“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. Con-found 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 Soho, that this precious
brother had spent her money and left her!
He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more
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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 a 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
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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 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?”
“Under a threat?”
“Oh! Did I say that?”
“Then, why should I go there?”
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“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 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.
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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.
“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
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brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken
place. He left the messengers at the 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
tomorrow—you said he would be before the Tribunal again
tomorrow, Mr. Barsad?—” “Yes; I believe so.”
“—In as good stead tomorrow as today. 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 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
today, 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
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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
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.”
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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
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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.”
“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.”
