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.
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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.
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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
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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 Doctor’s 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.
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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
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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
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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?’
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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
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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, be 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
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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.
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XIX
An Opinion
Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at
his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was
startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a
heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark night.
He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted,
when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For,
going to the door of the Doctor’s room and looking in, he
perceived that the shoemaker’s bench and tools were put
aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the
window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face
(which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very
pale, was calmly studious and attentive.
Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake,
Mr. Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments
whether the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed
dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show him his
friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect,
and employed as usual; and was there any sign within their
range, that the change of which he had so strong an
impression had actually happened?
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It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and
astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression
were not produced by a real corresponding and sufficient
cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to
have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor
Manette’s consulting-room, and to be debating these
points outside the Doctor’s bedroom door in the early
morning?
Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at
his side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk
would of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that
time clear-headed, and had none. He advised that they
should let the time go by until the regular breakfast-hour,
and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual
had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state
of mind, Mr. Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek
direction and guidance from the opinion he had been, in
his anxiety, so anxious to obtain.
Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the
scheme was worked out with care. Having abundance of
time for his usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented
himself at the breakfast-hour in his usual white linen, and
with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the
usual way, and came to breakfast.
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So far as it was possible to comprehend him without
overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which
Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first
supposed that his daughter’s marriage had taken place
yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to
the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him
thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In
all other respects, however, he was so composedly himself,
that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And
that aid was his own.
Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared
away, and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr.
Lorry said, feelingly:
‘My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion,
in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply
interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps,
to your better information it may be less so.’
Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his
late work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened
attentively. He had already glanced at his hands more than
once.
‘Doctor Manette,’ said Mr. Lorry, touching him
affectionately on the arm, ‘the case is the case of a
particularly dear friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it,
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and advise me well for his sake—and above all, for his
daughter’s—his daughter’s, my dear Manette.’
‘If I understand,’ said the Doctor, in a subdued tone,
‘some mental shock—?’
‘Yes!’
‘Be explicit,’ said the Doctor. ‘Spare no detail.’
Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and
proceeded.
‘My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a
prolonged shock, of great acuteness and severity to the
affections, the feelings, the—the—as you express it—the
mind. The mind. It is the case of a shock under which the
sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how long,
because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and
there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a
shock from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that
he cannot trace himself—as I once heard him publicly
relate in a striking manner. It is the case of a shock from
which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly
intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and
great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh
additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already
very large. But, unfortunately, there has been,’ he paused
and took a deep breath—‘a slight relapse.’
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The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, ‘Of how long
duration?’
‘Nine days and nights.’
‘How did it show itself? I infer,’ glancing at his hands
again, ‘in the resumption of some old pursuit connected
with the shock?’
‘That is the fact.’
‘Now, did you ever see him,’ asked the Doctor,
distinctly and collectedly, though in the same low voice,
‘engaged in that pursuit originally?’
‘Once.’
‘And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most
respects—or in all respects—as he was then?’
‘I think in all respects.’
‘You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of
the relapse?’
‘No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always
be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one
other who may be trusted.’
The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, ‘That
was very kind. That was very thoughtful!’ Mr. Lorry
grasped his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke
for a little while.
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‘Now, my dear Manette,’ said Mr. Lorry, at length, in
his most considerate and most affectionate way, ‘I am a
mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such
intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of
information necessary; I do not possess the kind of
intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world
on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you.
Tell me, how does this relapse come about? Is there
danger of another? Could a repetition of it be prevented?
How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it
come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man
ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a
friend, than I am to serve mine, if I knew how.
But I don’t know how to originate, in such a case. If
your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me
on the right track, I might be able to do so much;
unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray
discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more
clearly, and teach me how to be a little more useful.’
Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words
were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him.
‘I think it probable,’ said the Doctor, breaking silence
with an effort, ‘that the relapse you have described, my
dear friend, was not quite unforeseen by its subject.’
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‘Was it dreaded by him?’ Mr. Lorry ventured to ask.
‘Very much.’ He said it with an involuntary shudder.
‘You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs
on the sufferer’s mind, and how difficult—how almost
impossible—it is, for him to force himself to utter a word
upon the topic that oppresses him.’
‘Would he,’ asked Mr. Lorry, ‘be sensibly relieved if he
could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding
to any one, when it is on him?’
‘I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to
impossible. I even believe it—in some cases—to be quite
impossible.’
‘Now,’ said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the
Doctor’s arm again, after a short silence on both sides, ‘to
what would you refer this attack? ‘
‘I believe,’ returned Doctor Manette, ‘that there had
been a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of
thought and remembrance that was the first cause of the
malady. Some intense associations of a most distressing
nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that
there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those
associations would be recalled—say, under certain
circumstances—say, on a particular occasion. He tried to
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prepare himself in vain; perhaps the effort to prepare
himself made him less able to bear it.’
‘Would he remember what took place in the relapse?’
asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation.
The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook
his head, and answered, in a low voice, ‘Not at all.’
