The Young Unicorns

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Theo put his cup down, rose stiffly, and moved to look with his fierce blue eyes into the boy’s clouded hazel ones. “No, Josiah. I’ve known you far too long not to know when you are hiding something from me beyond your usual personal uncommunicativeness.”

  Dave took a swallow of tea. “Mr. Theo, when the kids were telling you about raising up the genie the other night, wouldn’t you have liked to tell us who the bald Englishman was?”

  “I did mutter something—”

  “But you didn’t tell us. And you wanted to, didn’t you?”

  Mr. Theo acknowledged this by sniffing and going back to his chair.

  “I’ve told you everything I can tell you. I can’t tell anything else for the same reason you couldn’t tell us who Canon Tallis was.”

  “A point of honor?” the Canon asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Think about it well, Dave. Some oaths are best kept in their breaking.”

  Dave sat, looking into his teacup as though seeking an answer in the brown leaves. “I can’t break this one, sir.”

  “Can you tell us who bound you to silence?”

  Dave shook his head. “Only that it’s somebody both Mr. Theo and I trust.”

  “Do I?”

  “I don’t know whether or not you know him, sir, or how well. That’s all I can say. Please don’t ask me anything else.”

  Mr. Theo looked under his bushy yellow brows at the Canon. “Pour me some more of your boiled tobacco and listen to me, Tom. If you think Dr. Austin is tangled up in your web you’re barking up the wrong hydrant.” He took his refilled cup from Dave and leaned back in his chair, stretching out his short legs.

  “We all know,” Canon Tallis said, “that there is still an unresolved mystery about the day Emily was attacked.”

  “Nobody is likely to forget. But don’t try to drag Austin into it. He wasn’t even in New York.”

  “That’s right,” Dave agreed. “They were living way out in the country.”

  “As it happens, Dave, he was in New York for a medical meeting that day. This has been verified.”

  “But—”

  “I know. It proves nothing. And until something is proved he is innocent. However, he did not get in touch with Shasti and Shen-shu that day as he usually did when he was in the city, and, while they were out, someone came to their apartment and took some papers containing vital information, someone who knew what he was looking for.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said, “and Dr. Austin was corresponding with them anyhow; they were sharing everything they knew.”

  “No one is making an accusation, Dave, but it bears looking into. Whoever stole the papers also took an unfinished Micro-Ray and left Emily blind.”

  Dave began to curse in a low voice, slowly, methodically.

  “That is enough,” the Canon said.

  “Dr. Austin wouldn’t hurt Emily. He wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

  “If the Micro-Ray had been finished and whoever it was could have controlled it, the flash of light would have given only temporary blindness.”

  “No!” Dave said. “No. He’d never have used it. Never.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  Mr. Theo had been gathering breath for a roar. He bellowed in uncontrollable rage, mane flying, “Because we know him! Because we love and trust him!” He turned to Dave, “All right, Josiah, I have not forgotten what I said about never quite knowing what people are going to do. But this I do know.”

  But could anything anyone did be more strange or unpredictable or wrong than the Bishop in the subway? Dave asked, “Canon Tallis, did you know about the lamp and the genie before the Dean sent for you?”

  “No. I became aware of the genie at almost precisely the same moment that the children did. While I was puttering around looking at the icon in the junk shop a remarkable apparition emerged from the bowels of the shop, an enormous man in long robes. I don’t put anything past Americans—” (Mr. Theo gave an annoyed snort) “—and I thought at first he was the proprietor of the shop being colorful. He walked to the front of the shop, past the woman of Endor who had been waiting on me—I was the only customer—and stood in the open doorway. When he saw the children outside he nodded in satisfaction, rubbed his hands together as though extremely pleased, and went out to them. As I said, I pricked up my ears and listened.”

  Mr. Theo put down his cup in disgust. “I thought that we were going to come on a level with each other. I have told you everything, I am as an open paper, and all you do is make wild accusations against an innocent man, while both you and Josiah see fit to continue withholding from me.”

