Nothing of late years had affected Mr. North so much as the death of Bessy Rane. His son Edmund's death, surrounded by all the doubt and trouble connected with the anonymous letter, did not touch him as did this. Perhaps he had never realized until now how very dear Bessy was to his heart.
"Why should Bessy have died?" he asked over and over again in his deep distress. "They have called it a famine fever, some of them, but why should a famine fever attack Bessy? I knew she was exposed to danger, through her husband; but if she did take it, why should she not have recovered from it? Others recovered who had not half Bessy's constitution. And why, why did she die so suddenly?"
No one could answer him. Not even Dr. Rane. Fever was capricious, the latter said. And death was capricious, he added in lower tones, often taking those we most cared to save.
Dallory echoed Mr. North's sentiments. The death of Mrs. Rane was the greatest shock that had fallen on them since the outbreak of the fever. Mrs. Gass, braving infection--though, like Jelly, she did not fear it--went down to Dr. Rane's house on the Monday morning to tender her sympathy, and relieve herself of some of her surprise. She felt much grieved, she was truly shocked: Bessy had always been a favourite of hers; it seemed impossible to realize that she was dead. Her mental arguments ran very much as did Mr. North's--Why should Bessy have died, when so many of the poor and the half starved recovered? But the point that pressed most forcibly on Mrs. Gass was the rapidity of the death. None had died so soon as Bessy, or anything like so soon; it seemed unaccountable that she should not have battled longer for life.
Phillis received Mrs. Gass in the darkened drawing-room; her master was out. Dr. Rane could not stay indoors to indulge his grief and play propriety, as most men can. Danger and death were abroad, and the physician had to go forth and try to avert both from others, in accordance with his duty to Heaven and to man. That he felt his loss keenly, was evident; there was no outward demonstration; neither sighs nor tears; but he seemed as a man upon whom some heavy weight had fallen; his manner preoccupied, his bearing almost unnaturally still and calm. Phillis and Mrs. Gass were talking, and, if truth must be told, shedding tears together, when the doctor came in. Phillis, standing near the centre table, had been giving particulars of the death, as far as she knew them, just as she had given them to Jelly the morning after the sad event. Mrs. Gass, seated in the green velvet chair, had untied the strings of her bonnet--she had not come down in satins and birds-of-paradise to-day, but in subdued attire--and was wiping away the tears with her broad-hemmed handkerchief while she listened.
The old servant retired at the entrance of her master. He sat down, and prepared to go through the interview with equanimity, though he heartily wished Mrs. Gass anywhere else. His house was desolate; infected also; he thought that visitors, for their own sake and his, had better keep away. They had not met since the death, and Mrs. Gass, though the least exacting woman in the world, took it a little unkindly that he had not been in, knowing that he passed her house several times in the day.
In subdued tones, Oliver Rane gave Mrs. Gass a summary of Bessy's illness and death. He had done all he could to keep her, he said; all he could. Seeley had come over once or twice, and knew that nothing more had remained in his power.
"But, doctor, I heard that on the Friday you told people she was getting better and the danger was over," urged Mrs. Gass, her tears flowing afresh.
"And I thought it was so," he answered. "What I mistook for sleepiness from exhaustion, and what Seeley mistook for the same, must have been the exhaustion of approaching death. We are deceived thus sometimes."
"But, doctor, she never had more than a day's fever. Was that enough to cause death from exhaustion?"
"She had a day and a night of fever. And consider how intense it was: I never before saw anything like it. We must not always estimate the fatality of a fever by its duration, Mrs. Gass. The terrible suddenness of the blow has been worse to me than it could have been to any one else."
Yes, Mrs. Gass believed that, and warmly sympathized with him. She then expressed a wish to see the coffin. "Would it be well for her to go up?" he asked. "Oh dear, yes," Mrs. Gass answered; "she was not afraid of anything." And the doctor took her up without further hesitation. There was little if any danger now, he observed, as he raised the sheet, which still hung there, to enable her to enter the grey room.
Everything was completed. Hepburn's men had been to and fro, and all was ended. The outer coffin was of oak, its lid bearing the inscription. Mrs. Gass's tears fairly gushed out as site read it.
"But you have not put the date of the death, doctor!" cried Mrs. Gass, surprised at the omission.
"No? True. That's Thomas Hepburn's fault; I left it to him. The man is half-crazed just now, between grief for his brother and fear for himself. It will be put on the grave."
From Dr. Rane's Mrs. Gass went to Dallory Hall, knowing that madam was absent. Otherwise she would not have ventured there. And never was guest more welcome to its master. Poor Mr. North spoke out to her all his grief for Bessy without reservation.
