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Book the Second: The Golden Thread
Chapter X.
Two Promises
More months, to the number of twelve, had
come and gone, and Mr. Charles Darnay was
established in England as a higher teacher
of the French language who was conversant
with French literature.
In this age, he would have been a
Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor.
He read with young men who could find any
leisure and interest for the study of a
living tongue spoken all over the world,
and he cultivated a taste for its stores of
knowledge and fancy.
He could write of them, besides, in sound
English, and render them into sound
English.
Such masters were not at that time easily
found; Princes that had been, and Kings
that were to be, were not yet of the
Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had
dropped out of Tellson's ledgers, to turn
cooks and carpenters.
As a tutor, whose attainments made the
student's way unusually pleasant and
profitable, and as an elegant translator
who brought something to his work besides
mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay
soon became known and encouraged.
He was well acquainted, more-over, with the
circumstances of his country, and those
were of ever-growing interest.
So, with great perseverance and untiring
industry, he prospered.
In London, he had expected neither to walk
on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of
roses; if he had had any such exalted
expectation, he would not have prospered.
He had expected labour, and he found it,
and did it and made the best of it.
In this, his prosperity consisted.
A certain portion of his time was passed at
Cambridge, where he read with
undergraduates as a sort of tolerated
smuggler who drove a contraband trade in
European languages, instead of conveying
Greek and Latin through the Custom-house.
The rest of his time he passed in London.
Now, from the days when it was always
summer in Eden, to these days when it is
mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the
world of a man has invariably gone one way-
-Charles Darnay's way--the way of the love
of a woman.
He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of
his danger.
He had never heard a sound so sweet and
dear as the sound of her compassionate
voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly
beautiful, as hers when it was confronted
with his own on the edge of the grave that
had been dug for him.
But, he had not yet spoken to her on the
subject; the assassination at the deserted
chateau far away beyond the heaving water
and the long, long, dusty roads--the solid
stone chateau which had itself become the
mere mist of a dream--had been done a year,
and he had never yet, by so much as a
single spoken word, disclosed to her the
state of his heart.
That he had his reasons for this, he knew
full well.
It was again a summer day when, lately
arrived in London from his college
occupation, he turned into the quiet corner
in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity of
opening his mind to Doctor Manette.
It was the close of the summer day, and he
knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross.
He found the Doctor reading in his arm-
chair at a window.
The energy which had at once supported him
under his old sufferings and aggravated
their sharpness, had been gradually
restored to him.
He was now a very energetic man indeed,
with great firmness of purpose, strength of
resolution, and vigour of action.
In his recovered energy he was sometimes a
little fitful and sudden, as he had at
first been in the exercise of his other
recovered faculties; but, this had never
been frequently observable, and had grown
more and more rare.
He studied much, slept little, sustained a
great deal of fatigue with ease, and was
equably cheerful.
To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at
sight of whom he laid aside his book and
held out his hand.
"Charles Darnay!
I rejoice to see you.
We have been counting on your return these
three or four days past.
Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were both
here yesterday, and both made you out to be
more than due."
"I am obliged to them for their interest in
the matter," he answered, a little coldly
as to them, though very warmly as to the
Doctor.
"Miss Manette--"
"Is well," said the Doctor, as he stopped
short, "and your return will delight us
all.
She has gone out on some household matters,
but will soon be home."
"Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home.
I took the opportunity of her being from
home, to beg to speak to you."
There was a blank silence.
"Yes?" said the Doctor, with evident
constraint.
"Bring your chair here, and speak on."
He complied as to the chair, but appeared
to find the speaking on less easy.
"I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette,
of being so intimate here," so he at length
began, "for some year and a half, that I
hope the topic on which I am about to touch
may not--"
He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out
his hand to stop him.
When he had kept it so a little while, he
said, drawing it back:
"Is Lucie the topic?"
"She is."
"It is hard for me to speak of her at any
time.
It is very hard for me to hear her spoken
of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay."
"It is a tone of fervent admiration, true
homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette!" he
said deferentially.
There was another blank silence before her
father rejoined:
"I believe it.
I do you justice; I believe it."
His constraint was so manifest, and it was
so manifest, too, that it originated in an
unwillingness to approach the subject, that
Charles Darnay hesitated.
"Shall I go on, sir?"
Another blank.
