Dr. Rane

“ No power could have stopped him, whether to go were suitable or unsuitable; for he had a strong will. He did not take the lane this time, but went straight along the high-road, turning in at the iron gates, and up the chestnut avenue. The tender green of the trees was beautiful: birds sang; the blue sky flickered through the waving leaves. Winding on, Dr. Rane met Thomas Hepburn, the undertaker and carpenter: a sickly looking but intelligent and respectable man. ”

“ From a word spoken by Richard, Dr. Rane gathered that it was madam who had set her veto against an inquest. And quite right too; there was no necessity whatever for one, had been the comment made by Oliver Rane to Richard. But now--now when he was alone with himself and the naked truth: when there was no man at hand whose opinion it might be well to humour or deceive: no eye upon him save God's, he could not help acknowledging that had he been Mr. North, had it been his son who was thus cut off from life, he should have caused an inquest to be held. ”

“ Dr. Rane, not particularly interested in the said foreign letters, went on with his breakfast. Jelly, with characteristic composure, stood at ease just inside the window watching the process.
"That ham is dried up to fiddle-strings," she suddenly said.
"Yes. Phillis has done it too much."
"And I should like to have the doing of her!" spoke Jelly in wrathful tones. "It is a sin to spoil good food."
"So it is," said Dr. Rane.
"So that poor young man's gone!" she resumed, as he cracked an egg.
The doctor lifted his head quickly. "What young man?"
"Edmund North. ”

“ The doctor managed that they should not. It was very kind of him. Dobson had had an awful dread all along of catching the fever; and Clark was beginning to fear it a little: Dr. Rane knew this, and said he'd not expose them to more risk than could be helped. The men carried the coffin up to the ante-room, and he said he would manage all the rest."
Jelly sat with open mouth and eyes staring. The undertaker put it down to surprise.
"Medical men are used to these things, Jelly. It comes as natural to them as to us. Dr. Rane said to Clark that he would call Seeley over if he found he wanted help. ”

“ In the morning about seven o'clock, when she was upstairs in her chamber, she heard the sound of a gig in the lane, and looked out. It was Dr. Rane, returning from his visit to his patient. His face was white and troubled. An ordinary passer-by would have said the doctor was cold: Jelly drew a different conclusion.
"It's his conscience," she mentally whispered. "It's the thought of having to live in his house now that he knows what's in it. ”

“ This morning I was in North Inlet, looking a bit after them scamps of workmen that won't work, and won't let others work if they can help it: and after I had given a taste of my mind to as many of 'em as was standing about, I stepped into Mother Green's. She has the rheumatics--and he has a touch of 'em. Talking with her of one thing and another, we got on to the subject of Dr. Rane and the tontine; and she said two or three words that frightened me; frightened me, Jelly; for they pointed to a suspicion that the doctor had sacrificed his wife to get it. ”

“ Gass her due, she did look scared in no slight degree. "Dr. Rane, I am sorry for saying what I did to you. It was the impossibility, as I took it, of anything's having left it here but that flutter of papers from your pocketbook. Whoever would have given a thought to Molly Green?"
Dr. Rane made no answer.
"She put her basket down by the door there, and came up the room to look at my geraniums; I held the candle for her. I remember she caught her crinoline on the corner of the iron fender, and it gave her a twist round. The idiots that girls make of themselves with them big crinolines! ”

“ 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." ”

“ Rane.
"I'll find this man," said Richard, as he got up to say goodnight; "I must find him. Thank you, Rane."
But after his departure Oliver Rane did not settle to his work as before. A man, once interrupted, cannot always do so. All he did was to pace the room restlessly with bowed head, as a man in some uneasy dream. The candle burnt lower, the flame grew above the shade, throwing its light on his face, showing up its lines and angles. But it was not any brighter than when the green shade had cast over it its cadaverous hue.
"Edmund North! Edmund North!" ”

“ Rane's practice did not improve. He earned barely sufficient for their moderate wants. Bessy, as cash-keeper, had a difficulty in making both ends meet. But the fact was not known; never a syllable of it transpired from either of them. Dr. Rane was seen out and about a great deal, going to and fro amongst his patients; and the world did not suspect that his returns were so small.
The new surgeon, Seeley, had stepped into all Mr. Alexander's practice, and was flourishing. Dr. Rane's, as before, was chiefly confined to the lower classes, especially those belonging to the North Works ”

“ Her husband liked it. He leaned against the window-frame, now as she sang, in a deep reverie, gazing out on Dallory Ham, and at the man lighting the roadside lamps. Dr. Rane never heard this song but he wished he was the emigrant singing it, with some wide ocean flowing between him and home.
"What's this, I wonder?"
Some woman, whom he did not recognize, had turned in at his gate and was ringing the door-bell. Dr. Rane found he was called out to a patient: one of the profitless people as usual.
"Piersons want me, Bessy," he looked into the room to say. "The man's worse. I shall not be long." ”

“ The doctor sat so that the green shade of the candle happened to fall on his face, making it look very pale. Richard North, absorbed in thought about Wilks, could not have told whether the face was in shadow or in light. He spoke next about the stranger who had joined Wilks, saying he wished he could find out who it was.
"A tall thin man, bearing the appearance of a gentleman?" returned Dr. Rane. ”

