The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  Lucy had been aware of his carefulness and she guessed its reason. “To be near the sea, and to avoid gossip. When I was living at The Hague before there was much gossip about me. I thought if I lived out here and was never seen about in the town it would not start up again.”

  “It has already done so, my dear,” said Tom. He was still holding her arm firmly but in a different manner.

  “You have enemies. Did you know?”

  She did not answer his question but asked, “Did you believe the gossip?”

  “I waited to believe or disbelieve until I had seen and talked with you. Now I disbelieve. But who are your enemies?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You must have your suspicions.”

  She said with a little gasp, “I have wondered lately about a man called Prodgers. And a Captain O’Neil. But both are servants of the King and I cannot think of anything they could have against me.”

  “Then why do you suspect them?”

  She told Tom about Prodgers’s visit to Anne at Brussels while she was away, and of Mary’s dislike of him and her nightmare. “I know it is ridiculous to trust the instinct of a small child,” she said, “and yet I did. Mary is wise. And I felt something was wrong myself, too.” She paused. “Some sort of smell of evil. Do you know what I mean?”

  Tom did not. He had never smelt either good or evil. He ignored the silly question and asked her instead, “Can you tell me why the King wanted you to visit him at Liege?”

  “Yes, I can tell you. He wanted me to give him Jackie.”

  “And you refused?”

  “Yes. Small children must be with their mothers.”

  “Could O’Neil have known of your refusal?”

  “If he was in the King’s confidence he would have known why he was fetching me, and since I took Jackie back to Brussels with me again he would know I had not done what the King wanted.”

  “And if Prodgers was still at Brussels when O’Neil brought you back he could have told him. Were there rumours about you in Brussels?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did they start?”

  “After I came back from Liège.”

  “Is your maid trustworthy?”

  “I used to fear her but we have been together for a long time now. I do not know what I should do without her. What are you thinking, Tom?”

  “I was merely asking a few questions. Where are those children? It is getting chilly and you should go in. And I must go back to the Palace.”

  “Come to the house and drink a cup of wine before you go,” said Lucy. It was good to have him with her. He had brought with him some of the sense of security that had belonged to her childhood. Nan-Nan and her grandmother seemed not far away.

  Autumn passed quietly into winter and Lucy was happier than she had been for a long time. Tom Howard found a tutor for Jackie, a charming white-haired old man who came daily. Lucy meanwhile tried to teach Mary with the aid of her own old hornbook, which she still possessed, and when they got tired of that she told her the old Welsh stories that her own mother had read to her in the bower at Roch. Tom Howard came to see them often and at Christmas brought them gifts.

  Early in the new year Lucy was for a short while exceedingly ill with a fever. She had little recollection of it afterwards; though one memory, of Anne kneeling beside her bed and crying, her face pale against the night, like a cameo on dark velvet, remained with her as a source of wonder. Had Anne been crying for love of her? Fully aware again she found Jackie being wonderfully loving but very much under foot, and Mary looking after her with so much competence that Anne and the landlady declared admiringly that she could have taken charge of her mother by herself. It seemed that the little girl had a wonderful gift, which she discovered for herself during this time of trouble. She had healing hands. Her small palms, laid upon her mother’s forehead, could take away headaches. And when Anne had earache Mary made it “all better.”

  When Lucy was declared by others to be well, but was actually feeling worse than she would have believed possible, Tom Howard came to see her with troubling news. “Lucy, O’Neil is at The Hague. He has come to fetch a gift of money the Princess is giving the King. He wishes to see you and has asked me to speak to you on his behalf. He has the King’s command to take Jackie back with him to Cologne.” He paused and then went on again, “I also understand that part of the King’s present from the Princess is to be left with you. The first instalment of your pension, with added to it a considerable sum as a Christmas gift from His Majesty.”

  There was a long silence while Tom looked out of the window, and then Lucy asked him in a strangled voice, “Is the King bribing me to part with Jackie?”

  “It appears so, Lucy.”

  “But how could he think I would do such a vile thing as part with my child for money? What have they been telling him about me?”

  “I should like to know, Lucy.”

  “What am I to say, Tom?” she demanded in anguish.

  “Did you not tell me that the King said to you at Liège that you should keep your son?”

  “Yes, he said that.”

  Tom swung round. “Then write a letter to the King that I can give to O’Neil. Say simply that you are ready at all times to obey His Majesty’s commands, but nevertheless you hold him to his word that you should keep your son. Accept the pension but refuse the Christmas gift. I will tell O’Neil only the pension money is to be left with you.”

  Lucy wrote the letter and for a few days could do nothing but sit in her chair by the window in a daze of anxiety, and wait until Captain O’Neil himself came to see her. “Madam, I must leave The Hague and return to the King in a few days. We must get this matter settled. It is the question of his son’s education that worries the King.”

  “Jackie is at this moment downstairs with his tutor,” said Lucy. “Now that the King has generously granted me a pension I am able to give my son all that he needs.” She wondered if she had spoken, for she had not heard her own voice. She wondered if she would be able to speak again, but she did; she said she was holding the King to his word and keeping her son.

