III. The Shadow
One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr.Lorry when business hours came round, was this:--that he had no right toimperil Tellson's by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner underthe Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazardedfor Lucie and her child, without a moment's demur; but the great trusthe held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a strictman of business.
At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding outthe wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in reference tothe safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city. But, thesame consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in themost violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep inits dangerous workings.
Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute's delaytending to compromise Tellson's, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She saidthat her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in thatQuarter, near the Banking-house. As there was no business objection tothis, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, andhe were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorrywent out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high upin a removed by-street where the closed blinds in all the other windowsof a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes.
To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross:giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself.He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bearconsiderable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations.A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowlyand heavily the day lagged on with him.
It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. Hewas again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what todo next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, aman stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him,addressed him by his name.
"Your servant," said Mr. Lorry. "Do you know me?"
He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-fiveto fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change ofemphasis, the words:
"Do you know me?"
"I have seen you somewhere."
"Perhaps at my wine-shop?"
Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: "You come from DoctorManette?"
"Yes. I come from Doctor Manette."
"And what says he? What does he send me?"
Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore thewords in the Doctor's writing:
"Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife."
It was dated from La Force, within an hour.
"Will you accompany me," said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after readingthis note aloud, "to where his wife resides?"
"Yes," returned Defarge.
Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanicalway Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into thecourtyard. There, they found two women; one, knitting.
"Madame Defarge, surely!" said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactlythe same attitude some seventeen years ago.
"It is she," observed her husband.
"Does Madame go with us?" inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved asthey moved.
"Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons.It is for their safety."
Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiouslyat him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the second woman beingThe Vengeance.
They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might,ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry,and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by thetidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand thatdelivered his note--little thinking what it had been doing near him inthe night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him.
"DEAREST,--Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me."
That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who receivedit, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of thehands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanlyaction, but the hand made no response--dropped cold and heavy, and tookto its knitting again.
There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped inthe act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at herneck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the liftedeyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare.
"My dear," said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; "there are frequentrisings in the streets; and, although it is not likely they will evertrouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the powerto protect at such times, to the end that she may know them--that shemay identify them. I believe," said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in hisreassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itselfupon him more and more, "I state the case, Citizen Defarge?"
Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than agruff sound of acquiescence.
"You had better, Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could topropitiate, by tone and manner, "have the dear child here, and ourgood Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows noFrench."
The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than amatch for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and, danger,appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance,whom her eyes first encountered, "Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope_you_ are pretty well!" She also bestowed a British cough on MadameDefarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her.
"Is that his child?" said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for thefirst time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if itwere the finger of Fate.
"Yes, madame," answered Mr. Lorry; "this is our poor prisoner's darlingdaughter, and only child."
The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall sothreatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctivelykneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. Theshadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall,threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child.
"It is enough, my husband," said Madame Defarge. "I have seen them. Wemay go."
But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it--not visible andpresented, but indistinct and withheld--to alarm Lucie into saying, asshe laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge's dress:
"You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You willhelp me to see him if you can?"
"Your husband is not my business here," returned Madame Defarge, lookingdown at her with perfect composure. "It is the daughter of your fatherwho is my business here."
"For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child's sake! Shewill put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are moreafraid of you than of these others."
Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband.Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and looking at her,collected his face into a sterner expression.
"What is it that your husband says in that little letter?" asked MadameDefarge, with a lowering smile. "Influence; he says something touchinginfluence?"
"That my father," said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from herbreast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, "hasmuch influence around him."
"Surely it will release him!" said Madame Defarge. "Let it do so."
"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most earnestly, "I implore you tohave pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, againstmy innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, thinkof me. A
s a wife and mother!"
Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said,turning to her friend The Vengeance:
"The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as littleas this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We haveknown _their_ husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them,often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, inthemselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst,sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?"
"We have seen nothing else," returned The Vengeance.
"We have borne this a long time," said Madame Defarge, turning her eyesagain upon Lucie. "Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wifeand mother would be much to us now?"
She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defargewent last, and closed the door.
"Courage, my dear Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. "Courage,courage! So far all goes well with us--much, much better than it has oflate gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart."
"I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw ashadow on me and on all my hopes."
"Tut, tut!" said Mr. Lorry; "what is this despondency in the bravelittle breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie."
But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself,for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly.
A Tale of Two Cities Page 33
