Chapter 3

"What a wicked, abandoned old woman!" cried Austin. "Only one leg to stand on, indeed!--she hasn't a single leg to stand on when she says such things. She ought to have gone down on her knees and thanked you for taking such care of me. But I shall never make anything of her, I'm afraid. The more I try to educate her the worse she gets."

"I shouldn't wonder," replied Lubin sagely. "The old hen feels herself badly off when the egg teaches her to cackle. That's human nature, that is. And then she was riled because she was afraid I shouldn't have time to get the garden-things in order by to-morrow, when it seems there's some sort o' company expected. I told her 'twould be all right."

"Oh, those brutes! Of course, they're coming to-morrow. I'd nearly forgotten all about it. It's just like Aunt Charlotte to be so fond of all those hideous people. You hate the MacTavishes, don't you, Lubin? _Do_ hate the MacTavishes! Fancy--nine of them, no less, counting the old ones, and all of them coming together. What a family! I despise people who breed like rabbits, as though they thought they were so superlative that the rest of the world could never have enough of them."

"Ay, fools grow without watering," assented Lubin. "Can't say I ever took to 'em myself--though it's not my place to say so. The young gents make a bit too free with one, and when they opens their mouths no one else may so much as sneeze. Think they know everything, they do. There's a saying as I've heard, that asses sing badly 'cause they pitch their voices too high. Maybe it's the same wi' them."

"Well, I hope Aunt Charlotte will enjoy their conversation," said Austin comfortably. "I say, Lubin, do you know anything about a Mr St Aubyn, who lives not far from here?"

"What, him at the Court?" replied Lubin. "I don't know him myself, but they say as _he's_ a gentleman, and no mistake. Keeps himself to himself, he does, and has always got a civil word for everybody. Fine old place, too, that of his."

"Have you ever been inside?" asked Austin.

"Lor' no, Sir," answered Lubin. "Don't know as I'm over anxious to, either. The garden's a sight, it's true--but it seems there's something queer about the house. Can't make out what it can be, unless the drains are a bit out of order. But it ain't that neither. Sort o' frightening--so folks say. But lor', some folks'll say anything. I never knew anybody as ever _saw_ anything there. It's only some old woman's yarn, I reckon."

"Oh, is it haunted? Are there any ghosts?" cried Austin, in great excitement. "I'd give anything in this world to see a ghost!"

"I don't know as I'd care to sleep in a haunted house myself," said Lubin, beginning to sweep the lawn. "Some folks don't mind that sort o' thing, I s'pose; must have got accustomed to it somehow. Then there's those as is born ghost-seers, and others as couldn't see one, not if it was to walk arm-in-arm with 'em to church. Let's hope Mr St Aubyn's one o' that sort, seeing as he's got to live there. It's poor work being a baker if your head's made of butter, I've heard say."

"Then it _is_ haunted!" exclaimed Austin. "What a bit of luck. You see, Lubin, I know Mr St Aubyn just a little, and soon I'm going to lunch with him. How I shall be on the look-out! I wonder how it feels to see a ghost. You've never seen one, have you?"

"Oh no, Sir," replied Lubin, shaking his head. "I doubt I'm not put together that way. A blind man may shoot a crow by mistake, but he ain't no judge o' colours. Though ghosts are mostly white, they say. Well, it may be different with you, and when you go to lunch at the Court, I'm sure I hope you'll see all the ghosts on the premises if you've a fancy for that kind of wild fowl. Let ghosts leave me alone and I'll leave them alone--that's all I've got to say. I never had no hankering after gentry as go flopping around without their bodies. 'Tain't commonly decent, to my thinking. Don't hold with such goings on myself."

"Oh, but you must make allowances for their circumstances," answered Austin. "If they've got no bodies of course they can't put them on, you know. Besides, there are ghosts and ghosts. Some are mischievous, and some are very, very unhappy, and others come to do us good and help us to find wills, and treasures, and all sorts of pleasant things. I'd love to talk with one, and have it out with him. What wonderful things one might learn!"

