Lucie Manette

“ 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 Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross.
He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The energy which had at 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 vigour of action. ”

“ In those days in France the rich nobles who belonged to the royal court were very powerful and overbearing, and the rest of the people had few rights. One could be put into prison then without any trial at all, so that many innocent people suffered. Lucie's mother had guessed that Doctor Manette (for he was a physician) had in some way incurred the hatred of some one of the nobles and had thus been taken from her; but all she certainly knew was that he had disappeared one day in Paris and had never come back. ”

“ Manette knew nothing about the matter. "But I will inquire of Monsieur;" for her curiosity was aroused on her own account.
"Madame need not trouble herself," said the young man; "it is of no consequence." And bowing politely, he disappeared down the Rue de l'Aubépine.
Manette returned to her kitchen, pondered a good deal, and while her master took his coffee, told him of the young gentleman's visit. Isez perceived that his adventure was known. ”

“ Manette stood for the saying, "that having come there to meet and enjoy ourselves with our lovers, and they having thrown off all covering, she would not spoil the sport, as she was not ashamed to let them see all what she had, for she was sure she had as pretty a leg and as sweet a little cunt as any girl in Brittany." ”

“ For the first time I folded this angelic being in my arms, exclaiming, "Yes, dearest Lucie, yes, thou hast it in thy power to afford the sweetest relief to my devouring pain; abandon to my ardent kisses thy divine lips which have just assured me of thy love."
An hour passed in the most delightful silence, which nothing interrupted except these words murmured now and then by Lucie, "Oh, God! is it true? is it not a dream?" Yet I respected her innocence, and the more readily that she abandoned herself entirely and without the slightest resistance. ”

“ I was still sipping my coffee, when Lucie’s parents came into my room. She did not move from her place on the bed, but she looked at them, appearing very proud of such a seat. The good people kindly scolded her, begged my forgiveness in her favour, and Lucie left the room to attend to her other duties. The moment she had gone her father and mother began to praise their daughter.
“She is,” they said, “our only child, our darling pet, the hope of our old age. She loves and obeys us, and fears God; she is as clean as a new pin, and has but one fault.” ”

“ Lucie, Baroness von Crefeldt, was one of those persons who, after a probationary term in the character of woman, have become men, but of whom offended man, amazed by the flowering up of that hard rough jaw from the tender blooming promise of a petticoat, finds it impossible to imagine they had once on a sweet Spring time the sex’s gentleness and charm of aspect. ”

“ Annette drew closer to Lucie. “Dear Lucie, dear Lucie,” she murmured, “you are all tired out. Come, let us go to bed. Grandfather is upstairs, and grandmother went long ago.”
So they went upstairs together, leaving Madame Guerin alone with her fears and the little stained book.
[234] CHAPTER XV
GASPARD IT was after Madame Guerin and Jean had gone that Gaspard arrived. A tall, bronzed young man he was, graver than Victor, very gentle, very quiet. Lucie found him polite, but it was very evident that he preferred Annette to her. The two spent much time together and Lucie felt rather lonely. ”

“ Lucie’s quick and comprehensive mind had already gone forward and spanned the gulf between a sublieutenant and a lieutenant-colonel. Madame Bernard sighed again. All womanly women are natural romancers and love a lover, and she did not think less of Paul for his determined stand. She began to see dimly that this prompt and quiet decision in Paul’s character was one of the reasons why Lucie loved him, and it would be the most wholesome corrective possible to the faults in Lucie’s temperament. ”

“ NENETTE AND RINTINTIN IT was when they came from church that Lucie and Paulette found Victor waiting for them, “Come, come,” he said, “we must begin our day at once.”
“We shall have to go up to get Pom Pom first,” returned Lucie. “He has been shut up too long a time to please him as it is. It will be a happy time for him, for he has none too much chance for being out-of-doors.” ”

“ On the succeeding morning, however, she appeared again, looking very white and frail. She declined to walk, on account of weariness, and spent an hour idly in the rustic chair.
“You are weak, madame,” cried Biencourt, eagerly, as they walked back to her hut. “You need aid. Indeed, you seem to grow ever frailer and more weary.”
Madame Manette turned on the threshold of her domains and surveyed her two escorts with deliberation. There was a faint shadowy smile upon her lips, and her marvellous hair lay in a golden blaze against the white hollow of her cheeks. “He dreams—does he not?” ”

“ I replied, "Yes, she is very charming," and feeling a desire to get an insight into the pleasures derived from the conjunction of the sexes, I laid my hand on the bare knee of Manette, who still sat on the edge of the bed, her clothes scarcely covering her cunt and thighs, and slipped it under her chemise, till it rested on the hairy mount that overtopped the delicious slit beneath. ”

“ One day, while in my room with Rose, she stretched across the foot of the bed, her clothes raised up, and exposing to my view all her beauties, I standing between her legs with my prick (which was a very large one, few men being able to boast of one as large) , in my hand, Manette suddenly entered the room, I having neglected to lock the door. ”

“ After living for two or three years in the vilest haunts in London, Lucie came to Holland, where, not being able to sell her own person any longer, she became a procuress—a natural ending to her career. Lucie was only thirty-three, but she was the wreck of a woman, and women are always as old as they look. ”

“ It is worth while not to pass by anything. I have no capacity for making such things; if I had—”
She paused but Lucie understood that she wished that her boy might have two of the farcical little mascots. He shall have, Lucie told herself, remembering those Odette was keeping for some soldier. Why not Jean?
Then came Victor to make his adieux and to get the little parcel to take to Honoré. “It seems much smaller than it did,” he said as Lucie handed it to him.
She laughed. “And yet I have not abstracted the socks. Here also, Victor, is something for you; Nenette and Rintintin.” ”

