The Ballad and the Source

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “No, that she didn’t.”

  Though tempted, I refrained from asking: “Did she take the monkey?” and after a pause, Tilly continued in a bitter voice: “No. She ’ad other fish to fry. Any little ’elpless ’angers-on wouldn’t ’ave suited ’er book just then. No—she didn’t give it a lot of thought at the time—it and its precious upbringin’ and that extra special future it was to ’ave.”

  “Fancy leaving her own little girl behind!” For the first time I felt shocked.

  “Ah, you may well say.” Tilly shook her head, fetched a brooding sigh. “Ah, and it turned out a serpent to bite ’er, that night’s work. It’s against nature to forsake your own flesh and blood, and when you go against nature, nature pays out. And once you done it, it’s done. You can declare till you come out like a ’Ighland tartan you didn’t mean it, and done it for the best, it won’t butter no parsnips. You don’t get back the child you’ve lost.”

  At these fatal words, tears, real ones, from the depths of her unstanched woe, began to pour down Tilly’s cheeks. I got up and hugged her and gave her a kiss. I knew the phantom of the Little Feller had risen, troubled by this contemplation of maternal shortcomings.

  “God took him, Tilly, you know he did,” I urged in broken tones.

  “Ah,” said Tilly perfunctorily. “No doubt.”

  God took him, I said so because she always said so; but it seemed, not for the first time, as if these comfortable words administered no comfort. God took him because He loved him, because He wished to confer distinction on Tilly by selecting her little one to go before, and await her in the Better­­­­ Land. Oh yes!—he was in a Better Place, she’d meet him by and by. … No. God took him to spite her, punish her for neglect or ignorance, something she’d left undone that might have saved him to grow up like other women’s sons.

  “I never left his bedside day nor night. ‘Put on your coat, Mammy,’ ’e says, all of a sudden. Let’s go out.’ ‘When you’re a bit better, my duck,’ I says. ‘’As Dadda wound the clock?’ ’e says. Fancy ’is little mind bein’ on that! ’E always took an interest in that clock. It was one of them cuckoo-clocks—come from Bo’emia. It was carved pretty—just what would take a child’s fancy. ‘’As Dadda wound the clock?’ ’e says. Them was ’is last words. A bit after that I saw the change. ’E never struggled. Just let out one sort of a sigh. And breathed ’is little last.”

  Often and with passionate attention I had assisted at this death-bed, extracting with Tilly the bitter-sweet savour of every harrowing detail. But to-day, time pressed: I could not linger at it. So soon as her voice told me that emotion had begun to be recollected in tranquillity, I eased her tactfully back on to her true course.

  “Fancy Ianthe not having her mother there if ever she was ill and wanted her.”

  “Ah,” agreed Tilly. “You got the marrer of it there. They all said what a blessin’ she’s only a baby—she won’t remember ’er nor miss ’er. But I know different. I sor it. It left its mark. She was a funny little soul. The questions she’d ask!—You couldn’t answer ’em. It’s my belief you never know what a child won’t remember—without knowin’ it remembers, like. And she ’ad enough to remember!—what with that, and what come on a bit later. Sometimes, the more a child ’as too much to remember, the more it won’t let on. But it left its mark.”

  “How do you know, Tilly? Did you see her?”

  “Yes, I sor ’er. At one time. See ’er? I should think I did.” Tilly spoke with a mixture of emphasis and reticence. “But an end was put to that.”

  “Did you go and stay with her—like you do with us?”

  “In a manner of speakin’.”

  “I expect,” I suggested, “she was very fond of you.”

  “Well, she took a sort of fancy to me.”

  “All children take a fancy to you, Tilly. I don’t see how they could possibly help it.” I spoke with sincerity and guile.

  “I was bright,” said Tilly judicially. “I could sing a bit and dance a bit in those days. Children like a bit of larkiness. It makes a change for ’em.”

  “And didn’t Miss Sibyl ever, ever come back?”

  Tilly laid down her sewing altogether. She folded her hands in her lap. Never before in all the hours on hours of dramatic monologue had I known her perform so epoch-making a gesture.

  “One day,” she said, “a letter come. In Miss Sibyl’s ’and­writing. I reckernised it. I took it in with the breakfast tray—I see ’er snatch it up to open. When I come back for the tray she was sittin’ up with ’er shawl round her, with a look on ’er as if she’d got ’er marchin’ orders for the North Pole. ‘Tilly,’ she says, ‘you must help me pack at once— I am going to the South of France. I have heard from Miss Sibyl, and I am going to her.’

