I mixed a glass of weak whiskey and water, and made him drink it. Presently he began to talk—in a low voice, with pauses for breath; but after a while with a flicker of his old graciousness and dignity.
"The late Archdeacon, sir, used to observe that a man should have no secrets from his banker, his lawyer, or his doctor. (He had a great many from all three, but no matter!) I have no banker, and no lawyer; but I have a doctor—a very kind doctor—and I am going to tell him something which it is only fair he should know.
"I was born before the days of Free Education. I was earning my living in the streets of London when Mr. Forster brought in the Bill of Eighteen Seventy. My circumstances were extremely humble. I passed the first years of my life on a canal barge. (My uncle steered the barge. I think he was my uncle.) It is difficult to educate children so reared. They have no permanent place of abode; no particular school-district is responsible for such little vagrants. So I grew up illiterate. My uncle died. I earned my living as best I could. I was strong and active: I engaged in tasks which demanded no knowledge of letters. I learned to cipher a little in my head and to read the ordinary numerals: but the alphabet remained a mystery to me."
"Why did you not learn to read and write?"
"I did try. At the age of twenty I determined to master my ignorance. I purchased a primer, and endeavoured to teach myself. But that task was hopeless. I entered a night-school—and they asked me what I wished to study. Languages—Mathematics—Science—Engineering? How could I, a great grown man, tell them that I wanted to learn to read and write? I hurried out of the building.
"Then I married. I married a woman as unlettered as myself. Whom else could I ask? We were happy together, in our humble way. But we had few associates, and such as we had possessed all our ignorance and none of our aspirations."
"Had you children?"
"One daughter—Ada's mother. You may depend upon it we sent her to school! And she learnt quickly—far too quickly for me. I had cherished a hope that my child and I might commence our education together. But how could the muscle-bound intellect of an illiterate of thirty keep pace with the nimble wits of a sharp little girl?"
The nimble wits of a sharp little girl! Somehow I seemed to recognize that portrait.
"My daughter had passed the goal almost before her father had started. Once more, discouraged and baffled, I relinquished my ambitions: I was a foolish fellow to have entertained them at all. But my child was good to me—very good. Although she possessed neither the art nor the patience to teach me my letters, she discovered in me my one talent—quite a phenomenal aptitude for memorization. Compensation, probably. If I heard an ordinary newspaper article read over once or twice, I could repeat it word for word without prompting. And so to satisfy my hungry soul I would beg my little daughter to read aloud to me her school tasks, or her evening lessons—elementary history, geography, and the like. I never forgot them: they were the first real learning I ever possessed. I can repeat them still—and I think they kept me sane.
"My daughter grew up; married; had a daughter of her own; died; and I was alone again. Suddenly I perceived that I had passed middle age. I was no longer able-bodied; and I began to realize that when the body begins to fail, it is the brain that must carry on. And I had no brain—nothing but a few instincts and rules of life. They were wholesome instincts and healthy rules of life; but as a means of livelihood they were valueless. I began to slip down. I supported myself by odd and menial tasks: I cleaned knives and boots: I sold newspapers which I could not read: I spent long hours as a night watchman, occupying my mind by repeating to myself passages from my little girl's schoolbooks.
"Then came a hard winter: work was scarce enough for skilled labourers, let alone unskilled. As for the illiterate, there was no market for them at all. I tramped from London to try my fortune elsewhere; and came to Broxborough. I was destitute: I sang in the streets for bread—songs I had learnt by listening in public houses or at popular entertainments in my younger days. And there the late Archdeacon found me. I was a stranger, and he took me in." He was silent again.
"He was very good to you?" I said presently.
"He was an angel from Heaven, sir!"
"But didn't he teach you to read?"
The old man looked up at me piteously.
"Sir, I never confessed to him that I could not! And he never found me out! Why should he? I was his servant, engaged on purely domestic duties. Such clerical work as dealing with tradesmen involved was attended to by the housekeeper. One day my master asked me if I had read the Prime Minister's speech, and I replied that I never read the newspapers. I intended the statement to be a confession, leading up to a fuller confession; but instead, the good old man took me to mean that I despised politics and journalism and was interested only in philosophy and literature. From that day he admitted me to all the privileges of his literary companionship. His favourite hobby was reading aloud—preferably passages from the Classics—and he had few to read to. None, in fact. I was appointed his audience. Every evening we sat together and he read aloud to me, with every kind of illuminating comment. My peculiar faculty for memorization, intensified by the absence of any other medium of self-cultivation, enabled me to commit to memory the greater part of what he read and said. At the end of ten years I could quote long passages from most of the standard works of literature. When the dear old man died, I was a human fountain of quotations—poetical, historical, philosophical. Just that, and nothing more. Once more I had to make a niche for myself in the world. My accumulated lore was my sole asset. So I took this little house, and set up my useless—because mainly ornamental—little library, and endeavoured to win the respect of my new neighbours by dispensing an erudition which was in reality second-hand. Second-hand, sir!" He looked up wistfully. "Am I an impostor?"
"All learning is second-hand," I said. "You are not an impostor."
He rose to his feet, and took my hand.
"You have lifted a load from my mind," he said. "Confession is good for the soul. But you will understand now why I cannot deliver that Address."
"Why not?" I repeated. "I will get a copy of it for you, and you can learn it by heart."
"You can do that?"
"Certainly."
The colour came back to his face.
"The time is short," he said eagerly—"very short; and my memory is not what it was: but I will try. Ada shall read it to me, and read it to me, and read it to me, until I am word-perfect! I will succeed! It will be wonderful!"
"It will score off Mould and Pettigrew too," I added spitefully.
But obviously Mr. Baxter was not thinking of Mould or Pettigrew. He was up again in his rightful place, in the clouds.
"It will be my Apotheosis!" he declared; and brought down his feeble hand with a gentle thump upon the table beside him.
"That's right!" said Miss Weeks, entering. "Break all the cups!”