Certain Women
Page 33
“Emma!” David Wheaton called. “Alice!”
Alice went up to the pilothouse.
Nik was sitting on the long bench in the main cabin. Emma went over and sat beside him, reaching for his hands.
“Nik. Something I never expected.”
He looked at her, reaching to clasp her hand. “What, sweetie?”
She was suddenly tongue-tied.
“What?” Nik asked again.
“Well, it seems—well, last night Alice told me she thinks I’m pregnant.” The words came out in a burst.
“What?”
“Alice thinks I’m pregnant.”
“Do you think—”
“Well, yes. I do.”
“Oh, Emma, sweetie, sweetie—”
“I didn’t know—I didn’t have any idea—so much has been going on and I thought I had one of those intestinal things—I’ve been sick in the morning—but I thought I’d never get pregnant again, it just never occurred to me, and my mind has been so on Papa—” She ran out of breath.
He put his arms around her, holding her close, murmuring his pleasure. “Your father’ll be ecstatic.”
“He won’t ever see the baby. And we have to leave tomorrow.”
“Yes, love. He’ll still be happy. Emma, sweetie, you’ve had some wonderful, unique times with your father, onstage, playing together. Nobody can ever take that away from you.”
“I know. And it’s right for Alice to be with him now, just the two of them.”
“Very right. The analogies break down here. Alice is no Abishag. She’s a mature woman who’s known your father, fully, deeply, all the way. Jarvis is no Adonijah, either, and Adonijah is not going to get the throne. Neither is Solomon.”
“What?” Emma was startled. “I thought Louis—he’s turning into a fine actor.”
“He’s good. I really want him in my new play. But you—when you walk onstage, every person in the audience chooses the wedding.”
The rest of that last day on the Portia was quiet. They ate lunch with David in the pilothouse. He received the news of the coming baby with delight. But it was obvious that he was unusually tired, and he slept most of the afternoon. Emma made a turkey hash for dinner, and David ate little, but seemed calm and collected, talking about various productions he had enjoyed.
“I’m glad you’re going to finish the David play, Nik, and sorry I won’t be in it.”
“David himself won’t be in it,” Nik reminded him. “Just Abigail.”
“You’re right, that the theater is changing,” David said. “If Lear hadn’t been a success, Jarvis would have lost his socks.”
“But it was a success,” Nik said. “For you, and for Emma. For the two of you together.”
“Yes. A good play for my curtain call.” His voice strengthened. “Now these be the last words of David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. He said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.’ That was a good scene, Nik. I memorized it when we were working on the play and I still remember it. ‘The Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.’” He opened his eyes and smiled at them. “Good words, David’s. He had a powerful vision of God. Like Grandpa Bowman, eh, Emma?”
“Very like.”
“There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth … He bowed the heavens also … and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind … He drew me out of many waters, and brought me forth also into a large place …” He laughed. “That takes me back to my childhood. I memorized a lot of the Psalms for my mother. I remember standing in front of her on Sundays looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy and reciting Psalms. I haven’t got it quite right, but it’s close enough. I suppose you won’t have David speak in the new play—”
“Who knows, Dave? I’m simply going to listen to the play and see what happens.”
“You’ll listen well. Won’t he, Emma?”
“Yes, Papa, I believe he will.”—He’s returning to his childhood, she thought, and her heart was heavy. Wasn’t this kind of returning to early memories a sign that death was near?
Emma and Nik left the next morning, turning from the pilothouse; hugging Alice. Getting into the Zodiac. Holding back emotion that otherwise would have overwhelmed them.
Ben started the outboard motor. They rode in silence, the little rubber craft moving with the swells of the water. Nik had his feet around an orange can of fuel. Emma looked back at the Portia as it began to recede in the distance. Then, deliberately, she turned away, looking out to sea. Almost stood up.
“Nik—Ben—”
They looked at her.
“Norma,” she breathed.
Coming toward them was an old fishing boat with eyes painted on either side of the prow. It drew level with them, heading for the Portia. The tall woman at the wheel waved, a solemn raising of her arm and hand in what could be either greeting or farewell.
A Biography of Madeleine L’Engle
Madeleine L’Engle was the award-winning author of more than sixty books encompassing children’s and adult fiction, poetry, plays, memoirs, and books on prayer. Her best-known work is the classic children’s novel A Wrinkle in Time, which won the Newbery Medal for distinguished children’s literature and has sold fourteen million copies worldwide. The Washington Post called the science fantasy tale of an adolescent girl and her telepathic brother’s journey through space and time “one of the most enigmatic works of fiction ever created.”