‘Now, as to the future,’ hinted Mr. Lorry.
‘As to the future,’ said the Doctor, recovering firmness,
‘I should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its
mercy to restore him so soon, I should have great hope.
He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated
something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and
contended against, and recovering after the cloud had
burst and passed, I should hope that the worst was over.’
‘Well, well! That’s good comfort. I am thankful!’ said
Mr. Lorry.
‘I am thankful!’ repeated the Doctor, bending his head
with reverence.
‘There are two other points,’ said Mr. Lorry, ‘on which
I am anxious to be instructed. I may go on?’
‘You cannot do your friend a better service.’ The
Doctor gave him his hand.
‘To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and
unusually energetic; he applies himself with great ardour
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to the acquisition of professional knowledge, to the
conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does he
do too much?’
‘I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be
always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in
part, natural to it; in part, the result of affliction. The less it
was occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in
danger of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have
observed himself, and made the discovery.’
‘You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?’
‘I think I am quite sure of it.’
‘My dear Manette, if he were overworked now—‘
‘My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There
has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a
counterweight.’
‘Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming
for a moment, that he WAS overworked; it would show
itself in some renewal of this disorder?’
‘I do not think so. I do not think,’ said Doctor Manette
with the firmness of self-conviction, ‘that anything but the
one train of association would renew it. I think that,
henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that
chord could renew it. After what has happened, and after
his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent
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sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe,
that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.’
He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how
slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of
the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had
slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and
distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence.
He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than
he really was, and approached his second and last point.
He felt it to be the most difficult of all; but, remembering
his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and
remembering what he had seen in the last nine days, he
knew that he must face it.
‘The occupation resumed under the influence of this
passing affliction so happily recovered from,’ said Mr.
Lorry, clearing his throat, ‘we will call—Blacksmith’s
work, Blacksmith’s work. We will say, to put a case and
for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his
bad time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was
unexpectedly found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that
he should keep it by him?’
The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and
beat his foot nervously on the ground.
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‘He has always kept it by him,’ said Mr. Lorry, with an
anxious look at his friend. ‘Now, would it not be better
that he should let it go?’
Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot
nervously on the ground.
‘You do not find it easy to advise me?’ said Mr. Lorry.
‘I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I
think—’ And there he shook his head, and stopped.
‘You see,’ said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an
uneasy pause, ‘it is very hard to explain, consistently, the
innermost workings of this poor man’s mind. He once
yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so
welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so
much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the
perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became
more practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the
ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been
able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of his
reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of
himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself
with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need
that old employment, and not find it, gives him a sudden
sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to
the heart of a lost child.’
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He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to
Mr. Lorry’s face.
‘But may not—mind! I ask for information, as a
plodding man of business who only deals with such
material objects as guineas, shillings, and bank-notes—may
not the retention of the thing involve the retention of the
idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not
the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to the
misgiving, to keep the forge?’
There was another silence.
‘You see, too,’ said the Doctor, tremulously, ‘it is such
an old companion.’
‘I would not keep it,’ said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head;
for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted.
‘I would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want your
authority. I am sure it does no good. Come! Give me your
authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter’s sake,
my dear Manette!’
Very strange to see what a struggle there was within
him!
‘In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I
would not take it away while he was present. Let it be
removed when he is not there; let him miss his old
companion after an absence.’
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Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference
was ended. They passed the day in the country, and the
Doctor was quite restored. On the three following days he
remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day he
went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution
that had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry
had previously explained to him, and he had written to
Lucie in accordance with it, and she had no suspicions.
On the night of the day on which he left the house,
Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel,
and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light.
There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty
manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker’s bench to
pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were
assisting at a murder—for which, indeed, in her grimness,
she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body
(previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose)
was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the
tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So
wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds,
that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the
commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces,
almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a
horrible crime.
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XX
A Plea
When the newly-married pair came home, the first
person who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was
Sydney Carton. They had not been at home many hours,
when he presented himself. He was not improved in
habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain
rugged air of fidelity about him, which was new to the
observation of Charles Darnay.
He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into
a window, and of speaking to him when no one
overheard.
‘Mr. Darnay,’ said Carton, ‘I wish we might be friends.’
‘We are already friends, I hope.’
‘You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech;
but, I don’t mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I
say I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that,
either.’
Charles Darnay—as was natural—asked him, in all
good-humour and good-fellowship, what he did mean?
‘Upon my life,’ said Carton, smiling, ‘I find that easier
to comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours.
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However, let me try. You remember a certain famous
occasion when I was more drunk than— than usual?’
‘I remember a certain famous occasion when you
forced me to confess that you had been drinking.’
‘I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is
heavy upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it
may be taken into account one day, when all days are at
an end for me! Don’t be alarmed; I am not going to
preach.’
‘I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything
but alarming to me.’
‘Ah!’ said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if
he waved that away. ‘On the drunken occasion in
question (one of a large number, as you know), I was
insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I wish
you would forget it.’
