Austin and His Friends Part 11

"Call Lubin with a ladder!" interrupted the desperate lady. "I must catch the omnibus, if I break all my bones in getting out of the window. Where's Lubin? Isn't there a ladder tall enough? Austin!

Austin! Where _is_ Austin, and why doesn't he open the door?"

"He was here not a moment ago," replied Martha, tremulously, "but where he's got to now, or where he's put the key, the Lord only knows.

Perhaps he's gone to see about a ladder. Lubin! have you seen Master Austin anywhere?"

But Austin, un.o.bserved in the confusion, having stealthily glanced at his watch, had slipped out at the garden gate, and now stood looking down the road. The omnibus had just started, and for about thirty seconds he remained watching it as it lumbered and clattered along in a cloud of dust until it was lost to view. Then he went back to the house, and handed the key to Martha. "There's the key," he said. "Tell Aunt Charlotte I'm going for a walk, and I'll let her know all about it when I come back to lunch."

He was out of the house in a twinkling, stumping along as hard as he could go until he reached the moors. He had played a daring game, but felt quite satisfied with the result so far, as he knew that there were no cabs to be had in the village, and that, even if his aunt were mad enough to brave a two-mile tramp along the broiling road, she could not possibly reach the station in time to catch the train. Now that the deed was done, a sensation of fatigue stole over him, and with a sigh of relief he flung himself down on the soft tussocks of purple heather, and covered his eyes with his straw hat. For half-an-hour he lay there motionless and deep in thought. No suspicion that he had acted wrongly disturbed him for a moment. Of course it was a pity that poor Aunt Charlotte should have been disappointed, and certainly that locking of her up in her bedroom had been a very painful duty; but if it was necessary--as it was--what else could he have done? No doubt she would forgive him when she understood his reasons; and, after all, it was really her own fault for having been so obstinate.

It was now half-past ten, and Austin had no intention of getting home before it was time for lunch. He had thus the whole morning before him, and he spent it rambling about the moors, struggling up hills, revelling in the heat tempered by cool gra.s.s, and wondering how Daphnis would have behaved if he had had an unreasonable old aunt to take care of; for Aunt Charlotte was really a great responsibility, and dreadfully difficult to manage. Then, coming on a deep, clear rivulet which ran between two meadows, he yielded to a sudden impulse, and, stripping himself to the skin, plunged into it, wooden leg and all. There he floated luxuriously for a while, the sun blazing fiercely overhead, and the cool waters playing over his white body.

When he emerged, covered with sparkling drops, he remembered that he had no towel; so there was nothing to be done but to stagger about and disport himself like a naked faun among the b.u.t.tercups and bulrushes, until the sun had dried him. As soon as he was dressed, he looked at his watch, and found that it was nearly twelve. Then he consulted a little time-table, and made a rapid calculation. It would take him just half-an-hour to reach the station from where he was, and therefore it was high time to start.

Off he set, and arrived there, as it seemed, at a moment of great excitement. The station-master was on the platform, in the act of posting up a telegram, around which a number of people--travellers, porters, and errand-boys--were crowding eagerly. Austin joined the group, and read the message carefully and deliberately twice through.

He asked no questions, but listened to the remarks he heard around him. Then he pa.s.sed rapidly through the booking-office, and struck out on his way home.

Meantime Aunt Charlotte had pa.s.sed the hours fuming. To her, Austin's extraordinary behaviour was absolutely unaccountable, except on the hypothesis that he was not responsible for his actions. Her rage was beyond control. That the boy should have had the unheard-of audacity to lock her up in her own bedroom in order to gratify some mad whim, and so have upset her plans for the entire day, was an outrage impossible to forgive. If he was not out of his mind he ought to be, for there was no other excuse for him that she could think of. What _was_ to be done with such a boy? He was too old to be whipped, too young to be sent to college, too delicate to be placed under restraint. But she would let him feel the full force of her indignation when he returned. He should apologise, he should eat his fill of humble pie, he should beg for mercy on his knees. She had put up with a good deal, but this last escapade was not to be overlooked.

Even Martha, when she came in to lay the cloth for lunch, could think of nothing to say in extenuation of his offence.

It was certainly two hours before her excitement allowed her to sit down and begin to knit. Even then--and naturally enough--while she was musing the fire burned. It never occurred to her to reflect that there must have been some _reason_ for Austin's extraordinary prank, and that the first thing to be done was to discover what that was. She was too angry to take this obvious fact into consideration, and so, when Austin at last appeared, his eyes full of suppressed excitement and his forehead bathed in sweat, her pent-up wrath found vent and she flamed out at him in a rage.