  “It is not that we see fit,” the Canon said gently. “Until I know more of what is going on, it is not safe—not for you or any of us—for me to speak further.”

  “Think, then, Tom, if you are capable of doing so. What does the genie appearing to the children tell you?”

  “Something odd is going on.”

  “But more. If you want to get at a man, you find his most vulnerable point. What’s Austin’s? His children. What all this tells me is that someone’s after Austin.”

  “The possibility has occurred to me, Theo.”

  “Is Emily in danger now? Hasn’t she suffered enough?”

  “She has. One of the things I hope to do is to see that nothing more happens to her.”

  Mr. Theo rose. His fingers moved as though feeling for a keyboard. “What was done to her cannot be undone. We have all faced and accepted that. But it has not undone her talent. She will still be the artist I know she can be. This is more than a flash in the dish. She is not only a child prodigy, Tom. The real thing is there, not fully developed yet, but there.”

  “I know,” Canon Tallis said. “You played me her tapes.”

  “And do not go on at me,” Mr. Theo’s voice rose again, “about pain and suffering developing talent—”

  “I am not going on at you in any way.”

  Mr. Theo overrode him. “I am aware of the fact. A great many years of life could not fail to make even me become aware of this overobvious truth. I have said it myself: suffering is the finger exercising of the spirit. But Emily has had enough. Too much can kill even a gift like hers. I will not have her hurt again, just as she is making friends, real friends, for the first time in her life, and they are the Austins, mark that, Tom, the Austins whom you so wildly accuse.”

  “Theo,” Canon Tallis said, “whatever we do we must not be ruled by emotion.”

  “I am not a cold, heartless intellect—” Mr. Theo started to roar, then drew himself up. “Sorry, Tom. Sorry. To say that to you, of all people … . I am the cold, heartless beast—”

  “All right, Theo.” Canon Tallis poured himself a cup of what by now must be stone-cold tea. Dave saw that his hand was not quite steady. “You must hold your heart, too, in abeyance. And you might pray for Emily, Theo. I don’t know what the danger is. If I did, I would not, could not, withhold it from you. All I know is that there is danger.”

  When Dave shook hands to say good night to Canon Tallis he looked for a long moment into the priest’s eyes, and the gaze was returned. Each was questioning, wondering just what it was that the other was not revealing. Had the priest, Dave wondered, also made the trip through the tunnel? Had he, too, sworn silence to the Bishop? Did the Dean know more than the Bishop thought he did?

  “Sir,” Dave asked abruptly, “how well do you know the Bishop?”

  “Moderately. He’s not a close personal friend like Mr. Theo, or Juan de Henares.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  The Canon did not inquire why Dave would ask such a question. “He has a reputation for being a good bishop despite his poor health, a holy man, perhaps not an innovator.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That his very scrupulousness gives him a resistance to change. When there is talk about the great bishops here, Manning is mentioned, and Donegan, but not Fall because of his r
igid concern for the status quo.”

  “Do you think he’s apt to—to get more flexible?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know, Dave. Do you?”

  Was the question loaded? Surely the Bishop’s spectacular throne in the subway was innovation of the first order.

  Dave remembered suddenly a conversation he had had earlier in the autumn with the chorister who was Head Boy for the year, and who had angered Dave by making uncomplimentary remarks about the Bishop. The boy had been a choir probationer when Dave was leader of Decani, and he defended himself by saying, “He’s changed, Dave. He’s not the way he used to be. He’s different from when you were here. Honest. Everybody says so.”

  “So what do ‘they’ say?”

  “Sort of that he started to change when his brother died. He sort of aged terribly. Everybody says they were very close and he was all broken up.”

  “So he’s aged, then,” Dave had said. “That doesn’t mean he’s changed, basically. Like, look at Mr. Theo. He’s getting old, really old. But he’s still Mr. Theo.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that.”

  “More how?”

  But the boy, when pinned down, could not put his finger on how the Bishop had changed. All he could say was, “We hardly see him now. He hasn’t celebrated Mass in I don’t know when. Sometimes he serves. I think it has something to do with his feeling he has to be a servant, or something all symbolic. He does preach regularly, and he’s good, Dave, he makes even us listen. I never do homework when the Bishop preaches. But—oh, I don’t know, Dave. He’s just not the same. All the kids feel it.”

