The Ballad and the Source (18 page)

“What is perversion?”

“Perversion, in the sense in which I use the term, is an abnormal love,” explained Mrs. Jardine in a painstaking way. “That is, a bad, a harmful love.”

“Is that what theirs was?” I said, gloomy.

“Yes. Any love whose demands are excessive is a bad love. I mean, when the aim of the lover is to swallow up its object and possess it entirely, body and soul.
That
is the sin against the Holy Ghost.”

“Oh, is
that
the sin against the Holy Ghost?” I exclaimed with interest. “I heard Mr. Grigsby read it out in Church, and we both wondered. Why is it a sin? Is it because—because it's wrong to force another person to do things they don't want to do?”

“That is partly the reason.”

“
Bad
things, I suppose, they might have to do?”

An analogy struck me: Alan, our handsome and admired boy cousin, urging us to steal peaches for him under threat of the disfavour he knew we could ill endure.

“They might well. It is an abominable enough thing in a married relationship. But when the obsessed pair are father and daughter. … This subject cannot be ventilated. I touched on it in one of my novels.” She broke off, looking scornful and indignant. “The outcry
!—
laughable if it were not so menacing.
‘
Indelicate,' ‘outrageous,'—
‘
indecent
'
even; those were the epithets.
‘
Miss Anstey's cynical pen does not spare the most sacred ties of human life. She dwells on them only to degrade and to debase them.' That was the lofty tone of my male critics. Ach! Hypocrites! Humbugs! Yes, and abusive letters.
‘
Having just removed a filthy contamination from my household by consigning your book to the flames
—'
” She laughed harshly. “Ah, but a few thanked me. That made the rest a gnat-bite—less.” She broke off again and laid a hand on my head. “Dearest! Do not trouble your head with all this. It is immaterial. I was speaking my thoughts aloud. I am so much alone—I speak so much to myself.” She added slowly:
“The thought runs through
—
through—yes,
through
…”
Then: “Later you will understand, though not, I hope from experience—I have no reason—oh none!—to think so—what crimes are committed in the name of parental love.”

She turned over her little watch and consulted it. “They should be back by five from the river,” she said vaguely; and I felt her beginning to make preparations in advance to readjust the equilibrium, to stabilise herself.

“Oh, please go on,” I said anxiously, fearing to hear her say we would speak of these things another time.

“As I was telling you,” she went on in a lighter way, “Ianthe's father became a singularly abnormal man. Normal people send their energies and emotions out through a number of channels. He ceased to do this. He turned from life which had so disappointed him, and concentrated his whole being upon two objects; his daughter and his God. Naturally,” she said dryly, “the two got somewhat mixed up. The world was not to breathe upon her. It was to be a kind of spotless union—a Trinity. She was not to know any other fulfilment. He taught her that the natural love between a man and a woman, the love that makes them wish to live together and have children, was loathsome and degrading. Yes, he taught her that wickedness! He and she for God only and each for God in one another: that was how it was to be … every variation upon that theme. It involved—” She paused. “It seems that it involved watching over her day and night: a total absorption. Not one word or thought, not one instinct was to escape his possession. Waking or sleeping, she must be his—guarded—his miser's treasure.”

“Did he have her to sleep with him, then?” I asked, astonished at such intensity of fatherly concern.

“Yes. That is what he did.”

“Did he think—was he afraid someone would get in and steal her, do you suppose?” I asked, assuming incredulity; thinking of Tilly, of Paris, the nursery windows of Ianthe's childhood barred—I knew against whom.

We did not meet one another's eyes. She gave no sign; but I felt her divination flicker over me.

“It may have started,” she said calmly, “with some such fantastic notion. As she grew older, nearer to the time when a child normally begins to leave its parents' care and influence, his crazed love grew. At all costs he must isolate her from any future she might reach towards for herself—or that might open out for her through
me.
That was at the back of it all, of course. So he devised this union, this marriage in God. Oh! on the highest plane of spirituality and innocence
…”
She was talking to herself now. Disgust made her lips thick and heavy. “The sleep of the blessed angels. Let me not appear to hint at a monstrous­­­­—” She stopped short.

