VI. Hundreds of People
The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner notfar from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when thewaves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason, and carriedit, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. JarvisLorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived,on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses intobusiness-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor's friend, and thequiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life.
On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early inthe afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fineSundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie;secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be withthem as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window, andgenerally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened to havehis own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of theDoctor's household pointed to that time as a likely time for solvingthem.
A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to befound in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows ofthe Doctor's lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street thathad a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then,north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowersgrew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As aconsequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom,instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers without asettlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on whichthe peaches ripened in their season.
The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier partof the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow,though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into aglare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderfulplace for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets.
There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, andthere was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house, whereseveral callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof little wasaudible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night. Ina building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a plane-treerustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, and silverto be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giantwho had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hall--as ifhe had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of allvisitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumouredto live up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to havea counting-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a strayworkman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a stranger peeredabout there, or a distant clink was heard across the courtyard, or athump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptionsrequired to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behindthe house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own wayfrom Sunday morning unto Saturday night.
Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, andits revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him.His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conductingingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, andhe earned as much as he wanted.
These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry's knowledge, thoughts, andnotice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil house in the corner,on the fine Sunday afternoon.
"Doctor Manette at home?"
Expected home.
"Miss Lucie at home?"
Expected home.
"Miss Pross at home?"
Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid toanticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of thefact.
"As I am at home myself," said Mr. Lorry, "I'll go upstairs."
Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of herbirth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability tomake much of little means, which is one of its most useful and mostagreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set offby so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy,that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in therooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours,the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, bydelicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant inthemselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorrystood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him,with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by thistime, whether he approved?
There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which theycommunicated being put open that the air might pass freely through themall, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance whichhe detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first wasthe best room, and in it were Lucie's birds, and flowers, and books,and desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second wasthe Doctor's consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third,changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was theDoctor's bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker'sbench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of thedismal house by the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris.
"I wonder," said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, "that he keepsthat reminder of his sufferings about him!"
"And why wonder at that?" was the abrupt inquiry that made him start.
It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whoseacquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, andhad since improved.
"I should have thought--" Mr. Lorry began.
"Pooh! You'd have thought!" said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off.
"How do you do?" inquired that lady then--sharply, and yet as if toexpress that she bore him no malice.
"I am pretty well, I thank you," answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; "howare you?"
"Nothing to boast of," said Miss Pross.
"Indeed?"
"Ah! indeed!" said Miss Pross. "I am very much put out about myLadybird."
"Indeed?"
"For gracious sake say something else besides 'indeed,' or you'llfidget me to death," said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated fromstature) was shortness.
"Really, then?" said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment.
"Really, is bad enough," returned Miss Pross, "but better. Yes, I amvery much put out."
"May I ask the cause?"
"I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, tocome here looking after her," said Miss Pross.
"_Do_ dozens come for that purpose?"
"Hundreds," said Miss Pross.
It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before hertime and since) that whenever her original proposition was questioned,she exaggerated it.
"Dear me!" said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of.
"I have lived with the darling--or the darling has lived with me, andpaid me for it; which she certainly should never have done, you may takeyour affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself or herfor nothing--since she was ten years old. And it's really very hard,"said Miss Pross.
Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head;using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that wouldfit anything.
"All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet,are always turning up," said Miss Pross. "When you began it--"
"_I_ began it, Miss Pross?"
"Didn't you? Who brought her father to life?"
"Oh! If _that_ was beginning it--" said Mr. Lorry.
"It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hardenough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, exceptthat he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation onh
im, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under anycircumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowdsand multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgivenhim), to take Ladybird's affections away from me."
Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her bythis time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of thoseunselfish creatures--found only among women--who will, for pure love andadmiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lostit, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they werenever fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upontheir own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that thereis nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; sorendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exaltedrespect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his ownmind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed MissPross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurablybetter got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances at Tellson's.
"There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird," saidMiss Pross; "and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn't made amistake in life."
Here again: Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history hadestablished the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrelwho had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake tospeculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, withno touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon(deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a seriousmatter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her.
"As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people ofbusiness," he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room and hadsat down there in friendly relations, "let me ask you--does the Doctor,in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time, yet?"
"Never."
"And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?"
"Ah!" returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. "But I don't say he don'trefer to it within himself."
"Do you believe that he thinks of it much?"
"I do," said Miss Pross.
"Do you imagine--" Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him upshort with:
"Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all."
"I stand corrected; do you suppose--you go so far as to suppose,sometimes?"
"Now and then," said Miss Pross.
"Do you suppose," Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in hisbright eye, as it looked kindly at her, "that Doctor Manette has anytheory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative tothe cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of hisoppressor?"
"I don't suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me."
"And that is--?"
"That she thinks he has."
"Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am amere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business."
"Dull?" Miss Pross inquired, with placidity.
Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, "No, no,no. Surely not. To return to business:--Is it not remarkable that DoctorManette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assuredhe is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me,though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are nowintimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedlyattached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, MissPross, I don't approach the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out ofzealous interest."
"Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tellme," said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, "he is afraidof the whole subject."
"Afraid?"
"It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's a dreadfulremembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Notknowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may neverfeel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn't make thesubject pleasant, I should think."
It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. "True," saidhe, "and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind, MissPross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppressionalways shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasinessit sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence."
"Can't be helped," said Miss Pross, shaking her head. "Touch thatstring, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it alone.In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, he gets up inthe dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead there, walkingup and down, walking up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt toknow then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, inhis old prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, walking upand down, walking up and down, until he is composed. But he never saysa word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her, and she finds itbest not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and downtogether, walking up and down together, till her love and company havebrought him to himself."
Notwithstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there was aperception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea,in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified toher possessing such a thing.
The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; ithad begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that itseemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro hadset it going.
"Here they are!" said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference;"and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon!"
It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such apeculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window,looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fanciedthey would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as thoughthe steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never came would beheard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed closeat hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Prosswas ready at the street door to receive them.
Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, takingoff her darling's bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it upwith the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, andfolding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair withas much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if shehad been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasantsight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protesting againsther taking so much trouble for her--which last she only dared to doplayfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her ownchamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on atthem, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and witheyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and wouldhave had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too,beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelorstars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, noHundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vainfor the fulfilment of Miss Pross's prediction.
Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements ofthe little household, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, andalways acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modestquality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in theircontrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could bebetter. Miss Pross's friendship being of the thoroughly practicalkind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search ofimpoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, wouldimpart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughtersof Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girlwho formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress,or Cinderella's Godmother: who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit,a vegetable or two from the garden
, and change them into anything shepleased.
On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's table, but on other dayspersisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lowerregions, or in her own room on the second floor--a blue chamber, towhich no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion,Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant effortsto please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too.
It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that thewine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sitthere in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about her,they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the wine down forthe special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, sometime before, as Mr. Lorry's cup-bearer; and while they sat under theplane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backsand ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane-treewhispered to them in its own way above their heads.
Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnaypresented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but hewas only One.
Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Prosssuddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, andretired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of thisdisorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, "a fit of thejerks."
The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. Theresemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and asthey sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he restinghis arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace thelikeness.
He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusualvivacity. "Pray, Doctor Manette," said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under theplane-tree--and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand,which happened to be the old buildings of London--"have you seen much ofthe Tower?"
"Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough ofit, to know that it teems with interest; little more."
"_I_ have been there, as you remember," said Darnay, with a smile,though reddening a little angrily, "in another character, and not in acharacter that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me acurious thing when I was there."
"What was that?" Lucie asked.
"In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, whichhad been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone ofits inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved byprisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stonein an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone toexecution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done withsome very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand.At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefullyexamined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record orlegend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesseswere made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggestedthat the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. Thefloor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, in theearth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were foundthe ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern caseor bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but hehad written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler."
"My father," exclaimed Lucie, "you are ill!"
He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner andhis look quite terrified them all.
"No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and theymade me start. We had better go in."
He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in largedrops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But, hesaid not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been toldof, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorryeither detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turnedtowards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon itwhen it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House.
He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts ofhis business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not moresteady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that hewas not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), andthat the rain had startled him.
Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks uponher, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but hemade only Two.
The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors andwindows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table wasdone with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into theheavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Cartonleaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some ofthe thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to theceiling, and waved them like spectral wings.
"The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few," said DoctorManette. "It comes slowly."
"It comes surely," said Carton.
They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in adark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.
There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away toget shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoesresounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not afootstep was there.
"A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!" said Darnay, when they hadlistened for a while.
"Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?" asked Lucie. "Sometimes, I havesat here of an evening, until I have fancied--but even the shade ofa foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black andsolemn--"
"Let us shudder too. We may know what it is."
"It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as weoriginate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I havesometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have madethe echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are comingby-and-bye into our lives."
"There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so,"Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way.
The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and morerapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some,as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; somecoming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all inthe distant streets, and not one within sight.
"Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, orare we to divide them among us?"
"I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but youasked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, andthen I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to comeinto my life, and my father's."
"I take them into mine!" said Carton. "_I_ ask no questions and make nostipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette,and I see them--by the Lightning." He added the last words, after therehad been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window.
"And I hear them!" he added again, after a peal of thunder. "Here theycome, fast, fierce, and furious!"
It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him,for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder andlightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment'sinterval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose atmidnight.
The great bell of Saint Paul's was striking one in the cleared air, whenMr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, setforth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary patchesof road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindfulof foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it wasusually performed a good two hours earlier.
"What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry," said Mr. Lorry, "tobring the dead out of their gra
ves."
"I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don't expect to--whatwould do that," answered Jerry.
"Good night, Mr. Carton," said the man of business. "Good night, Mr.Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together!"
Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar,bearing down upon them, too.
A Tale of Two Cities Page 12