For some minutes Austin stood quite silent while she stormed. If it made her feel better to storm, well, let her do it. Half-a-dozen times she demanded what he meant by his behaviour, and how he dared, and whether he had suddenly gone crazy, and then went on storming without waiting for his reply. Once, when he opened his mouth to speak, she sharply told him to shut it again. It was clear, even to Martha, that if Austin's conduct had been inexplicable, his aunt's was utterly absurd.

"You've asked me several times what made me lock you up this morning,"

he said at last, when she paused for breath, "and each time you've refused to let me answer you. That's not very reasonable, you know.

Now I've got something to tell you, but if you want to do any more raving please do it at once and get it over, and then I'll have my turn."

"Will you go to your room this instant and stay there?" cried Aunt Charlotte, pointing to the door.

"Certainly not," replied Austin. "And now I'll ask you to listen to me for a minute, for you must be tired with all that shouting." Aunt Charlotte took up her work with trembling hands, ostentatiously pretending that Austin was no longer in the room. "You wanted to go to town by the 10.27 train, and I took forcible measures to prevent you.

It may therefore interest you to know what became of that train, and what you have escaped. There's been a frightful collision. The down express ran into it at the curve just beyond the signal station at Colebridge Junction, owing to some mistake of the signalman, I believe. Anyhow, in the train you wanted to go by there were five people killed outright, and fourteen others crunched up and mangled in a most inartistic style. And if I hadn't locked you up as I did you'd probably be in the County Hospital at this moment in an exceedingly unpleasant predicament."

Dead silence. Then, "The Lord preserve us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Martha, who stood by, in awe-struck tones. Aunt Charlotte slowly raised her eyes from her knitting, and fixed them on Austin's face. "A collision!" she exclaimed. "Why, what do you know about it?"

"I called at the station and read the telegram myself. There was a crowd of people on the platform all discussing it," returned Austin, briefly.

"Your life has been saved by a miracle, ma'am, and it's Master Austin as you've got to thank for it," cried Martha, her eyes full of tears, "though how it came about, the good Lord only knows," she added, turning as though for enlightenment to the boy himself.

Then Aunt Charlotte sank back in her chair, looking very white. "I don't understand it, Austin," she said tremulously. "It's terrible to think of such a catastrophe, and all those poor creatures being killed--and it's most providential, of course, that--that--I was kept from going. But all that doesn't explain what share _you_ had in it.

You don't expect me to believe that you knew what was going to happen and kept me at home on purpose? The very idea is ridiculous. It was a coincidence, of course, though a most remarkable one, I must admit. A collision! Thank G.o.d for all His mercies!"

"If it was only a coincidence I don't exactly see what there is to thank G.o.d for," remarked Austin, very drily.

"'Twarn't no coincidence," averred old Martha, solemnly. "On that I'll stake my soul."

"What was it, then?" retorted Aunt Charlotte. "Anyhow, Austin, there seems no doubt that, under G.o.d, it was what you did that saved my life to-day. But what made you do it? How could you possibly tell that you were preventing me from getting killed?"

"I should have told you all that long ago if you weren't so hopelessly illogical, auntie," he replied. "But you never can see the connection between cause and effect. That was the reason I couldn't explain why I didn't want you to go, even before I locked you up. It wouldn't have been any use. You'd have simply laughed in my face, and have gone to London all the same."

"I don't know what you mean. Don't beat about the bush, Austin, and worry my head with all this vague talk about cause and effect and such like. What has my being illogical got to do with it?"

"Well--if you want me to explain, of course I'll do so; but I don't suppose it'll make any difference," said Austin. "Some time ago, I told you that just as I was going to get over a stile, I felt something push me back, and so I came home another way. You'll recollect that if I _had_ got over that stile I should have come across a rabid dog where there was no possibility of escape, and no doubt have got frightfully bitten. But when I told you how I was prevented, you scoffed at the whole story, and said that I was superst.i.tious.--Stop a minute! I haven't finished yet.--Then, only the other day, my life was saved from all those bricks tumbling on me when I was asleep by just the same sort of interposition. Again you jeered at me, and when I told you I had heard raps in the wall you ridiculed the idea, and--do you remember?--the words were scarcely out of your mouth when you heard the raps yourself, and then you got nearly beside yourself with fright and anger, and said it was the devil. And now for the third time the same sort of thing has happened.

