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 that she should 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 to her! 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 dow............