XVIII
Nine
Days
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
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 down-stairs 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
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
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.
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, 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 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.