Meet the Austins (19 page)

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Authors: Madeleine L'engle

BOOK: Meet the Austins
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“‘The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.'”
He closed the book and sat down. “And you say Einstein didn't believe in God!”
John stood up and bowed. “I stand corrected,” he said, took the big blue pitcher, and filled his milk glass for at least the fourth time.
Grandfather took a bite of chocolate cake, then opened the book and started looking through it again. “Listen to this,” he said, and he was so interested in what he wanted to read to us that he was talking with his mouth full:
“‘The true value of a
human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from self.'”
He let his glasses slip off the end of his nose and looked at us. He only uses reading glasses, not thick lenses like John. “Isn't that the teaching of Jesus? Isn't that the meaning of the poem in the loft? And listen to this:
“‘What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it make any sense, then, to post this question? I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.'”
Then Grandfather smiled rather sheepishly at us all. “Well, children, I'm sorry, but John brought it on.”
I know the little ones didn't understand what he was reading, because I didn't understand all of it myself. I knew it was important, and I knew that for some reason it made me feel happy.
“Do you think I'd understand that book?” John asked.
“Some of it,” Grandfather told him. “Why don't you try it?”
Somehow none of us really felt like talking very much after what Grandfather had read, and anyhow, we were all very full and very sleepy.
 
Mother said, “All right, my darlings, up that ladder and into bed. Grandfather and Daddy and I will do the dishes and you
get to sleep as fast as you can. I'll come up and kiss you and tuck you in later on.”
We didn't argue about staying up later. I think Rob was asleep even before he got into bed. He didn't get under the covers, he just flopped down on the cot in his flannel pajamas, and when John said, “Get into bed, Rob,” he didn't move, he was sound asleep.
Suzy said, “He's playing possum.”
But John said, “Not this time,” and picked him up and put him under the covers and tucked him in.
There were rattan blinds at our windows, but we didn't pull them down. We lay there and it was a completely different dark from the dark at home, and every minute it was broken by the finger of light from the lighthouse sweeping across our beds. I thought it might keep me awake, but it didn't.
It was one of the nicest vacations we've ever had. We spent the days on the beach and the weather was perfect, sunny, and as long as you stayed in the sun, quite warm, though chillish if you got out of it. One of the best things about it was that there wasn't ever any rush. No one had to hurry to get anywhere. In the mornings we could all sleep as late as we liked, and so could Mother and Daddy. And when we heard them stirring we could go down and get into the enormous bed with them and talk and laugh and be comfortable. For lunches we usually had picnics, and then there were the dinners at the long table, sometimes just the family and sometimes with a friend or two of Grandfather's. And then when we went up to bed there was the arm of light sweeping across our beds, and seeming, like
the sea wind, to sweep everything clean and pure. And the sound of laughter coming up from below, and almost always, last of all, the sound of the guitar, and Mother singing.
When it came time for Mother and Daddy to go and it was half over for all of us it seemed as though we could hardly bear it. We wanted it to last forever just the way it was, but Grandfather said wonderful things couldn't last forever, or they would be dulled by repetition and cease being wonderful.
On Mother and Daddy's last night with us, we all drove down to the beach and sat in the shelter of Grandfather's cove and watched the moon rise. I'd never realized how different the moon is rising over the mountains and rising over the sea. At first there was just a hint of light out over the horizon, and then the crust of the moon seemed to pull itself up right out of the water, and it was a deep, deep yellow, almost orange, and sort of flattened at the top. And it looked terribly
old,
and strange, and John said, “If our earth didn't have any moon there wouldn't be any tides, would there? I suppose the ocean would be quite different if there weren't any tides.”
That was a spooky idea to me, having the familiar ocean be quite different, and sitting there, leaning against Daddy, I shivered.
But Daddy said, laughing, “Think of the planets that have more than one moon! Think how confused their oceans must get.”
Mother laughed, too, and said, “Just like me, with lots of children constantly pulling me this way and that!”
Rob started to chant, “I'm a little moon, I'm a little moon,” and then we were all laughing.
All in a moment the moon fairly seemed to leap up out of the ocean like a porpoise, and as it leaped up into the sky it lost its weird orangy look and grew round and clear and white. Rob said, “I see the man in the moon and he's laughing at us!”
It really seemed that we
could
see an impish face up there laughing down at us!
Mother and Grandfather began singing,
“The man in the moon
Came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich.
He went by the south
And burned his mouth
With eating cold plum porridge.”
“I just don't
get
it,” Maggy said, as she always did when Mother sang that song. “How could he burn his mouth if it was
cold
plum porridge?”
“I want plum porridge for breakfast,” Rob said sleepily. “I never had any.”
 