  “‘Yes, Madam,’ I says. ‘What luggage will you be requirin’?’—not another word—and sets about my job. It would be August or September—about three months from the time the scandal occurred. Of course we’d ’eard rumours at the time, but she never would open ’er lips about it, leastways not to me. They was all tryin’ to ’ush it up. I think she ’ad a few words with your grandfather about the journey—ladies didn’t travel alone in them days, and she was delicate. But she’d made up ’er mind, and when she’d made up ’er mind you couldn’t move ’er. Next day ’e sor ’er off. She was away a week. Then she come back. ‘Oh, Tilly,’ she says. ‘I’m worn out.’ I put ’er to bed.”

  Tilly had a fit of coughing, and took a lozenge from a little box she always carried in her apron pocket.

  “You got to dissolve them gradual,” she said. “They wriggles right past the erritation if you crunches ’em up.”

  I allowed her half a minute and then said cautiously:

  “What happened?”

  “Next mornin’ I could see she’d ’ad a good night’s rest and was fresh. So I chooses my time and says very quiet: ‘Is there anythink you could tell me, ’M, about your journey?’ ‘Oh yes, Tilly,’ she says, very matter-of-fact. ‘I was meaning to—I know how fond you are of Miss Sibyl and what an interest you take in all that concerns her.’ ‘Yes, indeed, ’M,’ I says. ‘She was like one of the family.’ ‘Well,’ she says. ‘I saw her. She met me at the station, and gave me a most loving welcome. She’d got me such a charming room at the hotel. She spent all day with me. We had some long, long talks.’ She stops there, and lets out a great sigh. I went on tidyin’ ’er things and presently I says: ‘’Ow did you find ’er?’ ‘She was looking very beautiful,’ she says. ‘More beautiful than I’ve ever seen her.’ ‘I suppose,’ I says, ‘you wouldn’t ’ave seen ’im?’ ‘No,’ she says. ‘She begged me to, but I refused. I thought better not.’ She was right, of course, but I was a bit disappointed. … Then she says, very decided: ‘She looks happy, Tilly. And she is happy.’ It seemed a shockin’ thing to ’ear, but I didn’t doubt it. Never been so ’appy in ’er life. They’d got some sort of a little poky, leaky place— villas, they call ’em out there—and ’er doin’ all the work and goin’ to market—fancyin’ ’erself a proper ousewife and workin’ woman at last.” Tilly gave a chuckle. “That was ’er latest ambition. But she ’ad that bee in ’er bonnet as a girl. ‘Have a cottage, Tilly, and do all my own work: look after my husband and children myself. That’s a life a woman could respect herself for.’ ‘You try it,’ I says. ‘It ain’t all ’olly’ocks by the front door and rosy faces round the ’earth of a winter’s evenin’. It’s scrape, pinch, worry, worry, old before your time. One fine mornin’ you thinks to yourself: It’s time I ’ad a good long look in the glass. … Oh dear, dear, dear! Where’s my pretty face got to? When your ’usband comes ’ome ’e wants to know what you’re snivellin’ for. You try it!’ Well. … It wasn’t ’er first choice, when it come to it. But I suppose it went on gnorin’ at ’er. You never could make ’er see sense.”

