Chapter-6
‘This is your duty, Miss Manette!” snapped the judge, “Just tell the jury what he said.”
“He told me that he was travelling on important business—business that could get some people into trouble. Because of that, he was travelling under the false name of Charles Damay. He also said that this business would be taking him back and forth between England and France for a long time to come.”
“Did he say whether or not that business concerned the American colonies?”
“He said England was foolish to quarrel with America. He even said jokingly that George Washington might become as famous in history as King George the Third!”
This answer brought a buzz in the courtroom and a glare from the judge as he made his notes. ‘An insult to our king!’ he thought.
“Thank you, Miss Manette,” said the solicitor when all was quiet again. “That will be all. I now call Dr. Alexandre Manette to testify.”
Clearing his throat, the solicitor began “Do you remember the prisoner as the same man that you met on the boat five years ago?”
“I cannot recall, sir. I do not remember anything about that period,” said the doctor.
“Dr. Manette, did you spend a long time in prison in France without a trial?”
“A long time, sir. And because of it, my mind is a blank. It was until I found myself one day in my London home with my dear daughter caring for me.”
“Thank you, Dr. Manette. I have no more questions,” said the solicitor.
The doctor left the witness box and went to rejoin his daughter. As they sat down, a new witness was called.
Under questioning, the man testified that on that Friday night in 1775, he had seen the prisoner waiting for someone in a hotel in a town near where the two passengers had left the mail coach. The solicitor tried to convince the jury that Darnay had left the coach in the dead of night and walked to the hotel to exchange secret military information.
Then Charles Darnay’s attorney, Mr. Stryver, began to cross-examine the witness. Just then, Mr. Stryver’s associate, Mr. Carton, who had not taken any part in the proceedings up to that point, lowered his head from its fixed stare at the ceiling, removed his attorney’s wig, and wrote something on a piece of paper.
Although Carton himself had a brilliant mind yet his laziness and constant drinking prevented him from becoming a success on his own. Therefore, he had to be content with working for Mr. Stryver, whose successful law practice made Carton extremely jealous.
Carton folded the note and passed it to Stryver, who upon reading it, immediately turned back to the witness he was questioning.
“Are you absolutely certain that the man in the hotel was the prisoner Charles Darnay?”
“I am quite sure.”
“Did you ever see anyone who looks very much like the prisoner?”
“Not so much alike that I could mistake the two.”
“Look, then, at that man over there!” ordered Stryver, pointing to Sidney Carton, “Then look back at the prisoner!”
The two men looked so much alike that they surprised not only each other, but the judge, the witness, and the entire courtroom as well!
Mr. Stryver then summed up his case for the defence. He maintained that John Barsad was a liar, Roger Cly a hired spy and traitor, and that the final witness could not really identify the prisoner as the man he had seen at the hotel.
The jury then left the room to decide the prisoner’s fate.
Afternoon stretched into the evening. Lamps were lit in the courtroom. The spectators brought in mutton pies and ale for refreshment. Finally, the jury returned with the verdict—NOT GUILTY!
The crowds in the courtroom spilled out the doors, and Charles Darnay found himself standing face to face with Sidney Carton.
“Here we are, two look-alikes, standing alone because fate has thrown us together,” said Carton with a drunken laugh.
“Then is it fate that also makes me feel faint?” asked Darnay.
“Hardly!” replied Carton, “It is hunger. Come, let us dine together.”
Once the two men were seated in a nearby tavern, with food and wine restoring Darnay’s strength, he thanked Carton warmly.
“You don’t have to thank me,” said the attorney after a long gulp of wine, “It was nothing. But it must feel good to have such a beautiful young lady as Lucie Manette pity you and cry for you.”
Carton drank as Charles ate, and continued drinking long after dinner was finished. Finally, Charles rose to go.
“If you want to know why I am getting drunk,” Carton called after him, “it is because I am disappointed with life. I am a failure at everything—my work, my friends and everything else. You are everything I am not. No blue eyes would fill with tears for me, as Lucie Manette’s did for you. But no matter! I care for no man, and no man cares for me!”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Darnay replied to the figure now slumped over the emptied wine bottles, “You might have made better use of your brilliant talents.”
Later that evening, awakening from a drunken sleep at the tavern, Sidney Carton went to Mr. Stryver’s office to help with some legal papers, a practice the two followed daily. While Stryver was a popular and successful attorney, the truth was that his brilliance in the courtroom came about as a result of his evenings’ work with Carton, whose shrewd mind solved many of Stryver’s cases.
“You were brilliant today, Sidney,” said Stryver as the two seated themselves at a table covered with piles of papers and bottles of wine, “What gave you that idea of the lookalikes?”
“I just thought that Darnay was a handsome fellow and that I might have been like him if I had had some luck.”
“No, it’s not luck, my friend. It’s hard work and helping yourself—something you never even try. You are content to help others, but never yourself. You were that way when we were at law school too. Why is that?”
“Who knows? But let’s not talk about that.”
“Very well then. Shall we talk about that pretty young witness?”
“I don’t think she’s that pretty.”
“You are protesting too much, Sidney.”
And to that, Sidney Carton had no answer. He was feeling very sorry for himself and had drunk too much as usual, so he decided to go home to bed, where he shed his tears of frustration and unhappiness on a pillow that had felt countless nights of tears.
