Free The Ballad and the Source by Rosamond Lehmann

enunciated; or else she was Mrs. Jardine.
    â€œBecause that’s when she turned up.” Maisie looked deeply, darkly, into my face, as if to interpret there the sinister meaning of that visit. “Yes. That’s another thing I sort of remember and don’t remember. She came to the hotel. …” She paused, struggling with the blank, stiff shutter of memory. “I know she did. Somebody in white, with a white parasol, sitting on the sofa, and we came in—and she turned round and looked at us—and Mother told us in a sharp sort of voice to go up to our room at once. … That’s all I can think of. But it’s funny: the first moment I saw her here, I thought: She’s exactly like I thought she’d be.” She sighed and lay back again. “Then we left London and went to Paris. I remember easily the lift man there. Then a man with a dark sort of face, called Marcel, began to come. I’ve often wondered if she went to live with him when she went away. He called her mignonne or ch érie, things like that, and he was always teasing her. I hated him because when he first saw Malcolm and me he said something that meant—” She stopped a moment. “We were ugly.”
    â€œWhat did he say?”
    â€œI couldn’t understand, but I know he meant we weren’t like her to look at. He laughed; and she gave a kind of laugh too. It’s true, of course, we’re not—not a bit. Cherry is more.”
    â€œWhat sort of face did she have?”
    â€œWait here,” said Maisie. “Don’t move till I come back.”
    She swung down from the tree, ran full gallop across the lawn and disappeared into the house. In no time she was back, and, resuming her place beside me, took something from her pocket, told me to stretch my hand out, and placed it in my palm.
    â€œOn your life, don’t drop it,” she said fiercely.
    It was an oval miniature, set in brilliants, backed with sapphire blue velvet.
    â€œThat’s my mother.”
    Long curving neck. Bare shoulders, bosom swathed in blue chiffon. Dark hair elaborately piled and puffed out in lateral wings. Eyes painted a melting violet, skin snow-white with faintest wild-rose cheeks. She smiled mysteriously. She was Mrs. Darling. She was a French New Year card angel-face, set in tinsel and blossoms. She was every child’s dream of a romantic mother.
    â€œI found it the other day in the drawer of the cabinet, in the drawing-room,” said Maisie. “What do you think of it?”
    Her voice was casual, edged with a quiver of triumph.
    â€œLovely,” I breathed. “Was she really like that?”
    â€œExactly like that,” declared Maisie. “At least, in evening dress. She wore evening dress a lot. She was the most beautiful person I ever saw.” She took the portrait from me, and curled her hand hungrily round the frame. “Wish I dared pinch it. I wonder if she’d miss it.”
    â€œAsk her if you can have it.”
    â€œNever. I’ll never ask her for anything.” She glared.
    â€œTruly and honestly,” I said, “won’t you ever stop hating her?”
    What I had in mind was the awkwardness of my own position. Though by now I was prepared to think Mrs. Jardine might—must, somehow—be wicked, I was powerless to resist her magnetic influence. So soon as I was in her presence my whole being churned with passion for her. And now I had been elected best friend, and must receive suggestions detrimental to Mrs. Jardine. If only Maisie could have been indifferent to or bored by her grandmother I could have preserved my loyalty intact; but Mrs. Jardine obsessed her; she felt the pull as strongly as I did. Any day, any moment she might abandon the harsh, gruelling strain in the opposite direction, and collapse, and flow all yielding into her orbit; but she never would. Any hour, hate might tip over and become love; she would never