有声名著之双城记
CHAPTER XTwo Promises
MORE months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, andMr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higherteacher of the French language who was conversant with Frenchliterature. In this age, he would have been a Professor; inthat age, he was a Tutor. He read with young men who couldfind any leisure and interest for the study of a living tonguespoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for itsstores 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 thathad been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of theTeacher class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out ofTellson's ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor,whose attainments made the student's way unusually pleasantand profitable, and as an elegant translator who broughtsomething to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, youngMr. Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was wellacquainted, moreover, with the circumstances of his country,and those were of ever-growing interest. So, with greatperseverance and untiring industry, he prospered.
In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements ofgold, nor to lie on beds of roses: if he had had any suchexalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He hadexpected labour, and he found it, and did it, and made thebest of it. In this, his prosperity consisted.
A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, wherehe read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smugglerwho drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead ofconveying Greek and Latin through the Custom-house. The restof his time he passed in London.
Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, tothese days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, theworld of a man has invariably gone one way--Charles Darnay'sway--the way of the love of a woman.
He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. Hehad never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of hercompassionate voice; he had never seen a face so tenderlybeautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own on theedge of the grave that had been dug for him. But, he had notyet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination at thedeserted chaateau far away beyond the heaving water and thelong, long, dusty roads--the solid stone chaateau which haditself 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 wasagain a summer day when, lately arrived in London from hiscollege occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho,bent on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind to DoctorManette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew Lucieto be out with Miss Pross.
He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. Theenergy which had at once supported him under his oldsufferings and aggravated their sharpness, had been graduallyrestored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed withgreat firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigourof action. In his recovered energy he was sometimes a littlefitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the exercise ofhis other recovered faculties; but, this had never beenfrequently observable, and had grown more and more rare.
He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal offatigue with ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, nowentered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside hisbook and held out his hand.
`Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been countingon your return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver andSydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both made you outto be more than due.
`I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,' heanswered, a little coldly as to chem, though very warmly as tothe Doctor. `Miss Manette---'
`Is well,' said the Doctor, as he stopped short, `and yourreturn will delight us all. She has gone out on some householdmatters, but will soon be home.'
`Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took theopportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you.'
There was a blank silence.
`Yes?' said the Doctor, with evident constraint. `Bring yourchair here, and speak on.'
He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speakingon less easy.
`I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being sointimate here,' so he at length began, `for some year and ahalf, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch maynot---'
He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to stophim. When he had kept it so a little while, he said, drawingit back:
`Is Lucie the topic?'
`She is.'
`It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is veryhard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours,Charles Darnay.'
`It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deeplove, 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 thesubject, that Charles Darnay hesitated.
`Shall I go on, sir?'
Another blank.
`Yes, go on.'
`You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know howearnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowingmy secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties withwhich it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love yourdaughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If everthere were love in the world, I love her. You have lovedyourself; let your old love speak for me!'
The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes benton the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his handagain, hurriedly, and cried:
`Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recallthat!'
His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang inCharles Darnay's ears long after he had ceased. He motionedwith the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appealto Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and remainedsilent. #p#副标题#e#`I ask your pardon,' said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, aftersome moments. `I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may besatisfied of it.'
He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him,or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and hiswhite hair overshadowed his face:
`Have you spoken to Lucie?'
`No.'
`Nor written?'
`Never.'
`It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is to be referred to your consideration for herfather. Her father thanks you.
He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it.
`I know,' said Darnay, respectfully, `how can I fail to know,Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day,that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection sounusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances inwhich it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels,even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, Dr.
Manette--how can I fail to know--that, mingled with theaffection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, thereis, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance ofinfancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had noparent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancyand fervour of her present years and character, united to thetrustfulness and attachment of the early days in which youwere lost to her. I know perfectly well that if you had beenrestored to her from the world beyond this life, you couldhardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred characterthan that in which you are always with her. I know that whenshe is clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman,all in one, are round your neck. I know that in loving you shesees and loves her mother at her own age, sees and loves youat my age, loves her mother broken+hearted, loves you throughyour dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I haveknown this, night and day, since I have known you in yourhome.'
Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathingwas a little quickened; but he repressed all other signs ofagitation.
`Dear Doctor manette always knowing this, always seeing herand you with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne,and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man to do it.
