book 2 chapter 10 of a tale of two cities by charles dickens this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by paul adams chapter 10 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 telson's ledgers to turn cooks and carpenters as a tutor whose attainments made the students way unusually pleasant and profitable and as an elegant translator who brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge young mr dhani 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 labor and he found it and he did it and made the best of it in this 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 lucy minette 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 of 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 dr minette it was the close of the summer day and he knew lucy to be out with miss pross he found the doctor reading in his armchair at a window the energy which had once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated their sharpness had been gradually restored to him he was now a very energetic man indeed with great firmness of purpose strength of resolution and vigor 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 equally 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 passed mr striver and sydney carton were both here yesterday and both made you out to be more than due i'm 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 minette 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 dr minette 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 dr minette of being so intimate here he at length began for some year and a half that i hope the topic on which i'm about to touch may not he was stayed by the doctors putting out his hand to stop him when he had kept it so a little while he said drawing it back is lucy 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 dr monette 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 should i go on sir another blank yes go on you anticipate what i would say though you cannot 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 dr minette 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 not that sir let that be i adore you do not recall that his cry was so like a cry of actual pain that it rang in charles darnay's ears long after he had ceased he motioned with the hand he had extended and it seemed to be an appeal to darnay to pause the latter so received it and remained silent i ask your pardon said the doctor in a subdued tone after some moments i do not doubt your loving lucy you may be satisfied of it he turned towards him in the chair but did not look at him or raise his eyes his chin dropped upon his hand and his white hair overshadowed his face have you spoken to lucy no nor written never it would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is referred to your consideration for her father 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 dr minette i who have seen you together from day to day that between you and miss minette there is an affection so unusual so touching so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured that it can have few parallels even in the tenderness between a father and child i know dr minette how can i fail to know that mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman there is in her heart towards you all the love and reliance of infancy itself i know that as in her childhood she had no parents so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and further of her present years and character united to the trustfulness and attachment of the early days in which she were lost to her i know perfectly well that if you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life you could hardly be invested in her sight with a more sacred character than that in which you are always with her i know that when she is clinging to you the hands of baby girl and woman all in one around your neck i know that in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her own age sees and loves you at my age loves her mother broken-hearted loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration i have known this night and day since i have known you in your home her father sat silent with his face bent down his breathing was a little quickened but he repressed all other signs of agitation dear dr minette always knowing this always seeing her and you with this hallowed light about you i have forebone and forborn 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 even mine between you is to touch your history with something not quite so good as itself but i love her heaven is my witness that i love her i believe it answered her father mournfully i have thought so before now i believe it but do not believe said darnay upon whose ear the mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound that if my fortune was so cast as that being one day so happy is to make him my wife i must at any time put any separation between her and you i could or would breathe a word of what i now say besides that i should know it to be hopeless i should know it to be a baseness if i had any such possibility even at a remote distance of years harbored in my thoughts and hidden in my heart if it ever had been there if it ever could be there i could not now touch this honored hand he laid his own upon it as he spoke no dear dr minette like you a voluntary exile from france like you driven from it by its distractions oppressions and miseries like you striving to live away from it by my own exertions and trusting in a happier future i look only to sharing your fortunes sharing your life and home and being faithful to you to the deaf not to divide with lucy her privilege as your child companion and friend but to come in aid of it and bind her closer to you if such a thing can be his touch still lingered on her father's hand answering the touch for a moment but not coldly her father rested his hands upon the arms of his chair and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the conference a struggle was evidently in his face a struggle with that occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and a dread you speak so feelingly and so manfully charles darnay that i thank you with all my heart and will open all my heart or nearly so have you any reason to believe that lucy loves you none as yet none is it the immediate object of this confidence that you may at once ascertain that with my knowledge not even so i might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks i might mistaken or not mistaken have that hopefulness tomorrow do you seek any guidance from me i ask none sir but i have thought it possible that you might have it in your power if you should deem it right to give me some do you seek any promise from me i do seek that what is it i will understand that without you i could have no hope i won't understand that even if miss minette held me at this moment in her innocent heart do not think i have the presumption to assume so much i could retain no place in it against her love for her father if that be so do you see what on the other hand is involved in it i understand equally well that a word from her father in any suitor's favor would outweigh herself and all the world for which reason dr minette said darnay modestly but firmly i would not ask that word to save my life i am sure of it charles darnay mysteries arise out of close love as well as out of wide division in the former case they are subtle and delicate and difficult to penetrate my daughter lucy is in this one respect such a mystery to me i can make no guess as to the state of her heart may i ask sir if you think she is as he hesitated her father 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 striver is here too occasionally if it be at all it can only be by one of these 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 minnette should bring to you at any time on her own part such a confidence as i have ventured to lay before you you will bear testimony to what i have said and to your belief in it i hope you may be able to think so well of me as to urge no influence against me i say nothing more of my stake in this this is what i ask the condition on which i ask it and which you have an undoubted right to require i will observe immediately i give the promise at the doctor without any condition i believe your object to be purely and truthfully as you have stated it i believe your intention is to perpetuate and not to weaken the ties between me and my other and far dearer self if she should ever tell me that you are essential to her perfect 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 were joined as the doctor spoke any fancies any reasons any apprehensions anything whatsoever new or old against the man she really loved the direct responsibility thereof not lying on his head they should all be obliterated for her sake she is everything to me more to me than suffering more to me than wrong more to me well this is idle talk so strange was the way in which he faded into silence and so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak that darnay felt his own hand turned cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it you said something to me said dr minette breaking into a smile what was it you said to me he was at a loss how to answer until he remembered having spoken of a condition relieved as his mind reverted to that he answered your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my part my present name though but slightly changed from my mother's is not as you will remember my own i wish to tell you what that is and why i am in england stop said the doctor of bove i wish it that i may better deserve your confidence and have no secret from you stop for an instant the doctor even had his two hands at his ears for another instant even had his two hands laid on darnay's lips tell me when i asked you not now if your suit should prosper if lucy should love you you shall tell me on your marriage morning do you promise willingly give me your hand she'll be home directly and it is better she should not see us together tonight go god bless you it was dark when charles darnay left him and it was an hour later and darker when lucy came home she hurried into the room alone for miss pross had gone straight upstairs and was surprised to find his reading chair empty my father she called to him father dear nothing was said in answer but she heard a low hammering sound in his bedroom passing lightly across the intermediate room she looked in at his door and came running back frightened 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 and tapped at his door and softly called to him the noise ceased at 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 that night he slept heavily and his tray of shoemaking tools and his old unfinished work were all as usual end of book 2 chapter 10 recording by paul adams www.yawnguy.com