The Baker's Tale (20 page)

Three miners joined him.

“Lower him down the shaft,” someone in the crowd shouted.

There was a raucous cheer of approval.

The descent began. Murd's face was white, as though covered with ash. He was sweating profusely despite the frigid cold.

The bucket descended into darkness. Murd imagined that the walls of the shaft were closing in to crush him. His breath was laboured.

The bucket hit bottom.

“I have seen enough,” Murd said. “Let us go back to the surface.”

“No, governour. Now we go into the tunnels.”

A groan escaped Murd's lips, as though he had been wounded by a cruel weapon. A look of terror came into his eyes. The men prodded him forward.

They crawled into a tunnel on hands and knees with two lamps to guide them. The tunnel was no longer a source of coal. The miners had followed it one hundred yards to the end of a vein long ago. Two other tunnels extended off of it. One of those had also been fully mined.

Horror fell upon Murd like a spectral hand, not as a thought but as a bodily sensation. A long dark winding way lay between him and the place far above ground where men lived. The entangling forest of dead wood—the crosspieces, bars, and beams that supported the tunnel—was frighteningly fragile. A low deep voice seemed to cry out from the ground: “What visitor is this in Hades?”

One word felt traced by an eternal finger in the drops of cold sweat upon his brow—Death.

There are rats in the tunnels, some of them as big as cats. The miners leave them alone, and the rats pass the miners by. They want no more to do with the miners than the miners want to do with them.

Crawling forward, Murd came face to face with a rat.

He swiped at it. The rat bit him on the hand.

And Murd lost what was left of his reason. His scream sounded like death upon the wing. He managed somehow to turn himself around, grabbed one of the miners' lamps, and slithered like a terrified snake back through the tunnel toward the shaft.

The tunnels are a maze. Murd took a wrong turn. The top of his lamp fell off.

Then the miners heard an explosion. The earth shook. A rush of wind and dust blew past them.

When the dust subsided, the miners searched for Murd as though he were one of their own. They found him. He was alive. They brought him to the surface. Parts of his body were burned black. In other places, the skin had peeled off as though he had been dropped in boiling water.

He did not live long. There was a rattling noise in his throat, a short stifled moan. And Alexander Murd lay dead.

It was hard to believe that he had once been a child who said his prayers at his mother's knee before lying down in bed at night and falling into an innocent slumber.

After Murd's passing, the proper authorities were brought in and took possession of his remains. There was a coroner's inquest. The ruling of the coroner's jury was “Accidental Death.”

Edwin had sad feelings about the matter. Recalling his own brief experience in the mine shaft, he understood the terror that Murd had felt and the horrible nature of his end. After much thought—and with Ruby's approval—he sent a letter of condolence to Isabella, but never received a response.

Ruby's time of hardship soon receded into memory like a nightmare that vanishes with the morning sun. When she thought of her lonely ocean voyage to America, she always thought next of the kindness that Abraham Hart had shown to her, and it made her happier than if she had not journeyed across the sea.

She wrote often to Abraham. At the end of each letter, Edwin added words of friendship in his own hand.

There was much to tell.

It was not long before a little boy named Christopher Octavius Chatfield was seen crawling about their home. His room was decorated with a rainbow of colours, since Ruby was quite certain that babies notice colours from birth.

As Christopher learned to walk, there was a little girl with the face of her mother, whom they named Marie Rebecca. And then another little boy.

Three children, born of tenderness and passion joined.

It gave Abraham great joy when he received a letter informing him that Anthony Abraham Chatfield had been born. Soon after, he wrote to Ruby and Edwin, telling them that he had taken a bride named Margaret and would like to bring her to England to meet his dear friends.

“To satisfy your polite curiosity,” Abraham noted in a postscript, “Margaret is short in stature, but proportioned like those in the general population.”

There was a joyful reunion in London. Ruby and Edwin found Margaret to be delightful. Abraham also met Octavius Joy, who insisted that he and Margaret abandon their hotel immediately and spend the rest of their time in London as guests in his home.

Mr. Joy and Abraham got along as well as two men can and spent considerable time in Mr. Joy's library, which Abraham pronounced a finer collection than that found within the walls of his own bookshop.

Abraham and Margaret also spent considerable time in Edwin and Ruby's home, listening happily to the tread of tiny feet, the sound of prattling words, and children laughing.

At the end of their visit, Edwin told them, “You will always have family and a home where you are welcome in England.”

Meanwhile, as Edwin and Ruby were building their life together, Octavius Joy, like the rest of us, was growing older.

Father Time tarries for no man. But he lays his hand lightly at times upon those who have used him well. Mr. Joy grew old inexorably enough, but remained hale and hearty with a young spirit. His grey head was but a sign that God had given him His blessing.

“I am in want of nothing,” Octavius Joy said from time to time. “When my strength fails me, if I can take my leave quick and quiet, I shall be content.”

He continued to mentor Edwin, speaking often to the younger man about the pleasure and fulfillment of living a principled life.

“Man enjoys the most exalted position in life's creative plan,” Mr. Joy would counsel. “We must always strive to justify that privilege. No one flies to Heaven on wings of words. Conduct is the key. The life of every person we can help is precious. Every man, woman, and child matters.”

As Octavius Joy aged further, his face remained contented with a smile in every wrinkle. There was a calm sunset air about him. He was at peace with himself and the world.

There is a time for all things. Sadly, in Octavius Joy's eightieth year, there came a time for him to die.

