With these words and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver
shouldered himself into Fleet Street, amidst the general
approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were
left alone at the desk in the general departure from the Bank.
“Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. “You know
where to deliver it?”
“I do.”
“Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been
addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it,
and that it has been here some time?”
“I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?”
“From here, at eight.”
“I will come back to see you off.”
Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other
men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the
Temple, opened the letter and read it. These were its contents:
“Prison of the Abbaye, Paris.
“June 21, 1792.
“After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the
village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and
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brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have
suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been
destroyed—razed to the ground.
“The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the
Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal,
and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell
me, treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted
against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have
acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is
in vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant
property, I have remitted the imposts they have ceased to pay; that
I had collected no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The
only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where is
that emigrant?
“Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is
that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven,
will he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur
heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea,
hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of
Tilson known at Paris!
“For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour
of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the
Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been
true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be
you true to me!
“From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend
nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore
the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.
“Your afflicted, “GABELLE”
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The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigorous
life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one,
whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him
so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the
Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the
passers-by.
He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had
culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family
house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion
with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he
was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very
well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place,
though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried and
incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked
it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it
had never been done.
The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of
being always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of
the time which had followed on one another so fast, that the events
of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the
events of the week following made all new again; he knew very
well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded:—not
without disquiet, but still without continuous and accumulating
resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and
that they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and
the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and
byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and
destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well
known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France
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that might impeach him for it.
But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he
was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that
he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a
world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and
earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the
impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare
the people, to give them what little there was to give—such fuel as
the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such
produce as could be saved from the same grip in the summer—
and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own
safety, so that it could not but appear now.
This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had
begun to make, that he would go to Paris.
Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams
had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it
was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose
before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more
steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been,
that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by
bad instruments, and that he who could not fail to know that he
was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay
bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this
uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been
brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave old
gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison
(injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of
Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver,
which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon
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those, had followed Gabelle’s letter: the appeal of an innocent
prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good
name.
His resolution was made. He must go to Paris.
Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail
on, until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger.
The intention with which he had done what he had done, even
although he had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an
aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged in France on his
presenting himself to assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing
good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good
minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion
with some influence to guide this raging Revolution that was
running so fearfully wild.
As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered
that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was
gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her
father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts toward the dangerous
ground of old, should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step
taken, and not in the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of
the incompleteness of his situation was referable to her father,
through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of
France in his mind, he did not discuss with himself. But, that
circumstance, too, had had its influence in his course.
He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time
to return to Tellson’s and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he
arrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he
must say nothing of his intention now.
A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and
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Jerry was booted and equipped.
“I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry.
“I would not consent to your being charged with any written
answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?”
“That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it is not
dangerous.”
“Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.”
“What is his name?” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocketbook
in his hand.
“Gabelle.”
“Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle
in prison?”
“Simply, ‘that he has received the letter, and will come.’”
“Any time mentioned?”
“He will start upon his journey tomorrow night.”
“Any person mentioned?”
“No.”
He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and
cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the
old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet Street. “My love to Lucie, and
to little Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry at parting, “and take precious care
of them till I come back.” Charles Darnay shook his head and
doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled away.
That night—it was the fourteenth of August—he sat up late,
and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the
strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at
length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could
become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the
Doctor, confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and
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dwelling on the same topics with the strongest assurances. To
both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety,
immediately after his arrival. It was a hard day, that day of being
among them, with the first reservation of their joint lives on his
mind. It was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of
which they were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate
glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell
her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it
was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day
passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her
scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by-
and-by (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had
secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the
heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart.
The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all
the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He
left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour
before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began
his journey. ‘For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the
honour of your noble name!’ was the poor prisoner’s cry with
which he strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was
dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone
Rock.
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BOOK THE
THIRD
THE TRACK OF A
STORM
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Chapter XXXI
IN SECRET
T he traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards
Paris from England in the autumn of the year one
thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. More than
enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would
have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate
King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; but, the
changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every
town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots,
with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness,
who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them,
inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own,
turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them
in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the
dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, or Death.
A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished,
when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these
country roads there was no hope of return until he should have
been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now,
he must on to his journey’s end. Not a mean village closed upon
him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him,
but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was
barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so
encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were
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being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt
his freedom more completely gone.
This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the
highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty
times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding
before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and
keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in
France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the
high road, still a long way from Paris.
Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle’s letter from
his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His
difficulty at the guardhouse in this small place had been such, that
he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore,
as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at
the small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the
middle of the night.
Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed
patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat
down on the bed.
“Emigrant,” said the functionary, “I am going to send you on to
Paris, under an escort.”
“Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I
could dispense with the escort.”
“Silence!” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the
butt-end of his musket. “Peace, aristocrat!”
“It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid functionary.
“You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort—and must pay for
it.”
“I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay.
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“Choice! Listen to him!” cried the same scowling red-cap. “As if
it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!”
“It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the functionary.
“Rise and dress yourself, emigrant.”
Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guardhouse,
where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking,
and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his
escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads at three
o’clock in the morning.
The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and
tricoloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres,
who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his
own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of
which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state
they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces: clattering
at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out
upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without
change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that
lay between them and the capital.
They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after
daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so
wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs,
and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart
from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from
such considerations of present danger as arose from one of the
patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his musket very
recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid
upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, he
reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits
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of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of
