The Ballad and the Source

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “Maisie,” said Mrs. Jardine, “Rebecca’s mother and your aunt and I have been talking about you.”

  She did not make it sound portentous: indeed her manner was particularly gentle and unambiguous; but Maisie flushed black, and her whole person took on a lowering bison stance.

  “We have been asking ourselves and each other what kind of school you would like to go to. And it seemed to me rather wrong to make any final decision without consulting you.”

  Maisie lifted her head and looked cautiously first at her grandmother, then at my mother. What was the catch in this?

  “Come indoors with us a little while and let us talk it over. We have the prospectuses of several schools and we can look at them together. You can tell Mrs. Landon, can you not, what strikes you about them; and Mrs. Landon has made us such a kind offer. When we have selected one or two, she will take you to see them before we finally decide. Then you will not have the feeling that you are being sent out blindfold, against your own will and judgment. Will you?”

  Silent, Maisie hesitated. My mother put an arm around her shoulders. She dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Still circled by my mother’s arm, she was drawn back into the house between the two imposing ladies.

  “Meanwhile,” said Auntie Mack to me, softly, slowly, trailing her syllables, “you and I will take a wee stroll, shall we, around this glorious garden?”

  I placed a docile hand in the hand she held out to me, and we started off across the lawn at a confidential meandering pace.

  “Will Maisie be long?” I said.

  “Oh, just a little talk with those two kind motherrly advisers,” she said vaguely. “Just to settle things up and point the way for her.”

  We paced on.

  “Beautiful!” She stopped dead, and, face upraised, eyes closed, sniffed voluptuously at the air. “Delicious! Glorious! Oh, it’s a morrtal treat to smell grass and trees again.”

  It seemed to me so odd to apply the olfactory rather than the visual sense to trees that I took an anxious glance at Auntie Mack. Could it be that she was Afflicted, and that Maisie and Mrs. Jardine had omitted to mention the fact? But next moment she opened her gooseberry eyes and cast them dreamily up and down over the landscape. I realised that she was deeply savouring the beauties of Nature.

  “I am a country woman, borrn and bred,” she said. “For seven years I have looked out of sad windows and seen a row of grey houses opposite, tram lines between. I have waked to the clamourr of the firrst tram and laid my head down upon the pillow to the clang of the last one. Seven long yearrs. I am like a wee birrd let out of a cage. A caged birrd free at last.”

  I was interested in her vowels, her l’s and r’s, and by the whole unfamiliar distribution of stresses in an accent I did not then recognise as lowland Scottish.

  “It is nice here, isn’t it?” I agreed.

  “Oh, magnificent! A magnificent properrty. A real precious gem in the crown of old England.” She turned with the slow uncertain sweep, as of a craft swinging at anchor, which characterised all her movements, and surveyed the house-front. “Yes, yes, yes. A privilege to be beneath this historic roof. And a morrtal treat”—she pressed my hand—“to meet so many kind new friends.”

  “Mrs. Jardine’s awfully kind, isn’t she?” With every speech of Auntie Mack’s, I felt my heart expand further towards her.

  “God bless her and the Majorr too!” she exclaimed in tones half-stifled with emotion. “If ever there lived a true English gentleman, it is the Majorr. When you have mentioned that, you have mentioned the finest type of man the Creatorr ever turrned His hand to.”

  I was struck by this view of Harry, which so corroborated Mrs. Jardine’s own.

  “I have discharrged my duty to the best of my ability,” proclaimed Auntie Mack, wheeling back slowly and continuing our finked pacing. “To the best of my ability I have discharrged it. I leave them now in his care. I told him so last night—over our coffee. Delicious coffee! ‘Majorr Jarrdine, I leave these three orrphaned children in goood hands—I may say pairrfect hands. The burrden of care has rolled off my back and you have taken it up. May God make it light to you. May He rewarrd you.’”

  “What did he say?”

  A tender smile played over her face. She shook her head. “He was most touched,” she said. “Worrds failed him altogether. He is a man of a few worrds—he is not one to waste them. Perrhaps you have remarrked that.”

  “Oh, yes. He never says anything.”

