mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul,
she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl
who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a
Sorceress, or Cinderella’s Godmother: who would send out for a
fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and change
them into anything she pleased.
On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor’s table, but on
other days persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods,
either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the second
floor—a blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird ever
gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to
Ladybird’s pleasant face and pleasant efforts to please her, unbent
exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too.
It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that
the wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they
should sit there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and
revolved about her, they went out under the plane-tree, and she
carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She
had installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry’s cupbearer;
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and while they sat under the plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass
replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them
as they talked, and the plane-tree whispered to them in its own
way above their heads.
Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr.
Darnay presented himself while they were sitting under the plane-
tree, but he was only One.
Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But Miss
Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and
body, and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the
victim 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 he resting his arm on the back of her chair, it was
very agreeable to trace 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 the plane-tree—and he said it in the natural pursuit of
the topic in hand, which happened to be the old buildings of
London—”have you seen much of the Tower?”
“Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen
enough of 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 in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They
told me a curious thing when I was there.”
“What was that?” Lucie asked.
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A Tale of Two Cities
“In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old
dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten.
Every stone of its inner wall was covered by inions which
had been carved by prisoners—dates, names, complaints, and
prayers. Upon a corner stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner,
who seemed to have gone to execution, had cut as his last work,
three letters. They were done with some very poor instrument,
and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read as
D.I.C.; but, on being more carefully examined, the last letter was
found to be G. There was no record or legend of any prisoner with
those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made what the
name could have been. At length, it was suggested that the letters
were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The floor was
examined very carefully under the inion, and, in the earth
beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found
the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern
case or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be
read, but he had written something, and hidden i"};
