The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  The question was in her mind when Dr. Cosin stood up to preach his sermon, and she realized that he already was what her husband had it in him to become. The hammering out of a man’s worth is never over, he is caught between hammer and anvil until his perfection is achieved, or perhaps until of deliberate choice, in one world or another, he chooses extinction rather than the love of God; but perhaps there can come the time, thought Lucy, when he has advanced so much towards selflessness that he can almost be said to be safe; not entirely so while one drop of self remains in him and he retains his free will to indulge it, but almost. “You are nearly safe,” her spirit said to the spirit of the old man in front of her, “and so to us who are in dreadful danger give your strength.”

  Dr. Cosin was very well aware of their danger and he preached upon the subject of endurance. Most of his little congregation, the King included, had already suffered much but they had been continually on the move, in battle or on the march, defending their houses or fleeing from them. Now they faced the test of exile, with nothing to do, hope deferred, poverty increasing, humiliation mounting. For this he endeavoured to prepare them, choosing his words with care, for sometimes a chance phrase, if it is well made to hold the truth, will sink to the deeps of a mind and find lodging there, floating to the surface again in time of need on the buoyancy of its own shapeliness.

  “It has been the lot of many a saint before us,” he cried out, “and of far more worth and dignity than any we are, to be in adversity, to be persecuted, afflicted, tormented, to be robbed of goods, and lands and lives and all. Let not this make us stumble either in our religion or our loyalty, and that we may be firm in our trials and constant to our profession.”

  Lucy was one of the very few who heard every word of the sermon. Lord Taaffe heard a sentence here and there, and might have heard more but for the distraction of Lucy’s power of concentration, which destroyed his. Very few pretty girls can forget their prettiness and even fewer can sit still, he told himself. Lucy could do both. Never once did her hand go to her hair or her eyes round the room comparing her beauty to that of other women, never once did she fidget or sigh. Only the King could match her for stillness, and he found himself looking from one to the other as though they were the only two in the room. The King had already claimed his loyalty and love and Lucy was fast claiming his admiration.

  Sitting just behind her he marvelled at the fine texture of her skin and its colour, the colour of the darker petals on the honeysuckle. His eyes went to the well-shaped dark head held proudly on a long neck. She was not an arrogant girl yet she had her proper pride. She turned her head a little and he sat enchanted by her profile, a short straight nose, sweet lips and obstinate chin. Lord Taaffe got on well enough with the wife in Ireland to whom he had been married but he was not a man who doted on women, whom he considered on the whole to be more productive of trouble than pleasure, and the flood of emotion that suddenly swept over him was sufficiently unfamiliar to shock him profoundly.

  “Damnation!” he ejaculated under his breath. “Fall in love with the King’s girl? My God no!” Dismay took the place of delight and he dragged his eyes from the tendrils of dark hair that lay in the nape of Lucy’s neck and fixed them on the chair of state in front of him, and the little he could see of his sovereign’s head above it. His love and loyalty were engaged there, with the King, not here with this nuisance of a girl. “You damn fool,” he told himself.

  He did not again look at Lucy and when the service ended he left abruptly, for he must come to terms with this at once. Women! Why had he been such an ass as to leap to Lucy’s defence that day at Saint-Germain? It was always coming to a woman’s aid that was the undoing of a man. Had he not learnt that by this time? He strode from the Embassy out into the street vowing to keep out of the way of the King’s girl from now on.

  3

  The knowledge that Anne had suffered never left Lucy’s mind and she saw her maid glorified by the light of her own compassion. Her fear of Anne had almost vanished; she felt it only occasionally and then as a momentary stab of warning, soon forgotten. She loved Anne now and sweetly tried to win her love in return, and Anne, despite herself, so softened towards her mistress that sometimes they laughed and talked together as though they had always known each other. And then Lucy would realize how little she understood Anne, and Anne would refuse to try and understand herself, and there would be a troubled constraint between them; troubled upon Lucy’s side because the longed-for love seemed to be receding again, troubled upon Anne’s because she did not wish to be troubled.

  Anne Hill had long ago forged her own image of herself as the heroine of her own misfortune. Life had from the beginning been embattled against her and she was embattled against life. She was without fear and her weapon was a quiet, cold anger. She never lost her temper or raised her voice. She never cringed to anyone or asked for mercy for she did not want mercy only to be revenged on life.

  Her first memories were of her mother’s sufferings rather than her own and they had bitten deep because she had loved her mother; and she was capable of love as deep as her anger.

  Her mother had been a native of Rotterdam, a fragile girl who had fallen easily to the tempestuous wooing of Angus Hill, a handsome Scottish émigré who had been driven overseas by the restless discontent of an ambitious, passionate man who could never bring his circumstances into line with his demands upon them. A fine weaver, rooted in the Presbyterian faith of the Covenant, he had had integrity both in work and faith but no power of looking at either from any standpoint but his own. If a man did not work as he did or believe as he did that man was damned. If a woman could not measure up to the demands of his passion, or find herself in complete agreement with him upon every point, or run her Dutch household in the Scottish manner of his mother, then she had failed him.