  “That is the true British tradition. ‘But regarrding the measure meted out to me,’ I said, ‘I cannot speak of it. My hearrt is too full. I must be dumb. Gratitude does not reside upon the lips alone. Its properr home is here.’” She pressed her hand against her bosom.

  “Did he say anything to that?”

  “No, not a worrd. He just hurried away.”

  I realised that she had fallen deeply in love with Harry, and could not help feeling that Mrs. Jardine must have imposed upon her an over-inspired conception of him. I thought it my duty to say:

  “You know, I sort of think Mrs. Jardine will have most to do with looking after them. She does everything.”

  “Yes, yes,” was the lilting reply. “She is the executive parrtner, I am aware of that. His true helpmeet. A pairrfect marriage. An example, that is what they are. An example.”

  “I like Mrs. Jardine very, very much. Don’t you?”

  “Oh, a wonderful specimen of womanhood. A remarrkable woman. It is a privilege to be in her society. Such a brilliant converrsationalist.”

  “Oh, I love her! She’s my best friend really. At least—Maisie is, I suppose, but that’s different. Mrs. Jardine is my best grown-up friend.”

  “Ah yes, no doubt,” said Auntie Mack in a vague way, musing. She did not seem to take in what I wished to convey: that she could freely confide in me; so I added, in a spirit of encouragement:

  “She tells me everything really.”

  “Yes, yes,” repeated Auntie Mack, still rapt, I presumed, in dreams of Harry. “She has told me what a jolly friendship has sprung up between you all. It has helped Maisie. Malcolm has been helped too.”

  I saw Jess and Malcolm emerge from one of the lime alleys and approach the swing. He steadied it while she seated herself, and then began with ardour to swing her; and I felt it only just to say:

  “It’s Jess who—who’s been a help to Malcolm. He likes her much the best.”

  “Malcolm has a lot of good in him. Quite a lot,” said Auntie Mack, screwing her eyes up to take in the pretty boy and girl picture they appeared to present. “He takes after his father, pooorr boy. A rough diamond. But with the instincts of a gentleman. Bringing out is what he needs. The Majorr will do that for him. He will smooth off the raw edges and add the polish.”

  I could not help feeling her expectations of Harry a shade immoderate. In any case Malcolm, whether considered in his present crude state or in his future, purged of the base and flashing from every facet, remained for me a bore. Romance was all; and I could not bring myself to believe that he would emerge a more romantic figure from all the chiselling, refining processes which he was about to undergo. I re-directed Auntie Mack’s attention.

  “Maisie doesn’t like Mrs. Jardine,” I said.

  My brusqueness shocked her. She wagged her head reproachfully.

  “Oh, there you are too strong. Too strong altogether. Love has not triumphed yet, but love will come. I tell Mrs. Jardine not to despairr. Maisie will rise on stepping stones—but it will be gradual. Maisie has been through deep waterrs. Oh, the pity of it all! I cannot but see it as a happy release. Poorr fellow! He wished them sent away. We were agreed on that. He thought it right they should be spared the end. But it seems she cannot forgive us.”

  “Forgive you for what?”

  “You will not credit it, but she accuses me of plo
tting!”

  “Plotting?”

  “That is what she calls it. Taking sides with her grandmother to deceive her. Did you ever! I have quite lost Maisie’s confidence. Oh, quite! It is all very difficult. I feel the irron has sunk deep into her soul.”

  Favourably impressed by the power of her metaphors, I looked up attentively at Auntie Mack. She was rolling her eyes in a mild but distraught way at the distance, and looked altogether in a state of contemplative perplexity; as if the puzzle were beyond her, just above the garden wall somewhere, and she had neither will nor way to catch up with it and straighten it out. The sun gilded her moustache with a placid gleam. Then she frowned. A look of anxious expectancy concentrated her features. She put a hand delicately to her mouth and gave utterance to a deep and prolonged eructation.

  “Excuse me, dear,” she remarked, after an interval. “I am such a sufferer from indigestion, a reeal martyrr. The Majorr’s lavish boarrd has quite upset my stomach. I must be more careful. I over-indulged at tea. The sight of that dewy golden butter!—and all those fresh baked scones and dinky biscuits. … I could not refrain. Oh dearr, dearr me, I made a thorough pig of myself. I must suffer the consequences.”

