XVII. One Night
Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner inSoho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter satunder the plane-tree together. Never did the moon rise with a milderradiance over great London, than on that night when it found them stillseated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves.
Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last eveningfor her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree.
”You are happy, my dear father?”
”Quite, my child.”
They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When itwas yet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged herselfin her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself inboth ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, thistime was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so.
”And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in thelove that Heaven has so blessed--my love for Charles, and Charles's lovefor me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, orif my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even bythe length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy andself-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is--”
Even as it was, she could not command her voice.
In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her faceupon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light ofthe sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming andits going.
”Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite,quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, willever interpose between us? _I_ know it well, but do you know it? In yourown heart, do you feel quite certain?”
Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he couldscarcely have assumed, ”Quite sure, my darling! More than that,” headded, as he tenderly kissed her: ”my future is far brighter, Lucie,seen through your marriage, than it could have been--nay, than it everwas--without it.”
”If I could hope _that_, my father!--”
”Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plainit is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, cannotfully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not bewasted--”
She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeatedthe word.
”--wasted, my child--should not be wasted, struck aside from thenatural order of things--for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirelycomprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself,how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete?”
”If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happywith you.”
He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappywithout Charles, having seen him; and replied:
”My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not beenCharles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, Ishould have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would havecast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you.”
It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing himrefer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and newsensation while his words were in her ears; and she remembered it longafterwards.
”See!” said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon.”I have looked at her from my prison-window, when I could not bear herlight. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to thinkof her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head againstmy prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull and lethargic,that I have thought of nothing but the number of horizontal lines Icould draw across her at the full, and the number of perpendicular lineswith which I could intersect them.” He added in his inward and ponderingmanner, as he looked at the moon, ”It was twenty either way, I remember,and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in.”
The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time,deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was nothing to shock her inthe manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his presentcheerfulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over.
”I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unbornchild from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether it hadbeen born alive, or the poor mother's shock had killed it. Whether itwas a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in myimprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether itwas a son who would never know his father's story; who might even liveto weigh the possibility of his father's having disappeared of his ownwill and act. Whether it was a daughter who would grow to be a woman.”
She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand.
”I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful ofme--rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I havecast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her marriedto a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished fromthe remembrance of the living, and in the next generation my place was ablank.”
”My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter whonever existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child.”
”You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you havebrought to me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us andthe moon on this last night.--What did I say just now?”
”She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you.”
”So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silencehave touched me in a different way--have affected me with something aslike a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for itsfoundations could--I have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, andleading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen herimage in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that I never heldher in my arms; it stood between the little grated window and the door.But, you understand that that was not the child I am speaking of?”
”The figure was not; the--the--image; the fancy?”
”No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense ofsight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was anotherand more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more thanthat she was like her mother. The other had that likeness too--as youhave--but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think?I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand theseperplexed distinctions.”
His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from runningcold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition.
”In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight,coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of her marriedlife was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. My picturewas in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was active,cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all.”
”I was that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my lovethat was I.”
”And she showed me her children,” said the Doctor of Beauvais, ”andthey had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When they passeda prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and lookedup at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me; Iimagined that she always brought me back after showing me such things.But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, andblessed her.”
”I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you blessme as fervently to-morrow?”
”Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have to-nightfor loving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my greathappiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near thehappiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us.”
He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thankedHeaven for having bestowed her on him. By-and-bye, they went into thehouse.
There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was even tobe no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to make nochange in their place of residence; they had been able to extend it,by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to theapocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more.
Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were onlythree at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that Charleswas not there; was more than half disposed to object to the lovinglittle plot that kept him away; and drank to him affectionately.
So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated.But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie camedownstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears,beforehand.
All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he layasleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and hishands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in theshadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his;then, leaned over him, and looked at him.
Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, hecovered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held themastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its quiet,resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to bebeheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night.
She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer thatshe might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as hissorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his lips oncemore, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leavesof the plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as her lips had movedin praying for him.