A Tale of Two Cities by Dave Mckay, Charles Dickens (sight word books TXT) 📕

3. The Shadow

One of the first thoughts that came to Mr. Lorry's mind when it was time for the day's business to start, was this: That he had no right to bring danger on Tellson's by hiding the wife of a runaway prisoner under the bank's roof. He would be happy to put his own life and wealth on the line for Lucie and her child, but the bank was not his, and he always tried to follow the rules of the company that he worked for.

At first, he thought of going to Defarge's wine shop again and asking the owner for help in finding a safe place for Lucie to hide. But the same thought that made him look in that direction also turned him away from it: Defarge lived in the most dangerous part of the city, and he was clearly a leader in the movement that was doing so much of the killing in the city.

By noon, the Doctor had not returned, and every minute Mr. Lorry waited could put Tellson's in more danger, if the freedom fighters learned that Lucie was staying there. So he spoke to her about this. She said that her father had been planning to stay in a place near the bank if they needed to stay in the city for long. Because there was no bank business that he was needed for just then, and because, even if Charles were freed, it would be some few days before they could leave the city, Mr. Lorry went out looking for such a room. He found one in a quiet side street where the covered windows of houses around it showed that they were empty.

He quickly moved Lucie, her child, and Miss Pross into it, giving them what he could to make their stay comfortable... even more comfortable than it was for himself. He left Jerry with them too, as a man who would stand in the doorway and take many hits to the head before he would let anyone through. Then Mr. Lorry returned to his own business. It was with a sad and worried mind that he worked, making his day pass slowly and heavily.

He and the day were both tired by the time he closed the bank for the day. When he was alone again in his room, thinking about what to do next, he heard feet on the steps. A man soon stood in front of him who, taking a very close look at Mr. Lorry, said his name.

"What can I do to help you," asked Mr. Lorry. "Do you know me?"

He was a strong man with dark hair, between forty-five and fifty years of age. His answer was to ask the same question of Mr. Lorry, without any change in the way that Mr. Lorry had asked it:

"Do you know me?"

"I have seen you somewhere."

"Maybe at my wine shop?"

Now Mr. Lorry was both interested and worried. He said, "Have you come from Doctor Manette?"

"Yes, I come from Doctor Manette."

"And what does he say? What has he sent me?"

Defarge put into his shaking hand an open piece of paper. It had the Doctor's writing on it:

"Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. The man carrying this has a short letter from Charles to his wife. Let him see his wife."

It was marked as being from La Force Prison, written less than an hour earlier.

Mr. Lorry was very happy after reading the letter out, and he said, "Will you come with me to where his wife is staying?"

"Yes," returned Defarge.

Mr. Lorry did not think much at this time about the cold machine-like way that Defarge spoke. He just put on his hat and they went down into the yard. There they found two women, one knitting.

"Madam Defarge surely!" said Mr. Lorry, who had left her doing that same action some seventeen years earlier.

"It is she," said her husband.

"Is Madam going with us?” asked Mr. Lorry, seeing that she was moving as they moved.

"Yes, so she will know the faces and the people. It is for security reasons."

Mr. Lorry was starting to see the strange way Defarge was acting now, but he walked on and they followed. Both of the women followed, the second one being The Punisher.

They went through the streets as quickly as they could, then climbed the steps to the house, where Jerry opened the door and they found Lucie alone, crying. She was filled with happiness on learning the news from Mr. Lorry about her husband, and she squeezed the hand that gave her his little letter, not thinking about what that same hand had been doing near him through the night, and what it might have, but for luck, done to him.

The letter said: "My Love, be brave. I am well, and your father has some effect around here. You cannot answer this, but kiss our child for me."

That was all that was written on it, but it was so much good news to her that received it that she turned from Defarge to his wife and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a loving, womanly way of thanking her and showing her emotions, but the hand did nothing in return. It dropped cold and heavy, and returned to knitting.

There was something in its touch that made Lucie stop in the act of putting the letter in the top of her dress, and, with her hands at her neck, look at Madam Defarge in fear. Madam Defarge looked back at Lucie's lifted eyebrows and worried forehead with a stony cold look.

"My girl," said Mr. Lorry, trying to fill Lucie in on what was happening, "there has been much fighting in the streets. We don't think it will trouble you, but Madam Defarge wants to see those whom she has the power to protect when the fighting starts, so that she can point them out.” Then Mr. Lorry lost confidence in what he was saying as he looked at the hard faces of the three others. "I believe this is the reason, is it not Countryman Defarge?"

Defarge looked darkly at his wife, and gave no answer other than a rough sound of weak agreement.

