The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

Lucy was touched nearly to tears. “When Mary is older I will put it on a chain, and each day when she puts it on it will remind her of her father.”

  “With such a noisy father will she need remembrance of the fellow?” asked Lord Taaffe, and he laughed again, the reverberation in his chest causing his daughter to lift her head from the earthquake beneath her in profound astonishment. What was that? She did not know. Would it do it again? She did not know. Was she afraid? No. Held in the grip of her father’s hard and bony strength she was never afraid, though sometimes excessively uncomfortable. She laid her minute shell of an ear back on the earthquake and it rumbled away into a loud rhythmical thumping. Now here was another new thing. What was that? She did not know, but felt it to be a safe thing, and fell asleep on top of the safety.

  So, thought Lucy, Theo was not expecting that life would separate him from his daughter. She felt a glow of comfort and tried to feel as gay as she should be feeling at her children’s first Christmas party. Betje was here, helping her, and presently Dr. Cosin came in, his face softening at the sight of the lighted candles and the children. And a little later the door flew open and the King himself strode in with Minette upon his back.

  “We have run away!” cried the little Princess as she scrambled down and ran to Dr. Cosin. “We have run away from them all and we are not going to care what they say.”

  “Only for a few moments,” said Charles, “to bring you these.” He took two boxes of chocolates from his deep coat pocket and laid them on the table beneath the kissing-ring. “And more where these came from, for the King of Spain in his pity for my poverty has sent me thirty boxes for my private consumption. There is generosity for you!” And he laughed harshly, put his arm round Lucy and kissed her and then dropping into a chair took his son upon his knee.

  “Shir Da,” murmured Jackie. Charles took his son’s face into his hands and the two looked at each other. Jackie’s hair was soft as silk against his father’s fingers and his cheeks were warm. He liked the feel of his father’s hands, and the loving darkness of his father’s eyes, and he smiled. The King caught his breath, as the ice that had hardened over his mind and heart suddenly cracked, and found himself laughing again, not now with harshness but with hope. His laughter was infectious and quite suddenly everyone was happy, for it was Christmas day and the yulelog burned in the hearth to remind them of the feast that long before the birth of Christ had been kept in celebration of light, the feast when the bonfires had been lit and worship had been offered to the sun god who so soon now would bring the lengthening days and the hope of renewal. And then, beyond hope, the spring itself, cold and sweet and pure as living water, light sparkling on wet leaves, and birds singing.

  Ah, dear God, the vernal freshness of the earthly spring! Deep in his soul Dr. Cosin could hear it ringing and singing of the greatest hope of all, the hope beyond all hope, the great end, the dying of the self into God and of death into life. Only he had the power to formulate the source of the joy that was swinging the thoughts of the others from one fair memory to the other, for only the spiritually advanced move instantly out beyond time under the sudden stress of joy; the rest of us turn again to cling to the symbols. Lucy, sitting a little apart, remembered the love of William Walter that had been her first experience of the divine. Memory after memory of his fatherly love flooded into her mind, filling it with light. Possibly the world had despised him as a failure and a weakling but she and God knew that he had been no such thing.

  And so a few days later, when Dr. Cosin came by appointment to Lucy’s sitting room to talk to her, it was the thought of renewal that was uppermost in his mind. It was as an April child that he greeted Jackie before sending him off to find Betje, and when Lucy apologized for the lack of a fire in her room he replied, “No matter, it is warm as spring today.”

  Lucy herself was shivering, the more so since this was the first time Dr. Cosin had ever come to her room, and had done so now because, he said, the interruptions in his own were constant and he wished to speak with her in privacy. What had he to say to her? Was he grieved that she had not been able to come to the altar on Christmas day?

  “Spring,” he said, “it always returns, Lucy. I want you to remember that however terrible life may seem at a given moment darkness always passes. Spring is the smile of God and his joy is entwined in the roots of our existence and cannot be destroyed. No night is without its hour of total darkness and no human soul escapes moments of total despair, but spring comes back and the God-centred soul is tough enough to cling to the knowledge and utterly refuse to let it go.”