  “So then what did you say to Grandma?”
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  “‘That won’t last,’ I says. ‘No, Tilly,’ she says, ‘it won’t.’ Oh, she did look grieved. ‘I tried,’ she says, ‘to persuade her to give up her lover. Even if it was very, very hard. Even if it seemed her heart would break by doing so. She rounded on me as if I was insulting her. ‘Go back, Madrona? Me? Go back to that miserable, senseless sham of a life? Can’t you see I’m happy? Can’t you see that what I’ve done is right? Can you see me creeping back to ask my husband’s forgiveness for wronging him—wouldn’t he please thrash me and take me in again for charity’s sake? He! Why, he never loved me. He doesn’t know what love is. … Why, Madrona,’ she says, shocked, ‘I did think you’d see it from my point of view.’ ‘Sibyl,’ she says, ‘you loved him once.’ ‘I never did,’ she says. ‘I see that now. Now I know what love is.’ So then she says: ‘Sibyl, I put it to you. Weigh it well,’ she says, ‘as if it was life or death—which it is. Are you prepared to give up your own child?’ ‘What!’ she says, openin’ ’er blue eyes wide and starin’. ‘Give up my child? Why, Madrona, the very idea! Whatever do you take me for? Of course I won’t give her up—no question of it. My own daughter. Every child needs its mother above all,’ she says. ‘As soon as we are settled, I shall send for her. She shall be brought up to the chance of a decent life.’ ‘Sibyl, I warn you—it’s my duty,’ says the other, ‘If you don’t go back, you’ve lost your child.’ ‘Oh, has he sent you with that message?’ she says, blazin’ out. ‘No, he has not. I came on my own, without a word to any one, as your friend who loves you, to save you, if I can, from drinking the cup of bitterness to its dregs.’” Here Tilly got irretrievably carried away. She delivered the rest of the speech in the vernacular and her richest histrionic style. “‘I know what I know. You can’t ’ave your cake and eat it in this life ’ere below. Swaller your nature—go back and make a fresh start—t’s not too late. You’ve give yourself a crool ’andicap. But you ain’t chicking-livered;—you’ll come up again, able to look the world straight in the face. ’Elp one another to forgive and to forget. ’E’ll do ’is part, I’ll answer for it. ’E’s a good man. ’E’ll learn as well as you,—’e’ll cherish you. You’ve a bitter path to tread, but you’ll ’ave your reward. A better love will grow.’” With intense missionary fervour, a somewhat sickly sob in her throat, Tilly pleaded and exhorted. “Oh, she spoke beautiful!—she always did. Never settin’ up to judge nor preachify—no ‘you’re a sinner, I’m a saint’ kind of a thing; just true—and kind—but not soft with it.”

  I said with enthusiasm:

  “Oh, she did speak beautiful, didn’t she? Were those her very words?” For this phrase was a customary punctuation to the reminiscences.

  “’Er very words. Or if not, as near as makes no matter.”

  “And what did Miss Sibyl say?”

  “Say? ‘Stuff and nonsense, Madrona!’ she says. ‘Why, what a disgustin’ idea! You don’t understand at all,’ she says. ‘What, play my lover false ’oo trusts me? Never! Bless you, ’e don’t want me back,’ she says. ‘’E knows we’re better off apart. Of course,’ she says, very generous, ‘I wouldn’t wish to deprive ’im of I-anthe altogether. That wouldn’t be right. She shall pay ’im visits reg’lar,’ she says. ‘I’ve just written to ’im about it. We’ll both act fair in the matter. I can trust ’im for that—and ’e knows ’e can trust me.’”

  “And did he act fair?” I asked anxiously, my customary feeble grasp of right and wrong leading me to hope that all had turned out to her satisfaction.

  Tilly uttered a ruthless chuckle.

  “Oh, ’e acted fair enough!—accordin’ to ’is lights. They was a bit different from young Madam’s—that’s all. Oh dear, oh dear, what a surprise!”

  I waited, but nothing came forth. Tilly was preoccupied, savouring with smiles, sniffs and headshakings the limitless folly and vengefulness of human behaviour. To do down: to be paid out; to be done down: to pay out; there was nothing she more relished than examples of such sequences of stroke and counterstroke. I thought it politic to lead her back a bit, and said:

  “What else did Grandma say to you?”

  “Not a lot. ‘It’s no use, Tilly,’ she says, turnin’ ’er ’ead aside on the pillow. ‘You know what she is.’ ‘I do,’ I says. ‘She’ll be set on ’er woeful way, and nobody can’t turn ’er. What might she be livin’ on?’ I says. ‘Tilly,’ she says, ‘she hasn’t a penny. Only what she took away with her in her purse. She left her pearls and rings and bracelets all behind—deliberately—all except the little ring I gave her. She still wears that—and a curious heavy black ring the which, I suppose, he gave her.’”

  “Was he rich?” I said.

  “Rich? ’E ’adn’t a farthing to bless ’isself with. But that didn’t trouble ’er. ’E was a genius, accordin’ to what she told your Grandma. Every one would be all of agog to buy ’is pictures before long; then the money would come rollin’ in. ‘And in the meantime,’ I says, ‘’e’s livin’ on ’er, is ’e?’ ‘A mere pittance,’ she says. ‘And when that runs out—p’ ‘I wouldn’t worry, if I was you,’ I says. ‘She won’t starve. She can’t live on love, whatever she thinks now. She’ll soon change ’er tune.’ ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘I don’t know so much. She’s got the pride of Lucifer. She’ll never beg.’ ‘Mark my words, Madam,’ I says. ‘When the money’s gone, that’ll be the end between them two.’ ‘Oh Tilly,’ she says, with such a sigh, ‘money or no, the end will come. They’ve acted violent. It’ll be seen to they never find peace in one another’s arms.’ ‘If ever there was a wicked villian,’ I says, ‘it must be ’im.’ ‘No, no, Tilly,’ she says, almost severe. ‘I don’t expect so. More likely just a weak, wild boy who’s lost his head. He’s only twenty-two,’ she says.”