  “Nurse takes bicarb for her indigestion,” I said.

  “Ah, is she a sufferer too? Just fancy! There’s no remedy like bicarrb. It breaks up the acidity. I must go in soon and beg a glass of hot water.”

  We paced on and turned into the right-hand lime alley, through which I had so lately walked at Mrs. Jardine’s side. Auntie Mack did not pause to smile at the nude Apollo. I thought, indeed, that she passed him rather hurriedly, with head averted.

  “Does Maisie think you ought to have told her he was going to die?” I said.

  “Yes, she thinks that. She has told me she will never forgive me! Since then she has scarcely deigned to open her lips to me. I’m sure I only acted from principle, and with her good in view.”

  She spoke with the wounded loyalty of a faithful employee smarting under unjust reprimand.

  “The thing is, she was sure he was going to get better. She told me so.”

  “Ah, and Maisie doesn’t like to be wrong. That’s the core of it. Maisie will not endure to be wrong.”

  For a moment, as I hopped along by Auntie Mack, striving to match my step to her raking stride, I felt a little peculiar. Time and place shifted, I was back in the upstairs room, listening while another authority passed a like judgment upon a different girl: different, yet kindred, it seemed, in more ways than one.

  “I should have thought she’d see you did it not to spoil the summer holidays,” I said, sympathetic. “She couldn’t have enjoyed them if she’d known he was dying, could she? Still, perhaps she feels if she’d stayed with him he wouldn’t have died.”

  “Ah, she’d have that bee buzzing in her bonnet,” agreed Auntie Mack, in tones of resigned exasperation. “Maisie’s the girl to work miracles against nature—she always was. Flying in the face of what’s plain as the nose on it. Oh, she knew all right, but she wouldn’t have it—not she. Malcolm now, he was on to it. There was no need to put it to him or keep it from him. He had bowed his head meekly to the Lorrd’s will before he came away. And afterwarrds—he took it like a man, did young Malcolm. But Maisie—oh dearr, dearr, dearr, what a commotion! And if you’ll credit it, it wasn’t only us, it was herr fatherr came in for it, poorr dearr dead creature, with the breath scarce out of his body.”

  She shook her head, appalled; and a grisly picture rose before me of Maisie, red and savage, pouncing on the corpse and shaking it.

  “She seems more or less the same as always now,” I suggested. I thought hopefully of Maisie’s unaltered look of robust freshness, and of the hand she had slipped in a spirit of rough affection through my arm.

  “Oh, she’ll be harrbouring up something,” said Auntie Mack, with what seemed a certain irresponsible satisfaction. “Maisie’s not the girl to give in. ‘I am quite in favour of boarrding school for Maisie,’ I said to them both when they requested my opinion—what a charming woman your motherr is, to be sure!—‘quite in favour of it. But what will be the outcome of it? That is, if I may say so, another question. I have had five years’ experience of that child, and headstrong is no worrd for her. As I see it, she is nothing but a wild colt—a wild untamed mooorrland colt. Break her and make her—that has been my watchworrd with Maisie girrl. And altairrnatively, make her and break her, if you take my meaning.’”

  This was, I knew, a deep saying. I tried to fathom it, sparing a moment to note how frequently her metaphors seemed drawn from horses. There was a rather vacant, meek look about her, as if she were being dragged down helpless by the weight of her reflections.

  “Did they take it?” I inquired.

  “Beg parrdon?”

  “Your meaning.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, they took it. ‘It all depends upon the approach,’ I said. Firrm but kind. Kind and firm. That is the approach I would suggest to the headmistress selected to mould her. She is a child you can influence, but cannot forrce. On the other hand, once let her get the bit between her teeth and you will rue it. Steel true and blade straight, that is Maisie. But oh dearr! …”

  Heavily she wagged her head and sighed. Maisie appeared to me in madcap guise, complete with gym tunic and black stockings, on the cover of a book entitled: The Rebel of the Fourth, or The Worst Girl at St. Monica’s.

  “Mrs. Jardine is going to start telling her the truth now,” I said. “She told me she would. She thinks that’ll sort of make Maisie feel better. She always tells people the truth, even children.”