  “Sir, what are you trying to tell me?” Lucy broke in abruptly. She had gone white and her face had a look of hard obstinacy that he had never seen there before. He feared she had not heard a word of what he had tried to say to her, the rumble of speech had done no more than bring some premonitory fear of her own to the surface of her mind. “If my husband is sending me away from him I will not go without Jackie.”

  He could only serve her by coming to the point quickly. “It is worse than you think, Lucy. Steel yourself, please. His Majesty had discovered that his marriage to you was illegal.”

  He did not look at her for in such a moment she needed privacy. After a long pause he heard her say, as though from miles away. “That is not true. I have my marriage lines here inside my dress.”

  His eyes still on the fireless grate he said, “Keep them there. Invalid though they are they may yet be of service to you. Do you wish to hear the facts at once, or would you prefer me to leave you now and tell you tomorrow?”

  “Tell me everything at once, please.”

  He told her the truth as plainly and clearly as possible. He had talked the matter over with the King again, with Sir Edward Hyde and Lord Jermyn, he had seen the various documents and read the deposition of Prodgers. He had no doubts of the truth of what he was telling her and he allowed her to have none. “Do you understand what I have told you?” he asked.

  “I understand.”

  He looked at her now and realized that she was standing up; that she had herself in excellent control. She looked as before except that her eyes, always so soft and bright, had turned to lumps of coal in her face. “My child, do not think that the King is going to send you away. He has not said so. Your position now is the same as it has always been. It was only His Majesty and ourselves who knew the truth. I am convinced that he will always care tenderly for you and your son.”

  She gave her first sign of a slipping control. “Jackie!” she gasped. “Is Jackie a bastard too?” Dr. Cosin, speechless, could only nod his head. “A bastard,” she replied, “and so the King has no right to him and cannot take him from me.”

  Dr. Cosin got up, thinking he had better call Betje, but Lucy was suddenly at the door of her bedchamber. “Lucy!” he said, “one moment. Remember that you still have your integrity. You married in good faith and are in God’s eyes what your faith has made you. The judgment of men is worthless. Truth is only to be found in God, where you and your children also have your home.”

  She turned to the door as though she had not heard, then turned back again. “You think I have not listened to your comforting. I have heard every word and it means nothing to me.”

  She had gone, closing the door silently behind her. Dr. Cosin could only go too, groping his way back to his study and his prayer. Few things of late had hit him as hard as this.

  The King also was much beset at this time. In deciding that now it was absolutely necessary that he should marry Mademoiselle de Montpensier he had reckoned without La Grande Mademoiselle. This latter lady had her dignity and she also had the wit to put two and two together. Charles had left her for Scotland speaking abominable French, but he had returned from that country speaking it perfectly. If his adventures had been in truth as he had reported them he had had neither leisure nor opportunity to study the language; therefore his first wooing of her had been a mocke
ry to keep his mother quiet.

  Yet she considered him improved and sometimes she encouraged him. Then she held aloof again for now that she had it in her power to marry him or not, just as she pleased, she hardly knew what she wanted. His prospects were at present worse than ever but her wealth might improve them, and she still felt herself born to be a queen. And no other king, indeed no other man, seemed to want her. She had a disfiguring skin trouble now and could find no cure for it. Yet she could not forget how he had treated her and she complained to his mother that she still had much to complain of. How, she asked the poor Queen, could she be expected to take Charles seriously when his infatuation for the Duchesse de Chatillon had flared up again? And while he still had that Mrs. Barlow and her children under the same roof with him?

  The Queen saw that they must get rid of Lucy and told Charles to send her away at once. But the King was becoming less and less amenable to maternal interference. “In this weather?” he asked curtly. “A girl who for years has believed herself to be my wife? And where does she go? And who has Jackie? Be reasonable, Mam. There are many things to be considered and discussed between Lucy and myself before I can let her go.”

