The Child From the Sea

by Elizabeth Goudge

  “He will walk by himself for me,” said Charles.

  Lucy doubted it. Jackie was a charming but wilful child and had as yet done no one’s bidding. Supper finished, Charles said he had a letter to write and Lucy cleared the table and trimmed the candles for him. Then she sat on the windowseat watching him and time rolled back upon itself for he was sitting at the same table where he had signed his carte blanche, offering his life for his father. He had been at his greatest then. What was he doing now? She felt anxious and was hard put to it to remain motionless and silent until the letter was finished. Then she asked, “To whom were you writing?”

  “To the Marquis of Montrose.”

  “You are still his friend?”

  “Of course. He is working for my cause in Scotland with all his power. He is in the Orkneys now. When he reaches the mainland he says the whole country will rise to him for me.”

  Lucy came and stood behind him as she had done before, and looking down over his shoulder at the sanded page a sentence leapt up at her. “As I wrote to you before, I will never do anything contrary to that power and authority I have given you. I will never fail in friendship.” The words might have been written in letters of gold, they gave her so much joy. She slipped her arms round his neck and whispered, “O Dduw, y mae yr hapusrwydd yma yn ormod yw ddal.”

  “That phrase again!” ejaculated Charles. “Surely an extravagant one with which to comment on the commonplace fact that a man is loyal to his friends?”

  “No,” said Lucy.

  Three days later, in the early afternoon, they were together again and heard the sound of wheels in the street outside. They stopped at the door. Lucy flew downstairs and was a little surprised to find that Charles was not with her. He was, of course, the King. To have run down the stairs as she had done would have been undignified, but it always chilled her a little to discover afresh how perpetually present in his mind was the kingly image. Then she forgot everything for Mr. Prodgers had dismounted from his horse and opened the coach door, and a smiling Anne was stepping out of it with Jackie in her arms. Anne had taken a great fancy to Master Jackie and had constituted herself his nurse as well as Lucy’s maid. It was a joy to Lucy, for their shared love of the child was a bond between them. With Jackie in her own arms she kissed Anne, thanked Mr. Prodgers charmingly for his care of her and carried Jackie upstairs.

  The King of England stood with his back to the fire, outwardly composed and even stern, so stern that Lucy was afraid Jackie might be frightened of him, but with his unseen heart beating like a bellows. Setting her son on his feet just inside the door with her hands under his armpits she said to Charles, “He can walk a few steps if I hold him up, but I must hold him.”

  Father and son regarded each other. Jackie was a sturdy child, dressed as was considered suitable at that time for males of tender years in a full blue silk dress that fell to the ground in long folds, his short fair hair hidden under a tight embroidered linen cap. In one hand he carried his coral, for he was cutting a troublesome tooth, and the thumb of the other was in his mouth. His eyes grew round as saucers as they travelled up and down the astonishing length of his father, but he lacked words to express his astonishment and Charles had to express it for him in a shrill whistle. Jackie had heard that whistle before, out in the garden. The birds made it, the black ones, but he had not known that a man could make it. This was a wonderful man, a green and scarlet man. He took his thumb out of his mouth with a tiny pop and his wicked grin spread from ear to ear. Charles slowly compressed himself downwards, to the tune of an expiring whistle, balanced carefully and held out his arms. Jackie held out his, balancing himself with equal care, the coral in his right hand and the fingers of his left hand spread like a starfish.

  “Let go of him, dear heart,” whispered Lucy’s loving husband.

  “He will fall,” Lucy warned.

  “Let go of him I tell you!” commanded the King, and Lucy let go. Alone Jackie staggered a few drunken steps and fell into his father’s arms. Crowing with ecstasy he was lifted higher and higher as the red and green man rose slowly towards the ceiling. Then the journey was over and the small boy looked into his father’s face, liked it and once more grinned his wicked grin. “You rascal!” ejaculated Charles. “You Jackanapes!” But he was annihilated. In later years it was to be said of him that he loved his son as his own eyes.

