Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (552 page)

In this way, Mr. Freely got himself introduced into the home of the Palfreys, and notwithstanding a tendency in the male part of the family to jeer at him a little as “peaky” and bow-legged, he presently established his position as an accepted and frequent guest.  Young Towers looked at him with increasing disgust when they met at the house on a Sunday, and secretly longed to try his ferret upon him, as a piece of vermin which that valuable animal would be likely to tackle with unhesitating vigour.  But — so blind sometimes are parents — neither Mr. nor Mrs. Palfrey suspected that Penny would have anything to say to a tradesman of questionable rank whose youthful bloom was much withered.  Young Towers, they thought, had an eye to her, and
that
was likely enough to be a match some day; but Penny was a child at present.  And all the while Penny was imagining the circumstances under which Mr. Freely would make her an offer: perhaps down by the row of damson-trees, when they were in the garden before tea; perhaps by letter — in which case, how would the letter begin?  “Dearest Penelope?” or “My dear Miss Penelope?” or straight off, without dear anything, as seemed the most natural when people were embarrassed?  But, however he might make the offer, she would not accept it without her father’s consent: she would always be true to Mr. Freely, but she would not disobey her father.  For Penny was a good girl, though some of her female friends were afterwards of opinion that it spoke ill for her not to have felt an instinctive repugnance to Mr. Freely.

But he was cautious, and wished to be quite sure of the ground he trod on.  His views on marriage were not entirely sentimental, but were as duly mingled with considerations of what would be advantageous to a man in his position, as if he had had a very large amount of money spent on his education.  He was not a man to fall in love in the wrong place; and so, he applied himself quite as much to conciliate the favour of the parents, as to secure the attachment of Penny.  Mrs. Palfrey had not been inaccessible to flattery, and her husband, being also of mortal mould, would not, it might be hoped, be proof against rum — that very fine Jamaica rum — of which Mr. Freely expected always to have a supply sent him from Jamaica.  It was not easy to get Mr. Palfrey into the parlour behind the shop, where a mild back-street light fell on the features of the heroic admiral; but by getting hold of him rather late one evening as he was about to return home from Grimworth, the aspiring lover succeeded in persuading him to sup on some collared beef which, after Mrs. Palfrey’s brawn, he would find the very best of cold eating.

From that hour Mr. Freely felt sure of success: being in privacy with an estimable man old enough to be his father, and being rather lonely in the world, it was natural he should unbosom himself a little on subjects which he could not speak of in a mixed circle — especially concerning his expectations from his uncle in Jamaica, who had no children, and loved his nephew Edward better than any one else in the world, though he had been so hurt at his leaving Jamaica, that he had threatened to cut him off with a shilling.  However, he had since written to state his full forgiveness, and though he was an eccentric old gentleman and could not bear to give away money during his life, Mr. Edward Freely could show Mr. Palfrey the letter which declared, plainly enough, who would be the affectionate uncle’s heir.  Mr. Palfrey actually saw the letter, and could not help admiring the spirit of the nephew who declared that such brilliant hopes as these made no difference to his conduct; he should work at his humble business and make his modest fortune at it all the same.  If the Jamaica estate was to come to him — well and good.  It was nothing very surprising for one of the Freely family to have an estate left him, considering the lands that family had possessed in time gone by — nay, still possessed in the Northumberland branch.  Would not Mr. Palfrey take another glass of rum? and also look at the last year’s balance of the accounts?  Mr. Freely was a man who cared to possess personal virtues, and did not pique himself on his family, though some men would.

We know how easily the great Leviathan may be led, when once there is a hook in his nose or a bridle in his jaws.  Mr. Palfrey was a large man, but, like Leviathan’s, his bulk went against him when once he had taken a turning.  He was not a mercurial man, who easily changed his point of view.  Enough.  Before two months were over, he had given his consent to Mr. Freely’s marriage with his daughter Penny, and having hit on a formula by which he could justify it, fenced off all doubts and objections, his own included.  The formula was this: “I’m not a man to put my head up an entry before I know where it leads.”

Little Penny was very proud and fluttering, but hardly so happy as she expected to be in an engagement.  She wondered if young Towers cared much about it, for he had not been to the house lately, and her sister and brothers were rather inclined to sneer than to sympathize.  Grimworth rang with the news.  All men extolled Mr. Freely’s good fortune; while the women, with the tender solicitude characteristic of the sex, wished the marriage might turn out well.

