Had her very life depended on it, old Martha would have been totally
unable to give any coherent account of what she felt, said, or did,
when she came into Master Austin's room that morning at half-past
seven with his hot water. She thought she must have screamed, but such
was her bewilderment and terror she really could not remember whether
she did or no. But she never had any doubt as to what she saw. Instead
of a fair white bed with Austin lying in it, she was confronted by the
sight of a gaping hole in the roof, something that looked like a
rubbish heap in a brickfield immediately underneath, and the long
slender form of Austin himself wrapped in a comfortable wadded
dressing-gown fast asleep upon the sofa. "Bless us and save us!" she
ejaculated under her breath. "And to think that the boy's lived
through it!"
Austin, roused by her entrance, yawned, stretched himself, and lazily
opened his eyes. "Is that you already, Martha?" he said. "Oh, how
sleepy I am. Is it really half-past seven?"
"But what does it all mean--how it is you're not killed?" cried
Martha, putting down the jug, and finding her voice at last. "The good
Lord preserve us--here's the house tumbling down about our ears and
never a one of us the wiser. And the man was to 'ave come this very
day to see to that blessed roof. Come, wake up, do, Master Austin, and
tell me how it happened."
"Is Aunt Charlotte up yet?" asked Austin turning over on his side.
"Ay, that she be, and making it lively for the maids downstairs.
Whatever will she say when she hears about this to-do?" exclaimed
Martha, with her hands upon her hips as she gazed at the desolation
round her.
"Well, please go down and ask her to come up here at once," said
Austin. "I see I shall have to say something, and it really will be
too much bother to go over it to everybody in turn. I've had rather a
disturbed night, and feel most awfully tired. So just run down and
bring her up as soon as ever you can, and then we'll get it over."
"A pretty business--and me with forty-eleven things to do already
to-day," muttered the old servant as she hurried out. "True it is that
except the Lord builds the house they labour in vain as builds it. He
didn't have no hand in building this one, that's as plain as I am--as
never was a beauty at my best. Well, the child's safe, that's one
mercy. Though what he was doing out of his bed when the roof came
down's a mystery to _me_. Talking to the moon, I shouldn't wonder. The
good Lord's got 'is own ways o' doing things, and it ain't for the
likes of us to pick holes when they turn out better than the worst."
Meanwhile Austin lay quietly and drowsily on his couch piecing things
together. Seen from the distance of a few hours, now that he had
leisure to reflect, how wonderfully they fitted in! First of all,
there had been that sudden outburst of raps just as he was stepping
into bed. That, evidently, was intended as a warning. It was as much
as to say, "Don't! don't!" But of course he couldn't be expected to
know this, and so he could only wonder where the raps came from, and
get into bed as usual. Then, the instant he did so the raps ceased.
That was because it wasn't any use to go on. The rappers, he
supposed, had benevolently tried to frighten him away, and induce him
to go and sleep on the sofa at the other end of the room where he was
now; but the attempt had failed. So there was nothing for them to do,
as he was actually in bed, but to get him out again; and this they had
succeeded in doing by dragging all his clothes off. Now he saw it all.
Nothing, it seemed to him, could possibly be clearer. But who were the
unseen friends who had thus interposed to save his life? Ah, that was
a secret still.
Then footsteps were heard outside, and in bustled Aunt Charlotte, with
Martha chattering in her wake. Austin raised himself upon his
cushions, and then sank back again. "Lord save us!" cried Aunt
Charlotte, coming to a dead stop, as she surveyed the ruins.
"It's rather a mess, isn't it?" remarked Austin, folding a red
table-cover round his single leg by way of counterpane.
"A mess!" repeated Aunt Charlotte. "I should think it _was_ a mess.
How in the world, Austin, did you manage to escape?"
"Well--I happened to get out of bed a minute or two before the ceiling
broke," said Austin, "and it's just as well I did. Otherwise my
artless countenance would have got rather disfigured, and I might
even have been hurt. You see all that raw material isn't composed of
gossamer----"
"What time did it occur?" asked Aunt Charlotte, shortly.
"The dawn was just breaking. I suppose it must have been about four
o'clock, but I didn't look at my watch," replied Austin. "I was too
cold and sleepy."
"Cold and sleepy!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. "And the house collapsing
over your head. You seem to have had time to pull the bedclothes away,
though. That's very curious. What did you do that for?"
