The Ballad and the Source Read online

  “I am not happy about that copper beech,” she said quietly. “Nor is Gillman. He thinks the roots may have penetrated to something deadly. If so, it is not a tragedy I can face with equanimity.”

  I said, with relief, that it would be an awful shame.

  She came and sat down again, and started to sip her tea.

  “Ah well,” she remarked, “ as it turned out, nobody did themselves any good that time.”

  “Didn’t they—didn’t he and Ianthe make friends?”

  “Oh, dear me, no,” she said, with mild thoughtfulness. “Nobody made friends. Everybody lost a friend that time.”

  “Everybody?”

  “First came this note from Mrs. Connor, as I told you. Then, a day or two later, a long letter from him, very much in his manner, describing his reception. Deliciously amusing. Then about a week later, another letter, dashed off hurriedly. It was somewhat cryptic. ‘The plot thickens,’ he said. He wrote jestingly of one of two futures yawning before Ianthe—the nunnery or the—” She broke off. “He saw her daily, she confided in him, so he said. Perhaps I would be interested to know what foundations her father had laid for her purity and peace of mind. He described them. ‘I incline to think,’ he said, ‘there is more to come out with regard to le beau C. She wears a vacant look and turns the conversation when his name crops up. But give me time: all will be made clear. She is a terrible girl,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to make love to Mrs. C.—but that there is a touch in her which that heroine lacks. She absorbs me. I would like to be damned by her, and saved by Mrs. C. But Mrs. C. won’t save me. Not she.’”

  “I wonder what he meant.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Oh, it was his usual vein—making sport of himself, playing with allusions. … It did not disturb me. Or scarcely. Apart, I mean, from those revelations. They were a facer.”

  “It was just his joke?”

  She disregarded this.

  “A few weeks passed. Blank. Then came two lines.”

  “From him?”

  “From him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said: ‘It is all coming along admirably, just as you planned. I am getting a lot out of it. Everybody is.’”

  “I do rather wonder what that meant,” I ventured obstinately but uncertainly.

  “I wondered too. Ah, then I did wonder! I was prepared, of course. Wherever that man went, he was bound to start something. There was some force he generated which made for—the full orchestra. Sometimes I have thought—it has kept coming over me—that letter—the fact that he wrote at all—meant: Come. An appeal. … Perhaps.” She began to seem confused again. “It would have been characteristic of him to put it in this way. I should have known. There had been other times between us. … However. … Be that as it may, I made the wrong decision. For once. I should have gone to Florence. I did not go—against my instinct. Scrupulousness restrained me. I waited. I told myself: Whatever happens—whatever happens, he is to be trusted—on our level. I was right—as I see it—as I shall always see it. The drop of anguish—it burns me now, but what of that? There was nothing ignoble in the design. Call it playing fast and loose if you will—that is just a phrase the petty-cautious use against the fiery ones, the risk-takers—But what possibilities—glorious! The tried intent of such a truth as I have meant. Such a truth! He meant it too. How often has my life pointed those words for me! But poetry is not to be lived, except for the few to whom it is more important than self-preservation. One can present people with their opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.”

  Floundering in all this, I began to feel, as I ate my way on through scones into sponge cake, how unequal I was proving to my own opportunities. I was not going to be told—or maybe I had been told, and had not taken in a word of it. Perhaps it had been the same with Ianthe and Mrs. Connor; perhaps their chances of illumination, of bettering themselves, had been presented to them in so rare a way that they had not even noticed them. But I was wrong about Mrs. Connor.

  Almost I could have prayed, now, for the cup of honour to be taken from me and transferred to some more worthy recipient. But I must not give up—I must see it through.

  “I wrote another note to Mrs. Connor,” she said presently. “I asked merely after Ianthe’s health and well-being. A few bare lines. Of course I knew by then that there was a rumpus going on.”

  “A rumpus?”

  “He had told me, hadn’t he, more or less plainly, that he had fallen in love with the girl?”

