The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “If my lord is going overseas there is a ship down there bound for Rotterdam,” said Justus.

  “Do not speak so loud, boy! My lord has business in London.”

  “The ship is called the Sea-Horse,” whispered Lucy, “and her captain looks trustworthy. His name is Axel. Do you sail with my lord?”

  “That is as may be,” said Uncle Barlow mysteriously. “And not a word of this outside the family.”

  He left them, pulled his hat over his eyes and ran down the steps, and they retrieved Moses and rode home laughing together at Uncle Barlow’s cloak-and-dagger manner, and his boyish delight in his adventure.

  “It is a game to him,” said Justus.

  “Thick-skinned, stout and jovial men are lucky,” said Lucy. “Who would think to look at him that he had lost his home and fortune? His surface is not even dented. Yet that may be their way,” she added.

  “Their way?” queried Justus.

  “With misfortune. They may deliberately train themselves not to care too much.”

  “You might try practising that way yourself,” said Justus gently. “Try tonight. Try being a cloak-and-dagger girl.”

  She laughed but that night in bed, after sleepless hours thinking of Parson Peregrine and the hulks, she tried to find happiness and normality again by remembering Uncle Barlow’s undented surface and Captain Axel’s laughing eyes, and the contours of the little Sea-Horse whose motion was so easy when she jumped the waves. She slept at last, and dreamed that she was herself on board the Sea-Horse, in the bows of the ship with a keen wind blowing. It was night but the stars were brilliant and the light of the ship’s lantern showed her the outline of a tall cloaked figure standing beside her. “Charles!” she gasped, but just as the heavy dark head turned towards her she woke. All day she longed for the unseen face and remembered vividly the brilliance of the stars, the wind and the surge of the ship. All day it seemed to be carrying her with the movement of life itself and the movement of her own longing. Had it been Charles?

  That evening Uncle Barlow came to see them, and Justus came with him, and they sat before the wood fire in the spring twilight and talked in low voices of the family and its doings and of the sorrows of the time. Uncle Barlow said nothing of Lord Glamorgan but he told Mrs. Gwinne and Elizabeth in strict and portentous confidence, enjoying their amazement and curiosity, that in a few days time he would be sailing for Rotterdam on secret state affairs. “In order that I may bring you word of her I shall make it my business to visit poor Margaret Gosfright,” he told Mrs. Gwinne. “I hear she has been ill. I trust she has not ailed seriously?”

  “My sister and I have both been unfortunate this year,” murmured Elizabeth, and her eyes travelled sadly to the transparency of her thin hand held fanwise between her cheek and the flames. She was looking very beautiful.

  “They are both mending now,” said Mrs. Gwinne with firm gentleness. “Elizabeth still lacks confidence and Margaret frets because she is unable to visit me. She has never put down roots in Holland. Her heart is incurably Welsh and she is homesick.”

  “Poor Aunt Margaret!” said Lucy with a rush of sympathy. “Could I not go with Uncle Barlow and visit her?”

  The words were out before she knew she was going to speak them. For a moment she seemed to be standing outside herself, watching the surge of her own longing, and the movement of the ship. Then she was back within herself again, folding her longing in resolution about a heart that had become oddly unaware of the beloved people who shared the quiet room with her. She looked at them and saw them as misty dream-like figures. Only the tall man whose face she had not seen was real, and he wanted her.

  “Lucy, I cannot possibly be left!”

  It was her mother crying out in outrage. But the cry raised no pity in her. Not even her grandmother’s hand laid upon hers, or Justus’s pleading eyes burning for a moment through the mistiness of his face, moved her to more than a passing sensation of pain.

  “I do not know you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Gwinne. “Your face is strange to me.”

  “I feel a stranger,” said Lucy. “I love you but I feel I have to go away for a while.”

  “If you think,” said Uncle Barlow, “that I am going to saddle myself with a pretty maid like you on an important journey like mine you are very much mistaken. You will stay where you are, my girl. At home under the authority of a good mother is the place for you.”

  “Not just now,” said Lucy. “Aunt Gosfright is ill. She needs me.”

