The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  This royal sheepfold had remained at peace for a long while, bounded to east and south by two great houses, Drury House and my Lord of Bedford’s mansion, and to north and west by green fields, but a few years ago my Lord of Bedford, who owned the land, had had the idea of building a fine square north of the walled terrace of his own garden. He had asked Inigo Jones to design it for him and now it was finished, a church and fine houses surrounding the site of the old garden. The stones of the buildings, untarnished yet by London smoke, sparkled in the sun and the portico of St. Paul’s Church, that formed one side of the square, glimmered like an Athenian temple. At dawn the square might almost have been that city of the Apocalypse that Nan-Nan had expected to see when she came to London.

  A seagull swept down low over the garden, turning and swooping over the child and the monkey as though delighting in their play. Looking up Lucy could see the great wings outlined against the sky, that was unfolding like a flower, and the tips of the feathers were points of fire. Then the gull wheeled up and away, back to the river, and with Jacob on her back clinging round her neck, she ran after him.

  In Southampton Street she had to stop and put her shoes on and the bird escaped her. She saw him flash once at the end of the street and then he was gone. She ran across the Strand and down a narrow lane between the garden walls of two great houses, and came out to where a flight of steps led down to a narrow jetty thrust out into the water. This was a public landing place and later in the day would be crowded and noisy, but in the quietness of dawn it was one of Lucy’s two special places, the other being inside St. Paul’s Church. With Jacob still clinging round her neck she climbed up the angle of a garden wall to her left, where an old mulberry tree had placed two branches like arms along the river wall and leaned there to survey the scene. Settled comfortably within the arms of the tree Lucy and Jacob did the same. Behind them in the garden the thrushes and robins and blackbirds were singing their hearts out for joy of the new day.

  Whenever she was here Lucy could feel herself on her special rock in the bay at Roch, for almost from the base of the wall the sparkling flood of the Thames stretched like the sea, and there was often a tang of salt in the air, if the wind blew from the estuary. And there were multitudes of birds to be seen, gulls and cormorants, swans and ducks, and their voices kept Lucy stretched midway between ecstasy and grief. Across the water, half seen in golden mist that had not yet been caught up by the sun, the south bank was embowered in green, with here and there a church tower soaring up, or the octagonal block of a theatre. The Globe Theatre was there, not far from London Bridge, where she had seen Prince Charles. She had not seen him again but she could not forget him. His square brown face lived in her memory as did the damask rose, and the dark bearded face of Dr. Cosin, equally unforgettable and real.

  A few ferrymen were on the water now, plying up and down on the look-out for early customers, and one or two of them saw the little girl and the monkey sitting in the arms of the mulberry tree and laughed and waved. The Thames ferrymen were a rough crowd, but Lucy was never scared of them and travelling on the river was for her one of the greatest joys that London had to offer.

  She was watching now for the boats that would come presently from the golden mist across the river, bringing fruit and flowers and vegetables from the gardens of the south bank to the city shops and the stalls of Covent Garden. Many of these craft used sails when the wind was fair and presently she could pick out the small speeding boats that were bound for the landing place below her, and could hear singing coming clearly across the water. People who passed their lives among flowers and growing things always seemed happy, she had noticed. But then the ferrymen seemed happy too. Perhaps that had to do with the sea birds and the rhythmical plunge of oars in the river.

  The boats were coming in one by one to the jetty, letting down their sails as a bird folds its wings, and she could smell the flowers. Laughing and talking the men and girls came up the steps carrying the piled baskets. Leaning out of the tree Lucy could see inside the baskets. The strawberries were over but they had raspberries and currants, picked in the dew and still glistening with it, and peas and beans as well as all the flowers. She called out to them and they laughed and waved to her as the ferrymen had done, for they knew her well by sight, and told her to send her nanny to the Garden presently to buy their wares. When they had gone she stayed on for a while listening to the lap of the water and the crying of the gulls, the music of the wind in the mulberry leaves and the singing of the birds in the garden. This was something that her rock in the bay at Roch had not been able to give her, the sound of water and leaves singing in unison and the gulls and the thrushes speaking together.

  This morning she was able to listen, as on rare occasions she could look, in a manner that caused time to cease. Had the music continued in the silence she could have grown old listening, but London was stirring. The number of ferrymen was increasing and there was a distant rattle of carts on cobbles and the first street cries. The flower of the sky had now opened to the full and dropped its petals, leaving only its golden heart blazing in the unclouded blue, and the river was so brilliant, every ripple crested with fire, that it hurt the eyes to look at it. With Jacob on her back she climbed out of the tree and down the wall and ran up the lane to the Strand.

  Southampton Street, that had been deserted when they ran down it, was now awake. Chimneys were sending up spirals of smoke, the sound of voices came from windows that had been flung wide to the sun and air, and Lucy and Jacob went warily past open doors lest a bucket full of slops, flung in the direction of the open kennel, should catch them. When they reached the Garden it was full of activity. The flower girls and fruit and vegetable men were at their stalls, spreading out their wares. Lucy, Jacob in her arms now, went to her favourite but one stall, where Nan Cookson, a freckled girl with a fascinating squint, was making up her posies. Lucy still had the habit of returning from her truancies with propitiatory offerings and she wanted one now for her mother.