"Yes, go on."
"You anticipate what I would say, though
you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how
earnestly I feel it, without knowing my
secret heart, and the hopes and fears and
anxieties with which it has long been
laden.
Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter
fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly.
If ever there were love in the world, I
love her.
You have loved yourself; let your old love
speak for me!"
The Doctor sat with his face turned away,
and his eyes bent on the ground.
At the last words, he stretched out his
hand again, hurriedly, and cried:
"Not that, sir!
Let that be!
I adjure you, do not recall that!"
His cry was so like a cry of actual pain,
that it rang in Charles Darnay's ears long
after he had ceased.
He motioned with the hand he had extended,
and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to
pause.
The latter so received it, and remained
silent.
"I ask your pardon," said the Doctor, in a
subdued tone, after some moments.
"I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may
be satisfied of it."
He turned towards him in his chair, but did
not look at him, or raise his eyes.
His chin dropped upon his hand, and his
white hair overshadowed his face:
"Have you spoken to Lucie?"
"No."
"Nor written?"
"Never."
"It would be ungenerous to affect not to
know that your self-denial is to be
referred to your consideration for her
father.
Her father thanks you."
He offered his hand; but his eyes did not
go with it.
"I know," said Darnay, respectfully, "how
can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who
have seen you together from day to day,
that between you and Miss Manette there is
an affection so unusual, so touching, so
belonging to the circumstances in which it
has been nurtured, that it can have few
parallels, even in the tenderness between a
father and child.
I know, Doctor Manette--how can I fail to
know--that, mingled with the affection and
duty of a daughter who has become a woman,
there is, in her heart, towards you, all
the love and reliance of infancy itself.
I know that, as in her childhood she had no
parent, so she is now devoted to you with
all the constancy and fervour of her
present years and character, united to the
trustfulness and attachment of the early
days in which you were lost to her.
I know perfectly well that if you had been
restored to her from the world beyond this
life, you could hardly be invested, in her
sight, with a more sacred character than
that in which you are always with her.
I know that when she is clinging to you,
the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in
one, are round your neck.
I know that in loving you she sees and
loves her mother at her own age, sees and
loves you at my age, loves her mother
broken-hearted, loves you through your
dreadful trial and in your blessed
restoration.
I have known this, night and day, since I
have known you in your home."
Her father sat silent, with his face bent
down.
His breathing was a little quickened; but
he repressed all other signs of agitation.
"Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this,
always seeing her and you with this
hallowed light about you, I have forborne,
and forborne, as long as it was in the
nature of man to do it.
I have felt, and do even now feel, that to
bring my love--even mine--between you, is
to touch your history with something not
quite so good as itself.
But I love her.
Heaven is my witness that I love her!"
"I believe it," answered her father,
mournfully.
"I have thought so before now.
I believe it."
"But, do not believe," said Darnay, upon
whose ear the mournful voice struck with a
reproachful sound, "that if my fortune were
so cast as that, being one day so happy as
to make her my wife, I must at any time put
any separation between her and you, I could
or would breathe a word of what I now say.
Besides that I should know it to be
hopeless, I should know it to be a
baseness.
If I had any such possibility, even at a
remote distance of years, harboured in my
thoughts, and hidden in my heart--if it
ever had been there--if it ever could be
there--I could not now touch this honoured
hand."
He laid his own upon it as he spoke.
"No, dear Doctor Manette.
Like you, a voluntary exile from France;
like you, driven from it by its
distractions, oppressions, and miseries;
like you, striving to live away from it by
my own exertions, and trusting in a happier
future; I look only to sharing your
fortunes, sharing your life and home, and
being faithful to you to the death.
Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as
your child, companion, and friend; but to
come in aid of it, and bind her closer to
you, if such a thing can be."
His touch still lingered on her father's
hand.
Answering the touch for a moment, but not
coldly, her father rested his hands upon
the arms of his chair, and looked up for
the first time since the beginning of the
conference.
A struggle was evidently in his face; a
struggle with that occasional look which
had a tendency in it to dark doubt and
dread.
"You speak so feelingly and so manfully,
Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all
my heart, and will open all my heart--or
nearly so.
Have you any reason to believe that Lucie
loves you?"
"None.
As yet, none."
"Is it the immediate object of this
confidence, that you may at once ascertain
that, with my knowledge?"
