The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “What now, cariad?” asked Nan-Nan.

  “Our lovely supper,” said Lucy, “and perhaps he didn’t even find the bread and honey.”

  “Who, merchi?” demanded Nan-Nan.

  “A scapegoat in the mill wood.”

  “There are no goats in the woods,” said Nan-Nan. “Up in the mountains, plenty, but not in the woods. It’s dreaming you are.”

  “He is not really a goat, Nan-Nan, he is a man and he is all bones and he wears rags.”

  “Some travelling vagabond,” said Nan-Nan. “If you and Justus were running wild in the mill wood when you should have been playing in the garden, and he frightened you, a fright is what you deserved.” Then she was suddenly alarmed. “This man, burnt near black by the sun was he?” she demanded. “And the hair of his head hanging to his scalp like sheeps’ wool to brambles?” Lucy nodded and Nan-Nan clacked her tongue and was increasingly distressed. “It was the sin-eater you saw,” she said. “Madam your mother would not like you to be having anything to do with him. Do you hear me, cariad? You and Justus must not go into the mill wood again.”

  Lucy was now sitting bolt upright, her tears dried by a burning compassionate curiosity. “What is a sin-eater, Nan-Nan? How can you eat sin? Sin is not a food. Is it eating sin that makes him so thin and bony?”

  Nan-Nan was now coming round and blamed herself that shock and horror had made her question Lucy. But having done so she thought it best now to be explicit with the child. “Country folk are very ignorant, cariad,” she said. “Still holding to heathen superstitions, things that should have vanished from a Christian country. They think that if food is placed on the breast of a corpse, and a man eats it, then the dead man is free from his sin, and the sin-eater suffers its punishment.” Nan-Nan found it difficult to speak calmly. The sin-eaters were outcasts, living alone in deserted places, and even those who believed in their power and made use of them regarded them with loathing, and when their work was done would drive them out with blows and curses. Nan-Nan herself, the bravest of women, was terrified by them. The thought that a sin-eater’s glance had fallen upon Lucy and Justus made her feel physically ill, so that she hid her hands under her apron to hide their trembling from Lucy. “Never must you go to the mill wood again,” she said sternly. “Do you hear me, cariad?”

  “He would not hurt us, Nan-Nan. He was frightened of us and ran away.”

  “That is as may be,” said Nan-Nan. “But sin-eater or no sin-eater, madam your mother does not like you running wild in the woods and you must not do it.”

  “He must be a kind man,” said Lucy thoughtfully. “Eating other people’s sins and being punished for them when he has not done them himself. I would not like to do that.”

  Her eyelashes were slowly descending to her flushed cheeks and she appeared to be sinking into sleep. Nan-Nan shook her shoulder, “Never must you go to the mill wood alone, Lucy, do you hear me?”

  Lucy’s eyelids fluttered upwards for a moment. “I hear you,” she murmured and appeared immediately to be asleep.

  Nan-Nan struggled to her feet, her knees trembling so greatly that she had to sit on the stool a little while, rocking herself and keening under her breath. The evil eye had fallen upon her children. Now it would take every charm she knew, every spell and incantation taught her by old Rhys the Harper to shield them from disaster. She groped her way across the bedchamber and the dais, hardly seeing the two lovely ladies and their husbands laughing and talking before the fire. She gained the nursery and she went to bed, but all night long she lay awake. The weather was on the change and by midnight the chill of approaching rain had invaded the castle. A small wind moaned under the door and the drag of the waves along the shore grew louder and more melancholy. Nan-Nan had not until now shared Elizabeth’s fear of the castle, for all places were alike to her if the nursery was satisfactory, but that night she too was afraid, and when the sky lightened again, and the singing of the birds sounded through the pattering of summer rain, she was not able to forget her fear.

  Four

  1

  The Sunday of the pilgrimage started like any other Sunday except that Lucy did not want to go to church. She did not object to church in itself but it was August, and hot, and she did not want to wear her best blue silk gown with its voluminous skirt and petticoats. Sitting on the stool in the big bedchamber, swinging her legs rebelliously inside the hot skirts while Nan-Nan endeavoured to bring order to her wild hair, she said she wished she was a mermaid.