"I didn't," replied Austin.
"Then who did?" asked Aunt Charlotte, getting more and more excited.
"I do wish you'd be a little more communicative, Austin; I have to
drag every word out of you as though you were trying to hide
something. Who hung the bedclothes over the footrail if you didn't?"
"I can't tell you. I don't know. All I know is that I found them where
they are now when I woke up, and I woke up because I was so cold. Then
I got out of bed, and a minute afterwards down came all the bricks."
"Do you mean to tell me----" began Aunt Charlotte, in her most
scathing tones.
"Certainly I do. Exactly what I _have_ told you. Why?"
"Do you expect me to believe," resumed his aunt, "that somebody came
into the room when you were asleep, and deliberately pulled off all
your bedclothes for the fun of doing it? Am I to understand----"
"My dear auntie, I am not an idiot, nor am I in the habit of perjuring
myself," interrupted Austin. "I saw nobody come into the room, and I
saw nobody pull off the clothes. If you really want to know what I
'expect you to believe,' I've already told you. I might tell you a
little more, but then I shouldn't expect you to believe it, so what
would be the good? It seems to me the best thing to do now is to send
for Snewin to take away all this mess, move the furniture, and mend
the hole in the ceiling. If once it begins to rain----"
"Oh! You might tell me a little more, might you?" said Aunt Charlotte,
bristling. "So you haven't told me everything after all. Now, then,
never mind whether I believe it or not, that's my affair. What is
there more to tell?"
"Nothing," replied Austin. "Because it isn't only your affair whether
you believe me or not; it's my affair as well. Why, you don't even
believe what I've told you already! So I won't tax your credulity any
further."
Aunt Charlotte now began to get rather angry, "Look here, Austin," she
said, "I intend to get to the bottom of this business, so it's not the
slightest use trying to beat about the bush. I insist on your telling
me how it was you happened to get out of bed just before the accident
occurred, and how the bedclothes came to be pulled away and hung where
they are now. There's a mystery about the whole thing, and I hate
mysteries, so you'd better make a clean breast of it at once."
"Had I?" said Austin, pretending to reflect. "I wonder whether it
would be wise. You see, dear auntie, you're such a sensitive creature;
your nerves are so highly strung, you're so easily frightened out of
your dear old wits--"
"Be done with all this nonsense!" snapped Aunt Charlotte brusquely.
"Come, I can't stand here all day. Just tell me exactly what took
place--why you woke up, and what you saw, and everything about it you
remember."
"Dear auntie, I don't want you to stand there all day; in fact I'd
much rather you didn't stand there a minute longer, because I want to
get up," Austin assured her earnestly. "I awoke because I had a horrid
dream, caused by the cold which in its turn was produced by my being
left with nothing on. And I didn't see anything, for the simple reason
that the room was as dark as pitch. Is there anything else you want to
know?"
"Yes, there is. Everything that you haven't told me," said the
uncompromising aunt.
"Very well, then," said Austin, leaning upon his elbow and looking her
full in the face. "But on one condition only--that you believe every
word I say."
"Of course, Austin, I should never dream of doubting your good faith,"
replied Aunt Charlotte. "But don't romance. Now then."
"It's very simple, after all," began Austin. "Just as I was getting
into bed a strange noise, like a shower of little raps, broke out all
around me. It went on for nearly five minutes, and I was listening all
the time and trying to find out what it was and where it came from. At
the moment I had no clue, but now I fancy I can guess. Those raps
were warnings. They--the rappers--were trying to prevent me getting
into bed. They didn't succeed, of course, and so, just as the ceiling
was on the point of giving way, they compelled me to get out of bed by
pulling all the clothes off. If they hadn't, I should have been half
killed. Now, what do you make of that?"
"I knew it must be some nonsense of the sort!" exclaimed Aunt
Charlotte, in her most vigorous tones. "Raps, indeed! I never heard
such twaddle. Of course I don't doubt your word, but it's clear enough
that you dreamt the whole thing. You always were a dreamer, Austin,
and you're getting worse than ever. I don't believe you know half the
time whether you're asleep or awake."
"Did I dream _that_?" asked Austin, pointing to the bedclothes as they
hung.
