Troubling a Star

by Madeleine L'engle

  She looked at me and smiled. “Coming back to little Thornhill can’t be an easy transition. You’re still in high school?”

  “Yes. Next week I start eleventh grade. One more year after this, and then college.”

  “Are you going to miss New York?”

  “Not the city. But I’ll miss some of the people I met there. Talking about ideas, big things.”

  She held out her cup for a refill. “The art of conversation is becoming a lost one. I’m happy that my great-nephew still enjoys batting ideas back and forth. So does your brother. I can see that you come from a family that is not afraid of discussion.”

  I laughed. “Discussion. And sometimes dissension.” I was amazed at how totally at ease I was with this great-aunt of Adam’s, in this elegant, gracious room. There was just enough furniture to be comfortable, but no clutter. Over the mantelpiece was a portrait of a young woman. I knew it was Aunt Serena from the eyes, which were the same firelit gold.

  “You have beautiful eyes, Aunt Serena,” I said.

  She laughed and clapped her hands. “Miracles of modern technology! In the old days I’d have had the blind white eyes of cataracts or, at best, those Coke-bottle glasses. I still wake up every morning and rejoice at seeing through my lens implants. Now, pour yourself and Adam another glass of tea, my dear, and”—she looked at Adam—“Owain will drive Vicky home. He’s Stassy’s husband, and I don’t know what I’d do without them and Cook.”

  Adam said, “If it’s all right with you, Aunt Serena, I’ll drive Vicky home. Mrs. Austin was nice enough to ask me to stay for dinner again, and she’s a fabulous cook—good enough to make Cook sit up and take notice.”

  If I’d forgotten there was still a world where people had chauffeurs, I’d equally forgotten a world where people had cooks.

  “Of course it’s all right with me,” Aunt Serena said, and then, as though she’d read my mind, “I suspect your mother most graciously does all kinds of things I didn’t have to do. Life was gentler.”

  “Things change,” Adam said. “Entropy.”

  To my surprise, Aunt Serena frowned. “I really don’t approve of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I refuse to believe that the entire universe is on a downhill skid. The theory may be more sophisticated than that of the nineteenth-century positivists who believed that as knowledge increased, each civilization would rise higher than the one before, but it’s equally nearsighted. I’ll have half a cup of tea, if you’ll be so kind.”

  Well! Aunt Serena was certainly not boring! This was the kind of conversation Adam and John throve on, the kind of conversation I’d told Aunt Serena I’d miss in Thornhill. But maybe I was being unfair.

  She finished her tea quickly, and rang a tiny silver bell which was on the tea tray. In a moment Stassy appeared. “Adam and Vicky are leaving now, Stassy dear. And Vicky might like to take the cookies home.”

  “I have a younger brother and sister who’d love them.” I rose.

  Stassy said, “Owain drove the car around to the back.”

  “Splendid. They can leave through the kitchen and Vicky can meet Owain and Cook. You will come again, my dear? Adam must leave tomorrow, and though he’s promised me another weekend before he goes to Antarctica, I will be lonely without him, so it would be most kind if you would come to tea.”

  “I’d love to,” I said. “School starts next week for me, too, and I’ll have to see what my schedule is.”

  “Perhaps you could get off your school bus in Clovenford?”

  “Well, yes—”

  “And Owain will drive you home.”

  Adam said, “Take Aunt Serena for a walk when you come, Vic. She’s supposed to exercise more than she does.”

  She looked up at me. “Your father would appreciate that. My legs do not do well once autumn and winter damp set in.”

  Stassy led Adam and me farther back into the house, through a large sun porch that was part greenhouse full of flowers and plants, then through a beautiful kitchen with a restaurant stove, the kind Mother’s always wanted. Copper pots hung from the ceiling. A tall, thin man who had a fringe of brown hair around his head and who looked like a monk was standing at the stove. He turned and smiled as we came in.

  Adam said, “Vicky, this is Cook, and he keeps me out of trouble. If I’m about to do something and think Cook wouldn’t approve, I usually don’t do it.”

