The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'engle

Author:Madeleine L'engle [L'engle, Madeleine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2012-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

When the girls were out of sight the priest led Rob down the nave, slowing his pace to Rob’s, waiting as the little boy carefully walked around each medallion, not stepping on the polished bronze. They went past the altar, and up the steps to the ambulatory, where the priest turned right and crossed the west entrance to St. James chapel. They went out through a side door which Rob had not used before and descended a flight of steps and walked through the Dean’s Garden. The shadows of rhododendron bushes and chrysanthemums looked like draggled birds in the November evening. Beyond the garden, lights were on in the choir buildings, the Bishop’s house, Cathedral House. The Cathedral offices were closing for the night, and two pretty young secretaries came out, called good night cheerily to Canon Tallis as though he were a particular favorite of theirs, and hurried down the path, talking and laughing. Rob followed Canon Tallis into the building, looking around in open curiosity.

“Never been here before?”

Rob shook his head, mouth slightly open, then remembered his manners. “No, sir.”

“Not very exciting, is it? Mostly offices downstairs. Upstairs there’s a nice dining room and meeting hall you might like to see sometime, and the Dean’s study, which is a room I dearly love. We could have our tea in there, but I think there’s a fire in the library in the Deanery, and this is Martha’s day to clean for the Dean, so she’ll have tea ready, and she sets out a splendid spread and knows all the things I like best. We’ll need the fire there, too. I’ve kept the thermostat all the way down while the Dean’s been away, but he’ll push it right back up when he gets home from Puerto Rico tonight. He likes all your central heating. I don’t.”

“You’ll be comfortable in our house, then.” Rob followed the Canon into the library. “It isn’t very centrally heated. It’s supposed to be, but the furnace is elderly. But we have fireplaces there, too, and anyhow we’re used to houses not being warm in winter. Our own real house in Thornhill was sort of cold, especially if there was a west wind, and Mother always fussed about our being frozen around the edges until the middle of April at least.” He stood in the center of the library, looking around as he chatted. His gaze was arrested at the portrait. “Who’s that?”

“Dean de Henares.”

Rob shook his head. “The Dean has grey hair and he isn’t thin like that and he’s old.”

“He was younger when that portrait was painted. Does it remind you of anybody?”

“Dave.”

Canon Tallis smiled. “The Dean wasn’t at all unlike Dave when they were the same age. If anyone had told Juan Alcalá de Henares that he was going to be a priest, much less the dean of a great Cathedral, he’d probably have bonged him.”

Rob continued to regard the portrait with his small boy’s gravity. “My grandfather said that Dave would end up a bishop, and Dave almost bonged him.

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