I have felt, and do even now feel, that to bring my love--evenmine--between you, is to touch your history with something notquite so good as itself. But I love her. Heaven is my witnessthat I love her!'
`I believe it,' answered her father, mournfully. `I havethought so before now. I believe it.'
`But, do not believe,' said Darnay, upon whose ear themournful voice struck with a reproachful sound, `that if myfortune were so cast as that, being one day so happy as tomake her my wife, I must at any time put any separationbetween her and you, I could or would breathe a word of what Inow say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, Ishould know it to be a baseness. If I had any suchpossibility, even at a remote distance of years, harboured inmy thoughts, and `hidden in my heart--if it ever had beenthere--if it ever could be there--I could not now touch thishonoured hand.'
He laid his own upon it as he spoke.
`No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile fromFrance; like you, driven from it by its distractions,oppressions, and miseries; like you, striving to live awayfrom it by my own exertions, and trusting in a happier future;I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life andhome, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to dividewith Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend;but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if sucha thing can be.'
His touch still lingered on her father's hand. Answering thetouch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested hishands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the firsttime since the beginning of the conference. A struggle wasevidently in his face; a struggle with that occasional lookwhich had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread.
`You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, thatI thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heart--ornearly so. Have you any reason to believe that Lucie lovesyou?'
`None. As yet, none.
`Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you mayat once ascertain that, with my knowledge?'
`Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it forweeks; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have thathopefulness to-morrow.
`Do you seek any guidance from me?'
`I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that youmight have it in your power, if you should deem it right, togive me some.'
`Do you seek any promise from me?' #p#副标题#e#`I do seek that.
`What is it?'
`I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. Iwell understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at thismoment in her innocent heart--do not think I have thepresumption to assume so much--I could retain no place in itagainst her love for her father.'
If that be so, do you sec what, on the other hand, isinvolved in it?'
`I understand equally well, that a word from her father inany suitor's favour, would outweigh herself and all the world.
For which reason, Doctor Manette,' said Darnay, modestly butfirmly, `I would not ask that word, to save my life.'
`I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out ofclose love, as well as out of wide division; in the formercase, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult topenetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such amystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her heart.'
`May I ask, sir, if you think she is---' As he hesitated, herfather supplied the rest.
`Is sought by any other suitor?'
`It is what I meant to say.'
Her father considered a little before he answered:
`You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is heretoo, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one ofthese.'
`Or both,' said Darnay.
`I had not thought of both; I should not think either,likely. You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is.
`It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time,on her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to laybefore you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, andto your belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so wellof me, as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing moreof my stake in this; this is what I ask. The condition onwhich I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right torequire, I will observe immediately.'
`I give the promise,' said the Doctor, `without any condition.
I believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, as youhave stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, andnot to weaken, the ties between me and my other and far dearerself. If she should ever tell me that you are essential to herperfect happiness, I will give her to you. If there were--Charles Darnay, if there were---'
The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands werejoined as the Doctor spoke:
`--any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anythingwhatsoever, new or old, against the man she really loved--thedirect responsibility thereof not lying on his head--theyshould all be obliterated for her sake. She is everything tome; more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more tome---Well! This is idle talk.'
So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and sostrange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, thatDarnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowlyreleased and dropped it.
`You said something to me,' said Doctor Manette, breakinginto a smile. `What was it you said to me?'
He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered havingspoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that,he answered:
`Your confidence in me ought to be returned with fullconfidence on my part. My present name, though but slightlychanged from my mother's, is not, as you will remember, myOwn. I wish to tell you what that is, and why I am inEngland.'
`Stop!' said the Doctor of Beauvais.
`I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence,and have no secret from you.
`Stop!'
For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at hisears; for another instant, even had his two hands laid onDarnay's lips.
`Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit shouldprosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on yourmarriage morning. Do you promise?'
`Willingly.'
`Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it isbetter she should not see us together to-night. Go! God blessyou!'
It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hourlater and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into theroom alone--for Miss Pross had gone straight upstairs--and wassurprised to find his reading-chair empty.
`My father!' she called to him. `Father dear!'
Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammeringsound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediateroom, she looked in at his door and came running backfrightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled,`What shall I do! What shall I do!'
Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, andtapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceasedat the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her,and they walked up and down together for a long time.
She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep thatnight. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, andhis old unfinished work, were all as usual. |