  “Why, cariad?” asked Nan-Nan.

  “They do not wear clothes,” said Lucy.

  Elizabeth, seated before her mirror adjusting her black curly-brimmed hat, looked round in dismay. “That is a very unmaidenly remark,” she chided gently.

  “But I do not want to be a maiden,” said Lucy. “I want to be a mermaid.”

  Though rebellious she was not cross, merely making a few truthful statements, but Nan-Nan misunderstood her mental state and gave her a sharp tap on the hand with the comb. Then she really was cross, for she thought Nan-Nan was being unfair and injustice always infuriated her. She jumped up, seized the comb and flung it into a far corner of the room. Then Nan-Nan was cross. Her serene temper failed her on an average only about once every three years, and this was the triennial failure. In the twinkling of an eye she herself was on the stool with Lucy laid across her knees, Lucy’s petticoats were flung over her head and Nan-Nan’s tiny hand was giving her a good hard slapping. She came right way up crimson-faced, her mouth open to yell, but was too astonished to do so, and before she knew where she was Nan-Nan had smacked her hat on top of her still unruly hair and had marshalled her and her equally astonished mother out of the bed­chamber and down into the hall.

  William and his two sons, marvellously attired in their best doublets and bucket-topped boots, their swords at their sides and their plumed hats in their hands, were waiting for them. Even Justus, now that he was breeched, had his little sword and it had transformed Sunday Churchgoing from a weariness to an exultation of the spirit. The church bell was already ringing. William offered his arm to his wife and the procession set forth, joined at the screens by the servants and dogs who fell in two and two behind them, all except Nan-Nan, who had to stay behind to look after the twins, and the scullions who must get the dinner going.

  Lucy’s mouth slowly closed but her colour remained high. Nan-Nan had been unjust and her outraged feelings, denied expression, were seething inside her. They would explode soon, she knew they would, and it would not be her fault.

  In dignity and beauty the Walter family and their household progressed to church, through the garden, along the road, under the lych-gate and through the churchyard. Many of the villagers were on their way too. They bowed and curtseyed to the squire and his wife and William and Elizabeth acknowledged the salutation as though they were the king and queen. They walked up the aisle with their beautiful children, the hounds Shôn and Twm and Jano the spaniel behind them, and settled themselves in the two leather-backed chairs that had been placed for them like thrones to the right of the aisle, before the chancel steps. It was Parson Peregrine’s opinion that men should remove their hats in church but William would not do this. His obstinacy had perhaps something to do with the seventh commandment, facing him black and large upon the wall. He would sit glaring at it, very upright, the plume in his huge hat seeming to grow taller and taller as he glared. The children sat beside their parents on a backless bench while Shôn, Twm and Jano lay in the aisles, noses on paws, slumbered and had the best of it.

  Just behind the Walter family were Howel and Damaris and Owen Perrot, and Rhys, Owen’s dog, lay in the aisle just behind the castle dogs. The bell quickened its pace, for James Jones the Clerk who was ringing it was indicating to stragglers that there were only three minutes left. The other two parish servants, Bowen the Beadle and Price the Sexton, were in their places under the tower. Bowen Beadle had h
is whip and dog tongs ready to his hand and would forcibly remove anyone who became disorderly during divine service. He was experienced in this kind of work for on weekdays he was assistant to the village constable, impounded strange cattle and drove vagabonds out of the parish. Price Sexton looked after the church and dug graves for twopence a grave in the nave, sixpence in the chancel, a ha’enny outside in the churchyard and was entitled to beer and ale at Christmas. Also at the back of the church, hidden in a corner behind a large tomb, was Old Parson.

  The bell stopped, Parson Peregrine entered in his surplice, Jones Clerk walking behind him, the service began and the explosive ball of hurt feelings inside Lucy, that had felt as big as an apple, shrank to a little glowing thing the size of a walnut. For until her back began to ache she liked listening to Parson Peregrine’s fine voice declaiming the ancient prayers and reading the psalms, verse and verse about with Jones Clerk, and she liked to hear and feel the hymn singing rolling up the church, behind her and smiting her in the small of the back. They sang the hymns that had been composed for the musical Welsh people by Chancellor Pritchard of St. David’s Cathedral, and though they had no hymnbooks they sang from memory and by ear with great beauty. When they sat down for the sermon it was with a sigh of pleasure in the dying fall of the music that still echoed in their hearts.