  “Oh! … Of course he had. And her with him?”

  “Ah.” She meditated, as if about to discuss a debated historical point. “Who can say? Not I. She must have had—a movement towards him. A movement of some violence. That is the way with such natures under urgent pressure. There is no organic growth or gradual unfolding. Passive, opaque, self-contained­­­­, unimpressible as cats; then a convulsion, a leap—half panic, half craving … and cold, yes, cold in its rapacity. Then it is over. They drop away, furtive, secret, before they are cornered. They can neither sustain emotion nor face the consequences­­­­ of their own actions. Poor Ianthe. Trapped! By the time I got to Florence it was too late. The die was cast.”

  “You did go to Florence?”

  “I received a telegram from that woman, in answer to my letter. It said: Come at once. I took the next train and went straight from the station to her house. She was waiting for me. We had our second—and last—interview.”

  “Was Ianthe there too?”

  “No.”

  “Nor him?—Mr. Connor?”

  “No.”

  “I wonder where they were.”

  “Ianthe had gone.”

  “You mean—run away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Wasn’t she—were they unkind to her?” Then realisation broke; and with a rush of relief at seeing my own lights spark once, however feebly, I gasped: “Oh! I see! Him and her—they’d run away together!”

  “Precisely. Vanished.”

  I was seized with sudden apprehension, and was obliged at the risk of irrevocable disgrace to falter out:

  “You do mean Paul and her?”

  “I do. But how perspicacious of you! I myself was uncertain beforehand. It was a huge relief.”

  Over-encouraged, I said:

  “You were pleased?”

  “I had no time,” she said curtly, “to examine all my feelings on the point. It was a moment of the utmost immediacy. The shock was no trivial one, even at the best. I had to summon all my resources. I had to deal with her, the woman, first. We had something to say to one another: more not to say. That was understood on both sides. She was not a clever woman—on the contrary, she was an ignorant woman of lowish mentality; and a hard-pressed one, and a frightened one. Hysteria might well have broken loose and swept away the boundaries of what was permissible between us. However, she kept her self-control­­—I was obliged to admire her. Congested, taut-necked, gobble-eyed as a hen-turkey; but preserving the decencies. Oh yes, we made a decent fighting end.”

  I saw them, the two, in a foreign room with green shutters. Since it was a kind of room totally unfamiliar to me, yet plausible and clear in all its details, I can but think that she was projecting from her own vision on to mine the very room they met in. Sun came through the closed shutters in narrow bars, and there was a general stone-grey look; and a lot of china cabinets and stiff brocaded furniture. They sat facing one another in high-backed chairs, hands folded in their laps, still as tigers; one cased in black, like a Victorian lodging-house keeper, the other all light and flowing elegance.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She said she would protect her husband. I mean, that was the essence of what she had to say.”

  This was unexpected.

  “I didn’t think grown-up men ha
d to be protected,” I said finally.

  “Ah, naturally you would think otherwise. You would think it was a man’s part to protect; to guard with a father’s solicitude the young girl committed to his care?”

  “Yes. Because that’s what he said to you, didn’t he?—about a sacred trust and all that. Hadn’t he guarded her?”

  “He had behaved—as I had guessed he would. I told her so. Had not we both known it, I said? Was not that the reason of our secret pact? I thought I could be as direct as that. But she would not answer. Dumbness came up and darkened her, choked her. ‘She is a bad girl,’ was all she said. ‘I wanted her out of the house. She’s gone; and good riddance to her.’ I presumed, I said, that her husband had gone in search of her. ‘He may have,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where he is. But he’ll come back. And he won’t bring her. He knows he can’t, after what’s happened. It would never do.’ That was the way she spoke: the vocabulary of a refined housemaid. It was not for me to suggest that he might, in his desperation, have done himself some mischief; but she read my meaning. ‘He’ll come back,’ she persisted. ‘I know he will. He knows I know what went on; but he knows I won’t let it come to a scandal. I told him I’d see it didn’t, and he knows he can trust me. If there should be any rumours, we’ll live them down,’ she said. I suggested that this might be difficult in view of the circumstances, but she replied: ‘If you give me away, I’ll give you away. And if you give him away I’ll tell it out to all the world what that girl was. We’re respected here—more than respected. He’s looked up to by all, worshipped pretty nearly for a man of God. What’s happened? She’s gone off with a man. What will they say if I tell them that? They’ll say: Bad blood will out.’ … Yes, she was very forceful.”