"You dragged them there in your sleep, of course," retorted Aunt
Charlotte triumphantly. "I see the whole thing now. You had a dream,
you kicked the clothes off in your sleep, and then you got out of bed,
still in your sleep----"
"I didn't do anything of the sort," interrupted Austin. "I was wide
awake the whole time. You see, auntie, I was here and you weren't, so
I ought to know something about it."
"It's no use arguing with you," replied Aunt Charlotte, loftily. "It's
a clear case of sleep-walking--as clear as any case I ever heard of.
And then all that nonsense about raps! Of course, if you heard
anything at all--which I only half believe--it was something beginning
to give way in the roof. There! It only requires a little
common-sense, you see, to explain the whole affair. And now, my
dear----"
"Hush!" whispered Austin suddenly.
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, not liking to be
interrupted.
"Listen!" said Austin, under his breath.
A torrent of raps burst out in the wall immediately behind him,
plainly audible in the silence. Then they stopped, as suddenly as they
had begun.
"Did you hear them?" said Austin. "Those were the raps I told you of.
Hark! There they are again. I wish they would sound a little louder."
A distinct increase in the sound was noticeable. "Oh, isn't it
perfectly wonderful? Now, what have you to say?"
Aunt Charlotte stood agape. It was no use pretending she didn't hear
them. They were as unmistakable as knocks at a front door.
"What jugglery is this?" she demanded, in an angry tone.
"Really, dear auntie, I am not a conjurer," replied Austin, as he sank
back upon his cushions. "That was what I heard last night. But of
course _you_ don't believe in such absurdities. It's only your fancy
after all, you know."
"'Tain't _my_ fancy, anyhow," put in old Martha, speaking for the
first time. "I heard 'em plain enough. 'Tis the 'good people,' for
sure."
"Hold your tongue, do!" cried Aunt Charlotte in sore perplexity. "Good
people, indeed!--the devil himself, more likely. I tell you what it
is, Austin----"
"Why, I thought you weren't superstitious!" observed Austin, in a tone
of most exasperating surprise. Three gentle knocks, running off into a
ripple of pattering explosions, were then heard in a farther corner of
the room. "There, don't you hear them laughing at you? Thank you, dear
people, whoever you are, that was very kind. And it was awfully sweet
of you to save me from those bricks last night. It _was_ good of them,
wasn't it, auntie dear?"
"If all this devilry goes on I shall take serious measures to stop
it," gasped Aunt Charlotte, who was almost frightened to death. "I
cannot and will not live in a haunted house. It's you who are haunted,
Austin, and I shall go and see the vicar about it this very day. It's
an awful state of things, positively awful. To think that you are
actually holding communication with familiar spirits! The vicar shall
come here at once, and I'll get him to hold a service of exorcism. I
believe there is such a service, and----"
"Oh, do, do, _do_!" screamed Austin, clapping his hands with delight.
"What fun it would be! Fancy dear Mr Sheepshanks, in all his tippets
and toggery, ambling and capering round poor me, and trying to drive
the devil out of me with a broomful of holy water! That's a lovely
idea of yours, auntie. Lubin shall come and be an acolyte, and we'll
get Mr Buskin to be stage-manager, and you shall be the pew-opener.
And then I'll empty the holy-water pot over dear Mr Sheepshanks' head
when he's looking the other way. You _are_ a genius, auntie, though
you're too modest to be conscious of it. But you're very ungrateful
all the same, for if it hadn't been for----"
"There, stop your ribaldry, Austin, and get up," said Aunt Charlotte,
impatiently. "The sooner we're all out of this dreadful room the
better. And let me tell you that you'd be better employed in thanking
God for your deliverance than in turning sacred subjects into
ridicule."
"Thanking God? Why, not a moment ago you said it was the devil!"
exclaimed Austin. "How you do chop and change about, auntie. You can't
possibly expect me to be orthodox when you go on contradicting
yourself at such a rate. However, if you really must go, I think I
_will_ get up. It must be long past eight, and I want my breakfast
awfully."
