Austin and His Friends Part 10

It is scarcely necessary to say that Austin knew nothing whatever about his aunt's preoccupation, and that even if she had taken him into her confidence, he would have paid little or no attention to the matter. I am afraid that his ideas about finance were crude in the extreme, being limited to a sort of vague impression that capital was what you put into a bank, and interest was what you took out; while the difference between the par value of a security and the price you could get for it on the market, would have been to him a hopelessly unfathomable mystery. Aunt Charlotte, therefore, was very wise in abstaining from any reference, in conversation, to the great enterprise for extracting gold from sea-water, in which she hoped to purchase shares; for one could never have told what foolish remark he might have made, though it was quite certain that he would have said something foolish, and probably very exasperating. So she kept her secret locked up in her own breast, and silently counted the hours till she could get a reply from her bankers.

Of course Austin had to give his aunt an account, at breakfast-time next morning, of the pageant of the previous night; and as he confined himself to saying that the scenery and dresses were very fine, and that Mr Buskin was quite unrecognisable, and that all the performers knew their parts, and that he had walked part of the way home with Roger St Aubyn afterwards, the impression left on the good lady's mind was that he had enjoyed himself very much. This inevitable duty accomplished, Austin straightway banished the whole subject from his memory and gave himself up more unreservedly than ever to his garden and his thoughts. How fresh and sweet and welcoming the garden looked on that calm, lovely summer day! How brightly the morning dewdrops twinkled on the leaves, like a sprinkling of liquid diamonds! Every flower seemed to greet him with silent laughter: "Aha, you've been playing truant, have you? Straying into alien precincts, roving in search of something newer and gaudier than anything you have here?

Sunlight palls on you; gas is so much more festive! The scents of the fields are vulgar; finer the hot smells of the playhouse, more meet for a cultured nostril!" Of course Austin made all this nonsense up himself, but he felt so happy that it amused him to attribute the words to the dear flower-friends who were all around him, and to whom he could never be really faithless. Faugh! that playhouse! He would never enter one again. Be an actor! Lubin was a cleaner gentleman than any painted Buskin on the stage. Here, in the clear, pure splendour of the sunlit air, the place where he had been last night loomed up in his consciousness as something meretricious and unwholesome. Yet he was glad he had been, for it made everything so much purer and sweeter by contrast. Never had the garden looked more meetly set, never had the sun shone more genially, and the air impelled the blood and sent it coursing more joyously through his veins, than on that morning of the rejuvenescence of all his high ideals.

Then he drew a small blue volume out of his pocket, and lay down on the gra.s.s with his back against the trunk of an apple-tree. Austin's theory--or one of his theories, for he had hundreds--was that one's literature should always be in harmony with one's surroundings; and so, intending to pa.s.s his morning in the garden, he had chosen 'The Garden of Cyrus' as an appropriate study. He opened it reverently, for it was compact of jewelled thoughts that had been set to words by one of the princes of prose. He, the young garden-lover, sat at the feet of the great garden-mystic, and began to pore wonderingly over the inscrutable secrets of the quincunx. His fine ear was charmed by the rhythm of the sumptuous and stately sentences, and his pulses throbbed in response to every measured phrase in which the lore of garden symmetry and the principles of garden science were set forth. He read of the hanging gardens of Babylon, first made by Queen Semiramis, third or fourth from Nimrod, and magnificently renewed by Nabuchodonosor, according to Josephus: "_from whence, overlooking Babylon, and all the region about it, he found no circ.u.mscription to the eye of his ambition; till, over-delighted with the bravery of this Paradise, in his melancholy metamorphosis he found the folly of that delight, and a proper punishment in the contrary habitation--in wild plantations and wanderings of the fields_." Austin shook his head over this; he did not think it possible to love a garden too much, and demurred to the idea that such a love deserved any punishment at all.

But that was theology, and he had no taste for theological dissertations. So he dipped into the pages where the quincunx is "naturally" considered, and here he admired the encyclopaedic learning of the author, which appeared to have been as wide as that attributed to Solomon; then glanced at the "mystic" part, which he reserved for later study. But one paragraph riveted his attention, as he turned over the leaves. Here was a mine of gold, a treasure-house of suggestiveness and wisdom.

