Song of the Sea Maid

by Rebecca Mascull

  ‘Oh Susan,’ I cry and we hug each other. ‘That was his crooked path!’

  ‘What is this?’ Susan frowns.

  ‘Nothing, nothing. I mean to say, what a very fine man your husband truly is. And a devoted wife and mother you are. And I am a fool.’

  But Susan sits up straight and grasps my shoulders, forces me to straighten myself too.

  ‘But you are no fool, my girl. You are the cleverest person I know, or Stephen knows, or has ever known. So put that great intellect of yours to use, and devise a plan to save yourself, your work and your child. What are you going to do, Dawnay? Think on it and solve it.’

  27

  The beach at Charmouth is littered with fossils. Every few steps, if one knows what to seek, one can pick up an ammonite or suchlike and pocket it, only to find another a few steps on. I have quite a collection now, placed on a high shelf or in heavy drawers so Alexandra cannot find them and pop the smaller ones in her mouth, as she is wont to do with all little objects, unchecked. Other fossils can be found too, though harder to locate – I have found some examples of a marine animal with feathery arms that I do not believe has yet been named. Also, I have three prized examples of small fish, one of which Alexandra found on one of our beach wanders and it was marked in domestic history as the occasion of her first word: ‘Fish.’ When I sit to sketch and paint my finds, she helps with a pencil stub on her own notebook and scribbles snail-shapes, rainbows and smiling faces to entertain me. Her hair is golden-brown with sparks that shine in the sun, like the fool’s gold we sometimes find in the Charmouth rocks.

  The same month my daughter arrived in the world, Admiral Byng left it, executed on board ship in the Solent. When she was born, her hair was bright copper, yet within weeks it had thinned and fallen out. When it came back, it was white blonde, now fading to honeyed tones. Her face is so like that of her father, it pains me and gives pleasure in the same glance. My daughter has my eyes at least, green-blue. They began very dark, watchful and curious, then lightened over time. She fed badly in her first weeks, and was forever at the breast. But I could not satisfy her. I began to search out goat’s milk, or sheep, whatever I could get daily from the Charmouth dairy, which I would boil and cool first, in order to destroy any animalcules present. I would spoon it to her, later slow-cooking oats until mush then pushing them through a sieve and mixing this with warm milk to satiate her infinite hunger. I believed myself a failure for being unable to provide everything she required from my own body – what could be more natural than feeding your own baby?

  She slept for short bursts, then would wake again hungry, never enough time for me to rest or think or complete a single task. When awake, she would howl if I left her for a moment; she required a constant perch on my left arm from where she would survey her kingdom; and if put down would rarely sleep easily and required jiggling and comforting and singing at length before her eyes would finally droop and close. Even then, she would not sleep soundly and would wake at the slightest excuse, so I took to wrapping Francina’s shawl about me tied with a firm knot, and placing the baby inside it swaddled against my breast, and there she would sleep longer, to the sound of my heartbeat. My back ached as a consequence, and my left arm seized from months of carrying the load, but these were her happy places, and I would not deny her. It was a constant and well-matched battle for attention between mother and daughter – a siege of long days and longer nights – and she was always the victor. (It occurred to me as I continued my chores with the child safely stored at my breast that this method of carrying one’s baby is an example of technology invented by a female surely, back in the mists of time, weaving slings from plant materials; as well as most likely inventing pottery, agriculture, medicine, botany, the spinning of cloth, animal husbandry and even butchery, the use of pigments in decoration and art, methods of cooking &c. The list is long.)

  When she was around four months of age, I began to mash up bread with milk, then potato, carrot and turnip, or any vegetable I could get hold of and cook to softness. From the moment she started to eat, she was a changed child. She slept for longer and longer, without crying out. Once she was weaning, and I preparing all her food, my feelings of failure evaporated, as I was in control again of her sustenance, and was able to gratify her at last and watch her full-belly smile as she settled down for afternoon naps. She moved from my bed into her own cot and – though she always wanted a bedtime song or story – she would happily close her eyes and sleep all through the night, allowing me my first uninterrupted stretch of deep sleep for half a year or more. I had my first dreams in months, many of my brother, of memories long forgotten, sparked by an intuition I cherish that my daughter seems to carry his aspect. Often I dreamed of Robin, and awoke feverish, then melancholy, the recollection of a hundred tender passages of our love filling my head.

  Those early months I look back on and shudder: a wasteland of trouble and loneliness. After my discovery, I kept it from my benefactor as long as I was able. Susan was my rock, took great care with me and insisted I ate properly and regularly with much rest. Two weeks after my meeting with Graybourn the publisher, I had given up all hope of that acquaintance and was desperately trying to formulate a way to support myself and the child, when I received a letter from him. He turned out as good as his word, and said he had no interest in my personal situation as that was my business, and instead wished to renew our discussions in terms of my willingness to write for him, as soon as I was fit and able to do so. I met with him and we agreed I would write during my pregnancy – and after the birth – then I should decide what I could manage and inform him when I was good and ready. I told him how exceptionally accommodating he was and when I asked him why, he kindly stated: ‘Because you are an exceptional person, Miss Price.’

