“I hope you have changed your mind a little since we last met,” said Frank; “your last letter—”
“We’ll talk of that presently,” said the elder brother; “in the meantime I want to know about you. What is all this? My father is in a great state of anxiety. He does not seem to have got rid of his fancy that you were somehow involved with Jack—and Jack is here,” said Gerald, with a look which betokened some anxiety on his own part. “I wish you would give me your confidence. Right or wrong, I have come to stand by you, Frank,” said the Rector of Wentworth, rather mournfully. He had been waiting at Mrs. Hadwin’s for the last two hours. He had seen that worthy woman’s discomposed looks, and felt that she did not shake her head for nothing. Jack had been the bugbear of the family for a long time past. Gerald was conscious of adding heavily at the present moment to the Squire’s troubles. Charley was at Malta, in indifferent health; all the others were boys. There was only Frank to give the father a little consolation; and now Frank, it appeared, was most deeply compromised of all; no wonder Gerald was sad. And then he drew forth the anonymous letter which had startled all the Wentworths on the previous night. “This is written by somebody who hates you,” said the elder brother; “but I suppose there must be some meaning in it. I wish you would be frank with me, and tell me what it is.”
This appeal had brought them to Mrs. Hadwin’s door, which the Curate opened with his key before he answered his brother. The old lady herself was walking in the garden in a state of great agitation, with a shawl thrown over the best cap, which she had put on in honour of the stranger. Mrs. Hadwin’s feelings were too much for her at that moment. Her head was nodding with the excitement of age, and injured virtue trembled in every line of her face. “Mr. Wentworth, I cannot put up with it any longer; it is a thing I never was used to,” she cried, as soon as the Curate came within hearing. “I have shut my eyes to a great deal, but I cannot bear it any longer. If I had been a common lodging-house keeper, I could not have been treated with less respect; but to be outraged—to be insulted—”
“What is the matter, Mrs. Hadwin?” said Mr. Wentworth, in dismay.
“Sir,” said the old lady, who was trembling with passion, “you may think it no matter to turn a house upside down as mine has been since Easter; to bring all sorts of disreputable people about—persons whom a gentlewoman in my position ought never to have heard of. I received your brother into my house,” cried Mrs. Hadwin, turning to Gerald, “because he was a clergyman and I knew his family, and hoped to find him one whose principles I could approve of. I have put up with a great deal, Mr. Wentworth, more than I could tell to anybody. I took in his friend when he asked me, and gave him the spare room, though it was against my judgment. I suffered a man with a beard to be seen stealing in and out of my house in the evening, as if he was afraid to be seen. You gentlemen may not think much of that, but it was a terrible thing for a lady in my position, unprotected, and not so well off as I once was. It made my house like a lodging-house, and so my friends told me; but I was so infatuated I put up with it all for Mr. Frank’s sake. But there is a limit,” said the aggrieved woman. “I would not have believed it—I could not have believed it of you—not whatever people might say: to think of that abandoned disgraceful girl coming openly to my door—”
“Good heavens!” cried the Curate: he seized Mrs. Hadwin’s hand, evidently forgetting everything else she had said. “What girl?—whom do you mean? For heaven’s sake compose yourself and answer me. Who was it? Rosa Elsworthy? This is a matter of life and death for me,” cried the young man. “Speak quickly: when was it?—where is she? For heaven’s sake, Mrs. Hadwin, speak—”
“Let me go, sir!” cried the indignant old lady; “let me go this instant—this is insult upon insult. I appeal to you, Mr. Gerald—to think I should ever be supposed capable of encouraging such a horrid shameless—! How dare you—how dare you name such a creature to me?” exclaimed Mrs. Hadwin, with hysterical sobs. “If it were not for your family, you should never enter my house again. Oh, thank you, Mr. Gerald Wentworth—indeed I am not able to walk. I am sure I don’t want to grieve you about your brother—I tried not to believe it—I tried as long as I could