_"Light, that makes things seen, makes some things invisible; were it not for darkness and the shadow of the earth, the n.o.blest part of the creation had remained unseen, and the stars in heaven as invisible as on the fourth day, when they were created above the horizon with the sun, or there was not an eye to behold them. The greatest mystery of religion is expressed by adumbration, and in the n.o.blest part of Jewish types, we find the cherubim shadowing the mercy-seat. Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living. All things fall under this name. The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and light but the shadow of G.o.d."_

Austin delighted in symbolism, and these apparent paradoxes fascinated him. But was it all true? He loved to think that life was the shadow, and death--what we call death--the substance; he had always felt that the reality of everything was to be sought for on the other side. But he could not see why departed souls should be regarded as the shadows of living men. Rather it was we who lived in a vain show, and would continue to do so until the spirit, the true substance of us, should be set free. Well, whatever the truth of it might be, it was all a charming puzzle, and we should learn all about it some day, and meantime he had been furnished with an entirely new idea--the revealing power of darkness. He loved the light because it was beautiful, and now he loved the darkness because it was mysterious, and held such wondrous secrets in its folds. He had never been afraid of the dark even when a child. It had always been a.s.sociated in his mind with sleep and dreams, and he was very fond of both.

Of course it would have been no use attempting to instruct Lubin in the cryptic properties of the quincunx, or any other theories of garden arrangement propounded by Sir Thomas Browne. And Aunt Charlotte would have proved a still more hopeless subject. She had no head for mysticism, poor dear, and Austin often told her she was one of the greatest sceptics he had ever known. "You believe in nothing but your dinner, your bank-book, and your Bible, auntie; I declare it's perfectly shocking," he said to her one day. "And a very good creed too," she replied; "it wouldn't be a bad thing for you either, if you had a little more sound religion and practical common-sense." Just now it was the bank-book phase that was uppermost, and when a letter was brought in to her at breakfast-time next morning bearing the London postmark, she clutched it eagerly and opened it with evident antic.i.p.ation. But as she read the contents her brow clouded and her face fell. Clearly she was disappointed and surprised, but made no remark to Austin.

A couple of days pa.s.sed without anything of importance happening, except that she wrote again to her bankers and looked out anxiously for their reply. But none came, and she grew irritable and disturbed.

It really was most extraordinary; she had always thought that bankers were so shrewd, and prompt, and business-like, and yet here they were, treating her as though she were of no account whatever, and actually leaving her second letter without an answer. The affair was pressing, too. There was certain to be a perfect rush for shares in so exceptional an undertaking, and when once they were all allotted, of course up they'd go to an enormous premium, and all her chances of investing would be lost. It was too exasperating for words. What were the men thinking of? Why were they so neglectful of her interests? She had always been an excellent customer, and had never overdrawn her account--never. And now they were leaving her in the lurch. However, she determined she would not submit. She fumed in silence for yet another day, and then, at dinner in the evening, came out with a most unexpected declaration.

"Austin," she said suddenly, after a long pause, "I'm going to town to-morrow by the 10.27 train."

Austin was peeling an apple, intent on seeing how long a strip he could pare off without breaking it. "Won't it be very hot?" he asked absently.

"Hot? Well, perhaps it will," said Aunt Charlotte, rather nettled at his indifference. "But I can't help that. The fact is that my bankers are giving me a great deal of annoyance just now, and I'm going up to London to have it out with them."

"Really?" replied Austin, politely interested. "I hope they haven't been embezzling your money?"

"Do, for goodness sake, pull yourself together and try not to talk nonsense for once in your life," retorted Aunt Charlotte, tartly.

"Embezzling my money, indeed!--I should just like to catch them at it.

Of course it's nothing of the kind. But I've lately given them certain instructions which they virtually refuse to carry out, and in a case of that sort it's always better to discuss the affair in person."