The day so excitingly ushered in turned out a busy one. As soon as he
had finished his meal, Austin pounded off to invoke the immediate
presence of Mr Snewin the builder, and before long there was a mighty
bustle in the house. The furniture had all to be removed from the
scene of the disaster, the bed cleared of the _débris_, preparations
made for the erection of light scaffolding for repairing the roof, and
Austin himself installed, with all his books and treasures, in another
bedroom overlooking a different part of the garden. It was all a most
enjoyable adventure, and even Aunt Charlotte forgot her terrors in
the more practical necessities of the occasion. Just before lunch
Austin snatched a few minutes to run out and gossip with Lubin on the
lawn. Lubin listened with keen interest to the boy's picturesque
account of his experiences, and then remarked, sagely nodding his
head:
"I told you to be on the look-out, you know, Master Austin. Magpies
don't perch on folks' window-sills for nothing. You'll believe me a
little quicker next time, maybe."
For once in his life Austin could think of nothing to say in reply. To
ask Lubin to explain the connection between magpies and misadventures
would have been useless; it evidently sufficed for him that such was
the order of Nature, and only a magpie would have been able to clear
up the mystery. Besides, there are many such mysteries in the world.
Why do cats occasionally wash their heads behind the ear? Clearly, to
tell us that we may expect bad weather; for the bad weather invariably
follows. These are all providential arrangements intended for our
personal convenience, and are not to be accounted for on any
cut-and-dried scientific theory. Lubin's erudition was certainly very
great, but there was something exasperating about it too.
So Austin went in to lunch thoughtful and dispirited, wondering why
there were so many absurdities in life that he could neither elucidate
nor controvert. He decided not to say anything to Aunt Charlotte about
Lubin's magpie sciolisms, lest he should provoke a further outburst of
the discussion they had held in the morning; he had had the best of
that, anyhow, and did not care to compromise his victory by dragging
in extraneous considerations in which he did not feel sure of his
ground. Aunt Charlotte, on her side, was inclined to be talkative,
taking refuge in the excitement of having work-men in the house from
the uneasy feelings which still oppressed her in consequence of those
frightening raps. But now that the haunted room was to be invaded by
friendly, commonplace artisans from the village, and turned inside
out, and almost pulled to pieces, there was a chance that the ghosts
would be got rid of without invoking the aid of Mr Sheepshanks; a
reflection that inspired her with hope, and comforted her greatly.
"You know you're a great anxiety to me, Austin," she said, as,
refreshed by food and wine, she took up her knitting after lunch. "I
wish you were more like other boys, indeed I do. I never could
understand you, and I suppose I never shall."
"But what does that matter, auntie?" asked Austin. "I don't understand
_you_ sometimes, but that doesn't make me anxious in the very least.
Why you should worry yourself about me I can't conceive. What do I do
to make you anxious? I don't get tipsy, I don't gamble away vast
fortunes at a sitting, and although I'm getting on for eighteen I
haven't had a single action for breach of promise brought against me
by anybody. Now _I_ think that's rather a creditable record. It isn't
everybody who can say as much."
"I want you to be more _serious_, Austin," replied his aunt, "and not
to talk such nonsense as you're talking now. I want you to be
sensible, practical, and alive to the sober facts of life. You're too
dreamy a great deal. Soon you won't know the difference between dreams
and realities----"
"I don't even now. No more do you. No more does anybody," interrupted
Austin, lighting a cigarette.
"There you are again!" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, clicking her needles
energetically. "Did one ever hear such rubbish? It all comes from
those outlandish books you're always poring over. If you'd only take
_my_ advice, you'd read something solid, and sensible, and improving,
like 'Self Help,' by Dr Smiles. That would be of some use to you, but
these others----"
"I read a whole chapter of it once," said Austin. "I can scarcely
believe it myself, but I did. It's the most immoral, sordid, selfish
book that was ever printed. It deifies Success--success in
money-making--success of the coarsest and most materialistic kind. It
is absolutely unspiritual and degrading. It nearly made me sick."
"Be silent!" cried Aunt Charlotte, horrified. "How dare you talk like
that? I will not sit still and hear you say such things. Few books
have had a greater influence upon the age. Degrading? Why, it's been
the making of thousands!"
"Thousands of soulless money-grubbers," retorted Austin. "That's what
it has made. Men without an idea or an aspiration above their horrible
spinning-jennies and account-books. I hate your successful
stockbrokers and shipowners and manufacturers. They are an odious
race. Wasn't it a stockjobber who thought Botticelli was a cheese?
Everyone knows the story, and I believe the hero of it was either a
stockjobber or a man who made screws in Birmingham."
