A Ring of Endless Light

by Madeleine L'engle

  "I'm not sure." Grandfather's voice was heavy. "I do know that we're not good, and there's a lot of truth to the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

  I said, slowly, "I can't make Zachary leave the Island if he wants to stay. Zachary's used to getting his own way. But when everybody finds out it was he who took the sailboat out--well, you already know the family thinks he's poison--" I stopped as I heard the car drive up, and Mother and Daddy and Rob came along the path, loaded with bags of groceries.

  "Your daughter," Daddy said accusingly to Grandfather as he came up the steps and pushed through the screen door, nearly dropping two enormous bags, "told me all she needed was more spaghetti for tonight."

  "Oh, I said I might need to pick up one or two other things," Mother explained airily. "We got some beautiful cheese to have before dinner. And some Parmesan, which Rob has promised to grate for us. It does have a much more delicate flavor than when it comes out of a jar."

  "Nevertheless," Daddy said, "there are three more bags of 'one or two other things' out in the car." We heard him go into the kitchen and dump his load on the kitchen table. Then he headed for the car again, and I could hear Mother putting things away and Rob chattering to her.

  "How many people does my daughter think she's cooking for?" Grandfather asked the porch ceiling.

  It still and always startled me when Grandfather referred to Mother as his daughter, though of course she is. But Suzy and I are the daughters, and Mother is the mother. Confusing enough when there are three generations together. How much more confusing it would be for Zachary and his Immortalists if there could be ten or fifteen generations of one family all alive at the same time.

  The smell of spaghetti sauce wafted out to the porch as Mother took the lid off the pot.

  Grandfather sniffed appreciatively. "How about cooking up a poem for me, Vic?"

  I pushed closer to him and leaned against his knee. "I'll try. I just wish I could get Zach off my mind."

  Daddy came in with the rest of the groceries. "I've got some reading and note-taking to get done before dinner. I've got to get on a better work schedule. I'll tell Mother to shout for you if she needs you, Vic."

  "Sure," I called after him as he went into the kitchen.

  Grandfather looked down at me. He touched the back of his hand lightly against my cheek and tears rushed to my eyes and I blinked them back. "You've had a lot thrown at you in a few short weeks."

  To hold back my tears, I asked, "Like what?"

  Grandfather held up one finger. "Leaving New York. Leaving a way of life you'd learned to enjoy. Leaving a school where you were challenged and stimulated. Leaving your friends. To leave a friend is like a death and calls for grieving. And then, instead of settling down again in your own home in Thornhill, you came to me." He held up a second finger. "And you came because I'm dying."

  "But we wanted to come!" I cried. "We want to be with you for as long as--as long as possible."

  "Until I die," he corrected quietly. "It's still something thrown at you that you didn't anticipate." He held up a third finger. "Jack Rodney's death. That's a rough one for us all." A fourth finger. "And Leo. You spent a good part of the morning ministering to Leo."

  "But I didn't--"

  "You listened to him, didn't you?" I nodded. "That's ministering, and it takes enormous energy. And this afternoon you had Zachary." The fifth finger. "That's a lot to have thrown at you all at once. No wonder you're confused."

  "Confused and confounded." But he had made me feel better. I looked at the book lying open in his lap. "What're you reading?"

  "Poetry. I felt rather tired this afternoon and not in the mood to concentrate for long spaces of time. So I went back to one of my old favorites." He picked up the book. "Henry Vaughan. Seventeenth century."

  "That's your special century, isn't it?"

  "One of them. Listen to this; I think you'll like it:

  "I saw Eternity the other night,

  Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

  All calm, as it was bright,

  And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,

  Driven by the spheres,

  Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world

  And all her train were hurled."

  He paused and looked up at me, and when I didn't say anything, because I was thinking about the words of the poem, and what they meant in connection with Leo, with Zachary, he flipped the pages and read:

  "There is in God, some say,

  A deep but dazzling darkness: as men here

  Say it is late and dusky, because they

  See not all clear.

