A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club) (53 page)

‘First,’ said Mr Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, ‘them poor things well out o’ this, never no more will I do it, never no more!’

‘I am quite sure, Mr Cruncher,’ returned Miss Pross, ‘that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it necessary to mention more particularly what it is.’

‘No, miss,’ returned Jerry, ‘it shall not be named to you. Second: them poor things well out o’ this, and never no more will I interfere with Mrs Cruncher’s flopping, never no more!’

‘Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,’ said Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, ‘I have no doubt it is best that Mrs Cruncher should have it entirely under her own superintendence – O my poor darlings!’

‘I go so far as to say, miss, morehover,’ proceeded Mr Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit – ‘and let my words be took down and took to Mrs Cruncher through yourself – that wot my opinions respectin’ flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time.’

‘There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,’ cried the distracted Miss Pross, ‘and I hope she finds it answering her expectations. ’

‘Forbid it,’ proceeded Mr Cruncher, with additional solemnity, additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold out, ‘as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! Forbid it as we shouldn’t all flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, for – bid it!’ This was Mr Cruncher’s conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one.

And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer and nearer.

‘If we ever get back to our native land,’ said Miss Pross, ‘you may rely upon my telling Mrs Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr Cruncher, let us think!’

Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer and nearer.

‘If you were to go before,’ said Miss Pross, ‘and stop the vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn’t that be best?’

Mr Cruncher thought it might be best.

‘Where could you wait for me?’ asked Miss Pross.

Mr Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but Temple Bar. Alas, Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame Defarge was drawing very near indeed.

‘By the cathedral door,’ said Miss Pross. ‘Would it be much out of the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two towers?’

‘No, miss,’ answered Mr Cruncher.

‘Then, like the best of men,’ said Miss Pross, ‘go to the post-house straight, and make that change.’

‘I am doubtful,’ said Mr Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head, ‘about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know what may happen.’

‘Heaven knows we don’t,’ returned Miss Pross, ‘but have no fear for me. Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o’Clock or as near it as you can, and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. I feel certain of it. There! Bless you, Mr Cruncher! Think – not of me, but of the lives that may depend on both of us!’

This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agonised entreaty clasping his, decided Mr Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, he immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself to follow as she had proposed.

The having originated a precaution which was already in course of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of composing her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once.

Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes, which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see that there was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure standing in the room.

The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water.

Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, ‘The wife of Evrémonde; where is she?’

It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. There were four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied.

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch.

‘You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,’ said Miss Pross, in her breathing. ‘Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.’

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that Miss Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well thatMadame Defarge was the family’s malevolent enemy.

‘On my way yonder,’ said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, ‘where they reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her.’

‘I know that your intentions are evil,’ said Miss Pross, ‘and you may depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against them.’

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant.

‘It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this moment,’ said Madame Defarge. ‘Good patriots will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?’

‘If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,’ returned Miss Pross, ‘and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.’

Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set at naught.

‘Woman imbecile and pig-like!’ said Madame Defarge, frowning. ‘I take no answer from you! I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!’ This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm.

‘I little thought,’ said Miss Pross, ‘that I should ever want to understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, to the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it.’

Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s eyes. Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step.

‘I am a Briton,’ said Miss Pross, ‘I am desperate. I don’t care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!’

Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life.

But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. ‘Ha, ha!’ she laughed, ‘you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that Doctor.’ Then she raised her voice and called out, ‘Citizen Doctor! Wife of Evrémonde! Child of Evrémonde! Any person but this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge!’

Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in.

‘Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind you! Let me look.’

‘Never!’ said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer.

‘If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and brought back,’ said Madame Defarge to herself.

‘As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room or not, you are uncertain what to do,’ said Miss Pross to
her
self; ‘and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you.’

‘I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, I will tear you to pieces but I will have you from that door,’ said Madame Defarge.

‘We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary court-yard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling,’ said Miss Pross.

Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore at her face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman.

Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled waist. ‘It is under my arm,’ said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, ‘you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I’ll hold you till one or other of us faints or dies!’

Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood alone – blinded with smoke.

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground.

In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments, to breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away.

By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of griping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a hundred ways.

In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort appeared, took her in, and took her away.

‘Is there any noise in the streets?’ she asked him.

‘The usual noises,’ Mr Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect.

‘I don’t hear you,’ said Miss Pross. ‘What do you say?’

It was in vain for Mr Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could not hear him. ‘So I’ll nod my head,’ thought Mr Cruncher, amazed, ‘at all events she’ll see that.’ And she did.

‘Is there any noise in the streets now?’ asked Miss Pross again, presently.

Again Mr Cruncher nodded his head.

‘I don’t hear it.’

‘Gone deaf in a hour?’ said Mr Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind much disturbed; ‘wot’s come to her?’

‘I feel,’ said Miss Pross, ‘as if there had been a flash and a crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life.’

‘Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!’ said Mr Cruncher, more and more disturbed. ‘Wot can she have been a takin’, to keep her courage up? Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?’

‘I can hear,’ said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, ‘nothing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my life lasts!’

‘If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their journey’s end,’ said Mr Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, ‘it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world.’