  “My name is Adam Cook.” The tall man shook my hand with a firm, friendly grip. “There are already more than enough Adams around here, so everyone uses my last name, and I hope you will, too. Quite appropriate, isn’t it?” He moved from the stove and handed me a large red tin of cookies. “I kept a few out for Madam. It’s not easy to whet her appetite. Do come again, Miss Vicky.” He had a crisp British accent.

  “Oh, I will,” I promised.

  Stassy opened a door that led through a small pantry and to a covered drive between house and garage, where the car was waiting. Stassy introduced me to Owain, who looked as Welsh as his name, with black hair, blue eyes, fair skin. Like Stassy and Cook, he seemed delighted to see me and urged me to come back. “Madam’s outlived her family and friends,” he told me, “and none of the relatives think they live near enough to come by, saving Mr. Adam and his family. They come when they can. And your father—he drops in more often than he’s needed as a doctor. It’s done her a world of good, having Mr. Adam here for a few days. I’ll look forward to seeing you again, Miss Vicky.”

  Miss Vicky. Aunt Serena lived in a world I didn’t know much about, a world of formality and privilege. I felt clumsy, but Adam seemed to take it all for granted.

  Owain said, “The key’s in the car, Mr. Adam.”

  “Thanks, Owain. I’ll be careful.”

  We backed onto the drive that curved around the house. “Mr. Adam. Miss Vicky,” I said.

  Adam shrugged. “I was Master Adam until a few years ago, and I really had to do some major insisting before they were willing to let me grow up.”

  The trees were a dark green against a sky that was already turning pink. The days were growing shorter. I glanced at Adam. “Thanks for taking me to meet Aunt Serena.”

  “I knew you’d like each other,” Adam said. “She’s very special, and I don’t introduce just anybody to her.”

  I felt my cheeks go warm. “She does remind me of Grandfather.”

  “Same quality,” Adam said. “I’d think it was a generational thing, except that I’ve known other old people who’ve closed down and are cranky and do nothing but tell the same old stories and are totally boring.”

  “Boring she’s not. Adam, what happened to her son, Adam?”

  “Adam II, my uncle? I told you. An accident in Antarctica.”

  “What kind of an accident?”

  “He was out in his Zodiac—”

  “His what?”

  “Zodiac. They’re inflatable, motorized rubber boats, like the ones you see in nature programs on TV. The assumption about Adam II was that the motor must have given out and he had no way to get back to land. There are heavy tides and undertows and he may have been swept out to sea.”

  The way he told me made me want to ask further questions, but it also made me know I shouldn’t. So I didn’t say anything. I looked at him questioningly, but he was staring ahead at the road.

  We were silent for a mile or so, and then he asked, “What did you think of Cook?”

  “I liked him. He looks kind of like a monk.”

  Adam burst into laughter. “Vicky, you’re amazing!”

  “Hunh?” I asked inelegantly.

  “Cook was a monk for about ten years.”

  “Oh, my! Why did he stop?”

  “He had to leave the monastery to take care of his brother, who was at the point of death. Cook and his brother are twins, born in the Falklands. Seth, Cook’s brother, is a naturalist—he’s still in Port Stanley.”

  The Falklands. I knew they were British islands, which explained Cook’s accent, and that they were some
where near the bottom of South America, and that there’d been some kind of war about them, but that’s about all I knew.

  Adam went on, “Seth accidentally antagonized a fur seal, and they can be quite vicious when they’re angry. It nearly killed him, and Cook went out to nurse him. He told me that when he came back to the U.S. he felt he no longer had a vocation to the monastic life. He’s a great guy. Listen, I really feel good knowing you’ll go over to Clovenford. I worry about Aunt Serena. I’ll miss you when I go back to Berkeley. I’m a lousy letter writer, but I’ll try to keep in touch. Getting this grant for the internship in Antarctica was beyond my wildest hopes, but it means I’ll be away over Christmas.”

  “Thanksgiving?” I asked.

