CHAPTER XXIX.
FREDERICK HOLDFAST'S STATEMENT (CONCLUDED).
Under these circumstances the obstacles before me became almostinsurmountable. The residents of the burning city were in a state ofthe wildest confusion, and my anxious inquiries for my father werefruitless; 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 agentleman named Holdfast, or one answering to my description of him, hadstopped at the Briggs' House.
I was perplexed how to act, but an idea that it would be well for me toremain upon the spot, on the chance that I might yet learn somethingof my father, caused me to resolve not to leave Chicago for awhile. Tothis resolution I was pledged by my necessities. I was penniless, andto return immediately to New York was a matter of impossibility.
I had no difficulty in obtaining sufficient to live upon from day today. Assistance and food poured into the city from all parts of theStates, and already upon the burning ruins men were beginning to rebuildtheir stores and houses. Every pair of hands was valuable, and I workedwith the rest, never for a moment losing sight of the vital mission uponwhich I was engaged. For a month I remained in Chicago, and having bythat time earned enough money to carry me to New York, and being alsosatisfied that I had exhausted every channel open to me through whichI might hear of or from my father, I took the train back, and inthirty-six hours reached the hotel in New York from which my father hadaddressed his letters to me. It appeared as if I had taken the rightstep, for on the very day of my arrival I saw among the "Personals" inthe _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 waspursuing, but it hurt me that he had not, by a few words which I alonecould have understood, removed from me the obligation entailed upon meby my solemn oath to pass myself off under a false name. Until he askedmy forgiveness, or acknowledged his error, I could not resume my own.
I entered the hotel, and there another surprise awaited me. My fatherhad, during my absence in Chicago, lived at the hotel for nearly afortnight. In an interview with the manager, I was informed that thedescription my father had received of my personal appearance had muchexcited him. "I could not give him your name," said the manager, "as youdid not leave any. He made inquiries for you everywhere, and employeddetectives to discover you, but they were not successful. He appeared asanxious to see you as you were to see him."
"He has been to Chicago, has he not?" I asked. "He was there at the timeof 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 asthat!--and the Briggs' House burnt to the ground, too! No, I don't thinkMr. Holdfast went to Chicago."
I made no comment upon this; doubtless my father did not wish hismovements to be too widely known.
"Where is Mr. Holdfast now?" I inquired.
"Very near Liverpool," was the reply. "He left in the Germanic this dayweek. There is a letter in the office for you which I was to deliverinto your hands in case you called. No one else could do so, as you seeno name is on the envelope, and as no other person but myself couldidentify you."
The letter informed me that my father was returning to England, andI was desired to follow him immediately. To enable me to do this heenclosed Bank of England notes for L200, and in addition a draft forL500 payable at sight to bearer at a bank in London. The concludingwords of the letter were "Upon your arrival in Liverpool go to thePost-office there, where a letter will await you, instructing you howto proceed."
Made happy by this communication, but still more than ever impressed bythe consciousness that a mystery existed which rendered it necessaryto be cautious, I thanked the manager of the hotel, and hastened to ashipping office in Broadway, where I paid my passage in a steamer whichwas 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 ofthe 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 atthe Post Office for a letter. One was handed to me in the handwriting ofmy father. Imagine my astonishment at its contents. So as to make thisstatement in a certain measure complete, I will endeavour to recall whatit 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 withamazement and indignation. That such a trick should have been playedupon me was altogether so astonishing and incomprehensible that I lookedabout me in bewilderment for a faithful heart upon whose sympathy Icould throw myself for consolation. I thought of you, and determined tocome to you, and ask for counsel and comfort. But before I started forExeter there was something to do which, to leave undone, would havebrought a life-long shame upon me. I took from the money remaining ofthe L200 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 L500, andsent it to my father's address in London, with these words: "May Godpardon 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 theL200 I will endeavour to repay you; but what else, besides money, we oweto each other can never be repaid in this world."
I posted this letter, and journeyed on to Exeter, and there anothergrief awaited me. You had left the town; your mother was dead, had beendead for weeks, and you had not informed me of it in your letters. Iwill 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 kindhad 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 myletters how unfortunate and unhappy I had been, you had withheld from methe 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 hadgone to London; there, then, was my duty. To London I must go, andendeavour to find you, and endeavour at the same time to hide myselffrom my father who had so shamefully abused me. But I had no money--nota shilling. I could raise a little, however. Before I left New York Ihad provided myself with good clothes, and these were on me now. I wentto a vile shop in one of the worst parts of Exeter, and there I barteredthe clothes I stood upright in for a sum of money barely sufficient totake me to London and to enable me to live there on dry bread for a fewdays. Included in this bargain, to my necessity and advantage, was aragged suit of clothes in which I dressed, after divesting myself ofmy better habiliments, and thus, clothed like a beggar, and with adespairing heart beating in my bosom, I made my way to London. At theend of a week I had not a penny left, and I was so hungry that I had tobeg for bread of a girl standing at the wooden gate of a poor-lookinghouse.
