Meet the Austins

by Madeleine L'engle

  But in the morning, after the thunderstorm of the day before and the windstorm of the night, we awoke to a warm, soft sunshine and a feeling of early summer in the air, the first real feeling we’d had that summer was here. After breakfast, till time to walk down the hill to the school bus, we ran about the garden, and suddenly the peonies and wild roses were almost ready to burst open. We ran all the way down the hill to the school bus, with Mr. Rochester and Colette dashing ahead and then coming back and running on again, and Prunewhip and Creamy stalking just in front of us, tails erect and proud.

  We thought the ten days till time to leave would take forever, particularly because right after Daddy’d said we’d go, things began to be queer. First of all we noticed that Daddy and Mother were talking things over by themselves more than usual, much more than you’d think a simple trip to the island, which we’d taken dozens of times before, could make them do. They kept going into Daddy’s office and shutting the door, so we knew something was up. Then that weekend Aunt Elena came up, and it was the first time we’d seen her since the weekend of Sally and the ice storm. And Maggy said she’d heard Mother and Daddy and Aunt Elena talking about her.

  “If anybody tries to take me away from here I’ll shoot them,” she said, quite violently. “It’s just awful at Grampa’s, always having to whisper and tiptoe so I won’t disturb him. I wouldn’t mind going to live with Aunt Elena or Uncle Douglas, but I won’t go anywhere else. I refuse.”

  We didn’t say that if her grandfather decided he wanted her, she couldn’t refuse.

  And then Daddy called Uncle Douglas in New York. I found out about that by accident. He was using the phone upstairs in the bedroom, and I picked up the phone downstairs to call Nanny about something, and though I hung right up, I heard Uncle Douglas’s voice saying, “It will be much better if you can come down and talk to the lawyers yourself, Wally.” I told John this, but it didn’t help very much.

  Aunt Elena left Sunday evening. Nobody said anything more that we could hear, but we all felt that it must be about Maggy, and we were upset. She still did all kinds of things we didn’t like, but, nevertheless, she’d changed an awful lot since she’d been with us and we’d begun to think of her as part of the family. And you can dislike things about one of your family, but you care about her, too. And she certainly wasn’t a muffin.

  Well, Mother and Daddy still kept going off into Daddy’s office or up to their room, with the door closed—and we are not a family for closing doors—and we still didn’t have any more idea for sure what was going on, and John said to me, “Suppose we’re all wrong, the way we were about Sally being one of Uncle Douglas’s girlfriends, and it isn’t Maggy at all?”

  “But what else could it be? Mother looks worried about something, and I can’t think of anything else that would be worrying her.”

  “Well, she’d be worried if she and Daddy were going to get a divorce or something.” Then, at his own wild idea, he went pale. “Oh, Vic, you don’t suppose that could be it, do you?”

  Such a horrible idea had never crossed my mind. I turned on him in fury. “John Austin, don’t you ever dare say such a stupid thing again!”

  “Well,” he said, “I think it’s an awful idea, too, but things like that have happened to people. Look at Dave.” Dave’s parents are divorced.

  “But Mother and Daddy love each other!” I shouted. “It’s obvious they love each other!”

  “Well,” John said, “Dave thought his parents loved each other, and Mother and Daddy’ve been awfully funny lately. Maybe Daddy’s met some awful woman and fallen madly in love and is asking for a divorce. That would explain talking to lawyers.”

  “Or it could be Mother and a heel.”

  John shook his head. “If Mother’d met anybody we’d know it. It’s different with Daddy. Women patients are always supposed to fall in love with their doctor.”

  I got angry again. “I think you’re the most horrible person I’ve ever known. Daddy kisses Mother when he comes home the way he always does. He wouldn’t do that if anything were wrong.”

  “It might be just a front.”

  “With Mother?” I asked scornfully. “You know we always know how Mother feels.” I stamped off. But John had put the idea into my head, and every few minutes it came sneaking back. I knew it was stupid and untrue, and because John was upset over what had happened to Dave’s parents, but I kept looking at it, just to make sure it was still impossible, sort of the way you sometimes keep pressing a bruise to see if it still hurts.

