Brother Jacob

G >> George Eliot >> Brother Jacob


Mr. Freely rose in anxious astonishment, and hastened into the shop,
followed by the four Palfreys, who made a group at the parlour-door,
transfixed with wonder at seeing a large man in a smock-frock, with a
pitchfork in his hand, rush up to Mr. Freely and hug him, crying
out,--"Zavy, Zavy, b'other Zavy!"

It was Jacob, and for some moments David lost all presence of mind. He
felt arrested for having stolen his mother's guineas. He turned cold,
and trembled in his brother's grasp.

"Why, how's this?" said Mr. Palfrey, advancing from the door. "Who is
he?"

Jacob supplied the answer by saying over and over again--

"I'se Zacob, b'other Zacob. Come 'o zee Zavy"--till hunger prompted him
to relax his grasp, and to seize a large raised pie, which he lifted to
his mouth.

By this time David's power of device had begun to return, but it was a
very hard task for his prudence to master his rage and hatred towards
poor Jacob.

"I don't know who he is; he must be drunk," he said, in a low tone to Mr.
Palfrey. "But he's dangerous with that pitchfork. He'll never let it
go." Then checking himself on the point of betraying too great an
intimacy with Jacob's habits, he added "You watch him, while I run for
the constable." And he hurried out of the shop.

"Why, where do you come from, my man?" said Mr. Palfrey, speaking to
Jacob in a conciliatory tone. Jacob was eating his pie by large
mouthfuls, and looking round at the other good things in the shop, while
he embraced his pitchfork with his left arm, and laid his left hand on
some Bath buns. He was in the rare position of a person who recovers a
long absent friend and finds him richer than ever in the characteristics
that won his heart.

"I's Zacob--b'other Zacob--'t home. I love Zavy--b'other Zavy," he said,
as soon as Mr. Palfrey had drawn his attention. "Zavy come back from z'
Indies--got mother's zinnies. Where's Zavy?" he added, looking round and
then turning to the others with a questioning air, puzzled by David's
disappearance.

"It's very odd," observed Mr. Palfrey to his wife and daughters. "He
seems to say Freely's his brother come back from th' Indies."

"What a pleasant relation for us!" said Letitia, sarcastically. "I think
he's a good deal like Mr. Freely. He's got just the same sort of nose,
and his eyes are the same colour."

Poor Penny was ready to cry.

But now Mr. Freely re-entered the shop without the constable. During his
walk of a few yards he had had time and calmness enough to widen his view
of consequences, and he saw that to get Jacob taken to the workhouse or
to the lock-up house as an offensive stranger might have awkward effects
if his family took the trouble of inquiring after him. He must resign
himself to more patient measures.

"On second thoughts," he said, beckoning to Mr. Palfrey and whispering to
him while Jacob's back was turned, "he's a poor half-witted fellow.
Perhaps his friends will come after him. I don't mind giving him
something to eat, and letting him lie down for the night. He's got it
into his head that he knows me--they do get these fancies, idiots do.
He'll perhaps go away again in an hour or two, and make no more ado. I'm
a kind-hearted man _myself_--I shouldn't like to have the poor fellow ill-
used."

"Why, he'll eat a sovereign's worth in no time," said Mr. Palfrey,
thinking Mr. Freely a little too magnificent in his generosity.

"Eh, Zavy, come back?" exclaimed Jacob, giving his dear brother another
hug, which crushed Mr. Freely's features inconveniently against the stale
of the pitchfork.

"Aye, aye," said Mr. Freely, smiling, with every capability of murder in
his mind, except the courage to commit it. He wished the Bath buns might
by chance have arsenic in them.

"Mother's zinnies?" said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow
lozenges that stood in the window. "Zive 'em me."

David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob
a handful. He received them in his smock-frock, which he held out for
more.

"They'll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate," thought David, and emptied
the jar. Jacob grinned and mowed with delight.

"You're very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely," said Letitia; and then
spitefully, as David joined the party at the parlour-door, "I think you
could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother."

"I've always thought it a duty to be good to idiots," said Mr. Freely,
striving after the most moral view of the subject. "We might have been
idiots ourselves--everybody might have been born idiots, instead of
having their right senses."

"I don't know where there'd ha' been victual for us all then," observed
Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light.

"But let us sit down again and finish our tea," said Mr. Freely. "Let us
leave the poor creature to himself."

They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently
appreciating the kindness of leaving him to himself, immediately followed
his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table.

"Well," said Miss Letitia, rising, "I don't know whether _you_ mean to
stay, mother; but I shall go home."

"Oh, me too," said Penny, frightened to death at Jacob, who had begun to
nod and grin at her.

"Well, I think we _had_ better be going, Mr. Palfrey," said the mother,
rising more slowly.

Mr. Freely, whose complexion had become decidedly yellower during the
last half-hour, did not resist this proposition. He hoped they should
meet again "under happier circumstances."

"It's my belief the man is his brother," said Letitia, when they were all
on their way home.

