Authors: Madeleine L'engle

Meet the Austins (10 page)

BOOK: Meet the Austins

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Daddy shut the window.

“How long have you had this sterling couple?” Uncle Douglas asked.

“Of course, you haven't met them, have you?” Mother exclaimed. “We still had the O'Shaughnessys the last time you were here. But Olga and Grooves are such an improvement, don't you think, Doug da-a-h-ling?”

“A great improvement,” Uncle Douglas said. “But almost anything would have been, wouldn't it?”

I don't know quite what we'd expected Uncle Douglas to do, but certainly not to go along with our gag the way he was doing. We'd thought we'd have fun and laughs at the station and then if we went on with it, it would all be just a joke, with everybody knowing about it. We turned up the road that leads to our house and Uncle Douglas exclaimed, “Victoria! What's happened to the great stone gateposts?”

“Oh, Doug, we're so distressed,” Mother answered. “They went down in the last storm.” Daddy let out an awful snort, then, but turned it into sort of a cough.

When we got back to the house Uncle Douglas sat back and let Daddy open the door and help him and Sally out, and Mother said, “You may take the bags to the blue and gray guest rooms, Grooves,” and Uncle Douglas, instead of grabbing bags under one arm and children under the other, offered his arm to Sally.

Aunt Elena said, “I will unpack and lay your things out for dinner, Madam.”

It was after nine by now, but Uncle Douglas always waits to eat till he gets to our house instead of going in to the dining car. Since it was Friday and John and I had brought home especially good school papers that week, we were to be allowed to stay up for dinner. When we got into the house Mother hurried upstairs with the little ones. Aunt Elena took Sally up to the guest room, which had never been called the blue room before, and Uncle Douglas went out to the gray room, also a brand-new name for the waiting room. John was going to sleep on the couch in the study.

We'd spent a long time that afternoon setting the table. Mother'd finally said we could use the best tablecloth, though she hates and despises ironing it, and we'd made it look as elegant as possible. Daddy was fixing something for the grownups to drink and Aunt Elena came down from the guest room.

“The girl's a snob to end all snobs, Wallace,” she said. “She's inspecting everything as though she were from Scotland Yard and asking me all kinds of questions about the family that only an ultimate snob would dare to think she could get away with. How Doug ever got hold of her I'm sure I don't know, because I don't think she's ever been outside her own kind of people before. She's never met anybody like you the way you really are, much less like this. She hasn't the faintest idea what's going on.”

“You mean she's taking it seriously?” Daddy asked. “Oh, come, Elena, nobody could.”

“I don't think she's even stopped to ask herself whether or not she's taking it seriously. She looked absolutely stricken by the time I'd finished unpacking for her. And nobody told me there was going to be a snake in the guest-room dresser.”

“I don't think that was supposed to be part of it,” Daddy said. “Do you know anything about a snake, Vicky?”

“Well, John found a dead snake a couple of days ago,” I said.

“Dead snakes do not belong in bureau drawers,” Daddy said. “I shall have to speak to John.”

“Well, maybe it wasn't John who put it in the drawer,” I said. “He showed it to all of us.”

“We were both too scared to scream,” Aunt Elena said. “But
I carried it off beautifully. âThat's perfectly all right, Madam,' I said. âHe's a great family pet and hardly ever bites. As soon as he's through with his wee bit of a nap I'll get Grooves to take him to his bed.'”

“Your name is Olga and you talk about wee bits of naps?” Daddy asked. He handed Aunt Elena a glass. “Where's Doug?”

“Probably changing to white tie and tails in the gray room,” Aunt Elena said. “Do you suppose he's furious with us?”

“We shall soon see,” Daddy said.

Well, we didn't see right away, because as Uncle Douglas came in from the waiting room, Sally came down from upstairs. And Uncle Douglas took up the game right from where he'd left off.

“Well, Grooves, dispensing hospitality? How about one for me and Miss Hough, please?”

