Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate
superiority to this woman’s weakness, which was
wonderful to see. No garret, no shoemaking, no One
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Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had
accomplished the task he had set himself, his promise was
redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let them all lean upon
him.
Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only
because that was the safest way of life, involving the least
offence to the people, but because they were not rich, and
Charles, throughout his imprisonment, had had to pay
heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the
living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and
partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant;
the
citizen and citizeness who acted as porters at the courtyard
gate, rendered them occasional service; and Jerry (almost
wholly transferred to them by Mr. Lorry) had become
their daily retainer, and had his bed there every night.
It was an ordinance of the Republic One and
Indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that
on the door or doorpost of every house, the name of
every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters of a
certain size, at a certain convenient height from the
ground. Mr. Jerry Cruncher’s name, therefore, duly
embellished the doorpost down below; and, as the
afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name
himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom
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Doctor Manette had employed to add to the list the name
of Charles Evremonde, called Darnay.
In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time,
all the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In the
Doctor’s little household, as in very many others, the
articles of daily consumption that were wanted were
purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various
small shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to give as little
occasion as possible for talk and envy, was the general
desire.
For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher
had discharged the office of purveyors; the former carrying
the money; the latter, the basket. Every afternoon at about
the time when the public lamps were lighted, they fared
forth on this duty, and made and brought home such
purchases as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through
her long association with a French family, might have
known as much of their language as of her own, if she had
had a mind, she had no mind in that direction;
consequently she knew no more of that ‘nonsense’ (as she
was pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her
manner of marketing was to plump a noun-substantive at
the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the
nature of an article, and, if it happened not to be the name
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of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, lay
hold of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was
concluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding
up, as a statement of its just price, one finger less than the
merchant held up, whatever his number might be.
‘Now, Mr. Cruncher,’ said Miss Pross, whose eyes
were red with felicity; ‘if you are ready, I am.’
Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross’s service.
He had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would
file his spiky head down.
‘There’s all manner of things wanted,’ said Miss Pross,
‘and we shall have a precious time of it. We want wine,
among the rest. Nice toasts these Redheads will be
drinking, wherever we buy it.’
‘It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I
should think,’ retorted Jerry, ‘whether they drink your
health or the Old Un’s.’
‘Who’s he?’ said Miss Pross.
Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself
as meaning ‘Old Nick’s.’
‘Ha!’ said Miss Pross, ‘it doesn’t need an interpreter to
explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but
one, and it’s Midnight Murder, and Mischief.’
‘Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious!’ cried Lucie.
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‘Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be cautious,’ said Miss Pross; ‘but I
may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no
oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of
embracings all round, going on in the streets. Now,
Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back!
Take care of the dear husband you have recovered, and
don’t move your pretty head from his shoulder as you
have it now, till you see me again! May I ask a question,
Doctor Manette, before I go?’
‘I think you may take that liberty,’ the Doctor
answered, smiling.
‘For gracious sake, don’t talk about Liberty; we have
quite enough of that,’ said Miss Pross.
‘Hush, dear! Again?’ Lucie remonstrated.
‘Well, my sweet,’ said Miss Pross, nodding her head
emphatically, ‘the short and the long of it is, that I am a
subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the
Third;’ Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; ‘and as such, my
maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish
tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God save the King!’
Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly
repeated the words after Miss Pross, like somebody at
church.
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‘I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you,
though I wish you had never taken that cold in your
voice,’ said Miss Pross, approvingly. ‘But the question,
Doctor Manette. Is there’—it was the good creature’s way
to affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety
with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner—
‘is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?’
‘I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.’
‘Heigh-ho-hum!’ said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing
a sigh as she glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the
light of the fire, ‘then we must have patience and wait:
that’s all. We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my
brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!—
Don’t you move, Ladybird!’
They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her
father, and the child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was
expected back presently from the Banking House. Miss
Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in a
corner, that they might enjoy the fire-light undisturbed.
Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped
through his arm: and he, in a tone not rising much above
a whisper, began to tell her a story of a great and powerful
Fairy who had opened a prison-wall and let out a captive
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who had once done the Fairy a service. All was subdued
and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been.
‘What is that?’ she cried, all at once.
‘My dear!’ said her father, stopping in his story, and
laying his hand on hers, ‘command yourself. What a
disordered state you are in! The least thing—nothing—
startles you! YOU, your father’s daughter!’
