Book: Austin and His Friends

F >> Frederic H. Balfour >> Austin and His Friends




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 constituted 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
class.

"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 assured."

"It is all simple enough," he said. "I had a horrid dream just before
I woke--nothing circumstantial, 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 superstition, each of which is the very
antithesis 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
constitutes its superstitious 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 superstition 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 class who had let St Peter out of
prison; and if the institution 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.
They seem to us to have taken a very roundabout route in their
investigations, but their object was often very much the same as that
of every chemist and biologist of the present day. Take alchemy,
again, which is supposed by people generally to have been nothing but
an attempt to turn the baser metals into gold. According to the
Rosicrucians, who may be supposed to have known something about it,
alchemy was the science of guiding the invisible processes of life for
the purpose of attaining certain results in both the physical and
spiritual spheres. Chemistry deals with inanimate substances, alchemy
with the principle of life itself. The highest aim of the alchemist
was the evolution of a divine and immortal being out of a mortal and
semi-animal man; the development, in short, of all those hidden
properties which lie latent in man's nature."

"That is a very valuable thing to know," observed Austin, greatly
interested. "Every day I live, the more I realise the truth that
everything we see is on the surface, and that there's a whole world of
machinery--I can't think of a better term--working at the back of it.
It's like a clock. The face and the hands are all we see, but it's the
works inside that we can't see that make it go."

"Excellently put," returned St Aubyn. "There are influences and forces
all round us of which we only notice the effects, and how far these
forces are intelligent is a very curious question. I see nothing
unscientific myself in the hypothesis that they may be."

"I wonder!" exclaimed Austin. "Do you know--I have had some very funny
experiences myself lately, that can't be explained on any other ground
that I can think of. The first occurred the very day that I was here
first. Would you mind if I told you about them? Would it bother you
very much?"

"On the contrary! I shall listen with the greatest interest, I assure
you," replied St Aubyn, with a smile.

So Austin began at the beginning, and gave his friend a clear, full,
circumstantial account of the three occurrences which had made so deep
an impression on his mind. The story of the bricks riveted the
attention of his hearer, who questioned him closely about a number of
significant details; then he went on to the incident of Aunt
Charlotte's proposed journey, the mysterious warning he had received,
and the desperate measures to which he had been driven to keep her
from going out. St Aubyn shouted with laughter as Austin gravely
described how he had locked her up in her bedroom, and how lustily she
had banged and screamed to be released before it was too late to catch
the train. The sequel seemed to astonish him, and he fell into a
musing silence.

"You tell your story remarkably well," he said at last, "and I don't
mind confessing that the abnormal character of the whole thing strikes
me as beyond question. Any attempt to explain such sequences by the
worn-out old theory of imagination or coincidence would be manifestly
futile. Such coincidences, like miracles, do not happen. Many things
have happened that people call miracles, by which they mean a sort of
divine conjuring-trick that is performed or brought about by violating
or annihilating natural laws. That, of course, is absurd. Nothing
happens but in virtue of natural laws, laws just as natural and
inherent in the universal scheme of things as gravitation or the
precession of the equinoxes, _only_ outside our extremely limited
knowledge of the universe. That, under certain conditions, such
interpositions affecting physical organisms may be produced by
invisible agencies is, in my view, eminently conceivable. It is purely
a question of evidence."

"I am so glad you think so," replied Austin. "It makes things so much
easier. And then it's so pleasant to think that one is really
surrounded by unseen friends who are looking after one. I was never a
bit afraid of ghosts, and _my_ ghosts are apparently a charming set of
people. I wonder who they are?"

"Ah, that is more than I can tell you," answered the other, laughing.
"I'm not so favoured as you appear to be. But come, let's have a
stroll round the garden. You don't mind the sun, I know."

"And the Banqueting Hall! I insist on the Banqueting Hall," added
Austin, who now began to feel quite at home with his genial host. "I
long to be in there again. I'm sure it's full of wonders, if one only
had eyes to see."

"By all means," smiled St Aubyn, as they went out. "You shall take
your fill of them, never fear. Don't forget your hat--the sun's pretty
powerful to-day. Doesn't the lawn look well?"

"Lovely," assented Austin, admiringly. "Like a great green velvet
carpet. How do you manage to keep it in such good condition?"