"I see," said Austin, beginning to munch his apple. "I wonder why they won't do what you want them to. Isn't it very rude of them?"

"Rude? Well--I can't say they've been exactly rude," acknowledged Aunt Charlotte. "But they're making all sorts of difficulties, and hint that they know better than I do----"

"Which is absurd, of course," put in Austin, with his very simplest air.

Aunt Charlotte glanced sharply at him, but there was not the faintest trace of irony in his expression. "I fancy they don't quite understand the question," she said, "so I intend to run up and explain it to them. One can do these things so much better in conversation than by writing. I shall get lunch in town, and then there'll be time for me to do a little shopping, perhaps, before catching the 4.40 back. That will get me here in ample time for dinner at half-past seven."

"And what train do you go by in the morning?" enquired Austin.

"The 10.27," replied his aunt. "I shall take the omnibus from the Peac.o.c.k that starts at a quarter to ten."

It cannot be said that Aunt Charlotte's projected trip to town interested Austin much. Business of any sort was a profound mystery to him, and with regard to speculations, investments, and such-like matters his mind was a perfect blank. He had a vague notion that perhaps Aunt Charlotte wanted some money, and that the bankers had refused to give her any; though whether she had a right to demand it, or they a right to withhold it, he had no more idea than the man in the moon. So he dismissed the whole affair from his mind as something with which he had nothing whatever to do, and spent the evening in the company of Sir Thomas Browne. At ten o'clock he went forth into the garden, and became absorbed in an attempt to identify the different colours of the flowers in the moonlight. It proved a fascinating occupation, for the pale, cold brightness imparted hues to the flowers that were strange and weird, so that it was a matter of real difficulty to say what the colours actually were. Then he wondered how it was he had never before discovered what an inspiring thing it was to wander all alone at night about a garden illuminated by a brilliant moon. The shadows were so black and secret, the radiance so spiritual, the shapes so startlingly fantastic, it was like being in another world. And then the silence. That was the most compelling charm of all. It helped him to feel. And he felt that he was not alone, though he heard nothing and saw n.o.body. The garden was full of flower-fairies, invisible elves and sprites whose mission it was to guard the flowers, and who loved the moonlight more than they loved the day; dainty, diaphanous creatures who were wafted across the smooth lawns on summer breezes, and washed the thirsty petals and drooping leaves in the dew which the clear blue air of night diffuses so abundantly. He had a sense--almost a knowledge--that the garden he was in was a dream-garden, a sort of panoramic phantasm, and that the real garden lay _behind_ it somehow, hidden from material eyesight, eluding material touch, but there all the same, unearthly and elysian, more beautiful a great deal than the one in which he was standing, and teeming with gracious presences. It seemed a revelation to him, this sudden perception of a real world underlying the apparent one; and for nearly half-an-hour he sauntered to and fro in a reverie, leaning sometimes against the old stone fountain, and sometimes watching the pale clouds as they began flitting together as though to keep a rendezvous in s.p.a.ce, until they concealed the face of the moon entirely from view and left the garden dark.

Whether Austin had strange dreams that night or no, certain it is that when he came down to breakfast in the morning his face was set and there was a look of unusual preoccupation in his eyes. Aunt Charlotte, being considerably preoccupied with her own affairs, noticed nothing, and busied herself with the teapot as was her wont. Austin chipped his egg in silence, while his auntie, helping herself generously to fried bacon, made some remark about the desirability of laying a good foundation in view of her journey up to town. Thereupon Austin said:

"Is it absolutely necessary for you to go to town this morning, auntie?"

"Of course it is," replied Aunt Charlotte, munching heartily. "I told you so last night."

"Why can't you go to-morrow instead?" asked Austin, tentatively.

"Would it be too late?"

"I've arranged to go _to-day_," said Aunt Charlotte, with decision.

"The sooner this business is settled the better. What should I gain by waiting?"

"I don't see any particular hurry," said Austin. "It's only giving yourself trouble for nothing. If I were you I'd write what you want to say, and then go up to see these people if their answer was still unsatisfactory."