"Nonsense!" said Mr. Palfrey. "Freely's got no brother--he's said so
many and many a time; he's an orphan; he's got nothing but
uncles--leastwise, one. What's it matter what an idiot says? What call
had Freely to tell lies?"

Letitia tossed her head and was silent.

Mr. Freely, left alone with his affectionate brother Jacob, brooded over
the possibility of luring him out of the town early the next morning, and
getting him conveyed to Gilsbrook without further betrayals. But the
thing was difficult. He saw clearly that if he took Jacob himself, his
absence, conjoined with the disappearance of the stranger, would either
cause the conviction that he was really a relative, or would oblige him
to the dangerous course of inventing a story to account for his
disappearance, and his own absence at the same time. David groaned.
There come occasions when falsehood is felt to be inconvenient. It
would, perhaps, have been a longer-headed device, if he had never told
any of those clever fibs about his uncles, grand and otherwise; for the
Palfreys were simple people, and shared the popular prejudice against
lying. Even if he could get Jacob away this time, what security was
there that he would not come again, having once found the way? O
guineas! O lozenges! what enviable people those were who had never
robbed their mothers, and had never told fibs! David spent a sleepless
night, while Jacob was snoring close by. Was this the upshot of
travelling to the Indies, and acquiring experience combined with
anecdote?

He rose at break of day, as he had once before done when he was in fear
of Jacob, and took all gentle means to rouse this fatal brother from his
deep sleep; he dared not be loud, because his apprentice was in the
house, and would report everything. But Jacob was not to be roused. He
fought out with his fist at the unknown cause of disturbance, turned
over, and snored again. He must be left to wake as he would. David,
with a cold perspiration on his brow, confessed to himself that Jacob
could not be got away that day.

Mr. Palfrey came over to Grimworth before noon, with a natural curiosity
to see how his future son-in-law got on with the stranger to whom he was
so benevolently inclined. He found a crowd round the shop. All
Grimworth by this time had heard how Freely had been fastened on by an
idiot, who called him "Brother Zavy"; and the younger population seemed
to find the singular stranger an unwearying source of fascination, while
the householders dropped in one by one to inquire into the incident.

"Why don't you send him to the workhouse?" said Mr. Prettyman. "You'll
have a row with him and the children presently, and he'll eat you up. The
workhouse is the proper place for him; let his kin claim him, if he's got
any."

"Those may be _your_ feelings, Mr. Prettyman," said David, his mind quite
enfeebled by the torture of his position.

"What! _is_ he your brother, then?" said Mr. Prettyman, looking at his
neighbour Freely rather sharply.

"All men are our brothers, and idiots particular so," said Mr. Freely,
who, like many other travelled men, was not master of the English
language.

"Come, come, if he's your brother, tell the truth, man," said Mr.
Prettyman, with growing suspicion. "Don't be ashamed of your own flesh
and blood."

Mr. Palfrey was present, and also had his eye on Freely. It is difficult
for a man to believe in the advantage of a truth which will disclose him
to have been a liar. In this critical moment, David shrank from this
immediate disgrace in the eyes of his future father-in-law.

"Mr. Prettyman," he said, "I take your observations as an insult. I've
no reason to be otherwise than proud of my own flesh and blood. If this
poor man was my brother more than all men are, I should say so."

A tall figure darkened the door, and David, lifting his eyes in that
direction, saw his eldest brother, Jonathan, on the door-sill.

"I'll stay wi' Zavy," shouted Jacob, as he, too, caught sight of his
eldest brother; and, running behind the counter, he clutched David hard.

"What, he _is_ here?" said Jonathan Faux, coming forward. "My mother
would have no nay, as he'd been away so long, but I must see after him.
And it struck me he was very like come after you, because we'd been
talking of you o' late, and where you lived."

David saw there was no escape; he smiled a ghastly smile.

"What! is this a relation of yours, sir?" said Mr. Palfrey to Jonathan.

"Aye, it's my innicent of a brother, sure enough," said honest Jonathan.
"A fine trouble and cost he is to us, in th' eating and other things, but
we must bear what's laid on us."

"And your name's Freely, is it?" said Mr. Prettyman.

"Nay, nay, my name's Faux, I know nothing o' Freelys," said Jonathan,
curtly. "Come," he added, turning to David, "I must take some news to
mother about Jacob. Shall I take him with me, or will you undertake to
send him back?"

"Take him, if you can make him loose his hold of me," said David, feebly.

"Is this gentleman here in the confectionery line your brother, then,
sir?" said Mr. Prettyman, feeling that it was an occasion on which format
language must be used.

"_I_ don't want to own him," said Jonathan, unable to resist a movement
of indignation that had never been allowed to satisfy itself. "He ran
away from home with good reasons in his pocket years ago: he didn't want
to be owned again, I reckon."

Mr. Palfrey left the shop; he felt his own pride too severely wounded by
the sense that he had let himself be fooled, to feel curiosity for
further details. The most pressing business was to go home and tell his
daughter that Freely was a poor sneak, probably a rascal, and that her
engagement was broken off.