"Ay, there's more in the world than what's taught in the catechism," said Lubin. "Let's hope you'll have picked up a few crumbs when you've been to lunch at the Court. Every little helps, as the sow said when she swallowed the gnat. I confess I'm not curious myself."

"Well, I'm awfully curious," replied Austin, as he began to get up. "But now I must stir about a bit. You know my wooden leg gets horribly lazy sometimes, and I've got to exercise it every now and then for its own good. I know Aunt Charlotte wants me to go into the town with her to buy provender for this bun-trouble of hers to-morrow. It's very curious what different ideas of pleasure different people have."

"He's a rare sort o' boy, the young master," soliloquised Lubin as Austin went pegging along towards the house. "Game for no end of mischief when the fit takes him, for all he's only got one leg. One'd think he was half daft to hear him talk sometimes, too. Seems like as if it galled him a bit to rub along with the old auntie, and I shouldn't wonder if the old auntie herself felt about as snug as a bell-wether tied to a frisky colt. However, I s'pose the A'mighty knows what He's about, and it's always the old cow's notion as she never was a calf herself."

With which philosophical reflection Lubin slipped on his green corduroy jacket, shouldered his broom, and trudged cheerfully home to tea.

Chapter the Fourth

The next day the great heat had moderated, and the sky was covered with a thin pearly veil of gossamer greyness which afforded a delightful relief after the glare of the past week. A smart shower had fallen during the night, and the parched earth, refreshed after its bath, appeared more fragrant and more beautiful than ever. Aunt Charlotte busied herself all the morning with various household diversions, while Austin, swaying lazily to and fro in a hammock under an old apple tree, read 'Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight.' At last he looked at his watch, and found that it was about time to go and dress.

"Well, you _have_ made yourself smart," commented Aunt Charlotte complacently, as Austin, sprucely attired in a pale flannel suit, with a lilac tie and a dark-red rose in his button-hole, came into the morning-room to say good-bye. "But why need you have dressed so early? Our friends aren't coming till three o'clock at the very earliest, and it's not much more than twelve--at least, so says my watch. You needn't have changed till after lunch, at any rate."

"My dear auntie, have you forgotten?" asked Austin, in innocent surprise. "To-day's Thursday, and I'm engaged to lunch and spend the afternoon with Mr St Aubyn. You know I told you all about it the very day he asked me."

"Mr St Aubyn?--I don't understand," said Aunt Charlotte, with a bewildered air. "I have a recollection of your telling me a few days ago that you were lunching out some day or other, but----"

"On Thursday, you know, I said."

"Did you? Well, but--but our friends are coming _here_ to-day! You must have been dreaming, Austin," cried Aunt Charlotte, sitting bolt upright. "How can you have made such a blunder? Of course you can't possibly go!"

"Do you really propose, auntie, that I should break my engagement with Mr St Aubyn for the sake of entertaining people like the MacTavishes and the Cobbledicks?" replied Austin, quite unmoved.

"But why did you fix on the same day?" exclaimed Aunt Charlotte desperately. "I cannot understand it. I left the date to you, you know I did--I told you I didn't care what day it was, and said you might choose whichever suited yourself best. What on earth induced you to pitch on the very day when you were invited out?"

"For the very reason you yourself assign--that you let me choose any day that suited me best. For the very reason that I _was_ invited out. You see, my dear auntie----"

"Oh, you false, cunning boy!" cried Aunt Charlotte, who now saw how she had been trapped. "So you let me agree to the 24th, and took care not to tell me that the 24th was Thursday because you knew quite well I should never have consented if you had. What abominable deception! But you shall suffer for it, Austin. Of course you'll remain at home now, if only as a punishment for your deceit. I shouldn't dream of letting you go, after such disgraceful conduct. To think you could have tricked me so!"

