The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “Madam!”

  Nan-Nan was standing in the open doorway, her eyes blazing in her white face. Her controlled anger instantly dominated the distraught man and woman, but she took no further notice of them. “Lucy, come here to me,” she said. But Lucy’s legs had no strength left and William picked her up and carried her to Nan-Nan, then shut the door on them both and went back to his wife.

  Lucy and Nan-Nan got as far as the adjoining room, Elizabeth’s bedchamber, and collapsed there in each other’s arms, as they had done at Roch when Nan-Nan had told Lucy that the twins were to go away. Only now Nan-Nan was as calmly collected as though nothing untoward had happened while Lucy, released now from the tension, was crying like a cataract.

  “Betsi is dead,” she sobbed.

  “I know my little lamb is dead,” said Nan-Nan quietly. “Many days ago I knew it. I have always known that she would die.”

  “But you are not crying, Nan-Nan.”

  “I wept for her at Roch but I cannot weep in this dreadful city, this Babylon. The wickedness of men and women dries up the fount of tears and a desert it leaves in the heart. But you, cariad, remember Betsi in her cradle with the bright eyes of her peeping from the hood and weep you. And then dry your eyes and rejoice for the children who die young and uncorrupted.”

  The words came from her in a slow lamentation and they brought comfort. Lucy’s sobs began to hurt less and presently they ceased. She could smell the crushed rosemary in her pocket and almost thought herself back in Roch, hearing the sea, and the wind about the castle tower.

  “Nan-Nan, will we ever go home?” she whispered.

  “You will go home one day, cariad,” Nan-Nan promised her. “And now we will go to the kitchen and make pastan for the boys’ supper tonight. Grief or no grief, hungry boys must be fed.”

  Half an hour later, busy in the kitchen, they heard William go out and then came Elizabeth’s voice calling for Nan-Nan. For the rest of that day Nan-Nan was busy with her, for she went sick and shaken to her bed and William did not return. Lucy employed herself as best she could, every now and then bursting into fresh tears as she thought of Betsi, and Dewi left by himself at the farm where perhaps they were not kind to him. And added to her grief was dread of she knew not what, and when the hours had dragged round to late afternoon she could bear it no longer. She took Jacob from the inside of the soup tureen on the kitchen dresser, where he liked to hide in times of domestic crisis, put him on her shoulder, opened the front door and slipped out into the garden. It astonished her to find the sun still shining for she had thought the day had darkened. She ran quickly across King Street and turned left into the churchyard. It was quiet here under the trees and there was no one about. She opened the west door of the church and went to her favourite seat, where she sat down and took Jacob into her arms. He was very good, not restless and chattering but content to let her chin rest on his velvet head. He was sensitive to her moods, and provided his meals were punctual always anxious to please her.

  The church was as dignified inside as it was outside but a little more ornate, for it had a side gallery and a painted roof and the candlesticks and cross on the altar had not yet been taken away by the Puritans. It was cool and still and smelt of the herbs stored in the roof. The coolness flowed over Lucy like water, healing her tear-scorched cheeks and burning eyelids. The church did not feel unhappy, as the house had done all day, and after sitting quietly for a while her lonely grief began to have a faint bright edge, like a cloud that has the sun behind it. She and Jacob sat still as mice and as the brightness grew her sense of loneliness vanished. A presence was beside her, but she was reluctant to move or look up.