  The next few days had about them something of the old Pembrokeshire idyl. It was not the same, for the boy and girl were now a man and woman who had experienced the world as it is and not as they had hoped it would be, yet the same light was on those days, the light of spring and of sun on water, they still loved each other and above all they had the child. He was an idyl in himself and the miracle of his making still astounded them.

  They lived very privately, for themselves alone, with the presence and service of Mr. Prodgers and Anne a mere background of kindness that was hardly noticed. They hired a coach lined with red velvet, with a golden fringe, and drove with Jackie through the old streets of the city, and sometimes out into the country where the sails of the windmills flashed in the sun and the grass was greening beside the blue canals. The weather was idyllic, so warm that in the evenings when Anne was putting Jackie to bed they went out and strolled together and heard the thrushes singing in the hidden garden, coming home at twilight to supper and music and a game of chess.

  Then abruptly the bliss ended. “Dear heart, I will not see you for the next few days,” said Charles one evening. “I shall be busy with affairs of state.”

  He spoke with finality, endeavouring to shut a door, but as always Lucy was too quick for him. “What affairs?” she asked sharply, her foot in the figurative door. “Why will you never tell me anything?”

  “Affairs of state are nothing to do with you.”

  “That is not true.”

  “I have told you many times that they are not.”

  “Telling me a thing many times does not make it true. I am your wife and what concerns you concerns me. Are you receiving messengers from the Marquis of Montrose?”

  His dark face flushed, for he was very angry with her. Once more, who did this chit of a girl think she was? But because he had managed to keep his voice even she did not realize his anger and she thought he was ashamed. Why? Her quick mind pounced on the reason. “Are you receiving messengers from the Scots Covenanters?” They were sitting one on each side of a small table and Lucy had her elbows on it, a position which Charles considered the most belligerent his wife could take up. Her determined chin was in her hands and her blue eyes bored through to the back of his head. “That awful blue stare.” Groaning within himself Lucy’s husband was unconsciously echoing the words of her grandmother. “Are you? Answer me Charles.”

  “I am your sovereign. You have no right to question me and if I answer it will only be because I choose to do so.”

  There was a smouldering light in his eyes but Lucy refused to be warned. She merely waited. She had her anger in better control than he had and her will was stronger. When he spoke again he made each word sound like an insult flung at her.

  “Argyll’s Covenanters came to me in Jersey. Hyde was just leaving for Spain but Buckingham was with me. I committed myself to them. I am to go to them in Scotland and they will crown me there. Then with their help I will invade England and recover my throne. Tomorrow I receive them here in Breda to discuss plans and make the final arrangements. That is why I am in Breda.”

  Lucy’s quick mind had digested every fact. “If Sir Edward Hyde had been with you in Jersey you would not have committed yourself to them. The Earl of Buckingham is an atheist and an opportunist. He has no sense of honour. Why do you let him guide you? Why are you so weak? You signed the Covenant in Jersey.”

  “I did not,” said Charles. “I merely implied that I would do so.”

  “Then you will sign it here in Breda.”

  �
�I have not said so.”

  “And what of the Marquis of Montrose? If in Scotland you join yourselves with his enemies you might just as well stab him in the back with your own hand. It would be a quicker end for him than the one he will have at their hands.”

  Charles suddenly lost control of himself. “Do not be a fool, Lucy! He said in his letter to me that he had only to land on the mainland and Scotland will rise to him. To him, mind you, not to me. He is an arrogant man.”

  “You are jealous of him.”

  “No!” thundered Charles. “But I believe him to have as much power behind him as the other party. He can look after himself. The balance is even, like this,” and he held out his cupped hands side by side. “Until the time comes when I can reconcile the two parties I must stand between, ready to move either way as the balance falls.”

  “You mean you must be two-faced as Janus.”