But of all who felt this death, none were so affected by it as Jelly. She could not rest for the wild thoughts that tormented her day and night. The idea at first taken up kept floating through her head, and sometimes she could not get rid of it for hours: an idea that Mrs. Rane had been put into her coffin alive; that what she saw was Mrs. Rane herself, and not her spirit. Yet Jelly knew that this could not be, and her imagination would turn to another wild improbability, though she dared not follow it--that the poor lady had not died a natural death. One night there came surging into Jelly's brain the suggestive case put by Timothy Wilks, that some men might be found who would put their wives out of the way for the sake of the tontine money. Jelly tossed from side to side in her uneasy bed, and stared at the candle--for she no longer cared to sleep in the dark--and tried to get rid of the wicked notion. But she never got rid of it again; and when she rose in the morning, pale, and trembling, and weary, she believed that the dread mystery had solved itself to her, and would be found inthis.
What ought she to do? Going about that day as one in a dream, the question continually presented itself to her. Jelly was at her wits' end with indecision: at night resolving to tell of the apparition, and of her suspicion of Dr. Rane; in the morning putting the thoughts from her, and call herself a fool for yielding to them. Dinah could not make out what ailed her, she was so strange and silent, but privately supposed it might be the condition of Mr. Timothy Wilks. For that gentleman was confined to his bed with some attack connected with the liver.
Wednesday, the day of the funeral, drew on. It had been a little retarded to allow of the return of Richard North. News had been received of him the morning after Bessy's death. It may readily be imagined what Richard's consternation and grief must have been to hear of his sister's death; whom he so recently left well, happy, and as likely to live as he himself.
The funeral was fixed for twelve o'clock. Richard only arrived the same morning at ten. He had been delayed twelve hours by the state of the sea, the Ostend boat not having been able to put out. Jelly, in her superstition, thought the elements had been conspiring to keep Richard North from following one to the grave who had not been sent to it by Heaven.
Long before twelve o'clock struck, groups had formed about the churchyard. The men, out on strike, and their wives, were there in full force: partly because it was a break to their monotonous idleness, partly out of respect to their master. The whole neighbourhood sincerely regretted Bessy Rane, who had never made an enemy in her life.
In the church people of the better class assembled, all in mourning. Mrs. Gass was in her pew, in an upright bonnet and crape flowers. Seeing Jelly come in looking very woebegone, she hospitably opened the pew door to her. And this was close upon the arrival of the funeral.
The first to make his appearance was Thomas Hepburn in his official capacity; quite as woebegone as Jelly, and far more sickly. The rest followed. The coffin, which Mrs. Gass had seen the other day, was placed on its stand; for the few last words of this world to be read over it. Dr. Rane, as white as a sheet; and Mr. North, leaning on his son Richard's arm, comprised the followers. No strangers were invited: Dr. Rane thought, considering what Bessy had died of, that they might not care to attend. People wondered whether Captain Bohun had been bidden to it. If so, he certainly had not come.
It seemed only a few minutes before they were moving out of the church again. The grave had been dug in the corner of the churchyard, near to Edmund North's: and he, as may be remembered, lay next to his mother. Mrs. Gass and Jelly took their seats on a remote bench, equally removed from the ceremony and the crowd. The latter stood at a respectful distance, not caring, from various considerations, to approach too near. Not a word had the two women as yet spoken to each other. The bench they sat on was low, and overshadowed by the trees that bordered the narrow walks. Not ten people in the churchyard were aware that any one sat there. Jelly was the first to break the silence.
"How white he looks!"
It was rather abrupt, as Mrs. Gass thought. They could see the clergyman in his surplice through the intervening trees, and the others standing bare-headed around him.
"Do you mean the doctor, Jelly?"
"Yes," said Jelly, "I mean him."
"And enough to make him, poor berefted man, when the one nearest and dearest to him is suddenly cut off by fever," gravely rejoined Mrs. Gass. "In the midst of life we are in death."
Now, or never. Sitting there alone with Mrs. Gass, surrounded by these solemn influences, Jelly thought the hour and the opportunity had come. Bear with the secret much longer, she could not; it would wear her to a skeleton, worry her into a fever perhaps; and she had said to herself several times that Mrs. Gass, with her plain common sense, would be the best person to confide in. Yes, she mentally repeated, now or never.
"Wasit the fever that cut her off?" began Jelly, significantly.
"Was it the fever that cut her off?" echoed Mrs. Gass. "What d'you mean, Jelly?"
Jelly turned to the speaker, and plunged into her tale. Beginning, first of all, with the apparition she had certainly seen, and how it was--staying late at Ketler's, and Dinah's having left the blind undrawn--that she had come to see it. There she paused.
"Why, what on earth d'you mean?" sharply demanded Mrs. Gass. "Saw Mrs. Rane's ghost! Don't be an idiot, Jelly."
"Yes, I saw it," repeated Jelly, with quiet emphasis. "Saw it as sure as I see them standing there now to bury her. There could be no mistake. I never saw her plainer in life. It was at one o'clock in the morning, I say, Mrs. Gass; and she was screwed down at twelve: an hour before it."
"Had you taken a little too much beer?" asked Mrs. Gass, after a pause, staring at Jelly to make sure the question would not also apply to the present time. But the face that met hers was strangely earnest: too much so even to resent the insinuation.