His affairs were in perfect order and so systematically wound up that it was as though he had dictated the terms of his end.

On the final day of Mr. Joy's life, he visited a learning center. Upon returning home, he told his housekeeper that he felt a slight uneasiness of breath. He went to his library to read. When he did not appear for dinner at the usual hour, the housekeeper knocked gently on the door. There was no answer, so she opened the door and saw him seated in his most comfortable chair with a book in hand. He seemed to be absorbed in meditation, which at first she hoped he was. A bell-rope hung within his reach, but he had not moved toward it. He was dead.

Death is a natural part of life. It is as certain as being born, although its arrival cannot be calculated with the same precision. Octavius Joy's death, like his life, was gentle and kind. On the day after his passing, his solicitor gave a letter to Edwin and Ruby that Mr. Joy had written for them:

My Dearest Edwin and Ruby,

I am very sorry to leave you. But I am called, and I must go. Do not grieve for me. I have lived a wonderful life.

If God had given me children of my own blood, I would have wished for them to be just like you. May your lives be as long and happy as mine has been.

My love will always be with you,

Octavius
        

In due course, Mr. Joy's estate was settled. His Last Will and Testament bequeathed separately to Marie and myself one hundred pounds annually for the duration of our lives. There were bequests to others, including annuities to his housekeeper and others who had maintained his home.

The house and everything in it, including Mr. Joy's books, were bequeathed to Edwin and Ruby. “It gives me great pleasure,” his Last Will and Testament read, “to know that the home that I have been so happy in for so many years will remain a joyous place.”

The remainder of Mr. Joy's estate amounted to several hundred thousand pounds. This was put into a trust to fund learning centers, those already in existence and also those that might be established in the future.

Edwin was named in Mr. Joy's Last Will and Testament as the Administrator of the trust with a generous annual salary.

“The ability to read becomes part of one's character,” Mr. Joy stated in the closing paragraph of his Will. “A life without the ability to read is like entering a cathedral and looking at the stained glass windows at night.”

There are often wide distinctions between knowledge, wealth, and greatness. Some men know each planet by its Latin name as a
consequence of their studies in school. But they know nothing of charity, mercy, and love.

Octavius Joy was cut from different cloth. He was a man of the highest principles, pointing ever upward. He set himself against ignorance and poverty, and made that battle his life's work. He was ready at all times to give something of his own to help someone else. He advocated education for all, but understood that a loving heart is a necessary complement to knowledge. To the extent that he sought power, it was the power to do good.

The chief pleasure of Mr. Joy's life was giving to others the means to achieve a better life for themselves. He spoke his mind without duplicity. His courtesy never failed him. The desire to do good animated his being until the last moment of his existence on this planet.

There is a cold stone marker in the cemetery where Octavius Joy is buried that states the dates of his birth and death. But his true monument is the thousands of English men and women and their children who can read and write today and have better lives as a consequence of his generosity and kindness.

I am certain that the Lord smiled upon him at the end of his days and said of his life, “Well done.”

Shortly after Octavius Joy's death, Edwin found a portrait of Mr. Joy in the attic. He and Ruby hung it in the dining room after they moved into their new home. Thus, Mr. Joy is a companion to them at dinner every night.

In the years that followed, Edwin more than justified his mentor's good opinion of him. It is in his nature to lead, and people feel comfortable following him.

Like Mr. Joy, Edwin has been steadfast in his determination that opportunity be given to others. He works tirelessly to better the lives of the downtrodden by opening doors to the knowledge that comes with learning to read and write.

One of the learning centers that Edwin has established is in Lancashire.

And now there is one more happening that I must tell.

Mature love is quiet in expressing itself. Its voice is low. It is modest and retiring.

On the day that Ruby and Edwin returned to England, Marie and I were joyful.

“It is a wonderful thing,” Marie said to me that evening, “to see young people that we are so fond of brought together with a lifetime of happiness before them.”

“It is almost enough to make the two of us get married,” said I.

“Nonsense,” Marie responded with a laugh. “We are too old for that.”

“We are too old to be single. Why should we not be married instead of sitting through long evenings by our solitary firesides? Let us marry and make one fireside of it.”

“You are joking.”

“I am not.”

“You are making fun of me.”

She was blushing now.

“I will marry you, Marie, if you will consent to marry me.”

“People would laugh at us.”

“Let them laugh. We have laughed heartily together for many years.”

A twinkle and a tear glistened in her eye.

“Will you marry me, my dear?”

“Yes,” Marie answered. “I would very much like to marry you.”

We have one bakery now and one home. We are not as young as we once were, but we are as light of heart as ever. Marie sits often at night with needle and wool by the fire. I watch as she knits and see a face that is happy and serene.

And now my story is done. Like life, it includes grief and trial and sorrow. Had I only happiness to tell of, this reading would have been very short.

There are dark shadows on the earth. I know that. But darkness means that the light we see is stronger in the contrast. Setting all of the world's good against its evil, I believe that we live on a most respectable planet.

Love is the thing that matters most. It is stronger than all the evil in the world. I think often of those I have known and loved and who are now gone. They touch the chords of my memory softly and harmoniously.

Ruby and Edwin have also lost some who are dear to them. Hearts that they once loved have ceased to beat. Hands that they grasped have grown cold. Eyes that they sought out lie hidden in the grave. But it is the fate of all who mingle with the world and attain the prime of life to lose some of those we love.