  “Older than Miss Sibyl?”

  “Well, they’d be much of a muchness. I could see she’d never let it pass ’er lips to weigh out blame, but what she meant was, it couldn’t all be laid at ’is door. ‘We parted lovingly,’ she says. ‘That’s one blessing. I told her if she ever needed help that I could give, to let me know. And to remember I loved her. She promised. … Now, Tilly,’ she says, brisk, ‘not another word of this. We won’t speak of it again, and I trust you not to pass it on.’ Of course she could trust me. From that day to this. It don’t matter now. It’s all over and done with. And then,” added Tilly, in further justification, “you take after your Grandma a bit.”

  “What happened after that?” I said inexorably.

  “Oh Lor’, what a one you are for questions. It must be near your supper time. You’d best run down or somebody will be after you.”

  “I will soon, I promise. But, Tilly, ducky, beauty, just tell me one thing: what did happen when—when he acted fair according to his lights—like you said? About Ianthe. Didn’t—did Miss Sibyl come back for her? Or what?”

  “Oh yes!” said Tilly, with a nasty laugh. “That’s just what she did do. She come back for ’er.”

  “And didn’t …” The words died on my lips. Insist as I might, Miss Sibyl-Mrs. Jardine and her child would not get themselves reunited.

  “It was the nurse told me, the one that brought ’er over to England. She wasn’t a bad sort of woman—reliable— but she ’ad a dismal way with ’er. It seems the time went on without ’em writin’ to tell ’er ’ow ’earty ’e agreed with ’er plans. I don’t know when it was, but one fine day she gets a letter from a solicitor—that’s a feller you pay to dror up your will and write your secastic letters when there’s been a quarrel. It said would she kindly take notice ’is client, Mr. Charles ’Erbert, couldn’t ’old no further communication with ’er on the subjeck of their daughter nor anythink else. ’E wished it to be understood their daughter was remainin’ in ’is charge ’enceforth and for evermore, and no argument. It would all be put in peculiar language so you can’t get round it. Oh, I know ’em! They’re artful. Well, that was a facer for ’er.”

 
“What did it mean?” I cried in fear.

  “What it meant: don’t you dare come botherin’ me any more after that child or I’ll ’ave the law on you.”

  “Oh, but how simply awful! What a beastly man! How could he? She was hers just as much as his. Wasn’t she?”

  “Hers that she’d deserted,” said Tilly, with venom.

  “Yes, but she never meant to. She told Grandma she was coming for her.”

  As if all were still happening, could yet be changed, as if now, this moment, the half-visionary figure was being devilishly threatened and deprived, I fought with passion to justify her, to give her her own.

  “Meanin’s ’s one thing, doin’ ’s another,” said Tilly primly. “What would you say if your mother was to run off and leave the lot of you one fine night? Would you say she was considerin’ you and your welfare when she done it?”

  Between violent and conflicting emotions: on the one hand to assert: “Yes, I would,” on the other ferociously to repudiate so infamous, so unimaginable a supposition, I felt about to burst. By these words, Tilly had committed coldblooded desecration of the innermost shrine, and I shrank from her in superstitious loathing. I managed to say faintly:

  “I’d want to go to her.”

  “Hmm,” said Tilly. “No doubt.”

  “And I know she’d want me. …” In the voice of an expiring marionette, I added: “And I expect Ianthe wanted her. And they wouldn’t let her …”

  “It was for the best,” said Tilly.

  With a revival of spirit, I squeaked defiantly:

  “It can’t be for the best when anybody doesn’t—doesn’t have their mother.”

  I knew what Tilly didn’t: I knew the maternal goodness of Mrs. Jardine: her lovingness, her patience, the way her hands could tend and soothe; the certainty she inspired that she would know in a flash what to do if you were frightened; above all, her accuracy, that made you feel important, equal, respected. I had no words for all this; but I realised with despair the birthright that Ianthe was losing.