  Captain O’Neil was not yet corrupted, he merely shared with Prodgers the conviction that desired ends are never achieved if a man is squeamish about the means, and had not noticed that this is one of the most satisfactory means of entry into human affairs the devil possesses, and he was troubled by this badgering of a sick woman. At the moment he had not the heart to go on with it and presently left Lucy and went downstairs to talk to Jackie and his tutor. It did not take him long to find that Jackie had remained impervious to education. Then he talked to Anne in the garden and found her to his surprise uncooperative. What had happened? Was Prodgers losing his power over her? Well, no matter. The thing was done now and the King’s mind left without scruples in the matter of taking Jackie from his mother.

  In a few days Captain O’Neil was back to finalize the wretched business, bringing with him a heavy purse. But it was no good. Lucy was less well but more obstinate. She accepted the pension money but handed back the rest. He fought her for a while, and then desisted. Even in a good cause there were depths of cruelty to which he would not sink.

  2

  But Lucy could not get well and at last was forced by Tom and Anne to see a doctor. It was the air of The Hague, he said. It was detrimental to the health of many and he advised travel and change. Where should she go? She did not want to go anywhere but Tom and Anne were adamant and she remembered Anne’s wish to see Antwerp, and she remembered too that Smuts was there. “We will go to Antwerp,” she said.

  “It is a long way,” Tom warned her.

  “Anne and I will manage,” said Lucy. For some reason Antwerp was drawing her. If she had to leave the little house by the woods it should be for Antwerp. Steadfast to her promise she wrote and told Charles she was taking his son to Antwerp,
to the house of a Mr. Harvey, nephew of his father’s doctor, and they set off. Tom Howard was grieved not to be going with them, but he held his position as Master of the Horse rather precariously and was afraid to ask for leave. The Princess, as well as the Queen of Bohemia, was much beset by exiles wanting work and food; should she grow discontented with a servant there were plenty of others to choose from.

  Lucy, Anne and the children travelled slowly, taking with them Mary’s dollies, Jackie’s balls and wooden soldiers and the writing desk that Charles had given Lucy. It went everywhere with her, and her letters from him were still in the secret drawer. The journey took all Lucy’s courage but she was upheld by the growing conviction that she was journeying into joy.

  Smuts and his wife gave them a kind welcome and looked after them for several weeks while Lucy recovered herself. She was even happier with them than she had been with Monsieur and Madame Axel, for they had young children and Jackie and Mary were very contented playing with them. Never had Lucy seen Jackie so happy with any family as he was with the Harveys. He wept when they had to go away to the little house that Smuts had found for them.

  It was not lodgings this time but their own wonderfully cheap hired house, built of mellowed red brick with a steep red-gabled roof. When they saw it first it was glowing like a rose and the sun was twinkling in the small windowpanes. It stood high in a row of such houses, in a quiet humble part of the city, and looked down upon the river. The estuary was not too far away and there were gulls on the river. Behind the house was a small hidden garden with a vine growing over an arbour, and many tulips had pushed up their green leaves in the flower borders beside the paved paths.

  Inside the house were cool tiled floors and simple furniture. The parlour only was given a touch of luxury by a long golden curtain with a silk fringe, a spinet and a superb map hanging on the wall. Though the house was small it had empty attics in the roof which made a splendid place for the children to play. From the dormer windows of these rooms they could see far down the river with its shipping, and right out over the beautiful city of Antwerp. Lucy, Anne, Jackie, Mary and the dollies settled down instantly like birds in the nest and were happy.

  It was lying on the settle in the parlour, looking at her father’s miniature that she had hung on the wall beside the golden curtain, that gave Lucy the idea of having a miniature of Jackie painted for his father. She longed to give Charles some gift that should show him her gratitude both for the pension which had made it possible to have this little house, but even more because he was allowing her to keep Jackie. She took it for granted that the silence following O’Neil’s return to the King meant that Charles had remembered what he had said to her, and had accepted her refusal as final. She was optimistic these days; the little house was so full of happiness.

  She told Smuts of her wish and found he knew of an Englishman who was now at Antwerp, a Mr. Samuel Cooper, who was an excellent miniaturist. And so Mr. Cooper came and painted Jackie looking out of the open window at the river, the ships and the gulls, his head a little to one side as he listened for new notes of music to add to the harmonies that were already in his head. His face was serious and thoughtful, his long curls falling on his shoulders. It was an exquisite miniature. When it was finished and framed Lucy laid it in a velvet case and put it away until she could find some safe way of sending it to the King.

  3

  It seemed to Lucy that there had never been such a lovely spring. Swallows nested under the roof and thrushes in the vine arbour and the little house rang with birdsong. The river flowed full and shining and the sky was always a glory of changing light. It was sunset when the miracle happened, the hour when Lucy played with her children before Anne put them to bed. “Maman, play the spinet,” said Jackie suddenly. “Play and sing.” Lucy was startled for though she often sang to the children it was a long time since she had tried to play any instrument. Looking back she thought the last time was at Breda with Charles, when she had played the air of the old Welsh hymn. She tried to play it now. Her fingers were stiff at first but presently she was absorbed in her playing and then she began to sing.