"It was her ghost, poor thing: and I'm afraid it'll walk till justice lays it. I never knew but one ghost walk in all my life, Mrs. Gass: and he had been murdered."
Mrs. Gass made no rejoinder. She was absorbed in looking at Jelly. Jelly went on--
"It's said there's many that walk: the world's full of such tales; but I never knew but that one. When people are put to an untimely end, and buried away out of sight, and their secrets with 'em, it stands to reason that they can't rest quiet in their graves.Shewon't."
Mrs. Gass put her hand impressively on Jelly's black shawl, and kept it there. "Tell me why you are saying this?"
"It's what I want to do. If I don't tell it to some one, I shall soon be in the grave myself. Fancy me living at the very next door, and nobody in the house just now but Dinah!"
Jelly spoke out all: that she believed Dr. Rane might have "put his wife out of the way." Mrs. Gass was horrified. Not at the charge: she didn't believe a word of it; but at Jelly's presuming to imagine it. She gave Jelly a serious reprimand.
"It was him that wrote that anonymous letter, you know," whispered Jelly.
"Hush! Hold your tongue, girl. I've warned you before to let that alone."
"And I'm willing to do so."
"That is downright wicked of you, Jelly. Dr. Rane loved his wife. What motive do you suppose he could have had for killing her?"
"To get the tontine money," replied Jelly, in a whisper.
The two women gazed at each other; gaze meeting gaze. And then Mrs. Gass suddenly grew whiter than Dr. Rane, and began to shiver as though some strange chill had struck her.
Reclining on the pillows of an invalid chair was Arthur Bohun, looking as yellow as gold, recovering from an attack of jaundice. The day of James Bohun's funeral it had poured with rain; and Arthur, standing at the grave, had caught a chill. This had terminated in the jaundice--his unhappy state of mind no doubt doing its part towards bringing on the malady. He was recovering now. Sir Nash, at whose house he lay, was everything that was kind.
Madam was kind also: at least she made a great profession of being so. Her object in life just now was to get her son to marry Miss Dallory. Madam cared no more for her son Arthur or his welfare than she did for Richard North; but she was shrewd enough to foresee that the source, whence her large supplies of money had hitherto been drawn, was now dried up: and she hoped to get supplies out of Arthur for the future. Marrying an heiress, wealthy as Miss Dallory, would wonderfully increase his power to help her. Moreover, she wished to be effectually relieved from that horrible nightmare that haunted her still--the possibility of his marrying Ellen Adair.
So madam laid her plans--as it was in her scheming nature ever to be laying them--and contrived to bring Miss Dallory, at that time in London with her aunt, to Sir Nash Bohun's for a few days' visit when Arthur was recovering. The young lady was there now: and Matilda North was there; and they both spent a good part of every day with Arthur; and Sir Nash made much of Mary Dallory, partly because he really liked her, and partly because he thought there was a probability that she would become Arthur's wife. During his illness, Captain Bohun had had time for reflection: not only time, butcalmness, in the lassitude it brought to him mentally and physically: and he began to see his immediate way somewhat clearer. To give no explanation to the two ladies at Eastsea, to whom he was acting, as he felt, so base a part, was the very worst form of cowardice; and, though he could not explain to Ellen Adair, he was now anxious to do so to Mrs. Cumberland. Accordingly the first use he made of his partially-recovered health, was to ask for writing materials and write her a note in very shaky characters. He spoke of his serious illness, stated that certain "untoward circumstances" had occurred to intercept his plans, but that as soon as he was sufficiently well to travel he should beg of her to appoint a time when she could allow him a private conference.
The return post brought him a letter from Ellen. Rather to his consternation. Ellen assumed--not unnaturally, as the reader will find--that the sole cause of his mysterious absence was illness; that he had been ill from the first, and unable to travel. It ran as follows:--
"My Dearest Arthur,
"I cannot express to you what my feelings are this morning; so full of joy, yet full of pain. Oh I cannot tell you what the past two or three weeks have been to me; looking back, it almost seems a wonder that Ilivedthrough them. For I thought--I will not say here what I thought, and perhaps I could not say, only that you were never coming again; and that it was agony to me, worse than death. And to hear now that you could not come: that the cause of your silence and absence has been dangerous illness, brings to me a great sorrow and shame. Oh Arthur, my dearest, forgive me! Forgive also my writing to you thus freely; but it almost seems to me as though you were already my husband. Had you been called away only half-an-hour later you would have been, and perhaps even might have had me with you in your illness.
"I should like to write pages and pages, but you may be too ill yet to read very much, and so I will say no more. May God watch over you and bring you to health again.
"Ever yours, Arthur, yours only, with the great love of my heart,
"Ellen Adair."
And Captain Arthur Bohun, in spite of the cruel fate that had parted them, pressed the letter to his heart, and the sweet name, Ellen Adair--sweeter than any he would ever hear again--to his lips, and shed tears of anguish over it in the feebleness induced by illness.
