Bessy Rane: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"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."