有声名著之双城记Book1 Chapter04

　　有声名著之双城记 Chapter04

       CHAPTER IVThe Preparation

       WHEN the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of theforenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened thecoach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish ofceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was anachievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon.

　　By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller leftto be congratulated; for the two others had been set down attheir respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside ofthe coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeablesmell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel.

　　Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chainsof straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddylegs, 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 tolerablefair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in theafternoon, sir. Bed, sir?'

　　`I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom and abarber.'

　　`And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if youplease. Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot water toConcord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will finda fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stirabout there, now, for Concord!'

　　The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to passenger bythe mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavilywrapped up from head to foot, the room ha' the odd interestfor the establishment of the Royal George that although butone kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds andvarieties of men came out of it. Consequently another drawer,and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were allloitering by accident at various points of the road betweenthe 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 tothe pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast.

　　The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, thanthe gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn beforethe fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him,waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have beensitting for his portrait.

　　Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on eachknee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under hisflapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity andlongevity against the levity and evanescence of the briskfire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for hisbrown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a finetexture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim.

　　He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting veryclose to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was madeof hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun fromfilaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of afineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as thetops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, orthe specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. Aface habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted upunder the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that itmust have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains todrill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson'sBank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face,though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps theconfidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank wereprincipally occupied with the cares of other people; andperhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, comeeasily off and on.

　　Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for hisportrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of hisbreakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he movedhis chair to it:

　　`I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may comehere at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, orshe may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Pleaseto let me know.

　　`Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir?'

　　`Yes.'

　　`Yes, sir. We have often times the honour to entertain yourgentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwards betwixtLondon and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, inTellson and Company's House.'

　　`Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an Englishone.'

　　`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 ourpeople's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at thattime, sir.'

　　`I believe so.'

　　`But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House likeTellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not tospeak of fifteen years ago?'

　　`You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet notbe far from the truth.'

　　`Indeed, sir!'

　　Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backwardfrom the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his-rightarm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, andstood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from anobservatory or watch-tower. According to the immemorial usageof waiters in all ages.

　　When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for astroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Doverhid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into thechalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert ofheaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea didwhat it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thunderedat the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought thecoast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong apiscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish wentup to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dippedin the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and aquantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward:

　　particularly at those times when the tide made, and was nearflood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever,sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it wasremarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure alamplighter.

　　As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, whichhad been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coastto be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr.

　　Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud too. When dark, and he satbefore the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he hadawaited 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 redcoals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throwhim out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a lo and had justpoured out his last glassful of wine complete an appearance ofsatisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman ofa fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when arattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled intothe inn-yard.

　　He set down his glass untouched. `This is Mam'selle!' saidhe.

　　In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce thatMiss Manette had arrived from London, and", happy to see thegentleman from Tellson's.

　　`So soon?'

　　Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, andrequired none then, and was extremely anxious to see thegentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited hispleasure and convenience.

　　The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but toempty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle hisodd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter toMiss Manette's apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnishedin a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded withheavy dark tables. These had been oiled, until the two tallcandles on the table in the of the room were gloomilyreflected on every leaf; were buried, in deep graves of blackmahogany, and to speak of could be expected from them untilthe dug out.

　　The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr Lorry,picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposedMiss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room,until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw to receivehim by the table between them and the young lady of not morethan seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still holding her strawtravelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes restedon 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 youngand smooth it was of lifting and knitting itself into anexpression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, oralarm or merely of a bright fixed attention, though isincluded all the four expressions--as his eyes rested on thesethings, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a childwhom he had held in his arms on the passage across that veryChannel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and thesea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a breath alongthe surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frameof which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several head-less and all cripples, were offering black baskets of DeadSea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender--and hemade his formal bow to Miss Manette.

　　`Pray take a seat, sir.' In a very clear and pleasant youngvoice; a little foreign in its accent, but a very littleindeed.

　　`I kiss your hand, miss,' said Mr. Lorry, with the manners ofan earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took hisseat.

　　`I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informingme that some intelligence--or discovery---`The word is not material, miss; either word will do.'

　　`--respecting the small property of my poor father, whom Inever saw--so long dead---'

　　Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled looktowards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if theyhad any help for anybody in their absurd baskets!