Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0068/00682.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00682}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Tale Of Two Cities
Chapter XXIV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{lorry
darnay
himself
time
old
charles
am
monseigneur
tellson's
house}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Tale Of Two Cities
Book:        Book The Second: The Golden Thread
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter XXIV

Drawn To The Loadstone Rock

     In such risings of fire and risings of sea - the firm earth shaken by
the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the
flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on the
shore - three years of tempest were consumed.  Three more birthdays of little
Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the
life of her home.

     Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in
the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging feet.
For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of a people,
tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in danger,
changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted in.

     Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of
his not being appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as to
incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life
together.  Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains,
and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no
question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the
Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many
other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his
terrors than he took to his noble heels.

     The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the
mark for a hurricane of national bullets.  It had never been a good eye to
see with - had long had the mote in it of Lucifer'spride, Sardanapalus's
luxury, and a mole's blindness - but it had dropped out and was gone.  The
Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of
intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together.  Royalty was
gone; had been besieged in its Palace and "suspended," when the last tidings
came over.

     The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was
come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide.

     As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of
Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson's Bank.  Spirits are supposed to haunt
the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea
haunted the spot where his guineas used to be.  Moreover, it was the spot to
which such French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came quickest.
Again: Tellson's was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old
customers who had fallen from their high estate.  Again: those nobles who had
seen the coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had
made provident remittances to Tellson's, were always to be heard of there by
their needy brethren.  To which it must be added that every new-comer from
France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson's, almost as a matter of
course.  For such variety of reasons, Tellson's was at that time, as to
French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well known to
the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous,
that Tellson's sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted
it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read.

     On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles
Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice.  The penitential
den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange,
and was filled to overflowing.  It was within half an hour or so of the time
of closing.

     "But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived," said Charles
Darnay, rather hesitating, "I must still suggest to you -"

     "I understand.  That I am too old?" said Mr. Lorry.

     "Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a
disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you."

     "My dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, "you touch
some of the reasons for my going: not for my stayingaway.  It is safe enough
for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon
fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth interfering
with.  As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a disorganised
city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our House here to our
House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's
confidence.  As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter
weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for
the sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who ought to be?"

     "I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly,
and like one thinking aloud.

     "Indeed!  You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!" exclaimed Mr.
Lorry.  "You wish you were going yourself?  And you a Frenchman born?  You
are a wise counsellor."

     "My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the
thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through my
mind often.  One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for the
miserable people, and having abandoned something to them," he spoke here in
his former thoughtful manner, "that one might be listened to, and might have
the power to persuade to some restraint.  Only last night, after you had left
us, when I was talking to Lucie -"

     "When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated.  "Yes.  I wonder
you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie!  Wishing you were going to
France at this time of day!"

     "However, I am not going," said Charles Darnay, with a smile.  "It is
more to the purpose that you say you are."

     "And I am, in plain reality.  The truth is, my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry
glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, "you can have no
conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of
the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved.  The Lord
above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers of people,
if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they might be, at any
time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set a-fire, to-day, or
sacked to-morrow!  Now, a judicious selection from these with the least
possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of
harm's way, is within the power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely
any one but myself, if any one.  And shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows
this and says this - Tellson's, whose bread I have eaten these sixty
years - because I am a little stiff about the joints?  Why, I am a boy, sir,
to half a dozen old codgers here!"

     "How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry."

     "Tut!  Nonsense, sir! - And, my dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, glancing
at the House again, "you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at
this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility.
Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in
strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even to you), by
the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of whom had his head hanging
on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers.  At another time, our parcels
would come and go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now,
everything is stopped."

     "And do you really go to-night?"

     "I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of
delay."

     "And do you take no one with you?"

     "All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing
to say to any of them.  I intend to take Jerry.  Jerry has been my body-guard
on Sunday nights for a long time past, and I am used to him.  Nobody will
suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or of having any
design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his master."

     "I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and
youthfulness."

     "I must say again, nonsense, nonsense!  When I have executed this little
commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire and live at
my ease.  Time enough, then, to think about growing old."

     This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with
Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do
to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long.  It was too much the way
of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the
way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it
were the one only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been
sown - as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led
to it - as if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the
misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had
not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words
recorded what they saw.  Such vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots
of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly
exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard
to be endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth.
And it was such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion
of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which
had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so.

     Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on his way
to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching to
Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating them
from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for accomplishing
many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by
sprinkling salt on the tails of the race.  Him, Darnay heard with a
particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between going away
that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his word, when the
thing that was to be went on to shape itself out.

     The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter
before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to whom
it was addressed?  The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he
saw the direction - the more quickly because it was his own right name.  The
address, turned into English, ran:

     "Very pressing.  To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evremonde, of
France.  Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London,
England."

     On the marriage morning, Dr. Manette had made it his one urgent and
express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should
be - unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation - kept inviolate between
them.  Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of
the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none.

     "No," said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; "I have referred it, I
think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is
to be found."

     The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there
was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry's desk.  He held
the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of
this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the
person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other,
all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, concerning the
Marquis who was not to be found.

     "Nephew, I believe - but in any case degenerate successor - of the
polished Marquis who was murdered," said one, "Happy to say, I never knew
him."

     "A craven who abandoned his post," said another - this Monseigneur had
been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of
hay - "some years ago."

     "Infected with the new doctrines," said a third, eyeing the direction
through his glass in passing; "set himself in opposition to the last Marquis,
abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian
herd.  They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves."

     "Hey?" cried the blatant Stryver.  "Did he though?  Is that the sort of
fellow?  Let us look at his infamous name.  D - n the fellow!"

     Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on
the shoulder, and said:

     "I know the fellow."

     "Do you , by Jupiter?" said Stryver.  "I am sorry for it."

     "Why?"

     "Why, Mr. Darnay?  D'ye hear what he did?  Don't ask, why, in these
times."

     "But I do ask why."

     "Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it.  I am sorry to
hear you putting any such extraordinary questions.  Here is a fellow, who,
infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever was
known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did
murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who instructs
youth knows him?  Well, but I'll answer you.  I am sorry because I believe
there is contamination in such a scoundrel.  That's why."

     Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself and
said: "You may not understand the gentleman

     "I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay," said Bully
Stryver, "and I'll do it.  If this fellow is a gentleman, I don't understand
him.  You may tell him, so with my compliments.   You may also tell him from
me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly
mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them.  But, no, gentlemen," said
Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, "I know something of
human nature, and I tell you that you'll never find a fellow like this
fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such precious proteges.  No,
gentlemen; he'll always show 'em a clean pair of heels very early in the
scuffle, and sneak away."

     With those 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.

     "Monsieur heretofore the Marquis,

     "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 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 had remitted the imposts they had 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 Tillson 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."

     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 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 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
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 towards 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 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 pocket-book 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 to-morrow 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 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 away.    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.