  “I’ll try to come home. I did promise Aunt Serena another weekend, and my parents are going to want to see something of me.”

  “Aunt Serena seems excited—about Antarctica.”

  “I think she sees it as a kind of completion, that I’m going to finish Adam II’s journey.” He pulled up by the garage, but didn’t block Daddy’s way. That was thoughtful of him. “Aunt Serena’ll probably talk to you about Adam II as she gets to know you better. And what she doesn’t tell you, you can ask Cook—that is, if you’re interested.”

  Of course I was interested. Fascinated.

  Two

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been on the iceberg. Time had no meaning. The white of the ice was so dazzling it made everything look shimmery. I was afraid of whiteout, sort of the opposite of blackout, and just as lethal.

  I looked at the dark bulk that was the seal, and it raised its head, made a low, sort of grunting noise, and appeared to go back to sleep. For a moment I had a crazy desire to lie down beside it, to get some warmth from its sleek body. But I knew it was crazy and I still had enough sense not to do it.

  As my body got colder, so did my mind.

  Help!

  But there was no one to help.

  We tend to eat dinner later than most people in Thornhill because of Daddy’s hours. The wind was blowing from the northwest, and I thought of the cheeriness of Aunt Serena’s fire, so even though it wasn’t really cold enough, we built up the fire and sat around and talked while we were waiting for Dad. Mr. Rochester came and sat at our feet, and so did Rob, curling up sleepily beside the big dog and snoring slightly, as he usually does in the autumn when he has allergies. Mother had made pollo verde and it was simmering in a big pot on the stove, and it smelled wonderful.

  Suzy asked Adam, “So why’d you choose Antarctica?”

  “I didn’t choose it. It chose me.”

  “How?” Suzy demanded. “Why not the Arctic? Isn’t it easier to get to?”

  “There isn’t any continent there. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent on the earth.”

  “Oh.”

  “Live and learn,” John said lazily. “One of Adam’s profs is an Antarctic buff.”

  Suzy continued, “You’ll get to see all kinds of animals, won’t you?” Suzy adores all animals.

  “Not that many,” Adam replied, “because it’s a hostile climate and not conducive to much life. Glaciers and rocks and a little lichen and moss. There’ll be penguins, seals, seabirds like albatrosses and skuas, and that’s about it.”

  Daddy came home then, and after he and Mother’d had a few minutes together, we all went to the table.

  “So when you get to Antarctica,” Suzy pursued, “what exactly will you be doing?” When Suzy gets hold of a topic in which she’s interested, she doesn’t let go.

  Adam answered her patiently. “I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing. I’ll be the low man on the totem pole, that’s for sure. I’ll probably be measuring wind flow and glacier drift and counting penguin eggs and doing anything anybody else doesn’t want to do.”

  “What about the hole in the ozone layer?” Suzy asked. “Isn’t that where it is?”

  “You’re right. But actually we don’t know a great deal about it because we’ve only recently, in geological terms, discovered the hole. It may have been there for a very long time.”

  “But it’s getting bigger, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Adam answered, “but it would seem that even without the hole the creatures who live at that latitude are less protected from the dangerous rays of the sun than you are here, for instance.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Daddy asked. “We couldn’t exist without the sun, and yet what gives us life is also a danger to us.”

  Mother smiled. “It’s the happy-medium principle again. Too little sun, and we’d die of cold. Too much, and it’s equally killing.”

  Suzy said, “My science teacher—he’s terrific—says Americans tend to think if something is good, more is better. A couple of aspirin can help a headache, but you shouldn’t take a whole bottle. So, won’t you have to use a strong sunscreen?”

  I semi-tuned out. I was more interested in Adam than in Antarctica, though he’d got me intrigued about Adam II. I thought there was something mysterious about his death, but that may have been because, as my family constantly reminds me, I have an overfertile imagination.

  I half heard Adam saying, “People who live at the southern tip of South America, or in the Falklands, for instance, have to be careful to wear sunglasses. If you’re outdoors without being well covered, you can get a terrible sunburn.”

