Chapters 3 and 4: Buried Alive?

Chapter 3: England
After he leaves the coach on the Dover Road, Jerry Cruncher  ruminates on the message: "Recalled to Life." We get a description of him as a rough, classic Dickensian Londoner, complete with spiky black hair and close-set eyes.

Then we move back into the Dover mail coach, where Mr. Jarvis Lorry is in a half-waking, half-nightmare state. An image of a "spectre" haunts him, a man of "sunken cheek" and "cadaverous colour," (p. 14) and Lorry recalls a conversation with this man: "Buried how long?" "Almost eighteen years."

The sun rises on a new day as Lorry's coach enters Dover.

Chapter 4: Still in England
In the Royal George Hotel, Dover, we get our first look at Mr. Lorry. He is a trim, neat man of about 60, who wears an old-fashioned wig and a well-kept brown suit. Everything about him is "orderly and methodical." (17)

Lucie Manette enters. She is 17 and alone in the world. She has come to Dover at the request of Tellson's Bank, where she meets with Mr. Lorry. He reveals that he brought her from France to England when she was three years old. Then he reveals that her father is actually alive, and has just been released from 18 years in prison. She is rather verklempt, and Mr. Lorry tries to console her with the encouraging words, "A matter of business! ...useful business!" The two will travel to France together to meet Dr. Manette.