“She was rather old, wasn't she,” I observed, “to sleep with somebody else?”

“But in the ferment of adolescence!” she exclaimed, still thinking aloud, and disregarding my suggestion. “The awakening instincts of sex all crushed, distorted—” She broke off; then addressing me once more, continued: “Well now. Round about the time of Ianthe's seventeenth birthday, his health began rapidly to fail. He had long been a sick man—but this was mortal. The time was at hand when I should have what is called, in terms of the law, access to my daughter: that is, when she was eighteen I was to be permitted to see her occasionally. You can imagine, Rebecca, how I was preparing myself, what plans I had made, hoping against hope that it was not too late, that I should be able to apply purges and balms to drain away fifteen years of poison and make her whole again. There is a great saying—it is in Latin but I will translate:
I believe, because it is impossible.
That has always been my faith. Now, knowing he must die, what weighed most upon this father's mind?”

“What would happen to Ianthe?
”
I hazarded; thinking how all the crises in this family history seemed to follow the same pattern.

“Exactly. He saw the way open for Ianthe to come wholly back to me. A hideous dilemma for him. He was determined that his last act on earth should be to prevent that. He had already seen to it pretty thoroughly—but this was a practical act. He made a will. In this will he left all his money to various scholastic and ecclesiastical foundations, apart from a sum which would furnish Ianthe with an extremely modest yearly income—a mere pittance. This was to prevent the temptations of the world assailing her. She would otherwise have been an heiress—exposed, through me, so he chose to assume, to the predatory schemes of unscrupulous males. At the same time he appointed a guardian for her—an Englishman, a friend of his—not a friend, he had none—an acquaintance rather, one of the few regular visitors to his house. A man in whose high moral character and religious principles he recorded his utmost trust.” A violent snort came from her. “Now, I knew nothing of all this. Just at this time I had met Harry, and married him. I was far away, on my honeymoon voyage, when I received the news of Charles's death.”

“What was he like—the Englishman, the guardian?”

“Oh, an interesting type. At some stage in a chequered and dubious career—I subsequently traced it—he had regularised his position by taking Holy Orders.”

“You mean he was a clergyman?”

“Yes. A clergyman of a sort.”

Then surely it must be all right this time. This at least must be a good man.

“He then proceeded further to advance his interests by marrying a rich woman—a doting, devout spinster, considerably older than himself. He had been some years in Florence and had established a reputation for charm, culture and saintliness—with a touch—oh, just that touch!—of worldly wisdom, of deep sensual experience now foregone which makes the blend so irresistibly attractive to women. And Charles had much of the woman in him. Yes, he had much, this man, to commend him to Charles Herbert. A taste for art. A collection of china. A knowledge of music. Besides, they shared and indulged together a passion for the sensuous trappings of devotion—images, candles, crucifixes and the rest. All that gave them enormous satisfaction.”

I had learnt, I scarcely know how, when irony and malice were intended. Sometimes there was a sniff; but the edge of her voice never sharpened. Perhaps it became, if anything, a shade more matter-of-fact.

“Well,” continued Mrs. Jardine with a light sigh, “he died and was buried. And I was on my wedding journey. Harry and I were travelling round the world. I was in a time of peace and hope. When at last the news reached me through my solicitor, I turned in my tracks and started with all haste for Italy. Terrible weeks those were of
agita-
tion and suspense, with no information but a bare few lines saying that she was under the roof and guardianship of this unknown man.”

“Did Harry go with you?”

“Harry naturally accompanied me.” She paused. “Arrived in Florence, I behaved with the utmost correctness. I wrote to the man's wife asking for permission to call upon her.”

“And she said yes?”