  Well, I’d done my traveling. A school year in New York, summer on the Island, and now I was back in Thornhill.

  Adam turned to my father. “Aunt Serena’s really in great shape for her age, isn’t she?”

  “She is, indeed,” my father agreed. “I just wish her legs were better. She needs more exercise.”

  “Vicky’s promised to take her for a walk when she goes back to see her.”

  “Excellent,” my father said. “Serena Eddington is a fascinating old lady, and I’m glad you’re getting a chance to know her, Vicky.”

  John said, “I envy you, Vic. Adam and I had lunch and spent a few hours with her, and she knows more about a lot of things than some of my professors.”

  “The Second Law of Thermodynamics, for instance,” I said.

  “You never know what she’ll come up with.” Adam had another big helping of green chicken and yellow rice, and then we talked for a while about Thornhill, and how the hundred-acre dairy farmer can’t make it anymore, and how many of the farms are being sold.

  Suzy looked at Adam and asked, “How do you get to Antarctica?” and couldn’t understand why the rest of us laughed.

  Adam answered, “It’s a long trip. I’ll fly to San Sebastián in Vespugia, then on to Santiago in Chile. Then I’m going to spend a couple of days in the Falklands, and finally I’ll get to the Antarctic peninsula.”

  It was a nice evening. Sad, because both Adam and John were leaving for their respective colleges the next day, but I tried not to think about that.

  School started for the rest of us, too. I’m not sure exactly what I expected. Sort of to pick up where I’d left off, I guess, but I learned quickly that Thomas Wolfe is right and you can’t go home again. I’m not sure whether I’d outgrown the other kids or whether they’d outgrown me. Even Nanny Jenkins, who used to be my best friend, was more interested in boys than in anything else. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in boys, but the boys at Regional weren’t interested in me. And it was at least moderately mutual. Some of them were good-looking, but we didn’t have anything to say to each other.

  Nanny still sat by me on the school bus, and we ate together at lunch, but we had become almost strangers. We were friends because we’d always been friends, and we both like to sing, so we were in choir together.

  I liked my English teacher, who was so excited about Shakespeare and his plays that she got us excited, too. She read some of the love sonnets to us, and suggested that it would be fun, later on, to work on scenes from some of the plays. I signed up for a class in medieval history, because I thought it would be romantic, but I was wrong. The teacher was a so
urpuss interested in nothing but dates. The science teacher was young and dark-haired and I realized the first day that he was going to be totally over my head. Suzy had a crush on him, but then, Suzy’s always been good at science.

  School was not a total waste, at least academically. Those of us on the college-preparatory track would do all right. Otherwise, it was a barren desert, an opinion I tried to keep to myself. Suzy fit right back in without any trouble, and if she burbled on and on about the science teacher, she also sat in the back of the bus between a couple of boys, and they weren’t always the same boys. No matter how little attention she seemed to pay to her work, she’d bring home a good report card, because she always did. She was taking Spanish, because there was a Spanish teacher at Regional for the first time. Everybody was in the beginners’ class together, and I didn’t want to be in the same class with my sister. I’d taken Latin and French in New York and would have liked to continue, but they weren’t being offered.

  Rob was young enough to adjust. He picked up with his old friends and they were into making rockets, which fizzled when they tried to shoot them off, but they had fun, anyhow.

  A couple of times Nanny Jenkins asked me, “What’s wrong with you, Vicky?” And I’d say everything was fine.

  The second Monday of school it was rainy, a heavy rain that my father said was the fringe of what had been a hurricane farther south. The fringe was nasty enough.

  Mother had left oatmeal in a double boiler on the back of the stove. It was full of raisins and was the right food for a miserable day. Suzy and I were alone in the kitchen. Mother and Daddy were upstairs, and Rob was out with Rochester: I could see him through the kitchen windows, wearing his yellow slicker and walking across the field with the big dog.

  I fixed myself a bowl of oatmeal, muttering, “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

  Suzy was buttering toast. “What are you talking about?”