"My dear auntie, of course I shall go," said Austin, drawing on his gloves. "Why you should wish me to stay, I cannot imagine. What on earth makes you so insistent that I should meet these friends of yours?"

"It's for your own good, you ungrateful little creature," replied Aunt Charlotte, quivering. "You know what I've always said. You require more companionship of your own age, you want to mix with other young people instead of wasting and dreaming your time away as you do, and it was for your sake, for your sake only, that I asked our friends----"

"Oh, no, auntie, it wasn't. You told me so yourself," Austin reminded her. "You told me distinctly that it was for your own pleasure and not for mine that you were going to invite them. So that argument won't do. And you were perfectly right. If you find intellectual joy in the society of Mrs Cobbledick and Shock-headed Peter----"

"Shock-headed Peter? Who in the name of fortune is that?" interrupted Aunt Charlotte, amazed.

"One of the MacTavish enchantresses--Florrie, I think, or perhaps Aggie. How am I to know? Everybody calls her Shock-headed Peter. But as I was saying, if you find happiness in the society of such people, invite them by all means. I only ask you not to cram them down my throat. I wouldn't mind the others so much, but the MacTavishes I _bar_. I will not have them forced upon me. I detest them, and I've no doubt they despise me. We simply bore each other out of our lives. There! Let that suffice. I'm very fond of _you_, auntie, and I don't want anyone else. Do you perfectly understand?"

"I shall evidently never understand _you_, Austin," replied Aunt Charlotte. "You have treated me shockingly, shockingly. And now you leave me in the most heartless way with all these people on my hands----"

"Then why did you insist on inviting them?" put in Austin. "I entreated you not to. I'd have gone down on my knees to you, only unfortunately I've only one. And when I entreated you for the last time, you said you wouldn't listen to another word. I saw that further appeal was useless, so I was compelled by you yourself to play for my own safety. So now good-bye, dear auntie. It's time I was off. Cheer up--you'll all enjoy yourselves much more without an awkward unsympathetic creature like me among you, see if you don't. And you can make any excuse for me you like," he added with a smile as he left the room. Aunt Charlotte remained transfixed.

"I suppose he must go his own gait," she muttered, as she picked up her knitting again. "There's no use in trying to force him this way or that; if he doesn't want to do a thing he won't do it. Of course what he says is true enough--I did let him choose the date, and I did ask these people because I thought it would be good for him, and I did insist on doing so when he begged me not to. Well, I'm hoist with my own petard this time, though I wouldn't confess as much to him if my life depended on it. But the trickery of the little wretch! It's that I can't get over."

Meanwhile Austin meditated on the little episode on his side, as he made his way along the road. "I daresay dear old auntie was a bit put out," he thought, "but she brought it all upon herself. She doesn't see that everybody must live his own life, that it's a duty one owes to oneself to realise one's own individuality. Now it's _bad_ for me to associate with people I detest--bad for my soul's development; just as bad as it is for anyone's body to eat food that doesn't agree with him. Those MacTavishes poison my soul just as arsenic poisons the body, and I won't have my soul poisoned if I can help it. It's very sad to see how blind she is to the art and philosophy of life. But she'll have to learn it, and the sooner she begins the better."

Here he left the high road, and turned into a long, narrow lane enclosed between high banks, which led into a pleasant meadow by the river side. This shortened the way considerably, and when he reached the stile at the further end of the meadow he found himself only some ten minutes' walk from the park gates. Then a subdued excitement fell upon him. He was going to see the beautiful picture-gallery and the great collection of engravings, and the gardens with conservatories full of lovely orchids. He was going to hold delightful converse with the cultured and agreeable man to whom all these things belonged. And--well, he might possibly even see a ghost! But now, in the genial daylight, with the prospect of luncheon immediately before him, the idea of ghosts seemed rather to retire into the background. Ghosts did not appear so attractive as they had done yesterday afternoon, when he had talked about them with Lubin. However--here he was.