While affairs were at this triumphant juncture, Mr. Freely one morning observed that a stone-carver who had been breakfasting in the eating-room had left a newspaper behind.  It was the
X-shire Gazette
, and X-shire being a county not unknown to Mr. Freely, he felt some curiosity to glance over it, and especially over the advertisements.  A slight flush came over his face as he read.  It was produced by the following announcement: — “If David Faux, son of Jonathan Faux, late of Gilsbrook, will apply at the office of Mr. Strutt, attorney, of Rodham, he will hear of something to his advantage.”

“Father’s dead!” exclaimed Mr. Freely, involuntarily.  “Can he have left me a legacy?”

CHAPTER II
I

Perhaps it was a result quite different from your expectations, that Mr. David Faux should have returned from the West Indies only a few years after his arrival there, and have set up in his old business, like any plain man who has never travelled.  But these cases do occur in life.  Since, as we know, men change their skies and see new constellations without changing their souls, it will follow sometimes that they don’t change their business under those novel circumstances.

Certainly, this result was contrary to David’s own expectations.  He had looked forward, you are aware, to a brilliant career among “the blacks”; but, either because they had already seen too many white men, or for some other reason, they did not at once recognize him as a superior order of human being; besides, there were no princesses among them.  Nobody in Jamaica was anxious to maintain David for the mere pleasure of his society; and those hidden merits of a man which are so well known to himself were as little recognized there as they notoriously are in the effete society of the Old World.  So that in the dark hints that David threw out at the Oyster Club about that life of Sultanic self-indulgence spent by him in the luxurious Indies, I really think he was doing himself a wrong; I believe he worked for his bread, and, in fact, took to cooking as, after all, the only department in which he could offer skilled labour.  He had formed several ingenious plans by which he meant to circumvent people of large fortune and small faculty; but then he never met with exactly the right circumstances.  David’s devices for getting rich without work had apparently no direct relation with the world outside him, as his confectionery receipts had.  It is possible to pass a great many bad half pennies and bad half-crowns, but I believe there has no instance been known of passing a halfpenny or a half-crown as a sovereign.  A sharper can drive a brisk trade in this world: it is undeniable that there may be a fine career for him, if he will dare consequences; but David was too timid to be a sharper, or venture in any way among the mantraps of the law.  He dared rob nobody but his mother.  And so he had to fall back on the genuine value there was in him — to be content to pass as a good halfpenny, or, to speak more accurately, as a good confectioner.  For in spite of some additional reading and observation, there was nothing else he could make so much money by; nay, he found in himself even a capability of extending his skill in this direction, and embracing all forms of cookery; while, in other branches of human labour, he began to see that it was not possible for him to shine.  Fate was too strong for him; he had thought to master her inclination and had fled over the seas to that end; but she caught him, tied an apron round him, and snatching him from all other devices, made him devise cakes and patties in a kitchen at Kingstown.  He was getting submissive to her, since she paid him with tolerable gains; but fevers and prickly heat, and other evils incidental to cooks in ardent climates, made him long for his native land; so he took ship once more, carrying his six years’ savings, and seeing distinctly, this time, what were Fate’s intentions as to his career.  If you question me closely as to whether all the money with which he set up at Grimworth consisted of pure and simple earnings, I am obliged to confess that he got a sum or two for charitably abstaining from mentioning some other people’s misdemeanours.  Altogether, since no prospects were attached to his family name, and since a new christening seemed a suitable commencement of a new life, Mr. David Faux thought it as well to call himself Mr. Edward Freely.

But lo! now, in opposition to all calculable probability, some benefit appeared to be attached to the name of David Faux.  Should he neglect it, as beneath the attention of a prosperous tradesman?  It might bring him into contact with his family again, and he felt no yearnings in that direction: moreover, he had small belief that the “something to his advantage” could be anything considerable.  On the other hand, even a small gain is pleasant, and the promise of it in this instance was so surprising, that David felt his curiosity awakened.  The scale dipped at last on the side of writing to the lawyer, and, to be brief, the correspondence ended in an appointment for a meeting between David and his eldest brother at Mr. Strutt’s, the vague “something” having been defined as a legacy from his father of eighty-two pounds, three shillings.

