《A Tale of Two Cities》 Book1 CHAPTER IV The Preparation
by Charles Dickens
WHEN the mail got successfully to
Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the
coach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey
from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon.
By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left to be congratulated; for the
two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside
of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity,
was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it
in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather
like a larger sort of dog.
`There will be a packet to Calais, to-morrow, drawer'
`Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tide will serve
pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir.Bed, sir'
`I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom and a barber.'
`And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show Concord!
Gentleman's valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You
will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now,
for Concord!'
The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to passenger by the mail, and passengers by
the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room ha' the odd interest
for the establishment of the Royal George that although but one kind of man was seen to go
into it, all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently another drawer, and
two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all loitering by accident at various
points of the road between the Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentle-man of sixty,
formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with
large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his
breakfast.
The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His
breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him,
waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for his portrait.
Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking
a sonorous sermon under his flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and
longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was
a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine
texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek
crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was
made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or
glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white
as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail
that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted, was
still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have
cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved
expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though
lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in
Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps
second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.
Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped
off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he
moved his chair to it:
`I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time to-day. She
may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank.
Please to let me know.
`Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir?'
`Yes.'
`Yes, sir. We have often times the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling
backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in
Tellson and Company's House.'
`Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one.'
`Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling your-self, I think, sir?'
`Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we--since I--came last from France.'
`Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people's time here, sir. The
George was in other hands at that time, sir.'
`I believe so.'
`But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was
flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen years ago?'
`You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth.'
`Indeed, sir!'
Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter
shifted his napkin from his-right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude,
and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from an observatory or
watch-tower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages.
When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The
little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into
the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones
tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction.
It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly.
The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed
sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A
little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and
looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small
tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes,
and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter.
As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals clear
enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour,
Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud too. When dark, and he sat before
the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was
digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals.
A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm, otherwise
than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a lo and had
just poured out his last glassful of wine complete an appearance of satisfaction as is
ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a
bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled into the
inn-yard.
He set down his glass untouched. `This is Mam'selle!' said he.
In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from
London, and", happy to see the gentleman from Tellson's.
`So soon?'
Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none then, and was
extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited his
pleasure and convenience.
The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of
stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to
Miss Manette's apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with
black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled, until the two
tall candles on the table in the of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; were
buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and to speak of could be expected from them
until the dug out.
The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr Lorry, picking his way over the
well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent
room, until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw to receive him by the table
between them and the young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still
holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a short,
slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own
with an inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and
smooth it was of
lifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or
wonder, or alarm or merely of a bright fixed attention, though is included all the four
expressions--as his eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before
him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, one
cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. The likeness passed away,
like a breath along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which,
a hospital procession of negro cupids, several head-less and all cripples, were offering
black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender--and he made
his formal bow to Miss Manette.
`Pray take a seat, sir.' In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a little foreign in its
accent, but a very little indeed.
`I kiss your hand, miss,' said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier date, as he made
his formal bow again, and took his
seat.
`I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that some
intelligence--or discovery---
`The word is not material, miss; either word will do.'
`--respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I never saw--so long dead---'
Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of
negro cupids. As if they had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets!
`--rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with a gentleman
of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for the purpose.'
`Myself'
`As I was prepared to hear, sir.'
She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a pretty desire to
convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she. He made her another
bow.
`I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by those who know, and
who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan
and have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted
to place myself, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman's protection. The
gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the favour of
his waiting for me here.'
`I was happy,' said Mr. Lorry, `to be entrusted with the charge. I shall be more happy to
execute it.'
`Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me by the Bank that the
gentleman would explain to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself
to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I
naturally have a strong and eager interest to know what they are.
`Naturally,' said Mr. Lorry. `Yes--I---'
Alter a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears:
`It is very difficult to begin.'
He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance.
The young forehead lifted itself into that singular expression--but it was pretty and
characteristic, besides being singular--and she raised her hand, as if with an involuntary
action she caught at, or stayed some passing shadow.
`Are you quite a stranger to me, sir?'
`Am I not?' Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards with an argumentative
smile.
Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line of which was as
delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expression deepened itself as she took her
seat thoughtfully in the chair by which she had hitherto remained standing. He watched her
as she mused, and the moment she raised her eyes again, went on:
`In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address you as a young
English lady, Miss Manette?'
`If you please, sir.'
`Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. In
your reception of it, don't heed me any more than if I was a speaking machine--truly, I am
not much else. I will, with your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our
customers.'
`Story!'
He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, in a hurry, `Yes,
customers; in the banking business we usually call our connexion our customers. He was a
French gentleman; a scientific gentleman; a man of great acquirements--a Doctor.'
`Not of Beauvais?'
`Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of Beauvais.
Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour
of knowing him there. Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at
that time in our French--House, and had been--oh! twenty years.'
`At that time--I may ask, at what time, sir?'
`I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married--an English lady--and I was one of the
trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many other French gentlemen and French
families, were entirely in Tellson's hands. In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee
of one kind or other for scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss;
there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have
passed from one to another, iii the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of
our customers to another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I
am a mere machine. To go
on---
`But this is my father's story, sir; and I begin to think'--the curiously roughened
forehead was very intent upon him--'that when I was left an orphan through my mother's
surviving my father only two years, it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure
it was you.
Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced to take his, and he
put it with some ceremony to his lips. He then conducted the young lady straightaway to
her chair again, and, holding the chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by
turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what lie said, stood looking
down into her face while she sat looking up into his.
`Miss Manette, it was I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying
I had no feelings, and that all the relations I hold with my fellow-creatures are mere
business relations, when you reflect that I have never seen you since. No; you have been
the ward of Tellsons House since, and I have been busy with the other business of Tellsons
House since. Feelings I have no time for them, no chance of them. I pass my whole life,
miss, in turning an immense pecuniary Mangle.'
After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorry flattened his
flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was most unnecessary, for nothing could be
flatter than its shining surface was before), and resumed his former attitude.
`So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your regretted father. Now
comes the difference. If your father had not died when he did---Don't be frightened! How
you start!'
She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands.
`Pray,' said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing hi' left hand from the back of the
chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that clasped him in so violent a tremble;
`pray control your agitation--a matter of business. As I was saying---'
Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered and began anew:
`As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had suddenly and silently
disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had not been difficult to guess to what
dreadful place, though no art could trace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot
who could exercise a privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid
to speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance the privilege of filling up
blank forms for the consignment of any one to the oblivion of a prison for any length of
time if his wife had implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings
of him, and all quite in vain ;--then the history of your father would have been the
history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais.
`I entreat you to tell me more, sir.'
`I will. I am going to. You can bear it?'
`I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this moment.
`You speak collectedly, and you--are collected. `That good!' (Though his manner was less
satisfied than hi words.) `A matter of business. Regard it as a matter o-business-business
that must be done. Now if this doctor's wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit,
had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child was born---'
`The little child was a daughter, sir?'
`A daughter. A--a--matter of business--don't be distressed. Miss, if the poor lady had
suffered so intensely before her little child was born, that she came to the determination
of sparing the poor child the inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains
of, by rearing her in the belief that her father was dead---No, don't kneel! In Heaven's
name why should you kneel to me?'
`For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth!'
`A--a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact business if I am
confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindly mention now, for instance, what nine
times ninepence are, or how many shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging.
I should be so much more at my ease about your state of mind.'
Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had very gently raised
her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp his wrists were so much more steady than
they had been, that she communicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry.
`That's right, that's right. Courage! Business! You have business before you; useful
business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course with you. And when she died--I
believe broken-hearted--having never slackened her unavailing search for your father, she
left you, at two years old, to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark
cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his heart out in
prison, or wasted there through many lingering years.'
As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the flowing golden hair; as
if he pictured to him-self that it might have been already tinged with grey.
`You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what they had was secured to
your mother and to you. There has been no new discovery, of money, or of any other
property; but---
He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the forehead, which had
so particularly attracted his notice, and which was now immovable, had deepened into one
of pain and horror.
`But he has been-been found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too probable; almost a
wreck, it is possible; though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your father has been
taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him
if I can: you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.'
A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in a low, distinct,
awe-stricken voice, as if she were saying it in a dream,
`I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost--not him!'
Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. `There, there, there! See now, see
now! The best and the worst are known to you, now. You are well on your way to the poor
wronged gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon
at his dear side.'
She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, `I have been free, I have been happy,
yet his Ghost has never haunted me!'
`Only one thing more,' said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a wholesome means of
enforcing her attention: `he has been found under another name; his own, long forgotten or
long concealed. It would be worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to
seek to know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly held prisoner.
It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, because it would be dangerous.
Better not to mention the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove him--for a while
at all events--out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even Tellson's, important
as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter. I carry about me, not a
scrap of writing openly referring to it. This is a secret service altogether. My
credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, "Recalled
to Life;" which may mean anything. But what is the matter? She doesn't notice a word!
Miss Manette!'
Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she sat under his hand,
utterly insensible; with her eyes open and fixed upon him, and with that last expression
looking as if it were carved or branded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his
arm, that he feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he called out
loudly for assistance without moving.
A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed to be all of a red
colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed in some extraordinary tight fitting
fashion, and to have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure,
and good measure too, or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of
the inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the poor young
lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him flying back against the
nearest wall.
(`I really think this must be a man!' was Mr. Lorry's breathless reflection,
simultaneously with his coming against the wall.)
`Why, look at you all!' bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants. `Why don't you go
and fetch things, instead of standing there staring at me? I am not so much to look at, am
I? Why don't you go and fetch things? I'll let you know, if you don't bring
smelling-salts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will.'
There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she softly laid the patient
on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and gentleness: calling her `my precious!' and
`my bird!' and spreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and
care.
`And you in brown!' she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry; `couldn't you tell her
what you had to tell her, without frightening her to death? Look at her, with her pretty
pale face and her cold hands. Do you call that being a Banker?'
Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to answer, that he could
only look on, at a distance, with much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong
woman, having banished the inn servants under the mysterious penalty of `letting them
know' something not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a
regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head upon her shoulder.
`I hope she will do well now,' said Mr. Lorry.
`No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty!'
`I hope,' said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy and humility, `that you
accompany Miss Manette to France?'
`A likely thing, too!' replied the strong woman. `If it was ever intended that I should go
across salt water, do you suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island?'
This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew to consider it. |