  Thus, I had my security and, armed with it, I approached Mr Woods one afternoon and told him my news.

  I received a customary, blustering lecture along these lines: ‘You, Dawnay? Not you! The last I would ever have suspected of being guilty of such an act. I believed you the most virtuous of your sex, never one for dances or cavorting, or drink or intrigues; always dedicated to your work and the pursuit of reason. This behaviour I can hardly brook. What would the quality think of me? Oh, but what can be said of passion in these reckless days? How careful we must all be of ourselves in this particular, when we daily see good women – hitherto good at any rate – falling into the abyss in this reckless manner …’ And so on, and so on.

  Once he had calmed himself somewhat, he demanded the identity of the scoundrel, which I assured him would never be revealed and would remain my private knowledge as long as I lived. He ranted some more and grew red in the face – just as Susan once described to me – but soon saw I would not reveal it, and so gave up that fight. Next he insisted he had the answer to my grievous situation.

  ‘You will go into the country for your confinement, and upon the birth, you will give up the child to a good farming family or suchlike, and you will return here as if nothing had happened, and London society will be none the wiser. And life in Markham Woods’s house will return to normal, with no more talk of travels or babies or other such nonsense and we shall live quietly and happily together until the Creator deems my time is done and after that, you may do as you please, though I do hope, Dawnay, that you choose the righteous path of virtue and perhaps it would be best for you if you remained a spinster and devoted your life to science. Yes, that would do very well indeed.’

  And he closed his eyes as if the matter were settled. I expected this; to his credit, my benefactor has always done his best to serve my interests, to guide and persuade me, yet often has lacked insight into the true nature of my own heart. I waited for him to glance at me, upon which act I merely said, ‘Indeed, it will not do at all,’ and left the room to pack.

  But where to go? The dark streets of London confined my senses and I wished wholly to escape them. I wished to breathe clean air again, as I had on my islands. But I could not aff
ord to go abroad and required to be in England at least to send my work easily to Graybourn and receive payment promptly likewise. A childhood memory of Stephen Applebee, collecting fossils on his boyhood beach, reminded me of Charmouth and my mind was set. It was far away enough from London to avoid the scandal Mr Woods feared for his own place in society and his business. It was said to be a beautiful part of the country and it provided on a plate a subject for study: the fossil beach and coastline thereabouts, well known for its ancient finds. And most of all, it was beside the sea. I missed the sound of the sea. It washed a measureless store of flotsam memories for me and I wanted to be beside it once more. I yearned for it.

  It seemed a superior plan. To Charmouth I would go – and not to give the baby up, as my benefactor supposed – but instead to make a life there. To live simply, with my child, to write and earn a living, to study fossils and work. I called myself Mrs Price and wore widow’s weeds for a time, to smooth relations with the local people. But I had not prepared myself for seclusion. I had not predicted the intense isolation of being a new mother, with screaming child, and no other meaningful person with whom to share it. Alone, without friend or comforter, only a housekeeper named Betty Dawlish from the village to assist twice a week with household business, and no ear to listen, no friend to embrace, no partner to offer solace. I ached with isolation in the pit of my stomach, in the empty chambers of my heart; I breathed loneliness. I had spent many days alone as a child and younger woman and never once did I feel the stark seclusion of those days; I was left as a lighthouse on a rock, or a folly on a hill.

  As the child shrieked and would not sleep, as the hours went by – days like weeks, weeks like aeons – I felt myself losing my mind, at the worst times, holding the child coldly, believing it hated me and wanted to ruin my life, tempted to throw it down, or across the room, or into the sea. But enough reason remained in my addled sleep-starved mind to stop these impulses, and verily I did no harm to my child, though I dreamed of it sometimes; not of hurt, but of silence, of simply one moment to think, to listen to the birds, the sea, to be myself again and not only this servant of an imperious infant, to be Dawnay Price and not merely Mother, to be at peace. That first month there was snow in April – universal deep snow and such weather never recalled by the oldest person hereabouts – and I struggled to keep the baby warm, but she detested swaddling and fought to escape it. We were trapped in the house, unable to go for walks in the icy air. I lived in fractions of hours. The harsh white light of the wintry weather taunted me with its bleak clarity of view: this is your choice, your life now. There were no soft greens, fringes of leaves or even tight buds to soften it.

  When the child was two months old, a knock came at my door and I opened it, babe on my arm as ever. Standing there were the Applebees, Stephen and Susan. I wept at the sight of them, upon which Susan took the baby and bade me sit. She handed the child to Stephen and set about making tea with sugar for us all, an expensive treat they had brought me as a present. I was in heaven, sitting with them, drinking the fresh, sweet, hot tea and watching my old friends take over, understand and give me much needed aid.

  ‘It has been so very hard,’ said I to Susan.

  ‘It is for everyone,’ said she. ‘But anything worth having is fought for. Your children make you earn your love for them through sacrifice. But once won, it resides in your heart and your soul, and no one can take it from you.’

