At the same time that the fifty-two were waiting to leave the prison, Madam Defarge was holding a darkly secret council with The Punisher and Jack Three, who had served on the jury. Madam Defarge was not talking to them in the wine shop this time, but in the little shop of the woodcutter who had been a road worker in the past. The woodcutter himself did not take part in the meeting, but waited instead at a place near where they were talking, told not to speak until he was needed, and not to say what he thought until he was asked.
"But our Defarge," said Jack Three, "is surely a good freedom fighter, eh?"
"There is no one better," the loud-mouthed Punisher said in her high voice, "in France."
"Peace, little Punisher," said Madam Defarge, putting her hand on her helper's lips with a look that was a little angry. "Listen to what I say. My husband, good countryman, is a good fighter and a brave man. He has worked well for the new government, and people have confidence in him. But my husband is not perfect, and he is so weak as to back out of what we plan for the Doctor."
"It is sad," said Jack Three, shaking his head to show he was losing trust in the man, as he put his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth. "It is not quite like a good countryman; it is something we should not feel good about."
"See," said Madam, "I care nothing for this Doctor. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But the Evremonde people are to be destroyed, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father."
"She has a good head for it," said Jack Three. "I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked good when Samson held them up.” For such a rough, stupid man, he talked like he was an expert.
Madam Defarge looked down and thought for a little while.
"The child too," pointed out Jack Three, who liked the sound of his own words when he thought about them, "has golden hair and blue eyes. And we do not often have a child there. It is beautiful when we do!"
"In a word," said Madam Defarge, coming out of her thoughts, "I cannot trust my husband with this one. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I cannot tell him about my plans, but I also feel that if I wait too long, he will warn them, and they will run."
"This must never happen," said Jack Three. "No one must get away. We do not have half enough as it is. We should have a hundred and twenty a day."
"In a word," Madam Defarge went on, "my husband does not have the reason that I have for going after this family until they are all dead, and I do not have his reason for showing some kindness to this Doctor. So I must act on my own. Come over here, little countryman."
The woodcutter, who looked up to her and down on himself in fear for his life, came forward with his hand on his red hat."
"As for those movements she was making with her hands, little countryman," said Madam Defarge seriously, "making to the prisoners, are you ready to tell others about it even today?"
"Yes, yes, why not!" cried the woodcutter. "Every day, in all weather, from two to four, always moving her hands, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen it with my eyes."
He moved his hand in many directions as he talked, as if trying to show them some of the strange movements that she used.
"Clearly a plan to destroy the government," said Jack Three. "Anyone can see through it."
"Will the jury believe it?” asked Madam Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a dark smile.
"You can trust the country-loving jury, good countrywoman. I can answer for all of them."
"Now, let me see," said Madam Defarge, thinking again. "One more time! Can I let this Doctor live to keep my husband happy? I have no feeling either way. Can I let him live?"
"He would count as one head," pointed out Jack Three in a low voice. "We really do not have enough heads. I think it would be sad not to take him."
"He was making movements with her when I saw her," argued Madam Defarge. "I can't talk against one without talking against the other, and I must not be quiet, trusting the whole case to him, this little countryman here. For I'm not a bad witness."
The Punisher and Jack Three competed with each other in their enthusiasm for saying how she was the most wonderful of witnesses. The little countryman, not to be left out of the competition, said that she was a witness straight from heaven.
"He must face the truth," said Madam Defarge. "I cannot let him get off! You will be there at three o'clock; you will watch today's group being killed? I'm talking to you!"
She was talking to the woodcutter, who hurried to say he would be there, adding that he was the truest lover of his country, and that he would be the saddest of all lovers of the country if anything stopped him from being able to smoke his afternoon pipe while watching the funny government barber. He was so strong in saying this that one could think (and by the dark angry eyes that looked at him out of Madam Defarge's head, one maybe did think) that he had his own fears about joining them, every hour of the day.
"I," said Madam, "will be equally busy at the same place. After it's over, say at eight tonight, come to me in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people at my group meeting."