  All this had been spoken without a trace of passion, as if in mild amazement at such a manifestation of human behaviour.

  “Inconsistent,” she added in a thoughtful way, “but extraordinarily forceful. ‘A fortnight’s passed,’ she said. ‘Any questions I’ve been asked I’ve said she’s gone on her first visit to her mother, as arranged. That’s good enough: and that’s all I shall say. Any questions about her return, and I shall say it’s been agreed she shall finish her education in England, with relations of her father.’ She told me, and I think she spoke the truth, that my letter had come to her as a shock and a surprise. She had assumed that they would come to me. ‘You sent him for her, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘I took it for granted you knew what you were about. I don’t suppose you sent him for my sake.’” Again Mrs. Jardine marked the thrust with a mild raising of her brows. “She was right there, of course. I had no interest in attempting to deny it. ‘You did your part,’ she said. ‘And I did mine. If it was for her sweet sake you wanted her out of my house—well, she’s out. It’s not my fault if it hasn’t turned out as you meant it. My part was to see they had their opportunities—which I did.’ It seems the man Connor had had to make some journey or visit just about the time that Paul arrived. That greatly facilitated matters. It was a strange intervention of Fate—I cannot but see it so. But it was a strange mix-up, all of it, from the beginning. Who started what? I ask myself. Who was responsible? Sometimes I seem to see us all as taken charge of. The stage set and empty, the threads drawn all together, the knot tied. …”

  “Did they run away while he was on the visit?”

  “It seems not. It seems he came back, discovered what was afoot. Some fearful scene took place, I fancy—but she would not tell me. Whether Paul faced him, accused him, I do not know—whether after this they went hand in hand out of the house; or whether …”

  “What?”

  “It could have been as the woman said …”

  “What did she say?”

  She did not answer me, but continued in a muttering, staring way:

  “An act of hysteria—cunning?—unpremeditated? … She was trapped. She must be released—no matter how. … Yet I do not know. He had enough experience of clamouring women—he was very nimble, he could look after himself. No. I have always been sure he fell deeply in love with the girl. And one must take into account her hatred of Ianthe, her raging jealousy.”

  “She really and truly hated her?”

  “Yes. I have told you why. I presume that as time went on her position grew more and more desperate.”

  “She felt more and more left out?”

  “You could put it in that way.”

  “I don’t suppose Ianthe meant to be unkind.”

  “Her language with regard to Ianthe was extremely strong,” remarked Mrs. Jardine in the same surprised way. “I have more than once been astonished by the grossness of vocabulary­­­ such so-called gentlewomen are capable of. Where do they learn it?… The gist of it was that Ianthe had insinuated herself, wily, predatory; had wound herself round and round this husband of hers; then when the next man came along, had flung herself at his head.”

  “It must have seemed queer—not very nice—hearing her say nasty things like that about Ianthe. To her own mother!”

  “It was curious,” agreed Mrs. Jardine. “But interesting. Another light on Ianthe’s character. Allowing, of course, for prejudice, and for the crudity of an inexperienced old maid, I could not altogether dismiss the possibility of an element of truth in what she said.”

  “How do you mean?” I said, surprised at her slip of the tongue about Mrs. Connor’s married status, but deciding to let it pass.

  “That Ianthe was corrupt.”

  “Bad?”

