And Both Were Young
Read And Both Were Young Online
Authors: Madeleine L'engle
ALSO BY MADELEINE L’ENGLE
The Joys of Love
A Full House
Troubling a Star
Anytime Prayers
The Rock That Is Higher
Certain Women
An Acceptable Time
Many Waters
A Cry Like a Bell
Two-Part Invention
Sold into Egypt
A Stone for a Pillow
A House Like a Lotus
And It Was Good
Ladder of Angels
A Severed Wasp
The Sphinx at Dawn
A Ring of Endless Light
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Walking on Water
The Irrational Season
The Weather of the Heart
Ilsa
The Summer of the Great-grandmother
Dragons in the Waters
A Wind in the Door
A Circle of Quiet
The Other Side of the Sun
Lines Scribbled on an Envelope
Dance in the Desert
The Young Unicorns
The Journey with Jonah
The Love Letters
The Arm of the Starfish
The 24 Days Before Christmas
The Moon by Night
A Wrinkle in Time
The Anti-Muffins
Meet the Austins
A Winter’s Love
Camilla
The Small Rain
AND BOTH WERE YOUNG
MADELEINE L’ENGLE
FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX
NEW YORK
Copyright © 1983 by Crosswicks, Ltd.
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by D&M Publishers, Inc.
Printed in March 2010 in the United States of America
by RR Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia
Designed by Jay Colvin
First published by Dell Publishing, 1983
First Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition, 2010
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book was originally published in slightly different form in 1949 by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
L’Engle, Madeleine.
And both were young / Madeleine L’Engle.— 1st Farrar, Straus and Giroux ed.
p. cm.
“This book was originally published in slightly different form in 1949 by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.”—T.p. verso.
Summary: Philippa is miserable at an all girls’ boarding school in Switzerland until she forms a supportive friendship with the mysterious Paul.
ISBN: 978-0-374-30364-8
[1. Boarding schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L5385Am 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009000800
It was with joyful anticipation that I recently opened my grandmother’s third published novel,
And Both Were Young
. This was Gran’s first young adult novel, and one of my favorites as a girl. Meeting Philippa Hunter (“Flip”) again was like meeting a long-lost friend: she leaped from the pages as if she were a version of my grandmother’s younger self. Gran always put so much of herself in her work, and in so doing she was able to express universal emotional truths through all her heroines. There is Madeleine L’Engle in Elizabeth Jerrold in
The Joys of Love
, Camilla Dickinson in
Camilla
, Vicky Austin in the Austin Family Chronicles, and Meg Murry in the Time Quintet, as well as Flip in
And Both Were Young
.
In 1930, twelve-year-old Gran was in Switzerland with her parents as they sought a cure for her journalist father, who had inhaled mustard gas during World War I. What a surprise it was to young Madeleine, being dropped off at boarding school instead of living with her parents! Likewise, the character Flip is traveling with her father after her mother dies, and in his grief, he succumbs to the suggestion by another woman (who “lusts” after him, according to Flip) that Flip be sent to boarding school. Consequently Flip feels abandoned and she experiences similar character growth to what Gran must have gone through: she is shy, awkward, difficult,
and self-centered for the first half of the book. Appalled at being reduced to the number she is assigned at school, 97, she rails against conformity. Her peers find her strange and refer to her as “Pill” rather than Flip or Philippa. It is painful to watch her struggle, yet we are victorious with her as she grows and finds that she can still be true to herself and be part of the world. She is slowly able to make friends and see that she is not the only one with trials and tribulations.
In 1949, the sphere of young adult literature was more strictly defined than it is today. One did not broach such topics as sex and death, even in the subtle ways of Madeleine L’Engle, so some deeper themes of the original manuscript were sanitized for a 1940s audience. Fortunately, over time, Gran and others were able to break down the barriers governing what could be said in books for young people. I am so grateful that Gran never talked down to children! She firmly believed that all readers, including children, want to be stretched and challenged. In 1983, my grandmother was ecstatic that Delacorte Press chose to republish
And Both Were Young
, and she was able to reinstate what was in the original manuscript. At that time, Philippa Hunter was also making an appearance as a successful artist in the novel
A Severed Wasp
, so we can see how her life further paralleled her creator’s—the young Flip longed to follow in her father’s footsteps as an artist, and Gran became a prolific writer, just as her father was before her.
It is with great excitement that we can continue to honor the legacy of Madeleine L’Engle with the republication of this version of
And Both Were Young
.
—Léna Roy
To Jo
I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill . . .And both were young—and one was beautiful.
Lord Byron
The Dream
, Canto II
Three: The Escape from the Dungeon
AND BOTH WERE YOUNG
“
W
HERE ARE YOU GOING
, Philippa?” Mrs. Jackman asked sharply as Flip turned away from the group of tourists standing about in the cold hall of the château of Chillon.
“I’m going for a walk,” Flip said.
Her father put his hand on her shoulder. “I’d rather you stayed with us, Flip.”
She looked up at him, her eyes bright with pleading. “
Please
, Father!” she whispered. Then she turned and ran out of the château, away from the dark, prisoning stones and out into the sunlight that was as bright and as sudden as bugles. She ran down a small path that led to Lake Geneva, and because she was blinded by sudden tears and by the sunlight striking on the lake she did not see the boy or the dog sitting on a rock at the lake’s edge, and she crashed into them.
