The Ballad and the Source

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “I received an answer to this letter. She accepted my offer, and added the words, thank you. As I thought, she proved to have unusual abilities. She passed her examinations with distinction and entered College the following autumn. She studied languages. Each term she wrote me one letter, containing news of her studies and her progress. It caused me a strange disturbance always to see her handwriting—small, neat, precise as a don’s, with here and there a touch of nervous weakness and uncertainty. As time went on, these letters became a shade more human and confiding. She was happy. I saw her once, at a distance, emerging from a lecture hall. She was wearing spectacles, and looked rather drab and plain—it was a cold day, which did not suit her complexion, and her clothes were unbecoming—but solid. I was reassured; though something about her gave me the notion of a person deliberately suppressing three-quarters of her personality.”

  “And in the holidays, did she …?”

  “No. She chose to spend them with this coach and his family. She established friendly relations with them. It was all perfectly suitable, harmonious and domestic. Really, she seems to have done nothing for three years but apply herself voraciously to study. And at the end of three years she acquitted herself brilliantly. Yes,” said Mrs. Jardine, with a sort of ironic pride, “she took a double first in her final examinations.” She paused, brooding; then added: “However, those intellectual laurels were all discarded—thrown away.”

  In the ensuing silence I heard Harry’s Cadillac change gear loudly at the bottom of the hill, and begin to moan slowly up.

  “I wrote to congratulate her. I thought it on the cards that we might now meet; but she chose otherwise. This man, this coach, whom obviously she regarded by now in the light of a parent, was sailing for India with his wife. She sailed with them. She removed herself as far as possible from me. She obtained a teaching post for herself in Calcutta. Quite soon she met the man Thomson, and for some reason married him. A respectable middle-aged man, a civil servant, Inspector-General of something or other to do with the Police.”

  The car changed gear again with its usual noisy grunt of protest and touch-and-go moment of possible refusal. The moan became a bellow.

  “Curious,” said Mrs. Jardine, but now as if she had no more strength to mark any surprise emphatically. “After her marriage she appears to have assumed yet another personality. She became a beauty again. And other traits became predominant. Frivolity. Extravagance. Passionate absorption in dress and in society. I see it as an attempt on the part of a person with no true centre to try out yet another character with which to face the world. She had those two children—as rapidly as possible one after the other. Curious. That seems to have gone off without the emotional disturbances one would have apprehended. She left them entirely to nurses and stuck on them the most perfunctory of names, and kissed them in the morning and at night, and danced and danced. And led Thomson a pretty dance. Then one fine day she took the two children and sailed for England. She did not come back. So he threw away his post and his pension and followed her and found her. …”

  The car stopped at the front door. I heard Cherry jump out and call something in her high penetrating treble.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Mrs. Jardine. “They are back. We must make some fresh tea. And you must go in a few minutes, dearest. Yes, you must go.”

  “May I go and get my six dahlias?” I said. “I know which they are.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said, pleased with me, leaning back and smiling tenderly at me out of a transparent face. “Yes, love. Go and fetch them.”

  I got up.

  “About Mr. Connor,” I said. “Did he come back to Mrs. Connor?”

  “Oh, dear me, yes, of course he went back. Respectable men always go back to their wives, you know. I cannot tell you in what frame of mind he returned, for my only further communications with him were through my solicitor, with regard to Ianthe’s money.”

  “Perhaps he got nicer to her …?”

  “Ah, yes. There may well have grown up between them a deep and terrible tie. She died, I heard, about ten years ago; and then he relinquished the world altogether and joined some religious order dedicated to prayer and contemplation. He became altogether a saint.”

  I heard Cherry running through the hall, and I said in a hurry:

  “Where is Ianthe now?”

  “I have not the slightest idea,” said Mrs. Jardine.