They might take Mary Dallory to his room as much as they pleased; and Matilda might exert her little wiles in praising her, and madam hers to leave them "accidentally" together; but his heart was too full of another, and of its own bitter pain, to have room for as much as a responsive thought to Mary Dallory.
"Arthur is frightfully languid and apathetical!" spoke Miss North one day in a burst of resentment. "I'm sure he is quite rude to me and Mary: he lets us sit by him for an hour at a time, and never speaks."
"Consider how ill he has been--and is," remonstrated Sir Nash.
Mrs. Cumberland's span of life was drawing into a very narrow space: and it might be that she was beginning to suspect this. For some months she had been growing inwardly weaker; but the weakness had for a week or two been visibly and rapidly increasing. Captain Bohun's unaccountable behaviour had tried her--for Ellen's sake. She was responsible to Mr. Adair for the welfare of his daughter, and the matter was a source of daily and hourly annoyance to her. When this second tardy note arrived, she considered it, in one sense, a satisfactory explanation; in another, not so: since, if Captain Bohun had been too ill to write himself, why did he not get some one else to write to her and say so? However, she was willing to persuade herself that all would be right: and she told Ellen, without showing her the note, that Captain Bohun had been dangerously ill, unable to come or write. Hence Ellen's return letter.
But, apart from the progress of the illness in itself, nothing had done Mrs. Cumberland so much harm as the news of her daughter-in-law's death. It had been allowed to reach her abruptly, without the smallest warning. I suppose there is something in our common nature that urges us to impart sad tidings to others. Dinah, Jelly's friend and underling, was no exception to this rule. On the day after the death, she sat down and indited a letter to her fellow-servant, Ann, at Eastsea, in which she detailed the short progress of Mrs. Rane's illness, and her strangely sudden death. Ann, before she had well mastered the cramped lines, ran with white face to her mistress; and Miss Adair afterwards told her that she ought to have known better. That it was too great a shock for Mrs. Cumberland in her critical state, the girl in her repentance very soon saw. Mrs. Cumberland asked for the letter, and scarcely had it out of her hand for many hours. Dead! apparently from no sufficient cause; for the fever had lasted only a day, Dinah said, and had gone again. Mrs. Cumberland, in her bewilderment, began actually to think the whole thing was a fable.
Not for two or three days did she receive confirmation from Dr. Rane. Of course the doctor did not know or suppose that any one else would be writing to Eastsea; and he was perhaps willing to spare his mother the news as long as he could do so. He shortly described the illness--saying that he, himself, had entertained very little hope from the first, from the severity of the fever. But all this did not help to soothe Mrs. Cumberland; and in the two or three weeks that afterwards went on, she faded palpably. Little wonder the impression, that she was growing worse, made its way to Dallory.
With the same rapidity that the sickness had appeared, so did it subside in Dallory. Mrs. Rane's was the last serious case: the last death; the very few cases afterwards were of the mildest description; and within a fortnight of the time that ill-fated lady was laid in the ground, people were restoring their houses and throwing their rooms open to the renewed air.
The inhabitants in general, rallying their courage, thought the sooner they forgot the episode the better. Excepting perhaps by the inmates of those houses from which some one had been taken, they did soon forget it. It was surprising--now that fear was at an end and matters could be summed up dispassionately--how few the losses were. With the exception of Henry Hepburn the undertaker and Mrs. Rane, they were entirely amongst the poor working people out on strike, and, even here, were principally amongst the children. Mrs. Gass told men to their faces that the fever had come of nothing but famine and poverty, and that they had only themselves to thank for it. She was in the habit, as the reader knows, of dealing some home truths out to them: but she had dealt out something else during the sickness, and that was wholesome food. She continued to do so still to those who had been weakened by it: but she gave them due warning that it was only temporary help, which, but for the fever, they would never have received from her. And so the visitation grew into a thing of the past, and Dallory was itself again.
One, there was, however, who could not forget: with whom that unhappy past was present night and day. Jelly. That Dr. Rane had in some way wilfully caused the death of his wife, Jelly was as sure of as though she had seen it done. Her suspicion pointed to laudanum; or to some equally fatal preparation. Suspicion? Nay, with her it had become a certainty. In that last day of Bessy Rane's life, when she was described as sleeping, sleeping, always sleeping; when her sole cry had been--"I am easy, only let me sleep," Jelly now felt that Dr. Rane knew she had been quietly sleeping away to death. Unerringly as though it had been written with the pen of truth, lay the conviction upon her heart. About that, there could be neither doubt nor hesitation: the difficulty was--what ought to be her own course in the matter?