  O for that Night, where I in him

  Might live invisible and dim!"

  I didn't hear the last lines because my mind stopped with A deep but dazzling darkness. And then it picked up the first poem he'd read, with eternity being a great ring of pure and endless light.

  Grandfather looked at me.

  "He's terrific, this Vaughan guy," I said.

  "There's no one like the sixteenth-and seventeenth-century writers for use of language." He closed the book gently. "How is your writing going, Vicky?"

  "Well, my English teacher last year really encouraged me."

  "I liked the poems you gave me for Christmas."

  "Not like Henry Vaughan."

  Grandfather laughed and absently patted the book as though it were an old friend. "I doubt if Henry Vaughan was writing finished verse when he was your age. This should be a good summer for poetry for you, Vic. A poet friend of mine told me that his poems know far more than he does, and if he listens to them, they teach him."

  I knew what he meant and I didn't know what he meant. The only way to find out was to try to write more poetry; I already knew that if I listen to the ocean long and quietly enough, the rhythm of the waves will move into the rhythm of verse and words will come.

  Rob came out to the porch and I slipped away, figuring that the next half hour or so would be the only time this day I'd have to myself. Mother said everything was under control for dinner, so I climbed the ladder to the loft and turned on the big built-in ceiling fan, which was all that made the loft bearable in midsummer. Then I opened the wooden shutters we closed in the morning to keep out the sun; they also kept out the breeze. The sun was well on the other side of the house now, so between the fan stirring the air and the ocean breeze coming in the windows I could sit on the edge of my cot and be moderately comfortable.

  We each had a wooden box under our bed for our special junk, and I pulled mine out and picked up one of my notebooks. Some of the words Grandfather had read me were weaving around in my head.

  I thought I'd try a fugue-type poem, since Mother has made us fond of fugues with their haunting, recurring themes. I started with a ballade, but it didn't work, so I fished around in my box for my journal. I didn't know why, but I found it difficult to write about the morning with Leo. There was something so intensely private about our crying together that it seemed a violation even to write it out in my journal, which is a dumping place for me, and definitely not for publication. But I knew that it was important, so I simply set it down. And I wrote about the afternoon with Zachary, again just setting down the bald facts. It was, I felt, a very dull entry.

  It was the same thing when I tried to write about Adam. What was there to say about Adam? Not much. That he was working at the Marine Biology Station with John and that they were good friends and he was coming for dinner. That I'd met him at Commander Rodney's funeral. That he'd said I was a dolphiny person.

  I wrote it all down, but I didn't say what any of it meant, and I felt frustrated, so I turned back to poetry, this time a rondel, and at last words started to flow.

  A great ring of pure & endless light

  Dazzles the darkness in my heart

  And breaks apart the dusky clouds of night.

  The end of all is hinted in the start.

  When we are born we bear the seeds of
blight;

  Around us life & death are torn apart,

  Yet a great ring of pure & endless light

  Dazzles the darkness in my heart.

  It lights the world to my delight.

  Infinity is present in each part.

  A loving smile contains all art.

  The motes of starlight spark & dart.

  A grain of sand holds power & might.

  Infinity is present in each part,

  And a great ring of pure & endless light

  Dazzles the darkness in my heart.

  It wasn't great poetry, but it was better than the nonwriting I was doing in my journal. And I thought Grandfather might like it, so I made a fair copy for him.

  I felt warm and sleepy, and stretched out on my cot for a nap.

  Three

  John and Adam got home about five-thirty and immediately changed to trunks to go swimming. Adam's trunks were zebra-striped and showed off his tan. And his lean, long body. He had strong shoulders and arms and narrow hips and looked like a statue of a Greek charioteer I'd seen in an art book.

  I made the salad while Rob grated the cheese and Suzy set the table, and when John and Adam got back we all sat around on the porch for Cokes or whatever anybody wanted to drink, and Mother put a plate out with the cheese she'd bought. We didn't feel hurried, and it must have been well after seven, when most of the Islanders were long through dinner, and we were still sitting around with our drinks, that John called out, "Leo's coming along on his bike. Were you expecting him, Vicky?"

