The Baker's Tale (18 page)

As Octavius Joy and Edwin left Murd's home, Mr. Joy's face relaxed and became so pleasant again that Edwin was emboldened to give him a hug.

“The absence of a soul in a living man is far more terrible than in a dead one,” Mr. Joy said, reflecting on the hour just passed. “The best I could wish for Murd is that he come someday to be ashamed of what he has done. But that is unlikely. He has no more humanity in him than a stone.”

“I feel the fool for having trusted him,” Edwin uttered.

“We must always be trusting. Trust and love walk hand in hand, but we must learn whom to trust.” Octavius Joy put an arm around
Edwin's shoulders in an enveloping embrace. “Let us go back to my home. Then we will speak about what to do next.”

Mr. Joy's housekeeper had prepared a light lunch, which the two men ate in the study.

“The dexterity of lawyers allows these things to happen,” Octavius Joy told Edwin. “And in this instance, the dexterity of lawyers shall end them. I will speak with my solicitors tomorrow with an eye toward putting Murd's actions in context and bringing them to the attention of the authorities at the highest level. I am not without influence.”

“I would be grateful.”

“It is my obligation,” Mr. Joy responded. “There is a responsibility upon members of a civilized society to curb the excesses of those who drive the bargain of gold against human life. If the laws of England are honestly administered, Murd will be in prison when this is done. I will do everything in my power to accomplish that end. Murd has sown this. Now he shall reap what he has sown.”

The housekeeper cleared away the dishes from their lunch and brought in a pot of freshly brewed tea.

“A man's breath is often shorter but never longer as he ages,” Octavius Joy said to Edwin with a smile. “It is a consolation of sorts that I find myself growing wiser as I grow older. Beyond that, at my age, I strive simply to be cheerful and self-reliant.”

Mr. Joy poured two cups of tea.

“There is another matter that I wish to discuss,” he said.

Edwin waited.

“When I was a young man about your age, the whole of my life was devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth. I was fortunate in worldly matters. Many men worked harder than I did and did not succeed half as well. Then I had an awakening.
I came to understand that we are all responsible for the well-being of our fellow man. And the greater a man's wealth, the greater his responsibility. From that time on, the happiness of others and the advancement of the downtrodden has been the foremost pleasure of my life. I shall never regret devoting my fortune and my years to this cause. I have done some good and, I trust, little harm.

“A long day's work remains to be done in the way of education,” Mr. Joy continued. “There is shameful neglect of the children of the poor in England. If the government fulfilled its duty at the beginning by taking these children off of the streets while they are young and teaching them to read and write, these children would become a part of England's glory rather than the shame of our nation.

“I am growing older. We all are, to be sure. But I am much closer to the end of my days than to the beginning. It is time that I planned for someone to assist me in whatever time I have left on this earth and to carry on my work after I am gone. If I searched through all of England, I could not find one more suited to this task than you are. I see great qualities in you. You are meant to do great things. I would like to employ you.”

“I am honoured,” Edwin answered. “It is something that I would like very much to do, but I cannot do it now. I must go to America for Ruby.”

Octavius Joy put on his spectacles, took his checkbook from a desk drawer, and began to write.

“I am employing you now,” he said, handing the check to Edwin.

“I cannot accept this, sir.”

“But you must. It is a condition of your employment. The amount is sufficient to cover your passage to America, a month
there, and return passage for two. As your first assignment, I charge you with the responsibility of bringing Ruby safely home to England.”

There was something so optimistic in Octavius Joy's manner that Edwin's spirits soared under its influence.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I have great fondness for the two of you and a desire that you be happy together. In time, all will be well.”

“How can you know?”

“It is natural and right that you be together. There is a destiny in these things. It will happen as it is meant to be.”

CHAPTER
12

R
uby mailed the letter in which she poured out her heart to Marie the day after she wrote it. She knew that roughly three weeks would pass before it arrived in London. And three weeks more before she might receive a reply.

If the letter arrived in London.

It was a leap of faith to believe that a chain of unknown people would take a small piece of paper written in her hand and deliver it to a small bakery in a distant part of the world.

