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Book the Second: The Golden Thread
Chapter 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 Wales, you
shall say that we have sent him to you in
the best health and in the happiest frame.
Now, I hear Somebody's 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.
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 Paris
garret, were mingled with them again in the
morning sunlight, on the threshold of the
door at parting.
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, 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
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.