In all Jelly's past life she had never been actually superstitious; if told that she was so now, she would have replied that it was because circumstances had forced it upon her. That Mrs. Rane's spirit had appeared to her that memorable night for one sole purpose--that she, Jelly, should avenge her dreadful end by publicly disclosing it, Jelly believed as implicitly as she believed in the Gospel. Not a soul in the whole wide world but herself (saving of course Dr. Rane) had the faintest idea that the death was not a natural one. Jelly moaned and groaned, and thought her fate unjustly hard thatsheshould have been signalled out by Heaven--for so she solemnly put it--for the revelation, when there were so many others in the community of Dallory who might have done it better than herself. Jelly had periods of despondency, when she did not quite know whether her head was on or off, or whether her mind wouldn't "go." Why couldn't the ghost have appeared to some one else, she would mentally ask at these moments: to Phillis, say; or to Dinah; or to Seeley the surgeon? Just because she had been performing an act of charity in sitting up with Keller's sick child, it must show itself toher!And then Jelly's brain would go off into problems, that it might have puzzled one wiser than she to answer. Supposing she had not been at Ketler's that night, the staircase blind would have been drawn at dusk as usual, she would have gone to bed at her ordinary hour, have seen, nothing, and been spared all this misery. But no. It was not to be. And although Jelly, in her temper, might wish to throw the blame on Ketler for staying out, and on Dinah for her negligence, she recognized the finger of Destiny in all this, and knew she could not have turned aside from it.
What was she to do? Living in constant dread of again seeing the apparition, feeling a certainty within herself that she should see it, Jelly pondered the question every hour of the day. Things could not rest as they were. On the one hand, there was her natural repugnance to denounce Dr. Rane: just as there had been in the case of the anonymous letter: not only because she was in the service of his mother, but for his own sake; for Jelly, with all her faults, as to gossip and curiosity, had by no means a bad heart. On the other hand, there was the weighty secret revealed to her by the departed woman, and the obligation laid upon her in consequence. Yet--how could she speak?--when the faintest breath of such an accusation against her son, would assuredly kill Mrs. Cumberland in her present critical state! and to Jelly she was a good and kind mistress. No, she could never do it. With all this conflict going on within her, no wonder Jelly fell away: she had been thin enough before, she was like a veritable skeleton now. As to the revelation to Mrs. Gass, Jelly might just as well have made it to the moon. For that lady, after the first shock had passed, absolutely refused to put any faith in the tale: and had appeared ever since, by her manner, to ignore it as completely as though it had never been uttered.
Gradually Jelly grew disturbed by another fear: might she not be taken up as an accomplice after the fact? She was sure she had heard of such cases: and she tormented Tim Wilks almost out of patience--that gentleman having recovered from his temporary indisposition--by asking endless questions as to what the law might do to a person who found out that another had committed some crime, and kept back the knowledge: say stolen a purse, for instance, and appropriated the money.
One night, when Jelly, by some fortunate chance, had really got to sleep early--for she more often lay awake until morning--a ring at the door-bell suddenly roused her. Mrs. Cumberland had caused a night-bell to be put to the door: in case of fire, she had said. It hung on this first landing, not very far from Jelly's head, and it awoke her instantly. Dinah, sleeping above, might have heard it just as well as Jelly; but Dinah was a sound sleeper, and the bell, as Jelly knew, might ring for an hour before it awoke her. However, Jelly lay still, not caring to get up herself, hoping against hope, and wondering who in the world could be ringing, unless it was some one mistaking their house for Dr. Rane's. Such a thing had happened before.
Ring; ring; ring. Not a loud ring by any means; but a gentle peal, as if the applicant did it reluctantly. Jelly lay on. She was not afraid that it was connected with the sight she was always in dread of again seeing, since ghosts are not in the habit of ringing to announce their visits. In fact, surprise, and speculating as to who it could be, put all fear for the time being out of Jelly's head.
Ring; ring; ring. Rather a louder peal this time, as if a little impatience now mingled with the reluctance.
Flinging on a warm shawl, and putting her feet into her shoes, Jelly proceeded to the front-room--Mrs. Cumberland's chamber when she was at homo--threw up the window, and called to know who was there. A little man, stepping back from the door into the bright moonlight, looked up to answer--and Jelly recognized the form and voice of Ketler.
"It's me," said he.
"You!" interrupted Jelly, not allowing the man to continue. "What on earth do you want here at this hour?"
"I came to tell you the news about poor Cissy. She's dead."
"Couldn't it wait?" tartly returned Jelly, overlooking the sad nature of the tidings in her anger at having been disturbed. "Would it have run away, that you must come and knock folks up to tell it, as if you'd been the telegraph?"
"It was my wife made me come," spoke Ketler, with much humility. "She's in a peck o' grief, Jelly, and nothing would do but I must come right off and tell you; she thought, mayhap, you'd not be gone to bed."
"Not gone to bed at midnight!" retorted Jelly. "And there it is, striking: if you've any ears to hear. You must be a fool, Ketler."
"Well, I'm sorry to have disturbed you," said the man, with a sigh. "I wouldn't have done it myself; but poor Susan was taking on so, I couldn't deny her. We was all so fond of the child; and--and----"
Ketler broke down. The man had loved his child: and he was weak and faint with hunger. It a little appeased Jelly.
"I suppose you don't expect me to dress myself and come off to Susan at this hour?" she exclaimed, her tone, however, not quite so sharp as it had been.
