Chapter-2
Mr. Lorry took Lucie’s hand and brought it gently to his lips. “Yes child, it was I,” he said, “I had a close business relationship with your father, and although I usually keep all personal feelings out of my business.”
Mr. Lorry nervously adjusted his wig again, sighed and then returned to his story. “Yes, this is your father’s story. Now, here is the difference. If he had not died when he did, but had rather disappeared, silently and suddenly, sent away to a terrible place by a powerful enemy who could sign some papers imprisoning him for as long as the enemy wished.”
Lucie gasped and grabbed Mr. Lorry’s arm. “If the gentleman’s wife had begged the king for news of him and never received a reply and furthermore, if the wife had suffered so much from his disappearance before the birth of her daughter.”
“Yes, yes, what then?” begged Lucie.
“If the mother’s suffering was so great that she decided to raise the child to believe that the father was dead.”
Lucie Manette jumped up from her chair and threw herself onto the floor at Mr. Lorry’s feet. “I beg you, sir; tell me everything!” she cried, gripping his wrists.
“Please control yourself, Miss Manette!” And gently lifting her from the floor, Mr. Lorry went on. “Although
your mother never stopped searching for your father, yet she died broken hearted when you were only two years old. Your parents had no great wealth, and we have found no new money or propert.
“But what?” gasped Lucie, tightening her grip on his wrists.
Mr. Lorry took a deep breath. “Your father has been found. Alexandre Manette is alive, but he has changed so much that no one would recognize him. He has been freed from that French prison and taken to the house of a faithful servant in Paris. We are going there tomorrow and I am to identify him if I can; you are to comfort him and restore him to health.”
The young woman trembled violently. “I will see his ghost, not him!” she whispered as if in a trance. “His ghost has never haunted me. To see him now…never having seen him before…and knowing he is my father, a broken man.”
“There is one more thing you should know,” interrupted Mr. Lorry, “He was found under another name. Do not ask any questions about that, for it could be very dangerous in France. The people who put your father in prison still rule the country, and even I, an Englishman and a representative of an important bank, do not dare speak of it or carry papers referring to it. I simply use the code words ‘RECALLED TO LIFE’ to refer to Alexandre Manette’s release from prison.”
Lucie Manette did not answer. Sitting perfectly still and silent, her eyes frozen wide open, she had fainted.
Afraid to move, for Lucie’s hand was still gripping his, Jarvis Lorry shouted for help. A wild-looking woman with red hair rushed in from an adjoining room. Grabbing Mr. Lorry’s jacket with a brawny hand, she lifted him from his chair and sent him flying across the room. Just then, the inn’s servants appeared, also in response to the call for help, and the woman sent them scurrying for cold water and smelling salts.
After carrying Lucie to a sofa and stroking her head tenderly, the woman turned to Jarvis Lorry. “Why couldn’t you tell her what you had to without frightening her to death?” she shouted. This, then, was Miss Pross, who had taken care of Lucie since childhood and was travelling with her from London to Paris.
Jarvis Lorry could not help feeling ashamed, and after seeing Lucie regain consciousness, he hurridly