If the letter arrived, Marie would show it to Antonio. Would they bring it to Edwin?

Ruby hoped that they would. Love can thrive in memory on slight and sparing food. It was impossible for her to think of Edwin without loving him. Often at night, she awoke from her sleep and thought of him with a hopeful spirit as if he had been whispering to her in her dreams.

One night, Ruby dreamed that Christopher was sitting at her bedside. Seeing that she had opened her eyes, he bent down and
kissed her. “I have come to tell you how happy I am that you are home again,” he told her. “Marie, Antonio, Edwin, and I have been wearying so for your return.” Then Ruby awoke to reality and the drops of summer rain on the window of her tiny room.

Throughout the summer, Ruby went about her life in Boston. Once each week, she visited with Abraham Hart. She looked forward to those occasions. He took her for lunch. They shared long walks. Each time that Ruby finished reading a book that Abraham had given to her, he gave her a new one.

“I would like to take you to a special place,” Abraham told her when they met one sunny morning.

A carriage brought them to the edge of a wood fragrant with wild flowers. Stately oaks rose toward the sky from ground that had never been ploughed.

Abraham led Ruby through a thick green wood. Majestic trees, some with gnarled trunks and twisted boughs, stood in beautiful confusion. Other trees, which had been subdued months before by blasts of winter wind, had not tumbled fully down and lay bare in the leafy arms of survivors, as though unwilling to disturb the general repose by the crash of their fall.

Ruby and Abraham walked side by side. There were times when his short legs put him at a disadvantage in climbing over a fallen tree or jumping from rock to rock across a stream. But he had trod this path many times and was very much at ease.

His mood was cheerful.

“There is an old story,” he told Ruby. “It is about a man who, when asked if he could play the fiddle, answered that he was sure he could but did not know with absolute certainty because he had never tried.”

Ruby laughed, and they continued on.

At last, they came to a waterfall. Foaming water danced from crag to crag and from stone to stone, sparkling in the sun. Ivy and moss crept in clusters around the surrounding trees.

“I have a liking for this spot,” Abraham told her. “I visit it often when the weather is fair.”

Ruby's eyes grew moist. The trees were whispering to her that Edwin was not with her, and this was a moment that should be shared with him. She turned her face so that it was hidden from view. But Abraham could see that she was weeping.

He reached up and put his hand on Ruby's shoulder, not as one who would be her lover but with love.

“We have been friends from the start, have we not?” he said.

“We have.”

“And we shall be friends in the future. So neither of us should mind the other speaking freely. I asked you once why you came to America. And you gave me no answer.”

“I have longed for home till I am weary in my tears.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“And if I should tell you everything?”

“I would listen as your friend. We need never be ashamed of our tears.”

So Ruby poured out her heart, and recounted all that had happened. She told of her life from the beginning and how, as much as life itself, she loved Edwin.

“To the last hour of my life, he will be part of me. I love him so dearly that I am willing to suffer for him, even though he does not know of my pain. There is a vision of Edwin in my mind. It is always with me. A vision of what I might have been to him and he to me, if only he had loved me. I would not have the memory of Edwin taken away for anything that life can give me. But I love the
memory of him too deeply to be happy. What is left of my heart is in England.”

The rays of the sun fell upon the water. Ruby and Abraham sat on a large rock just beyond reach of the spray. A lonely princess and a good elf in a fairy tale might have sat and talked as they talked that day and looked very much like them.

“Let me ask you a question,” Abraham said. “You have told me what you feel for Edwin. What did Edwin feel for you?”

“It was foolish of me. But I thought perhaps he might love me or that such love might grow someday.”

“I do not want to hear ‘perhaps' or ‘might.' Did you feel in your heart that Edwin loved you?”

“I did.”

“Tell me of Edwin's character.”

“He is kind and good and caring.”

“You know the purity of your own heart. Would you give it to one whose heart was less pure than your own?”

“No.”

“Did you confront Edwin and give him an opportunity to speak to the horrible things that were told to you by Murd and his daughter?”

“No.”

“And it was arranged by those two so you could not. Instead, you were exiled to America, willed away like a horse or dog.”