  “So am I ill,” said Elizabeth. “So do I need you.”

  “Not now, madam my mother,” said Lucy. “You could be well now if you wished to be.”

  “Lucy!” cried Elizabeth, and began to weep.

  “There is no need for argument, ladies,” said Uncle Barlow firmly. “I do not either hamper my movements or endanger my reputation by travelling with a little hussy.”

  He was annoyed now, for he disliked female tears, but Lucy knew what to do; no annoyance of Uncle Barlow’s was ever proof against a good laugh. “We will talk it over with my grandfather,” she said, and taking his arm she led him out of the room and into the passage before he knew what she was doing with him. “There will be no danger to your reputation if I travel with you as Mrs. Barlow,” she said. “You asked me yesterday if I should like to be your wife. For a short while, yes, I would.” She paused. “Only nominally,” she added firmly, and knocked at the study door. “It is Lucy,” she called to Mr. Gwinne.

  The old man shuffled to the door and unlocked it. When they entered they beheld his back view, a large handkerchief trailing from his pocket, shuffling away from them. Mr. Gwinne had become more eccentric of late. He had built a little house of books all round his chair and table, with a gap in it just wide enough to admit his thin figure, and inside this he sat and read all day. He went inside now, sat down and was instantly lost again in the book he was reading. Lucy, as thin as he was, followed him in and stood beside him but he took no notice of her.

  Uncle Barlow, too stout to pass through the little door, stood outside chuckling. The situation had tickled his sense of humour as Lucy had known it would. She gently closed her relative’s book, removed the spectacles from his nose and knelt down beside him, her free hand on his knee. He looked round vaguely for his spectacles and saw her face raised to his and smiled in childish pleasure at the sight of it.

  “You know that Margaret Gosfright has been ill, Grandfather? Yes, you do. We told you. And as she cannot visit us now it is only right that one of her family should visit her. Uncle Barlow is willing to take me. Have I your permission to go?”

  “Where are my spectacles?” asked Mr. Gwinne, hunting through the papers on his table.

  “I will find them for you when you have answered my question. Have I your permission to visit my Aunt Gosfright? Uncle Barlow will go with me and look after me.”

  “Yes, yes. Do what you like. Do you see them anywhere?”

  “Here they are,” said Lucy, replacing them gently on his nose. “Thank you, Grandfather.” She got up, bent down and kissed him in farewell, opened his book for him and found the place. For a moment he took her hand and held it, but he had forgotten her by the time she had rejoined Uncle Barlow. She pulled him over to the window and looked up into his face, her hands on his shoulders. “Uncle Barlow,” she said, “I have to go. You must understand that I have to go. We have my grandfather’s permission.”

  He no longer refused her but he answered soberly, “I must have your mother’s permission too.”

  “She no longer has authority over me,” Lucy reminded him. “My father now has the custody of his children and he is in Wales.”

  “Then I must have your grandmother’s,” said Uncle Barlow.

  They went back to the parlour and found Mrs. Gwinne alone. “Your mother was crying so much that Justus took her to her room,” she said. “Lucy, come here; you to
o, son Barlow. Lucy, you must give me a truthful answer to my question. Is it your intention to force yourself upon a husband who in his present circumstances may no longer want you with him?”

  “No,” said Lucy steadily. “But I must know what his pleasure is.”

  “And how are you to know it? He is in Paris, they tell me, and you will be in Holland.”

  “The Princess Mary is at The Hague. He is sure to go there soon to visit her. Then I will try to find some way of seeing him. If he wants me I will stay with him. If he does not I will come home again, as soon as Aunt Gosfright is recovered.”

  “You think he wants you?”

  Lucy remembered her dream and her face was illumined. “I know that he does,” she said.

  Mrs. Gwinne turned to the astonished Uncle Barlow. “Lucy’s circumstances are difficult,” she said. “Her husband is the Prince of Wales.”

  At first Uncle Barlow was deprived of the power of speech, then a flicker of excitement came into his eyes and his lips slowly parted in pleasure. “Is he, by cock!” he ejaculated.

