XVIII

Nine Days
The marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were
ready outside the closed door of the Doctors room, where
he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to
go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss
Prossto 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 didnt mean it, remarked the matter-of-fact Miss
Pross, and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!
Really? Well; but dont cry, said the gentle Mr. Lorry.
I am not crying, said Miss Pross; YOU are.
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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 dont
wonder at it. Such a present of plate as you have made
em, is enough to bring tears into anybodys eyes. Theres
not a fork or a spoon in the collection, said Miss Pross,
that I didnt cry over, last night after the box came, till I
couldnt 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.
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A Tale of Two Cities

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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
Tellsons shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking)
before him. And when, at the fortnights end, he comes to
join you and your beloved husband, on your other
fortnights 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 Somebodys 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.
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The door of the Doctors room opened, and he came
out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly palewhich
had not been the case when they went in togetherthat
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 brides hand, which
were newly released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr.
Lorrys pockets. They returned home to breakfast, and all
went well, and in due course the golden hair that had
mingled with the poor shoemakers 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 Tellsons; 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 Tellsons, than
to look out of Tellsons. 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. Whats 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 doesnt know me, and is
making shoes!
Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went
himself into the Doctors 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 momenthalf
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 impatientlyas 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 ladys 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 perplexityas 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 Doctors 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 Tellsons 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 seeworked 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. Lorrys 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. Lorrys
return, be slipped away to his bench.
The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorrys 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.