What is the good of telling you about it? You'd only scoff and jeer as you did before, although on this occasion it is your own life that has been saved, not mine."

Certainly Master Austin was having his revenge on Aunt Charlotte for the torrent of abuse she had poured upon him a few minutes previously.

For a short time she sat quite still, the picture of perplexity and irritation. The facts as Austin stated them were incontrovertible, and yet--probably because she lacked the instinct of causality--she could not accept his explanation of them. There are some people in the world who are const.i.tuted like this. They create a mental atmosphere around them which is as impenetrable to conviction in certain matters as a brick wall is to a parched pea. They will fall back on any loophole of a theory, however imbecile and far-fetched, rather than accept some simple and self-evident solution that they start out by regarding as impossible. And Aunt Charlotte was a very apposite specimen of the cla.s.s.

"I'll not scoff, at anyrate, Austin," she said at last. "I cannot forget--and I never will forget--that it's to you I owe it that I am sitting here this moment. Tell me what moved you to act as you did this morning. I may not share your belief, but I will not ridicule it.

Of that you may rest a.s.sured."

"It is all simple enough," he said. "I had a horrid dream just before I woke--nothing circ.u.mstantial, but a general sense of the most awful confusion, and disaster, and terror. I fancy it was that that woke me.

And as I was opening my eyes, a voice said to me quite distinctly, as distinctly as I am speaking now, '_Keep auntie at home this morning._'

The words dinned themselves into my ears all the time I was dressing, and then I acted upon them as you know. But what would have been the good of telling you? None whatever. So I tried persuasion, and when that failed I simply locked you in."

Now there are two sorts of superst.i.tion, each of which is the very ant.i.thesis of the other. The victim of one believes all kinds of absurdities blindfold, oblivious of evidence or causality. The upsetting of a salt-cellar or the fall of a mirror is to him a harbinger of disaster, entirely irrespective of any possible connection between the cause and the effect. A bit of stalk floating on his tea presages an unlooked-for visitor, and the guttering of a candle is a sign of impending death. All this he believes firmly, and acts upon, although he would candidly acknowledge his inability to explain the principle supposed to underlie the sequence between the omen and its fulfilment. It is the irrationality of the belief that const.i.tutes its superst.i.tious character, the contented acquiescence in some inconceivable and impossible law, whether physical or metaphysical, in virtue of which the predicted event is expected to follow the wholly unrelated augury. The other sort of superst.i.tion is that of which, as we have seen, Aunt Charlotte was an exemplification.

Here, again, there is a splendid disregard of evidence, testimony, and causal laws. But it takes the form of scepticism, and a scepticism so blindly partial as to sink into the most abject credulity. The wildest sophistries are dragged in to account for an unfamiliar happening, and scientific students are accused, now of idiocy, now of fraud, rather than the fact should be confessed that our knowledge of the universe is limited. If Aunt Charlotte, for instance, had seen a table rise into the air of itself in broad daylight she would have said, "I certainly saw it happen, and as an honest woman I can't deny it; but I don't believe it for all that." The succession of abnormal occurrences, however, of which Austin had been the subject, had begun to undermine her dogmatism; and this last event, the interposition of something, she knew not what, to save her from a horrible accident, appealed to her very strongly. There was a pathos, too, about the part played in it by Austin which touched her to the quick, and she reproached herself keenly for the injustice with which she had treated him in her unreasoning anger.

She felt a great lump come in her throat as he ceased speaking, and for a moment or two found it impossible to answer. "A voice!" she uttered at last. "What sort of a voice, Austin?"

"It sounded like a woman's," he replied.

Chapter the Ninth

From this time forward Austin seemed to live a double life. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he inhabited two worlds. Around him the flowers bloomed in the garden, Lubin worked and whistled, Aunt Charlotte bustled about her duties, and everything went on as usual.

But beyond and behind all this there was something else. The dreams and reveries that had hitherto invaded him became felt realities; he no longer had any doubt that he was encircled by beings whom he could not see, but who were none the less actual for that. And the curious feature of the case was that it all seemed perfectly natural to him, and so far from feeling frightened, or suffering from any sense of being haunted, he experienced a sort of pleasure in it, a grateful consciousness of friendly though unseen companionship that heightened his joy in life. Who these invisible guardians could be, of course he had no idea; it was enough for him just then to know that they were there, and that, by their timely intervention on no fewer than three ocasions, they had given ample proof that they both loved and trusted him.