Mr St Aubyn, tall and middle-aged, with a refined face set in a short, pointed beard, received him with exquisite cordiality. How seldom does a man realise the positive idolatry he can inspire by treating a well-bred youth on equal terms, instead of assuming airs of patronage and condescension! The boy accepts such an attitude as natural, perhaps, but he resents it nevertheless, and never gives the man his confidence. The perfect manners of St Aubyn won Austin's heart at once, and he responded with a modest ardour that touched and gratified his host. The Court, too, exceeded his expectations. It was a grand old mansion dating from the reign of Elizabeth, with mullioned casements, and carved doorways, and cool, dim rooms oak-panelled, and broad fireplaces; and around it lay a shining garden enclosed by old monastic walls of red brick, with shaped beds of carnations glowing redly in the sunlight, and, beyond the straight lines of lawn, a wilderness of nut-trees, with a pool of yellow water-lilies, where wild hyacinths and pale jonquils rioted when it was spring. On one side of the garden, at right angles to the house, the wall shelved into a great grass terrace, and here stood a sort of wing, flanked by two glorious old towers, crumbling and ivy-draped, forming entrances to a vast room, tapestried, which had been a banqueting hall in the picturesque Tudor days. Meanwhile, Austin was ushered by his host into the library--a moderate-sized apartment, lined with countless books and adorned with etchings of great choiceness; whence, after a few minutes' chat on indifferent subjects, they adjourned to the dining-room, where a luncheon, equally choice and good, awaited them.

At first they played a little at cross-purposes. St Aubyn, with the tact of an accomplished man entertaining a clever youth, tried to draw Austin out; while Austin, modest in the presence of one whom he recognised as infinitely his superior in everything he most valued, was far more anxious to hear St Aubyn talk than to talk himself. The result was that Austin won, and St Aubyn soon launched forth delightfully upon art, and books, and travel. He had been a great traveller in his day, and the boy listened with enraptured ears to his description of the magnificent gardens in the vicinity of Rome--the Lante, the Torlonia, the Aldobrandini, the Falconieri, and the Muti--architectural wonders that Austin had often read of, but of course had never seen; and then he talked of Viterbo and its fountains, Vicenza the city of Palladian palaces, every house a gem, and Sicily, with its hidden wonders, hidden from the track of tourists because far in the depths of the interior. He had travelled in Burma too, and inflamed the boy's imagination by telling him of the gorgeous temples of Rangoon and Mandalay; he had been--like everybody else--to Japan; and he had lived for six weeks up country in China, in a secluded Buddhist monastery perched on the edge of a precipice, like an eagle's nest, where his only associates were bonzes in yellow robes, and the stillness was only broken by the deep-toned temple bell, booming for vespers. Then, somehow, his thoughts turned back to Europe, and he began a disquisition upon the great old masters--Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Tiziano, and Peter Paul--with whose immortal works he seemed as familiar as he subsequently showed himself with the pictures in his own house. He described the Memlings at Bruges, the Botticellis at Florence and the Velasquezes in Spain--averring in humorous exaggeration that beside a Velasquez most other paintings were little better than chromolithographs. Austin put in a word now and then, asked a question or two as occasion served, and so suggested fresh and still more fascinating reminiscences; but he had no desire whatever to interrupt the illuminating stream of words by airing any opinions of his own. It was not until the meal was drawing to a close that the conversation took a more personal turn, and Austin was induced to say something about himself, his tastes, and his surroundings. Then St Aubyn began deftly and diplomatically to elicit something in the way of self-disclosure; and before long he was able to see exactly how things stood--the boy of ideals, of visionary and artistic tastes, of crude fresh theories and a queer philosophy of life, full of a passion for Nature and a contempt for facts, on one hand; and the excellent, commonplace, uncomprehending aunt, with her philistine friends and blundering notions as to what was good for him, upon the other. It was an amusing situation, and psychologically very interesting. St Aubyn listened attentively with a sympathetic smile as Austin stated his case.