“ I heard more when you were talking to Madame and Monsieur Pierre to-day than I have heard at all.”
“One does not want to talk when one is away from the trenches. One likes to forget, although—” He paused and a far-off look came into his eyes, making him look older, and giving Lucie a feeling that he was distant in thought. ”

“ I said. "It really is not the time for any personal remarks. Besides—look at yourself; there is more paint on your cheeks than flesh. And this wig! To tell the truth I like your own hair far better. Your wig is outrageous. You look like a bad girl."
"Exactly. That's what I am now. Lucie de Clive, Monsieur, a vaudeville actress. That's me."
"A nice party, isn't it?" she said. "Syvorotka and Lucie?" "But—tell me before everything else, can I stay here?"
"Stay here? Pardon me, Baroness...."
"Call me Lucie, please...."
"Pardon me, Lucie, but really I don't quite comprehend. ”

“ Lucie was unblushingly happy and demanded that as soon as he arrived at Beaupré he should present himself at the château and pay his respects to Madame Bernard. Of course, he did it, wicked as he knew it to be, with the result that he was the only man whom Lucie really encouraged. And in a little while, as natures quickly adjust themselves to each other, Paul acquired a species [Pg 187] of control over Lucie, a thing which no one but Sophie Ravenel had ever done before. ”

“ Having somewhat rearranged her dress she sat down, and her mother, coming in at that moment, complimented me upon my good looks and my bright countenance, and told Lucie to dress herself to attend mass. Lucie came back an hour later, and expressed her joy and her pride at the wonderful cure she thought she had performed upon me, for the healthy appearance I was then shewing convinced her of my love much better than the pitiful state in which she had found me in the morning. “If your complete happiness,” she said, “rests in my power, be happy; there is nothing that I can refuse you.” ”

“ Thus, while Sir Walter still opposed, he was surprised to hear Mary plead on the visitor's behalf, and his nephew support her.
"Signor Mannetti is quite right, father; I am positive of it," she said. "He is right; and because he is right, he is safe."
"Admirably put!" cried the Italian. "There you have the situation in a nutshell, my friends. Trust a clever woman's intuition. I am indeed right. Never was consciousness of right so impressed upon my mind—prone as I am always to doubt my own conclusions. I am, in fact, right because I cannot be wrong. ”

“ Lucie shook her head. “No, I shall continue to follow Odette’s philosophy. One can never be prepared for the worst. If it comes, it is no harder a blow than if one expected it; if it does not come, one will then not have wasted time in grieving.”
She turned away and went back to the house to learn that another piece of news had come with the morning’s mail: Annette was going on to Marseilles with her husband, and would stay with him there until he should receive orders. He might be sent to Italy instead of to Turkey.
Close upon this news came a letter from Miss Lowndes to Lucie. ”

“ James went, forgiven, to his Bishops and Deans, and to lunch with his Johnny Mallet and the tufted. Lucy, her household duties done, arrayed herself for the tulips of the Park.
The grey watches of the night with their ache and moments of panic, the fever and fret, the wearing down of rage and emptying of wonder [Pg 140] and dismay, the broken snatches of dream-sleep, and the heavy slumber which exhaustion finally gave her—all this had brought downstairs, to be kissed, embraced and forgiven, a Lucy disillusioned and tired to death, but schooled to patience. ”

“ But Lucie, like many wives, does not know her husband; she does not know that a man who is so hide- bound by statutes and codes cannot have human compassion, and that he will not stand by the little girl who has committed the "unpardonable sin." Lucie does not know, but she is soon to learn the truth. Lucie. I tell you Annette is the victim of this wretch. If you are going to do nothing but insult her, we had better stop discussing the matter. Brignac. I am in a nice fix now! There is nothing left for us but to pack our trunks and be off. ”

“ Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and 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—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! ”

“ Lucy turned away her head; and they resumed their march. She governed herself with all her power; but her normal self-control was weakened, and that cry of anguish still haunted her. Some quiet tears fell—she hoped, she believed that they were unseen.
But Manisty perceived them. ”

“ Lucie, who was accustomed to luxury, adapted herself with ingenuous perversity to the plain way of living of the Ravenels. She even learned to make omelettes herself, and with her little lace-trimmed gown tucked up around her waist, to the horror of Harper, the nursery governess, actually learned to broil a chop as well as Sophie could. ”

“ She is a good woman, and has a brother who lives in the Rue du Pot-de-fer. As soon as she mentioned her brother I made it up with her."
"But why?" said Isez; "do you want to marry him?"
"Ah, monsieur must have his joke," laughed Manette; "no, but I could not rest until I found out about the house where monsieur went that evening in April. The brother says that the door by which monsieur entered was never there but the one night. A bit of the wall was knocked down, and a door set up ”

“ Mant was a woman whose life revolved about a bunch of keys. What treasures they gave access to, what disasters would have ensued had they been forever lost, was not quite clear; but whenever they were missed the household was in an uproar, and as Mrs. Mant would trust them to no one but herself, these occasions were frequent. One of them arose at the very moment when Mrs. Mant was recovering from her enthusiasm for Miss Winter. ”

“ Lucille too, had a cousin named Julie, who was the wonder of all Malines for her personal perfections; and as the cousins were much together, the contrast was too striking not to occasion frequent mortification to Lucille. But every misfortune has something of a counterpoise; and the consciousness of personal inferiority, had meekened, without souring, her temper—had given gentleness to a spirit that otherwise might have been too high, and humility to a mind that was naturally strong, impassioned, and energetic. ”