  “I have tuppence, Nan,” she said, getting from her hanging pocket the two bright new pennies that Mr. Gwinne had given her on parting.

  “What will you have, dearie?” asked Nan. “Rosebuds, stocks, heartsease or pinks?”

  “Pinks, please, Nan,” said Lucy.

  Nan’s big red hands moved so quickly in posy-making, bunching the flowers together and twisting long grasses round their stalks, that the posies fell from her fingers to her lap almost as though she were shelling pease, but she allowed a few extra seconds to Lucy’s, choosing the flowers with care so that Lucy had a variety of pinks, frilled white ones, white ones stitched with scarlet round the edges, pale pink, a couple of sops-in-wine and one deep red clove carnation in the centre. It was a generous tuppence-worth and Nan was within her rights when she demanded, “Give us a kiss, dearie.” Lucy leaned forward and kissed Nan’s rough cheek, that smelt of carnations. Nan was steeped in her flowers and smelled of them from head to foot, as did Old Sage of his herbs.

  Old Sage had his stall as close as possible to St. Paul’s Church because he kept his main supply of herbs in the church loft. He was nicknamed Old Sage because no one knew his real name and he could not tell it because he was dumb. His stall was Lucy’s favourite. There were trees at this end of the Garden and it was sheltered from the sun by a great yew tree which must have been growing here in the days of the monks, and being the last in the row of stalls it was the quietest. Old Sage sold herbs of every sort, bunches and packets of dried herbs, fresh bunches of mint, lavender, rosemary and marjoram, and also cloves and peppercorns and oranges stuck with cloves to keep away infection. He had stooped shoulders, a broad squashed nose and a great domed and wrinkled forehead. He would have been very ugly but for the expression of his face. Every wrinkle was full of humour and overlying the humour was the most extraordinary peace; which was strange because it was rumoured in the Garden that he was dumb because his tongue had been cut out by P
ortuguese pirates. His clothes were as ancient as he was himself, and when he moved herb dust sprayed from his person like pepper from a pot.

  When he was not selling herbs Old Sage was reading a book, holding it close against his squashed nose because he was shortsighted. It was always the same book, brown and worn and dusty, and Lucy thought he must know it by heart by this time. She had asked him once what it was, and he had held it out for her to see, but as it was all written in a foreign language it had remained a mystery. But then this whole quiet corner was a mystery, something apart from the rest of the Garden. The scent of herbs that came with the drift of every warm breeze seemed to belong to some country that was not England, as did the beautiful portico of the church, with its simple columns. The shade of the trees lay gently over the stall and patterned the white pillars with blue shadows. The tranquillity of this corner imposed quietness on all who came; but not many did come, only those who wanted herbs, and tired people who liked to rest in the portico.

  A curious mistake made by Mr. Inigo Jones was one reason for the quietness, for there was no entrance to the church from the portico. My Lord of Bedford, planning his square, had desired fine houses for the nobility and gentry, but as Almighty God unfortunately would not pay rent for his house my Lord told his architect, “I will not have it much better than a barn.” So Mr. Inigo Jones had made it with the beautiful proportions of a tithe barn, the side walls being of rose-brown brick; but the pillared portico caught the rising sun upon a face that did not belong to the English countryside but to the isles of Greece. That perhaps was the reason why Mr. Inigo Jones did not remember until too late that the entrance to a Christian church cannot be through the east wall, the place of the altar. My Lord of Bedford had not remembered this either, but after a short period of consternation they lifted up their spirits and made the entrance in the plain west wall, at the back of the church. It was a blessing in disguise for churchgoers and sightseers entered from Bedford Street, walking along a path arched with trees that led through the monks’ churchyard, and the portico was undisturbed.

  The only shopping Nan-Nan ever did in this terrible London was at the herb stall. She felt at home in the quiet corner, and very much at home with Old Sage. He kept her generously supplied with all the herbs she wanted; especially with the precious rosemary. Lucy never went to the stall without asking if there was some rosemary stowed away for Nan-Nan, and as soon as he saw her Old Sage bent to a basket behind his stall and handed her a bunch. Then he made a gesture with his hands, disdaining payment. He did not like to be paid for rosemary. For other household herbs he would ask payment, holding up his fingers to indicate the number of pence he wanted, but not for rosemary; at least not for Nan-Nan’s rosemary. The gesture ended, and his gestures were always very articulate and graceful, he took another bunch from the basket and bending forward tucked it into Lucy’s hanging pocket. She looked into his dark eyes and remembered Old Parson. They were not alike, but for some unknown reason they came together in her mind, and remained so. Then he indicated that she should go home. She had meant to go to her other special place, the inside of the church, but she obeyed him and as she ran home all the clocks of London began to strike seven.

  Nan-Nan was up and in the kitchen, for Polly the little maid who helped her with the cooking was flighty and needed a constant eye upon her. “Where have you been, Lucy?” she asked severely.

  “Down to the river,” said Lucy, “and then to the Garden.”

