a little more than a hundred years ago there lived in london (one of the two cities of this tale) a lovely girl of seventeen named lucie manette. her mother had died when she was a baby, in france, and she lived alone with her old nurse, miss pross, a homely, grim guardian with hair as red as her face, who called lucie "ladybird" and loved her very much. miss pross was sharp of speech and was always snapping people up as if she would bite their heads off, but, though she seldom chose to show it, she was the kindest, truest, most unselfish person in the world. lucie had no memory of her father, and had always believed he also had died when she was a baby.
one day, however, through a mr. lorry, the agent of a bank, she learned a wonderful piece of news. he told her that her father was not dead, but that he had been wickedly thrown into a secret prison in paris before she was born, and had been lost thus for eighteen long years. this prison was the bastille—a cold, dark building like a castle, with high gray towers, a deep moat and drawbridge, and soldiers and cannon to defend it.[pg 358]
in those days in france the rich nobles who belonged to the royal court were very powerful and overbearing, and the rest of the people had few rights. one could be put into prison then without any trial at all, so that many innocent people suffered. lucie's mother had guessed that doctor manette (for he was a physician) had in some way incurred the hatred of some one of the nobles and had thus been taken from her; but all she certainly knew was that he had disappeared one day in paris and had never come back.
for a year she had tried in every way to find him, but at length, desolate and heartbroken, she had fallen ill and died, leaving little lucie with only miss pross, her english nurse, to care for her. mr. lorry himself, who told lucie this story, having known her father, had brought her, a baby, to london in his arms.
now, he told her, after all these years, her father had been released, and was at that moment in paris in charge of a man named defarge, who had once been his servant. but the long imprisonment had affected his mind, so that he was little more than the broken wreck of the man he had once been. mr. lorry was about to go to paris to identify him, and he wished lucie to go also to bring him to himself.
you can imagine that lucie's heart was both glad and sorrowful at the news; joyful that the father she had always believed dead was alive, and[pg 359] yet full of grief for his condition. she hastily made ready and that same day set out with mr. lorry for france.
when they reached paris they went at once to find defarge. he was a stern, forbidding man, who kept a cheap wine shop in one of the poorer quarters of the city. he took them through a dirty courtyard behind the shop and up five flights of filthy stairs to a door, which he unlocked for them to enter.
in the dim room sat a withered, white-haired old man on a low bench making shoes. his cheeks were worn and hollow, his eyes were bright and his long beard was as white as snow. he wore a ragged shirt, and his hands were thin and transparent from confinement. it was lucie's father, doctor manette!
he scarcely looked up when they entered, for his mind was gone and he knew no one. all that seemed to interest him was his shoemaking. he had forgotten everything else. he even thought his own name was "one hundred and five, north tower," which had been the number of his cell in the bastille.
lucie's heart almost broke to see him. she wanted to throw her arms about him, to lay her head on his breast and tell him she was his daughter who loved him and had come to take him home at last. but she was afraid this would frighten him.
she came close to him, and after a while he began[pg 360] to look at her. she greatly resembled her dead mother, and presently her face seemed to remind him of something. he unwound a string from around his neck and unfolded a little rag which was tied to it, and there was a lock of hair like lucie's. then he suddenly burst into tears—the first he had shed for long, long years—and the tears seemed to bring back a part of the past. lucie took him in her arms and soothed him, while mr. lorry went to bring the coach that was to take them to england.
through all their preparations for departure her father sat watching in a sort of scared wonder, holding tight to lucie's hand like a child, and when they told him to come with them he descended the stairs obediently. but he would not go into the coach without his bench and shoemaking tools, and, to quiet him, they were obliged to take them, too.
so the father and daughter and mr. lorry journeyed back to lucie's home in london. all the miles they rode lucie held her father's hand, and the touch seemed to give him strength and confidence.
on the boat crossing to london was a young man who called himself charles darnay, handsome, dark and pale. he was most kind to lucie, and showed her how to make a couch on deck for her father, and how she could shelter it from the wind. in the long months that followed their arrival,[pg 361] while the poor old man regained a measure of health, she never forgot darnay's face and his kindness to them.
doctor manette's mind and memory came slowly back with his improving health. there were some days when his brain clouded. then lucie would find him seated at his old prison bench making shoes, and she would coax him away and talk to him until the insanity would pass away.
so time went by peacefully till a strange thing happened: charles darnay, who had been so kind to lucie and her father on the boat, was arrested on a charge of treason.
england at that time was not on good terms with france, and darnay, who was of french birth, was accused of selling information concerning the english forts and army to the french government. this was a very serious charge, for men convicted of treason then were put to death in the cruelest ways that could be invented.
the charge was not true, and darnay himself knew quite well who was working against him.
the fact was that charles darnay was not his true name. he was really charles st. evrémonde, the descendant of a rich and noble french family, though he chose to live in london as charles darnay, and earned his living by giving lessons in french. he did this because he would not be one of the hated noble class of his own country, who treated the poor so heartlessly.[pg 362]
in france the peasants had to pay many oppressive taxes, and were wretched and half-starved, while the rich nobles rode in gilded coaches, and, if they ran over a little peasant child, threw a coin to its mother and drove on without a further thought. among the hardest-hearted of all, and the most hated by the common people, were the evrémondes, the family of the young man who was now accused of treason. as soon as he was old enough to know how unjust was his family's treatment of the poor who were dependent on them, he had protested against it. when he became a man he had refused to live on the money that was thus taken from the hungry peasantry, and had left his home and come to london to earn his own way by teaching.
