Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 3

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  IN WHICH BECKY NARRATES HOW FANNY BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH MRS. LYDIAHOLDFAST.

  By this time Fanny had invented a cunning little story.

  "If you please, my lady," she replied, "my sister is an actress, andI'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. Youused 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 thecrowd. I got a shilling a night, and Nelly had a pound a week. We livednear you in Oxford, and often saw you pass. Nelly was always talking ofyou, and saying how beautiful you were, and what a lady, and how luckyto have such swell friends. She used to wish she was like you, and whenyou 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, andI 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 andthree's none. She said yesterday morning, 'I'm off, Dot; I can't standthis any longer. No engagement and no money. You must look afteryourself, Dot. I tell you what to do if you're hard up. You go to thisaddress'--(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 knewher in Oxford, and ask her to help you. She'll do it. She's got a kindheart, and knows what it is to be unfortunate.' Well, that's all--exceptthat in the afternoon a gentleman came, and asked for Nelly. She goesdown 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'mready enough.' Then Nelly asked him for some money, and he gave her asovereign. 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 helpleaving you; what's the use of stopping here to starve? Get away fromthis 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 mequick, 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 Nellyhas gone, and when I tell her, she flies into a passion, and saysthere's three weeks' rent owing, besides other money. My hand is shuttight, with the sovereign in it, and the landlady must have seen itthrough my fingers, for she tries to force them open, but she can't tillshe digs her knuckles into the back of my hand, when, of course, thesovereign rolls out. 'Oh,' says the landlady, 'your sister's left thison 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 thehouse, and tells me she has let the room. So I am obliged to go, and Ididn't know what else to do except to come to you."

  I am not in a position to describe the exact effect this story, asrelated by Fanny, produced upon Mrs. Holdfast. For my part, I was amazedat the child's ingenuity. I doubt whether she could have inventedanything that would be likely better to serve our purpose. I am ofopinion that Mrs. Holdfast was both amused and frightened, and I thinkshe 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, inthe evening; and before Fanny left her, she made the child promise notto mention to a soul in the world anything about ever having seen heranywhere else but in London. Fanny promised, and left the house. To comestraight home to me? No. The cunning little creature waited outside Mrs.Holdfast's house until the lady came out. She watched her get into hercarriage, and when it started she ran ahead of the horses until she wasout of breath. Then she called a cab, and paying the man out of her fiveshillings, told him to follow the carriage. It stopped at the CriterionTheatre, and Fanny, jumping from the cab, saw Mrs. Holdfast enter thetheatre.

  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 ofwidowhood is evidently one which gives her satisfaction. I wonder whatthe Reporter of the newspaper who wrote the "Romance of Real Life,"partly from her own lips, would say, if he saw Mrs. Holdfast laughing inthe theatre so shortly after the discovery of the murder of her husband.Because the piece they are playing at the Criterion is taken from theFrench, and is intended to make you laugh. All the actors and actresseswho play in it are comedians, and do their best to create fun. TheReporter would put on his "Considering Cap," as the children's bookssay. If she had gone to see a tragedy, where she could cry her eyesout, she might have offered some excuse. But a laughable play, themorality 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 muchmistaken in her, she loves to run risks. She could not live withoutexcitement. 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 ofa game which, to lose, would ruin her. I shall not lose it. Every hourthe position of the pieces is becoming more clear to me, and I amdiscussing in my mind the advisability of two or three bold moves. But Iwill wait a little; something of importance will very soon be revealedto me. Good night, my dear. Sleep well. Every moment that passes bringsour happiness nearer and nearer.

  [Decoration]