The woodcutter said he would be proud and happy to help her. When the countrywoman looked at him, he turned shy. Like a small dog trying to get away from something, he pulled back to his pile of sticks, where he could hide behind the handle of his saw.
Madam Defarge called the jury man and The Punisher closer to the door, and there told them more about her plan:
"She will be at home now, waiting for the time of his death. She will be crying for him. She will be acting in a way that shows she is against the government. She will be feeling sad for its enemies. I will go to her."
"What a wonderful woman; what a smart woman!" cried Jack Three happily. "Oh, my loved one!" cried The Punisher, and hugged her.
"Take my knitting," said Madam Defarge, putting it in her helper's hands, "and have it ready for me in my seat. Keep my chair for me. You go straight there, because there will probably be a bigger crowd than other days today."
"I will happily obey my boss," said The Punisher with enthusiasm, as she kissed her cheek. "You will not be late?"
"I'll be there before it starts."
"And before the carts arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul," said The Punisher, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street. "Before the carts arrive!"
Madam Defarge waved her hand weakly to show that she had heard and could be trusted to arrive in good time, and then pushed on through the mud, and around the corner of the prison wall. The Punisher and the man from the jury, looking after her as she walked away, liked very much both the look of her and the spiritual qualities that were a part of her.
There were many woman at that time, who were changed in an awful way by what was happening; but there was not one of them more awful than this cruel woman who was now making her way through the streets. She was strong and without fear, wise in her timing, and ready to carry through with whatever she started. There was something in her that not only filled her with a strong hate, but that let others see how strong her hate was. There was nothing that could have stopped her from becoming a leader in those troubled times. But she had the added help of what had happened to her as a child. All her life she had thought about how wrong it was that she had lost her family, and all her life she had learned to hate the rich class. Added to what was happening at the time, it changed her into a tiger. She had not the smallest piece of soft feeling for anyone. If she had ever had such a feeling in the past it was quite gone now.
It was nothing to her that an innocent man was going to die for the sins of his father and uncle. She saw not him, but them. It was nothing to her that his wife was to be a widow, and his daughter was to grow up without a father. That was not enough punishment in her eyes. They were her enemies, and because of that, they had no right to live. Asking her for mercy was a waste of time, because she had none, not even for herself. If she had been killed in any of the fights that she had been a part of, she would not have felt sorry for herself. If she had been told that she must die under the axe tomorrow, she would have no soft feeling for the others dying in that way now; but she would want to put the man who sent her there in the same place.
Madam Defarge carried such a heart under her rough robe. In a strange way, the robe, which she was wearing (also in a rough way), went well with her. Her dark hair looked good under her rough red hat. Hiding in her breast was a small gun. Hiding under her belt was a sharp knife. Dressed like this, and walking with such confidence, plus the free and easy movement of a woman who, as a child, always walked without shoes or socks on the brown sand by the ocean, Madam Defarge made her way along the streets.
At that same time, the coach had been waiting for the last person to arrive before it could leave Paris. When plans were being made the night before, Mr. Lorry gave much thought to the problem of taking Miss Pross in the same coach. If there were too many people, the coach would move more slowly, and there would be more time wasted at each stop, when so many passengers would be asked to show their papers. Every second was important, and so, after much worry and much thought, he had asked for Miss Pross and Jerry, who were free to leave the city at any time, to go at three o'clock in a very light, fast coach. By travelling without bags, they would soon be up with the others. As they took the lead, they could ask ahead of time for horses to be ready for the coach coming behind them. This would be a big help at night, when things always moved most slowly.
Seeing in this plan the hope of being a real help with the problem of getting away, Miss Pross was very happy to go along with it. She and Jerry had watched the coach leave, after learning who it was that her brother Solomon brought to it, had waited some ten awful minutes for it to get away, and were now finishing up their plans to follow it, even as Madam Defarge, making her way through the streets, was coming closer and closer to the rooms where they were now talking, and which were empty of anyone else.
"Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher," asked Miss Pross, whose worries were so great that it was difficult for her to talk, or stand, or move, or live. "What do you think about us not leaving from the yard? Another coach having already left from here today, it could make people think we are up to something."
"What I thinks, Miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "is as you're right. Same way, know that I'll stand by you, right or wrong."
"I am so confused with worry and hope for our good friends," said Miss Pross, crying wildly, "that I cannot make a plan. Are YOU able to make a plan, good Mr. Cruncher?"
"About some life in another world after I die, Miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "I hope so. About any present use of this here blessed old head of mine, I think not. Would you do me the kindness, Miss, to hear two promises before God that I wants to put down here now in this trouble?"
"Oh, for the love of God!" shouted Miss Pross, still crying wildly. "Say them quickly and be done with it, like a good man."
"First," said Mr. Cruncher, who was shaking all over, and who spoke with a very white and serious face, "for them poor things well out of this here trouble, never no more will I do it that I was doing, never no more!"
"I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher," returned Miss Pross, "that you will never do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think that you need to say anything more about it."
"No, Miss," returned Jerry. "It will not be said to you. Second, for them poor things well out of this, never no more will I stop Mrs. Cruncher from throwing herself down, never no more!"
"Whatever that may be in your house," said Miss Pross, trying to dry her eyes and relax, "I trust that it is best if Mrs. Cruncher should be the one to do it. ... Oh, my poor loved ones!"
"I go so far as to say, Miss, more than that," went on Mr. Cruncher, with an awful way of sounding like a preacher, "... and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself... that my feelings about throwing down is so much changed that I only hope with all my heart that Mrs. Cruncher may be throwing down at this present time."
"There, there, there! I hope she is, my good man," cried Miss Pross, who was fighting with many different emotions, "and I hope she finds it is all that she hopes it will be."
"May God stop it," went on Mr. Cruncher, even more seriously and even more slowly, and even more sounding like a preacher, "that anything what I have ever said or done should be in the way of my serious wishes for them poor people now! May God stop it, as we should all be throwing ourselves down (if we was in any way able to) to get them out of this here awful danger! May God stop it, Miss! What I say is STOP it!" This was how Mr. Cruncher finished, after not being able to find a better way to end it.
And still Madam Defarge, working her way along the streets, came closer and closer.
"If we ever get back to our home land," said Miss Pross, "you can trust me to tell Mrs. Cruncher as much as I can remember and understand of what you have so well said. Whatever else, you can be sure I'll tell her you were very sincere at this awful time. Now, please, let us think! My good Mr. Cruncher, let us think!"
Still, Madam Defarge, working her way along the streets, came closer and closer.
"If you were to go first," 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 agreed.
"Where could you wait for me?” asked Miss Pross.
Mr. Cruncher was so confused that he could not think of any other place name but Temple Bar. Sadly, Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madam Defarge was very near now.
"By the door of the big church," said Miss Pross. "Would it be far out of the way to pick me up near the biggest door, between the two towers?"
"No problem, Miss," answered Mr. Cruncher.
"Then, like the best of men," said Miss Pross, "go straight to the post office now and make that change."
"I don't feel good," said Mr. Cruncher, holding back and shaking his head, "about leaving you. We don't know what's to happen."
"Heaven knows we don't," returned Miss Pross, "but have no fear for me. Pick me up at the big church at three, or as near it as you can, and I'm sure it'll be better than leaving from here. I feel very sure of that. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think not of me, but of the lives that both of us want to help!"
These few words, and Miss Pross' hands begging him as they squeezed his, was enough to give Mr. Cruncher confidence to act. Moving his head in a way to encourage them both, he went off to change the plans, leaving her alone to do what she had to do.
Miss Pross felt good to have come up with a plan and to see it starting to take shape. She was also glad to have time to fix the way she looked so people in the streets would not take special interest in her. She looked at her watch and it was twenty minutes past two. No time to lose; she must get ready at once.