I wondered if Sally hadn't heard Daddy talking, but she just looked mildly shattered as she accepted the glass Daddy silently handed her. Now I had a good chance to look at her. I don't know much about clothes, but I knew enough to tell that hers were fearfully expensive, and not very becoming. And most of Uncle Douglas's girlfriends are young and pretty or, if they're older, then they're glamorous. Sally was certainly one of the older onesâshe looked lots older than Aunt Elenaâand there was nothing glamorous about her. She wore her hair like Mother, drawn back from her face into a knot at the nape of her neck, but while I think it looks beautiful that way on Mother (but maybe I'm prejudiced), it just made Sally look severe and cross and nobody you'd think Uncle Douglas could feel seriously romantic about.

Aunt Elena disappeared into the kitchen, and as soon as Mother came down, followed by John, Daddy went into the kitchen after Aunt Elena. Mother says Daddy has a noble faculty for always having a perfectly valid excuse for walking out on any situation that doesn't meet his satisfaction. I could tell Mother wasn't too happy with the situation, either. She accepted the glass Uncle Douglas handed her but she said, “If you two don't mind hurrying a bit, I really think we should get on into the dining room in just a moment.”

“But, darling,” Uncle Douglas said, “Miss Hough understands perfectly that you never eat before ten.” Miss Hough, he called her. Yes, she was more like a Miss Hough than a Sally. “Or does the new couple like to get to bed before midnight?”

“Yes. By midnight, at any rate,” Mother said. “Stuffy of them, isn't it? Servants are so difficult nowadays.”

“But shouldn't we wait for your husband?” Sally asked, and we knew then that she really hadn't caught on to the gameâshe didn't know Daddy was Grooves or anything. I think she had a suspicion something wasn't quite on the level, but she didn't know what it was.

Mother blushed. She doesn't blush often, but John and I both saw her turn pink. And it was Uncle Douglas who answered, “Oh, he's probably off on a maternity case. Victoria will feed him when he gets home. I've seen her cooking bacon and eggs for him at three in the morning many a time.”

There was an awful silence and I thought Mother was going to explain that the whole thing was just a joke, but Sally said, not in an approving voice, “Well, it's all certainly quaint, the house and the children and all the animals.”

Daddy came to the door then and clapped his hands three times. “That means dinner is served,” Uncle Douglas said, still taking over. “How becoming that dress is, Victoria dear. A new little number, isn't it? I must paint you in it.”

“You have,” Mother said. “Ten years ago.”

Uncle Douglas's eyebrows shot up again. We all love his eyebrows, and Daddy's, too, of course, because they both have them, rather bushy eyebrows darker than their hair that can be raised (the eyebrows, I mean; this sentence seems to be getting kind of complicated) higher than you'd ever think eyebrows could go. They can also be lowered. When Daddy's eyebrows lower we know it bodes no good. Mother says no matter how difficult a patient is being, if Daddy lowers his eyebrows the patient behaves. I guess we're too used to Daddy to be frightened by it. I don't think he's ever frightened us, and I don't think he ever scares children, but some of his grownup patients are supposed to be terrified of him.

After Daddy had clapped his hands, Mother stood up and we all went into the dining room. The dining room is really part of the kitchen and it's one of the nicest rooms in the house. It's a wandery room, it goes in three different directions, because it's really several rooms knocked into one. Out the big windows we look down our hill to the village and then across to Hawk Mountain and the other mountains beyond. But now the curtains were closed and Aunt Elena and Daddy had lit the candles and the fire was blazing in the fireplace and Mr. Rochester was sleeping in front of it and Colette was asleep on her green velvet cushion in the red leather chair and looking perfectly
beautiful; Mr. Rochester's beautiful in his big, brawny way, but Colette's glamorously beautiful, like Aunt Elena.

Sally said, kind of to make conversation, “Oh, what an adorable dog,” and went up to Colette, and Mr. Rochester got up from his nap by the fire and went up to Sally and growled very softly, as though he thought she was going to hurt Colette.