  Suzy said, "I didn't set a place for him."

  "I wasn't expecting him."

  We all watched as Leo jumped off his bike and came panting up to the screened porch. All I could think of was that something else awful must have happened, and then I realized that if it were an emergency Leo would have phoned, instead of biking all the way.

  "Come in, Leo," Mother called. "Welcome."

  Leo came up the porch steps, saying, "Hi," and looked at the round table set for dinner. "You're just about to eat and I'm interrupting."

  "We're in no rush," Mother assured him. "If you haven't had dinner, why don't you join us?"

  "We've just finished," Leo panted. "While we were eating--that's what I wanted to talk about, and I wanted to talk to you all, so I thought I'd bike over."

  "Sit down," Daddy ordered. "You must have biked at top speed. You're all out of breath."

  Leo pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his face, which was red from exertion.

  "Hey, Leo," John said, "you remember Adam Eddington. We're working at the lab together."

  They said "Hi" to each other and Leo put his damp handkerchief away.

  "What happened at dinner?" I was sitting on the wicker swing, and he came and sat beside me.

  "Your friend Zachary Grey came to call on us."

  "What?" John's voice was loud.

  "The fink--" Suzy started.

  "No," Leo broke in. "He came to apologize. He found out about Dad only late yesterday. It must have been a terribly hard thing for him to do, to come to us that way."

  "Only found out yesterday," John expostulated. "What're you talking about? What'd he come apologize about?"

  I hadn't told anybody except Grandfather about Zachary; for one thing, there hadn't been time; so now I said, "Okay, John was right. It was Zachary in the sailboat, but he nearly died. And when he was in intensive care in the hospital they didn't tell him about Commander Rodney--I mean, when you're in intensive care all that happens is you get intensively cared for--" I stopped to catch my breath.

  "So, then what?" Suzy demanded.

  "When he got out of intensive care, Mr. Grey didn't want him told because he thought it might make him relapse ..."

  I thought I heard Suzy mutter to John, "Zachary wouldn't relapse. He wouldn't give a hoot."

  I didn't want to fight in front of Adam and Leo, so I said, "He's a lot more upset about his mother than he lets on."

  "So who told him about Commander Rodney?" John asked.

  "And when?" Suzy added.

  I hated all this. "He said that after he saw us yesterday afternoon something made him wonder and ask some questions, and that's how he found out."

  Suzy started to speak, but Daddy shushed her. "I see."

  Nobody asked why Zachary was so dumb with a sailboat, and Grandfather didn't say anything. Neither did I. Enough was enough.

  Leo put his hand down on the canvas cushion of the swing, so that our fingers touched. He had obviously sensed Suzy's and John's antagonism toward Zachary. "Hey, Zachary was extremely nice, he really was. I mean, it can't have been easy to come to us, after--after everything. He told us that he knew there wasn't anything he could do for us, but he knew that Dad had saved his life, and he would try to make it worth saving. Mom liked him." After a second, he added, "So did I."

  I looked at Grandfather, but he was looking out at the sky, rosy with afterglow. Did Zachary really mean that? Or was he just trying to ingratiate himself with the Rodneys? But Zachary had never been one to bother ingratiating himself with anyone. And just as he pretended to be less touched by his mother's death than he really was, so maybe he was more upset by the Commander's death than he'd led me to believe.

  Leo said to Daddy, "He also said that you'd tried to talk sense into him, last summer, to make him take care of his health, and he hadn't always kept his word to you, but now he's really going to try."

  I'd changed a lot during the past year. Why shouldn't Zachary have changed and grown up, too? I could tell by John's skeptical raising of his eyebrows that he didn't believe all that Zachary had told the Rodneys. I did.

  Mother said, lightening the charged atmosphere, "Suzy, be an angel and put in the spaghetti and give it a good stir and then set the timer. Oh--and put the big colander in the sink so it'll be there for me when the buzzer goes off." Leo stood up. "Don't take off, Leo. That wasn't a hint for you to go. Stay as long as you like."