Aunt Charlotte, on her side, could not but acknowledge that there must be "something in it," as she said; it could not all be nothing but Austin's fancy. She remembered that people who wrote hymns and poems talked sometimes of guardian angels, and it was possible that a belief in guardian angels might be orthodox. It was even conceivable that it was a benevolent functionary of this cla.s.s who had let St Peter out of prison; and if the inst.i.tution had existed then, why, there was nothing unreasonable in the conclusion that it might possibly exist now. She revolved these questionings in her mind during her journey up to town the day after Austin's escapade, when, as she told herself, she would be perfectly safe from accident; for it was not in the nature of things that two collisions should happen so close together.

And she had reason to be glad she went, seeing that her bankers received her with perfect cordiality, and convinced her that she would certainly lose all her money if she insisted on investing it in any such wild-cat scheme as the one she had set her heart upon. They suggested, instead, certain foreign bonds on which she would receive a perfectly safe four-and-a-half per cent.; and so pleased was she at having been preserved from risking her two thousand pounds that she not only indulged in a modest half-bottle of Beaune with her lunch, but bought a pretty pencil-case for Austin. She determined at the same time to let the vicar know what her bankers had said about the investment he had urged upon her, and promised herself that she would take the opportunity--of course without mentioning names--of consulting him about the orthodoxy of guardian angels. He might be expected to prove a safer guide in such a matter as that than in questions of high finance.

A few days afterwards, Austin went to call upon his friend St Aubyn.

He longed to see the beautiful gardens at the Court again, now that he had obtained a glimpse into the mystic side of garden-craft through the writings of Sir Thomas Browne; he felt intensely curious to pay another visit to the haunted Banqueting Hall, which had a special fascination for him since his own abnormal experiences; and he felt that a confidential talk with Mr St Aubyn himself would do him no end of good. _There_ was a man, at anyrate, to whom he could open his heart; a man of high culture, wide sympathies, and great knowledge of life. He was shown into the big, dim drawing-room, where a faint perfume of lavender seemed to hang about, imparting to him a sense of quiet and repose that was very soothing; through the half-closed shutters the colours of the garden again gleamed brilliantly in the sunshine, and there was heard a faint liquid sound, as of the plashing of an adjacent fountain. St Aubyn entered in a few minutes, and greeted him very cordially.

"Well, and what have you been about?" he said, after a few preliminaries had been exchanged. "Reading and dreaming, I suppose, as usual?"

"I'm afraid I've done both, and very little else to speak of," replied Austin, laughing. "I'm always reading, off and on, without much system, you know. But if I'm rather desultory I always enjoy reading, because books give me so many new ideas, and it's delightful to have always something fresh to think about."

"Yes, yes," rejoined St Aubyn. "I don't know what you read, of course, but it's clear you don't read many novels."

"Novels!" exclaimed Austin scornfully. "How _can_ people read novels, when there are so many other books in the world?"

"Well, what have you been reading, then?" enquired St Aubyn, lighting a cigarette.

"I've been dipping into one of the most puzzling, fascinating, bothering books I ever came across," replied Austin, following his example. "I mean 'The Garden of Cyrus,' by Sir Thomas Browne. I can't follow him a bit, and yet, somehow, he drags me along with him. All that about the quincunx is most baffling. He seems to begin with the arrangement of a garden, and then to lead one on through a maze of arithmetical progressions till one finds oneself landed in a mystical philosophy of life and creation, and I don't know what all. If I could only understand him better I should probably enjoy him more."

St Aubyn smiled. "Well, of course, it all sounds very fanciful," he said. "One must read him as one reads all those curious old mediaeval authors, who are full of pseudo-science and theories based on fables.

His great charm to me is his style, which is singularly rich and chaste. But I've no doubt whatever, myself, that a great deal of this ancient lore, which we have been accustomed to regard as so much sciolism, not to say pure nonsense, had a germ of truth in it, and that truth I believe we are gradually beginning to re-discover. You see, one mustn't always take the formulas employed by these old writers in their literal sense. Many were purely symbolic, and concealed occult meanings. Now the philosopher's stone, to take a familiar example, was not a stone at all. The word was no more than a symbol, and covered a search for one of the great secrets--the origin of life, or the nature of matter, or the attainment of immortality.