  Sermon time was not easy for the children. They had to sit upright on the backless benches, feet together, hands folded in their laps, and they were not allowed to fidget or whisper. Their parents set them a good ex­ample, William stiff and staring as a painted figure on a monument, Elizabeth in her dove-grey gown equally motionless but gracefully so, her delicate oval face, faintly violet-shadowed by the sweep of her great hat, turned attentively towards the preacher. But Parson Peregrine doubted if she was attending; or anyone else for that matter. It was not easy for him to preach simply to these simple people and he fancied sadly that they had long ago abandoned efforts to understand him. But they worked hard in the week and were glad of a rest and so for the children only did he feel compunction. Lucy’s toes barely touched the ground and Justus’s feet still dangled far above it. But today he only pitied them for ten minutes for at the end of that period Owen Perrot’s dog Rhys suddenly arose and attacked Shôn in the rear.

  Rhys, a comical mongrel, had always hated Shôn, a hound of impeccable breeding, and hated Sundays when he must keep his humble station behind Shôn in church, with the great hound’s satin-smooth haunches rising so close to his twitching nose that he was choked with the hot, well-fed, blue-blooded smell of the great conceited beast. For three years he had suffered Shôn in silence, and if it had not been so hot today he might have continued to do so, for he knew his place even as his master did, sitting bareheaded behind William with his vision blinded by the squire’s vast hat and nodding plume. But it was hot, good breeding weather for fleas, and Rhys itched, exploded and leapt. He was not a large dog but he was brave and even with the two hounds on top of him, and a roaring tumult like the end of the world filling his ears, he felt no fear, only relief and exultation in the liberation of the pent-up hatred. Shôn’s left hind leg was gripped between his teeth, the taste of his enemy’s blood was in his mouth and not to save his life would he have let go; indeed death would have been welcome in this glorious hour of his revenge.

  Parson Peregrine’s sermon came to a dead stop. “Bowen!” he roared.

  But Bowen Beadle was already advancing at the double with the dog tongs and the whip and the congregation was rocked with delicious tumult. All the other dogs in church, forcibly restrained by their masters, were struggling and choking to rush up the aisle and join in, and William and Owen, entirely forgetting themselves, were on their feet swearing at their dogs and beating them with their hats. Jano, a delicate little dog, had leaped to Elizabeth’s lap for safety and was having a nerve storm among her silks and laces, and all the children were bobbing up and down in excitement. But not Lucy, who loved Rhys dearly; far more than her father’s arrogant hounds. With quiet resolve she flung herself into the mêlée to rescue him, and got her arms round Twm’s neck in a throttling clutch just as William succeeded in getting hold of Shôn’s collar. Bowen Beadle, with the skill and precision of long practice, gripped Rhys in the dog tongs and propelled him down the aisle. Parson Peregrine, erect in the pulpit with his arms folded and the light of battle in his eyes, thundered directions.

  “Perrot, you may leave divine service to care for your dog. Children sit down. I beg that all the adult members of the congregation may also now be seated. Silence please. I will now continue my sermon.”

  He was a man who could impose silence when he wished. William returned to his seat, the feather in his hat much the worse for wear, and resumed his wooden rigidity. Twm and Shôn sank once more to the paving stones, to lick their minor wounds with loud noises, and Elizabeth, depositing the trembling Jano on the floor, was not surprised to find she was trembling herself. All these storms! The children and the dogs fighting, and soon now the autumn gales would be raging down the coast and then the darkness of winter would close in on her again, with the castle cold and clammy as a grave; and at the turn of the year, when the great rains were drowning the world, she would bear another child to this stranger beside her, this man so alien to her heart and spirit. Alien. It was all utterly alien. She could not be her true self in this savage place, she was too delicately nurtured. If only they could all spend the coming winter in London with her mother, and her child be born there in comfort, safety and peace! But William always refused her pleas for a winter in London. He could not leave his land, he said. It was nonsense. He had a good bailiff. Several times she had told Nan-Nan she would go without him, taking the children with her, but Nan-Nan had always put a stop to that with stern reminders of wifely duty.