"By plenty of rolling and watering. That's the only secret. Let's walk
this way, down to the pool where the lilies are. There'll be plenty of
shade under the trees. Do you see that old statue, just over there by
the wall? That's a great favourite of mine. It always looks to me like
a petrified youth, a being that will never grow old in soul although
its form has existed for centuries, and the stone it's made of for
thousands of thousands of years. That's an illustration of the saying
that whom the gods love die young. Not that they die in youth, but
that they never really grow old, let them live for eighty years or
more, as we count time. They remain always young in soul, however long
their bodies last. Perhaps that's what Isaiah had in his mind when he
talked about a child dying at a hundred. _You'll_ never grow old, you
know."

"Shan't I? How nice," exclaimed Austin, brightly. "I certainly can't
fancy myself old a bit. How funny it would be if one always preserved
one's youthful shape and features, while one's skin got all cracked
and rough and wrinkled like that old youth over there! The effect
would be rather ghastly. But I don't want to grow old in any sense. I
should like to remain a boy all my life. I suppose that in the other
world people may live a thousand years and always remain eighteen. I'm
nearly eighteen myself."

St Aubyn could not help casting a glance of keen interest at the boy
as he said this. A presentiment shot through him that that might
actually be the destiny of the pure-souled, enthusiastic young
creature who had just uttered the suggestive words. Austin's long,
pale face, slender form, and bright, far-away expression carried with
them the idea that perhaps he might not stay very long where he was. A
sudden pang made itself felt as the possibility occurred to him, and
he rapidly changed the subject.

"I don't think I'd let my thoughts run too much on mystical questions
if I were you, Austin," he said. "I mean in connection with these
curious experiences you've been having. You have enough joy in life,
joy from the world around you, to dispense with speculations about the
unseen. All that sort of thing is premature, and if it takes too great
a hold upon you its tendency will be to make you morbid."

"It hasn't done so yet," replied Austin. "As far as I can judge of the
other world, it seems quite as joyous and lively as this one, and in
reality I expect it's a good deal more so. I don't hanker after
experiences, as you call them, but hitherto whenever they've come
they've always been helpful and agreeable--never terrifying or ghastly
in the very least. And I don't lay myself out for them, you know. I
just feel that there _is_ something near me that I can't see, and that
it's pleasant and friendly. The thought is a happy one, and makes me
enjoy the world I live in all the more."

"Well, then, let us enjoy it together, and talk about orchids and
tulips, and things we can see and handle," said St Aubyn, cheerfully.
"How's Aunt Charlotte, for instance? Has she quite forgiven you for
having saved her life?"

"Oh, quite, I think," replied Austin, his eyes twinkling. "I believe
she's almost grateful, for when she came back from town she presented
me with a gold pencil-case. She doesn't often do that sort of thing,
poor dear, and I'm sure she meant it as a sign of reconciliation. It's
pretty, isn't it?" he added, taking it out of his pocket.

"Charming," assented St Aubyn. "That bit of lapis lazuli at the top,
with a curious design upon it, is by way of being an amulet, I
suppose?"

"H'm! I don't believe in amulets, you know," said Austin, nodding
sagely. "I consider that all nonsense."

"Yet there's no doubt that some amulets have influence," remarked St
Aubyn. "If a piece of amber, for example, has been highly magnetised
by a 'sensitive,' as very psychic persons are called, it is quite
possible that, worn next the skin, a certain amount of magnetic fluid
may be transmitted to the wearer, producing a distinct effect upon his
vitality. There's nothing occult about that. The most thoroughgoing
materialist might acknowledge it. But when it comes to spells, and all
that gibberish, there, of course, I part company. The magical power of
certain precious stones may be a fact of nature, but I see no proof
of its truth, and therefore I don't believe in it."

"And now may we go and look at the flowers?" suggested Austin.

"Come along," returned St Aubyn. "What a boy you are for flowers! Do
you know much of botany?"

"No--yes, a little--but not nearly as much as I ought," said Austin,
as they strolled through the blaze of colour. "I love flowers for
their beauty and suggestiveness, irrespective of the classifications
to which they may happen to belong. A garden is to me the most
beautiful thing in the world. There's something sacred about it.
Everything that's beautiful is good, and if it isn't beautiful it
can't be good, and when one realises beauty one is happy. That's why I
feel so much happier in gardens than in church."

"Why, aren't you fond of church?" asked St Aubyn, amused.

"A garden makes me happier," said Austin. "Religion seems to encourage
pain, and ugliness, and mourning. I don't know why it should, but
nearly all the very religious people I know are solemn and melancholy,
as though they hadn't wits enough to be anything else. They only
understand what is uncomfortable, just as beasts of burden only
understand threats and beatings. I suppose it's a question of culture.
Now I learn more of what _I_ call religion from fields, and trees, and
flowers than from anything else. I don't believe that if the world had
consisted of nothing but cities any real religion would ever have been
evolved at all."