"Law, bless you, no," answered Ketler. "What good would that do? It couldn't bring Cissy back to life again."
"Ketler, it's just this--instead of being upset with grief, you and Susan might be thankful the child's taken out of the trouble of this world. She won't be crying for food where she's gone, and find none."
The man's grief was renewed at the last suggestion. But Jelly had really meant it in the light of consolation.
"She was your god-child, Jelly."
"You needn't tell me that," answered Jelly. "Could I have saved her life at any trouble or cost, I would have done it. If I had a home of my own I'd have taken her to it, but I'm only in service, as you know. Ketler, it is the strike that has killed that child."
Ketler was silent.
"Cissy was a weakly child and required extra comforts; as long as you were in work she had them, but when that dropped off, of course the child suffered. And now she's gone. She is better off, Ketler."
"Yes," assented the man as if he were heartbroken. "If it wasn't for the thought of the rest, I should wish it was me that was gone instead."
"Well, give my love to Susan and say I'm sorry for it altogether, and I'll come down some time in the morning. And, look here, Ketler--what about the money for the burial? You've nothing towards it, I expect."
"Not a penny," moaned Ketler.
"Well, I know you wouldn't like the poor little thing to be buried by the parish, so I'll see what's to be done, tell Susan. Goodnight."
Jelly shut down the window sharply. She really looked upon the strike as having led to the child's death--and remotely possibly it had done so; so what with that, and the untimely disturbance, her anger was somewhat excusable.
In passing across the landing to her own chamber, the large window became suddenly illuminated. Jelly stopped. Her heart, as she would herself have expressed it, leaped into her mouth. The light came from the outside; no doubt from Dr. Rane's. Jelly stood motionless. And then--what desperate courage impelled her she never knew, but believed afterwards it must have been something akin to the fascination of the basilisk--she advanced to the window, and drew aside the white blind.
But she did not see Bessy Rane this time, as perhaps she had expected; only her husband. Dr. Rane had a candle in his hand, and was apparently picking up something he had dropped quite close to his own window. In another moment he lodged the candle on a chair that stood there, so as to have both hands at liberty. Jelly watched. What he had dropped appeared to be several articles of his deceased wife's clothing, some of which had unfolded in the fall. He soon had them within his arm again, caught up the candle, and went downstairs. Jelly saw and recognized one beautiful Indian shawl, which had been a present from her own mistress to Bessy.
"He is going to pack them up and sell them, the wicked man!" spoke Jelly in her conviction. And her ire grew very great against Dr. Rane. "I'd almost rather have seen the spirit of his poor wife again thanthis," was her comment, as she finally went into her room.
Putting aside all the solemn doubts and fears that were making havoc with Jelly's mind, her curiosity was insatiable. Perhaps no woman in all Dallory had so great a propensity for prying into other people's affairs as she. Not, it must be again acknowledged, to harm them, but simply to gratify her inquisitiveness.
On the following morning, when Jelly attired herself to go to Ketler's after breakfast--the meal being seasoned throughout with reproaches to Dinah for not hearing the night-bell--she bethought herself that she would first of all step into the next door. Ostensibly with the neighbourly object of informing Phillis of the death of the child; really, to pick up any items of information that might be floating about. Dr. Rane, it may be here remarked, had given Molly Green a character to get herself another situation, preferring to retain the elder servant, Phillis, who, however, only went to him by day. The doctor was alone in his house at night, and Jelly believed he dared not have even old Phillis in, knowing it was haunted. He made no secret now of his intention of quitting Dallory. As soon as his practice should be disposed of, and the tontine money paid over to him, away he would go.
Jelly coolly walked out of the window of Mrs. Cumberland's dining-room, and through that of the doctor's. She had seen him go out some little time before. Phillis was upstairs, putting her master's chamber to rights, and Jelly sought her there. She described the fright Ketler had given her by coming at midnight to bring the news about Cissy; and Phillis, whose heart was tender, dropped a tear or two to the child's memory. Cissy had been loved by every one.
"Miss Dallory will be sorry to hear this when she comes back," remarked Phillis.
"I say, Phillis, what does your master mean to do with Mrs. Rane's clothes?" abruptly asked Jelly.
Phillis, dusting the looking-glass at the moment, paused in her occupation, as if considering.
"I'm sure I don't know, Jelly, He pointed out a few of the plain things to me one day, and said I might divide them between myself and Molly Green, but that he wouldn't like to see us wear them till he was gone away. As of course we shouldn't, being in black for her."
"She had lots of beautiful clothes. I'm sure the shawls, and scarfs, and embroidered robes, and worked petticoats, and other valuable Indian things that my mistress was always giving her, would have set up any lady's wardrobe. What will he do withthem?"
Phillis shook her head, and pointed to a high chest of drawers. Her heart was full yet when she spoke of her late mistress.
"They are all in there, Jelly."