  Lucy was speechless too, in horror at her grandmother. Surely she knew that Uncle Barlow, the cloak-and-dagger man, was not to be trusted with a secret like this? She flushed with sudden anger and Mrs. Gwinne knew why. “He must know, Lucy,” she said sharply. “He must know your real reason in this. He is your uncle and he will not speak of your marriage outside the family. That, son Barlow, is the Prince’s wish at present.”

  “I understand perfectly, madam,” said Uncle Barlow solemnly. Then he roared with laughter and slapped his thigh. “You clever girl, Lucy!” he ejaculated through his mirth. “You clever little girl!”

  “Son Barlow, I beg you will be silent,” said Mrs. Gwinne, and glancing at her he saw that she was looking grey and old and he stopped laughing. She went on in a tired voice, “Tell us, when you can, the day and time when the ship will leave the docks and her brother will bring Lucy to you if she is still determined on this course. But I hope that Justus will go alone to tell you that my granddaughter remains with me. You had better go now.”

  Lucy found she was alone with her grandmother and she knelt on the floor, her face buried in the arms she laid across Mrs. Gwinne’s knees. “You cannot do this, Lucy,” said the old woman. “You may know great bliss in the reunion but the end can only bring you grief.”

  Lucy began to cry a little but she did not answer. Not even her grandmother’s grief seemed real to her. She could weep for it but it could not pierce through her resolve to her heart.

  2

  Lucy packed her few belongings secretly and hurriedly. No one saw her do it and her mother did not know whether when the summons came she would go or not, but her grandmother knew that though she was gentle and tender to her family she had withdrawn her true self from them. But not because she feared the shaking of her resolution. Mrs. Gwinne, who in her own life had loved deeply, recognized now the depth of Lucy’s love for her husband. It had been growing, not lessening, through the months of absence and now that the time of crisis had come it so possessed her that it was her only truth. Mrs. Gwinne knew it all so well and through the sleepless nights acknowledged her helplessness.

  Two days later the wind moved into a new quarter and early the next morning a message came and Lucy herself received it. Mrs. Gwinne knew it had come but she said nothing and it was not until dusk had fallen, and the stormcock was singing on top of the apple tree, that Lucy said to her mother and grandmother, “As soon as it is dark Justus will be here with a hired chaise to take me to the ship. My uncle will come later on foot and then we shall sail.”

  There was no time now for anything but the last flurry of preparation. Mrs. Gwinne herself went to the kitchen to prepare a final meal for Lucy and Elizabeth went upstairs to find two gifts she wanted to give her daughter. Lucy ate what was put before her but now at last realization of what she was doing to the two women was coming to her, and it was hard to swallow the food and listen to the composed messages that her grandmother was giving her for Margaret Gosfright. “I may be back quite soon, Grandmother,” she whispered.

  “You may, my love,” said her grandmother.

  Elizabeth came in with her own blue cloak and hood over her arm. “It is warmer than yours,” she said to her daughter. “And not so shabby. And you always loved the crocus-coloured lining.” She put the cloak round Lucy and handed her a small leather case. “Put it in one of your bags and look at it later. It is something I would have given you on your wedding day had I been with you.”

  Lucy put the case in one of her saddlebags and put her arms round her mother and thanked her, and in this moment of parting she felt deep reverence for her. This was her mother who had given her birth and even a selfish woman is selfless in giving life to another. There could be no greater gift and no greater bond between two people. Too late, Lucy knew it. “I have never loved you enough,” she said to her mother.

  It was all she did say by way of farewell and to her grandmother as she clung to her she said nothing at all, for the chaise was already at the gate and Justus was getting out of it. After that there seemed a blank in time and the next thing she knew she was sitting beside Justus driving to London. He said nothing but he was holding one of her hands and examining her fingers as though he had never seen them before.

  In the bustle of the docks, in the alternate darkness and confused light of swinging lanterns, no one noticed the boy and girl making their way to the Sea-Horse. They went up the gangway and were met at the top by Captain Axel, who took them instantly to Lucy’s cabin. “Mrs. Barlow,” he said formally, “I have a message for you from your husband. He wants you to stay here until the ship has put to sea. If you should hear him come aboard with his companion he begs that you will not leave your cabin to greet him.”

