《A Tale of Two Cities》 Book2 CHAPTER
XVIII Nine Days
by Charles Dickens
THE marriage-day was
shining brightly, and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor's room, where
he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride,
Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross--to whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement
to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but for the yet lingering
consideration that her brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom.
`And so,' said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been
moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; `and so it was for
this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless
me! How little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was
conferring on my friend Mr. Charles!'
`You didn't mean it,' remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, `and therefore how could you
know it? Nonsense!'
`Really? Well; but don't cry,' said the gentle Mr. Lorry.
`I am not crying,' said Miss Pross; `you are.
`I, my Pross?' (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.)
`You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don't wonder at it. Such a present of plate as
you have made `em, is enough to bring tears into anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a
spoon in the collection,' said Miss Pross, `that I didn't cry over, last night after the
box came, till I couldn't see it.'
`I am highly gratified,' said Mr. Lorry, `though, upon my honour, I had no intention of
rendering those trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an
occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that
there might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!'
`Not at all!' From Miss Pross.
`You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?' asked the gentleman of that name.
`Pooh!' rejoined Miss Pross; `you were a bachelor in your cradle.'
`Well!' observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, `that seems probable, too.
`And you were cut out for a bachelor,' pursued Miss Pross, `before you were put in your
cradle.'
`Then, I think,' said Mr. Lorry, `that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I
ought to have had a voice in the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie,'
drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, `I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss
Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final
opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave your good father,
my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every
conceivable care of; during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and
thereabouts, even Tellson's shall
go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight's end, he
comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other fortnight's trip in Wales, you
shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now I
hear Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an old-fashioned
bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own.'
For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression on
the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a
genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as
Adam.
The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so
deadly pale--which had not been the case when they went in together--that no vestige of
colour was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered,
except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that
the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold wind.
He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her downstairs to the chariot which Mr. Lorry
had hired in honour of the day. The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a
neighbouring church, where no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette
were happily married.
Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little group when it was
done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, glanced on the bride's hand, which were
newly released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry's pockets. They returned home
to breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had mingled with
the poor shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were mingled with them again in the
morning sunlight, on the threshold of the door at parting.
It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father cheered her, and said at
last, gently disengaging himself from her enfolding arms, `Take her, Charles! She is
yours!'
And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and she was gone.
The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the preparations having been
very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was
when they turned into the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a
great change to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted there, had struck
him a poisoned blow.
He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been expected in him when
the occasion for repression was gone. But, it was the old scared lost look that troubled
Mr. Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasping his head' and drearily wandering away
into his own room when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the wine-shop
keeper, and the starlight ride.
`I think,' he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, `I think we had best
not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson's; so I will
go there at once and come back presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country,
and dine there, and all will be well.'
It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson's, than to look out of Tellson's. He was
detained two hours. When he came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked
no question of the servant; going thus into the Doctors rooms, he was stopped by a low
sound of knocking.
`Good God!' he said, with a start. `What's that?'
Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. `O me, O me! All is lost!' cried she,
wringing her hands. `What is to be told to Ladybird? He doesn't know me, and is making
shoes!'
Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor's room. The
bench was turned towards the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his
work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very busy.
`Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!'
The Doctor looked at him for a moment--half inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being
spoken to--and bent over his work again.
He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to
be when he did that work; and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to
him. He worked hard--impatiently--as if in some sense of having been interrupted.
Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a shoe of the old size
and shape. He took up another that was lying by him, and asked what it was?
`A young lady's walking shoe,' he muttered, without looking up' `It ought to have been
finished long ago. Let it be.'
`But, Doctor Manette. Look at me'
He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work.
`You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear
friend!'
Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he
was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and
worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an
echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was,
that he
sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a faint
expression of curiosity or perplexity--as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts
in his mind.
Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the
first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; the second that it must be kept secret
from all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the
latter precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a few days of
complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on his daughter, Miss Pross
was to write, describing his having been called away professionally, and referring to an
imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been
addressed to her by the same post.
These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in the hope of his
coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve; which
was, to have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on the Doctor's case.
In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course being thereby rendered
practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as
possible of doing so. He therefore made arrangements to absent himself from
Tellson's for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same
room.
He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on
being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved
merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent protest against the
delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat
near the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways
as he could think of that it was a free place.
Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, that first day,
until it was too dark to see--worked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen,
for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr.
Lorry rose and said to him:
`Will you go out?' "
He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, looked up in the old
manner, and repeated in the old low voice:
`Out?'
`Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?'
He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw,
as he leaned forward on his bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head
in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself `Why not?' The sagacity of the
man of business perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it.
Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him at intervals from
the adjoining room. He paced up and down for a long time before he lay down; but, when he
did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went
straight to his bench and to work.
On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, and spoke to him on
topics that had been of late familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident
that he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, however confusedly.
This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the
day; at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present,
precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without
any demonstrative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass him; and it
lightened Mr. Lorry's friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he
appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding him.
When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before:
`Dear Doctor, will you go out?'
As before, he repeated, `Out?'
`Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?'
This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer from him, and,
after remaining absent for an hour, returned. In the meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to
the seat in the window, and had sat there looking down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr.
Lorry's return, he slipped away to his bench.
The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry's hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier
again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the
fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days, nine days.
With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry
passed through this anxious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and
happy; but he could not fail to observe that the shoemaker, whose
hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never
been so intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in
the dusk of the ninth evening. |
