A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club) (29 page)

It was easier for Mr Lorry to look in at Tellson’s, than to look out at 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 him 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 mean while, 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.

 

 

[END OF INSTALMENT 16]

Worn out by anxious watching, Mr Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark night.

He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of the Doctor’s room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker’s bench and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly studious and attentive.

Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the change of which he had so strong an impression had actually happened?

It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real corresponding, and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette’s consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the Doctor’s bedroom door in the early morning?

Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. He advised that they should let the time go by until the regular breakfast-hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain.

Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical toilette, Mr Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his usual white linen and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came to breakfast.

So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter’s marriage had taken place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own.

Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr Lorry said, feelingly:

‘My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less so.’

Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already glanced at his hands more than once.

‘Doctor Manette,’ said Mr Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, ‘the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake – and above all, for his daughter’s – his daughter’s, my dear Manette.’

‘If I understand,’ said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, ‘some mental shock—?’

‘Yes!’

‘Be explicit,’ said the Doctor. ‘Spare no detail.’

Mr Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded.

‘My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, of great acuteness and severity, to the affections, the feelings, the – the – as you express it – the mind. The mind. It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself – as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has been,’ he paused and took a deep breath – ‘a slight relapse.’

The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, ‘Of how long duration?’

‘Nine days and nights.’

‘How did it show itself? I infer,’ glancing at his hands again, ‘in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock?’

‘That is the fact.’

‘Now, did you ever see him,’ asked the Doctor, distinctly and collectedly, though in the same low voice, ‘engaged in that pursuit originally?’

‘Once.’

‘And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects – or in all respects – as he was then?’

‘I think, in all respects.’

‘You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse? ’

‘No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted.’

The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, ‘That was very kind. That was very thoughtful!’ Mr Lorry grasped his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little while.

‘Now, my dear Manette,’ said Mr Lorry, at length, in his most considerate and most affectionate way, ‘I am a mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, if I knew how. But I don’t know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more useful.’