Austin and His Friends Part 19

"I hope, my dear, that the entertainment will come up to your expectations," observed Aunt Charlotte, equably.

"Sure to," said Austin, beginning to rummage about. "What are these?

Old exercise-books, as I live! Oh, do look here; isn't this wonderful?

Here's a translation: 'Horace, Liber I, Satire 5.' How brown the ink is. _Aricia a little town on the way to Appia received me coming from the magnificent city of Rome with poor accommodation. Heliodorus by far the most learned orator of the Greeks accompanied me. We came to the market-place of Appius filled with sailors and insolent brokers._--Were they stockbrokers, I wonder? Oh, auntie, these are exercises done by my grandfather when he was a little boy. Poor little grandfather; what pains he seems to have taken over it, and how beautifully it's written.

I hope he got a lot of marks; do you think he did? _The sailor, soaked in poor wine, and the pa.s.senger, earnestly celebrate their absent mistresses._ Poor things! They don't seem to have had a very enjoyable excursion. However, I can't read it all through. Oh--here are a lot of letters. Not very interesting. All about contracts and sales, and silly things like that. Here's a funny book, though. Do look, auntie. It must have been printed centuries ago by the look of it. I wonder what it's all about. _A Sequel to the Antidote to the Miseries of Human Life, containing a Further Account of Mrs Placid and her daughter Rachel. By the Author of the Antidote._ What _does_ it all mean? 'Squire Bustle'--'Miss Finakin'--'Uncle Jeremiah'--used people to read books like this when grandfather was a little boy? It looks quite charming, but I think we'll put it by for the present. What's this? Oh, a daguerreotype, I suppose--an extraordinary-looking, smirking old person in a great bonnet with large roses all round her face, and tied with huge ribbons under her chin. Dear auntie, why don't you wear bonnets like that? You _would_ look so sweet! Pamphlets--tracts--oh dear, these are all dreadfully dry. What a mixture it all is, to be sure. The things seem to have been shot in anyhow. Hullo--an alb.u.m.

_Now_ we shall see. This is evidently of much later date than the other treasures, though it is at the bottom of them all."

He dragged out an old, soiled, photographic alb.u.m bound in purple morocco, and all falling to pieces. It proved to contain family portraits, none of them particularly attractive in themselves, but interesting enough to Austin. He turned over the pages one by one, slowly. Aunt Charlotte glanced curiously at them over her spectacles from where she sat.

"I don't think I remember ever seeing that alb.u.m," she said. "I wonder whom it can have belonged to. Ah! I expect it must have been your father's. Yes--there's a photograph of your Uncle Ernest, when he was just of age. You never saw him, he went to Australia before you were born. Those ladies I don't know. What a string of them there are, to be sure. I suppose they were----"

"There she is!" cried Austin, suddenly bringing his hand down upon the page. "That's my mother. I told you I should know her, didn't I?"

Aunt Charlotte jumped. "The very photograph!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea there was a copy in existence. But how in the wide world did you recognise it?"

Austin continued examining it for some seconds without replying. "I don't think it quite does her justice," he said at last, thoughtfully.

"The position isn't well arranged. It makes the chin too small."

"Quite true!" a.s.sented Aunt Charlotte. "It's the way she's holding her head." Then, with another start: "But how can you know that?"

"Because I saw her only the other day," said Austin.

For a moment Aunt Charlotte thought he was wool-gathering. He spoke in such a perfectly calm, natural tone, that he might have been referring to someone who lived in the next street. But a glance at his face convinced her that he meant exactly what he said.

"Austin!" she exclaimed. "What can you be thinking about?"

"It's perfectly true," he a.s.sured her. "I saw her a few weeks ago in the garden. She stood and looked at me over the gate, and then suddenly disappeared."

"And you really believe it?" cried Aunt Charlotte in amaze.

"I don't believe it, I know it," he answered, laying down the photograph. "I saw her as distinctly as I see you now. It was that day we had been having tea at the vicarage, when we met the man who wanted to set fire to some bishop or other. Ask Lubin; he'll remember it fast enough."

This time Aunt Charlotte fairly collapsed. It was no longer any use flouting Austin's statements; they were too calm, too collected, to be disposed of by mere derision. There could be no doubt that he firmly believed he had seen something or somebody, and whatever might be the explanation of that belief it had enabled him not only to recognise his mother's photograph but to criticise, and criticise correctly, a certain defect in the portrait. She could not deny that what he said was true. "Can such things really be?" she uttered under her breath.

"Dear auntie, they _are_," said Austin. "I've been conscious of it for months, and lately I've had the proof. Indeed, I've had more than one. There are people all round us, only it isn't given to everybody to see them. And it isn't really very astonishing that it should be so, when one comes to think of it."

From that day forward Aunt Charlotte watched Austin with a sense of something akin to awe. Certainly he was different from other folk.

With all his love of life, his keen interest in his surroundings, and his wealth of boyish spirits, he seemed a being apart--a being who lived not only in this world but on the boundary between this world and another. As an orthodox Christian woman of course she believed in that other--"another and a better world," as she was accustomed to call it. But that that world was actually around her, hemming her in, within reach of her fingertips so to speak, that was quite a new idea.

