'The Liberry' by Ian Hay - HTML preview

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 needn'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 didn't believe in religion, or couldn'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 didn'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. The top volume—the Presentation Shakespeare itself—slipped off the others, fell upon the floor, and lay upon its back wide open. I could not help observing that it was a London Telephone Directory.

For a moment Ada and I regarded one another steadily. She did not wink an eyelash. Indeed, it was I who felt guilty.

"I may as well see them all now," I said.

"Please yourself," said Ada coldly.

It was a strange collection. There were three Telephone Directories in all—all old friends of mine, and peculiarly adapted, from their size and dignity, for "Presentation" purposes. (I think they were Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante. The Presentation Tennyson, however, proved to be a Bulb Catalogue.) There was a Hall and Knight's Algebra, from which, in my presence, the old man had frequently and most movingly quoted Keats. Homer, as Pettigrew had correctly indicated, was an elementary German grammar. Plato's Apology was Mr. Chardenal's First French Course.

"He used to get them cheaper than the real ones," explained Ada. "Besides, what did it matter to him, anyhow?"

What indeed? Poor old boy!

I worked through the whole collection—the miscellaneous flotsam of second-hand bookshops and jumble sales—old novels sold in bundles; old directories sold as waste paper. Every book was neatly covered, and decorated with a sprawling number—the sight of which, although it advertised nothing to the outside world but the position of a book on a shelf, had never failed, for more than thirty years, to switch on the right record in that amazing repertoire.

Idly, I picked out the last book in the box. It was a stumpy little volume, bearing the number Twenty-Five.

"That's 'Orace," said Ada promptly. "It's a real one—in Latin: only it has the English on the opposite page. We used that a lot."

I turned over the time-soiled leaves, and my eye encountered a familiar passage. I looked up.

"I think he would have liked to have a small inscription on the coffin," I said. "We can arrange it when we go back to the house. There's a line here that seems to me to describe him very accurately."

"Read it," said Ada. I did so:

"Of upright life, and stainless purity."

"Yes; he was all that," said Ada thoughtfully. "Never done nothink on nobody; and always the gentleman. It will look nice on the plate. How does it go in Latin?"

I read aloud the ancient tag.

"Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus—"

Ada nodded her head vigorously.

"Put it in Latin," she said. "He'd have liked it that way. Besides, it'll learn Mould and Pettigrew, and that lot!”

 THE END