  When she did she found Old Sage standing there. He had come softly because he always climbed with bare feet the ladder to the loft where his herbs were stored. She looked at his feet, large, ugly and strong, then up at his lined brown face, and then she said with complete simplicity, “I thought it was God there.” A quirk of amusement, but no surprise, lined his face more deeply. He sat down beside her and placed his hands one on each knee. A cloud of herbal dust rose up about them both and then settled. Cuddled in Lucy’s arms Jacob went to sleep. The breathing stillness of Old Sage, his living silence, became one thing with the quietness of the church and that too became for Lucy something alive. The livingness rose about her with such a brightness of compassion that there seemed to be no more grief. And yet her eyes saw nothing but the strong brown feet of Old Sage planted side by side on the floor. She did not know how long it was that they sat there, or when it was that the light sank back again behind her grief. But it was not as bad as it had been before because Old Sage was there, an old man who loved her and knew she was unhappy but could speak no words to comfort her. She looked up into his face wondering if he was grieved that he could not speak to her. But there was no sorrow in his face, it wore only his habitual look of strength and quietness. He placed one of his powerful hands upon her knee, left it there for a moment, then rose and went away.

  Presently Lucy went away too, back into the bright sunshine of the Garden. A young man and girl were walking along King Street, her skirts billowing as he bore her along in his swift stride, her arm tucked tightly into his. She seemed almost floating in her joy, though her laughter was breathless, and he grinned as he looked down into her flushed face. They did not even see Lucy as she ran across the cobbles to her door. They were alone in their world. Had her father and mother ever walked together like that? No! she thought, repudiating the question. The one thing could not turn into the other. It could not possibly turn into this other, that she must face again upon the other side of the door.

  2

  William did not go to bed that night. Elizabeth, lying wakeful, heard him go to the dining parlour where his desk was. He stayed there for an hour, then went to the small room where his clothes were kept and locked the door. She heard him moving about for some while but at daylight, exhausted, she slept. Later that morning she was with Lucy, Richard and Justus in the parlour when the door opened and he came in dressed for a journey. The violence and anger were now past but his face had a new hardness and he seemed to have aged ten years. It was a Sunday morning and the Garden outside was very quiet.

  “Where are you going, William?” Elizabeth asked sharply.

  “To my son,” said William.

  “Your son?” she gasped, and her eyes went to Richard and Justus.

  “Dewi,” said William. “I am not leaving him at that farm to die like his sister. I am returning to Roch to make some other arrangement for him. You and the children can follow me in the coach, if you wish, and we will start life together again in Wales. Not in the castle. We cannot afford that now. But somewhere. Or you can remain here and arrange for that separation between us for which you have been wishing for so long. Which will you do?”

  Elizabeth and the three children stood without movement, as though they had suddenly died standing upright, for now that it had happened it suddenly did not seem possible or true. Richard stood stiffly beside his mother, Lucy by herself, and she had wrapped her hands up in her apron as though they were wounded. Justus also stood by himself. His mouth was open and tears rolled slowly down over the bulges of his rosy cheeks. William was stabbed by the sight of the two children who stood by themselves. Richard was so entirely his mother’s that the breaking of the family bond would probably affect him very little; but the other two might never entirely recover from the lonely bewilderment of this moment. He waited for his wife’s reply.

  “I will never live with you again,” said Elizabeth bitterly.

  “Then get rid of this house, sell the furniture to pay our debts and go and live with your mother,” said William.

  “I will do that,” said Elizabeth, “and bring my suit before the House of Lords as soon as possible. I hope never to see you again.”

  “You will see me when I return to contest the suit,” said Willia
m grimly. “Do you suppose I will allow you to have the custody of my children without putting up a fight?”

  “You will never have the custody of me, sir,” said Richard contemptuously.

  “I know that,” said William, beating down his son’s level look with one of sadness. “You have always been your mother’s. I was referring to Lucy and Justus.” He held out his hand. “Come, you two, come and say goodbye to me in the dining parlour.”

  They were at least now in movement again, with Lucy and Justus running to their father and Richard solicitous for his mother. She would not say goodbye to her husband or even look at him. He took the two younger children to the dining parlour and sat down, put Justus on his knee and held Lucy in the curve of his arm. “Have you hurt your hands, Lucy?” he asked gently. She unwrapped them and looked to see. “I do not think so,” she said, bewildered. Why had she wrapped up her hands in that moment of agony? “I have engraved thee upon the palms of my hands.” She had read or heard that somewhere as an expression of profound love. Hands were alive as birds, they loved and prayed. Had hers been wounded, knowing that they would not caress her father’s face for years and years? But they would. “I am coming with you,” she said. “And so is Justus. We are coming now. We will ride pillion.” Justus, whose grief had now reached the backwash of hiccups, chirped and nodded.

