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 hiscustom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journeyfrom London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventuroustraveller upon.
By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left becongratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respectiveroadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its dampand dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was ratherlike a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself outof it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, andmuddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog.
"There will be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer?"
"Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. Thetide 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 offgentleman'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 themail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up fromhead to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of theRoyal 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, anotherdrawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were allloitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concordand the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in abrown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with largesquare cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way tohis breakfast.
The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentlemanin 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 aloud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat,as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity andevanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vainof it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of afine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. Hewore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to hishead: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but whichlooked 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 neighbouringbeach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. Aface habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under thequaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have costtheir owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed andreserved expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in hischeeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety.But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank wereprincipally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhapssecond-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 anytime to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for agentleman 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 intheir travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. Avast 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 lastfrom France."
"Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people'stime 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 andCompany was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteenyears ago?"
"You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far fromthe truth."
"Indeed, sir!"
Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from thetable, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left,dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest whilehe ate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to theimmemorial usage of waiters in all ages.
When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll onthe beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself awayfrom the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marineostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumblingwildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked wasdestruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, andbrought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so stronga piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to bedipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A littlefishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about bynight, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tidemade, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever,sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkablethat nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter.
As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had beenat intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, becameagain charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloudtoo. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaitinghis 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 noharm, 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 lastglassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as isever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who hasgot to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrowstreet, 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 Manettehad arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman fromTellson's.
"So soon?"
Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required nonethen, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson'simmediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience.
The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty hisglass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxenwig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment.It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with blackhorsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled andoiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the roomwere gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if _they_ were buried, in deepgraves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expectedfrom them until they were dug out.
The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking hisway over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, forthe moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tallcandles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them andthe fire, a young lad
y of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak,and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. Ashis eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of goldenhair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, anda forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smoothit was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that wasnot quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a brightfixed attention, though it included all the four expressions--as hiseyes 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 veryChannel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ranhigh. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the surface ofthe gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospitalprocession of negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, wereoffering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of thefeminine gender--and he made his formal bow to Miss Manette.
"Pray take a seat, sir." In a very clear and pleasant young voice; alittle foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed.
"I kiss your hand, miss," said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlierdate, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat.
"I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me thatsome 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--solong dead--"
Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards thehospital procession of negro cupids. As if _they_ had any help foranybody in their absurd baskets!
"--rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicatewith a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris forthe purpose."
"Myself."
"As I was prepared to hear, sir."
She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with apretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser hewas than she. He made her another bow.
"I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, bythose who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go toFrance, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go withme, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself,during the journey, under that worthy gentleman's protection. Thegentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him tobeg the favour of his waiting for me here."
"I was happy," said Mr. Lorry, "to be entrusted with the charge. I shallbe more happy to execute it."
"Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told meby the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of thebusiness, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprisingnature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have astrong 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 theears, "It is very difficult to begin."
He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The youngforehead lifted itself into that singular expression--but it was prettyand characteristic, besides being singular--and she raised her hand,as if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayed some passingshadow.
"Are you quite a stranger to me, sir?"
"Am I not?" Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards withan argumentative smile.
Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line ofwhich was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expressiondeepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by whichshe had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and themoment she raised her eyes again, went on:
"In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address youas a young English lady, Miss Manette?"
"If you please, sir."
"Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge toacquit myself of. In your reception of it, don't heed me any more thanif I was a speaking machine--truly, I am not much else. I will, withyour 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 callour connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scientificgentleman; a man of great acquirements--a Doctor."
"Not of Beauvais?"
"Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, thegentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, thegentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there.Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at thattime 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--andI was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many otherFrench 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 forscores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss;there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing likesentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of mybusiness life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another inthe course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a meremachine. To go on--"
"But this is my father's story, sir; and I begin to think"--thecuriously roughened forehead was very intent upon him--"that when I wasleft 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 advancedto take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He thenconducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holdingthe chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rubhis chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood lookingdown into her face while she sat looking up into his.
"Miss Manette, it _was_ I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myselfjust now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I holdwith my fellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you reflectthat I have never seen you since. No; you have been the ward ofTellson's House since, and I have been busy with the other business ofTellson's House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chanceof them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniaryMangle."
After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorryflattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was mostunnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface wasbefore), and resumed his former attitude.
"So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of yourregretted father. Now comes the difference. If your father had not diedwhen 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 fromthe back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that claspedhim in so violent a tremble: "pray control your agitation--a matter ofbusiness. 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 suddenlyand silently disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had notbeen difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art couldtrace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise aprivilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraidto speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, theprivilege of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any oneto the oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife hadimplored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings ofhim, and all quite in vain;--then the history of your father would havebeen the history o
f 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 thismoment."
"You speak collectedly, and you--_are_ collected. That's good!" (Thoughhis manner was less satisfied than his words.) "A matter of business.Regard it as a matter of business--business that must be done. Nowif this doctor's wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit,had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child wasborn--"
"The little child was a daughter, sir."
"A daughter. A-a-matter of business--don't be distressed. Miss, if thepoor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was born,that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child theinheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, byrearing her in the belief that her father was dead--No, don't kneel! InHeaven'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 transactbusiness if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindlymention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how manyshillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be somuch more at my ease about your state of mind."
Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he hadvery gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasphis wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that shecommunicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry.
"That's right, that's right. Courage! Business! You have business beforeyou; useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course withyou. And when she died--I believe broken-hearted--having never slackenedher unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years old,to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloudupon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore hisheart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering years."
As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on theflowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it might havebeen already tinged with grey.
"You know that your parents had no great possession, and that whatthey had was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no newdiscovery, of money, or of any other property; but--"
He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in theforehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and which wasnow immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror.
"But he has been--been found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is tooprobable; 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 servantin Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, torestore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort."
A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in alow, 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 fairsea 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, Ihave been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me!"
"Only one thing more," said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as awholesome means of enforcing her attention: "he has been found underanother name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would beworse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek toknow whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedlyheld 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 allevents--out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and evenTellson's, important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming ofthe matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly referringto 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 aword! Miss Manette!"
Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, shesat under his hand, utterly insensible; with her eyes open and fixedupon him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved orbranded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that hefeared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he calledout loudly for assistance without moving.
A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed tobe all of a red colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed in someextraordinary tight-fitting fashion, and to have on her head a mostwonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too,or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of theinn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from thepoor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending himflying back against the nearest wall.
("I really think this must be a man!" was Mr. Lorry's breathlessreflection, 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 staringat me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don't you go and fetchthings? I'll let you know, if you don't bring smelling-salts, coldwater, and vinegar, quick, I will."
There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and shesoftly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill andgentleness: calling her "my precious!" and "my bird!" and spreading hergolden 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 herto death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. Doyou call _that_ being a Banker?"
Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard toanswer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feeblersympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the innservants under the mysterious penalty of "letting them know" somethingnot mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by aregular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping headupon 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 andhumility, "that you accompany Miss Manette to France?"
"A likely thing, too!" replied the strong woman. "If it was everintended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providencewould have cast my lot in an island?"
This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew toconsider it.
A Tale of Two Cities Page 4