Are they, thought Jelly. But Phillis was going down now, her occupation ended. Jelly lingered behind, and put her black bonnet out at the window, as if looking at something up the road. When Phillis had descended the stairs, Jelly tried the drawers. All were locked except one. That one, which Jelly softly drew open, was filled with articles belonging to the late Mrs. Rane; none of them, as far as Jelly could gather by the cursory glance, of much value.
"Yes," she said bitterly. "He keeps these open for show, but he is sending away the best. Those other drawers, if they could be looked into, are empty."
If ever Jelly had been startled in all her life at human footstep, it was to hear that of Dr. Rane on the stairs. How she closed the drawer, how she got her bonnet stretched out at the window again as far as it would stretch, she hardly knew. The doctor came in. Jelly, bringing in her head, apparently as much surprised as if a rhinoceros had walked into the room, apologized and explained rather lamely. She supposed Phillis must have gone down, she said, while she was watching that impudent butcher's boy; she had made bold to step up to tell Phillis about Ketler's little girl.
"Ah, she is gone," observed Dr. Rane, as Jelly was walking out. "There has been no hope of her for some time."
"No, sir, I know there hasn't," replied Jelly, somewhat recovering her equanimity. "I told Ketler that he may thank the strike for it."
Jelly got out with this, and was passing through the grey room, when the doctor spoke again.
"Have you heard from your mistress this morning, Jelly?"
"No, sir."
"Well, I have. I am very much afraid that she is exceedingly ill, Jelly?"
"Dinah had a letter from Ann a day or two ago, sir; she said that her missis was looking worse, and seemed lower than she had ever known her."
"Ay, I wish she would come home. Eastsea is far away, and I cannot be running there everlastingly," added the doctor, as he closed the chamber-door in Jelly's face.
Time went on again; nearly a fortnight. Dallory had relapsed into its old routine; the fever was forgotten. Houses had recovered from the aroma of soap and scrubbing: their inhabitants were back again; and amongst them were Mrs. North and her daughter Matilda.
The principal news madam found to interest her was, that Richard North had opened the works again. The glow of hope it raised within her was very bright; for she considered it as an earnest that supplies would spring up again in the future as they had in the past. That she would find herself mistaken was exceedingly probable; Richard himself could have said a certainty. Madam had the grace to express some calm regret for the untimely death of Bessy Rane, in the hearing of Mr. North and Richard; she had put herself and Matilda into deeper mourning than they had assumed for James Bohun. It was all of the most fashionable and costly description; and the master of Dallory Hall, poor helpless man, had the pleasure of receiving the bills for it from the London court-milliners and dressmakers. But madam never inquired into the particulars of Bessy's illness and death; in her opinion the less fevers were talked about the better.
Yes: the North works were reopened. Or, to be quite correct, they were on the point of being reopened. Upon how small a scale he must begin again, Richard, remembering the extent of past operations, felt almost ashamed to contemplate. But, as he good-humouredly remarked, half a loaf was better than no bread. He must earn a living; he had no fortune to fly to; and he preferred doing this to seeking employment under other firms, if indeed anything worth having could have been found; but the trade of the country was in a most depressed state, and hundreds of gentlemen, like himself, had been thrown on their beam ends. It was the same thing as beginning life over again; a little venture, that might succeed or might fail; one in which he must plod on carefully and cautiously, even to keep it going.
The whole staff of operatives would at first number less than twenty. The old workmen, idly airing themselves still in North Inlet, laughed derisively when they heard this. They were pleasantly sarcastic over it, thinking perhaps to conceal their real bitterness of heart. The new measure did not find favour with them. How should it, when they stood out in the light of exclusion? Some eight or ten, who had never willingly upheld the strike, had all along been ready to return to work, would be taken on again; the rest were foreigners that Richard North was bringing over from abroad. And the anger of the disaffected may be imagined.
Mrs. Gass entered cordially into Richard's plans. She would have put unlimited money into his new undertaking; but Richard would not have it. Some portion of her capital that had been embarked in the firm of North and Gass, of necessity remained in it--all, in fact, that was not lost--but this she counted as nothing, and wanted to help Richard yet further. "It's of no good crying over spilt milk, Mr. Richard," she said to him, philosophically; "and I've still a great deal more than I shall ever want." But Richard was firm: he would receive no further help: it was a risk that he preferred to incur alone.
Perhaps there were few people living that Richard North liked better than Mrs. Gass. He even liked her homely language; it was honest and genuine; far more to be respected than if she had made a show of attempting what she could not have kept up. Richard had learned to know her worth: he recognized it more certainly day by day. In the discomfort of his home at Dallory Hall--which had long been anything but a home to him--he had fallen into the habit of almost making a second home with Mrs. Gass. Never a day passed but he spent an hour or two of it with her; and she would persuade him to remain for a meal as often as she could.
He sat one afternoon at her well-spread tea-table. His arrangements were very nearly organized now; and in a day the works would open. The foreign workmen had arrived, and were lodging with their families in the places appointed for them. Two policemen, employed by Richard, had also taken up their position in Dallory, purposely to protect them. Of course their mission was not known: Richard North would not be the one to provoke hostilities; but he was quite aware of the ill-feeling obtaining amongst his former workmen.