  “You’re just going through your atheist stage,” Dave had said, and stalked off.

  So the choristers thought the Bishop was changed? What did that do to Canon Tallis’s remark about the Bishop’s resistance to change? “Look, sir,” he said now. “Maybe one thing I can tell you. The Bishop isn’t the way he was when I was in choir. He’s been different this year. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

  “Right, Dave. Thanks. Keep in close touch, will you?”

  “What are you two going on about?” Mr. Theo demanded. “Josiah, you are going to walk me home, no?”

  “I am going to walk you home, yes.” Dave said.

  Nine

  On Sunday it rained, a cold, bone-chilling November rain. Everybody came in wet from church. When the children had hung up their outer clothes and changed their shoes, Mrs. Austin suggested, “Let’s not go anywhere or do anything this afternoon. Let’s just sit around and relax and maybe Daddy and I can actually get through the Times for once.”

  “But we were going to the Cloisters,” Suzy protested. “I wanted to see the tapestries. We saw pictures of them in art class last week. And Emily wanted to listen to the concert.”

  “I am not going to cope with all those soaking navy-blue coats again,” Mrs. Austin announced.

  “They stink when they’re wet.” Emily wrinkled her nose. “They’re wet enough already from church. I don’t mind missing the concert, Mrs. Austin. I’d do just as well to practice. I’ve skimped on it this week and Mr. Theo’ll be furious.”

  “Yeah, he gets mad at us.” Suzy was in one of her protesting moods. But she stopped pestering her mother about going to the Cloisters.

  After lunch Rob went downstairs to listen to Emily practice. Vicky and Suzy settled themselves at the dining table to finish homework, their weekend assignments having been heavy, and Dr. and Mrs. Austin went into the study with the paper. Mrs. Austin took the theatre and book sections and established herself happily in the wicker rocker; Dr. Shen-shu’s yellow paint was a sunshiny bit of color against the dark of the day. She had a basket of mending beside her, but had no intention of touching it. Her husband, leaning back in his creaking desk chair, his feet comfortably up on the desk, began to read methodically through the News of the Week. Comfort and companionableness reigned. Sleet beat against the windows, safely held without. The disciplined and comprehensible sound of finger exercises, cleanly and strongly played, floated up the marble stairs and through the open door.

  Mrs. Austin looked up from the drama reviews. “Nobody seems to think much of the new Coriolanus. It says here there hasn’t been a good performance of Coriolanus since Henry Grandcourt, and that was back in the days when I was young and singing a bit and hadn’t met you. Let’s all have tea downstairs later on, and build a good fire in the fireplace, and get Emily to give us a concert.”

  “Listen to this,” her husband said, and read aloud, “The old gang, the West Side Alphabats, is reported to be recruiting new members in extraordinary numbers, but with a difference. Police have been on the alert as the gang’s territory has stretched out into East Harlem, but have been able to see no increase in crime in the areas in which the Alphabats operate. Rather there has been a decrease in the petty thievery and muggings that marked the Bats heretofore, presumably because they needed to procure money for LSD, marijuana, or other illegal narcotics.”

  “Isn’t that Dave’s old gang?” Mrs. Austin asked.

  Her husband nodded, continuing. “Recruits to the group are coming from an ever widening area. Many of the Bats wear black jackets, but there is no consistent uniform. The leaders, those who call themselves only by the letters of the alphabet, wear an insignia on the right sleeve, so small as to be inconspicuous, of a bat with outspread wings. One ex-junkie, now known to have ‘kicked the habit,’ told a member of the detective force that he didn’t need any more ‘snow.’ A younger teen-ager, who used to need hospitalization after frequent ‘trips,’ when questioned said that he no longer needed ‘pot’ or ‘acid,’ that the Bats have taught him a new way to ‘rub-a-dub’ and ‘take a flight.’” Dr. Austin broke off.