  Vrouw Hill, though physically fragile, had been a woman of strong character and extremely obstinate. She had chosen to break rather than bend. And Angus had chosen to break her rather than let her go to hell in her own way. And the same with Anne. Secretly he had adored his little daughter and if she had obeyed him and shown him affection his love for her might have been their salvation, but from the beginning she had been heart and soul with her mother. Even so he had continued to love her and to be convinced that she too he must break in order that he might save her soul.

  The culmination of their three-fold tragedy had come when Anne was eight years old. They had been poor for a long time for Angus, unpopular both with employers and fellow weavers, had not been able to keep in steady employment, and there had been the further complication of the terrible headaches from which he had suffered. Since he had possessed great courage in the bearing of pain the extent of his suffering had not been perceived by a wife who no longer loved him and a child who had been antagonistic from the beginning. In his religion he had always been fanatical and as his illness increased he had become increasingly unbalanced. Convinced that Anne was already in the grip of the devil, and would be lost if he could not rouse her to a knowledge of her danger, he had preached to her ceaselessly upon the subject of damnation and hell fire; but to her it had seemed that there could be no hell worse than his religion and no devil worse than her father, and she had fought against them both with all her power. She had struggled alone, for her delicate mother had succumbed to the tuberculosis that was the scourge of the Low Countries and had become too ill to leave her bed.

  The crisis had come one winter evening when her fathers warnings had goaded Anne past endurance. “I would like to be in hell,” she had shouted at him. “I am not afraid of hell fire.”

  Her father had been poking the fire and had left the poker in it while he strove with her, and the horror of what she said had made the pain flame up in his head so appallingly that he had not known what he was doing; he had only known that he must save this adored child. At whatever cost he must make her understand. “And so you are not afraid of hell fir
e?” he had asked quietly. “I must make you know what it feels like.” And he had taken the poker from the fire and laid it against her left cheek.

  What happened afterwards lived now in Anne’s memory in nightmare confusion. She remembered the pain, and hearing a child screaming and not knowing it was herself, and seeing her mother standing in her nightgown in the doorway, wild-eyed and screaming too. And then the crash as her father collapsed and fell, and then the neighbours rushing in.

  Angus had been unconscious all night and in the morning he had died and the apothecary who had been called did not tell Anne and her mother, because he did not know himself, that Angus had died of a tumour on the brain. And in any case he had been more concerned with the injured child and her frantic mother than the monster who had so ill-used them.

  And so they never knew that Angus had lived out his whole life under a shadow and in his darkness had done the best that he knew. Neighbours had been good to them and as soon as she was old enough Anne had worked as a child weaver to earn money for her mother. She had loved her mother with extraordinary passion and Vrouw Hill, supported by that love, had managed to stay alive longer than her apothecary had believed possible. Then she had died and Anne’s heart had turned to stone.

  With her home gone she had turned from weaving to the work of maidservant in rich houses and her exquisite sewing, her neatness and discretion, made her invaluable and she earned good wages. She never fell in love since in regard to men her desire was for vengeance, not love, but at the same time it was a source of bitterness to her that though her mysteriousness attracted them her disfigurement repelled. She could tease and torment them only up to a point and then they escaped, leaving her with a pride so wounded that she loathed beautiful girls.

  And so she came to Lucy and wished her harm. And yet she was also attracted by her. For the first time since her mother’s death she was aware of the warmth of love, of compassion and consideration, and was constantly reminded of her mother. Yet she could not yield to Lucy’s love since her jealousy of this girl who had everything, even a child and the love of a king, was eating her up. In the love-hate that she felt for her there was great danger for them both.

  4

  Anne would not go with Lucy to the Embassy Sunday services since she was without religious faith. For hell one needed to look no further than this world, she told Lucy, and if a creator of it existed she hated him. But she did consent to go one day to the chapel at the Louvre, for she had a lively curiosity and was fascinated by Paris. Until she became Lucy’s maid she had never left Rotterdam but on the voyage from Brill she had discovered that she was adventurous, and now she found that seeing a new country and a new city was giving her the only real pleasure she had ever known. She made up her mind to stay with Lucy, whose life showed every likelihood of being a wandering one. “I would like to see the Palace of the Louvre,” she said. “I hate these kings and queens and noblemen and cardinals, and their wealth that is an insult to poor and suffering people, but I like to see where they live.”

  Lucy smiled. “You need not hate my king,” she said. “He is poor as a church mouse.”

  “I do not hate him,” said Anne. “And I would like to come with you today. You are going to the Louvre to give thanks, are you not? I will come with you.”