"Downright idiots, they be," said Mrs. Gass, confidentially, as she handed Richard a cup of tea. "They want a lesson read to 'em, Mr. Richard; that's what it is."
"I don't know about that," dissented Richard. "It seems to me they could hardly receive a better lesson than these last few months must have taught them."
"Ah, you don't know 'em as I do. I'm almost double your age, sir; and there's nothing gives experience like years."
Richard laughed. "Not double my age yet, Mrs. Gass."
"Anyway, I might have been your mother--if you'll excuse my saying it," she contended. "You're hard upon thirty-three, and I'm two years turned fifty."
In this homely manner Mrs. Gass usually liked to make her propositions undeniable. Certainly she might, in point of age, have been Richard's mother.
"I know the men better than you do, Mr. Richard; and I say they want a lesson read to 'em yet. And they'll get it, sir. But we'll leave the subject for a bit, if you please. I've been tired of it for some time past, and I'm sure you have. To watch once sensible men acting like fools, and persisting in doing it, in spite of everybody and everything, wearies one's patience. Is it tomorrow that you open?"
"The day after."
"Well, now, Mr. Richard, I should like to say another word upon a matter that you and me don't agree on--and it's not often our opinions differ, is it, sir? It's touching your capital. I know you'll want more than you can command: it would give me a real pleasure if you'll let me find it."
Richard smiled, and shook his head, "I cannot say more than I have said before," was his reply. "You know all I have urged."
"Promise me this, then," returned Mrs. Gass. "If ever you find yourself at a pinch as things go on, you'll come to me. I don't ask this, should the concern turn out a losing one, for in that case I know cords wouldn't draw you to me for help. But when you are getting on, and money would be useful, and its investment safe and sure, I shall expect you to come to me. Now, that's enough. I want to put a question, Mr. Richard, that delicacy has kept me from worrying you about before. What about the expenses at Dallory Hall? You can't pretend to keep 'em up yourself."
"Ah," said Richard, "that has been my nightmare. But I think I see a way through it at last. First of all, I have given notice to Miss Dallory that we shall not renew the lease: it will expire, you know, next March."
"Good," observed Mrs. Gass.
"My father knows nothing about it--it is of no use troubling him earlier than is necessary; and of course madam knows nothing.Sheimagines that the lease will be renewed as a matter of course. Miss Dallory will, at my request, keep counsel--or, rather, her brother Francis for her, for it is he who transacts her business."
"They know then that you are the real lessee of Dallory Hall? Lawk a mercy, what a simpleton I am!" broke off Mrs. Gass. "Of course they must have known it when the transfer was made."
Richard nodded. "As soon as Christmas is turned I shall look out for a moderate house in lieu of the Hall; one that I shall hope to be able to keep up. It shall have a good garden for my father's sake. There will be rebellion on the part of madam and Matilda, but I can't help that. I cannot do more than my means will allow me."
"See here, Mr. Richard; don't worry yourself about not being able to keep up a house for Mr. North. I'll do my part in that: do it all, if need be. He and my husband were partners and friends, and grew rich together. Mr. North has lost his savings, but I have kept mine; and I will never see him wanting comfort while he lives. We'll look out for a pretty villa with a lovely garden; and he'll be happier in it than he has ever been in that grand Hall. If madam doesn't like to bring her pride down to it, let her go off elsewhere--and a good riddance of bad rubbish.--Mr. Richard, have you heard the news about Mary Dallory?"
"What news?" he asked.
"That she's going to be married to Captain Bohun."
Richard North drank his tea to the dregs. His face had flushed a little.
"I hear that madam wishes it, and is working for it," he answered. "Miss Dallory was staying with them when they were at Sir Nash Bohun's."
"I know madam has given it out that they're going to marry," rejoined Mrs. Gass. "By the way, Mr. Richard, how is Captain Bohun getting on, after his illness?"
"He is better. Almost well."
Mrs. Gass helped herself to some buttered toast. "I shall believe in that marriage when it has taken place, Mr. Richard; not before. Unless I am uncommonly out, Captain Bohun cares for another young lady too well to think of Mary Dallory. Folks mayn't suspect it; and I believe don't. But I have had my eyes about me."
Richard knew that she alluded to Ellen Adair.
"They are both as sweet and good girls as ever lived, and a gentleman may think himself lucky to get either of 'em. Mr. Richard, your coat-sleeve is coming into contact with the potted-ham."
Richard smiled a little as he attended to his cuff. Mourning was always bad wearing, he remarked, and showed every little stain. And then he said a few words about her for whom it was worn. He had rarely alluded to the subject since she died.
"I cannot grow reconciled to her loss," he said in low tones. "At times can scarcely believe in it. To have been carried off after only a day's fever seems to me incredible."
And Mrs. Gass felt that the words startled her to pallor. She turned away lest he should see the change in her countenance.