Mrs. Seymour could see the future. That was one of her powers that people ought not to have. One afternoon a man and a woman visited her. Usually her visitors were solitary and sad. This couple were anxious, rather than grieving. Not all hope had failed them. And they were not so very old. They were the parents of a missing girl. They were familiar from their public pleas for their daughter’s safe return. The appeal was to no one in particular. It was like a drowning sailor’s hand reaching to the sky.

Mer agitée à Pourville
(Heavy Sea at Pourville), 1897
(Oil on canvas, 73.5 × 101 cm)
BY Claude Monet
The National Museum of Western Art

When a body was washed up on the beach the father was invited to make an identification. A girl in her mid-teens, who had not been in the water more than a few days, lay on the trolley. She was dead, but not yet at peace. She looked strangely impersonal and anonymous. She was anyone’s daughter. But, after careful scrutiny, the father was sure it was not his. He had expected immediate recognition. Surely a man knows his own child? He had anticipated relief or pain at first glance. What he found was confusion and mystery. A part of him wanted the conclusion of saying yes. That was sure to disturb him later, for he was discovering many unfamiliar feelings where there had been certainties and the comfort they offered.

Under the harsh light of the County Hospital everything looked unearthly. The father needed somewhere more ambient to collect his thoughts. On the drive homeward he stopped the car at an inn. There was a cheer and warmth from the windows. Customers looked at ease. They were enjoying a carefree evening a troubled man could not share.

He saw the lights of cars as they reached the summit of a distant hill. The other way was the sea at the point where the Channel became the Atlantic. He could not bear to think of what might be down there, what soon might be found. Further on he drove past the wood that marked the bounds of the town. He saw a figure he thought may have been familiar. But when he stopped to look there he saw it was the fallen branch of a tree. That was all, and yet there was more. A father knows his daughter.

In the morning Rebecca was found. She was unharmed, but with the withered look of one who had been without food and shelter for some days. They had been long days for both the fugitive and her pursuers. When she was caught at last she was relieved. She no longer cared about admonishment and retribution. Rebecca wanted to go home. “Anything could have happened to you,” they told her sternly. But that was all they said. At the sight of their daughter forgiveness was everything. “We’ll say no more about it.”