A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Penguin) - Charles Dickens [131]
To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him.
It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his name.
‘Your servant,’ said Mr Lorry. ‘Do you know me?’
He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of emphasis, the words:
‘Do you know me?’
‘I have seen you somewhere.’
‘Perhaps at my wine-shop?’
Much interested and agitated, Mr Lorry said: ‘You come from Doctor Manette?’
‘Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.’
‘And what says he? What does he send me?’
Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the words in the Doctor’s writing,
‘Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.’
It was dated from La Force, within an hour.
‘Will you accompany me,’ said Mr Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading this note aloud, ‘to where his wife resides?’
‘Yes,’ returned Defarge.
Scarcely noticing, as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr Lorry put on his hat and they went down into the court-yard. There, they found two women; one, knitting.
‘Madame Defarge, surely!’ said Mr Lorry, who had left her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago.
‘It is she,’ observed her husband.
‘Does Madame go with us?’ inquired Mr Lorry, seeing that she moved as they moved.
‘Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. It is for their safety.’
Beginning to be struck by Defarge’s manner, Mr Lorry looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the second woman being The Vengeance.
They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his note – little thinking what it had been doing near him in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him.
‘DEAREST, – Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me.’
That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no response – dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting again.
There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare.
‘My dear,’ said Mr Lorry, striking in to explain; ‘there are frequent risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely that they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power to protect at such times, to the end that she may know them – that she may identify them. I believe,’ said Mr Lorry,