his heartless uncle, the marquis de st. evrémonde, in france, the head of the family, hated the young man for this noble spirit. it was this uncle who had invented the plot to accuse his nephew of treason. he had hired a dishonest spy known as barsad, who swore he had found papers in darnay's trunk that proved his guilt, and, as darnay had been often back and forth to france on family matters, the case looked dark for him.
cruelly enough, among those who were called to the trial as witnesses, to show that darnay had made these frequent journeys to france, were doctor manette and lucie—because they had seen him on the boat during that memorable crossing. lucie's[pg 363] tears fell fast as she gave her testimony, believing him innocent and knowing that her words would be used to condemn him.
darnay would doubtless have been convicted but for a curious coincidence: a dissipated young lawyer, named sydney carton, sitting in the court room, had noticed with surprise that he himself looked very much like the prisoner; in fact, that they were so much alike they might almost have been taken for twin brothers. he called the attention of darnay's lawyer to this, and the latter—while one of the witnesses against darnay was making oath that he had seen him in a certain place in france—made carton take off his wig (all lawyers wear wigs in england while in court) and stand up beside darnay. the two were so alike the witness was puzzled, and he could not swear which of the two he had seen. for this reason darnay, to lucie's great joy, was found not guilty.
sydney carton, who had thought of and suggested this clever thing, was a reckless, besotted young man. he cared for nobody, and nobody, he used to say, cared for him. he lacked energy and ambition to work and struggle for himself, but for the sake of plenty of money with which to buy liquor, he studied cases for another lawyer, who was fast growing rich by his labor. his master, who hired him, was the lion; carton was content, through his own indolence and lack of purpose, to be the jackal.[pg 364]
his conscience had always condemned him for this, and now, as he saw the innocent darnay's look, noble and straightforward, so like himself as he might have been, and as he thought of lucie's sweet face and of how she had wept as she was forced to give testimony against the other, carton felt that he almost hated the man whose life he had saved.
the trial brought lucie and these two men (so like each other in feature, yet so unlike in character) together, and afterward they often met at doctor manette's house.
it was in a quiet part of london that lucie and her father lived, all alone save for the faithful miss pross. they had little furniture, for they were quite poor, but lucie made the most of everything. doctor manette had recovered his mind, but not all of his memory. sometimes he would get up in the night and walk up and down, up and down, for hours. at such times lucie would hurry to him and walk up and down with him till he was calm again. she never knew why he did this, but she came to believe he was trying vainly to remember all that had happened in those lost years which he had forgotten. he kept his prison bench and tools always by him, but as time went on he gradually used them less and less often.
mr. lorry, with his flaxen wig and constant smile, came to tea every sunday with them and helped to keep doctor manette cheerful. sometimes[pg 365] darnay, sydney carton and mr. lorry would meet there together, but of them all, darnay came oftenest, and soon it was easy to see that he was in love with lucie.
sydney carton, too, was in love with her, but he was perfectly aware that he was quite undeserving, and that lucie could never love him in return. she was the last dream of his wild, careless life, the life he had wasted and thrown away. once he told her this, and said that, although he could never be anything to her himself, he would give his life gladly to save any one who was near and dear to her.
lucie fell in love with darnay at length and one day they were married and went away on their wedding journey.
until then, since his rescue, lucie had never been out of doctor manette's sight. now, though he was glad for her happiness, yet he felt the pain of the separation so keenly that it unhinged his mind again. miss pross and mr. lorry found him next morning making shoes at the old prison bench and for nine days he did not know them at all. at last, however, he recovered, and then, lest the sight of it affect him, one day when he was not there they chopped the bench to pieces and burned it up.
but her father was better after lucie came back with her husband, and they took up their quiet life again. darnay loved lucie devotedly. he[pg 366] supported himself still by teaching. mr. lorry came from the bank oftener to tea and sydney carton more rarely, and their life was peaceful and content.
once after his marriage, his cruel uncle, the marquis de st. evrémonde, sent for darnay to come to france on family matters. darnay went, but declined to remain or to do the other's bidding.
but his uncle's evil life was soon to be ended. while darnay was there the marquis was murdered one night in his bed by a grief-crazed laborer, whose little child his carriage had run over.
darnay returned to england, shocked and horrified the more at the indifference of the life led by his race in france. although now, by the death of his uncle, he had himself become the marquis de st. evrémonde, yet he would not lay claim to the title, and left all the estates in charge of one of the house servants, an honest steward named gabelle.
he had intended after his return to lucie to settle all these affairs and to dispose of the property, which he felt it wrong for him to hold; but in the peace and happiness of his life in england he put it off and did nothing further.
and this neglect of darnay's—as important things neglected are apt to prove—came before long to be the cause of terrible misfortune and agony to them all.
