A Swiftly Tilting Planet

by Madeleine L'engle

  "No, Bran. When I was hurt I told you to go away, and you wouldn't. Nor will I." Matthew wheeled closer to his brother. "Gwen's in love with Jack O'Keefe."

  "Not surprised. Jack's a handsome brute."

  "He's not the right man for Gwen."

  "Because he's our hired hand? Don't be such a snob."

  "No. Because he is, as you said, a brute."

  "Gwen can take care of herself. She always has. Anyhow, Papa would put his foot down."

  There was an empty silence which Matthew broke. "Don't cut Zillah out of your life."

  "If I love Zillah, that's the only thing to do. Free her."

  "She doesn't want to be free. She loves you."

  Bran walked over to his bed with the high oak bedstead and flung himself down. "I'm out of love with everything and everybody. Out of love with life."

  "Why?"

  "Do you have to ask me?"

  "Yes, I do. Because you aren't telling me."

  "You used to know without my having to tell you."

  "I still would, if you weren't shutting me out."

  Bran moved his head restlessly back and forth on the pillow. "Don't you be impatient with me, twin. Papa's bad enough."

  Matthew wheeled over to the bed. "You know Papa."

  "I'm no more cut out to be a storekeeper than you are. Gwen's the one who has Papa's hard business sense. But I don't have a talent like yours to offer Papa as an alternative. And he's always counted on me to take over the business. And I don't want to. I never did."

  "What, then?" Matthew asked.

  "I'm not sure. The only positive thing the war did for me was confirm my enjoyment of travel. I like adventure--but not killing. And it seems the two are seldom separated."

  It was the nearest they had come to a conversation since Bran's return, and Matthew felt hopeful.

  Matthew was writing on his lap desk in a sunny corner of the seldom-used parlor.

  There Bran found him. "Twin, I need you."

  "I'm here," Matthew said.

  Bran straddled a small gilt chair and leaned his arms on the back. "Matt, nothing is the way I thought it was. I went to war thinking of myself as Galahad, out to free fellow human beings from the intolerable bondage of slavery. But it wasn't as simple as that. There were other, less pure issues being fought over, with little concern for the souls which would perish for nothing more grand than political greed, corruption, and conniving for power. Matt, I saw a man with his face blown off and no mouth to scream with, and yet he screamed and could not die. I saw two brothers, and one was in blue and one was in grey, and I will not tell you which one took his saber and ran it through the other. Oh God, it was brother against brother, Cain and Abel all over again. And I was turned into Cain. What would God have to do with a nation where brothers can turn against each other with such brutality?" Bran stopped speaking as his voice broke on a sob.

  Matthew put down his lap desk and drew his twin to him, and together they wept, as Bran poured out all the anguish and terror and nightmare he had lived through. And Matthew held him and drew the pain out and into his own heart.

  When the torrent was spent, Bran looked at his twin. "Thank you."

  Matthew held him close. "You're back, Bran. We're together again."

  "Yes. Forever."

  "It's good to have you coming back to life."

  "Coming back to life hurts. I need to take my pain away."

  Matthew asked, startled, "What?"

  "Matt, twin, I'm going away."

  "What!" Matthew looked at Bran standing straight and strong before him. The yellow satin curtains warmed the light and brightened Bran's hair. "Where?"

  "You'll never guess."

  Matthew waited.

  "Papa had a letter from Wales, from Cousin Michael. A group left for Patagonia to start a colony. They're there by now. I'm going to join them. How's that for an old dream come true?"

  "We were going together ..."

  "Dear my twin, you're making a name for yourself here with your pen. I know that the creation of a story is work, even if Papa doesn't. But you couldn't manage a life of physical hardship such as I'll be having in the Welsh colony."

  "You're right," Matthew acknowledged. "I'd be a burden."

  "I won't be far from you, ever again," Bran assured him, "even in Patagonia. I promise to share it with you, and you'll be able to write stories about it as vividly as though you'd been there in body. Cousin Michael writes that the colony is settling in well, in a small section known as Vespugia, and I'll tell you everything about it, and describe a grand cast of characters for you."

  "Have you told Zillah?"

  Bran shook his head.

  "Twin, this affects Zillah too, you know. She wears your ring."