  “I must recover the throne. That is paramount. That is the work my father left me to do.”

  “At the cost of treachery?”

  “There will be no treachery. From the throne I can protect my friends.”

  Neither could comprehend the point of view of the other. Lucy could not see that a great end makes all means legitimate. Charles could not see that if an end can only be gained by a two-faced opportunism it is not worth gaining. They were too young even to try to bridge the gulf and look at the problem with each other’s eyes. Into the bitterness of their silence there came a loud screaming. Anne had gone out for the evening with Prodgers and Jackie was being murdered in his bed.

  His parents were with him in a flash without knowing how they had got there. No one was murdering him but he had had a little nightmare and had wished to draw attention to the fact. Plucked from his bed by his mother, snatched from her arms by his father and carried into the sitting room to sit by the fire on his father’s knees he had what he wanted; to be in the sitting room of an evening when the fire was lit, not to be banished to his bed all lonely by himself where he could not see the pretty fire or hear his mother singing. Yet he continued, with intent, to howl, for he could not talk yet and it was necessary that his parents should be told about his nightmares and the fear that came with loneliness.

  It was only outwardly that Jackie was an entirely normal child. His mother’s nightmares before his birth had not been without their effect on him. When his grandfather’s death had sent out its eddies into every corner of Europe how could the mind of his grandson remain unaffected? His parents only dimly understood this but they were both aware of a shared remorse, the remorse that is inseparable from the joy of bringing a child into the world. For what of the world? It drew them together and their quarrel was forgotten. Indeed the Covenanters, Montrose, the sacred throne of England and the divine right of His Majesty King Charles the Second all fell through the floor as Jackie’s parents tried to staunch his grief. Lucy tried a little warm milk, Charles tried walking the floor with his son, but though Jackie’s roars sank to sobs he refused to be entirely comforted; he was not sure yet that his parents had learnt their lesson.

  “Try singing to him,” said Charles. “He likes you to sing that Welsh hymn. He likes the tune.”

  “Grufford Gryg’s hymn,” said Lucy and she sang it in Welsh, very softly and slowly.

  “Who’s the Man commands the crown?

  Fair God, pierced is His bosom,

  Christ, worthy king of heaven . . .

  It’s He our flowing language

  Should name as both One and Three;

  Father and Son offered up

  And faithful Holy Spirit;

  You’re our Lord above all lords,

  Our bulwark, and our Father . . .

  “Because His hands knew torment,

  Because He rose from the grave,

  Let us ask our God on high,

  There, where He bought us heaven,

  As the Father, dear Saviour,

  Jesus is called full of grace,

  Watch over us, bring all men,

  Our refuge, home to heaven.”

  When she had sung the last note she could not for a moment look up for the words seemed to her at this time so full of sorrow. When she did look up she saw her husband smiling at her over his shoulder in triumph. Jackie had put his thumb in his mouth and gone to sleep. Charles carried him to his bed, then gently kissed Lucy and went away to his own lodgings.

  The next few days Lucy did not see Charles and knew only what Prodgers told Anne and Anne told her that the King had been closeted for hours in his bedroom with the Scottish gentlemen, no one knowing what had passed between them. But Lucy was not a girl to remain idle when she was in deadly terror and she had already written a letter to the Queen of Bohemia. Her landlady’s son, who could ride fast and well, had taken it to the Wassenaer Hof. A few days later there was the sound of coach wheels, then a swish of silks on the stairs and her door opened precipitately. A tall veiled woman entered and Lucy, with Jackie in her arms, stood up and curtseyed. When she rose from her curtsey and looked up she saw that the Queen had removed her veil and that her face was disfigured with weeping. She seated her visitor in her own low chair and said, “I hope Your Majesty does not blame me for what I did.”