  That night, after we’d all turned out our lights and Mother and Daddy were downstairs, John came tiptoeing into Rob’s and my room, peered down at Rob to make sure he was sound asleep, and then sat by me on the bed. “Listen, Vic,” he said, “I was nuts this afternoon.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I know. But I wish you hadn’t thought of it. It bothers me even though I know it couldn’t possibly be true.”

  “Well, it was Dave put it into my mind. But now I know it not only sounds idiotic, it is idiotic. I thought of what you said, and when Daddy came home I watched very carefully the way he kissed Mother. He wasn’t putting on. Well, good night, Vic.” And off he went.

  But for the next few days I wanted to shake John for having brought it up.

  And then one night after the little ones were in bed and Mother and Daddy and John and I were sitting around the fire, Daddy said, “I guess you two kids have realized Mother and I have been worried about something.”

  “Not just us two,” John said. “The little ones, too. Maggy thinks it’s something to do with her. Is it?”

  “Yes,” Daddy said. “But I’m sorry she’s aware of it. The less she has to worry till things are settled one way or other, the better. Can I trust you two not to talk about it?”

  “Of course, Daddy,” we said.

  “The lawyers want Mr. Ten Eyck to make some kind of decision as to Maggy’s future, and he himself realizes that it’s bad for her to be living with a constant sense of uncertainty. As long as she feels that this is not her real home, that she’s only on a visit, no matter how long a visit, it makes it impossible for her to adjust completely.”

  “Although she’s improved a great deal,” Mother said.

  “She sure has,” John said. “No more shrieks in the middle of the night.”

  “And she doesn’t break our things half as much as she used to.”

  “Well,” Daddy said, “thinking of Maggy, what would you want for her future?”

  “I wouldn’t want her to go to her grandfather,” John said.

  “Then what would you want? Vicky?”

  “It would be nice if someone could adopt her,” I said slowly, “so she could have a real mother and father. It would be lovely if Aunt Elena and Uncle Douglas could get married and adopt her. Then she’d have a mother and father, and if Aunt Elena had to be away, Maggy could be here with us.”

  “How about it, Dad?” John said.

  Mother and Daddy both laughed. “I wonder how Doug and Elena would feel about our rearranging their entire lives for them?” Mother asked.

  “Well, if you ask me,” John said, “I think the reason none of Uncle Douglas’s girlfriends ever pans out is that he’s been in love with Aunt Elena for years.”

  “I think you’re right, John,” Mother said, “but remember that we must give Aunt Elena time. It’s not a year since Uncle Hal’s death. She isn’t ready to love again quite yet. But she and Uncle Douglas have always been close, warm friends, and perhaps it’s excusable of us to hope that something works out between them.”

  “If I were a gambler,” John said, “I’d lay money on it. How about you, Dad?”

  “A conservative amount, at least,” Daddy said. “Meanwhile, leaving aside the ideal solution you’ve suggested, what about Maggy?”

  “Well, Dad, if you’d asked me a few months ago I’d have said I didn’t give a darn about what happened to her as long as you got her out of the house.”

  “Bu
t you do give a darn now?” Mother asked.

  “Yes. I do.”

  “We all do,” I said.

  “So,” Daddy said, “you think maybe we should urge her grandfather to let her stay on with us for, say, another year?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, I think that’s just what we’re going to do,” Daddy said, “but we’re glad you feel about it as we do. Remembering that Maggy isn’t an easy child to have about the house, and I don’t think she ever will be, even with more security.”

  “But she’s sort of become our responsibility,” John said. “We can’t just throw her out the way some people do dogs when they come up to the country for the summer and then just let them out of the car somewhere when they’re on their way back to the city.”

  “And a child is more important than a dog, I hope,” Mother said, misquoting Alice in the Red Queen’s voice.

  “So what the plan is, then,” Daddy said, “is for us all to go up to the island for a week. I’m going to take that real vacation Mother has been trying to get me to take for so long. And a week on the island with Grandfather sounds mighty good to me, I can tell you. Then, after a week, Mother and I will go down to New York, leaving you children with Grandfather. Mr. Ten Eyck has arranged a meeting for us with the lawyers and Aunt Elena, and we’ll also have to go down to the probate court and talk with one of the judges there. Uncle Douglas is going to be at all the meetings, too, which will help, as Mr. Ten Eyck seems to have taken a liking to him. But we have to face the fact that we really haven’t the slightest idea what Mr. Ten Eyck’s decision will be.”