  “Let her go? Does she wish to leave you?” asked the astonished Queen.

  Her son looked at her with sombre, miserable eyes. “As to her wishes, Mam, I do not know them, but I suspect them to be much the same as mine, or yours, or of any one of us. If only it were possible to go back and begin life again, taking with us the knowledge of ourselves and the world that we had gained through our suffering. If only with that knowledge we could start afresh, our betrayals, as well as our mistakes, would be effaced.” He broke off abruptly at sight of his mother’s face and suddenly she was in his arms. “I am sorry, Mam,” he whispered. “I am sorry.”

  2

  As the days went on Lucy longed for Holland, the one place in Europe that felt like home. She longed for the windy, clean country as once the Israelites had longed for the promised land, but Charles like Pharaoh of old would not let her go, and neither would Dr. Cosin or Lord Taaffe. They wanted her to leave the Louvre but to stay in Paris with friends of Dr. Cosin, so that they could look after her, and they could not understand how this once so loving girl could want to cut herself adrift from those who cared for her so much.

  “You do not get on well now with your aunt at Rotterdam,” pleaded Charles, “and there is no one else in Holland to look after you and Jackie.”

  “Betje and her mother,” said Lucy obstinately. “I am going back to Holland with Betje. She hates Paris as much as I do now that her husband has died. People are murdered here and they fight in the streets and there is blood as well as filth in the gutters. There is disease and starvation here and dreadful wickedness. I am taking my children away from Paris.”

  As she spoke this last sentence she looked at Charles, her face set and obstinate, for the fight for Jackie had already begun. Charles wanted his adored little son to live at the Louvre in the care of the Queen, so that he could see him often; Lucy was sure Jackie would be safe and happy only with his mother. Charles felt he could not force her; as she had already seen he had not the right. Nor just now had he the heart.

  Lord Taaffe was also concerned for his child and just once, very tentatively, he told Lucy that if she should ever think it best his Irish home was always there to receive his daughter. The result of this remark was shattering. “Send Mary to Ireland to your wife?” she asked incredulously.

  “I am so poor, Lucy,” he pleaded. “I will send you all I can for the child but it will be so little.”

  “I would die rather than send Mary to your family,” said Lucy bitterly, and she was too upset to tell him about her mother, and Betsi who had died. Instead she left him with a very sore place in his heart because of her bitterness. Could this be the girl who had said she would go through the rest of her life with her hand upon the cord that bound them together? “You know I would have married you if I could,” he pleaded, searching for the old Lucy. “You know I would come with you and the children to Holland if I could. But I cannot leave the King.”

  “There is no further need to discuss the matter,” she said coldly, and he went away heartbroken and uncomprehending. Dr. Cosin understood her best for he had seen how she had taken the news he had told her; the shock had come at her like a death blow. He had seen such a thing happen before. In time her loving nature would re-establish itself but for the moment she was almost without feeling, and without the power of reasonable thought. The only thing she had in the way of thinking was this obstinate conviction that whatever happened her children must remain with her, and that she must take them away from Paris.

  “For the time being she must have her way,” he told the two young men at last. “If she does not her reason may be affected.”

  “But she is not well,” said Lord Taaffe. “She is still a sick girl.”

  “All the more reason for going back to Holland to the sea. You must remember that she comes from the sea, and the seaborn do not breathe the air of cities with ease. I hope she will return to us later, but meanwhile Betje is a sensible woman and will take care of her.”

  And so Lucy went, and her farewells had a strange charm and dignity, for in them something of her old loving self returned; but only as in a dream and as though she moved through the figures of a dance. She curtseyed gracefully to the Queen and thanked her for her kindness, and with Mary in her arms she knelt with equal grace, Jackie beside her, to receive Dr. Cosin’s blessing. Alone for a few moments with Lord Taaffe she did not say no when he put a little old signet ring on her finger and whispered, “The thread is tied to it.” Indeed she smiled and nodded and then kissed him gently. Alone with the King she knelt and kissed his hand and wished His Majesty health and prosperity. “For God’s sake, Lucy, do not make it sound as though we shall never see each other again!” he said irritably. “You know that whenever I can I will come to see you and Jackie.”

