《A Tale of Two Cities》　Book2　CHAPTER VI Hundreds of People
　　　　by Charles Dickens

THE quiet lodgings of
Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner not far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of
a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason,
and carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry
walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way to dine with
the Doctor. After several relapses into business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the
Doctor's friend, and the quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life.



On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in the afternoon, for
three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before
dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie; secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was
accustomed to be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window,
and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened to have his own little
shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the Doctor's household pointed to that
time as a likely time for solving them.



A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be found in London.
There was no way through it, and the front windows of the Doctor's lodgings commanded a
pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were
few buildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild
flowers grew, and the

hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated
in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers
without a settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which the
peaches ripened in their season.



The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part of the day; but,
when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but
that you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but
cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets.



There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and there was. The Doctor
occupied two floors of a large still house, where several callings purported to be pursued
by day, but whereof little was audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at
night. In a building at the back, attainable by a court-yard' where a plane-tree rustled
its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, and silver to be chased, and likewise
gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall
of the front hall--as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion
of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live
up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have a counting-house below, was
ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coat on, traversed

the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across the
court-yard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, how-ever, were only the exceptions
required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, and

the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way from Sunday morning unto Saturday
night.



Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and its revival in the
floating whispers of his story, brought him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance
and skill in conducting ingenious experiments, brought him other-wise into moderate
request, and he earned a, much as he wanted.



These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry's knowledge, thoughts, and notice, when he rang
the door-bell of the tranquil house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon.



`Doctor Manette at home?'



Expected home.



`Miss Lucie at home?'



Expected home.



`Miss Pross at home?'



Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for hand-maid to anticipate intentions of
Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the fact.



`As I am at home myself,' said Mr. Lorry, `I'll go up-stairs.'



Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared
to have innately derived from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one
of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was
set off by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, that its
effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from the largest object
to the least; the arrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by
thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant
in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking
about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiar
expression which he knew so well by this time, whether he approved?



There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they communicated being put
open that the air might pass freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of
that fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, walked from one to another.
The first was the best room, and in it were Lucie's birds, and flowers, and books, and
desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second was the Doctor's
consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third, changingly speckled by the
rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the Doctor's bedroom, and there, in a corner,
stood the disused

shoemaker's bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal
house by the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris.



`I wonder,' said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, `that he keeps that reminder of
his sufferings about him!'



`And why wonder at that?' was the abrupt inquiry that made him start.



It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he
had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and had since improved.



`I should have thought---`Mr. Lorry began.



`Pooh! You'd have thought!' said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off.



`How do you do?' inquired that lady then--sharply, and yet as if to express that she bore
him no malice.



`I am pretty well, I thank you,' answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; `how are you?'



`Nothing to boast of,' said Miss Pross.



`Indeed?'



`Ah! indeed!' said Miss Pross. `I am very much put out about my Ladybird.'



`Indeed?'



`For gracious sake say something else besides ``indeed,'' or you'll fidget me to death,'
said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated from stature) was shortness.'



`Really, then?' said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment.



`Really, is bad enough,' returned Miss Pross, `but better. Yes, I am very much put out.'



`May I ask the cause?'



`I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking
after her,' said Miss Pross.



`Do dozens come for that purpose?'



`Hundreds,' said Miss Pross.



It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her time and since)
that whenever her original pro-position was questioned, she exaggerated it.



`Dear me!' said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of.



`I have lived with the darling--or the darling has lived with me, and paid me for it;
which she certainly should never have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have
afforded to keep either myself or her for nothing--since she was ten years old. And it's
really very hard,' said Miss Pross.



Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; using that
important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would fit anything.



`All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, are always turning
up,' said Miss Pross. `When you began it---'



`I began it, Miss Pross?'



`Didn't you? Who brought her father to life?'



`Oh! If that was beginning it---'said Mr. Lorry.



`It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard enough; not that I
have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a
daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should
be, under any circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and
multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him), to take Ladybird's
affections away from me.'



Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be,
beneath the surface of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures--found only
among women--who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to
youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they
were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own
sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than
the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he
had such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own
mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to
the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who
had balances at Tellson's.



`There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Lady-bird,' said Miss Pross; `and
that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn't made a mistake in life.'



Here again: Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history had established the
fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything
she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for
evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon
(deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr.
Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her.



`As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of business,' he said, when
they had got back to the drawing-room and had sat down there in friendly relations, `let
me ask you--does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time,
yet?'



`Never.'



`And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?'



`Ah!' returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. `But I don't say he don't refer to it within
himself.'



`Do you believe that he thinks of it much?'



`I do,' said Miss Pross.



`Do you imagine---' Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him up short with:



`Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.'



`I stand corrected,; do you suppose--you go so far as to Suppose, sometimes?



`Now and then,' said Miss Pross.



`Do you suppose,' Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye, as it
looked kindly at her, `that Doctor Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through
all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the
name of his oppressor?'



`I don't suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.'



`And that is---?'



`That she thinks he has.'



`Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am a mere dull man of
business, and you are a woman of business.'



`Dull?' Miss Pross inquired, with placidity.



Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, `No, no, no. Surely not. To
return to business:- Is it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of
any crime as we are all well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will
not say with me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now
intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly attached, and who
is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don't approach the topic with
you, out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest.'



`Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tell me,' said Miss
Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, `he is afraid of the whole subject.



`Afraid?'



`It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's a dreadful remembrance. Besides
that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he
re-covered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone
wouldn't make the subject pleasant, I should think.'