"But you see you don't know anything about the matter," retorted Aunt Charlotte, beginning to wonder at the boy's persistency. "What in the world makes you want me not to go?"

"Oh--I only thought it might prove unnecessary," replied he, rather lamely. "It's going to be very hot, and after all----"

"It'll be quite as hot to-morrow," said Aunt Charlotte, as she stirred her tea.

"Well, why not go by a later train, then?" suggested Austin. "Look here; go by the 4.20 this afternoon, and take me with you. We'll go to a nice quiet hotel, and have a beautiful dinner, and see some of the sights, and then you'd have all to-morrow morning to do your business with these horrid old gentlemen at the bank. Now don't you think that's rather a good idea?"

"I--dare--_say_!" cried Aunt Charlotte, in her highest key. "So that's what you're aiming at, is it? Oh, you're a cunning boy, my dear, if ever there was one. But your little project would cost at least four times as much as I propose to spend to-day, and for that reason alone it's not to be thought of for a moment. What in creation ever put such an idea into your head?"

"I don't want to come with you in the very least, really--especially as you don't want to have me," replied Austin. "But I do wish you'd give up your idea of going to London by the 10.27 this morning. If you'll only do that I don't care for anything else. Take the same train to-morrow, if you like, but not to-day. That's all I have to ask you."

"But why--why--why?" demanded Aunt Charlotte, in not unnatural amazement.

"I can't tell you why," said Austin. "It wouldn't be any use."

"You are the very absurdest child I ever came across!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "I've often had to put up with your fancies, but never with any so outrageously unreasonable as this. Now not another word. I'm going to travel by the 10.27 this morning, and if you like to come and see me off, you're at perfect liberty to do so."

Austin made no reply, and breakfast proceeded in silence. Then he glanced at the clock, and saw that it was ten minutes to nine. As soon as the meal was finished, he rose from his chair and moved slowly towards the door.

"You still intend to go by the----"

"Hold your tongue!" snapped his aunt. Whereupon Austin left the room without another word. Then he stumped his way upstairs and was not seen again. Aunt Charlotte, meanwhile, began preparations for her journey. It was now close on nine o'clock, and she had to order the dinner, see that she had sufficient money for her expenses, choose a bonnet for travelling in, and look after half-a-dozen other important trifles before setting out to catch the railway omnibus at the Peac.o.c.k. At last Austin, waiting behind a door, heard her enter her room to dress. Very gently he stole out with something in his pocket, and two minutes afterwards was standing on the lawn with his straw hat tilted over his eyes, chattering with Lubin about tubers, corms, and bulbs, potting and bedding-out, and other pleasant mysteries of garden-craft.

It was not very long, however, before a singular bustle was heard on the first floor. Maids ran scuttling up and down stairs, voices resounded through the open windows, and then came the sound of thumps, as of somebody vigorously battering at a door. Austin turned round, and began walking towards the house. He was met by old Martha, who seemed to be in a tremendous fl.u.s.ter about something.

"Master Austin! Master Austin! Oh, here you are. What in the world is to be done? Your aunt's locked up in her bedroom, and n.o.body can find the key!"

"Is that all?" answered Austin calmly. "Then she'll have to stay there till it turns up, evidently."

"But the mistress says she's sure you know all about it," panted Martha, in great distress, "and she's in a most terrible taking. Now, Master Austin, I do beseech you--'tain't no laughing matter, for the omnibus starts in a few minutes, and your aunt----"

A terrific banging was now heard from the locked-up room, accompanied by shouts and cries from the imprisoned lady. Austin advanced to the foot of the staircase, looking rather white, and listened.

"Austin! Austin! Where are you? What have you done with the key?"

shrieked Aunt Charlotte, in a tempest of despair and rage. "Let me out, I say, let me out at once! It's you who have done this, I know it is. Open the door, or I shall lose the train!" A fresh bombardment from the lady's fists here followed. "Where _is_ Austin, Martha? Can't you find him anywhere?"

"He's here, ma'am," cried back Martha, in quavering tones, "but he don't seem as if----"