Elizabeth Goudge's "The Child from the Sea" and How I Got My Copy

How I came to possess Elizabeth Goudge’s The Child from the Sea was in a very roundabout way. It happened a few years back, while I was working as an administrative assistant at a furniture store. As part of the “staging,” there was a variety of old books that would be placed upon bookcases or other shelving.

Past experience has taught me that treasures can be hidden in the least probable places, so I went through the store reading over the various titles. Most of these books were not very interesting—mostly Readers Digest Condensed volumes and that sort of thing—but among them was a nondescript, black-bound hardcover with “GOUDGE” on the binding.

At the time I hadn’t read anything by Elizabeth Goudge myself, but as she’s one of my mom’s “target” authors and collects all of her works, I mentioned it to her. I remember my mom being a bit horrified that a book like that should be collecting dust, unread and forgotten in a furniture store. She said about as much to one of my coworkers one day when she visited me at work.

This happened to be around Mother’s Day, and my coworker, with the generosity of giving away something that didn’t necessarily belong to him, immediately handed it to her as an early gift.

(Lest anyone accuse either him or my mother of stealing, I “donated” one of my books to take its place upon the shelf—A Geological Survey of Syria or something along that line.)

As it happened, when my mom got home and compared it to her extensive Goudge collection, she already had The Child from the Sea. So she gave it to me.

Shortly afterward I began to actually read Goudge’s work, starting with Green Dolphin Street, and then The Rosemary Tree. I really enjoyed both of them, so gladly picked through my mom’s duplicates (which would otherwise have been donated) and amassed a bit of a Goudge collection myself.

As I said, this volume of The Child from the Sea is bound in plain black cover, so there was no blurb on the back or inside the dust jacket. I had no idea what the book was about, even as it sat for months on my bookshelf.

Then, a few months ago, I decided to read it. Only then did I learn via the Author Introduction that this was a historical fiction, based on real-life events and historical characters. While I enjoy history and historical fiction, I usually avoid those novels based on real people, as I spend half of my reading energies trying to divide fact from fiction. In this case there was the further complication that I was very ignorant of all the events, and had never heard of the main character at all.

Her name was Lucy Walter, and according to the Encyclopedia Britannica she was the Welsh mistress of King Charles II of England. She bore him one son, and also had a daughter by someone else, and she died at the age of 28. When Charles II died, her son James argued that he was the legitimate heir to the throne, saying that Lucy and Charles have secretly been married the whole time.

As far as I could tell, most historians believe this to be pure fiction. And that’s where Goudge comes in. She weaves a fictional account where Lucy isn’t just the “brown, beautiful, bold but insipid creature” (as contemporary writer John Evelyn called her) that history records, but an independent, reckless, sensitive, and ultimately spiritual person. Her life is not one spent in wantonness or desperation, but still it is a tragic life where her marriage is doomed due to broken trust and political machinations beyond any single person’s control.

The book is divided into three parts: The Girl (which introduces Lucy as a tomboyish, wild child…the titular Child from the Sea), The Idyl (covering Lucy’s adolescence, romance with Prince Charles, and secret marriage), and The Woman (showing Lucy as a mother, her life in exile after Charles’ father is beheaded and the royal family retreats to Continental Europe, and her eventual fall from her husband’s favor). Throughout the entire book there is a sense of dread; even the good events such as her whirlwind romance with the Prince and the birth of her beautiful son carries a sense of transience.

Reading about royal mistresses is not quite my cup of tea, and in fact when I mentioned reading this book I scandalized one of my friends who dubs all such fiction as “Laura-Inappropriate.” But this book is not about sensationalism or sensuality; while the subject material may seem incongruous with the theme, Goudge actually makes this book about forgiveness.

Early on Goudge introduces the ancient Welsh concept of a Sin-Eater: a person chosen to be the scapegoat of a community, bearing their sin on himself to allow the rest to die in peace. It’s a common thread that runs through the rest of the book even after Lucy leaves Wales: a person being punished for the sins of another. Several characters take on a role as scapegoat throughout the course of the story, to varying degrees. The end, while sad, carries with it a sense of hope and purpose that is probably much less tragic than the real life of Lucy Walter.

While this book was beautifully written and has thought-provoking themes—both of which I’ve come to expect from Elizabeth Goudge—I didn’t really like this book. And it wasn’t just because it was the sort of book I wouldn’t normally read; it was that I felt that Goudge had written this sort of thing before, and done it better.

The theme of redemption and forgiveness is better conveyed in The Rosemary Tree, and the idea that one’s life purpose isn’t necessarily what they expect is a central theme in Green Dolphin Street. Many of the characters are not likeable, which makes Lucy’s love for them seem artificial or at least ill-placed, and even Lucy isn’t as captivating a protagonist that I felt urged to continue reading to see what she did next.

There is also a hint of Magic Realism: certain characters seem to “entertain angels unawares,” as well as Lucy’s idea that “the great ones come back” (a sort of reincarnation). These things are introduced fairly late in the story, though, so their appearance is abrupt and confusing.

Goudge always relies heavily on metaphor to explore the inner thoughts and feelings of her characters, but in The Child from the Sea I felt she took it too far. The metaphors were elaborate and extended over whole pages, sometimes interlaced with other metaphors, until it was hard to follow what was going on at all. While Goudge also tends to have her characters have unrealistic discussions on metaphysical or philosophical matters, it was taken to such an extent in this book that I became bored with the dialog.

Despite these misgivings, however, I’m still planning on reading many more of Goudge’s novels…just not right away. Her prose is so dense, and requires so much focus and time, that I’ll be taking a break to read some “lighter fare” first. Like Kafka or Dostoyevsky or something.