The girl's heart was touched--God bless her for it!--and she ran intothe 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 thehard bread, and looking at the bit of newspaper the while. What I readrelated to a mysterious, fearful murder which had been committed inGreat Porter Square. Nothing was known of the murdered man, and hismurderer had not been discovered. The names of both were shrouded inmystery. "So might it be wit
h me," I thought; "if I were murdered thisnight, there is about me or upon me absolutely no mark or sign by whichI could be identified."
Ah, my dear, London's mysteries are many and terrible! Imaginationcannot 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 ofthe task before me, that of discovering you, filled me with a deeperdespair. It was as though I were shut out from all sympathy with mykind. By what I now believe to be a kind of fate, I wandered, withoutknowing the direction I was taking, towards Great Porter Square. I cameto the Square itself, and looked up at the name in the endeavour toread it. "Are you looking for Great Porter Square?" asked a woman whowas passing by. "That's it--where the murder was committed." Well, it inno way concerned me. A man was murdered there. What of it? He was out ofhis misery. That was the substance of my reflections. He was out of hismisery, as I wished I was out of mine. For the minutes were hours, everyone of which deepened my despair. I worked myself into a condition somorbid and utterly wretched that I gave up all hope of finding you. Ihad no place to lie in that night, and on the previous night I had sleptin 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 hadenough of life. And all the while these gloomy thoughts were drivingme to the lowest depths I continued to walk round and about thethoroughfares of the Square in which the murder had been committed.After a time, the consciousness of this forced itself upon me, and theidea entered my mind that I would go into the Square itself, and lookat the house. I followed out my idea, and walked slowly round the Squareuntil I came to No. 119. I lingered before it for a moment or two, andthen walked the entire circuit; and as I did so another suggestionpresented itself. From the appearance of the house I judged it to bedeserted. If I could gain admittance I should have, at least, a shelterfrom the night for a few hours; if there were a bed in it I should havea bed; the circumstance of the murder having been committed there hadno real terrors for me. I had arrived at this mental stage when I foundmyself once more before the house; I was munching some bread at thetime. I ascended the steps and tried the street door, and as I laid myhand upon the handle a policeman came up to me and endeavoured to seizeme. A sudden terror fell upon me, and I shook him off roughly, and flewas though I were flying for my life; and, as I have already described toyou, 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 perilin connection with the murder. I heard the policeman running afterme. He sprang his rattle; the air seemed filled with pursuing enemieshunting me down, and I flew the faster, but only to fall at last, quiteexhausted, into the arms of men, in whose remarks I heard a confirmationof 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, tobe accused of a crime of which no man living was more innocent. When Iwas asked for my name by the inspector I did not immediately answer. Myown name I dared not give; nor could I give the name by which you knewme. I would endeavour to keep my disgrace from your knowledge; so I gavea false name, the first that occurred to me, Antony Cowlrick, and gaveit in such a way that the police knew it to be false. After that, I wasthrown into a cell, where in solitude I might repent of my crimes andmisdeeds. So bitter was my mood that I resolved to keep my tongue silentand say no word about myself. I knew that I was an innocent man, andI looked forward somewhat curiously to learn by what villainous andskilful 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 ourmeeting in Leicester Square.
It was my first gleam of sunshine for many a week, but another was towarm me during the day. With you by my side my strength of mind, my hopereturned. The only money I had was the sovereign lent to me by theSpecial Reporter of the "Evening Moon;" you were poorer than I, and had,when we so happily met, exhausted your resources. The very engagementring I gave you had been pawned to enable you to live. Money wasnecessary. How could I obtain it? Could I not apply to one of my formerfriends? I ran over in my mind the list of those whose people lived inLondon, and I paused at the name of Adolph, who had played so memorablea part in the Sydney Campbell tragedy. His parents lived in London, andwere wealthy. If Adolph were home I would appeal to him, and solicithelp from him. We drove to his father's house, stopping on the way ata barber's, by whose aid I made myself more presentable. Adolph was inLondon, and luckily at home. I sent up my name, and he came to me, andwished me to enter the house, and be introduced to his people; but Ipointed to my clothes and refused. He accompanied me from his house, andwhen we were in a secluded spot I told him my story under a pledge ofsecrecy. He has a good heart, and he expressed himself as owing me adebt of gratitude which he should never be able to repay. I pointed outto him how he could repay me, and the generous-hearted lad gave me notonly a hundred pounds, but a bill, long-dated, which a money-lenderdiscounted for me, and which placed me in possession of a comparativelylarge sum of money. I hope to be able to pay this debt. I think I shallbe, in the course of time.