  “Strangers and pilgrims,” declared Parson Peregrine, “we seek a country.”

  Since the dog fight he had abandoned his carefully prepared sermon and was telling simple stories about pilgrimages, journeys through desolate lands to holy places. Seeing the delight of the dog fight slowly fading from the faces of the children below him, wiped off by the return of their habitual puzzled boredom, he had addressed himself to winning back their pleasure. Was the divine task of awakening joy in the hearts of God’s children in God’s house to be left to a mongrel cur like Rhys? Gloom and boredom were the henchmen of the devil and the Puritans and he suddenly saw his duty as a preacher in a light so new and dazzling that it was like a sudden conversion. A romantic narrative style, long ago suppressed as undisciplined and unscholarly, welled up in him again and not only the children but the whole congregation listened to him spellbound. He might have been telling stories from the Mabinogion.

  From the pilgrimage of the Magi through the desert to the cave of Bethlehem, and the desperate journeys of the pilgrims to Jerusalem, tossing in their small boats through the waste of foreign seas, he passed to the journeys nearer at hand, to the shrines of Saint Thomas at Canterbury, Our Lady at Walsingham or their own Saint David in Wales. In the great days of pilgrimages two to St. Davids had been considered the equivalent of one to Rome itself, so blessed was the shrine. But the journey had been hard, with the pilgrims often lost in the mists, hungry and footsore, guided along the pilgrim way by penitential crosses cut in the rocks, where they would stop and pray for forgiveness and for strength, but coming at last to the hidden paradise of the Valley of Roses. Though many of them knew it well he described it for them with its trees and green fields beside the stream, its sheltered peace, and the Cathedral rainbow-coloured like the breast of a rock dove, that bird of peace whose voice is heard all along the coast of Pembrokeshire. And he described the shrine itself, within the Cathedral, where in the pilgrim days men had prayed for and received forgiveness, the holiest place in all Wales, one of the holy places of the world. In such places, he said, men become aware of the reality of the light that burns at the ending of every journey that is begun, and struggles on,
and so must end, in love.

  He stopped abruptly, a patch of high colour on each cheekbone, half ashamed of himself, but glancing down as he turned to leave the pulpit he saw Lucy and paused. She was sitting on the extreme edge of the bench, tense as an arrow ready to leap through the air at a given signal. Her eyes glinted blue fire and her shining face dazzled him. What had he done to the child? A more urgent question, what because of him was she about to do? It alarmed him that she should be so instantly responsive to a momentary flash of emotion and he wished he had the training of her. Richard and Justus were ordinary enough children, the obvious offspring of their dull and moderately worthy parents, but that shining elf had alighted in the Walters’ nest like a peacock butterfly in the midst of a handful of bawling young sparrows. These things were among the mysteries and he earnestly hoped that Nan-Nan, the only member of the household for whom he had the slightest respect, would contrive to live long.

  The service ended and William offered his arm to his wife that they might lead the congregation out of church. His conviction that his children could be relied upon to follow behind in good order was usually justified, but today Lucy detached herself and scurried around the tomb into Old Parson’s hidden corner and found him, as she had expected, on his knees and weeping. She did not know why it was that the things that made her happy made him weep, things like the first primroses or the twins in babyhood, fragrant and warm in a nest of shawls. But there it was, one of those grown-up things not to be understood but to be comforted if possible, and kneeling down beside him she flung her hat on top of the tomb and leaned her tousled head against his arm. Through the shaming tears he dimly saw the blue of her spreading skirts upon the paving stones, and thought confusedly that the pool of his grief was reflecting the colour of the over-arching sky, the colour that for other men he associated always with the mercy of God. But for him there could be no mercy. Weep though he might his sins were never washed away. Whenever those flashes of remembrance came they were still there, unconfessed and unforgiven, yet when he struggled to ask for pardon he had again forgotten what they were. Yet today the blue of the sky was reflected in his grief and he could distinctly feel a compassionate touch upon his arm. Then, coming to himself a little, he looked down and saw the child’s tousled head against his sleeve.