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 wine-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, soot-begrimed
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.
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!"
"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?"
"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 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
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 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 riding-coat, 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 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
"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?"
"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
"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 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
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
"Miss
Pross's brother, sir," said
"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
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
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
"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
"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
"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 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 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
"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."
"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."
"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
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.
"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.
"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
"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.
"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."