  “I shall not see my husband again,” she said, and then asked with a fear and anxiety that nearly broke his heart, “Do you wish me to return the wedding ring to you, the ruby that your father gave you?”

  “No. Wear it still but do not sell it, Lucy. If things get financially worse with us all sell the diamond brooch but not my father’s ruby. That must be for Jackie one day.”

  “But I have already sold the diamond brooch,” she confessed.

  He was suddenly angry. “You sold the diamond brooch without my permission! But you had no right. It was given in the first place to my son.”

  “Your son had to eat,” Lucy reminded him. “Sir, do not let us wrangle in our last moments together. The thing is done. Your Majesty can rest assured that your son’s welfare will always be my first consideration.”

  Then she curtseyed and left him and she had no tears on her cheeks. It was he who had to fight tears. He had so entirely believed in her. He would have staked his very soul that she would have been faithful, yet Prodgers, who had just returned to his service, informed him that he had it upon reliable information that soon after they had left for Scotland she had already begun to make a fool of Taaffe. She was just a jade like all the rest and he had been a fool to let her keep his father’s ring. And whatever her rights, worse than a fool to let her take Jackie. He had thought to come back to them both and keep them for ever and now they were gone. For the first time since an hour of dreadful grief after the Battle of Worcester he broke down and wept bitterly.

  Fourteen

  1

  When Charles let Lucy go it was to years of wandering in the wilderness, for she could find no abiding place in a world that no longer had the feel of home. And she was restless with exhaustion; so tired that at times everything about her looked misty; there were no clear outlines. A modern physician would have treated her for continuing shock and extreme anaemia, but the apothecary at Rotterdam whom she consulted, driven to him by the fear tha
t she might get too ill to look after her children, thought she needed cupping. It did not seem to do her any good.

  When she and Betje reached Holland Lucy went first to Aunt Margaret at Rotterdam, for she thought that Betje needed to be alone with her mother for a while. The visit was hardly a success. Peter Gosfright was kind as ever but her aunt, though she did her duty by her niece, made it clear that though a royal bastard could be forgiven a love child of lesser birth was something of an outrage. “I would not have believed it of you, Lucy,” she said. “Have you told your mother?”

  “No,” said Lucy sadly.

  “Better not at present,” decided Aunt Margaret. “Both she and your grandmother are in bad health just now. How sad it is. And such a shockingly plain child. She has none of dear Jackie’s beauty.”

  But Aunt Margaret soon ceased to think that Jackie was dear, for his behaviour was deplorable. The moment the coach had driven away from the Louvre he had begun to scream, and he had screamed on and off ever since. The Louvre had become home to him, his first true home, and he missed his grandmother, Minette and Dr. Cosin, and above all he missed his father. He was not well at Rotterdam, and ceaselessly he wept for Shir Da and demanded to go home. In despair Lucy packed her boxes and went to the farm at Scheveningen.

  There her welcome was warm and she had a period of peace. Vrouw Flinck had no reproaches for her, only love and compassion, and Mary was made as welcome as Jackie and was equally loved. Both children flourished in the good air and Jackie grew happy again; though still he missed Shir Da. But it was too good to last. Mijnheer Flinck fell seriously ill and needed quiet, and Lucy removed herself and her children to lodgings at The Hague that Anne found for her.

  Anne had heard of Lucy’s arrival at Scheveningen and had visited her there. Betje, never quite trusting Anne, had been sorry, but Lucy had been touched by Anne’s pleasure at seeing her again and had turned moth-like to her flame of kindness. Anne that day had been very kind, and she was kind in helping Lucy to move into the lodgings with the children and sorry to see her exhaustion. “You are not well, madam,” she said.