Mother said sharply, “Rochester! Down! Go back to bed, sir!” And Mr. Rochester growled again, this time louder, put his tail between his legs, and stamped back to the fireplace. Yes, he did, he stamped. Even Mother and Daddy said afterward that that's exactly what it was like.

We all sat down at the table. Then a peculiar thing happened. We always say grace before meals. We have a special family grace that we say holding hands. And John and I looked at each other and when we talked about it afterward we found out that we were both thinking the same thing. We didn't want to say grace. Not with Sally there and Daddy and Aunt Elena hovering behind our chairs being a peculiar butler and maid. We weren't being us, any of us, and the people we were being weren't gracey people. Mother didn't make any move to start grace, either, and Daddy and Aunt Elena began passing the food, pot roast, which is one of the things that gets better if it has to sit and wait; Mother, being a doctor's wife, knows lots of those kinds of recipes. It wasn't the happiest meal we've ever had. It had all started out being so terribly funny and gay, but by now we were all feeling sorry for Sally, though we didn't like her a bit more than Aunt Elena had expected we would, and we were willing to do just about anything if it would save Uncle Douglas from her. She sat there eating her
pot roast and her nose was one of those noses that always looks as though its owner is smelling something bad. Of course, you can't help the shape of your nose, but you
can
help its expression. Funnily enough, Uncle Douglas was the only one who seemed to be having a really good time. (He said afterward it's because he's a fatalist.) He kept asking Daddy and Aunt Elena, or Grooves and Olga, to pass us things. It was lucky they'd had something to eat with the little ones before we went to the station or they'd have been starved.

After we'd finished the salad, Uncle Douglas spotted a box of cigars a patient had given Daddy. Daddy doesn't smoke, so they were just sitting there, and Uncle Douglas indicated it, saying, “Pass the cigars, please, Grooves.”

Daddy got the cigar box and handed it first to Sally, and she laughed her funny, whinnying laugh that didn't sound as though she thought anything was funny at all, and said, “Oh, how quaint! No, thank you.” Daddy kind of shrugged and passed the cigars to Mother. Mother took one, bit off the end, and sat with it sticking out of her mouth, and this was really funny; both John and I almost burst into laughter, she looked such a riot sitting there in the crazy dress with the cigar between her teeth. She didn't light it, but said conversationally to Uncle Douglas, “I think I've about decided that I prefer cigars to chewing tobacco,” and we knew she was trying to make it so absurd that Sally would just
have
to catch on. But Uncle Douglas took a cigar and Sally didn't say anything, though I'm sure she was beginning to suspect that it was more than just quaintness.

Mother had made a deep-dish apple pie for dessert, and
Daddy was just getting it out of the oven when the phone rang. It was the house phone, but often people will call the house number instead of the office number in the evening. Aunt Elena went to the counter and picked up the receiver and answered it. Then she turned to the table and said to Mother, “It's for Wallace.”

Daddy, in his white apron, put the pie back in the oven, held out his palms in a well-what-can-I-do-about-it gesture, flung up his eyebrows, and went to the phone.

“Yes â¦ Yes â¦ Is the swelling underneath the jaw or just on the cords of the neck? â¦ Temperature? â¦ Yes, I think it probably is mumps, there's a good bit of it about right now, but I'll look in on him in the morning.”

None of us looked at Sally while he talked. I think we were all glad it was over. It had gone too farâand that was partly Uncle Douglas's faultâand we'd all been hoping she'd help us out by catching on, and then she could pretend she'd known all the time and had just been playing along.

Daddy turned back to the table and said matter-of-factly, “Well, Sally, now we can all take off our costumes. I hope you enjoyed our little play. Doug's the best actor of us all. Is it all right if Elena and I sit down at the table?”

“You don't have to go out?” Mother asked.

“No, not for that. As you've probably realized, Sally, I'm Wallace, Doug's big brother, and Olga is Elena Huxley, one of our very dear friends.”

BOOK: Meet the Austins

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