L’Engle was born on November 29, 1918, in New York City, where both of her parents were artists—her mother a pianist and her father a novelist, journalist, and music and drama critic for the New York Sun. Although she wrote her first story at the age of five and devoted her time to her journals, short stories, and poetry, L’Engle struggled in school and often felt disliked by her teachers and peers. She recalled one of her elementary school teachers calling her stupid and another accusing her of plagiarism when she won a writing contest.
At twelve, L’Engle and her family moved to France for her father’s health (he had been a soldier during World War I and suffered lung damage), and she was sent to boarding school in the Swiss Alps. Two of her novels, A Winter’s Love and The Small Rain, drew on her experiences in Europe. She returned to the United States three years later to attend another boarding school in Charleston, South Carolina. L’Engle flourished during these years and went on to graduate from Smith College with honors in English.
After college, she moved back to New York City and started work as a stage actress while devoting her free time to writing. During this time, she published her first two novels, The Small Rain and Ilsa, and wrote many plays that were produced in regional theaters. While touring in a production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard as an understudy, she met actor Hugh Franklin, and they married in 1946. After the birth of their daughter Josephine the following year, they bought an old farmhouse, which they called Crosswicks, in Goshen, a small town in rural Connecticut, planning on weekends in the country. When she became pregnant with their second child, Bion, they moved to Crosswicks permanently and ran the local general store. Their family grew with an adopted daughter, Maria. After nearly a decade in Connecticut, they moved back to New York so her husband, who would go on to star in All My Children, could focus on his acting career. She was happy to return and hoped that she would find success as an author again. Indeed, A Wrinkle in Time was published in 1962.
The family often returned to Crosswicks over the years and these visits inspired L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journals, including Two-Part Invention, which tells the story of her marriage, and A Circle of Quiet, in which she explores her role as a woman, mother, wife, and writer.
Back in Manhattan, L’Engle worked as a libraria
n and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, a position she held for more than three decades. Her lifelong fascination with theology and philosophy, and her personal faith, largely influenced her work. A Wrinkle in Time hints at many Christian themes, yet religious conservative groups have spoken out against the book, accusing L’Engle of misrepresenting God in a dangerous world of witchcraft, myth, and fantasy. It has been one of the most banned books in the United States. Apart from her religious influences, she said that Einstein’s theory of relativity and other theories in physics also served as inspiration. The novel’s combined use of both science fiction and philosophy established it as a sophisticated work of fiction, proving L’Engle’s belief that children’s literature deserves a place in the literary canon.
However, L’Engle initially struggled to achieve success and recognition for her work, and she almost quit writing at forty. She finally broke out onto the literary scene in 1960 with Meet the Austins, the first in her popular young adult series about the Austin family, which includes Newbery Honor Book A Ring of Endless Light. Even A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by twenty-six publishers before being accepted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Although it was an instant commercial and critical sensation and has never gone out of print, the book’s strong female protagonist and intellectual themes were unusual in children’s fiction at the time.
L’Engle’s long literary career expanded far beyond the publication of A Wrinkle in Time. Among her many books are adult novels dealing with relationships, faith, and identity, including Certain Women, A Live Coal in the Sea, and A Severed Wasp; several books of poetry; and more overtly religious works like her Genesis Trilogy of biblical reflections. She won countless accolades, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, the National Religious Book Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. In 2004, President Bush awarded her a National Humanities Medal. L’Engle lived out her final years in Litchfield, Connecticut, and passed away at the age of eighty-eight on September 6, 2007.
A portrait of L’Engle in her first years of life.*
L’Engle ice-skating in Brittany, France, circa 1926.*
L’Engle with her dog, Sputzi, circa 1934.*
From July to September 1943, the Repertory Players at Straight Wharf Theatre produced two of L’Engle’s plays, The Christmas Tree and Phelia. She acted in both plays, among others.
L’Engle with her husband, actor Hugh Franklin, in 1946.*
L’Engle and her husband renovated and ran a general store in the late 1940s.
L’Engle always illustrated her family’s Christmas cards, including this one from 1952.
L’Engle with her granddaughters Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Lena Roy at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Cathedral Library, circa 1975.
L’Engle in the library of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, circa 1977.
L’Engle at a Manhattanville College commencement ceremony, where she received an honorary degree in 1989.*
L’Engle with her granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis the night before the young woman’s wedding on August 30, 1996.
L’Engle speaking at a church in 1997.
L’Engle at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, circa 1997.*
*Photograph courtesy of the Madeleine L’Engle Papers (SC-3), Special Collections, Buswell Library, Wheaton, Illinois.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1992 by Crosswicks, Ltd.
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4159-1
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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MADELEINE L’ENGLE
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