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Updated: June 22, 2025
When Mr Wentworth entered Mrs Hadwin's garden in the dark, his first glance up at the house showed him that a certain change had passed on it also. The decorous little house had been turned inside out. The windows of his own sitting-room were open, the blind drawn up to the top, and in addition to his usual lamp some candles were flaring wildly in the draught.
This was how Mrs Hadwin's strange lodger, whom nobody could ever make out, disappeared as suddenly as he had come, without any explanations; and only a very few people could ever come to understand what he had to do with the after-events which struck Grange Lane dumb, and turned into utter confusion all the ideas and conclusions of society in Carlingford.
"Mrs Hadwin's talk is very gentle," said the Curate; "she never disturbs me." And the mistress of the house was equally obtuse, and would not comprehend any allusion.
It denoted a force of mind little in unison with that simplicity and helplessness which this girl had hitherto displayed. It argued the deepest apprehensions of mistreatment from her uncle. Whether his conduct had justified this violent antipathy, I had no means of judging. Mr. Hadwin's choice of him, as his executor, was certainly one proof of his integrity.
Gerald was coming up Grange Lane in his meditative way from Mrs Hadwin's door. To look at him was enough to reveal to any clear-sighted spectator the presence of some perpetual argument in his mind. Though he had come out to look for Frank, his eyes were continually forsaking his intention, catching spots of lichen on the wall and clumps of herbage on the roadside.
Meantime the Curate went down Grange Lane with that strange lodger of Mrs Hadwin's, who had broken thus into Miss Wodehouse's solitude.
Not saying a word against the gentleman as is a most respectable gentleman, for anything I know against him he aint no connection of Mr Wentworth. He's Mrs Hadwin's lodger; and I wouldn't say as he isn't a relation there; but our clergyman has got no more to do with him than the babe unborn."
This opinion was intuitive, rather than the product of experience, and perhaps I gave no proof of my sagacity in hazarding my safety on its truth. Hadwin's character made him dreaded and obeyed by all.
"I wonder very much that you like to walk up Grange Lane in the dark. I should think it very unpleasant, for my part; and I am sure I would not allow it, Mr Elsworthy," she said firmly, "if such a girl belonged to me." "But, please, I wasn't walking up Grange Lane," said Rosa, with some haste. "I was at Mrs Hadwin's, where Mr Wentworth lives.
Before they came to that, the people in Grange Lane bethought themselves of all Mrs Hadwin's connections, to find out if there might not be some of them under hiding; and, of course, that excellent woman had a nephew or two whose conduct was not perfect; and then it came to be reported that it was Mr Wentworth's brother that it was an unfortunate college chum of his that it was somebody who had speculated, and whom the Curate had gone shares with: but, in the mean time, no real information could be obtained about this mysterious stranger.
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