face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The
nephew looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door.
“Good night!” said the uncle. “I look to the pleasure of seeing
you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my
nephew to his chamber there!—And burn Monsieur my nephew in
his bed, if you will,” he added to himself, before he rang his little
bell again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom.
The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and
fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep,
that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered
feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:—
looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked
sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either
just going off, or just coming on.
He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bed room, looking
again at the scraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden into
his mind; the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the
descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little village in the
hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with
his blue cap pointing out the chain under the carriage. That
fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little bundle lying on
the step, the woman bending over it, and the tall man with his
arms up, crying, “Dead!”
“I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “and may go to
bed.”
So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his
thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its
silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep.
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The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black
night for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the horses in
the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl
made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise
conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the
obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set
down for them.
For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and
human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the
landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust
on all the roads. The burial-place had got to the pass that its little
heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one another; the
figure on the Cross might have come down, for anything that could
be seen of it. In the village: taxers and taxed were fast asleep.
Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, as the starved usually do, and of
ease and rest, as the driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean
inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and freed.
The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the
fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard—both
melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the spring of
Time—through three dark hours. Then, the grey water of both
began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone faces of
the chateau were opened.
Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the
still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the
water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the
stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high,
and, on the weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bedchamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest
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song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to
stare amazed, and, with open mouth and dropped under-jaw,
looked awe-stricken.
Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village.
Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and
people came forth shivering—chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air.
Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day among the village
population. Some to the fountain; some, to the fields; men and
women here, to dig and delve; men and women there, to see to the
poor livestock, and lead the bony cows out, to such pasture as
could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the Cross, a
kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter prayers, the led
cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot.
The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke
gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of
the chase had been reddened as of old; then, had gleamed
trenchant in the morning sunshine; now, doors and windows were
thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their
shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves
sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs pulled hard at
their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed.
All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life and the
return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of
the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the
hurried figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here
and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and
riding away?
What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of
roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his
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day’s dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was
worth no crow’s while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the
birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over
him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of
roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill,
knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got to the fountain.
All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about
in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no
other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows,
hastily brought in and tethered to anything that would hold them,
were looking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of
nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked
up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the chateau,
and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing
authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the
other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly
fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had
penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and
was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all
this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of
Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the
conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the
horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad of
Leonora?
It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the
chateau.
The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and
had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it
had waited through about two hundred years.
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It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a
fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven
home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife.
Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled:
“Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”
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Chapter XVI
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, moreover, 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,
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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 armchair at a window. The
energy which had at once supported him under his old sufferings
and aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to
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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
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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 can not 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:
