The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  Joy that there could be so much love in the world, joy that poor people are so much more generous than the rich, destroyed all Lucy’s sense of isolation. “Yet I cannot do it,” she said. “I will not be dependent. I could work at The Hague. I could work at the Embassy with Anne as a maidservant, but would the King like that?”

  “He would not,” said Vrouw Flinck decidedly. “You are too well known at The Hague. Yet in Paris, Lucy, you could earn your bread and no one would know it. Would you like to live with Betje and work for her as her assistant? She needs your help and can afford to pay you well. This plan is Betje’s own. She wrote it in a letter and sent it to me after you left her. Knowing the King’s poverty she was afraid for your future. But you are a great lady now and though you have no arrogance you have your pride. Betje is only a fisherman’s daughter.”

  “She is a greater woman than I am,” murmured Lucy. “It will be an honour to work for her. I will go to bed now Vrouw Flinck, and think about it. I will tell you in the morning.”

  In the bare clean room that had been home to her and Charles and was home to her and her son, Lucy stood at the window and remembered that Paris was the city of sorrows and that she had hoped never to go back. But she also remembered that Lord Taaffe had said, “It is to Paris he will come. I shall be there at his service in his desolation.” And she had replied, “I should be there too.”

  Her decision was made and by the light of the moon and stars she counted up her resources. Of coins she had only enough left to pay Vrouw Flinck for one more week, but she had her ruby ring and the diamond brooch that belonged to her and Jackie. And the Queen of Bohemia’s little trinket. She had still not looked at it for Jackie had been in a demanding mood when they got home and she had kept it for a quiet moment. She took the box from her pocket and opened it.

  Inside was no trinket but a necklace and earrings of pearls and emeralds. The stones were not large and the necklace and earrings of delicate workmanship, suitable for the slender neck and small ears of a young girl, but Lucy knew enough about jewels now to realize they were valuable. She cried and she knew she could never part with them, save only to keep Jackie from starvation. With the ruby ring Charles had given her it was the same. That left only the diamonds. Charles would be very angry when he found out but what else could she do? It was the only way to pay for the journey to Paris.

  A few weeks later history repeated itself for Lucy was once more boarding a ship that was sailing for France. Mijnheer Flinck had heard about it and arranged her passage for her. She was not such a great ship as the last but she was nevertheless a lovely thing and she had a familiar look about her. Nor was Lucy’s embarking so grand. Then she had gone aboard in the fine new clothes that Charles had given her, in the care of the elegant Lord Wilmot, both of them attended by their servants. Now, because she had wanted it that way, she had said goodbye to the Flincks at the farmhouse and came up the gangway alone, in a shabby dress, carrying Jackie clutched in one arm and a bundle in the other and followed by a seaman carrying more bundles.

  Two men were pacing the deck, one was short and stocky and the other tall and lean, with a red head. They turned and Lord Taaffe saw Lucy. For a moment his dismay seemed to attach his feet to the deck. He could not move. Could he not escape this girl? Then his manners returned and he came to her with his usual cheerful grin. “You are travelling to Paris too, Mrs. Barlow? That is good news. Give me the boy. He is too heavy for you.” He relieved her of Jackie and her bundle and smiled down at her again. “Now I shall be able to look after you as Wilmot used to do. Come and meet Captain Axel, the commander of the Sea-Horse. She is a lovely ship.”

  Ten

  1

  Lucy had been outwardly smiling but inwardly anxious as she went up the gangway of the Sea-Horse. Her journey to France was assured but how was she to get to Paris? How could an unprotected girl with a small child travel in safety? The answer was that she could not. All she could do was to pray that she would find other travellers to Paris on board with whom she could seek protection. And her prayer had been answered by Lord Taaffe.

  It was a good voyage. They did not have very good weather, but she did not mind rough seas, and Captain Axel and Lord Taaffe vied with each other to pet and spoil her and Jackie and make them happy. Once more Captain Axel reminded her of Justus, and when they reached France and she and Lord Taaffe had to leave the Sea-Horse she found it almost as hard to say goodbye as he did.

  He gave her a parting present, two rolls of fine cloth, one deep crimson and one green, to make warm garments for herself and Jackie for the winter. His father, he told her, was a cloth merchant who did business in several of the Netherlands towns. “Our home is at Brussels,” he said, and then he paused. They were standing in his cabin and he was holding her hand. “You will always be welcome there,” he added suddenly and then, as Justus would have done, he crimsoned to the roots of his hair, dropped her hand and turned away. He was a little in love with her, she realized, and she was sorry but glad it was only a little.

  And also glad that Lord Taaffe was not; that had been made quite clear to her by his look of dismay when he had seen her coming aboard the Sea-Horse. That had hurt a little at the time but the hurt had vanished as their friendship grew. Lord Wilmot had been an amusing, cool and kind protector, but Lord Taaffe was much more, and though occasionally their Celtic tempers flared they suited each other like well-matched hand and glove. They came from much the same kind of background; from an old castle in a western land where the prevailing wind was from the sea and if there was much wild weather there was also greenness and freshness, with rainbows over the mountains and warm fires and singing in the castle hall at night. They both loved a country life, horses and dogs and children, so that Lord Taaffe found Jackie no infliction. Though even if he had not loved children, he asked himself, how could he have resented the small son of the two human beings whom he loved best on earth?

  For by the time the voyage ended he had had to admit it to himself. Lucy, if the fates had dealt more kindly with them both, would have been the woman for him. But the fates had not dealt kindly; excepting only that they had given him a strong will, loyalty, and complete confidence in both. He had done his best to avoid the girl but it had not been possible. Very well then, let them enjoy the journey to Paris together. He had control of himself and Lucy was still deeply in love with Charles, and more than in love with her child. He knew the signs of maternal passion in a woman. Lucy was above all a mother. He considered that they had nothing to fear from the journey to Paris and in the event he was right, for Jackie came out in spots.

  What the ailment could be Lucy and Lord Taaffe did not know and there was no medical knowledge available to enlighten them. In the inn where the indisposition first made itself felt Jackie emptied his bowl of food upon the floor and howled, while spots came up all over him one after the other in a very terrifying manner. A modern physician would probably have diagnosed a mild attack of chicken-pox, but the innkeeper said it was smallpox and the guests said it was the plague. A wild babel of excited French voices arose and it was made abundantly clear that once more there was no room for the child in the inn. Lucy wrapped her son in her cloak and went back to the hired coach, and with all the bundles piled on the opposite seat and Lord Taaffe riding beside them they drove on. He was exceedingly anxious. He would not be able to face the King if Jackie died on the journey.

  But Jackie was not the dying kind of child. At the end of that day’s drive he was peacefully asleep and the day after, apart from his disfigurement, well but fractious. But those spots, occurring as they did in such a precious and valuable child, had left no room for thoughts of passionate love. Lucy remained unaware that it existed. Lord Taaffe poured his anxieties on top of the flames like a bucketful of wet earth and stamped them down.

  Yet he was glad indeed when he had carried Lucy’s son and Lucy’s bundles up to the rooms at the top of the tall house in Paris
and handed the lot, including Lucy, over to the smiling Betje. “I will not see the girl again,” he said to himself with absolute finality. But he had reckoned without Lucy herself. When it came to the parting she suddenly could not bear to say goodbye to this man whose companionship throughout the journey had been like a stone wall shutting out a storm. She had always addressed him as “my lord” but now for the first time she used Charles’s shortening of his Christian name, “Theo, don’t leave us!” she cried and clung to his hand. She was without knowing it utterly exhausted and her first reaction to Paris had been the old fear.

  “God help us, you are not afraid, are you?” he rallied her. “That is not like you. What have you done with your pluck?”

  “Come and see us,” was all she could say. “Promise.”

  “I will come,” he said, and roughly pulling away his hand he turned his back on her and ran down the stairs. Even then, though his roughness had startled her, she was obtuse as a blind mole and in a few moments, as she talked to Betje and hugged her, thoughts of Charles came rushing over her; Charles running up the stairs three at a time, having supper with her in this room, singing with her; and all the evening she talked about him to Betje.

  That night in bed she was overwhelmed by her physical exhaustion. She was in Paris again, the city of sorrows where men fought in the streets and kings were murdered, and Charles was not here to look after her and Jackie, and with Lord Wilmot in Scotland and Robert Sidney back in England she had few friends to protect her. Then she remembered Lord Taaffe and was no longer afraid. How long would it be before he came? The thought of his promise was so warm and comforting that she fell asleep.

  2

  Dr. Cosin laid down his pen and rubbed his chilled hands together. Warm autumn sunshine had been ended by a spell of cold weather but he could not afford a fire in his damp study at the Louvre. Nor could he afford much food for a body which was now much tormented by the stone and by rheumatism. But the body, he had decided, should not be felt. It was possible with discipline and training to keep the mind burning clearly at the top of the tower, as in a lighthouse, unaffected by the gnawing of rats in the structure below. Nevertheless the various dyspeptic discomforts consequent upon semi-starvation and the stone appeared to be responsible for a certain depression of spirits. Faith and depression were not mutually destructive for faith could be carried, and carried well, in a dark lantern, but one missed the glow.

  “I am not alone in this,” said Dr. Cosin to himself, and he thought of the communities of exiles at Brussels, Antwerp, The Hague and Paris. Many had given up in despair and gone back to England to make their peace with the Commonwealth. The best remained, vowed to stick it out till the end with the King, but they were growing miserable and poverty-stricken as church mice; indeed more so for the mice in his study did not look too distressed and he suspected that they had access by secret tunnel to the kitchens of the Louvre.

  Yet the mice were in better case than himself and the Queen Dowager, who was now nothing but a bag of bones in her shabby widow’s-weeds, for her allowance from the royal family of France did not stretch to cover the needs of all her dependants and in her own way she was as generous as the Queen of Bohemia. And she was just now stricken with grief. Her daughter the Princess Elizabeth, whom she had not seen since she had left England, had died a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle, but the young Prince of Gloucester was still there in the hands of his enemies. And the news from Scotland was bad. The Scots had as yet made no attempt to crown their King and were playing with him like a company of cats with a tormented mouse in their midst. Mice, thought Dr. Cosin, how my mind does run on mice. Poor unfortunate lady.

  His pity did him credit for the Queen had made no attempt to hide her dislike of him. He was no longer paid for his services to the Protestant community and the Anglican chapel at the Louvre had been taken from him by the order of the Queen Regent of France. And the soul of the little Princess Henrietta Anne had been stolen from him by her mother. The Queen’s promise to her husband, that their children should be brought up in the Protestant faith, she had set aside now that he was dead, and the little princess had become converted to her mother’s faith. And other adult Anglican exiles had also been grabbed from him by the Queen Dowager. She still had great influence and in Paris this autumn there was more hope of a full stomach if you were a Roman Catholic than if you were a Protestant, and he believed that she did not hesitate to point it out.

  Suddenly Dr. Cosin’s pity deserted him and he ground his teeth in rage. That abominable woman! She should not get the Duke of York nor, if he ever got out of Carisbrooke, the Duke of Gloucester. Nor should she tempt away from him any more of his own. “No, God help me!” he ejaculated, and gripped his pen again. He was writing a book on the canon of holy scripture and treatises for the building up of faith to be circulated among his flock. His own tongue having been silenced in his own chapel his pen was now the best weapon that he had.

  For a long time there was no sound in his room except the scratching of his pen and of the mice behind the wainscot. The light grew dim but he dared not light his candle yet for candles were expensive. Then came that alarming pain in his eyes and he had to lay down his pen, take off his spectacles and put his hands over his eyes to rest them. He was very much afraid that he was going blind and if he did how could he finish his book? “It is only the hunger,” he said to reassure himself. “They say hunger affects the sight. The body should not be felt and pain and weakness I can control, but not sight. Not blind, my God, not blind. In mercy grant me light.”

  There was no answer and darkness invaded not only his room but his mind. The scratching of the mice grew intolerable, and then he heard the chiming voice of a small child and was back in the days when the Princess Henrietta Anne, then still a Protestant, had been brought by her governess to visit him. His own children were growing up now and dearly though he loved them he missed their youth. He had bought special lollipops for Minette and kept them in his cupboard, but she was not allowed to come now and he could hardly buy food for himself, let alone sweets for children. For a moment, in his darkness and confusion, he thought it was Minette on the stone steps that led to his study but then the child stumbled and let out a yell and he heard a girl laughing. A much younger child than Minette and a younger woman than Minette’s governess.

  There was a tap on his door and he said, “Enter,” but though he did much visiting among his flock he could not imagine who was about to enter and he peered like a startled owl as the door opened and shut again. A gust of perfume assailed his affronted nose and his weak eyes blinked at the glow of a crimson skirt in the shadows, and the vivid frog-green of some small creature hopping near the floor. Who were these bedizened persons? He groped for his spectacles and could not find them. Much to his annoyance they were found for him and placed upon his nose.

  “Dr. Cosin, we have come for the service in the chapel but it is empty. I asked the way to your study and a servant showed me. Dr. Cosin, you do not look at all well and it is dark and cold in here. Dear sir, you do not remember me.”

  He remembered the pretty Welsh voice but for the moment, in his confusion, could not put a name to it, and not realizing that his hands were shaking he was momentarily annoyed that this unknown female had put his spectacles on for him, and even more annoyed that she should pick up his tinderbox and most extravagantly light not one candle but two. He adjusted his spectacles and got her focused. She was a pretty girl with a tangle of dark hair under her scarlet hood. “I am Lucy Walter,” she said. “And this is His Majesty’s son Prince James. We call him Jackie. Make your bow to Dr. Cosin, Jackie.”

  Jackie fell headlong over a book that his host had left on the floor and screamed blue murder. His unconcerned mother picked him up and dusted him down, and transferring more books from a stool to Dr. Cosin’s table sat on the stool and set her son upon her knee. Jackie, still yelling, caught sight of the gaunt greybearded old man be
hind the table, was astonished and instantly silent. He put his thumb in his mouth and gazed.

  “I am sorry for his noise, sir,” said Lucy. “He is a noisy child.”

  “Children heard or unheard always have been and always will be my delight,” said Dr. Cosin. “I used at one time to be visited by the little Princess Minette, and I kept lollipops for her in that cupboard. She is not allowed to come now.”

  Lucy was deeply sorry for him. “Is it because she is no longer a Protestant? Is the Queen Dowager no longer kind to Protestants? Is that why we no longer pray for the King on Thursdays?”

  “The Queen Regent of France has now forbidden us to hold services at the Louvre,” said Dr. Cosin grimly. “Sir Edward Hyde pleaded for us but in vain. We shall however be continuing our weekly intercessions for His Majesty at the lodgings of one of the exiles in Paris. Next week we shall be there and I will give you the address.”

  “And this week?” asked Lucy.

  He smiled at her. “Before you leave, Lucy, you and I and Jackie will hold the intercession service together. My dear, that is a very beautiful gown you are wearing.”

  There was a note of anxiety in his voice. His guests were very gay and very beautiful. Lucy’s deep crimson gown was like a tulip and Jackie’s was green as spring. They were bright-eyed and well fed, the only well fed exiles he had seen for a long time. Who was supporting them? Lucy read his anxious thoughts, looked him straight in the eye and smiled reassuringly.

  “Jackie and I are living in my old lodgings with my Dutch friend Betje, who is married to Cardinal Mazarin’s chief cook. She keeps a milliner’s shop and I am her assistant. She is a clever needlewoman and she helped me make my gown and Jackie’s. I wanted to be in Paris so that if things do not go well in Scotland, and my husband comes back here, I shall be waiting for him.”