  "I'll tell everyone tonight at dinner. I'll get Mama to ask the Llawcaes."

  Dinner was served in the dining room, a large, dark, oak-paneled chamber that seemed to drink in the light from the crystal chandelier. Heavy brown curtains like the ones in the library were drawn against the cold night. The fire burning brightly did little to warm the vast cavern.

  During the meal, conversation was largely about the Welsh expedition to Patagonia, with both Mr. Maddox and Dr. Llawcae getting vicarious excitement out of the adventure.

  "What fun," Gwen said. "Why don't you go, Papa? If I were a man, I would."

  Matthew and Bran looked at each other across the table, but Bran shook his head slightly.

  After dessert, when Mrs. Maddox pushed back her chair, nodding to Gwen and Zillah to follow her, Bran stopped them. "Wait, please, Mama. I have something to tell everybody. We've all enjoyed discussing the Patagonian expedition, and the founding of the colony in Vespugia, Years ago, before Matt's accident, we dreamed of joining the squire of Madrun when he made his journey to see if it would be a suitable place for a colony. So perhaps it won't surprise you that I have decided to join the colonists and make a new life for myself in Vespugia. Today I've written Cousin Michael and Mr. Parry in Wales, and sent letters to Vespugia."

  For a moment there was stunned silence.

  Bran broke it, smiling. "Dr. Llawcae says a warmer climate will be better for me."

  Mr. Maddox asked, "Isn't going to Patagonia rather an excessive way to find a warmer climate? You could go south, to South Carolina or Georgia."

  Bran's lips shut in a rigid expression of pain. "Papa, do you forget where I've come from and what I've been doing?"

  Mrs. Maddox said, "No, son, your father does not forget. But the war is over, and you must put it behind you."

  "In the South? I doubt I would be welcome in the Confederate states."

  "But Vespugia--so far away--" Tears filled Mrs. Maddox's eyes. Zillah, her face pale but resolute, drew a fresh handkerchief from her reticule and handed it to her. "If you'd just continue to regain your strength, and go on studying Welsh with Matthew, and come into the business with your father--"

  Bran shook his head. "Mama, you know that I cannot go into the business with Papa. And I have no talent, like Matthew's, which I could use here. It seems that the best way to pull myself together is to get out, and what better way to learn Welsh than to be with people who speak it all the time?"

  Mr. Maddox spoke slowly, "You took me by surprise, son, but it does seem to be a reasonable solution for you, eh, Will?" He looked at the doctor, who was tamping his pipe.

  "In a way, I identify with Madoc, Papa," Bran said. "Matt and I were rereading T. Gwynn Jones's poem about him this evening." He looked at Gwen. "Remember it?"

  She sniffled. "I never read Welsh unless Papa forces me."

  "Madoc left Wales in deep despair because brother was fighting against brother, just as we did in this ghastly war, 'until it seemed as if God himself had withdrawn his care from the sons of men.' ... ymdroi gyda diflastod as anobaith Madog wrth ystried cyflwr gwlad ei ededigaeth, lle'r oedd brawd un ymladd yn erbyn brawd hyd nes yr oedd petal Duw ei hun wedi peidio a gofalu am feibion dynion."

  Mr. Maddox dr
ew on his pipe. "You do remember."

  "Good lad," Dr. Llawcae approved.

  "I remember, and too well I understand, for there were many nights during the war when God withdrew from our battlefields. When the sons of men fight against each other in hardness of heart, why should God not withdraw? Slavery is evil, God knows, but war is evil, too, evil, evil."

  Zillah pushed her empty dessert plate away and went to kneel by Bran, impulsively taking his hand and pressing it against her cheek.

  He took her hand in his. "I went to war thinking that mankind is reasonable, and found that it is not. But it has always been so, and at last I am growing up, as Matthew grew up long before me. I know that he would give a great deal to come to Vespugia with me, and I to have him, but we both know that it cannot be."

  Mrs. Maddox was still weeping into the handkerchief Zillah had given her. "Never again can there be a war that can do such terrible things to people."

  Mr. Maddox said, "My dear, it is not good for us to keep reminding Bran of the war. Perhaps getting away from Merioneth and going to Vespugia will be the best way for him to forget."