Doing all he could to bring some peace back to the room by speaking in a relaxed and friendly way, Mr. Lorry said to Lucie, "You should bring in your lovely daughter, and our good Pross. Good Pross, Defarge, is a woman from England who knows no French."

The woman he spoke of, who was confident that she was more than equal to anyone from another country, soon stood before them with her arms folded and said in English to The Punisher, "Well, I am glad to meet you, confident one! I hope you are well!" She also gave a good English cough in the direction of Madam Defarge, but Madam and her husband acted like they did not see her.

"Is that his child?” asked Madam Defarge, stopping her work for the first time and pointing her knitting needle at little Lucie, like it was the finger of death.

"Yes, Madam," answered Mr. Lorry. "This is our poor prisoner's lovely daughter, and his only child."

The shadow that was part of Madam Defarge and the other two seemed to fall so dangerously and darkly on the child, that her mother went on her knees on the ground beside her and held her to her breast. Then the shadow that was part of Madam Defarge and the others seemed to fall on the mother as well as the child.

"It is enough, my husband," said Madam Defarge. "I have seen them. We can go."

The way she said it had enough danger in it... not open and easy to see, but hiding inside of her... to scare Lucie into saying, as she put a begging hand on Madam Defarge's dress:

"You will be good to my poor husband? You will not hurt him? You will help me to see him if I can?"

"Your husband is not the reason for my business here," returned Madam Defarge, looking down at her with perfect confidence. "It is the daughter of your father who is my business here."

"Then be kind to my husband for me. And for my child! She will put her hands together and say a prayer for you to be kind. We are more afraid of you than of these others."

Madam Defarge was happy to hear that, and she looked at her husband to show it. Defarge, who had been worriedly biting the nail of his thumb while watching her, changed his face to a more serious and angry look.

"What was it that your husband said in that little letter?” asked Madam Defarge with an angry smile. "Effect. He said something about effect."

"That my father," said Lucie, quickly taking the paper from her breast, but with a look of fear at her questioner and not on it, "has much effect around here."

"Surely it will free him!" said Madam Defarge. "Let it do so."

"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most strongly, "I beg you to have mercy on me and not use any power that you have against my innocent husband, but use it to help him. My sister, think of me as a wife and mother too!"

Madam Defarge looked, as cold as ever, at the woman who was begging her, and said, turning to her friend, The Punisher: "The wives and mothers that we have been used to seeing since we were as little as this child, and smaller, have not been helped much, have they? We have seen their husbands and fathers put in prison and kept from them often enough. All our lives we have seen our sisters and their children with nothing, no clothes, hungry, thirsty, sick, sad, and hurting in every way because of other cruel people."

"We have seen nothing else," returned The Punisher.

"We have put up with this for a long time," said Madam Defarge, turning her eyes again on Lucie. "You judge! Do you think the troubles of one wife and mother would be much to us now?"

She returned to knitting and left. The Punisher followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door.

"Be brave, sweet Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he lifted her. "Be brave, be brave! So far all is going well with us... much much better than it has gone for many other poor souls. Smile and thank God for what you have."

"I do hope that I am showing enough thanks to God for what I have, but that awful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes."

"Now, now," said Mr. Lorry. "What is this sadness in such a brave little heart? A shadow really! A shadow is nothing, Lucie."

But the shadow from the Defarges was dark on himself too, for all his talk; and in the secrets of his mind it troubled him greatly.

4. A Break in the Storm

Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day after he left. So much of what happened in that time was kept secret from Lucie that she did not learn until much later, when she was well away from France, that eleven hundred prisoners with no protection, both male and female, young and old, had been killed by the people over those four days. She only knew that there had been an attack on the prisons, that all of the political prisoners had been in danger, and that some of them had been pulled out by the crowd and killed.

The Doctor told Mr. Lorry what had happened on the promise that he would not tell Lucie. He had been taken by the crowd through the killing to La Force Prison. In the prison he had found freedom fighters running their own court, before which the prisoners were brought one by one. They were each quickly taken away, most of them to be killed or to be freed. Only a few were returned to the prison alive. The Doctor had told the court who he was and that he had been a prisoner at the worst prison in Paris for eighteen years. One of their members, a man named Defarge, had told them that this was true, and that he knew the Doctor.

He then went through the lists of names on the table and learned that his daughter's husband was one of the prisoners and that he was still alive. He had begged the court -- some of whom were asleep and some awake, some dirty from killing and some clean, some drunk and some not -- for the life and freedom of his daughter's husband. At first the people were so glad to meet the Doctor, as one who had, like them, been through great trouble under the old government, that they quickly agreed to have Charles Darnay brought there. The court was close