Book II - Chapter VI. Hundreds of People

by Charles Dickens

　　The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-cornernot far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sundaywhen the waves of four months had roiled over the trial for treason,and carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea,Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwellwhere he lived, on his way to dine with the Doctor. After severalrelapses into business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor'sfriend, and the quiet 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 bewith them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window,and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happenedto have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the waysof the Doctor's household pointed to that time as a likely time forsolving them.

　　A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not tobe found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windowsof the Doctor's lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of streetthat had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildingsthen, north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wildflowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields.As a consequence, 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 earlierpart of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was inshadow, though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyondit into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful,a wonderful place 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,where several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereoflittle was audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them atnight. In a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where aplane-tree rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to bemade, and silver to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by somemysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of thefront hall--as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similarconversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of alonely lodger rumoured to live up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimmingmaker asserted to have a counting-house below, was ever heard or seen.Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coat on, traversed thehall, or a stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heardacross the courtyard, or a thump from the golden giant. These,however, were only the exceptions required to prove the rule that thesparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, and the echoes in thecorner before it, had their own way from Sunday morning unto Saturdaynight.

　　Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation,and its 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,and he 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 to anticipateintentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the fact.

　　"As I am at home myself," said Mr. Lorry, "I'll go upstairs."

　　Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country ofher birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that abilityto make much of little means, which is one of its most useful andmost agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it wasset off by so many little adornments, of no value but for their tasteand fancy, that its effect was delightful. The disposition ofeverything in the rooms, from the largest object to the least; thearrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained bythrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense;were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so expressive of theiroriginator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, the verychairs and tables seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiarexpression which he knew so well by this time, 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 throughthem all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblancewhich he detected all around him, walked from one to another.The first was the 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 was the Doctor's consulting-room, used also as thedining-room; the third, changingly speckled by the rustle of theplane-tree in the yard, was the Doctor's bedroom, and there, in acorner, stood the disused shoemaker's bench and tray of tools,much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by thewine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris.

　　"I wonder," said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, "that hekeeps that 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,whose acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover,and had 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;"how are you?"

　　"Nothing to boast of," said Miss Pross.

　　"Indeed?"

　　"Ah! indeed!" said Miss Pross. "I am very much put out about my Ladybird."

　　"Indeed?"

　　"For gracious sake say something else besides `indeed,' or you'llfidget me to death," said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociatedfrom stature) 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,to come 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,and paid me for it; which she certainly should never have done,you may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep eithermyself or her for nothing--since she was ten years old. And it'sreally 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 thatwould fit 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 onhim, 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 forgiven him),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 loveand admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when theyhave lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments thatthey were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that nevershone upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world toknow that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service ofthe heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he hadsuch an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangementsmade by his own mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than manyladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who hadbalances 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 historyhad established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartlessscoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as astake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty forevermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity ofbelief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake)was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in hisgood 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 andhad sat down there in friendly relations, "let me ask you--does theDoctor, 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 hedon't refer 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 to thecause 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 thatDoctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are allwell assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will notsay with me, though he had business relations with me many years ago,and we are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom heis so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him?Believe me, Miss Pross, I don't approach the topic with you, out ofcuriosity, but out of zealous interest."

　　"Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best,you'll tell me," said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology,"he is afraid of 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.Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he maynever feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn'tmake the subject pleasant, I should think."

　　It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. "True,"said he, "and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind,Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have thatsuppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt andthe uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our presentconfidence."

　　"Can't be helped," said Miss Pross, shaking her head. "Touch thatstring, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave italone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes,he gets up in the dead of the night, and will be heard, by usoverhead there, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room.Ladybird has learnt to know then that his mind is walking up anddown, walking up and down, in his old prison. She hurries to him,and they go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down,until he is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason ofhis restlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him.In silence they go walking up and down together, walking up and downtogether, till her love and company have brought him to himself."

　　Notwithstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there wasa perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea,in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testifiedto her possessing such a thing.

　　The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes;it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet,that it seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to andfro had set 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 though the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that nevercame would be heard in their stead, and would die away for good whenthey seemed close at hand. However, father and daughter did at lastappear, and Miss Pross was 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 hairwith as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hairif she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling wasa pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protestingagainst her taking so much trouble for her--which last she only daredto do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired toher own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too,looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, inaccents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Prosshad, and would have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was apleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thankinghis bachelor stars for having lighted him in his declining years to aHome. But, no Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorrylooked in vain for 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,and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a verymodest quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neatin their contrivances, half English and half French, that nothingcould be better. Miss Pross's friendship being of the thoroughlypractical kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, insearch of impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayedsons and daughters of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts,that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regardedher as quite a Sorceress, or Cinderella's Godmother: who would sendout for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, andchange them into anything she pleased.

　　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,to which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On thisoccasion, Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant face andpleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner wasvery 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 abouther, they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the winedown for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself,some time before, as Mr. Lorry's cup-bearer; and while they sat underthe plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysteriousbacks and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and theplane-tree whispered 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 he was only One.

　　Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, MissPross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head andbody, and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently thevictim of this disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation,"a fit of the jerks."

　　The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young.The resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times,and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and heresting his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable totrace the likeness.

　　He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual vivacity."Pray, Doctor Manette," said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under theplane-tree--and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic inhand, which happened to be the old buildings of London--"have youseen much of the Tower?"

　　"Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enoughof it, 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 ina character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They toldme a curious thing when I was there."

　　"What was that?" Lucie asked.

　　"In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon,which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stoneof its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carvedby prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a cornerstone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have goneto execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They weredone with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteadyhand. At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being morecarefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was norecord or legend of any prisoner with those initials, and manyfruitless guesses were made what the name could have been.At length, it was suggested that the letters were not initials, butthe complete word, DiG. The floor was examined very carefully underthe inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or somefragment of paving, were found the ashes of a paper, mingled with theashes of a small leathern case or bag. What the unknown prisoner hadwritten will never be read, but he had written something, and hiddenit 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 mannerand his look quite terrified them all.

　　"No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling,and they made me start. We had better go in."

　　He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling inlarge drops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it.But, he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that hadbeen told of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye ofMr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as itturned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had beenupon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House.

　　He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubtsof his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was notmore steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to themthat he was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever wouldbe), and that the rain had startled him.

　　Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerksupon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in,but he made 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 intothe heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her;Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white,and some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caughtthem up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings.

　　"The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few," saidDoctor Manette. "It comes slowly."

　　"It comes surely," said Carton.

　　They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as peoplein a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.

　　There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to getshelter 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 theyhad listened 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 of afoolish 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 andmore rapid. 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;some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether;all in the distant streets, and not one within sight.

　　"Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette,or are 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,and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are tocome into my life, and my father's."

　　"I take them into mine!" said Carton. "_I_ ask no questions and makeno stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, MissManette, and I see them--by the Lightning." He added the last words,after there had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging inthe window.

　　"And I hear them!" he added again, after a peal of thunder."Here they come, 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,when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern,set forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitarypatches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry,mindful of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: thoughit was usually performed a good two hours earlier.

　　"What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry," said Mr. Lorry,"to bring the dead out of their graves."

　　"I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don't expect to--what would 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 androar, bearing down upon them, too.