  Lucy gave her a glance of delighted surprise and impulsively held out her hand and Anne took it. Yesterday they had heard that Charles had escaped assassination. Edward Prodgers, who had come to say goodbye to Anne before starting upon some journey, had told her of it and she had told Lucy while she was dressing her hair, making the most of it with intent to hurt. But the intensity of Lucy’s reaction of shock and terror had taken her by surprise and before she had known what she was doing she had put her arms round the shaking girl, and later had fetched her a glass of wine to restore her. And she had been nearly as shaken as Lucy, not because of the threat to Charles but because this was the first time since her mother’s death that she had put her arms round another human being.

  They were silent as they drove through the hot streets, each looking out of the window beside her. Anne watched the pageant of Paris with cool interest. She had no real compassion for the poor and suffering of whom she had spoken to Lucy but she regarded them as potential allies. She was of the stuff of which agitators are made. Any attack upon privilege would have her adherence, for all such attacks had about them the sweetness of revenge. Lucy watched the people today not with her usual compassion but with fear, since every depraved or hungry person seemed a threat to Charles. These were the men with the sharp knives who hated kings and princes. Charles had escaped this time but she remembered his grandfather Henry of Navarre, his coach halted for a moment in the traffic, turning to get a better light on the letter he was reading and receiving in his breast the knife of a man who had just leaped upon the wheel of the coach. She was trembling by the time they reached the Louvre.

  “Were you afraid on the drive?” asked Anne in surprise.

  “Not for myself,” Lucy replied.

  Anne clicked her tongue solicitously. “You have your faith to support you, madam,” she said. “Otherwise you would not come here to pray.”

  Lucy’s happy spirit was in the shadow that day. “We pray for the safety of those we love,” she said, “we pour out our heart and soul for them. But still they suffer and die.”

  “That, madam,” said Anne icily, “is why I now no longer pray.”

  Lucy knew in her heart that Anne was wrong, and herself too in her momentary despair, yet she knew of no arguments to bring against that horse sense that on the face of it is always right; only the old argument that the face of things is seldom the true face, and the point of view of Old Sage when he had shown her at Rotterdam that the failures of true love are blessed of God.

  “Look, Anne,” she said, “we are here. This is the Palace of the Louvre where the Queen Dowager was born and where she has a suite of rooms. Is it not grand?”

  Anne regarded the magnificence with cold curiosity, her eyes narrowed, yet when she turned round to Lucy the lids were raised and her eyes blazed with such passion that Lucy, alarmed, wondered that fire did not descend from heaven to burn the splendour to a cinder. They drove round to the back of the palace and through a humble courtyard reached a humble door, for it was through a rabbit warren of domestic offices that the Protestant chaplain and the Protestant faith were reached. They were admitted and Lucy, who knew her way now, led Anne down a long passage and up a twisting stair, and then down another passage.

  She pushed a half-open door and they were in a small chapel, where the congregation was already kneeling. They made their way to the back of the chapel and knelt too, members of a small gathering of the older and sadder among the Paris émigrés, for the young and gay considered the Sunday service at the Embassy sufficient duty and did not wish to burden their spirits further with the ancient shadows and smells that hung about the back regions of the Louvre. But Lucy today, enveloped in her own shadow, felt at home in this small room and was almost at once aware of peace somewhere beyond her darkness, as the sun is beyond a thick mist, and was able to greet the invisible light as she murmured the prayer that Jeremy Taylor had taught her. “Keep us O Lord for we are thine by creation; guide us for we are thine by purchase.” She never now used the first person singular when she prayed for she was no longer herself alone, she was Charles and Jackie too. And Anne. For the first time she found she was Anne too. “Let thy mercy pardon our sins and thy care watch over us.”

  Dr. Cosin entered in his black gown. Lucy looked up for a moment and saw his tall figure outlined against the light that came through the window behind the simple table with its cross and candles. Even on a fine day the light was dim in the stonewalled room and the distant murmur of the world faint as the sound of a distant sea heard within a cave. Then his deep voice lifted above the murmur as though a wave had surged into the cave and she was carried away i
nto absorbed prayer for her husband.

  She knew some of the prayers by heart now for she had asked Dr. Cosin to write them out for her and he had done so. When he was old enough she would teach them to Jackie. The first they repeated as a litany.

  “O Lord, guard the person of thy servant, Charles our King.

  Who putteth his trust in thee.

  Send him, and all that are loyal to him, help from thy holy place.

  And evermore mightily defend them.

  Confound the designs of all that rise up or conspire against him.

  And let no wicked hand come near to hurt.

  O Lord hear our prayer. And let our cry come unto thee.”

  The next prayer was usually her favourite because when they came to the angels it was in Jackie’s voice, that she had not heard yet, that she seemed to hear the words spoken and with Jackie’s eyes that she saw the silver tents like upturned lilies.

  “Almighty Lord God, ruler of princes when they are on their throne and protector when they are in peril; look down mercifully from heaven, we most humbly beseech thee, upon the many and great troubles of our gracious sovereign. Defend his person from all dangers, both by sea and land. Bless his counsel. Prosper his enterprises. And command thy angels so to pitch their tents round about him, that he may be preserved from the hands of all that seek his hurt, and may be speedily established in the just right of his throne, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”