The Lucky Number. Ian Hay
At the Municipal luncheon which followed the inauguration of Crake Hall, one chair was vacant; the Mayor, in his opening remarks, referring sympathetically to the fact. Mr. Baxter, to whom had fallen the honour of reading the Address of Welcome to their distinguished guest that morning, had found the strain of the proceedings rather too great for his advanced years, and had reluctantly begged to be excused from participating further in the ceremonies of the day. In short, Mr. Baxter, his task completed, had gone home to bed. Later in the proceedings the Lord Lieutenant also alluded to the matter. His Lordship was a statesman of somewhat limited ideas, and it is just possible that he was grateful to have had a topic suggested to him. So he spoke quite feelingly of the empty chair—the chair which was to have been occupied by “our eminent fellow-citizen, Mr.—er—Buxton.” It was a cheering and reassuring sign, he continued, of our national and civic solidity of character and sense of proportion that Broxborough, where to the unseeing eye of the outside world nothing seemed to matter save linoleum, should yet be able, amid its manifold industrial activities, to produce a man—a man in quite humble circumstances—to whom Linoleum was nothing and Letters everything. Napoleon had called us a nation of shopkeepers; but so long as a commercial community like Broxborough could go on breeding homespun scholars like Mr.—ah—Dexter, we as a nation could continue to give the lie to Napoleon. (Loud and prolonged applause.)
Meanwhile the recipient of these testimonials lay a-dying in his own front parlour. Ada Weeks had put him straight to bed there on his return, utterly exhausted, from the Inauguration. All his frail physical powers had been concentrated for three days on making himself word-perfect in the Address—which he had delivered, by the way, flawlessly. Now reaction had come. An hour later, more nearly frightened than I had ever seen her, Ada fetched me.
My patient had just asked me, faintly but fearlessly, one of the last questions that mortal man can ask; and I had given him his answer.
“I am quite ready,” he replied calmly. “I am only seventy-four; but it is well that a man should go at the zenith of his career.”
“Are there any arrangements you would like to make?” I asked. “Anything you would like to say?”
“Yes. Is Ada there?”
“Of course I am there!” The small, stricken figure crouching on the other side of the bed put out a skinny paw and took the old man's hand. She held it steadfastly for the rest of the time he lived.
“Would you like to see the Rector?” I asked.
“No, no. I am at peace with God. It is of my little granddaughter that I would speak.” His voice was stronger now. “My annuity dies with me. I have some small savings, which she will receive. But they will not keep her. I shall be grateful if you will exert your influence, sir, in enabling her to go into service.”
“There is a vacancy in my house, if Ada will come,” I said.
“Thank you. Will you go to the Doctor, Ada?”
Ada, with tears running freely at last, nodded in answer; and the dying man proceeded to the business which was ever uppermost in his thoughts.
“Then, sir, my Library.”
“Yes. What are you going to do with it? Leave it to the town?”
“No, no, no, no!” He was strangely emphatic.
“What, then?” I asked. I had an uneasy feeling that the Library was going to be bequeathed to me, and I did not want it in the least. But my fears were relieved at once.
“I intend to leave it to Ada—temporarily.”
“Temporarily?”
“Yes. But as she will be an inmate of your household, she will probably desire to take you into her confidence, and possibly avail herself of your assistance.” His voice failed again; his grip on life was relaxing rapidly. Then he recovered himself, and almost sat up.
“Will you promise me, sir, to assist Ada to carry out my wishes with regard to the disposal—”
“I promise,” I said. “Don’t exhaust yourself.”
The old man sank back, with a long and gentle sigh.
“Then I die contented, and reassured. Re—” His voice weakened again. Then he rallied, for a final effort:
“I have lived respected, I think!”
That was all.
I looked across to Ada, and nodded. Characteristically, she rose from her knees, crossed to the window, and drew down the blind.
VIII
Next morning, Ada Weeks and I sat facing one another in my study, across a newly opened packing case. It contained Mr. Baxter's Library.
“But why must we?” I asked.
“We need n’t worry why. He said every blessed book was to be destroyed, and that's all there is about it. Mr. McAndrew is burning rubbish outside: I’ve told him we’ve got some more for him. Let's get it over, and go back to Grampa—sir,” concluded Ada suddenly, remembering somewhat tardily that she was addressing her employer.
We unpacked the books. First came some musty theological tomes.
“He knew a lot out of them,” remarked Ada. “Used to fire it off at the Rector, and people who did n’t believe in religion, or could n’t. He picked it all up from his old Archdeacon, though, long before I came to him.”
“When did you come, by the way?”
“Nearly six years ago now. I was living with an aunt. She went and died when I was nine, and Grampa sent for me here. It was me that learned him all his new stuff–science, and machinery, and aeroplanes, and things like that. He did n’t know nothink but Latin and Greek and history and things up till then. Here's the Cyclopædia coming out now. He never used it till I come. He never even knew it was four volumes short until I told him. … This next lot is mostly little books he picked up cheap at second-hand places—mouldy little things, most of 'em. Some of them were useful, though. Here's one—‘The Amateur Architect.’ It’s queer how fussy people can be about house-planning, and ventilation, and drainage, and things like that, especially when they know they’ve got to live all their lives in a house where they have no more say in the ventilation and drainage than my aunt's cat! Grampa had to learn nearly the whole of this book, they wanted so many different bits of it. Well, I think we have fuel enough now for a start.”
We staggered into the garden, with arms full, to where McAndrew's bonfire was burning fiercely. McAndrew himself, having regard to his chronic interest in other people's business, I had despatched upon an errand. Soon the Encyclopædia and the theological works were engulfed in flame. Some odd volumes followed. I cremated my old friend Robert Southey with my own hands. This done, we returned to the packing-case and delved again.
“Did Mr. Baxter wish everything to be burned?” I asked. “What about the presentation volumes—the Shakespeare, for instance?”
“They was all to be burned,” announced Ada doggedly, lowering her head into the case and avoiding my glance.
“Very well,” I said.
Suddenly Ada looked up again, fiercely.
“Cross your heart and wish you may die if you look inside one of them!” she commanded.
I meekly took the grisly oath. But chance was too strong for us. Ada, eager to keep me entirely aloof from the mystery, attempted to lift four large volumes out of the case at once.