“I felt perhaps that it was God's will.”

The sun had moved behind Abraham, casting an image of him the size of a giant upon the ground.

“You fall into the common mistake of attributing to God matters for which He is in no way responsible. A God who sought to tear you away from Edwin would be an idiot.”

Ruby looked upward toward the sky.

“Perhaps it would be better if you did not call God an idiot.”

“I did not call God an idiot. I said that, if God did a particular thing—and I do not believe that He did—then His wisdom would be called into question. Love is the most beautiful of the Almighty's works. But like many of His works, it relies upon the assistance of mortals for implementation.”

Abraham rose from the rock and stood above Ruby so that she was in his shadow.

“When I was a boy, I liked to pretend that I saw images in the flames from the logs burning in the fireplace. My imagination entertained my parents and myself. Shall I tell you what I see in the fire of your heart? I see a heart well worth winning and well won. A heart that is strong and true. It makes far more sense for you to pursue the happiness you dream about than to shut out the possibility of your dream coming true.”

“And what if my thoughts of a life with Edwin are all a foolish dream?”

“You talk of love. I will tell you what love is. It is trust and belief in the person you love against the whole wide world. If you love Edwin, you will believe in him.”

A gentle breeze filtered through the leaves, whispering its assent.

“Go back to London. Follow your heart. It is in England with those you love.”

Abraham's words were spoken with such conviction and so mirrored Ruby's hopes that she could not doubt them. But even as her spirits rose, reality brought them down.

“I have no money to return to London.”

“Money is not a problem.”

“It is, since I have none.”

Abraham looked at her with kindness in his eyes.

“I am a man of means. It would be my privilege to pay for your passage.”

“I could not accept that.”

“I have more money than I need and more than a man of my circumstances could spend in a lifetime.”

Ruby could not help but banter a bit.

“No man knows how much he can spend until he tries.”

“Perhaps not. But since I have no intention of undertaking such an experiment, I am unlikely to be in need. I beg you to take this gift from me.”

“You are an angel.”

“I am not an angel. I am an erring and imperfect man. But there is a quality that all men have in common with the angels—the ability to bring happiness to others.”

The day whispered of autumn when Ruby arrived at Boston Harbor for the journey home. Abraham accompanied her to the pier. He had paid for her to be a cabin passenger.

“I will miss our conversations and walks,” Abraham told her as they readied to part. “But it is the expectation of one such as myself, and indeed of all men, that some of those we care about will have more meaningful attachments and leave us. If you love Edwin as you say you do, he must be a good man. And no good man could resist you. I take joy in knowing that the best part of your life lies ahead.”

“I shall never forget your kindness,” Ruby said. “You are a friend, as good as any in the world. If it had not mercifully come to pass that I had you to comfort me, I might have gone mad. For
so long as my heart beats, I will treasure the remembrance of all that you have given to me.”

Ruby dropped to one knee, held Abraham by the shoulders, and drew him close.

“This is the opposite of the way things are done in fairy tales,” he said as he returned Ruby's embrace. “The prince is supposed to kneel down before the beautiful princess.”

“Whatever your height, I would kneel down in thanks for all that you have done.”

“You will write to me, I hope.”

“I will; I promise. One day, perhaps, we shall see each other again.”

Ruby boarded the ship and waved to Abraham as the vessel moved away from the pier. The distance between them was such that she could neither see the tears that streamed down his cheeks nor hear his sobs.

Marie, Octavius Joy, and I bade Edwin farewell at Euston Railway Station as he began the first leg of the journey that would take him to Liverpool and then to Boston. Edwin had read about Henry Hudson, Walter Raleigh, and other famous men who had travelled to America. This was a quest of a different order.

The sun was rising in the sky the following morning when Edwin boarded the ship in Liverpool. He carried Ruby's letter with him. There was no need of light to read it, for he knew its contents by heart. Ruby's address was written on a piece of paper and also fixed in his mind. He thought about what the moment would be like when they first saw each other again.

Had fate not intervened, he might, in a matter of days, have seen the outline of her ship on the horizon.