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Chapter XX
A Plea
When the newly-married pair came home, the first person who appeared,
to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. They had not been
at home many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in
habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of
fidelity about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay.
He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and
of speaking to him when no one overheard.
"Mr. Darnay," said Carton, "I wish we might be friends."
"We are already friends, I hope."
"You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don't
mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be friends,
I scarcely mean quite that, either."
Charles Darnay--as was natural--asked him, in all good-humour and
good-fellowship, what he did mean?
"Upon my life," said Carton, smiling, "I find that easier to comprehend
in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You
remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk than--
than usual?"
"I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess
that you had been drinking."
"I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me,
for I always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account one
day, when all days are at an end for me! Don't be alarmed;
I am not going to preach."
"I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but
alarming to me."
"Ah!" said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved
that away. "On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large number,
as you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you.
I wish you would forget it."
"I forgot it long ago."
"Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to
me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it,
and a light answer does not help me to forget it."
"If it was a light answer," returned Darnay, "I beg your forgiveness
for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which,
to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you,
on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind.
Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more
important to remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?"
"As to the great service," said Carton, "I am bound to avow to you,
when you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional
claptrap, I don't know that I cared what became of you, when I
rendered it.--Mind! I say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past."
"You make light of the obligation," returned Darnay, "but I will not
quarrel with YOUR light answer."
"Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my
purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me;
you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men.
If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he'll tell you so."
"I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his."
"Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never
done any good, and never will."
"I don't know that you `never will.'"
"But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could
endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent
reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be
permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might be
regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the
resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of
furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of.
I doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one
if I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me,
I dare say, to know that I had it."
"Will you try?"
"That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have
indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?"
"I think so, Carton, by this time."
They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute
afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever.
When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss Pross,
the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of this
conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem
of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not
bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who
saw him as he showed himself.
He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young
wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found
her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead
strongly marked.
"We are thoughtful to-night!" said Darnay, drawing his arm about her.
"Yes, dearest Charles," with her hands on his breast, and the
inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; "we are rather
thoughtful to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night."
"What is it, my Lucie?"
"Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you
not to ask it?"
"Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?"
What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the
cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him!
"I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and
respect than you expressed for him to-night."
"Indeed, my own? Why so?"
"That is what you are not to ask me. But I think--I know--he does."
"If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life?"
"I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and
very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to
believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there
are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding."
"It is a painful reflection to me," said Charles Darnay, quite astounded,
"that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him."
"My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is
scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable
now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things,
even magnanimous things."
She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man,
that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours.
"And, O my dearest Love!" she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying
her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, "remember how
strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!"
The supplication touched him home. "I will always remember it, dear
Heart! I will remember it as long as I live."
He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded
her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets,
could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops
of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of
that husband, he might have cried to the night--and the words would not
have parted from his lips for the first time--
"God bless her for her sweet compassion!"
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