Mr. Prettyman stayed, with some internal self-gratulation that _he_ had
never given in to Freely, and that Mr. Chaloner would see now what sort
of fellow it was that he had put over the heads of older parishioners. He
considered it due from him (Mr. Prettyman) that, for the interests of the
parish, he should know all that was to be known about this "interloper."
Grimworth would have people coming from Botany Bay to settle in it, if
things went on in this way.

It soon appeared that Jacob could not be made to quit his dear brother
David except by force. He understood, with a clearness equal to that of
the most intelligent mind, that Jonathan would take him back to skimmed
milk, apple-dumpling, broad beans, and pork. And he had found a paradise
in his brother's shop. It was a difficult matter to use force with
Jacob, for he wore heavy nailed boots; and if his pitchfork had been
mastered, he would have resorted without hesitation to kicks. Nothing
short of using guile to bind him hand and foot would have made all
parties safe.

"Let him stay," said David, with desperate resignation, frightened above
all things at the idea of further disturbances in his shop, which would
make his exposure all the more conspicuous. "_You_ go away again, and to-
morrow I can, perhaps, get him to go to Gilsbrook with me. He'll follow
me fast enough, I daresay," he added, with a half-groan.

"Very well," said Jonathan, gruffly. "I don't see why _you_ shouldn't
have some trouble and expense with him as well as the rest of us. But
mind you bring him back safe and soon, else mother'll never rest."

On this arrangement being concluded, Mr. Prettyman begged Mr. Jonathan
Faux to go and take a snack with him, an invitation which was quite
acceptable; and as honest Jonathan had nothing to be ashamed of, it is
probable that he was very frank in his communications to the civil
draper, who, pursuing the benefit of the parish, hastened to make all the
information he could gather about Freely common parochial property. You
may imagine that the meeting of the Club at the Woolpack that evening was
unusually lively. Every member was anxious to prove that he had never
liked Freely, as he called himself. Faux was his name, was it? Fox
would have been more suitable. The majority expressed a desire to see
him hooted out of the town.

Mr. Freely did not venture over his door-sill that day, for he knew Jacob
would keep at his side, and there was every probability that they would
have a train of juvenile followers. He sent to engage the Woolpack gig
for an early hour the next morning; but this order was not kept
religiously a secret by the landlord. Mr. Freely was informed that he
could not have the gig till seven; and the Grimworth people were early
risers. Perhaps they were more alert than usual on this particular
morning; for when Jacob, with a bag of sweets in his hand, was induced to
mount the gig with his brother David, the inhabitants of the market-place
were looking out of their doors and windows, and at the turning of the
street there was even a muster of apprentices and schoolboys, who shouted
as they passed in what Jacob took to be a very merry and friendly way,
nodding and grinning in return. "Huzzay, David Faux! how's your uncle?"
was their morning's greeting. Like other pointed things, it was not
altogether impromptu.

Even this public derision was not so crushing to David as the horrible
thought that though he might succeed now in getting Jacob home again
there would never be any security against his coming back, like a wasp to
the honey-pot. As long as David lived at Grimworth, Jacob's return would
be hanging over him. But could he go on living at Grimworth--an object
of ridicule, discarded by the Palfreys, after having revelled in the
consciousness that he was an envied and prosperous confectioner? David
liked to be envied; he minded less about being loved.

His doubts on this point were soon settled. The mind of Grimworth became
obstinately set against him and his viands, and the new school being
finished, the eating-room was closed. If there had been no other reason,
sympathy with the Palfreys, that respectable family who had lived in the
parish time out of mind, would have determined all well-to-do people to
decline Freely's goods. Besides, he had absconded with his mother's
guineas: who knew what else he had done, in Jamaica or elsewhere, before
he came to Grimworth, worming himself into families under false
pretences? Females shuddered. Dreadful suspicions gathered round him:
his green eyes, his bow-legs had a criminal aspect. The rector disliked
the sight of a man who had imposed upon him; and all boys who could not
afford to purchase, hooted "David Faux" as they passed his shop.
Certainly no man now would pay anything for the "goodwill" of Mr.
Freely's business, and he would be obliged to quit it without a peculium
so desirable towards defraying the expense of moving.

In a few months the shop in the market-place was again to let, and Mr.
David Faux, alias Mr. Edward Freely, had gone--nobody at Grimworth knew
whither. In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was checked.
Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mince-pies, and
having at last made a batch so excellent that Mr. Steene looked at her
with complacency as he ate them, and said they were the best he had ever
eaten in his life, she thought less of bulbuls and renegades ever after.
The secrets of the finer cookery were revived in the breasts of matronly
house-wives, and daughters were again anxious to be initiated in them.

You will further, I hope, be glad to bear, that some purchases of drapery
made by pretty Penny, in preparation for her marriage with Mr. Freely,
came in quite as well for her wedding with young Towers as if they had
been made expressly for the latter occasion. For Penny's complexion had
not altered, and blue always became it best.

Here ends the story of Mr. David Faux, confectioner, and his brother
Jacob. And we see in it, I think, an admirable instance of the
unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis hides herself.

(1860)