The Ballad and the Source (1944)

"Curious novel" wrote another LT reviewer, the exact words I planned to use. While there is a continuous present for the child/adolescent narrator, Rebecca Landon, what she becomes enthralled by is the life story of her neighbor Mrs. Jardine. We learn who Rebecca is (a future writer, hungry for stories) through the way she listens and what she chooses to focus on and tell us. The setting is pre-ww1 rural England. The Ballad is, of course, Mrs. Jardine's tale of woe (and woeful it is) and the Source is the mysterious personal energy that some people have, magnetism, charisma, whatever you want to call it, that seems to draw both the best and worst out of people. Rebecca's grandmother had a connection with Sibyl Jardine, but it was ruptured long ago. When Mrs. Jardine turns up at the neighboring manor house, she wishes her grandchildren to meet Rebecca and her sister and be friends. Rebecca is instantly caught in Mrs. Jardine's web - and an odd web it is - she left her first husband and tiny child, regretted it, and subsequently spent her life trying to get her daughter back. There are, throughout, odd echoes of other writers - Eliot, James, Dickens and a hint of the gothic. Thematically there is a quiet feminist emphasis of the trouble that bored and intelligent but thwarted women used to get themselves into due to lack of choice and opportunity. Also a light-handed look at the spectrum of madness and inheritance and circumstances - clearly Mrs. Jardine has the potential to be mad, but she isn't - and possibly it it is that very madness that is part of what makes her so magnetic. The plot is sufficiently complex that I will leave it be - it's surprising and very deftly done. What makes the novel curious is that Rebecca witnesses almost none of the action, she is the recipient of confidences, from Mrs. Jardine, from her grandmother's retired lady's maid, Tilly, and from Maisie, Mrs. Jardine's grand-daughter and she puts the pieces together bit by bit of the saga. There is a hint of how unseemly it is for a girl of her pleasant and sane background to be so intrigued by such melodrama - but that is the hunger some of us (sometimes especially those of us who do lead 'boring' lives) have for 'stories'. However, the method Lehmann chose doesn't always work - the narrating does, from time to time become a little tedious - Tilly is cockney and I tired of her narration (she reminded me of the tiny woman who made the dolls in Our Mutual Friend...) and I can't think if I've ever read another novel that was entirely narrated in this manner. Nick Carraway narrates a story but he witnessed it all himself. Maisie's narration at the end felt the most gripping and entirely truthful. In this case we are at two removes, having not only to trust Rebecca's rendering but also to figure out what her confidants are telling her and what they are not telling her. The novel is an accomplished and complex piece of writing - and a ripping good yarn at the same time, quite an achievement. **** ( )

This is a masterly piece of writing. The Ballad and the Source is the fourth of Rosamond Lehmann’s novels I have read, and I am enormously impressed with it. The story of Sibyl Jardine is told mainly in three long conversations, between Rebecca – who is ten at the start of the novel, and Tilly a sewing maid, Sibyl herself and later Maisie, Sibyl’s grandaughter. Sibyl, both saint and sinner is a fascinating figure. An unhappy marriage leads her to leave her home, and become cut off from her child. The consequences of this are far reaching and tragic. The young Rebecca is drawn to Mrs Jardine, and determined to find out the story of her life. This story takes some years to unfold fully, and as it does Rebecca’s perceptions of Mrs Jardine and her story are challenged. The writng is powerful and hugely accomplished. This is in some ways a complex novel, but Rosamond Lehmann’s brilliant writing brings it all together, the story, so much of which is told through dialogue never gets lost among the speech. I found this an enthralling novel, beautifully written. ( )

Curious novel – most of the story is related second-hand, in dialogue. But quite charming, for all that. Not her best, though – too static, too heavy on dialogue. Sibyl and Ianthe are intriguing, but frustrating always to see them mostly (Ianthe always) at one remove. I like the basic story but would prefer to have been given it directly. [Oct 2002]

2663 The Ballad and the Source, by Rosamund Lehmann (read 10 Oct 1994) This is a 1945 novel written in a lush style, and tells of Sybil Jardine, a bitchy woman who has a daughter, Ianthe, but runs off with another man and her husband thereupon cuts her off from the child. The book is a powerful work, and is told mostly in flashbacks ( )