  Part Four

  That day she came to call upon my mother for advice we hovered in the drive to see the car come round the bend. She alighted, formal and elegant, in a dove-grey cloak lined with lilac silk, long grey gloves and a shallow wide-brimmed silvery straw hat girdled with blue and mauve ostrich feathers. She kissed us affectionately, but she was different: that afternoon she was not for us, or we for her. Next moment Mossop had opened the door, and she swept on into our house and left us behind. We yearned after her retreating back; but we recognised it for the banishing back of a lady parent come with ceremony to discuss her responsibilities with another. What they were about to reveal to one another with so much mutual tact, deference and affability dashed us from any notions we might have held of high estate. We were but little children weak.

  We mounted our bicycles and went and rode round the lawn, and showed off a little at a discreet distance from the drawing-room windows. We caught an earnest glimpse of her sitting forward in her chair, hat and cloak inclined towards my mother; but we did not approach her again. She stayed for an hour and then she drove away. When we dashed in to ask why she had not stayed to tea, my mother replied that Mrs. Jardine had regretfully preferred to get back to pour out tea for the Major. This had been her unfailing custom during the whole of their married life, and he counted on her presence and ministration.

  Restraining our passionate anxiety, we asked in a casual way:

  “Did you like her?”

  My mother said with care but without condescension that she seemed a charming person.

  “She is very fond of you children,” she added, with an ambiguous glance at us, part gratified and willing to gratify, part deprecatory; even, to my guilty conscience, a shade suspicious, as if speculating upon lines familiar to us. What, said the glance, had we been up to with Mrs. Jardine, so to impress ourselves upon her affections? My mother did not completely trust her little girls.

  “What did she say—” I wished to say: “about us,” but thought better of it, and added instead: “about Maisie?”

  My mother closed her lips. Then she said guardedly: “She had a suggestion to make to me about Maisie.”

  “What was it?”

  I saw her begin to draw down the blind, and I went on:

  “She thinks you’re a good influence on Maisie. She said you’d found the right touch. Maisie’s never got to like her. But she loves you. She told me so.”

  “Poor Maisie,” said my mother again. She sighed. Then she said, almost against her will, almost as if we were all sisters:

  “Mrs. Jardine’s idea was that Maisie should share lessons with you. Perhaps live here. … At least during term-time.”

  “Live with us? What did you say? Can she? Did you say she can? Would she share Mamselle? What room would she sleep in? Can she sleep with us?”

  While we shot out questions, Jess stood still, watching my mother closely; but I began immediately to cast my limbs about and clap my hands in lunatic abandonment.

  My mother told me not to be foolish.

  “Well, what did you say?”

  “I told her,” she said firmly, “that I must think it over. I rather doubt … I think myself it would be a wiser plan to send Maisie right away to boarding school.”

  These words tolled leaden in my ears. To me they were as if a judge should assume the black cap and pass sentence of death. I made a sickly protest.

  “I’m sure Maisie would rather come to us.”

  “M
aisie is the type of girl who would do well at a suitable school,” said my mother, inexorable. “I should always recommend boarding school for a child without a satisfactory home influence.”

  “I don’t think she’d like it.”

  “Oh, nonsense. Maisie is a most sensible independent girl. The right school would provide the best possible atmosphere for her development.”

  I felt the ominous subject of character-building begin to breathe its threat upon me. I wiped my eyes: the eyes of a girl lacking sense and spirit, clamped as voraciously to a state of dependence as an octopus to its prey.

  “In any case,” said my mother, “I must consult your father. I told Mrs. Jardine so.”

  “Dad’ll say no,” said Jess.

  “Well, we must see,” said my mother.

  “Did she say anything about Tilly?” I inquired.

  “Yes. She asked for Tilly’s address.” My mother looked rueful­­­­.

  “Did you give it to her?”

  “I gave it to her, of course. She is anxious to go and see her, but I fear it is a mistake. She seemed to think it might do Tilly good—rouse her perhaps—but I very much doubt it. I heard this afternoon from the landlady: poor Tilly is very, very feeble. However … Mrs. Jardine is going up to-morrow. She said she couldn’t rest until she had found out for herself whether there was any little thing she could do for Tilly’s comfort.”