“No. The request was refused. My letter was the appeal of one woman to another, for understanding, if not for sympathy. I received in return a cold, curt note, dictated, no doubt, by
him,
stating that no useful purpose could be served by such an interview. Their duty to Ianthe consisted in discharging their trusteeship in the letter no less than in the spirit: and this they were doing and would do.” Her lip curled.

“And did they?” I said weakly.

“Then,” said Mrs.
Jardine,
“I wrote again. I said I was aware that my first meeting with my daughter was not due for another few months, but as I had re-married and expected to be travelling abroad during the whole of the coming year, I should be grateful for one brief interview, in order to explain to her my new circumstances. If they could not see their way to acceding to my request, my alternative would be to write to her, fully explaining my plans for our future. I added that I should remain in Florence until this question was decided. They evidently concluded that my pen was more to be feared than my presence. Or possibly,” she added with a sardonic inflection, “they conceived the odd suspicion that I might cause them embarrassment if thwarted—make a spectacle of myself—get up to
mischief.
Be that as it may, the man appeared next day at my hotel to call upon me. I had fifteen minutes in which to sum him up. I saw him for what he was.”

“Was he nice?”

“Heat in his eye,” she murmured. “Aloes upon his lip. A mesmeric animal irradiation … one cannot mistake it, however veiled. … A dangerous man to women. Oh yes, we understood one another.” Something seemed to flicker in her eyes, in the long corners of her lips. “It was in its way a remarkable head—intellectual pride was in it, aesthetic sensibility, passion, the marks of suffering. But the effect was most distasteful.”

“You didn't like him?”

“He proposed to me that he should bring Ianthe to my hotel and that the interview should take place in his presence. She was shy, he said. An ordeal for her, naturally. She would shrink. He would be able to oil the wheels, as he delicately put it. Her confidence in him was such … I answered that I preferred that his wife should accompany her. I should feel, I said, less artificiality and constraint with another of my own sex. I was curious, of course, having summed him up, to see the woman. He was obliged to acquiesce. That being arranged,” said Mrs. Jardine in a brisk voice, giving a few light busy touches to her dress, “he was prepared to stay longer.”

“He'd got to like you!” I exclaimed triumphantly. He'd thought he wouldn't, but of course he had. She had done it within fifteen minutes: I wondered by what words and looks.

“Oh, it was to discuss my daughter,” she said, in mock expostulation. “The sacred trust reposed in him to foster her happiness and welfare. The rarely guarded creature that she was, the casket of treasures. He had been in a special relation to her for so many years—as it were an
uncle”
—she stressed the word venomously—“that the break and transference had been accomplished with the minimum of pain. Natural grief there had been indeed—the tie had been as I was possibly aware of
peculiar
strength. He would not presume to attempt to fill the place, and so on and so forth, but he dared to say that she was happy, at peace. He relied fully upon my doing nothing to—I cut him short. I told him I understood my daughter and her needs. I dismissed him.” She paused, then gave a loud sniff. “Not before he had expressed the view that I had the eyes of a mystic.”

“And what did you say?” I asked with satisfaction, presuming this a compliment.

“
‘
You are mistaken, Mr. Connor,' I said.” Her voice was dramatic, rhetorical. “
‘
I am in love. The visions I see are of earthly love and truth, and account for the light you are good enough to remark upon. Also,' I said,
‘
I have suffered; and will
never
be resigned or be defeated. That helps to keep a woman's eyes alive.' He shook his head wisely, sorrowfully, as if to say: ‘I know you. Could I but help you to know yourself!
'
Oh, we might have got far, very far.” She looked contemptuously amused. “But I was not interested. I am not a person to be flattered by the impertinences of professional understanders of women. So we met and parted, for the first and the last time.”

“What you said—about being in love,” I interposed. “You meant—you did mean Harry?”

“Of course. Harry and I were deeply in love with one another. It was very unfortunate for Harry, the whole thing—very hard. I was preoccupied. The sense, which had been falsely—oh, falsely!—lulled to rest during our first months together, of myself pitted against a malevolent fate—this sense had become fiercely active again. I
could not
forgive myself for relaxing my vigilance.”