  “Ah!” Auntie Mack seemed faintly perturbed. “Mrs. Jardine has her methods. They would not be everybody’s. I am all for the broad view; but surely, as I ventured to say to her, it must be temperred to fit the individual capacity? Oh, I was quite fascinated by her converrsation! Such a bold thinkerr. It was quite a thrill. Such a wide knowledge of the worrld—yet so unworrdly with it, if you take my meaning. Have you noticed what a way she has of putting things?”

  “Yes, rather!”

  “All her own. Most stimulating. ‘Miss Mackenzie,’ she said to me, ‘those children are the most undernourished trio I have ever encountered.’ For a moment I was quite taken aback. I have always been most particular—a plain wholesome diet and plenty of it, that was my watchworrd. Second, even thirrd helpings never grudged. Penny wise, pound foolish, I would say to Robert when he questioned the grocer’s bill, or it might be the dairyman’s. I will not stint their growing frames. Sugarr, butterr, milk may be up a few pence, but doctorr’s bills are a thing unknown. Cherry had her little upsets, but doctorr’s bills were a thing unknown. He would bow to my judgment. So between you and me I was just a wee bit taken aback. Just for the moment. Till I took her meaning.”

  “She didn’t mean they hadn’t enough to eat?”

  “Oh, dearr no, that was the last thing she meant. She explained to me that she was speaking in a spiritual sense. It was just her unusual way of putting things—I wasn’t quite quick enough. To tell you the truth, I rather fancy my wits have got a wee thought rusty lately. A deal of worry makes a body slow. ‘Well, Mrs. Jardine, that is quite a new point of view,’ I said. I am a Believer myself. I have been punctilious about their prayers, and I neglect no opportunity to sow the seed. God is Love, I tell them. And so forth. … They asked me such awkwarrd questions at the time, particularly Maisie. What could I say but that these were things beyond our understanding? … that we must trust. …”

  Auntie Mack was getting agitated. She took out a large black-edged handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “At what time did they ask questions?”

  “Oh …” she gasped. She flapped a faint protesting hand.

  “When their mother went away?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. Oh, the things children think of! I was not accustomed to children. Perhaps anotherr would
have given a wiser lead. I did my best. They have been unnaturally deprived—no need to tell me that. It stands to reason I could not make up to them. …”

  We walked on. She put away her handkerchief and strode with equine dignity, a wounded figure.

  “I’m sure Mrs. Jardine didn’t mean to blame you for anything,” I said. “She told me how awfully kind you’d been to them.”

  “Oh, good gracious me no, nothing was furrther from her thoughts than blame! She made that pairrfectly clear. We had a nice long cosy chat. It was a morrtal treat to pour out a bit to such a dear understanding pairrson. And so good!—so really good. That is what I would so have wished him to know.”

  “Mr. Thomson?”

  “Yes. Pooor dearr suffering creaturre.”

  “Didn’t he think she was good?”

  “Oh dearr, dearr, dearr, I don’t say he didn’t. But—well, he had not seen fit to make the opporrtunities for pairrsonal contact with the matairrnal side. He was a wee thought set in his ideas, you might say: you couldn’t shake him. Nobody knows but me what that man had to put up with. And so proud! A sympathetic worrd was what he would not stand. It was sealed lips, sealed lips to his last morrtal breath.”

  “I wonder if Mrs. Jardine quite realises what a lot he had to put up with. Did you tell her?”

  “Dear, oh dear!” she gasped again, as if really children nowadays, and how was it I—she—both of us seemed to keep on overstepping the mark and offering one another these fatal opportunities, when set a guard upon thy tongue had always been her watchword, and there were so many sad, difficult things best kept from children?

  “Naturally,” she continued in mild reproof, “I did not toss about and make play with the family affairs—his side of them or hers. It would have been an impairrtinence in me.” She paused, brooding; then, irresistibly, she was led to add: “But I felt it no less than my duty to say it to her, and I did. ‘Oh, Mrs. Jarrdine,’ I said, ‘no one knows but myself what that man went through!’ In justice to the deparrted, I felt obliged to say it.”