  “You mean he might not let her stay with us?” John asked.

  “Exactly. He’s a very erratic old gentleman. Now, one thing in our favor is that he thought Sally Hough’s visit with us was funny, and that he never had any real intention of letting Maggy go to her. But he is seriously considering getting a nurse and governess and keeping the child with him in New York.”

  “But that would be awful for her!” I exclaimed.

  “We think so,” Mother said, “but other people may not think our life is as warm and happy and healthy as we think it is. Our biggest hope is Uncle Douglas. Mr. Ten Eyck thinks he is amusing, and he likes his painting, and he’s commissioned him to do a painting of Maggy’s mother from a series of photographs. Uncle Douglas doesn’t like working that way, but he’s going to do it for Maggy’s sake.”

  “So that’s the story up to now,” Daddy said. “Don’t say anything to the younger ones about it. It would be a lot harder for Maggy to know her fate is being sealed than for her to have a vague feeling that maybe people are discussing her. And we want the trip to the island to be fun and not spoiled by tensions and anxieties. Okay?”

  “Okay,” we said.

  We had thought it would never be time to leave for the island, or that we mightn’t be able to leave at all, because, Maggy’s problems aside, with Daddy you never know. But suddenly it was time to pack, and we were going to leave the next morning.

  When we got up, all was excitement and sound and fury. Daddy got a call and went tearing down to the hospital, but he promised he’d be back in an hour. Mother made pancakes and sausage for us all so we wouldn’t need so much lunch, and she packed a picnic basket for lunch, but I think she had an idea when Daddy went down to the hospital that he wouldn’t get back and we wouldn’t be able to go. But he did get back, not in an hour, but in an hour and seventeen minutes, which wasn’t bad, considering, and Mother gave him a plate of pancakes and sausage and told him to eat them quickly before the phone rang again, and Daddy said not to worry, he wasn’t taking any more calls.

  Mother told us all to put our bags in the back of the car. We took out the back seat and made the suitcases into a sort of seat and put an old quilt over them, and Suzy and Maggy begged to sit there first, and of course Rob wanted to sit with them, and they didn’t want him to, and he cried, and Daddy shouted at us all to go get in the car, he didn’t care how we sat as long as he and Mother had the front seat, but we were to get into the car and stay there and be quiet or they’d go without us. We didn’t quite believe that, but Daddy sounded as though he half meant it, so we went and got in the car, and Rob finally settled for the middle seat with John and Rochester and me, because Rochester insisted on sitting with Rob and Elephant’s Child, though we tried to get him to go in back with Maggy and Suzy, who didn’t want him anyhow.

  Finally, Mother and Daddy came out to get in the car. Just as we were about to start, Mother said, “Oh, Wally, excuse me, there’s something I wanted to do I forgot,” and she disappeared into the house again. She was gone a good five minutes and when she came out again she wasn’t carrying anything with her or anything, and Daddy said, “What was it you forgot?”

  Mother said, “I just painted the seats on both the toilets. There’s never any chance to do it. No matter how many signs I put up, you know perfectly well somebody’d forget and sit on the wet paint, so I gave them both a good coat of white paint and they’ll be dry by the time we get home.”

  Daddy laughed and said, “Victoria, you being you, I might have known it would be something like that,” and Mother laughed, too, and climbed in beside him, and we were off.

  We had gone all the way down the hill to Clovenford, past the hospital, past Daddy’s office, past the railroad station, and were starting uphill again at the other side of town when Mother said, “Who’s holding Colette?”

  Then everybody asked everybody else, and nobody was holding Colette; we’d forgotten her.

  Daddy turned the car around and we started for home again. Mother said, “It’s one thing forgetting Colette, but do you remember the time Daddy forgot Rob?”

  “When did Daddy forget me?” Rob demanded. “How could Daddy forget me?”

  “I never heard about that,” Maggy said. “Tell me about it, Aunt Victoria.”

