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! Olozenges! 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.