Aunt Charlotte let her knitting fall on her lap in despair. "Austin,"
she said, in her most solemn tones, "I never regretted your poor
mother's death as I regret it at this moment."
"Why, auntie?" he asked, surprised.
"Perhaps she would have understood you better; perhaps she might even
have been able to manage you," replied the poor lady. "I confess that
you're beyond me altogether. Do you know what it was she said to me
upon her death-bed? 'Charlotte,' she said, 'my only sorrow in dying is
that I shall never be able to bring up my boy. Who will ever take such
care of him as I should?' You were then two days old, and the very
next day she died. I've never forgotten it. She passed away with that
sorrow, that terrible anxiety, tearing at her heart. I took her place,
as you know, but of course I was only a makeshift. I often wonder
whether she is still as anxious about you as she was then."
"My dearest auntie, you've been an angel in a lace cap to me all my
life, and I'm sure my mother isn't worrying herself about me one bit.
Why should she?" argued Austin. "I'm leading a lovely life, I'm as
happy as the days are long, and if my tastes don't run in the
direction of selling screws or posting ledgers, nothing that anybody
can say will change them. And I tell you candidly that if they were so
changed they would certainly be changed for the worse. I hate ugly
things as intensely as I love beautiful ones, and I'm very thankful
that I'm not ugly myself. Now don't look at me like that; it's so
conventional! Of course I know I'm not ugly, but rather the reverse
(that's a modest way of putting it), and I pray to beloved Pan that he
will give me beauty in the inward soul so that the inward and the
outward man may be at one. That's out of the 'Phædrus,' you know--a
very much superior composition to 'Self Help.' So cheer up, auntie,
and don't look on me as a doomed soul because we're not both turned
out of the same melting-pot. Now I'm just going upstairs to see to the
arrangement of my new room, and then I shall go and help Lubin in the
garden."
So saying, he strolled out. But poor Aunt Charlotte only shook her
head. She could not forget how Austin's mother had grieved at not
living to bring up her boy, and wished more earnestly than ever that
the responsibility had fallen into other hands than hers. There was
something so dreadfully uncanny about Austin. His ignorance about the
common facts of life was as extraordinary as his perfect familiarity
with matters known only to great scholars. His views and tastes were
strange to her, so strange as to be beyond her comprehension
altogether. She found herself unable to argue with him because their
minds were set on different planes, and her representations did not
seem to touch him in the very least. And yet, after all, he was a very
good boy, full of pure thoughts and kindly impulses and spiritual
intuitions and intellectual proclivities which certainly no moralist
would condemn. If only he were more practical, even more commonplace,
and wouldn't talk such nonsense! Then there would not be such a gulf
between them as there was at present; then she might have some
influence over him for good, at any rate. Her thoughts recurred,
uneasily, to the strange experiences of that morning. The mystery of
the raps distracted her, puzzled her, frightened her; whereas Austin
was not frightened at all--on the contrary, he accepted the whole
thing with the serenest cheerfulness and _sang-froid_, finding it
apparently quite natural that these unseen agencies, coming from
nobody knew where, should take him under their protection and make
friends with him. What could it all portend?
Of course it was very foolish of the good lady to fret like this
because Austin was so different from what she thought he should be.
She did not see that his nature was infinitely finer and subtler than
her own, and that it was no use in the world attempting to stifle his
intellectual growth and drag him down to her own level. A burly,
muscular boy, who played football and read 'Tom Brown,' would have
been far more to her taste, for such a one she would at least have
understood. But Austin, with his queer notions and audacious
paradoxes, was utterly beyond her. Unluckily, too, she had no sense of
humour, and instead of laughing at his occasionally preposterous
sallies, she allowed them to irritate and worry her. A person with no
sense of humour is handicapped from start to finish, and is as much to
be pitied as one born blind or deaf.
But Austin had his limitations too, and among them was a most
deplorable want of tact. Otherwise he would never have said, as he
was going to bed that night:
"By the way, auntie, what day have you arranged for the vicar to come
and cast all those devils out of me?"
He might as well have let sleeping dogs lie. Aunt Charlotte turned
round upon him in almost a rage, and solemnly forbade him, in any
circumstances and under whatsoever provocation, ever to mention the
subject in her presence again.