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CHAPTER 4
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 his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous1 traveller upon.
By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left to be congratulated; for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy2 inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle3 of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, 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 tolerable fair. The tide 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 Concord4! Gentleman's valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off gentleman'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 passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room ha' the odd interest for the establishment of the Royal 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 another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady5, were all loitering by accident at various points of the road between the 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 cuffs6 and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast.
The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn7 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 a loud watch ticking a sonorous8 sermon under his flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity9 against the levity10 and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek11 and close, and were of a fine texture12; his shoes and buckles13, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig14, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun15 from filaments16 of silk or glass. His linen17, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, or the specks18 of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually19 suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint20 wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential21 bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand22 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 any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Please to let me know.
`Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir?'
`Yes.'
`Yes, sir. We have often times the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling backwards23 and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast 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 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 our people's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir.'
`I believe so.'
`But I would hold a pretty wager24, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen years ago?'
`You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth.'
`Indeed, sir!'
Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his-right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from an observatory25 or watch-tower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages.
When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked26 town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine27 ostrich28. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable29 that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter.
As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals30 clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud too. When dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited 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 red coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a lo and had just poured out his last glassful of wine complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion31 who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling32 of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled33 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 Manette had arrived from London, and", happy to see the gentleman from Tellson's.
`So soon?'
Miss Manette had taken some refreshment34 on the road, and required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience.
The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of stolid35 desperation, settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal36 manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and to speak of could be expected from them until the dug out.
The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate37 that Mr Lorry, picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw to receive him by the table between them and the young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on 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 young and smooth it was of lifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm or merely of a bright fixed38 attention, though is included all the four expressions--as his eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness39 passed before him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that 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 head-less 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.
`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!
收听单词发音 |
1
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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mildewy
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| adj.发霉的 | |
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3
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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6
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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8
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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9
longevity
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| n.长命；长寿 | |
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10
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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12
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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13
buckles
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| 搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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14
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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16
filaments
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| n.（电灯泡的）灯丝( filament的名词复数 )；丝极；细丝；丝状物 | |
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17
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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19
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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21
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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22
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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23
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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24
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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25
observatory
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| n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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27
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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28
ostrich
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| n.鸵鸟 | |
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29
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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30
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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31
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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32
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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33
rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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34
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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35
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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38
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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39
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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