  “Does my husband’s companion know that I am sailing with them?” asked Lucy.

  Captain Axel’s eyes twinkled suddenly. “I gather that he will be informed of that fact when we are well out to sea,” he said. “Now I will leave you to take leave of your brother.”

  In Justus’s arms, gripped with all the strength of his grief, she was fully aware of him again. Their oneness with each other had been deeper than she knew. They had shared life from the beginning with complete trust in each other and dependence upon each other’s love. It was worse than the parting from her father for he had turned from her to the satisfactions of loneliness but Justus had yet to find these. Ever since the parting between their parents all his security had been in Lucy. He let go of her and slipped something into her pocket.

  “I will see you again, Justus,” she gasped. “I know I will. It is not goodbye. I will see you again.”

  She was talking to emptiness, for he had gone, taking her childhood with him. Under her feet the boards were uneasy and she was aware of the flow of the dark river. Feet tramped past her cabin door and she heard rough voices talking in a tongue she did not understand. She was afraid, and the hand she had slipped unconsciously into her pocket tightened on what Justus had put there. She took it out and found it was one of his most cherished possessions, a sea-shell which when held to the ear gave one the sound of the sea. She listened, and heard the sea at Roch. He had given her back her childhood in a shell.

  Then she remembered that her mother had given her a gift too and she unfastened the saddlebag and found the leather case. Inside was the miniature of William that had been one of Elizabeth’s wedding presents. She sat on the floor and held it cupped in her hand, the light of the lantern showing her a young and happy bridegroom, his smiling face surrounded by a gold frame set with pearls. That her mother could have sufficiendy conquered her jealousy of her daughter’s greater love for her father as to give her this miniature took Lucy’s breath away. It was her first experience of the great gusts of nobility that can spring at times from even the most self-centred of human beings. She wished she could cry but she was too taut wi
th grief to do that. “I have never loved you enough,” she said again to her mother. “Never enough.” Then she put the miniature away and turned herself back to her present loyalty. “Charles,” she said to herself, and taking her wedding ring from the chain round her neck she put it on her finger.

  There was a knock at the door and a man entered with a bowl of soup for her. There was a small bunch of violets beside it on the tray and though she could not understand what the sailor said she knew that Captain Axel had seen Justus leave the ship and had sent both to comfort her. By the time she had eaten the soup and fastened the violets in her dress she could smile a little and wondered if he had been disappointed to find her the wife of that stout elderly man her uncle Barlow.

  She was tired and lay down on her bed, listening to the sounds of departure, the shouted orders, the tramping feet, the rattle of the hawser as the anchor came up. Uncle Barlow and Lord Glamorgan were on board, she supposed, though she had not heard them come. Then came the gliding of the ship and the thrill of the movement went through Lucy’s body too and the vividness of her dream came back. She was moving to Charles. She laid her left hand flat on the pillow beside her cheek and the glow of the ruby gave her courage. It was the first time that she had experienced the almost mystic power of jewels, that from the beginning of time had symbolized the exchange of love.

  Uncle Barlow came in once and patted her shoulder in satisfaction, very pleased with her. He had feared tears and was delighted to find her so serene. “That is a good girl,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  Then he straightened his shoulders and braced himself for the unpleasant necessity of telling his lordship that his niece was travelling with them to visit her aunt; called Mrs. Barlow for her added protection and safety.

  She dozed fitfully for a few hours and when at last the ship seemed quiet she went out on deck. They were still in the tideway but it seemed that the sea was coming to meet them for there was a strong tang of salt in the air and the few shore lights were so distant that they might have been stars low on the horizon. Overhead was a blaze of constellations but no moon. The ship’s lanterns showed the water in exultant movement, tossing the lights from its shoulders as it raced to the sea. With her mother’s cloak wrapped warmly about her she stood in the bow of the Sea-Horse and looking up saw the carved poop above her and the figure of its captain standing beside the helmsman at the wheel, and overhead the sails were full of wind, curved like the petals of magnolia blossoms. The buccaneer was awake in her and she could have laughed for joy.