And both were young

by Madeleine L'Engle

"No, I'm fine, Paul. Are you all right?"

"Yes, Flip. Yes, I'm all right and there's so much to tell you only Mlle. Duvoisine from your school said that I mustn't excite you and of course she's right."

"You won't excite me. Please tell me."

Paul climbed up onto the foot of the bed and sat there, leaning his dark head back against one of the posts. His eyes were ringed with black and his face looked white and tired and as though he had not slept.

"Tell me, Paul, please," she asked gently.

"He's not my father." Paul closed his eyes and a look of relief came into his face. "He's not my father, Flip."

"He couldn't have been your father," Flip said. "Not that man."

Paul opened his eyes and tried to smile at her. "After you locked me up in your room I shouted and banged and my father—I mean Monsieur Laurens—never even noticed." Flip opened her eyes wide because it was the first time Paul had corrected himself when he called Monsieur Laurens his father. He continued, "He said he heard something but he thought we were having some kind of a game with Ariel. He'd forgotten Aunt Colette had Ariel with her. Then Aunt Colette came home and let me out and I told her everything and we ran downstairs and roused father and then we went to the chateau. Father took his gun. Sometimes he can be a very active man, Flip. It's only when he's writing that he seems to forget the world. We saw the man who said he was my father coming out of the chateau and father captured him and the man told us a piece of shutter had struck you on the head and he thought it had killed you and he had put you in the chateau to protect you from the wind and he kept crying out that he did not want to be a murderer. And Aunt Colette and I rushed into the chateau and found you and—" Paul paused for a long time. Then he said, "I thought you were dead. But Aunt Colette said you weren't and then you said something and moaned and we carried you home and called the doctor and Mlle. Duvoisine from your school."

"Where's Madame?" Flip asked him.

"She's down in Montreux with the man who said he was my father. They're at the police office. You see, Flip, that's what he's been doing. I mean, it's his profession. He went around finding out about people who didn't know who they were and then he pretended he was related to them and got money from whoever had become their new families. Aunt Colette said he was ill and not right in his mind. He admitted that he wasn't my father but it wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't because when I saw you lying there all in a little heap inside the chateau in the dark and I thought you were dead, I remembered. I remembered who I was, Flip."