But Adolph served me in more ways than one, and in a way neither he norI could have dreamt of. The money-lender he recommended me to go tolived in the City, and to reach his office I had to pass my father'splace of business. I drove there in a four-wheeled cab, and to avoidnotice I kept the windows up. But as I passed my father's City houseI could not help looking towards it, and I was surprised to find itclosed. My own name did not appear upon the bill, and the money-lenderand I were strangers to each other. I did not hesitate, therefore, whenour business was concluded, to inquire if he knew Mr. Holdfast, andhe replied that the name was well-known in the City. I then inquiredwhy his place of business was closed, and received, in answer, theunexpected information that my father was in America, and had been therefor many months. Upon this, I said in a careless tone, as though it werea matter in which I was but slightly interested, that I had heard thatMr. 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 sorrowof my life. I determined to assure myself whether my father wasreally in London, and on the following day I sent to his house, bya confidential messenger, an envelope. It was simply a test of themoney-lender's statement. The messenger returned to me with the envelopeunopened, and with the information that my father was in America. "Iinquired 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 athis house of business or at his home? What, then, had become of him?What motive had he for mysterious concealment? Arguing, as I believed tobe the case when I received the first letter from him in New York, thathe had discovered the infamous character of the woman he had made hiswife, there _was_ perhaps a motive for his not living in the house towhich he had brought her; but it was surely reasonable to expect thathis return would be known at his place of business. I reflected upon thenature and character of my father's wife, and upon the character of herscheming lover, Mr. Pelham; I subjected them to a mental analysis of themost searching kind, and I could arrive at but one conclusion--FoulPlay! Judging from what had occurred between them and my poor friend,Sydney Campbell, there was no plot too treacherous for them to engagein, no scheme too wicked for them to devise and carry out. Foul Playrose before me in a thousand hideous shapes, until in its many-sidedmental guise it became a conviction so strong that I did not pause todoubt it. Then arose another phase of the affair. If there had beenFoul Play with my father, was it not reasonable to suppose that I,also, had been made the victim of clever tricksters? This, too, in avague inexplicable way, became a conviction. A number of conflictingcircumstances at once occurred to me
in confirmation. The advertisementin the _New York Herald_ desiring me to proceed to Chicago attacheditself to the statement of the manager of the hotel at which myfather stopped that Mr. Holdfast had not been in Chicago. The secondadvertisement in the "Personal" column of the _Herald_ desiring me toadvertise the name of the ship I took passage in from New York toLiverpool, attached itself to the circumstance that my father's letter,handed to me by the hotel manager, contained no wish to know what ship Isailed in. And upon this came the thought that at the time this last"Personal," which I supposed was inserted by my father, appeared in thecolumns of the _Herald_, my father was on the Atlantic. Fool that I wasto act without deliberation, to believe without questioning. Last ofall, 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 theLiverpool 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 Ihad not kept the letters! When I received the last in Liverpool, I toreup, 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 couldcompare and judge. I find now, that it is too late, that there is nowisdom in haste.
It weighed heavily upon me, as a duty not to be avoided, to endeavour toascertain whether my father arrived in the Germanic, and after that whathad become of him. And with the consciousness of this unmistakable dutyarose the memory of so many acts of tenderness and kindness from myfather to myself, that I began to accuse myself of injustice towardshim, and to believe that it was not he who had wronged me, but I whohad wronged him. With this grievous thought in my mind, I left you, andproceeded to Liverpool.
My first visit was paid to the office of the White Star Line. There Ilearned 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 littlemore than eight days, that no casualty occurred on the voyage, and thatthere was no doubt that my father landed with the other passengers. Thispoint was settled by the books of the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. Myfather had stopped there for six days, and his name was duly recorded.Another point, quite as important, was established by reference to thehotel books and by inquiring of persons employed in the hotel. When myfather left Liverpool, he took train to London. I had arrived at thisstage of my inquiries, and was debating on the next step to take, whenmy 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 nosuspicion of the awful disclosure which awaited me, but naturallyinterested in any new phase of the mysterious incident, I purchased thepaper and looked at the headings of the Supplement, and, casually atthe matter. Seeing my own name--the name of Holdfast--repeated over andover again in the paper, I hurried from the street to the solitude of myroom, and there read the most wicked, monstrous, and lying romance thathuman minds ever invented. And in addition to the horrible calumnieswhich that "Romance of Real Life" contains in its references to me,I learned, to my unutterable grief, that the man who was so foullymurdered in Great Porter Square was my own father.