  William tried to explain. A journey on horseback would be too hard for children and would certainly be the death of Jacob. He did not know where he was going to live when he got to Roch, for he doubted if his mother and stepfather would stay on at the castle. Conditions would be harsh. And it was very important that they should continue their education. And they would be happy with their grandmother. And it would not be for long. He would return. His stumbling explanations reminded Lucy of the time at Roch when he had tried to make the leaving of it a happy thing, and she put no trust in them at all.

  “I want only to be at Roch with you,” she whispered.

  “One day you will be,” he said. “I promise.”

  Into the heart-broken silence came the sound of the Sunday bells and the clattering of hoofs outside. William’s servant was bringing the horses to the door. William gasped and found himself with both children in his arms together, clinging to him like limpets. He had to half-carry them with him to the hall where he remembered that he had not blessed them. The stumbling parental blessing brought them to their knees, with Justus detached. But when he got outside Lucy was still there and when he was on his horse she was clinging to his leg. He bent down to her. “Lucy, can you understand this? I am a farmer with my life rooted in the earth of Roch. Here my life withers and I am little better than a captive beast. Can you understand?”

  He straightened and sat his horse staring ahead of him, not daring again to touch her rough head or even look at her. The silence lengthened and he was aware in his own being of the tearing in half of hers with the splitting and falling of the tree. She let go and he heard the light sound of her feet, running back to the house to Justus. She had Justus. Thinking of them together he was able to ride away to the sound of the bells. Down in the Strand the wind met him, he heard the gulls crying and turned westward with a lifting of the heart.

  Nine

  1

  Lucy and Justus were not together for long; only for the short time it took to dispose of the house and furniture and remove Elizabeth, Nan-Nan and the children to the house at St. Giles, where Mrs. Gwinne received her daughter with love and sorrow but no reproach. What she had dreaded had happened and could not be undone and her task now was to comfort her beloved daughter and endeavour to soften her bitterness; while safeguarding her husband’s quietness as far as possible, doing her best for the children and Nan-Nan and enduring Jacob. But it soon became clear that Mr. Gwinne’s quietness was not compatible with boys in the house and after a tennis ball had in error entered his study window, struck his bald head and caused a slight concussion, it was decided that Richard and Justus must now become boarders, not day-boys, at St. Paul’s school. The parting with Justus reopened for Lucy the wound of her father’s going, and for a while she could not recover the health and sleep that had left her when he went. She was too vital a child to ail for long but as she grew strong again she became wild and unmanageable and, echoing her mood, so did Jacob.

  Mrs. Gwinne and Nan-Nan might have loved her out of her wild state had not misfortune fallen upon the household in the shape of Aunt Margaret Gosfright, who according to her custom arrived upon the doorstep without warning and said she had quarrelled with Peter. Of Mrs. Gwinne’s four married daughters, Mrs. Walter of Roch Castle, Mrs. Barlow of Slebeck, Mrs. Byshfield of the city of London and Mrs. Gosfright of Amsterdam, Margaret Gosfright was the least like her mother. The other three had grace and beauty but Margaret was dumpy and plain. Nevertheless the very bright eyes in her homely face had attracted a well-to-do Dutch merchant, often in London on business, and he had married her and carried her off to his comfortable house in Amsterdam. She was happy with him as a rule but there were exceptions to the rule, and times when Holland and the Dutch could no longer be endured. Then she came home to her mother until Peter, growing tired of a bachelor existence, came over and fetched her back again.