Afraid, in her great worry, to be alone in the empty rooms, and of faces that she pictured hiding behind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a bowl of cold water and started to wash her eyes, which were red from crying. Her fears troubled her so much that she did not want the water to hide anything from her, so she would keep stopping and clearing her eyes of water, so she could look around. In one of those looks she jumped back in surprise and shouted out, for she saw someone standing in the room.
The bowl fell to the floor, broken; and the water crossed the floor to the feet of Madam Defarge. By strange hard ways, and through much blood those feet had come to meet that water.
Madam Defarge looked coldly at her and said, "The wife of Evremonde. Where is she?"
Miss Pross knew at once that all of the doors being open would be a sign that the others had left, so her first act was to close them. There were four doors in that room, and she closed them all. She then put herself in front of Lucie's bedroom.
Madam Defarge's dark eyes followed her through these fast movements, and rested on her when they were finished. There was nothing beautiful about Miss Pross. Years had not taken away her wild hard look; but she was, like the other woman, also very strong. She measured every inch of Madam Defarge with her eyes.
"By the look of you, you could be the devil's wife," breathed Miss Pross. "But you'll not get the better of me. I'm an Englishwoman."
Madam Defarge looked at her with proud anger, but still knowing what Miss Pross knew now, which is that the two of them were in a stand-off. She saw a tight, hard, woman before her who was as strong as wire, just as Mr. Lorry had seen in her a woman with a strong hand in the past. She knew well that Miss Pross was a very close friend of the family. Miss Pross knew well that Madam Defarge was the family's worst enemy.
"On my way over there," said Madam Defarge with a little movement of her hand toward the place of death, "where they are holding my chair and my knitting for me, I have come to say hello in passing. I would like to see her."
"I know that what you want is evil," said Miss Pross. "And you can trust that I'll stand my ground against it."
Each one used her own language. Both did not understand the other. Both very carefully tried to work out from the face and actions of the other what the meaning of the strange words was.
"It'll do her no good to hide from me now," said Madam Defarge. "Good people who love this country 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 screws pulling the wires tight on a bed," returned Miss Pross, "and I was a strong English bed, they would not pull even the smallest piece of timber out of me. No, you evil foreign woman; I'm equal to anything you can give out."
It would not be possible for Madam Defarge to follow what Miss Pross was trying to say, but she understood enough to know that she was not having the effect that she wanted to have.
"Stupid pig-like woman!" said Madam Defarge with an angry look on her face. "I take no answer from you. I will see her. You tell her that, or move out of the way of the door and let me go to her!" She said this with an angry movement of her right arm.
"I never thought," said Miss Pross, "that I would ever want to understand your stupid language; but I would give all that I have, apart from the clothes I'm wearing, to know if you know any part of the truth about what has happened here."
They both kept their eyes fixed on the other. Madam Defarge had not moved from where she stood when Miss Pross first saw her; but now she came forward one step.
"I am from England," said Miss Pross. "I have no other hope. I don't care two cents for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I will not leave enough dark hair on your head to grab if you put a finger on me!"
So Miss Pross said, with a shake of her head and a sharp look in her eye after every line, breathing only at the end of the line. So said Miss Pross, who had never hit anyone in her life.
Her deep emotions made her brave, but tears came with them. This was a kind of confidence that Madam Defarge knew so little of that she understood the tears to mean she was weak. "Ha, ha!" she laughed. "You poor animal! What are you worth! I'll talk to the Doctor.” She lifted her voice and called out, "Countryman Doctor! Wife of Evremonde! Child of Evremonde! Anyone but this crazy woman, give an answer to Countrywoman Defarge!"
It may have been because there was no answer, or something in the look on Miss Pross's face, or just a thought in her own head apart from the other two, but something whispered to Madam Defarge that they were gone. She opened three of the doors quickly and looked in.
"Those rooms are all in a mess. Things have been put away quickly. There are things on the floor. There is no one in that room behind you! Let me look."
"Never!" said Miss Pross, who understood the shout as perfectly as Madam Defarge understood the answer.
"If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be followed and brought back," said Madam Defarge to herself.