My dear, for many minutes the terrible disclosure--the knowledge that mydear father had met his death in a manner so awful and mysterious, tooksuch complete possession of my mind that I had no thought of myself. Myfather was dead! The last time we met we parted in anger, using wordsto each other such as bitter enemies would use. I swore in his presencethat he was dishonouring the name of Holdfast, and that I would neveruse it until he asked my forgiveness for the cruel injustice he had doneme; and he drove me from his heart and from his house. My forgiveness hecould never ask for now; he was dead! And the wrong we each did to theother in that hot encounter, in which love was poisoned by a treacherouswanton's scheming, could never be repaired until we met in anotherworld. I wept bitter tears, and falling on my knees--my mind enlightenedby the strange utterances of a worthless woman, as reported in the_Evening Moon_--I asked my father's forgiveness, as I had warned him toask mine. And yet, my dear, neither of us was wrong; he was right and Iwas right; and if the question between us were put to a high and worthytest, 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 senseof monstrous injustice inspired. To see my name so blackened, sodefamed, my character so outraged and malformed, inflamed me for a timeto 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 beenreckless had I only myself to protect, to provide for; but a dearer selfthan myself depended upon me, and my honour was engaged to you. It wasdue 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 beenpresented, the value of responsibilities. They tend to check our selfishimpulses, 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 youhad taken in disguising yourself as a maid-of-all-work, and obtaining asituation next to that in Great Porter Square in which the murder hadbeen committed--Great God! I cannot write it with calmness--the murderof 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 youraction a kind of Providence. Before these insanely-wicked inventions ofmy father's widow were made public, before it was known that the man whowas murdered in Great Porter Square was my father, it was comparativelyunimportant that I should be cleared of a charge of which I wasinnocent; it was then, so to speak, a side issue; now it is a vitalissue. And the murderer must be discovered. I say it solemnly--_must_ bediscovered! He will be. Not by the Government, nor by the police, nor byany judicial agency, but by one whose honour, whose future, whose faithand love, are dragged into this dread crisis. And I see that it willbe so--I see that you have been guided by a higher than a human impulsein your love-directed and seemingly mad inspiration to transform anddegrade yourself, for the purpose of clearing me from a wicked and cruelaccusation. At one time I doubted whether truth and justice were morethan words; I doubt no longer; reflecting over certain incidents andaccidents--accidents as I believed them to be--I see that something morethan chance directed them, and that of our own destinies we ourselvesare not the sole arbiters.
In the extraordinary narration presented to the readers of the _EveningMoon_ I read that I am dead. Well, be it so. How the falsehood wasinvented, and led up to, and strengthened by newspaper evidence,scarcely interests me in the light of the more momentous issue whichaffects my future and yours. Involved in it, undoubtedly, were wonderfulinventive powers, much painstaking, and immense industry--the result ofwhich was a newspaper paragraph of a few lines, every word of which isfalse. 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 themcontinue in their belief until their guilt is brought home to them. Toall intents and purposes, to all useful ends at present in the serviceof truth and justice, it will be best that it should be believed thatI _am_ dead. So let it be, then, until the proper time comes. It willcome, I believe and hope.
To one end I am pledged. I will avenge my father's murder, if it is inmy 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, insteadof an erring mortal, wrote it, you can still believe in me, still havefaith in me, I shall bless you all my life, as I shall love you all mylife, whether you remain faithful to me or not.
To my own heart, buoyed as I am with hope, stricken down as I am withdespair, 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 didno
t 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, thecharacter of the woman who has brought all this misery upon me. She isfair and beautiful to look upon; innocence appears to dwell in her face;her eyes meet yours frankly and smilingly; her manners are the mannersof a child; her voice is as sweet as the voice of a child. Were she andI to appear before a human tribunal, accused of a crime of which she wasguilty and I innocent, she would be acquitted and I condemned.
I am in your hands. Judge me quickly. If you delay, and say, "My faithis not shaken," I am afraid I should not be satisfied, because of yourdelay. In hope, as in despair,
I am, for ever yours, FREDERICK.