frederick and his father did,” she said.

And now Becky’s fingers trembled. She was approaching the tragedy. She traced the words, however, “From the day of his return to England until yesterday nothing was heard of Mr. Holdfast; and there is no accounting for his disappearance.”

“Frederick’s father also has disappeared,” she said, “and there is no accounting for his disappearance.”

These coincidences were so remarkable that they increased in strength tenfold as Becky gazed upon the words she had written. And now she calmly said,

“If they are true, my Frederick is Frederick Holdfast. If they are true, Frederick Holdfast is a villain.” Her face flushed, her bosom rose and fell. “A lie!” she cried. “My lover is the soul of honour and manliness! He is either not Frederick Holdfast, or the story told in the newspaper is a wicked, shameful fabrication. What kind of woman, then, is this Lydia Holdfast, who sheds tears one moment and laughs the next? – who one moment wrings her hands at the murder of her husband, and the next declares that if she had been born a man she might have been a dreadful rake? But Frederick Holdfast is dead; the American newspapers published the circumstances of his death and the identification of his body. Thousands of persons read that account, and believed in its truth, as thousands of persons read and are reading this romance of real life, and believe in its truth.” Contempt and defiance were expressed in Becky’s voice as she touched the copy of the newspaper which had so profoundly agitated her. “Yet both may be false, and if they are false – ” She paused for a few moments, and then continued: “Lydia Holdfast is Frederick Holdfast’s enemy. She believes him to be dead; there is no doubt of that. But if he is alive, and in England, he is in peril – in deadlier peril than my Frederick was, when, as Antony Cowlrick, he was charged with the murder of an unknown man, and that man – as now is proved – his own father. What did I call Lydia Holdfast just now? a poor weak creature! Not she! An artful, designing, cruel woman, whose safety, perhaps, lies in my Frederick’s death. If, without the suspicions which torture me, so near to the truth do they seem, it was necessary to discover the murderer of the poor gentleman who met his death in the next house, how much more imperative is it now that the mystery should be unravelled! Assist me, Eternal God, to bring the truth to light, and to punish the guilty!”

She fell upon her knees, and with tears streaming down her face, prayed for help from above to clear the man she loved from the shameful charges brought against him by his father’s wife. Her prayers comforted her, and she rose in a calmer state of mind. “I must look upon this creature,” she thought, “upon this woman in name, who has invented the disgraceful story. To match her cunning a woman’s cunning is needed. Lydia Holdfast, I declare myself your enemy!”

A noise in the street attracted Becky’s attention, and diverted her thoughts. She hurried from her kitchen, and opened the street door. Twenty or thirty persons were crowding round one, who was lying insensible upon the pavement. They cried, “Give her air!” and pressed more closely upon the helpless form.

“A glass of water!” “Poor child!” “Go and fetch a little brandy!” “Fetch a policeman!” “She’s shamming!” “Starving, more likely!” “Starving? she’s got three boxes of matches in her hands!” “Well, you brute, she can’t eat matches!”

These and other cries greeted Becky as she opened the door, and looked out into the Square.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, striving to push her way into the crowd, which did not willingly yield to her.

It was a poor child, her clothes in rags, who had fainted on the flagstones before the house.

“She’s coming to!” exclaimed a woman.

The child opened her eyes.

“What are you doing here?” asked a man, roughly.

“I came to see the ghost!” replied the child, in a weak, pleading little voice.

The people laughed; they did not see the pathetic side of the picture.

But the child’s voice, faint as it was, reached Becky’s heart. It was a voice familiar to her. She pushed through the crowd vigorously, and bent over the child.

“Blanche!” screamed the child, bursting into hysterical sobs. “O, Blanche! Blanche!”

It was Fanny, the little match girl.

“Hush, Fanny!” whispered Becky. “Hush my dear!”

She raised the poor child in her arms, and a shudder of pain and compassion escaped her as she felt how light the little body was. Fanny’s face was covered with tears, and through her tears she laughed, and clung to Becky.

“I know her,” said Becky to the people, “I will take care of her.”

And kissing the thin, dirty face of the laughing, sobbing, clinging child, Becky carried her into the house, and closed the street-door upon the crowd.

“Well, I’m blowed!” exclaimed the man who had distinguished himself by his rough words. “If this ’ere ain’t the rummiest Square in London!”

CHAPTER XXIII

“JUSTICE” SENDS A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE “EVENING MOON.”

CLOSER and closer did the little match girl cling to Becky, as she was carried through the dark passage and down the narrow stairs to the kitchen. Then, and then only, did Becky clearly perceive how thin and wan her humble little friend had grown. Fanny’s dark eyes loomed out of their sunken sockets like dusky moons, her cheeks had fallen in, her lips were colourless; her clothes consisted of but two garments, a frock and a petticoat, in rags. Becky’s eyes overflowed as she contemplated the piteous picture, and Fanny’s eyes also became filled with tears – not in pity for herself, but in sympathy with Becky.