"Crude, my dear Austin, very crude!" remarked St Aubyn, patting his
shoulder as they walked. "There's more in religion than that, a great
deal. Beware of generalising too widely, and don't forget the personal
equation. Now, come and have a look at the orchids. I've got one or
two rather fine ones that you haven't seen."

He led the way towards the orchid-houses. Here they spent a delightful
quarter of an hour, and it was only the thought of his visit to the
Banqueting Hall that reconciled Austin to tearing himself away. St
Aubyn seemed much diverted at his insistence, and asked him whether he
expected to find the figures on the tapestry endowed with life and
disporting themselves about the room for his entertainment.

"I wish they would!" laughed Austin. "What fun it would be. I'm sure
they'd enjoy it too. How old is the tapestry, by the way?"

"It's fifteenth century work, I believe," replied St Aubyn. "Here we
are. It really is very good of its kind, and the colours are
wonderfully preserved."

"It's lovely!" sighed Austin, as he walked slowly up the hall,
feasting his eyes once more on the beautiful fabrics. "What a thing to
live with! Just think of having all these charming people as one's
daily companions. I shouldn't want them to come to life, I like them
just as they are. If they moved or spoke the charm would be broken.
Why don't you spend hours every day in this wonderful place?"

"My dear boy, I haven't such an imagination as you have," answered St
Aubyn, laughing. "But as a mere artist, of course I appreciate them as
much as anyone, just as I appreciate statuary or pictures. And I prize
them for their historical value too."

Austin made no reply. He began to look abstracted, as though listening
to something else. The sun had begun to sink on the other side of the
house, leaving the hall itself in comparative shadow.

"Don't you feel anything?" he said at last, in an undertone.

"Nothing whatever," replied St Aubyn. "Do you?"

"Yes. Hush! No--it was nothing. But I feel it--all round me. The most
curious sensation. The room's full. Some of them are behind me. Don't
you feel a wind?"

"Indeed I don't," said St Aubyn. "There's not a breath stirring
anywhere."

They were standing side by side. Austin gently put out his right hand
and grasped St Aubyn's left.

"_Now_ don't you feel anything?" he asked.

"Yes--a sort of thrill. A tingling in my arm," replied St Aubyn.
"That's rather strange. But it comes from you, not from----" He
paused.

"It comes _through_ me," said Austin.

They stood for a few seconds in unbroken silence. Then St Aubyn
suddenly withdrew his hand. "This is unhealthy!" he said, with a touch
of abruptness. "You must be highly magnetic. Your organism is
'sensitive,' and that's why you experience things that I don't."

"Oh, why did you break the spell?" cried Austin, regretfully. "What
harm could it have done you? You said yourself just now that nothing
happens that isn't natural. And this is natural enough, if one could
only understand the way it works."

"Many things are natural that are not desirable," returned St Aubyn,
walking up and down. "It's quite natural for people to go to sea, but
it makes some of them sea-sick, nevertheless, and they had better stay
on shore. It's all a matter of temperament, I suppose, and what is
pleasant for you is something that my own instincts warn me very
carefully to avoid."

Austin drew his handkerchief across his eyes, as though beginning to
come back to the realities of life. "I daresay," he said, vaguely.
"But it's very restful here. The air seems to make me sleepy. I almost
think--"

At this point a servant appeared at the other end of the hall, and St
Aubyn went to see what he wanted. The next moment he returned, with
quickened steps.

"Come away with you--you and your spooks!" he cried, cheerfully,
taking Austin by the arm. "Here's an old aunt of mine suddenly dropped
from the skies, and clamouring for a cup of tea. We must go in and
entertain her. She's all by herself in the library."

"I shall be very glad," said Austin. "You go on first, and I'll be
with you in two minutes."

So St Aubyn strode off to welcome his elderly relative, and when
Austin came into the room he found his friend stooping over a very
small, very dowdy old lady dressed in rusty black silk, with a large
bonnet rather on one side, who was standing on tiptoe, the better to
peck at St Aubyn's cheek by way of a salute. She had small, twinkling
eyes, a wrinkled face, and the very honestest wig that Austin had ever
seen; and yet there was an air and a style about the old body which
somehow belied her quaint appearance, and suggested the idea that she
was something more than the insignificant little creature that she
looked at first sight. And so in fact she was, being no less a
personage than the Dowager-Countess of Merthyr Tydvil, and a very
great lady indeed.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.