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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
“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 knew, 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
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
hand 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
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 of 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—
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
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 brokenhearted—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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
“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
for 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
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