‘I forgot it long ago.’
‘Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is
not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have
by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help
me to forget it.’
‘If it was a light answer,’ returned Darnay, ‘I beg your
forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a
slight thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you
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too much, aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a
gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind.
Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had
nothing more important to remember, in the great service
you rendered me that day?’
‘As to the great service,’ said Carton, ‘I am bound to
avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was
mere professional claptrap, I don’t know that I cared what
became of you, when I rendered it.—Mind! I say when I
rendered it; I am speaking of the past.’
‘You make light of the obligation,’ returned Darnay,
‘but I will not quarrel with YOUR light answer.’
‘Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone
aside from my purpose; I was speaking about our being
friends. Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of
all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask
Stryver, and he’ll tell you so.’
‘I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of
his.’
‘Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog,
who has never done any good, and never will.’
‘I don’t know that you ‘never will.’’
‘But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If
you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a
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fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at
odd times, I should ask that I might be permitted to come
and go as a privileged person here; that I might be
regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for
the resemblance I detected between you and me, an
unornamental) piece of furniture, tolerated for its old
service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse
the permission. It is a hundred to one if I should avail
myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I dare
say, to know that I had it.’
‘Will you try?’
‘That is another way of saying that I am placed on the
footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use
that freedom with your name?’
‘I think so, Carton, by this time.’
They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away.
Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward
appearance, as unsubstantial as ever.
When he was gone, and in the course of an evening
passed with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry,
Charles Darnay made some mention of this conversation
in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem
of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short,
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not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as
anybody might who saw him as he showed himself.
He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of
his fair young wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in
their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the
old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked.
‘We are thoughtful to-night!’ said Darnay, drawing his
arm about her.
‘Yes, dearest Charles,’ with her hands on his breast, and
the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; ‘we
are rather thoughtful to-night, for we have something on
our mind to-night.’
‘What is it, my Lucie?’
‘Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I
beg you not to ask it?’
‘Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?’
What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden
hair from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart
that beat for him!
‘I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more
consideration and respect than you expressed for him tonight.’
‘Indeed, my own? Why so?’
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‘That is what you are not to ask me. But I think—I
know—he does.’
‘If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me
do, my Life?’
‘I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with
him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not
by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very,
very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it.
My dear, I have seen it bleeding.’
‘It is a painful reflection to me,’ said Charles Darnay,
quite astounded, ‘that I should have done him any wrong.
I never thought this of him.’
‘My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed;
there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or
fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable
of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.’
She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this
lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she
was for hours.
‘And, O my dearest Love!’ she urged, clinging nearer
to him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her
eyes to his, ‘remember how strong we are in our
happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!’
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The supplication touched him home. ‘I will always
remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I
live.’
He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to
his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer
then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her
innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity
kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so
loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night—
and the words would not have parted from his lips for the
first time—
‘God bless her for her sweet compassion!’
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XXI
Echoing Footsteps
A wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked,
that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding
the golden thread which bound her husband, and her
father, and herself, and her old directress and companion,
in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the
tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing
footsteps of years.
At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly
happy young wife, when her work would slowly fall from
her hands, and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was
something coming in the echoes, something light, afar off,
and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much.
Fluttering hopes and doubts—hopes, of a love as yet
unknown to her: doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to
enjoy that new delight—divided her breast. Among the
echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at
her own early grave; and thoughts of the husband who
would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her
so much, swelled to her eyes, and broke like waves.
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That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom.
Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of
her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let
greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother
at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They
came, and the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh,
and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble
she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his
arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy
to her.
Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them
all together, weaving the service of her happy influence
through the tissue of all their lives, and making it
predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of years
none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step
was strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm
and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening
the echoes, as an unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting
and pawing the earth under the plane-tree in the garden!
Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the
rest, they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden
hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the
worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile,
‘Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you
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both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I
must go!’ those were not tears all of agony that wetted his
young mother’s cheek, as the spirit departed from her
embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and
forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father,
blessed words!
Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with
the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but
had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that
blew over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them
also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed
murmur—like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon
a sandy shore —as the little Lucie, comically studious at
the task of the morning, or dressing a doll at her mother’s
footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that
were blended in her life.
The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of
Sydney Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he
claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would
sit among them through the evening, as he had once done
often. He never came there heated with wine. And one
other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes,
which has been whispered by all true echoes for ages and
ages.
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No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew
her with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when
she was a wife and a mother, but her children had a
strange sympathy with him—an instinctive delicacy of pity
for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such
a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here.
Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out
her chubby arms, and he kept his place with her as she
grew. The little boy had spoken of him, almost at the last.
‘Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!’
Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like
some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and
dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed
astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight,
and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of
it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier
and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or
disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more
thought of emerging from his state of lion’s jackal, than
any real jackal may be supposed to think of rising to be a
lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with
property and three boys, who had nothing particularly
shining about them but the straight hair of their dumpling
heads.
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