  So Mother told about the time when Rob was just a tiny baby and we were all going, one Sunday afternoon, on a picnic. We each had something to remember, and Daddy was in charge of Rob. He put Rob’s car bed in the car, and a bag of diapers, and some Pablum, and I was in charge of the paper plates and cups and napkins and things like that, and John was to watch out for Suzy, and Mother took care of the food, of course, and we all started off, and when we got to the place where we were going to have the picnic, Mother went to get Rob out of the car bed and Daddy had never put him in! He’d left him sound asleep in his crib!

  So Mother said forgetting Colette was a mere nothing, and she started us off singing songs. When we got back to the house she was going to go in, but Daddy sent John in after Colette. “If I let you in the house, Vic, you’ll find something else that needs a quick coat of paint.”

  So John came out carrying Colette, and we started off again. What with Daddy’s trip to the hospital and our forgetting Colette, it was exactly two hours after we’d expected to start, but Mother said that wasn’t bad at all. And the weather couldn’t have been more cooperative if it had tried with both hands. June was cold, so we all had jackets on, with sweaters underneath, and soon we took them off and just had our sweaters. The sun was shining and little clouds were scooting across the sky, and in almost everybody’s dooryard there were lilacs blooming.

  Daddy said, “Vic, did you bring your guitar?”

  Mother said, “Yes,” and then, “Heavens, where is it? Suzy and Maggy, if you’re sitting on it I shall be in a towering rage.”

  But John said, “Relax, Mother, I rescued it, it’s here with Vicky and me and we’re not letting Rob or Rochester use it for a bed.”

  It takes us the best part of two days and a night to get to Grandfather’s, and the trip is part of the fun. We have a special place we like to stop for our picnic lunch. It’s about two miles out of our way, up a dirt road in a state park, but it’s worth it. There’s nothing especially exciting about it; it’s just beautiful, and it’s sort of a family tradition with us to take our picnic basket there whenever we go to Grandfather�
��s. It’s a pine forest, and in the summer, no matter how hot it is, it’s always cool there, and in the spring or autumn it’s protected and it’s never too chilly. We did put our jackets back on, and Mother spread our steamer rug out on the soft, rusty pine needles. All the ground beneath the trees is covered with pine needles, with just an occasional little green bush or seedling growing here and there. The trees are quite close together, so that the bottom branches are rusty-looking, too, and then they get green as they reach up to the sun. The wind was singing in the tops of the pines, so that at first you would almost think it was rushing water. Colette went dashing around in ecstasy as though she were a young puppy. Maybe I ought to have a whole chapter on Colette sometime, but, as Kipling says, that’s another story.

  We had a lovely picnic, egg-salad sandwiches and sliced lamb sandwiches, and Mother had two big thermos bottles of hot bouillon. When we started off again Rob got in the front seat to sit with Mother and have a nap, and John and I sat on the quilt with the suitcases, and Suzy and Maggy were right, it really wasn’t very comfortable unless you lay down, but it was fun looking out the back.

  We stopped for the night at a motel, and this is always fun, too. Maggy made five of us instead of four, which complicated matters a little, but Rob slept on a cot in Mother and Daddy’s room. We really did get an early start the next morning.

  The most fun of all the trip is the boat ride on the Sister Anne. Rob says he’s going to be the captain of the Sister Anne when he grows up, and he gets so excited every time we ride on her that he gets quite white and looks fearfully solemn, the way he always does whenever anything is terribly important to him. The first time he rode on a merry-go-round we thought he was scared sick, but it was only because he thought it was so wonderful that his face had that funny look.

  It’s a three-hour ride to Seven Bay Island. You stop at two other islands on the way out; Seven Bay is the farthest out to sea of all. Maggy had been to Europe once with her mother, but the island ferry was the biggest boat the rest of us had ever been on, and even Maggy said it seemed much more like a boat than the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary is like being in an enormous hotel. But when you’re on the Sister Anne you’re on a boat and there’s no two ways about it. We stood up in the prow and there was the sea spreading out before us, and long lines of wooded hills on either side. The wind was so strong that it made us catch our breaths, and we closed our jackets tight and the spray blew into our faces. And oh, the lovely smell where the river runs into the sea!