  Mrs. Gwinne never felt there was any danger of Margaret’s marriage breaking up, childless though it was. She liked her creature comforts, which Peter was well able to provide, and in her heart of hearts she liked Peter. And he liked her cooking and they always came together again with mutual appreciation. But just now her coming could only be regarded as a misfortune, for she and Elizabeth had never loved each other. Elizabeth as the most beautiful of the daughters had in the past patronized Margaret none too kindly, and if the plain daughter felt now a secret satisfaction in Elizabeth’s discomfort it was not surprising. She said no more about having quarrelled with Peter. On the contrary her talk was incessantly of their married bliss.

  On a golden October afternoon Mrs. Gwinne sat in her parlour with her daughters Elizabeth, Margaret and Anne, for pretty Mrs. Byshfield had come over to spend the day. Each lady had her needlework and Lucy, sitting in a corner with Jacob, was making him a jacket for the winter out of remnants of the material her grandmother had bought on London Bridge for her cloak and hood. Mrs. Gwinne was stitching at Lucy’s cloak now, as Lucy stitched at Jacob’s jacket, and sometimes they smiled at each other. There was little opportunity nowadays for their shopping expeditions, for Mrs. Gwinne was too busy and too tired, but her grandmother’s love and Nan-Nan’s were the mooring ropes that kept Lucy where she was. But for them, she told herself, she would have run away long ago, back to Wales. If she had died on the journey it would have been better than living in this hot stuffy house shut up with a lot of gossiping women.

  Her head was bent demurely over her sewing but her grandmother was aware of her mood. Like Justus, Mrs. Gwinne always knew when Lucy was on the boil. Her feet were swinging inside her skirts, swish, swish, in time to her jabbing needle, and every hair on her head appeared to be standing on end with irritation. Outside the garden glowed in autumn sunlight, yet here they were indoors with a fire because Elizabeth said she felt shivery all over, and Margaret, not to be outdone, said she was feeling her rheumatism. “Would you like to run out in the garden, Lucy?” asked Mrs. Gwinne.

  Lucy jumped gratefully to her feet but Elizabeth said, “No, mother. Sit down, Lucy. The wind is in the east and I do not wish you to catch an­other cold.”

  The angry crimson flushed Lucy’s face. Whatever her grandmother suggested for her was nowadays always refused by her mother. Her mother was jealous of her love for her grandmother. Her chin in the air she would have spoken naughtily to Elizabeth but Mrs. Gwinne’s calm voice checked her. “Lucy, do what your mother tells you.”

  She obeyed, but the anger now was beating in her temples and tingling in her hands and feet and her needle went in and out of the green jacket with loud pops. The conversation of the four la
dies continued where it had left off, the subject the interminable one of Elizabeth’s petition for separation from her husband. It was making slow progress. In these days of national anxiety the House of Lords thought it a trivial matter. Her husband’s past infidelity seemed to them not impressive, and his insistence on making her look after his bastards with her own children not the cruelty that she declared it to be. Occasional drinking and cockfighting, and the accumulation of a few gambling debts, were not unusual among gentlemen of spirit, and the only thing their lordships could find truly reprehensible was the fact that William had returned to Wales leaving his wife and family without any means of subsistence. An action had been brought against him for maintenance and he had been commanded to pay his wife sixty pounds a year from his estate.

  And there the matter had been left. But not by Elizabeth. Legal separation and custody of the children she must have, she said, otherwise her life would be intolerable to her. The talk washed backwards and forwards in the hot little room until Elizabeth, criticized by one of her sisters, burst into tears and dropped her delicate embroidery on the floor. Jacob secretively stretched out a skinny hand, pulled it to himself and took it into a corner. Lucy did not see what he did, for the moment all attention was on her mother she had run from the room.

  She fled down the passage to the library, crept quietly in and turned the key. For once Mr. Gwinne heard her, looked up from his book and exchanged with her the smile of a conspirator. Their opinion of chattering women was identical and during these last weeks the library had been a refuge that had never been denied to Lucy.

  “Sit down, child,” he murmured kindly, “take your book of comic horrors and hold your tongue.”