  “Bad. Something amiss with her moral nature. A warp. The hypothesis is plausible. How indeed should it have been other­wise? Her instincts over-stimulated, directed into unnatural channels. … At the same time enjoined to loathe her body’s functions and desires. Imagine the confusion, the shame for the wretched girl.” But she was addressing herself, not me. “Next, the other gentleman! Ach! I know the breed. He would enfold her, no doubt, in a pestiferous miasma of sanctified sensuality. Have her helpless under his magnetic eye and hand. I saw his hands! White, sinuous, hirsute. Long padded finger tips. Hmm. … Adept to place the secret mark upon her, the honourable stigma. The sin, the bliss, the expiation. … Oh, ecstasy and terror to be thus chosen, set apart! Ah, he would groan over her no doubt—repent—pray—fall again.” Her fingers tapped on the tea-table. “Or I have thought—a different initiation. Cynical. Brutal. Anonymous. Threats. Bribes.”

  I had planned to finish up with shortbread biscuits, and began now to complete my design. Mrs. Jardine had fallen into brooding; but after a while she continued on a different note:

  “‘I did not give birth to a moral delinquent,’ I said. ‘I made her without a flaw. She was torn from my hands. Who has made her the sick creature you say she has become? Two masterly practitioners. One was my husband. Shall I name the other?’ ‘Are you insinuating,’ she said, ‘he’s done anything wrong with her? He never would have—never! He wanted to guide her. She tried her tricks on him, she tried to tempt him—I saw her game. No man’s a plaster saint, not even the best. She ruined his peace of mind.’” Again Mrs. Jardine brooded. “I dare say she did,” she added dryly. “But what pitiful rubbish!”

  “Did you tell her you thought so?”

  “No. I said little. My duty was to hear as much as possible. I had to have every available light. Whatever conclusions one was led to, it was clear that Ianthe’s future presented a grave problem.”

  “Didn’t you answer back anything at all?” For it really seemed as if, this time, she had actually let someone else do all the talking.

  “I asked practical questions. I wished to find them, you see. But she had nothing useful to tell me. The day before it happened, she had seen him for two minutes. He had come suddenly into the room, looking pale, she said.”

  “What did he come for?”

  “To say he was going to take her away. Those were his words, she said. ‘I am going to take he
r away.’”

  “What did she say to him?”

  “Nothing. ‘It was his look-out—and yours,’ she said to me. ‘I washed my hands of it. I liked him,’ she said. ‘He had very pleasant manners. He knew my home, where I was born—I should have liked to talk to him more about it. If he was weak like all the rest, the slave of a pretty face, it wasn’t my business to tell him so.’ No, she could give me no clues at all—she was quite genuine in this. So I left her.”

  There was a prolonged silence.

  “Did you find them?” I said at last.

  “No.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went back to France, to my home.”

  “And told Harry all about it?”

  “Yes, I was obliged to tell Harry.”

  “What did he say?”

  She paused.

  “He was angry.” Her eyes flicked. “He wished to take violent measures—denounce—expose—institute immediate police inquiries. But I could not have that. How could I have done that to them?” Her voice became a poignant cry. “Set the police on their tracks, make them a public scandal? Harry could not understand. He did not know all the—the labyrinth, the complications. Oh Paul! Ianthe! What could I do now for them but let them alone, permit them their choice—to be lost to me, to ignore me, leave me in the outer darkness of lonely suspense and anxiety? Their only chance. Mine too, perhaps. I fought him for it.”

  “Harry?”

  She nodded. Shaking, she leaned forward. The opaqueness of flesh and bone seemed to drain out of her face, leaving it in the half-transparency of a white lamp; and over it slipped that shining fall of tears, so phenomenal, so inhuman in its unchecked profusion: as if an object, a holy relic, should flow suddenly, weeping absolute tears for the world.

  I waited for them to stop, but they did not; so I said with rather nagging insistence, to try to stop them:

  “What did you think would happen, really and truly, in the beginning, I mean, when you arranged it?”

  She dried her eyes and cheeks with her little handkerchief.