  Matthew looked at his father and saw him letting his dream of Maddox and Son disappear into the wilderness of Vespugia.

  "Bran." Zillah rose and looked down at him.

  "Little Zillah."

  "I'm not little Zillah any more, Bran. You changed that the night before you went to war when you put this ring on my finger."

  "Child," Dr. Llawcae remonstrated, "it is the dearest wish of my heart that Llawcaes and Maddoxes be once more united in marriage. I gave Bran my blessing when he came to me to ask for your hand. But not yet. You're only seventeen."

  "Many women are married and mothers at seventeen. I want to go to Vespugia with Bran, as his wife."

  "Zillah," Dr. Llawcae said, "you will wait. When Bran is settled, in a year or two, he can send for you."

  Bran pressed Zillah's hand. "It needn't all be decided tonight."

  In the end, Bran went with Gwen, not with Zillah. Mr. Maddox caught Gwen and Jack O'Keefe kissing behind the stable door, and announced flatly that she was to accompany her brother to Vespugia. No amount of tears, of hysterics from Gwen, of pleading from Mrs. Maddox, could change his stand.

  Gwen and Zillah wept together. "It's not fair," Gwen sobbed. "A woman has no say in her own life. I hate men!"

  Matthew tried to intercede with Dr. Llawcae for Zillah, but the doctor was adamant that she should wait at least until she was eighteen, and until Bran had suitable living arrangements.

  Store and house were empty after they left. Matthew spent the morning working on accounts, and in the afternoon and evenings he stayed in his corner of the empty parlor, writing. His first novel was published and well received and he was hard at work on his second. It was this, and conversations with Zillah, who came frequently to Merioneth from Madrun, which kept him going.

  "Bran's all right," he assured Zillah. "He sends love."

  "They can't even have reached Vespugia yet," Zillah protested. "And there's certainly been no chance for him to send a letter."

  "You know Bran and I don't need letters."

  She sighed. "I know. Will Bran and I ever be like that?"

  "Yours will be a different kind of unity. Better, maybe, but different."

  "Will he send for me?"

  "You must give him time, Zillah--time once again. Time to settle into a new world and a new way of life. And time for your father to get used to the idea of having his only child go half the way across the world from him."

  "How's Gwen?"

  "Part sulking and feeling sorry for herself, and part enjoying all the sailors on the ship making cow's eyes at her and running to do her bidding. But she's not going to be happy in Vespugia. She's always hated hot weather, and she's never liked roughing it."

  "No, she wasn't a tomboy, like me. She thought Father was terrible to let me run wild and play rough games with you and Bran. Will your father relent and let her come home?"

  "Not while Jack's around. There's no second-guessing Papa, though, when he latches on to an unreasonable notion." He paused. "Remember the old Indian verses, Zillah?"

  "About black hair and blue eyes?"

  "Yes. They've been singing around in my head, and I can't get them out, especially one verse:

  "Lords of spirit, Lords of breath,

  Lords of fireflies, stars, and light,

  Who will keep the world from death?

  Who will stop the coming night?

  Blue eyes, blue eyes, have the sight."

  "It's beautiful," Zillah said, "but I don't really know what it means."

  "It's not to be taken literally. The Indians believed that as long as there was one blue-eyed child in each generation, all would be well."

  "But it wasn't, was it? They've been long gone from around here."

  "I think it was a bigger all-rightness than just for their tribe. Anyhow, both you and Gwen have at least a drop of Indian blood, and you both have the blue eyes of the song."

  "So, in a way," Zillah said dreamily, "we're the last of the People of the Wind. Unless--"

  Matthew smiled at her. "I think you're meant to have a black-haired, blue-eyed baby."

  "When?" Zillah demanded. "Bran's a world away from me. And I'll be old and white-haired and wrinkled before Papa realizes I'm grown up and lets me go." She looked at him anxiously.

  *

  Matthew's work began to receive more and more critical acclaim, and Mr. Maddox began thinking of it as something "real," rather than fanciful scribbling not to be taken seriously. One of the unused downstairs rooms was fixed up as a study, and Dr. Llawcae designed a larger and more efficient lap desk.

