A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club) (11 page)

The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr Attorney-General called Mr Jarvis Lorry.

‘Mr Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s bank?’

‘I am.’

‘On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London and Dover by the mail?’

‘It did.’

‘Were there any other passengers in the mail?’

‘Two.’

‘Did they alight on the road in the course of the night?’

‘They did.’

‘Mr Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?’

‘I cannot undertake to say that he was.’

‘Does he resemble either of those two passengers?’

‘Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.’

‘Mr Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them?’

‘No.’

‘You will not swear, Mr Lorry, that he was not one of them?’

‘No.’

‘So at least you say he may have been one of them?’

‘Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been – like myself – timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous air.’

‘Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr Lorry?’

‘I certainly have seen that.’

‘Mr Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your certain knowledge, before?’

‘I have.’

‘When?’

‘I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and made the voyage with me.’

‘At what hour did he come on board?’

‘At a little after midnight.’

‘In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board at that untimely hour?’

‘He happened to be the only one.’

‘Never mind about “happening”, Mr Lorry. He was the only passenger who came on board in the dead of the night?’

‘He was.’

‘Were you travelling alone, Mr Lorry, or with any companion?’

‘With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here.’

‘They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner?’

‘Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore.’

‘Miss Manette!’

The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm.

‘Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.’

To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts to control and steady his breathing, shook the lips from which the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again.

‘Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the same occasion.’

‘You are the young lady just now referred to?’

‘O! most unhappily, I am!’

The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice of the Judge, as he said, something fiercely: ‘Answer the questions put to you, and make no remark upon them.’

‘Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passage across the Channel?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Recal it.’

In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began:

‘When the gentleman came on board—’

‘Do you mean the prisoner?’ inquired the Judge, knitting his brows.

‘Yes, my Lord.’

‘Then say the prisoner.’

‘When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father,’ turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, ‘was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced, that I was afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than I had done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my father’s state, and I am sure he felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together.’

‘Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone?’

‘No.’

‘How many were with him?’

‘Two French gentlemen.’

‘Had they conferred together?’

‘They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat.’

‘Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists?’

‘Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don’t know what papers.’

‘Like these in shape and size?’

‘Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood whispering very near to me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, and they spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that they looked at papers.’

‘Now, to the prisoner’s conversation, Miss Manette.’

‘The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me – which arose out of my helpless situation – as he was kind, and good, and useful to my father. I hope,’ bursting into tears, ‘I may not repay him by doing him harm to-day.’

Buzzing from the blue-flies.

‘Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you give the evidence which it is your duty to give – which you must give – and which you cannot escape from giving – with great unwillingness, he is the only person present in that condition. Please to go on.’

‘He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals, take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long time to come.’

‘Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular. ’

‘He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on England’s part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said laughingly, and to beguile the time.’

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon the Counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous heresy about George Washington.

Mr Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady’s father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly.

‘Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?’

‘Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or three years and a half, ago.’

‘Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, or speak to his conversation with your daughter?’

‘Sir, I can do neither.’

‘Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do either?’

He answered, in a low voice, ‘There is.’

‘Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette?’

He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, ‘A long imprisonment.’

‘Were you newly released on the occasion in question?’

‘They tell me so.’

‘Have you no remembrance of the occasion?’

‘None. My mind is a blank, from some time – I cannot even say what time – when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process.’

Mr Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat down together.

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand, being, to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did not remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a witness was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required, in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison-and-dockyard town, waiting for another person. The prisoner’s counsel was cross-examining this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great attention and curiosity at the prisoner.

‘You say again you are quite sure that it
was
the prisoner?’

The witness was quite sure.

‘Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?’

Not so like (the witness said), as that he could be mistaken.

‘Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there,’ pointing to him who had tossed the paper over, ‘and then look well upon the prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?’

Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless and slovenly, if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr Stryver (the prisoner’s counsel), whether they were next to try Mr Carton (name of my learned friend) for treason? But, Mr Stryver replied to my Lord, no; but he would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness sooner; whether he would be so confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to useless lumber.

Mr Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingers, in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the jury, like a compact suit of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas – which he certainly did look rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his making those passages across the Channel – though what those affairs were, a consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbad him, even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman and young lady so thrown together: – with the exception of that reference to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and impossible, to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this attempt to practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr Attorney-General had made the most of it; how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the State Trials of this country were full. But, there My Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions.

Mr Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr Cruncher had next to attend while Mr Attorney-General turned the whole suit of clothes Mr Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came My Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the prisoner.

And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again.