The Ballad and the Source by Rosamond Lehmann

Author:Rosamond Lehmann
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2015-05-28T21:15:45+00:00

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

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