“I’m sorry!” she gasped as the boy slid off the rock and one of his legs went knee-deep into the water before he was able to regain his balance. She looked at his angry, handsome face and said quickly, this time in French, “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“You should watch where you’re going!” the boy cried and bent down to wring the water out of his trouser leg. The dog, a large and ferocious brindle bull, began leaping up at Flip, threatening to knock her down.
“Oh—” she gasped. “Please—please—”
“Down, Ariel. Down!” the boy commanded, and the bulldog dropped to his feet and then lay down in the path in front of Flip, his stump of a tail wagging with such frenzy that his whole body quivered.
The boy looked at Flip’s navy blue coat. “I’m afraid Ariel got your coat dirty. His paws are always muddy.”
“That’s all right,” Flip said. “If I let it dry, it will brush off.” She looked up at the boy standing very straight and tall, one foot on the rock. Flip was tall (“I do hope you won’t grow any
taller
, Philippa dear,” Mrs. Jackman kept saying), but this boy was even taller than she was and perhaps a year older.
“I’m sorry I knocked you into the lake,” Flip said.
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ll dry off.” The boy smiled; Flip had not realized how somber his face was until he smiled. “Is anything the matter?” he asked.
Flip brushed her hand across her eyes and smiled back. “No. I was just—in a rage. I always cry when I’m mad. It’s terrible!” She blew her nose furiously.
The boy laughed. “May I ask you a question?” he said. “It’s to settle a kind of bet.” He reached down and took hold of the bulldog’s collar, forcing him to rise to his feet. “Now sit properly, Ariel,” he commanded, and the dog dropped obediently to its haunches, its tongue hanging out as it panted heavily. “And try not to drool, Ariel,” the boy said. Then he
smiled at Flip again. “You
are
staying at the Montreux Palace, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Flip nodded. “We came in from Paris last night.”
“Are you Norwegian?”
“No. I’m American.”
“She was right then,” the boy said.
“Right? About what? Who?” Flip asked. She sat down on the rock at the edge of the water and Ariel inched over until he could rest his head on her knee.
“My mother. We play a game whenever we’re in hotels, my parents and I. We look at all the people in the dining room and decide what nationalities they are. It’s lots of fun. My mother thought you were American, but my father and I thought maybe you were Norwegian, because of your hair, you know.”
Flip reached up and felt her hair. It was the color of very pale corn and she wore it cut quite short, parted on the side with a bang falling over her rather high forehead. Mrs. Jackman had suggested that she have a permanent, but for once Flip’s father had not agreed. “She has enough wave of her own and it suits her face this way,” he said, and Mrs. Jackman relented.
“Your hair’s very pretty,” the boy said quickly. “And it made me wonder if you mightn’t be Scandinavian. Your father’s so very fair too. But my mother said that your mother couldn’t be anything but American. She said that only an American could wear clothes like that. She’s very beautiful, your mother.”
“She isn’t my mother,” Flip said. “My mother is dead.”
“Oh.” The boy dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Mrs. Jackman came from Paris with Father and me.” Flip’s voice was as hard and sharp as the stone she had picked up and was holding between her fingers. “You’d have thought she was just waiting for Mother to die, the way she moved in.”
“Was your mother ill long?” the boy asked.
“She was killed in an automobile accident. A year ago. She’s always being terribly kind, Mrs. Jackman, I mean, and doing things for me, but I think she doesn’t care if I live or die. What I think is, she lusts after my father.” Now the words were muffled. She had never said this before. She had thought it, but she had not said it.
“I’m sorry,” the boy said again, then, as though to cut the tension, “Watch out that Ariel doesn’t drool on your skirt,” he said. “One of his worst faults is drooling. What’s your name?”
“Philippa Hunter. What’s yours?” She tried to relax.
“Paul Laurens. People”—he hesitated—“people who aren’t your own parents can sometimes be wonderful. I know—” He broke off as though he had said too much.
“Not Mrs. Jackman,” Flip said.
“She’s very beautiful.”
“Beauty is only skin deep, according to my grandmother. And Eunice’s skin may not be thick, but it’s not deep either. She makes me call her Eunice, and I hate that. We’re not friends. And when she calls my father ‘darling’ I want to hit her. She’s the one I got so mad at just now, so I knocked you into the lake.” She looked at Paul in apology and surprise. “I’ve never talked about Eunice before. Not to anyone.”
“Well,” Paul said, “sometimes you get to a point where you have to spill things out, or you burst.”
“I guess I was there,” Philippa said. “Thanks for not being put off.”
“Don’t be silly. And it’s safe with me. Ariel’s made your coat very dirty. I hope it will brush off. You have on a uniform, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Flip answered, and her voice was harsh again because tears were threatening her again. “I’m being sent to boarding school, and it’s all because of Eunice Jackman wanting me out of the way so she can get her claws into Father. He’d never have thought of making me go away to school if Eunice hadn’t persuaded him it was—what did she say?—inappropriate—for me to travel around with him while he makes sketches for a book.”
“That’s too bad. But—well, my mother has to be travelling all winter. She’s a singer, and she’s going to be on tour. So Father and I are managing alone.”
“But you’ll be with your father,” Flip said. She looked out across the lake, forcing the tears back.
“What do you want to do when you get out of school?” Paul asked.
“Be an artist, like Father. School won’t help me to be an artist.” She continued to stare out over the water, and her eyes rested on a small lake steamer, clean and white, passing by. “I should like to get on that boat,” she said, “and just ride and ride forever and ever.”