📚 Elizabeth Goudge’s book, ‘The Child From the Sea,’ first published in 1970, is set around the time of the English Civil War. Lucy Walters, the main character, is devastated when her mother leaves her father. Lucy and her brothers are torn between their loyalty to them both…the tangled threads. This passage where her grandmother on her mother’s side is speaking to Dr. Cosin, a Royalist and high churchman, explains why Lucy decides to go with her father:
“…inborn loyalty has a fearsome strength and can cloud our thinking more than any other emotion.”
“Why do you say a fearful strength?” asked Mrs. Gwinne. “Is loyalty not admirable?”
“Certainly. Do we not suspect turncoats? and rightly. They are not usually good men. But very occasionally they may be. The threads of the web are tangled, madam. That is the tragedy of a world riddled by sin.”
“And you?” asked Mrs. Gwinne.
A smile softened Dr. Cosin’s rugged face. “Madam, I have thought deeply about these things, but I am a hot-tempered man and like all such men deeply committed. I love the King, whose chaplain I am, and the Church of England is my firstborn. That last sentence, madam, is one that could be written on my tombstone.”
It had been a dialogue between the two of them, for Mrs. Gwinnes thoughts had wandered to the book beside his plate, and Lucy could not understand all they said. But she knew about the tangled threads for she had discovered them at home in Wales, and she understood what loyalty was. There was disagreement in her home, forcing her to decision, and day by day for months past her heart had been like a ball tossed backwards and forwards between father and mother. Now, looking at Dr. Cosin’s sternly resolved face, it seemed that her heart was at rest as she thought of her father. “He is my firstborn,” she said to herself.
Later on in the book...
'...the dilatory reluctance of the law had as yet brought no settlement between William and Elizabeth, only increasing bitterness that shamed their children, but Lucy was learning to live both with the longing and the shame, to love her father as her firstborn and her mother as much as she could, and to pay no attention to what they said about each other. She was like a mother with two quarrelling children confined in different rooms, and went from one to the other with tolerant tenderness.'
4 comments:
I have this on my shelf but have never cracked it open. Thank you for the encouraging prompt!
I've had it for a while, too. I was initially put off by its 600 pages but it's been a much smoother read than I thought it would be and I'm really enjoying it.
I read this book a few years ago, and it's really stuck in my head. It doesn't seem to be one of Goudge's more popular books - I'm guessing because the ending isn't as entirely happy as some of her other books. But it contains some very memorable characters and situations, and gave me a lot of food for thought. I liked it very much.
I was wondering if it's because it's historically based that it doesn't appear as popular/much read. I read up about Lucy Walters and EG has portrayed her much more sympathetically than others. I felt I jumped into the story from the start which doesn't always happen for me with her books.
:)
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