David, you know, had expected to be disinherited; and so he would have been, if he had not, like some other indifferent sons, come of excellent parents, whose conscience made them scrupulous where much more highly-instructed people often feel themselves warranted in following the bent of their indignation.  Good Mrs. Faux could never forget that she had brought this ill-conditioned son into the world when he was in that entirely helpless state which excluded the smallest choice on his part; and, somehow or other, she felt that his going wrong would be his father’s and mother’s fault, if they failed in one tittle of their parental duty.  Her notion of parental duty was not of a high and subtle kind, but it included giving him his due share of the family property; for when a man had got a little honest money of his own, was he so likely to steal?  To cut the delinquent son off with a shilling, was like delivering him over to his evil propensities.  No; let the sum of twenty guineas which he had stolen be deducted from his share, and then let the sum of three guineas be put back from it, seeing that his mother had always considered three of the twenty guineas as his; and, though he had run away, and was, perhaps, gone across the sea, let the money be left to him all the same, and be kept in reserve for his possible return.  Mr. Faux agreed to his wife’s views, and made a codicil to his will accordingly, in time to die with a clear conscience.  But for some time his family thought it likely that David would never reappear; and the eldest son, who had the charge of Jacob on his hands, often thought it a little hard that David might perhaps be dead, and yet, for want of certitude on that point, his legacy could not fall to his legal heir.  But in this state of things the opposite certitude — namely, that David was still alive and in England — seemed to be brought by the testimony of a neighbour, who, having been on a journey to Cattelton, was pretty sure he had seen David in a gig, with a stout man driving by his side.  He could “swear it was David,” though he could “give no account why, for he had no marks on him; but no more had a white dog, and that didn’t hinder folks from knowing a white dog.”  It was this incident which had led to the advertisement.

The legacy was paid, of course, after a few preliminary disclosures as to Mr. David’s actual position.  He begged to send his love to his mother, and to say that he hoped to pay her a dutiful visit by and by; but, at present, his business and near prospect of marriage made it difficult for him to leave home.  His brother replied with much frankness.

“My mother may do as she likes about having you to see her, but, for my part, I don’t want to catch sight of you on the premises again.  When folks have taken a new name, they’d better keep to their new ‘quinetance.”

David pocketed the insult along with the eighty-two pounds three, and travelled home again in some triumph at the ease of a transaction which had enriched him to this extent.  He had no intention of offending his brother by further claims on his fraternal recognition, and relapsed with full contentment into the character of Mr. Edward Freely, the orphan, scion of a great but reduced family, with an eccentric uncle in the West Indies.  (I have already hinted that he had some acquaintance with imaginative literature; and being of a practical turn, he had, you perceive, applied even this form of knowledge to practical purposes.)

It was little more than a week after the return from his fruitful journey, that the day of his marriage with Penny having been fixed, it was agreed that Mrs. Palfrey should overcome her reluctance to move from home, and that she and her husband should bring their two daughters to inspect little Penny’s future abode and decide on the new arrangements to be made for the reception of the bride.  Mr. Freely meant her to have a house so pretty and comfortable that she need not envy even a wool-factor’s wife.  Of course, the upper room over the shop was to be the best sitting-room; but also the parlour behind the shop was to be made a suitable bower for the lovely Penny, who would naturally wish to be near her husband, though Mr. Freely declared his resolution never to allow
his
wife to wait in the shop.  The decisions about the parlour furniture were left till last, because the party was to take tea there; and, about five o’clock, they were all seated there with the best muffins and buttered buns before them, little Penny blushing and smiling, with her “crop” in the best order, and a blue frock showing her little white shoulders, while her opinion was being always asked and never given.  She secretly wished to have a particular sort of chimney ornaments, but she could not have brought herself to mention it.  Seated by the side of her yellow and rather withered lover, who, though he had not reached his thirtieth year, had already crow’s-feet about his eyes, she was quite tremulous at the greatness of her lot in being married to a man who had travelled so much — and before her sister Letty!  The handsome Letitia looked rather proud and contemptuous, thought her nature brother-in-law an odious person, and was vexed with her father and mother for letting Penny marry him.  Dear little Penny!  She certainly did look like a fresh white-heart cherry going to be bitten off the stem by that lipless mouth.  Would no deliverer come to make a slip between that cherry and that mouth without a lip?

“Quite a family likeness between the admiral and you, Mr. Freely,” observed Mrs. Palfrey, who was looking at the family portrait for the first time.  “It’s wonderful! and only a grand-uncle.  Do you feature the rest of your family, as you know of?”

“I can’t say,” said Mr. Freely, with a sigh.  “My family have mostly thought themselves too high to take any notice of me.”

At this moment an extraordinary disturbance was heard in the shop, as of a heavy animal stamping about and making angry noises, and then of a glass vessel falling in shivers, while the voice of the apprentice was heard calling “Master” in great alarm.

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.”