A Tale of Two Cities Read online

  I. Five Years Later

  Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in theyear one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, verydark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place,moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House wereproud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness,proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminencein those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, ifit were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This wasno passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at moreconvenient places of business. Tellson's (they said) wantedno elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted noembellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might; butTellson's, thank Heaven--!

  Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on thequestion of rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was muchon a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons forsuggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highlyobjectionable, but were only the more respectable.

  Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant perfectionof inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy witha weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps,and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two littlecounters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if thewind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest ofwindows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street,and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and theheavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing"the House," you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back,where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with itshands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismaltwilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old woodendrawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat whenthey were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if theywere fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away amongthe neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its goodpolish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-roomsmade of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of theirparchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of familypapers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a greatdining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the yearone thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to youby your old love, or by your little children, were but newly releasedfrom the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the headsexposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy ofAbyssinia or Ashantee.

  But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in voguewith all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's.Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's?Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad notewas put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; thepurloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holderof a horse at Tellson's door, who made off with it, was put toDeath; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders ofthree-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put toDeath. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--itmight almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly thereverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of eachparticular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be lookedafter. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business,its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laidlow before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privatelydisposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light theground floor had, in a rather significant manner.

  Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, theoldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a youngman into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he wasold. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the fullTellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted tobe seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breechesand gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.

  Outside Tellson's--never by any means in it, unless called in--was anodd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the livesign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unlessupon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchinof twelve, who was his express image. People understood that Tellson's,in a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had alwaystolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had driftedthis person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthfuloccasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in theeasterly parish church of Hounsditch, he had received the addedappellation of Jerry.

  The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley,Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy Marchmorning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himselfalways spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently underthe impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of apopular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.)

  Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and werebut two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in itmight be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early asit was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed wasalready scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers arrangedfor breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white clothwas spread.

  Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequinat home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to rolland surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hairlooking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, heexclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:

  "Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!"

  A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in acorner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was theperson referred to.

  "What!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. "You're at itagin, are you?"

  After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot atthe woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce theodd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy, that,whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, heoften got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay.

  "What," said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing hismark--"what are you up to, Aggerawayter?"

  "I was only saying my prayers."

  "Saying your prayers! You're a nice woman! What do you mean by floppingyourself down and praying agin me?"

  "I was not praying against you; I was praying for you."

  "You weren't. And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with. Here!your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin yourfather's prosperity. You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my son.You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and floppingherself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be snatched outof the mouth of her only child."

  Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turningto his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personalboard.

  "And what do you suppose, you conceited female," said Mr. Cruncher, withunconscious inconsistency, "that the worth of _your_ prayers may be?Name the price that you put _your_ prayers at!"

  "They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more thanthat."

  "Worth no more than that," repeated Mr. Cruncher. "They ain't worthmuch, then. Whether or no, I won't be prayed agin, I tell you. I can'tafford it. I'm not a going to be made unlucky by _your_ sneaking. Ifyou must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband andchild, and not in opposition to 'em. If I had had a
ny but a unnat'ralwife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat'ral mother, I mighthave made some money last week instead of being counter-prayed andcountermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck.B-u-u-ust me!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been puttingon his clothes, "if I ain't, what with piety and one blowed thing andanother, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poordevil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, myboy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now andthen, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, Itell you," here he addressed his wife once more, "I won't be gone agin,in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy aslaudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, ifit wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yetI'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you'vebeen at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better forit in pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do yousay now!"

  Growling, in addition, such phrases as "Ah! yes! You're religious, too.You wouldn't put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husbandand child, would you? Not you!" and throwing off other sarcastic sparksfrom the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betookhimself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business.In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes,and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father's did,kept the required watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poorwoman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he madehis toilet, with a suppressed cry of "You are going to flop, mother.--Halloa, father!" and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting inagain with an undutiful grin.

  Mr. Cruncher's temper was not at all improved when he came to hisbreakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher's saying grace with particularanimosity.

  "Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again?"

  His wife explained that she had merely "asked a blessing."

  "Don't do it!" said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expectedto see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife's petitions. "Iain't a going to be blest out of house and home. I won't have my wittlesblest off my table. Keep still!"

  Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a partywhich had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worriedhis breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footedinmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffledaspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an exterior ashe could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupationof the day.

  It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favouritedescription of himself as "a honest tradesman." His stock consisted ofa wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool,young Jerry, walking at his father's side, carried every morning tobeneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where,with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleanedfrom any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man'sfeet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr.Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple, as the Baritself,--and was almost as in-looking.

  Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch histhree-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson's,Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerrystanding by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, toinflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passingboys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son,extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning trafficin Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as the twoeyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys.The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, thatthe mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of theyouthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything elsein Fleet-street.

  The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson'sestablishment was put through the door, and the word was given:

  "Porter wanted!"

  "Hooray, father! Here's an early job to begin with!"

  Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself onthe stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his fatherhad been chewing, and cogitated.

  "Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!" muttered young Jerry."Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don't get no ironrust here!"