  Suzy went into the kitchen and Leo sat beside me again. "I also wanted you to know, Vicky, that before Zachary came, I talked to Mom about going to Columbia next year, and you were right, she's determined for me to go."

  "Hey, Leo," John said, "both Adam's parents teach at Columbia, and that's where he grew up, just a few blocks from where we lived last year. Talk about coincidence."

  "Grandfather says there's no such thing as coincidence," I said, and looked at him.

  Grandfather's lips quirked into a small smile. "The pattern is closely woven."

  Adam, who had been silent all through the discussion about Zachary, spoke up. "You really think there's a pattern, sir?"

  "It seems evident to me."

  "What does that do to free will?" John asked.

  "Not a thing. Any one of us can cause changes in the pattern by our responses of love or acceptance or resentment." He held a thin hand out toward Leo. "You're finding that out, aren't you? And your mother. Her response is always on the side of life. She's going back to nursing, isn't she?"

  "How'd you know!" Leo exclaimed.

  "I know Nancy Rodney."

  "You're right about her going back to nursing." Leo still looked at Grandfather bemusedly. "She's going to the mainland to the hospital for a refresher course, and the visiting nurse on the Island's retiring in January, and Mom thinks she can get the post."

  "Splendid," Daddy applauded. "I've a feeling your mother's an admirable nurse. She has a very special way of inspiring confidence."

  "My mom's quite something," Leo agreed. "And during the time she has to be on the mainland, Jacky and I can take her over in the morning and bring her home at night. It'll all be in the day's work for us. At first when Mom talked about working again I was dead against it, but she made me see that it will be much better for her than sitting around doing nothing, and as you said, Dr. Austin, she's a good nurse and she knows it, and she said she'd been thinking about it anyhow, now that we're old enough so that we don't need her at home all the time." He stood up again
. "I really do have to go. I told Mom and the kids I wouldn't stay long. Thanks for being here when I need you."

  Suzy came back out. "What's your rush?"

  "Jack and I have to be up and out before dawn. We have a fishing party from the Inn. My mom's going to go back into nursing, Suzy."

  "Super! I set the timer, Mother. Ten minutes."

  "Vicky--" Leo reached for my hand, then didn't take it. "I've got a full rest of the week, but maybe we could do something on Monday? Take a picnic or go to a movie or something?"

  "Sure," I said. "Give me a ring."

  "I will. But not with a diamond in it. Not yet." And he rushed off.

  "Gross," was Suzy's comment.

  "Didn't think Leo had it in him," was John's.

  "Seems like an okay guy," was Adam's. "Must be a really rough time for him right now."

  --He's growing up, I thought.--Does it take something terrible to make someone like Leo grow up?

  Suzy plunked herself on the floor by Mother's chair. "May I have a sip of your drink?" She sipped and handed the glass back. "And what do you think about Zachary going to the Rodneys'? I don't believe it."

  "Don't believe he went?" I asked.

  "Or don't believe what he said?" John asked.

  "Both. I mean, if I'd been responsible for someone's death I wouldn't go rushing to the family."

  "He didn't exactly rush," I defended, "and I think he really meant what he said. Give him a chance, for a change."

  "Why should I?" Suzy demanded. "He's the pits. And I don't want to see him, that's all. If it weren't for Zachary, Commander Rodney would be alive."

  Before Daddy could speak, to my surprise Adam cut in. "Wait a minute. You can't pile a load of guilt on someone like that."

  Suzy looked her stubbornest. "It was his fault, wasn't it?"

  "Suzy," Daddy remonstrated, "we've been through this too many times already. I thought you'd taken in some of the things I said."

  "I still blame him." She scowled. "And so did Vicky, until it turned out to be her precious Zachary."

  Before I could think of a response, Adam said, "I don't mean to butt in, but I have to. You can't hindsight that way. When something happens, it happens, and you have to accept it and go on from there. I know that. I know it from personal experience." He spoke with quiet intensity.