  “What’s the matter?” his wife asked, looking at her basketful of darning. She pulled out a navy-blue skirt with half the hem out, murmuring, “I really should make Suzy do this herself,” looked at Emily’s school blazer with a rip in the elbow from one of her frequent tumbles, and put it on top of the pile. Duty done, she picked up the drama section again. “Go on about the Alphabats.”

  Her husband continued, “Further investigations are being carried out, but there is no indication that there is anything illegal. Indeed, on the surface at any rate, the new Alphabats seem committed to law and order.”

  “Well!” Mrs. Austin said. “That’s a pleasant switch. Let’s ask Dave about it.”

  “Better not. You know Dave hates being reminded that he ever ran with that pack—or maybe flew with them might be better.” He tossed the paper over the desk to his wife, as though he were glad to get rid of it. “Here. Have a look yourself if you like.”

  Mrs. Austin picked up the paper, looked over it at her husband. “Wallace,” she said carefully, “I wish you’d tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “Why should anything be bothering me?”

  Her voice trembled slightly. “After all these years you think I can’t tell that you’ve been concerned—to say the least—about something almost ever since we moved to New York?”

  He looked down at a pad of scrawled numbers and formulae. “The switch from being a simple country doctor is harder than I’d expected.”

  “Wally!” his wife cried. “You’re shutting me out. Don’t! I can’t bear it.”

  But he did not look up from his desk or make any reply.

  The evening after Emily’s next piano lesson with Mr. Theo, when they were all at the table, with both the old man and Dave part of the close-knit group, Mrs. Austin said, “I keep waiting, don’t you?”

  Dave asked, with unwonted sharpness, “What for?”

  Mrs. Austin looked at him in surprise. “For a word from Emily’s father.”

  “Oh,” Dave said. “It’s tonight he’s due home. I forgot.”

  “And don’t look for a word from him,” Emily said. “He never lets people know about things like arrival times. When he gets home he’ll just walk in.”

  The doorbell rang.


  Emily laughed. “At least we know it isn’t Papa. He’s perfectly capable of having left his keys in the Parthenon but he’d never give an ordinary ring. He always does my fugue.”

  “But who—” Mrs. Austin asked. “We aren’t expecting anybody.”

  “I’ll go see.” Rob clattered down from his chair.

  Dr. Austin looked silently at Dave, who nodded, rose, and followed the little boy.

  “Betcha it’s the Fuller Brush man,” Suzy said. “He’s always after Mother for mothballs.”

  Mrs. Austin laughed. “This house does look like the perfect sanctuary for homeless moths.”

  “Papa said there were bats here when he bought it,” Emily informed them.

  “More potatoes, please,” Suzy requested. “The only bats around here are in the belfry.” She stopped as footsteps came up the marble stairs. They all listened, more carefully than they would have a week earlier when they would simply have assumed that a doorbell ring would mean something normal and comprehensible.

  Dave and Rob returned alone, and Dave brought a slip of paper to Dr. Austin. “It’s a cable.”

  “It’ll be from Papa,” Emily said calmly.

  Dr. Austin tore open the cable, read it swiftly first to himself, then aloud. “STAYING ATHENS EXTRA WEEK STOP CAREFUL OF FALLS STOP LOVE TO EMILY ALL GREGORY.”

  “I might have known,” Emily said. “Once papa gets to Greece he can’t bear to leave. Do you mind terribly being stuck with me? He’s taking advantage of you, you know.”

  Dr. Austin put his hand swiftly on hers in a gesture of reassurance. Emily, who usually shied like a wild pony when she was touched, put her head briefly against his shoulder. Dr. Austin let his hand lie on hers.

  “You know we love having you with us,” Mrs. Austin said.

  “Hey!” Suzy called to draw attention to herself. “I’m all over my cold now. If Dr. Gregory’s going to be gone a-whole-nother week I do think Emily and Vicky might move up with me. You make me feel like a baby leper.”

  “With spots?” Rob asked.

  “I said leper, not leopard. And I don’t like being treated like a baby. I’m the same age as Emily.”