"I see, I see," he said nodding. "You feel it imperative to lead your own life and try to live up to your own ideals. That is good--quite good. And you are not in sympathy with your aunt's friends. Nothing more natural. Of course it is important to be sure that your ideals are the highest possible. Do you think they are?"

"They seem so. They are the highest possible for _me_," replied Austin earnestly.

"That implies a limitation," observed St Aubyn, emitting a stream of blue smoke from his lips. "Well, we all have our limitations. You appear to have a very strong sense that every man should realise his own individuality to the full; that that is his first duty to himself. Tell me then--does it never occur to you that we may also have duties to others?"

"Why, yes--certainly," said Austin. "I only mean that we have _no right_ to sacrifice our own individualities to other people's ideas. For instance, my aunt, who has always been the best of friends to me, is for ever worrying me to associate with people who rasp every nerve in my body, because she thinks that it would do me good. Then I rebel. I simply will not do it."

"What friends have you?" asked St Aubyn quietly.

"I don't think I have any," said Austin, with great simplicity. "Except Lubin. My best companionship I find in books."

"The best in the world--so long as the books are good," replied St Aubyn. "But who is Lubin?"

"He's a gardener," said Austin. "About two years older than I am. But he's a gentleman, you understand. And if you could only see the sort of people my poor aunt tries to force upon me!"

"I think you may add me to Lubin--as your friend," observed St Aubyn; at which Austin flushed with pleasure. "But now, one other word. You say you want to realise your highest self. Well, the way to do it is not to live for yourself alone; it is to live for others. To save oneself one must first lose oneself--forget oneself, when occasion arises--for the sake of other people. It is only by self-sacrifice for the sake of others that the supreme heights are to be attained."

For the first time Austin's face fell. He tossed his long hair off his forehead, and toyed silently with his cigarette.

"Is that a hard saying?" resumed St Aubyn, smiling. "It has high authority, however. Think it over at your leisure. Have you finished? Come, then, and let me show you the pictures. We have the whole afternoon before us."

They explored the fine old house well-nigh from roof to basement, while St Aubyn recounted all the associations connected with the different rooms. Then they went into the picture-gallery. Austin, breathless with interest, hung upon St Aubyn's lips as he pointed out the peculiarities of each great master represented, and explained how, for instance, by a fold of the drapery or the crook of a finger, the characteristic mannerisms of the painter could be detected, and the school to which a given work belonged could approximately be determined; drew attention to the unifying and grouping of the different features of a composition; spoke learnedly of textures, qualities, and tactile values; and laid stress on the importance of colour, light, atmosphere, and the sense of motion, as contrasted with the undue preponderance too often attached by critics to mere outline. All this was new to Austin, who had really never seen any good pictures before, and his enthusiasm grew with what it fed on. St Aubyn was an admirable cicerone; he loved his pictures, and he knew them--knew everything that could be known about them--and, inspired by the intelligent appreciation of his guest, spared no pains to do them justice. A good half-hour was then spent over the engravings, which were kept in a quaint old room by themselves; and afterwards they adjourned to the garden. St Aubyn's conservatories were famous, and his orchids of great variety and beauty. Austin seemed transported into a world where everything was so arranged as to gratify his craving for harmony and fitness, and he moved almost silently beside his host in a dream of satisfaction and delight.

"By the way, there's still one room you haven't seen," remarked St Aubyn, as they were strolling at their leisure through the grounds. "We call it the Banqueting Hall--in that wing between the two old towers. Queen Elizabeth was entertained there once, and it contains some rather beautiful tapestries. I should like to have them moved into the main building, only there's really no place where they'd fit, and perhaps it's better they should remain where they were originally intended for. Are you fond of tapestry?"

"I've never seen any," said Austin, "but of course I've read about it--Gobelin, Bayeux, and so on. I should love to see what it looks like in reality."

"Come, then," said St Aubyn, crossing the lawn. "I have the key in my pocket."