‘I thought, my father,’ said Lucie, excusing herself,
with a pale face and in a faltering voice, ‘that I heard
strange feet upon the stairs.’
‘My love, the staircase is as still as Death.’
As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door.
‘Oh father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles.
Save him!’
‘My child,’ said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand
upon her shoulder, ‘I HAVE saved him. What weakness is
this, my dear! Let me go to the door.’
He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two
intervening outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering
of feet over the floor, and four rough men in red caps,
armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room.
‘The Citizen Evremonde, called Darnay,’ said the first.
‘Who seeks him?’ answered Darnay.
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‘I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evremonde; I
saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the
prisoner of the Republic.’
The four surrounded him, where he stood with his
wife and child clinging to him.
‘Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?’
‘It is enough that you return straight to the
Conciergerie, and will know to-morrow. You are
summoned for to-morrow.’
Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned
into stone, that be stood with the lamp in his hand, as if be
woe a statue made to hold it, moved after these words
were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting the
speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front
of his red woollen shirt, said:
‘You know him, you have said. Do you know me?’
‘Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor.’
‘We all know you, Citizen Doctor,’ said the other
three.
He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said,
in a lower voice, after a pause:
‘Will you answer his question to me then? How does
this happen?’
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‘Citizen Doctor,’ said the first, reluctantly, ‘he has been
denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,’
pointing out the second who had entered, ‘is from Saint
Antoine.’
The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added:
‘He is accused by Saint Antoine.’
‘Of what?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Citizen Doctor,’ said the first, with his former
reluctance, ‘ask no more. If the Republic demands
sacrifices from you, without doubt you as a good patriot
will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before
all. The People is supreme. Evremonde, we are pressed.’
‘One word,’ the Doctor entreated. ‘Will you tell me
who denounced him?’
‘It is against rule,’ answered the first; ‘but you can ask
Him of Saint Antoine here.’
The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who
moved uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at
length said:
‘Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced—
and gravely—by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And
by one other.’
‘What other?’
‘Do YOU ask, Citizen Doctor?’
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‘Yes.’
‘Then,’ said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look,
‘you will be answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb!’
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VIII
A Hand at Cards
Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home,
Miss Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and
crossed the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf,
reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable
purchases she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the
basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right
and to the left into most of the shops they passed, had a
wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and
turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group
of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty river,
blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with
harsh noises, showed where the barges were stationed in
which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of
the Republic. Woe to the man who played tricks with
THAT Army, or got undeserved promotion in it! Better
for him that his beard had never grown, for the National
Razor shaved him close.
Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a
measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself
of the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wineA
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shops, she stopped at the sign of the Good Republican
Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace,
once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things
rather took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other
place of the same description they had passed, and, though
red with patriotic caps, was not so red as the rest.
Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her opinion,
Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of
Antiquity, attended by her cavalier.
Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people,
pipe in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow
dominoes; of the one bare- breasted, bare-armed, sootbegrimed
workman reading a journal aloud, and of the
others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside
to be resumed; of the two or three customers fallen
forward asleep, who in the popular high-shouldered
shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, like
slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers
approached the counter, and showed what they wanted.
As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from
another man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he
had to face Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than
Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped her hands.
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In a moment, the whole company were on their feet.
That somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating
a difference of opinion was the likeliest occurrence.
Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but only saw a
man and a woman standing staring at each other; the man
with all the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a
thorough Republican; the woman, evidently English.
What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the
disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity,
except that it was something very voluble and loud, would
have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross
and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they
had no ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be
recorded, that not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement
and agitation, but, Mr. Cruncher—though it seemed on
his own separate and individual account—was in a state of
the greatest wonder.
‘What is the matter?’ said the man who had caused
Miss Pross to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice
(though in a low tone), and in English.
‘Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!’ cried Miss Pross,
clapping her hands again. ‘After not setting eyes upon you
or hearing of you for so long a time, do I find you here!’
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‘Don’t call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death
of me?’ asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way.
‘Brother, brother!’ cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears.
‘Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such
a cruel question?’
‘Then hold your meddlesome tongue,’ said Solomon,
‘and come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your
wine, and come out. Who’s this man?’
Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her
by no means affectionate brother, said through her tears,
‘Mr. Cruncher.’
‘Let him come out too,’ said Solomon. ‘Does he think
me a ghost?’
Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks.
He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring
the depths of her reticule through her tears with great
difficulty paid for her wine. As she did so, Solomon turned
to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus of
Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the
French language, which caused them all to relapse into
their former places and pursuits.
‘Now,’ said Solomon, stopping at the dark street
corner, ‘what do you want?’
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‘How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever
turned my love away from!’ cried Miss Pross, ‘to give me
such a greeting, and show me no affection.’
‘There. Confound it! There,’ said Solomon, making a
dab at Miss Pross’s lips with his own. ‘Now are you
content?’
Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence.
‘If you expect me to be surprised,’ said her brother
Solomon, ‘I am not surprised; I knew you were here; I
know of most people who are here. If you really don’t
want to endanger my existence—which I half believe you
do—go your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine.
I am busy. I am an official.’
‘My English brother Solomon,’ mourned Miss Pross,
casting up her tear-fraught eyes, ‘that had the makings in
him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native
country, an official among foreigners, and such foreigners!
I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in
his—‘
‘I said so!’ cried her brother, interrupting. ‘I knew it.
You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered
Suspected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on!’
‘The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!’ cried Miss
Pross. ‘Far rather would I never see you again, dear
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Solomon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever
shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, and tell me
there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will
detain you no longer.’
Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them
had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had
not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in
Soho, that this precious brother had spent her money and
left her!
He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a
far more grudging condescension and patronage than he
could have shown if their relative merits and positions had
been reversed (which is invariably the case, all the world
over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the
shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed with the
following singular question:
‘I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your
name is John Solomon, or Solomon John?’
The official turned towards him with sudden distrust.
He had not previously uttered a word.
‘Come!’ said Mr. Cruncher. ‘Speak out, you know.’
(Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.)
‘John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon,
and she must know, being your sister. And I know you’re
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John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And
regarding that name of Pross, likewise. That warn’t your
name over the water.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I don’t know all I mean, for I can’t call to mind
what your name was, over the water.’
‘No?’
‘No. But I’ll swear it was a name of two syllables.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Yes. T’other one’s was one syllable. I know you. You
was a spy— witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of
the Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called
at that time?’
‘Barsad,’ said another voice, striking in.
‘That’s the name for a thousand pound!’ cried Jerry.
The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He
had his hands behind him under the skirts of his ridingcoat,
and he stood at Mr. Cruncher’s elbow as negligently
as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself.
‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr.
Lorry’s, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I
would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or
unless I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a
little talk with your brother. I wish you had a better
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employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake
Mr. Barsad was not a Sheep of the Prisons.’
Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the
gaolers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked
him how he dared—
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Sydney. ‘I lighted on you, Mr.
Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie
while I was contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago.
You have a face to be remembered, and I remember faces
well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and
having a reason, to which you are no stranger, for
associating you with the misfortunes of a friend now very
unfortunate, I walked in your direction. I walked into the
wine-shop here, close after you, and sat near you. I had no
difficulty in deducing from your unreserved conversation,
and the rumour openly going about among your admirers,
the nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done
at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr.
Barsad.’
‘What purpose?’ the spy asked.
‘It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to
explain in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence,
with some minutes of your company—at the office of
Tellson’s Bank, for instance?’
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‘Under a threat?’
‘Oh! Did I say that?’
‘Then, why should I go there?’
‘Really, Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.’
‘Do you mean that you won’t say, sir?’ the spy
irresolutely asked.
‘You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won’t.’
Carton’s negligent recklessness of manner came
powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a
business as he had in his secret mind, and with such a man
as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and made
the most of it.
‘Now, I told you so,’ said the spy, casting a reproachful
look at his sister; ‘if any trouble comes of this, it’s your
doing.’
‘Come, come, Mr. Barsad!’ exclaimed Sydney. ‘Don’t
be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I
might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that
I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go
with me to the Bank?’
‘I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with
you.’
‘I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the
corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss
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Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be
out in, unprotected; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad,
I will invite him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. Are we ready?
Come then!’
Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of
her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on
Sydney’s arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to
do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the
arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only
contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the
man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the
brother who so little deserved her affection, and with
Sydney’s friendly reassurances, adequately to heed what
she observed.
They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led
the way to Mr. Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’
walk. John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side.
Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting
before a cheery little log or two of fire—perhaps looking
into their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly
gentleman from Tellson’s, who had looked into the red
coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many
years ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed
the surprise with which he saw a stranger.
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‘Miss Pross’s brother, sir,’ said Sydney. ‘Mr. Barsad.’
‘Barsad?’ repeated the old gentleman, ‘Barsad? I have an
association with the name—and with the face.’
‘I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,’
observed Carton, coolly. ‘Pray sit down.’
As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that
Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown,
‘Witness at that trial.’ Mr. Lorry immediately
remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an
undisguised look of abhorrence.
‘Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the
affectionate brother you have heard of,’ said Sydney, ‘and
has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news.
Darnay has been arrested again.’
Struck with consternation, the old gentleman
exclaimed, ‘What do you tell me! I left him safe and free
within these two hours, and am about to return to him!’
‘Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?’
‘Just now, if at all.’
‘Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,’ said
Sydney, ‘and I have it from Mr. Barsad’s communication
to a friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that
the arrest has taken place. He left the messengers at the
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gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no
earthly doubt that he is retaken.’
Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that
it was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but
sensible that something might depend on his presence of
mind, he commanded himself, and was silently attentive.
‘Now, I trust,’ said Sydney to him, ‘that the name and
influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good
stead to-morrow—you said he would be before the
Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?—‘
‘Yes; I believe so.’
‘—In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may
not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by
Doctor Manette’s not having had the power to prevent
this arrest.’
‘He may not have known of it beforehand,’ said Mr.
Lorry.
‘But that very circumstance would be alarming, when
we remember how identified he is with his son-in-law.’
‘That’s true,’ Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his
troubled hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on
Carton.
‘In short,’ said Sydney, ‘this is a desperate time, when
desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the
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Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one.
No man’s life here is worth purchase. Any one carried
home by the people to-day, may be condemned
tomorrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in
case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the
friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad.’
‘You need have good cards, sir,’ said the spy.
‘I’ll run them over. I’ll see what I hold,—Mr. Lorry,
you know what a brute I am; I wish you’d give me a little
brandy.’
It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful—
drank off another glassful—pushed the bottle thoughtfully
away.
‘Mr. Barsad,’ he went on, in the tone of one who really
was looking over a hand at cards: ‘Sheep of the prisons,
emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now
prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the
more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is
less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters
than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers
under a false name. That’s a very good card. Mr. Barsad,
now in the employ of the republican French government,
was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English
government, the enemy of France and freedom. That’s an
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excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of
suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the
aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the
treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom,
the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much
spoken of and so difficult to find. That’s a card not to be
beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?’
‘Not to understand your play,’ returned the spy,
somewhat uneasily.
‘I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the
nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr.
Barsad, and see what you have. Don’t hurry.’
He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of
brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of
his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate
denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank
another glassful.
‘Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take
time.’
It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw
losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of.
Thrown out of his honourable employment in England,
through too much unsuccessful hard swearing there—not
because he was not wanted there; our English reasons for
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vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very
modern date—he knew that he had crossed the Channel,
and accepted service in France: first, as a tempter and an
eavesdropper among his own countrymen there: gradually,
as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He
knew that under the overthrown government he had been
a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge’s wine-shop; had
received from the watchful police such heads of
information concerning Doctor Manette’s imprisonment,
release, and history, as should serve him for an
introduction to familiar conversation with the Defarges;
and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken
down with them signally. He always remembered with
fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted
when he talked with her, and had looked ominously at
him as her fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the
Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again produce her
knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the
guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every
one employed as he was did, that he was never safe; that
flight was impossible; that he was tied fast under the
shadow of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost
tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning
terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once
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denounced, and on such grave grounds as had just now
been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that the dreadful
woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many
proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and
would quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret
men are men soon terrified, here were surely cards enough
of one black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather
livid as he turned them over.
‘You scarcely seem to like your hand,’ said Sydney,
with the greatest composure. ‘Do you play?’
‘I think, sir,’ said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he
turned to Mr. Lorry, ‘I may appeal to a gentleman of your
years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman,
so much your junior, whether he can under any
circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of
which he has spoken. I admit that I am a spy, and that it is
considered a discreditable station—though it must be filled
by somebody; but this gentleman is no spy, and why
should he so demean himself as to make himself one?’
‘I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad,’ said Carton, taking the
answer on himself, and looking at his watch, ‘without any
scruple, in a very few minutes.’