"As long as you don't know for sure if they're in that room, you won't know what to do," said Miss Pross to herself. "And you won't know it if I can stop you from knowing it. But knowing or not knowing, you won't leave here while I can hold you."
"I've lived on the streets from the start, and nothing has stopped me. I'll tear you to pieces, if need be, to move you away from that door," said Madam Defarge.
"We are alone at the top of a high house in a yard that is away from other houses. No one will hear us. And I pray for strength to keep you here, for every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand pounds to my love," said Miss Pross.
Madam Defarge moved toward the door. Miss Pross, without thinking at the time, grabbed her around the waist with both her arms and held her tight. Hitting and kicking was not going to help Madam Defarge. Miss Pross, using the powerful hold of love, always so much stronger than hate, held her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the fight that they had. The two hands of Madam Defarge hit and cut her face, but Miss Pross, with her head down, still held her around the waist, hanging on with more strength than a drowning woman.
Soon Madam Defarge's hands stopped hitting and reached for her waist. "It's under my arm," said Miss Pross from her buried face. "You will not be able to pull it out. I am stronger than you, and I thank heaven for it. I will hold you until one or the other of us faints or dies!"
Madam Defarge's hands were at her breasts. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, and hit at it. There was a loud bang and an explosion of light, and then she was standing alone, not able to see from the smoke.
All this happened in a second. The smoke cleared, leaving an awful quiet. The smoke left the room like the soul of the angry woman whose body was lying dead on the floor.
The first effect of what had happened was for Miss Pross to go around the body, as far as she was able, run down the steps, and call out for help, which never came. Luckily, she came to herself about what would have happened if someone had come, and went back to the room in better control of herself. It was awful to go in through the door again, but she did, and she even went near the body to get her hat and other things that she needed to wear. She put these on out on the steps, first closing and locking the door and taking out the key. She then sat down on the steps for a few minutes to breathe and cry before getting up and hurrying away.
She was lucky to have a cloth at the front of the hat to hide her face, for she could not have walked down the street without someone stopping her to ask if she was okay. She was also lucky that she often looked strange in the way she dressed, and so the way she was now did not seem so very different. She needed both of these things to help her, because the marks from Madam Defarge's fingers were deep on her face, some of her hair was pulled out, and her dress (quickly smoothed with shaking hands) had been pulled in a hundred different ways.
As she crossed the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving at the big church a few minutes before the coach, and waiting there, she started thinking what if the key was already taken in a net, what if someone could tell what house it was from, what if the door was opened and the body found, what if she was stopped at the city gate, sent to prison, and punished for killing someone! In the middle of these worried thoughts, the coach arrived, took her in, and took her away.
"Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked Mr. Cruncher.
"The same noises that there always are," he answered, looking surprised by the question and by how she looked.
"I don't hear you," said Miss Pross. "What are you saying?"
There was no good in Mr. Cruncher repeating what he had said; Miss Pross could not hear him. "So I'll just shake my head," thought Mr. Cruncher, who was surprised. "She can at least see that.” And she did.
"Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again a short while later.
Again Mr. Cruncher shook his head to show there was.
"I don't hear it."
"You lost your hearing in just one hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, chewing this over in his mind. "What's happened to her?"
"I feel," said Miss Pross, "as if there was a loud bang and an explosion, and that explosion was the last thing I should ever hear in this life."
"Blessed if she isn't in a strange shape!" said Mr. Cruncher, who was becoming more and more confused. "What can she have been taking to keep herself going? Listen! There's the sound of them awful carts! Surely you can hear that, Miss?"
"I can hear," said Miss Pross, seeing that he was talking to her, "nothing. Oh, my good man, there was first a great bang, and then all was quiet, and that quiet does not seem to be going away, like it will never be broken again as long as I live."
"If she don't hear the sound of those awful carts, now very close to the end of their trip," said Mr. Cruncher, looking over his shoulder, "I think that she really won't ever hear anything else in this world."
And the truth is that she never did.