  The study was at the back of the house and looked across the lawn to the woods, and in the autumn Matthew feasted on the glory of the foilage. The room was sparsely furnished, at his request, with a black leather couch on which he could rest when sitting became too painful. As the cold weather set in, he began more and more often to spend the nights there. In front of the fireplace was a butler's table and a comfortable lady chair upholstered in blue, the color of Zillah's eyes: Zillah's chair, he thought of it.

  It was midsummer before letters began to arrive on a regular basis. True to his promise, Bran sent Matthew vivid descriptions:

  How amazingly interconnected everything is, at least to us who have Welsh blood in our veins. My closest friends here are Richard Llawcae, his wife, and his son Rich. They must be at least distant kin to all of us, for Llawcae is not a common name, even in Wales. Richard says they have forebears who emigrated to the New World in the very early days, and then went back to Wales, for nothing there was as bad as the witch-hunting in the Pilgrim villages and towns. One of their ancestors was burned, they think, or nearly so. They don't know exactly where they came from, but probably around Salem.

  Rich has eyes for no one but Gwen, and I wish she would see and return his love, for I can think of no one I'd rather have as a brother-in-law. But Gwen sees Gedder before Rich. Gedder is taller and bigger and stronger--perhaps--and certainly more flamboyant. He worries me. Zillie has told me of his fierce ambitions, and his manner toward all of us becomes a little more lordly every day. God knows he is helpful--if it weren't for the Indians, I'm not sure the colony would have survived, for everything is different from at home--times for planting, what to plant, how to irrigate, etc. We are grateful indeed that the Indians not only have been friendly but have given us all the help they could. Yet I could wish Gedder had been more like his brethren and not so pushy and bossy. None of us likes the way Gedder treats his sister, as though she were his slave and inferior.

  It is astounding how Zillie has the same features as Gwen and Zillah, the wide-apart eyes with the faintest suggestion of a tilt--though hers are a warm brown, and not blue--and the high cheekbones and delicate nose. And, of course, the straight, shining black hair. People have remarked on the likeness between Gwen and Zillie. I haven't talked with anyone except th
e Llawcaes about the Madoc legend following us to Vespugia, and they don't laugh it away. Truly, truth is stranger than fiction. Put it into a story for me, Matt.

  --I will, Matthew promised silently.--I will. But you must tell me more.

  My house is nearly finished, large and airy, with verandas. Everyone knows that it is being built for my bride, and for our children. Zillie often comes and stands, just out of the way, and looks, and that makes me uncomfortable. I don't think she comes of her own volition. I think Gedder sends her. I talk much about my Zillah, and how I long for the day when she will arrive. Matthew, twin, use your influence on Dr. Llawcae to let her come soon. Why is he keeping her with him? I need her, now.

  As winter closed in and Matthew could not go out of doors, Zillah began to come from Madrun to Merioneth nearly every day at teatime, and Matthew missed her more than he liked to admit when she did not appear. He was hurrying to finish his second novel, considerably more ambitious than the first, but he tired quickly, and lay on the black couch, reaching out to Bran and Vespugia, all through the winter, the summer, and into a second winter. He felt closer to his twin than ever, and when he neared the shallows of sleep he felt that he actually was in arid Vespugia, part of all that was happening in the tight-knit colony.

  In the mornings, when he worked with his soft, dark pencil and large note pad, it was as though he were setting down what he had seen and heard the night before.

  "You're pale, Matt," Zillah said one afternoon as she sat in the lady chair and poured his tea.

  "It's this bitter cold. Even with the fire going constantly, the damp seeps into my bones."

  He turned away from her concern and looked out the window at the night drawing in. "I have to get my book finished, and there's not much time. I have a large canvas, going all the way back to the Welsh brothers who fought over Owain of Gwynedd's throne. Madoc and his brother, Gwydyr, left Wales, and came to a place which I figure to have been somewhere near here, when the valley was still a lake left from the melting of the ice. And once again brothers fought. Gwydyr wanted power, wanted adulation. Over and over again we get caught in fratricide, as Bran was in that ghastly war. We're still bleeding from the wounds. It's a primordial pattern, left us from Cain and Abel, a net we can't seem to break out of. And unless it is checked it will destroy us entirely."