Right after breakfast the next morning Mother and Daddy left. Daddy was going to go to a medical convention in New York as well as everything else, and it made a very good thing to tell the little ones, so they didn't have to worry about Maggy's fate being settled. Daddy warned John and me again that Mr. Ten Eyck was perfectly capable of thinking our open, country life wasn't at all the thing he wanted for his granddaughter. He was strictly a city person and he could very easily think the way we
lived was much too free and easy and that Maggy needed lots more polish than she would get with us. And when Daddy talked like that about it we didn't feel as sure as we had about everything all that first beautiful week at the island.
We all stood outside the stable and waved and waved, long after the station wagon had disappeared around the bend in the road and we couldn't see Mother and Daddy any longer, as though they'd be gone for much more than a week.
We all had various duties for the week we were to be there without Mother and Daddy. John and I were to do the cooking. I was really in charge, but John was to help me as much as he could and take care of the picnics. And he was to sweep the floors every morning before we went down to the beach or did whatever was planned for the day, while Suzy and Maggy and I did the breakfast dishes and made the beds. John's sweeping was quite a job, because on an island lots of sea sand gets tracked in. Rob was to do anything Grandfather asked him to do, like going over to the neighbors' with a basket for eggs. And, of course, John and I were strictly responsible for the younger ones at the beach, and they'd promised never to go wading or anything like that unless we were along.
Everything started out all smoothly and beautifully. We all did our jobs without squawking—even Maggy; I guess Grandfather and the island had a good influence on her, too.
Then there came a Day.
It scares me to think of it even now.
It was the hottest day we'd had, and the little ones kept begging to go swimming, but John and I said no, only wading, and they weren't to get their clothes wet, either.
We cooked hot dogs out on the beach for lunch and then right after lunch John went back to the stable to work on a summer book report; and after a while Suzy went on back, because she was still hungry and she wanted to make herself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Rob and Maggy and I were building a sand castle for the tide to come into, and when that was finished Rob and Maggy went off to collect shells. I had more shells than I knew what to do with already, so I climbed up on a rock and started reading a book I'd brought down in the picnic basket. It was low tide, which is the best time for finding good shells, and Maggy and Rob kept coming back and dumping shells at my feet, some of them quite pretty, but most of them just plain shells like the boxes and baskets of shells they already had up in the loft. In Grandfather's cove there is a long spit of land that goes like a path out into the ocean. It's covered when the tide is high, but when it's low tide you can always find the best shells of all on it. So Rob and Maggy kept running up and down the path of sand and shrieking with delight each time they saw a special shell.
After a while I heard my name being called, and then there was Suzy peering around the rocks.
“Vicky,” she said anxiously, “something's the matter with Colette, and she just yips and snaps when I try to go near her.”
“What's wrong?” I asked.
“I don't know; she won't let me look. She keeps batting at her face with her paw, and then she rubs her face on the floor, and she's whining and whimpering. John said I'd better get you.”
“You mean she won't bite the hand that feeds her?” I asked. One of my jobs is feeding Colette and Rochester, so Colette
does have a special feeling for me. “Okay, I'll come. C'mon, Maggy and Rob.”
“Oh, leave them,” Suzy said impatiently. “We don't want a lot of people hovering around Colette, especially if … Vicky, you don't think she could have hydrophobia, do you?”
“No, I don't,” I said; but the idea had crossed my mind. I thought hard for a minute.
Maggy and Rob were having a wonderful time, and they didn't want to leave and climb up the path to the stable, so I finally told them I was going back up for just a few minutes. “But stay in Grandfather's cove,” I warned them, “and don't do any more wading till John or I come back. Why don't you build another sand castle? The tide's starting to come in. Or you can look for more shells. Or—”
“Come
on,
Vic,” Suzy urged.
“Okay, I'll be back down in just a little while,” I told them, and followed Suzy up the cliff.
 
When we got back up to the stable Colette was in the kitchen with John watching her, looking very upset. And she was certainly acting very peculiarly. She had her head down on the floor and she was moaning, and then she flopped down and rubbed at her jaws with both paws. It would have been funny if it hadn't been pathetic, and sort of scary, too. Then she started running around in circles, and I got really frightened, because I'd read in a book about a mad dog running around in circles. I went to the sink and filled Colette's water bowl.
“What are you doing that for?” John asked.
“I want to see if she's thirsty,” I said. I didn't explain that I'd just remembered that hydrophobia means fear of water. I put the bowl down by Colette and she sniffed at it but wouldn't drink any, and then she began batting at her face again.
I sat down on the floor by her and talked to her softly. “Colly, Colette, c'mere, Colly, come to Vicky.” She did come to me, though I hadn't really expected her to, moaning piteously. Tentatively I put my hand to her jaws, but she jerked away, then came back to me again. She did this two or three times, but she didn't really go away from me or start to run around in circles again. She rubbed her head hard against my knee, and finally I took my courage in both hands and held her tight and stuck my fingers in her mouth. She gave an awful yelp and sort of snapped at me, but I'd discovered what was wrong.
I looked up at John and Suzy in relief. “It's one of those lamb-chop bones I gave her last night. She's got a piece of it wedged up in the roof of her mouth. Hold her tight for me so she can't wiggle away.” John and Suzy held Colette, and I managed to reach in and dislodge the chop bone. And then Colette was all over me, licking my face to thank me, and she stood up on her hind paws and waved her front paws and begged.
“Give her a biscuit,” Suzy said.

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