Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0065/00656.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 26KB | 503 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00656}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Tale Of Two Cities
Chapter IV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{sir
lorry
business
miss
gentleman
manette
time
am
little
now}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Tale Of Two Cities
Book:        Book The First: Recalled to Life
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter IV

The Preparation

     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 a passenger by the
mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to
foot, the room had 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
gentleman 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 oftentimes 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 yourself, 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 watchtower.  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
it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as
he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily 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 long time, and had just poured out his last glassful of
wine with as 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 would be 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 and oiled, until the two tall
candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on
every leaf; as if they were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no
light to speak of could be expected from them until they were 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 standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire, a
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 it 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 headless 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 -"

     After 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, in 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 straightway 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 he 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 Tellson's House since,
and I have been busy with the other business of Tellson's 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 his 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's good" (Though
his manner was less satisfied than his words.) "A matter of business.  Regard
it as a matter of 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 himself 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.