  “Is the landlady’s name Mrs. Pringle?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so, only Tilly was always forgetting it, or getting it wrong. Isn’t Mrs. Jardine kind to want to do something for Tilly?”

  “Very kind. Now run along and put away your bicycles.”

  My father said no, without hesitation and with considerable emphasis. He did not say it in our presence, but we took the sense of his reaction from my mother’s telling us on no account to pester him about Maisie; he had decided against the scheme, and that was all there was to be said. The following week he was absent in his constituency; and in accordance with my usual practice of inspecting any letters my parents might leave about upon their desks, I found occasion to read a note from him to my mother. The main contents, dealing with some matter of local liberal politics, lacked interest for me; but the postscript was enthralling. It said: I trust you have been perfectly firm with that woman, and made it clear, ONCE AND FOR ALL, that the plot is OFF. It was like her impudence.

  It was, I suppose, made clear beyond a doubt; but no light ever shed illumined for Mrs. Jardine a prospect of defeat. Next day a letter in violet ink lay on my mother’s table, and cast its own rewarding rays upon my tenebrous but doggedly pursued path. It said:

  My dear Mrs. Landon,—I entirely understand your position, and indeed feel persuaded of the accuracy of your analysis of Maisie’s temperament and educational requirements. I shall now pin all my hopes upon a suitable school. Discipline and kindliness combined with a broad and progressive intellectual outlook are what I require for her. It cannot be impossible to discover such a combination; but as I am now out of touch with the trends of modern education, I should be deeply grateful for your advice before making a final decision. Will you not bring your two to tea on Friday next? My grandchildren returned yesterday with the relative, Miss Mackenzie, who has had the charge of them during these sad and difficult years. I should so much like to give her—poor devoted woman—the pleasure of meeting you. We could have a conversation, and the young ones could play in the garden. I will reserve a full account of our dear old Tilly until I see you. I have visited her twice. She is sinking rapidly. I shall not go again. A quoi bon? I can now say to myself with conviction. I was able to satisfy myself that she was receiving every reasonable care and attention. She did not recognise me. She is in a merciful stupor, beyond reach of human communication. Her passing will be easy, painless. I sat long by her bed each time and held her hand, and said farewell to one more link with the past. How thankful I am that my meeting with you should have given me this poignant opportunity!

  Sincerely yours,

  Sibyl Anstey Jardine.

  Whether or no my mother hesitated, who shall say? It may have been the word education, ever acting upon her ears as the trumpet upon the war-horse, or the promptings of a natural curiosity to see the Jardines at home; but I think myself that it was another weight that tipped the scales. It was the spell of the spell-binder, no more, no less. My mother was prudent and incorruptible, but she too was drawn, irresistibly drawn, to look upon, to listen to Mrs. Jardine once again. So we went to tea on Friday next.

  The ladies took tea in the drawing-room, and we had ours apart, a proper schoolroom spread, in the dining-room. I had expected Maisie and Malcolm to be in deep mourning, but they were not. Maisie wore a black band round her arm, Malcolm a black tie. Maisie told me later that her grandmother had laid specific injunctions upon Auntie Mack to refrain from buying her a mourning outfit. This was an added grievance. She herself had insisted upon the black band and sewn it on with crude, uneven stitches. I had also expected hushed voices, funereal gloom; but everything seemed more or less normal. Maisie pounced on Cherry for blowing bubbles in her mug of milk, and Cherry wailed, and was first upbraided for babyishness, then immediately consoled by Malcolm and Maisie together. She began to blow bubbles again and to giggle through them, and next moment we were all bubbling, giggling, and humming God Save the King into our mugs, in competition. Malcolm did best, the milky froth came up right over the brim and clung to his nose. We rolled about with laughter. Then the door opened and Harry came stalking in and sat down among us.