  “You did right,” said the Queen. “When a good man turns to wrongdoing one must do all in one’s power to bring him to his senses, but since in this fallen world evil has terrible power your action was as useless as the hour I have just spent arguing with your husband. And weeping before him. I do not recollect that I have ever wept before a man before. Lucy, to put a crown on a man’s head addles his wits. An idée fixe in the mind of a king must automatically be right because he has it. The mere possibility that he may be mistaken cannot be entertained.” She was in great bitterness and despair. “Charles my brother is dead,” she said harshly, “and if Charles, my nephew, goes to Scotland and trusts himself to the Covenanters he will die as his father did. And that death will be merciful compared to the one that will be suffered by the Marquis of Montrose.”

  Her voice grated to a stop. Lucy stooped and put Jackie into her arms as the best comfort she could think of.

  “When does His Majesty leave for Scotland?” she asked and her voice was as harsh as the Queen’s.

  “Soon, for his new Council is mostly made up of the young men and they will have their way. You will scarcely see him again, and nor shall I. Since we disagree with him we are pushed aside. In these circumstances women turn to their children. Your boy has grown, Lucy, and he is a fine boy.”

  For a little while the two women concentrated upon Jackie, taking resolute delight in him. Then the Queen went away. She had travelled to Breda with her nephew-in-law, who had come to act as arbitrator and intermediary between Charles and the Covenanters, but she was to drive back to The Hague alone with her servants. Lucy herself awake that night, lay thinking of her and of her last words as she said goodbye. “Do not reproach him or plead with him again, Lucy. You will only increase his obstinacy and harden him against yourself. If he cannot take your wisdom to Scotland with him let him take your love.”

  So she was loving when next she saw her husband, and he looked so harassed that it was easy to be loving, and she tried to divert him. He on his side showed her affection and was careful to tell her nothing. Breda hummed with business, for the Scots had their advisers and secretaries with them, the Prince of Orange had his servants and Charles had his Council, and gossip was rife. But Lucy would not now listen to the bits of news Anne brought her from Prodgers. If Charles would not tell her anything then no one should. Then the Scots went away and he prepared for departure. He was to sail in a ship lent by his brother-in-law and it comforted Lucy a little that if Buckingham was one of his retinue so was Lord Wilmot. She would miss her friend but she was glad Charles would have the companionship of his unfailing kindness through whatever lay ahead.

  On the
ir last evening together Charles briefly told Lucy the main terms of the Treaty of Breda. As soon as he reached Scotland he would be crowned. In return he would promise that Presbyterianism should be established throughout his dominions and would sign the Covenant. The Scots promised him invasion of England by their armies and restoration to his father’s throne. This seemed to Lucy a programme of such danger that she was speechless. Charles, secretly agreeing with her, could find nothing to say either. He stayed with her that last night in Breda but they lay in their bed like strangers, numbed by sorrow, longing for the morning that the parting might be over. When it came they might have been a man and a woman who had no love for each other, so tame was it. Charles kissed his son and put him back in his bed, and then kissed Lucy, his arms limply about her. But suddenly he tightened them. “You will be faithful,” he said, stating a fact.

  “You are right,” she said. “I will.”

  She heard the door slam and heard him ride away and merely felt exhausted, dry and dull. It took Jackie shouting for his breakfast to restore her body to movement again.

  3

  Charles sailed for Scotland at the beginning of June, leaving behind him in Paris and at The Hague two communities of dismayed followers who knew they would have to tighten their belts before he came again. He also left behind him a weeping mother and a young wife and son quite unprovided for. To this latter problem he had meant to pay some attention before he left but in the event it had slipped his memory. It had not slipped Lucy’s but she had been too proud to ask again. As soon as Charles had left Breda she took Jackie and Anne to the farm, where they could live cheaply. When she had returned to Rotterdam from Paris, with nothing left in the purse that Charles had given her, she had realized that her aunt’s hospitality was not what it had been, but she knew that the Flincks in their comparative poverty would never grow tired of her and she sold the ring that Charles had given her in Paris and decided to stay with them while the money lasted.