  My friends’ arrival lifted a great weight of sorrow from my weary shoulders. They would do any kind office for me. Susan shared many wise and helpful thoughts about motherhood. Stephen brought talk of the outside world and developments in science. At last the burden was shared, and I was able to discuss matters other than milk or sleep or excrement, topics suited to the adult brain and not the infant body. They stayed for a week and as my mood improved, I took pleasure in waiting upon Susan for once, preparing good food for her and serving her, as she had done for me so kindly in our past; after all my training with Matron as a maid-of-all-work and with Betty’s help, I have become quite the housewife. I made a currant tart and plum pudding, which Susan praised and they both ate with relish.

  Stephen and I went for strolls along the beach, Susan very contented to be left alone with the child, ushering us out. We discussed my work, my publisher, the secret ideas I continue to formulate. I told Stephen I had changed my mind about coral gardens: that now I believe coral is a collection of many animals, sentient and predatory, not the design of ancient peoples, but architecture created by animals. And furthermore, I now doubt the existence of mermaids. The cave of the great sea maid I believe was not a depiction of nature, but a metaphor for it. It has occurred to me that the paintings were a kind of genealogy, these ancient people’s ideas of creation: the simple beings of the sea first – even the fossils of shellfish in the walls leading up to the cave play their part in this procession – the fish at the entrance, leading on to the mammals next – the seals – and finally the half-mammal, half-fish humans in the final, deepest cavern; as if they wrote a book on the walls of a cave, rather than parchment or paper; as if they are writing their own Bible.

  Stephen listened carefully, then I said to him, ‘You know by now that I am aware of your past career, that once you were a man of the Church. I hope I have not offended you, in any of my ideas, my rantings against religion, my current theories. If I have, you have not shown it for a moment. But I would expect nothing less from such a gentleman as you, Stephen.’

  He smiled, then replied, ‘There can be no offence taken by a person who seeks the truth. My mind had grown and changed alongside your own, Dawnay, and I have learned to question my old accustomed ways of thinking. It is only to the good that you too seek to question your own theories. The scientific mind must cast beyond the moon, into unknown territory, and thus may take a wrong turn from time to time. The trick is to recognise it and instead choose a better path to knowledge, just as a natural philosopher should.’

  The Applebees’ visit was medicine to me. When they were leaving, I begged them to stay, though I knew they could not. Their son Owen was by now married and set up in his own home, doing very well; so they are more at liberty than they once were. But life intervenes and they must return to theirs and their work, and I had to resume the life I had chosen also. The days after their departure were my loneliest yet, and I missed the comfort of their company in my very bones. And motherhood returned to me as a trial and perpetual vexation.

  Yet, as the first months waned and spring proper came, as the child settled, as I grew to know Betty more, as I ventured out into the village, down to the beach, discovered the wealth of ancient life in its rocks which I had suspected but was overwhelmed actually to lay eyes on: all these gradual processes – requiring time, patience and faith – began to tell on me and ease my sense of solitude.

  I remember one grim day, when Alexandra had not slept for over fourteen hours and I was near distracted with exhaustion and half weeping, half racked with anger and complaining bitterly to Betty of all my troubles, she waited for me to quiet down, then said, ‘One day, you and your girl will be the best of friends. She will be your helpmeet and your darling.’

  And I looked at Alexandra and my eyes brimmed with tears of joy – a deep knowledge settled then and told me: now, you have it, now you have a person in this world who is for ever connected to you. It was not that I owned her, never that, as since the earliest flutterings in my womb I knew she was other, she was herself and – though a part of me, though of me – she was completely her own person and would go her own way in life. But that she would always be my daughter and I would always be her mother. And nobody else in this world – not now nor for ever – holds that station but me.

  Now we live through simple days, a plain cottage within the sound of the sea, ordinary food and drink, happy uncomplicated days together. We always have a fire, even in summer. I like a good fire. Sometimes, news of the war with France is spoken of in the village, and papers come from
the capital with news of notable battles and victories for the British. But I do not pursue news of the war, or the navy, or seek out news of a certain person, as I have my new life now and resolved I would put my past behind me, and so I do. I look only to the deep and dim past of ancient time and forward to the unravelling future. The latter is a new sensation for me, as I was always too impatient to consider the far future, only the present moment, as Stephen knew too well of me. Yet since I have had a child, my outlook of the years ahead stretches out beyond my life to hers, and to her children, and her children’s children, and beyond – a line of mirrors reflecting mirrors into eternity. It is parenthood that gives one the longer view. It is a relief to think of another before oneself. Alexandra and I are two stars side by side, forever orbited by others yet never moved from our own fixed station in the sky. I work and she plays; I read Voltaire and she paws at picture books and the alphabet. We talk, I tell her about the birds and beasts, the way people are, draw her pictures of islands and apes and sea cows – try every day in some small measure to feed her unquenchable thirst for knowledge. She is three years of age and luminous with life.