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‘I should have hoped, gentlemen both,’ said the spy,
always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, ‘that
your respect for my sister—‘
‘I could not better testify my respect for your sister than
by finally relieving her of her brother,’ said Sydney
Carton.
‘You think not, sir?’
‘I have thoroughly made up my mind about it.’
The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance
with his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his
usual demeanour, received such a check from the
inscrutability of Carton,—who was a mystery to wiser and
honester men than he,—that it faltered here and failed
him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his
former air of contemplating cards:
‘And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong
impression that I have another good card here, not yet
enumerated. That friend and fellow-Sheep, who spoke of
himself as pasturing in the country prisons; who was he?’
‘French. You don’t know him,’ said the spy, quickly.
‘French, eh?’ repeated Carton, musing, and not
appearing to notice him at all, though he echoed his word.
‘Well; he may be.’
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‘Is, I assure you,’ said the spy; ‘though it’s not
important.’
‘Though it’s not important,’ repeated Carton, in the
same mechanical way—‘though it’s not important—No,
it’s not important. No. Yet I know the face.’
‘I think not. I am sure not. It can’t be,’ said the spy.
‘It-can’t-be,’ muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively,
and idling his glass (which fortunately was a small one)
again. ‘Can’t-be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner,
I thought?’
‘Provincial,’ said the spy.
‘No. Foreign!’ cried Carton, striking his open hand on
the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. ‘Cly!
Disguised, but the same man. We had that man before us
at the Old Bailey.’
‘Now, there you are hasty, sir,’ said Barsad, with a
smile that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to
one side; ‘there you really give me an advantage over you.
Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of
time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I
attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London,
at the church of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His
unpopularity with the blackguard multitude at the
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moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped
to lay him in his coffin.’
Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a
most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to
its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden
extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen and stiff
hair on Mr. Cruncher’s head.
‘Let us be reasonable,’ said the spy, ‘and let us be fair.
To show you how mistaken you are, and what an
unfounded assumption yours is, I will lay before you a
certificate of Cly’s burial, which I happened to have
carried in my pocket-book,’ with a hurried hand he
produced and opened it, ‘ever since. There it is. Oh, look
at it, look at it! You may take it in your hand; it’s no
forgery.’
Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to
elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His
hair could not have been more violently on end, if it had
been that moment dressed by the Cow with the crumpled
horn in the house that Jack built.
Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and
touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff.
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‘That there Roger Cly, master,’ said Mr. Cruncher,
with a taciturn and iron-bound visage. ‘So YOU put him
in his coffin?’
‘I did.’
‘Who took him out of it?’
Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, ‘What
do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ said Mr. Cruncher, ‘that he warn’t never in it.
No! Not he! I’ll have my head took off, if he was ever in
it.’
The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both
looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry.
‘I tell you,’ said Jerry, ‘that you buried paving-stones
and earth in that there coffin. Don’t go and tell me that
you buried Cly. It was a take in. Me and two more knows
it.’
‘How do you know it?’
‘What’s that to you? Ecod!’ growled Mr. Cruncher,
‘it’s you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your
shameful impositions upon tradesmen! I’d catch hold of
your throat and choke you for half a guinea.’
Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in
amazement at this turn of the business, here requested Mr.
Cruncher to moderate and explain himself.
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‘At another time, sir,’ he returned, evasively, ‘the
present time is ill-conwenient for explainin’. What I stand
to, is, that he knows well wot that there Cly was never in
that there coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as a word
of one syllable, and I’ll either catch hold of his throat and
choke him for half a guinea;’ Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon
this as quite a liberal offer; ‘or I’ll out and announce him.’
‘Humph! I see one thing,’ said Carton. ‘I hold another
card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, with
Suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation,
when you are in communication with another aristocratic
spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover,
has the mystery about him of having feigned death and
come to life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner
against the Republic. A strong card—a certain Guillotine
card! Do you play?’
‘No!’ returned the spy. ‘I throw up. I confess that we
were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only
got away from England at the risk of being ducked to
death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he
never would have got away at all but for that sham.
Though how this man knows it was a sham, is a wonder
of wonders to me.’
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‘Never you trouble your head about this man,’ retorted
the contentious Mr. Cruncher; ‘you’ll have trouble
enough with giving your attention to that gentleman. And
look here! Once more!’— Mr. Cruncher could not be
restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his
liberality—‘I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you
for half a guinea.’
