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.
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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 upstairs, 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 in 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?”
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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
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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
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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
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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 hands
had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and
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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.
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Chapter XXV
AN OPINION
W orn 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
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?
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 Dr. Manette’s consulting-room, and to be debating
these points outside the Doctor’s bedroom door in the early
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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 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.
So far as it was possible to comprehend him without
overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which 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
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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.
“Dr. 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, and advise me well for his sake—and
above all, for 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 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.”
The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, “Of how long duration?”
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“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.
“Now, my dear Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, at length in his most
considerate and most affectionate way. “I am a mere man of