"Not even so.
I might not have the hopefulness to do it
for weeks; I might (mistaken or not
mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow."
"Do you seek any guidance from me?"
"I ask none, sir.
But I have thought it possible that you
might have it in your power, if you should
deem it right, to give me some."
"Do you seek any promise from me?"
"I do seek that."
"What is it?"
"I well understand that, without you, I
could have no hope.
I well understand that, even if Miss
Manette held me at this moment in her
innocent heart--do not think I have the
presumption to assume so much--I could
retain no place in it against her love for
her father."
"If that be so, do you see what, on the
other hand, is involved in it?"
"I understand equally well, that a word
from her father in any suitor's favour,
would outweigh herself and all the world.
For which reason, Doctor Manette," said
Darnay, modestly but firmly, "I would not
ask that word, to save my life."
"I am sure of it.
Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of
close love, as well as out of wide
division; in the former case, they are
subtle and delicate, and difficult to
penetrate.
My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect,
such a mystery to me; I can make no guess
at the state of her heart."
"May I ask, sir, if you think she is--" As
he hesitated, her father supplied the rest.
"Is sought by any other suitor?"
"It is what I meant to say."
Her father considered a little before he
answered:
"You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself.
Mr. Stryver is here too, occasionally.
If it be at all, it can only be by one of
these."
"Or both," said Darnay.
"I had not thought of both; I should not
think either, likely.
You want a promise from me.
Tell me what it is."
"It is, that if Miss Manette should bring
to you at any time, on her own part, such a
confidence as I have ventured to lay before
you, you will bear testimony to what I have
said, and to your belief in it.
I hope you may be able to think so well of
me, as to urge no influence against me.
I say nothing more of my stake in this;
this is what I ask.
The condition on which I ask it, and which
you have an undoubted right to require, I
will observe immediately."
"I give the promise," said the Doctor,
"without any condition.
I believe your object to be, purely and
truthfully, as you have stated it.
I believe your intention is to perpetuate,
and not to weaken, the ties between me and
my other and far dearer self.
If she should ever tell me that you are
essential to her perfect happiness, I will
give her to you.
If there were--Charles Darnay, if there
were--"
The young man had taken his hand
gratefully; their hands were joined as the
Doctor spoke:
"--any fancies, any reasons, any
apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new or
old, against the man she really loved--the
direct responsibility thereof not lying on
his head--they should all be obliterated
for her sake.
She is everything to me; more to me than
suffering, more to me than wrong, more to
me--Well!
This is idle talk."
So strange was the way in which he faded
into silence, and so strange his fixed look
when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay
felt his own hand turn cold in the hand
that slowly released and dropped it.
"You said something to me," said Doctor
Manette, breaking into a smile.
"What was it you said to me?"
He was at a loss how to answer, until he
remembered having spoken of a condition.
Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he
answered:
"Your confidence in me ought to be returned
with full confidence on my part.
My present name, though but slightly
changed from my mother's, is not, as you
will remember, my own.
I wish to tell you what that is, and why I
am in England."
"Stop!" said the Doctor of Beauvais.
"I wish it, that I may the better deserve
your confidence, and have no secret from
you."
"Stop!"
For an instant, the Doctor even had his two
hands at his ears; for another instant,
even had his two hands laid on Darnay's
lips.
"Tell me when I ask you, not now.
If your suit should prosper, if Lucie
should love you, you shall tell me on your
marriage morning.
Do you promise?"
"Willingly.
"Give me your hand.
She will be home directly, and it is better
she should not see us together to-night.
Go! God bless you!"
It was dark when Charles Darnay left him,
and it was an hour later and darker when
Lucie came home; she hurried into the room
alone--for Miss Pross had gone straight up-
stairs--and was surprised to find his
reading-chair empty.
"My father!" she called to him.
"Father dear!"
Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a
low hammering sound in his bedroom.
Passing lightly across the intermediate
room, she looked in at his door and came
running back frightened, crying to herself,
with her blood all chilled, "What shall I
do!
What shall I do!"
Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she
hurried back, and tapped at his door, and
softly called to him.
The noise ceased at the sound of her voice,
and he presently came out to her, and they
walked up and down together for a long
time.
She came down from her bed, to look at him
in his sleep that night.
He slept heavily, and his tray of
shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished
work, were all as usual.