  Nan-Nan, passing her days in a maze of grief, was inclined to let her sorrow magnify the children’s peccadillos out of all proportion, and she wrung her hands over Lucy’s disobedience as though it were the worst crime in the calendar. “Dulch! Dulch! alone in this wicked city you were! It is murdered you could have been. Break my heart, you will.”

  Lucy refrained from argument and presented the rosemary. “Old Sage sent it to you,” she said. “And he gave me some too.”

  Nan-Nan was holding the rosemary in her cupped hands as though it were a purse full of gold. “We shall need it this day,” she said. Then Polly let the milk boil over and she turned to chide her.

  Later, Lucy sat sewing with her mother in the window of the upstairs parlour. Elizabeth was teaching her household needlework, hemming and featherstitching, and the mending of fine linen and lace. Sewing together they could sometimes recapture the affection they had enjoyed during lesson times in the bower at Roch, but today this was difficult because William was slumped in a big chair by the hearth, a newssheet held open before his unseeing eyes. Elizabeth had brought the ignoring of her husband to a fine art and chatted to her daughter as though he were not there. But Lucy could not ignore him, for his unhappiness seemed pressing down on top of her head like a physical weight. “He is my first born,” kept chiming in her weary head, and she was so dull and stupid over her work that her mother had to keep chiding her.

  “Let the child alone!” said William suddenly. “She is doing her best.”

  Elizabeth did not even glance at him but next time she scolded her daughter her voice had so sharp an edge that the tears came into Lucy’s eyes; but she was saved from weeping by the sudden winding of the postboy’s horn in the square outside. The post, bringing William news of his crops and beasts, was his one link with sanity. He jumped up eagerly, flinging his newssheet untidily into the corner.

  “Stay where you are, William!” said Elizabeth sharply. “We have servants, have we not? Sit down. Your letters will be brought to you.”

  He sat down again, drumming with his fingers on the arms of his chair in the way that drove his wife almost distracted, and presently Polly came in with the letters and handed them to her mistress. There was the usual pile of bills or dunning letters, and a packet from Roch folded in linen and tied with thread. With maddening deliberation Elizabeth cut the thread, unfolded the stained linen and sorted the enclosures. A letter from a sister in Wales was kept for herself, the rest she handed to Lucy to give to her father. One, addressed in the handwriting of Mrs. Chappell, William’s mother, and sealed with a large black wafer, seemed unusually thick and heavy, and when she was back in her seat Lucy kept looking at it and wishing her father would open it, and not be so engrossed in the one from his bailiff, and then wishing that he would not open it.

  “Lucy!” said her mother sharply, and she bent her head over her work. She did not look up again but she knew when her father took up his mother’s letter. The room seemed very quiet, for Elizabeth was reading her sister’s letter and she herself had ceased to sew because her hands were clammy.

  William’s cry was something between a sob and a roar of fury, all the more horrible because it did not issue properly but broke off strangled in his throat. When his wife and daughter looked round he was on his feet, trying to keep a hold of the paper with his shaking hand, his red face blotched with queer white patches.

  “What in the world is the matter, William?” demanded Elizabeth, white-faced, her hand to her heart as was the mode now with fashionable ladies when agitation threatened.

  “Betsi is dead,” muttered William, and the letter fell from his fingers to the floor. He bent down, groping for it.

  “Is that so?” asked Elizabeth. “Of what did she die? Some childish ailment? One of a twin is often weak.”

  Her hand dropped from her side. With their finances in such a delicate state she had feared to hear that the bailiffs would be in the house tomorrow. The colour came back to her face. Her relief was so apparent that it roused William to sudden deadly anger. He strode over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “My child is dead,” he said, “and as much by your hand as though you yourself had killed her. No, Betsi was not strong. Not hardy enough for the life of a mountain farm. I told you so. You would not listen. Yes, she died of a childish ailment, one that would not have killed her had she been in Nan-Nan’s care. I tell you that you killed her.”

  The thing tha
t her mother said now haunted Lucy for the rest of her life; even though she realized later that Elizabeth, in her grief that William should love these children, not hers, so deeply, had hardly known what she was saying. “There is now one bastard the less in the world,” she said.

  William took his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. Lucy had been sitting motionless, paralysed by shock, but now the stricken look on her father’s face woke up all her passionate maternal love and she ran to him, stretching her arms as far round him as they would go, her face pressed against his doublet. She could feel his shaking hand caressing her hair, and did not know that but for her body interposed between them it was a moment when he might have struck his wife.

  Elizabeth meanwhile saw only her daughter’s back turned upon her and felt herself forsaken. William had beguiled Lucy’s love from her to himself. His carelessness had destroyed her first two babies and now he was taking Lucy from her too. She got to her feet, believing herself to be very composed and steady, and tried to tell William gently and calmly that if she had been indirectly responsible for the death of this child he had been responsible for the death of those other, infinitely more precious children; but the unhealed grieving for these two babies, and all her bitterness against William that she had kept hidden for so many years, betrayed her and the words poured out in a corroding flood that horrified her as much as it did William. She tried to check the flood but could not, and a moment later found herself, tears pouring down her face, trying to drag Lucy from her father.