It gave her the creeps, and she strove to put it out of her head as much as possible. But ere many weeks elapsed, it was forced upon her in a very painful way, and she could no longer ignore the feeling which stole over her from time to time that not only was the boundary between the two worlds a very narrow one, but that her poor Austin would not be long before he crossed it altogether.

For there was no doubt that he was beginning to fade. He got paler and thinner by degrees, and one day she found him in a dead faint upon the floor. The slight uneasiness in his hip had increased to actual pain, and the pain had spread to his back. In an agony of apprehension she summoned the doctor, and the doctor with hollow professional cheerfulness said that that sort of thing wouldn't do at all, and that Master Austin must make up his mind to lie up a bit. And so he was put to bed, and people smiled ghastly smiles which were far more heartrending than sobs, and talked about taking him away to some beautiful warm southern climate where he would soon grow strong and well again. Austin only said that he was very comfortable where he was, and that he wouldn't think of being taken away, because he knew how dreadfully poor Aunt Charlotte suffered at sea, and travelling was a sad nuisance after all. And indeed it would have been impossible to move him, for his sufferings were occasionally very great. Sometimes he would writhe in strange agonies all night long, till they used to wonder how he would live through it; but when morning came he scarcely ever remembered anything at all, and in answer to enquiries always said that he had had a very good night indeed, thank you. Once or twice he seemed to have a dim recollection of something--some "bustle and fluff," as he expressed it--during his troubled sleep; and then he would ask anxiously whether he really had been giving them any bother, and a.s.sure them that he was so very sorry, and hoped they would forgive him for having been so stupid. At which Aunt Charlotte had to smile and joke as heroically as she knew how.

There were some days, however, when he was quite free from pain, and then he was as bright and cheerful as ever. He lay in his white bed surrounded by the books he loved, which he read intermittently; and every now and then, when Aunt Charlotte thought he was strong enough, a visitor would be admitted. Roger St Aubyn, now back from Italy, often dropped in to sit with him, and these were golden hours to Austin, who listened delightedly to his friend's absorbing descriptions of the beautiful places he had been to and the wonderful old legends that were attached to them. Then nothing would content him but that Lubin must come up occasionally and tell him how the garden was looking, and what he thought of the prospects for next summer, and answer all sorts of searching questions as to the operations in which he had been engaged since Austin had been a prisoner. Austin enjoyed these colloquies with Lubin; the very sight of him, he said, was like having a glimpse of the garden. But somehow Lubin's eyes always looked rather red and misty when he came out of the room, and it was noticed that he went about his work in a very half-hearted and listless manner.

One day, however, a visitor called whose presence was not so sympathetic. This was Mr Sheepshanks, the vicar. Of course he was quite right to call--indeed it would have been an unpardonable omission had he not done so; at the same time his little furtive movements and professional air of solemnity got on Austin's nerves, and produced a sense of irritation that was certainly not conducive to his well-being. At last the point was reached to which the vicar had been gradually leading up, and he suggested that, now that it had pleased Providence to stretch Austin on a couch of pain, it was advisable that he should think about making his peace with G.o.d.

"Make my peace with G.o.d?" repeated Austin, opening his eyes. "What about? We haven't quarrelled!"

"My dear young friend, that is scarcely the way for a creature to speak of its relations with its Creator," said the vicar, gravely shocked.

"Isn't it?" said Austin. "I'm very sorry; I thought you were hinting that I had some grudge against the Creator, and that I ought to make it up. Because I haven't, not in the very least. I've had a lovely life, and I'm more obliged to Him for it than I can say."

"Ahem," coughed the vicar dubiously. "One scarcely speaks of being _obliged_ to the Almighty, my dear Austin. We owe Him our everlasting grat.i.tude for His mercies to us, and when we think how utterly unworthy the best of us are of the very least attention on His part----"

"I don't see that at all," interrupted Austin. "On the contrary, seeing that G.o.d brought us all into existence without consulting any one of us I think we have a right to expect a great deal of attention on His part. Surely He has more responsibility towards somebody He has made than that somebody has towards Him. That's only common sense, it seems to me."

The vicar thought he had never had such an unmanageable penitent to deal with since he took orders. "But how about sin?" he suggested, shifting his ground. "Have you no sense of sin?"

"I'm almost afraid not," acknowledged Austin, with well-bred concern.

"Ought I to have?"

"We all ought to have," replied the vicar sternly. "We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of G.o.d."

"I don't see how we could have done otherwise," remarked Austin, who was getting rather bored. "Little people like us can't be expected to come up to a standard which I suppose implies divine perfection. I dare say I've done lots of sins, but for the life of me I've no idea what they were. I don't think I ever thought about it."

"It's time you thought about it now, then," said the vicar, getting up. "I won't worry you any more to-day, because I see you're tired.

But I shall pray for you, and when next I come I hope you'll understand my meaning more clearly than you do at present."

"That is very kind of you," said Austin, putting out his almost transparent hand. "I'm awfully sorry to give you so much trouble.

You'll see Aunt Charlotte before you go away? I know she'll expect you to go in for a cup of tea."

