Austin and His Friends

by Frederic Henry Balfour

"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 God. But Austin had never said that he loved God; 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 God 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 assistance, 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 grass and flowers; and there he passed his time, day after day, raising the helpless boy in his strong arms, shifting his position, anticipating 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.