The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney
Carton, and said, with more decision, ‘It has come to a
point. I go on duty soon, and can’t overstay my time. You
told me you had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no
use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my
office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had
better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the
chances of consent. In short, I should make that choice.
You talk of desperation. We are all desperate here.
Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper, and I
can swear my way through stone walls, and so can others.
Now, what do you want with me?’
‘Not very much. You are a turnkey at the
Conciergerie?’
‘I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an
escape possible,’ said the spy, firmly.
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‘Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are
a turnkey at the Conciergerie?’
‘I am sometimes.’
‘You can be when you choose?’
‘I can pass in and out when I choose.’
Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured
it slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it
dropped. It being all spent, he said, rising:
‘So far, we have spoken before these two, because it
was as well that the merits of the cards should not rest
solely between you and me. Come into the dark room
here, and let us have one final word alone.’
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IX
The Game Made
While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons
were in the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not
a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in
considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman’s
manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence;
he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if he
had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all; he
examined his finger-nails with a very questionable
closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry’s eye
caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short
cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is
seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on
perfect openness of character.
‘Jerry,’ said Mr. Lorry. ‘Come here.’
Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his
shoulders in advance of him.
‘What have you been, besides a messenger?’
After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent
look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous
idea of replying, ‘Agicultooral character.’
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‘My mind misgives me much,’ said Mr. Lorry, angrily
shaking a forefinger at him, ‘that you have used the
respectable and great house of Tellson’s as a blind, and that
you have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous
description. If you have, don’t expect me to befriend you
when you get back to England. If you have, don’t expect
me to keep your secret. Tellson’s shall not be imposed
upon.’
‘I hope, sir,’ pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, ‘that a
gentleman like yourself wot I’ve had the honour of odd
jobbing till I’m grey at it, would think twice about
harming of me, even if it wos so—I don’t say it is, but
even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account
that if it wos, it wouldn’t, even then, be all o’ one side.
There’d be two sides to it. There might be medical
doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas
where a honest tradesman don’t pick up his fardens—
fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens— half fardens! no, nor
yet his quarter—a banking away like smoke at Tellson’s,
and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the
sly, a going in and going out to their own carriages—ah!
equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that ‘ud be
imposing, too, on Tellson’s. For you cannot sarse the
goose and not the gander. And here’s Mrs. Cruncher, or
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leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be tomorrow,
if cause given, a floppin’ again the business to
that degree as is ruinating—stark ruinating! Whereas them
medical doctors’ wives don’t flop—catch ‘em at it! Or, if
they flop, their toppings goes in favour of more patients,
and how can you rightly have one without t’other? Then,
wot with undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot
with sextons, and wot with private watchmen (all
awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn’t get much by it,
even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would
never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He’d never have no
good of it; he’d want all along to be out of the line, if he,
could see his way out, being once in— even if it wos so.’
‘Ugh!’ cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, ‘I
am shocked at the sight of you.’
‘Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,’ pursued
Mr. Cruncher, ‘even if it wos so, which I don’t say it is—‘
‘Don’t prevaricate,’ said Mr. Lorry.
‘No, I will NOT, sir,’ returned Mr. Crunches as if
nothing were further from his thoughts or practice—
‘which I don’t say it is—wot I would humbly offer to you,
sir, would be this. Upon that there stool, at that there Bar,
sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to
be a man, wot will errand you, message you, generalA
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light-job you, till your heels is where your head is, if such
should be your wishes. If it wos so, which I still don’t say
it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there
boy keep his father’s place, and take care of his mother;
don’t blow upon that boy’s father—do not do it, sir—and
let that father go into the line of the reg’lar diggin’, and
make amends for what he would have undug—if it wos
so-by diggin’ of ‘em in with a will, and with conwictions
respectin’ the futur’ keepin’ of ‘em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,’
said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an
announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his
discourse, ‘is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A
man don’t see all this here a goin’ on dreadful round him,
in the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful
enough fur to bring the price down to porterage and
hardly that, without havin’ his serious thoughts of things.
And these here would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin’ of
you fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, I up and
said in the good cause when I might have kep’ it back.’
‘That at least is true, said Mr. Lorry. ‘Say no more now.
It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve
it, and repent in action—not in words. I want no more
words.’
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