So the vicar escaped, almost as glad to do so as Austin was to be left in peace. And the worst of it was that, though he cudgelled his brains for many hours that night, he could not think of any sins in particular that Austin had been in the habit of committing. He was kind, he was pure, and he was unselfish. His exaggerated abuse of people he didn't like was more than half humorous, and was rather a fault than a sin. Yet he must be a sinner somehow, because everybody was. Perhaps his sin consisted in his not being pious in the evangelical sense of the word. Yet he loved goodness, and the vicar had once heard a great Roman Catholic divine say that loving goodness was the same thing as loving G.o.d. But Austin had never said that he loved G.o.d; he had only said that he was much obliged to Him. The poor vicar worried himself about all this until he fell asleep, taking refuge in the reflection that if he couldn't understand the state of Austin's soul there was always the probability that G.o.d did.

Aunt Charlotte, on her side, was too much absorbed in her anxiety and sorrow to trouble herself with such misgivings. The light of her life was burning very low, and bade fair to be extinguished altogether.

What were theological conundrums to her now? It would be positively wicked to fear that anything dreadful could happen to Austin because he had forgotten his catechism and was not impressed by the vicar's prosy discourses in church. Face to face with the possibility of losing him, all her conventionality collapsed. The boy had been everything in the world to her, and now he was going elsewhere.

The house was a very mournful place just then, and the servants moved noiselessly about as though in the presence of some strange mystery.

The only person in it who seemed really happy was Austin himself. A great London surgeon came to see him once, and then there was talk of hiring a trained nurse. But Austin combatted this project with all the vigour at his command, protesting that trained nurses always scented themselves with chloroform and put him in mind of a hospital; he really could not have one in the room. Some a.s.sistance, however, was necessary, for the disease was making such rapid progress that he could no longer turn himself in bed; and Austin, recognising the fact, insisted that Lubin and no other should tend him. So Lubin, tearfully overjoyed at the distinction, exchanged the garden for the sick-chamber, into which, as Austin said, he seemed to bring the very scent of gra.s.s and flowers; and there he pa.s.sed his time, day after day, raising the helpless boy in his strong arms, shifting his position, antic.i.p.ating his slightest wish, and even sleeping in a low truckle-bed in a corner of the room at night.

Sometimes Austin would lie, silent and motionless, for hours, with a perfectly calm and happy look upon his face. This was when the pain relaxed its grip upon him. At other times he would talk almost incessantly, apparently holding a conversation with people whom Lubin could not see. One would have thought that someone very dear to him had come to pay him a visit, and that he and this mysterious someone were deeply attached to each other, so bright and playful were the smiles that rippled upon his lips. He spoke in a low, rapid undertone, so that Lubin could only catch a word or two here and there; then there would be a pause, as though to allow for some unheard reply, to which Austin appeared to be listening intently; and then off he would go again as fast as ever. His eyes had a wistful, far-off look in them, and every now and then he seemed puzzled at Lubin's presence, not being quite able to reconcile the actual surroundings of the sick-room with those other scenes that were now dawning upon his sight, scenes in which Lubin had no place. There was a little confusion in his mind in consequence; but as the days went on things gradually became much clearer.

Now Austin, in spite of his utter indifference to, or indeed aversion from, theological religion, had always loved his Sundays. To him they were as days of heaven upon earth, and in them he appeared to take an instinctive delight, as though the very atmosphere of the day filled him with spiritual aspirations, and thoughts which belonged not to this world. Above all, he loved Sunday evenings, which appeared to him a season hallowed in some special way, when all high and pure influences were felt in their greatest intensity. And now another Sunday came round, and, as had been the case all through his illness, he felt and knew by instinct what day it was. He lay quite still, as the distant chime of the church bells was wafted through the air, faint but just audible in the silent room. Aunt Charlotte smiled tenderly at him through her tears; she was going to church, poor soul, to pray for his recovery, though knowing quite well that what she called his recovery was beyond hope. Austin shot a brilliant smile at her in return, and Aunt Charlotte rushed out of the room choking.

The day drew to its close, the darkness gathered, and Austin, who had been suffering considerably during the afternoon, was now easier. At about seven o'clock his aunt stole softly in, unable to keep away, and looked at him. His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be asleep.

"How has he been this afternoon?" she asked of Lubin in an undertone.

"Seemed to be sufferin' a bit about two hour ago, but nothing more 'n usual," said Lubin. "Then he got easier and sank asleep, quite quiet-like. He's breathin' regular enough."

"He doesn't look worse--there's even a little colour in his cheeks,"

observed Aunt Charlotte, as she watched the sleeping boy. "He's in quite a nice, natural slumber. If nursing could only bring him round!"

"I'd nurse him all my life for that matter," replied Lubin huskily, standing on the other side of the bed.

"I know you would, Lubin," cried Aunt Charlotte. "You've been goodness itself to my poor darling. What wouldn't I do--what wouldn't we all do--to save his precious life!"

"Is he waking up?" whispered Lubin, bending over. "Nay--just turning his head a bit to one side. He's comfortable enough for the time being. If it wasn't for them crooel pains as seizes him----"