  The children sat enthralled and Anne in the nursery began to cry. She had always scorned tears, the bitterness of her early life having frozen them at the source, and the burst of crying that had come on her at The Hague when she had thought Lucy was dying had shamed her. The shame had remained, but slowly changing its character. What sort of a creature was she that she could love a woman enough to weep for her and yet try to destroy her? What sort of power had this man Prodgers had over her? She had always despised women so lacking in respect for their own individuality that they could hand themselves over to a man they loved to do what he liked with. And she had not even this excuse, for she did not think she really loved Prodgers, though she had come very near to doing so. He had, she suspected, most subtly played upon her vanity and crowned her queen of a phantasy world that was more than half evil. With Lucy struggling back to life again she had ignored the instructions in a letter from Prodgers, that O’Neil had brought her, and had taken her first step out of the unreal evil kingdom. But reality was harsh and she could not take the final step, only cry helplessly when some beauty, such as the light of this perfect spring, Jackie looking and listening while Mr. Cooper painted him, and now Lucy’s singing, touched her changing self so sharply.

  The three men who had come quietly up the steps to the door of the rosy house stood there listening, and one was profoundly moved. So often at morning or evening, when the world came freshly from the hand of God or turned again to her rest, there was a single voice heard, perhaps a bird singing or the stirring of wind in a tree, that moved one as a fuller music could not do. “Watch over us, bring all men, our Refuge, home to heaven,” Lucy sang. There was silence, and then Lucy playing as though to herself alone.

  The three men began to move as though to the slow measure of some preconceived plan. The youngest sat down on the steps as though to wait, the tallest leaned against the wall as though to wait also, but not for long, and the stocky man quietly opened the door and went in and up the stairs. At the half-opened door of the parlour he paused. Lucy let her playing die away and said without looking round, “Who is there?” She was not startled because peace possessed her. And she had been expecting a coming of some sort, for all day she had been remembering the coming of the three men into the house by the canal after Jackie’s birth. That too had been in April, and light had been on the water. But she knew it was not Charles at the door. Not yet. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Justus,” he replied.

  She was in his arms in a moment and they clung together motionless, and the simplicity that had always been in their love for each other came back to Lucy like a cool breath from another world. She held him away from her, as she had done when he had come home from school as a small boy, as though to verify what she already knew. Essentially he was not changed. He was Justus, stocky and strong, reliable, honest, good, and these characteristics had deepened as he grew from boy to man. His shoulders had broadened and he had put on weight, and the physical change seemed an expression of his growth in quality. Then he smiled at her and he was a boy again, his boy’s grin a laughable adornment of his man’s authority; and to his relief Lucy laughed. For a moment her appearance had startled him. Was this elegant fragile woman, with violet-shadowed eyes and sharply hollowed face, his tomboy sister? But when she laughed she was the old Lucy.

  There was a gentle knock on the already open door and turning Lucy saw Richard. She went into his arms too, for in him too she could delight, so impressively handsome was he, and so evidently prosperous. There was no doubt now as to where his allegiance lay for in dress and bearing he was a prince among Puritans, his simple clothes perfectly cut and superbly worn, his fair hair cut short, smooth and shining. He had great charm and the riddle of his being was as great as ever. It was he who did the necessary talking for his emotions alone were und
isturbed by this meeting. He and Justus had met Smuts Harvey in London and Smuts had told them they must come over. They had been delayed by the difficulty of getting a passport for Justus, but he and Smuts together had got it at last; Justus for reasons of health was travelling to Italy by way of the Low Countries. They had gone straight to Smuts’s house at Antwerp and he had told them where Lucy was living.

  “We found the way quite easily,” said Richard. “We and a servant. Justus travels in style. It was he who could not come without his servant.”

  “A servant! Where did you leave him?” asked Lucy. It was so unlike Justus to travel with a servant.

  Justus grinned. “Sitting on the steps below.” He went to the window, thrust his head out and shouted, “Hi, you fellow, come up.”

  Light feet leapt up the stairs and a merry boy with curly hair and sparkling dark eyes stood in the doorway. He was bareheaded and plainly dressed in grey homespun but Lucy saw him in vivid green with a feather in his cap. “Dewi!” she cried. “Dewi!” It was almost too much.

  And if Anne had not appeared at that moment in the doorway with wine for them all it would have been too much, for she was nearly dying with joy.

  4

  The days passed in a daze of happiness. Lucy and Justus were much alone together for Dewi was much occupied in seeing the sights of a foreign town, and Richard, after he had listened with a sympathy that surprised her to Lucy’s story of all the many things she had not been able to put into her letters, and had told her about their mother, was also out a great deal and occasionally away for a few days. “Government business,” he said.

  “I do not know what he is doing,” Justus told Lucy as they sat in the vine arbour one day together. “I never do know and I do not ask, for he is my brother and I do not want to dislike him any more than I do already. Whatever he does he is well paid for it.”