  “Couldn’t face it,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the drawing-room.

  Cherry sprang on to his lap, and the rest of us poured out his tea and plied him with buns, anxious to welcome, spoil and comfort him. He looked round at our milky lips and noses, his mouth twitched in what was almost certainly a smile, but he said nothing. Cherry crumbled his bun and fed him by hand, kissing him repeatedly. He cast rather a silence, but no shadow. Once more I noticed the complicated and pleasing smell which always emanated from him: honey and flowers, I think, tweed and brandy.

  “Was it devilish in there?” said Maisie. “Did you try?”

  He shook his head.

  “One peep through the window,” he said. “Saw ’em at it.” He sketched a gesture with his hand. “Stirring the cauldron. Dropping you all in—bit by bit—legs—ears—noses—liver and lights—”

  We laughed in hearty appreciation to encourage him, and Cherry flung herself back on him, rolling her curls on his shoulder and shrilling affectedly:

  “Oh, you funny, funny man! Oh, you do make me laugh so!”

  “I’m the one they won’t digest,” said Maisie. “Oo-o, I’ll give ’em such a stomach-ache.”

  This always amusing word, uttered with particular grimness and gruffness, had never seemed more strikingly humorous. We collapsed in hysterics. Gratified by her success, Maisie perceptibly expanded. She had been addressing her attention to Malcolm and Cherry, practically ignoring Jess and myself, just as she had the first time we ever came to tea. It was, I see now, her way of expressing her sense of the need for family solidarity. Exposed and isolated as they were by trouble, she must bind them all together in one group. But now, temporarily at least, she relinquished them. When tea was over, she came and put her arm through mine and said:

  “Come on. Let’s go out.”

  Harry began to pour milk into a saucer for his cat. I saw with anxiety that he was not going to be able to manage without spilling most of it. Cherry took the jug from him, saying:

  “My pet, you’re a bit too shaky to-day.”

  She took up the saucer of milk and went trotting out after him towards the study. The rest of us went into the garden.

  Malcolm was to go to a crammer the following day, with the idea of an intensive preparation for entry into Winchester the following t
erm. He was fourteen, and backward. In order that no time should be lost in the initial stages of laying him open to the proper influences and traditions, a gentleman resident in Winchester, an ex-tutor of the college, had been found to receive and coach him. Mrs. Jardine had been startlingly active. What with his prospects and the fact that Harry was to accompany him on the journey, he was in a somewhat oscillating and nervous frame of mind. He took Jess off to present her with his old stamp album. Maisie and I were debating which tree to climb when the french windows opened and the ladies came out and called to us.

  “Damn,” muttered Maisie; but we advanced obediently to the terrace.

  “So this is Maisie’s little friend.”

  It was Auntie Mack, none other, who addressed these words to me in a penetrating and genial whinny. A very large hand gripped mine and wrung it hard. She was a tall, protuberant, bony person, with a carelessly assembled frame. She was dressed in a black jacket and skirt, both of unusual length, fusty, dusty, threadbare, trimmed with wide black braid and voluminously flared below the waist and knees. Her black blouse was secured at the throat by the largest cameo brooch I have ever seen; and in addition she was hung with chains of various sizes and designs. Her narrow flat chest broadened to an abnormal convexity combined with meagreness in the hips. Her legs and feet were elephantine. Her bundles of hair, striped sandy and white, were done up askew in plaited circles secured by formidable steel prongs. Desultory wisps hung round the expanse of her face and forehead like a tacked-on oddment of frayed and faded trimming. She had a flourishing sandy moustache and long pinkish-yellowish cheeks patched with freckles, bulging sad green eyes edged with white lashes, and a big solid yet somehow vacant assortment of features. She was just the type of figure—knocked about, unsuspicious, mildly monstrous—with whom a child is instinctively at ease: perhaps because it represents, for a child, some truth about the world. A clown’s truth. I felt an instant affection for Auntie Mack.