“ She was in the drawing-room on the other side the small hall, sitting near the Gothic windows that faced the road. A pale, reticent, lady-like woman, always suffering, but making more of her sufferings than she need have done--as her son, Dr. Rane, not over-dutifully thought. Her eyes were light and cold; her flaxen hair, banded smoothly under a cap, was turning grey. But that Mrs. Cumberland was quite occupied with self, and very little with her ward, Ellen Adair, she might have noticed before now the suggestive intimacy between that young lady and Arthur Bohun. ”

“ Alexander, the surgeon; and of some sort of fit in which Edmund North was now lying senseless.
Dr. Rane was a gentlemanly man of middle height and slender frame, his age about thirty. The face in its small regular features might have been held to possess a dash of effeminacy, but for the resolute character of the firm mouth and the pointed chin. His eyes--rather too close together--whiskers and hair, were of a reddish brown, the latter worn brushed aside from the forehead; his teeth were white and even: altogether a good-looking man ”

“ Cumberland.
"Dr. Rane may have had patients to see. Perhaps he did not return home until too late to come here."
"Yes, he did; I saw his lamp burning before ten o'clock," was Mrs. Cumberland's answer. "Ah! this is another proof that I am being forgotten," she went on, bitterly. "When a woman has seen fifty years of life, she is old in the sight of her children, and they go then their own way in the world, leaving her to coldness and neglect."
"But, dear Mrs. Cumberland, Dr. Rane does not neglect you," said Ellen, struck with the injustice of the complaint. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You might find a good practice, doctor, and not go further than London."
"I must go to America; I must," said the doctor, hastily. "Neither I nor Bessy would like now to remain in England."
"Well, perhaps you may be right," acquiesced Mrs. Gass.
"But it's a long way off," said Mr. North.
"It may not be for ever, sir," observed Dr. Rane, cheerfully. "I know I shall do well there; and when I have made a fortune perhaps we may come back and live in London. Never again in Dallory. The old and the new world are brought very near each other now, sir." ”

“ Being a sensible woman, it could only be that--when surrounding mists had cleared away--she should see that the only likely place for it to have dropped from, was Dr. Rane's pocketbook. Molly Green had been subjected to a cross-examination, very cleverly conducted, as Mrs. Gass thought, which left the matter exactly as it was before. But the girl's surprise was so genuine, at supposing any receipt for making plum-pudding (for thus had Mrs. Gass put it) could have been dropped by her, that Mrs. Gass's mind could only revert to the pocketbook. ”

“ Dr. Rane said no more. It was quite the same to him whether Molly or Phillis did what was wanted. When men are harassed in spirit, they cannot concern themselves with the petty details of domestic life.
"I was thinking, Oliver, that--if you don't mind--as we can have Phillis, I would leave it to Molly whether to come back tomorrow night, or not. If her mother is really growing worse, the girl may like to stay a day longer with her."
"My dear, do just as you like about it," was the doctor's rather impatient answer. ”

“ Alexander was swiftly passing on his way towards home from the lower part of the Ham, and stopped.
"I wish I had never said a syllable about going away until I was off," cried he in his off-hand manner--a pleasanter and more sociable manner than Dr. Rane's. "The news has been noised abroad, and the whole place is upon me; asking this, that, and the other. One man comes and wants to know if I'll sell my furniture; another thinks he'd like the house as it stands. My patients are up in arms;--say I'm doing it to kill them. I shall have some of them in a fever before the day's over." ”

“ She stopped when she met him.
"So that child of Susan Ketler's is come, sir!"
"Ay," said Dr. Rane.
"What in the world brings it here now?"
"Well, I don't know," returned the doctor. "Children often come without giving their friends due notice. I am on my way there."
"And not as much as a bed gown to wrap it in," resentfully went on Jelly, "and not a bit of tea or oatmeal in the place for her! My faith! baby after baby coming into the world, and the men out on strike! This makes seven--if they'd all been alive: she'll be contented perhaps when she has seventeen." ”

“ Mrs. Beverage was subject to violent but rare attacks of spasms. She had felt ill before going to bed, but hoped it would pass off. Jelly and her own two servants were soon at her bedside. She was very ill indeed. Some of them ran to get hot water ready; Jelly thought it would be well to call in Dr. Rane.
"I should like the doctor to see her; at the same time, I grieve to arouse him from sleep," said Miss Beverage.
"Law, ma'am, that's nothing to doctors; they are used to it," cried Jelly.
"Mother, would thee like Oliver Rane sent for?" asked Miss Beverage, bending over the suffering lady. ”

“ Jelly felt a very queer sensation come over her. But she was still full of disbelief. Mr. Seeley was called from within, and Jelly returned and knocked softly at Dr. Rane's door. Phillis opened it, her eyes red with crying.
"Phillis, what is all this?" demanded Jelly, in low tones. "When did she die?"
"Stop," interposed Phillis, barring her entrance. "You'd better not come in. I am not afraid: and, for the matter of that, somebody must be here: but it isn't well for those to run risks that needn't. The doctor says it was the quickest and most malignant case of them all." ”

“ Alexander had a more open manner and address than Dr. Rane, and they go a long way with people; he was also an older man, and a married man, and was supposed to have had more experience. A sense of injury rankled ever in Oliver Rane's heart; of injury inflicted by Alexander. Meanwhile he became engaged to Bessy Rane. During an absence from home of madam's, the doctor grew intimate at the Hall, and an attachment sprang up between him and Bessy. When madam returned, his visits had to cease, but he saw Bessy at Mrs. Gass's and elsewhere. ”