The Ballad and the Source by Rosamond Lehmann

This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 0860683303 .

Ten-year-old Rebecca is living in the country with her family when Sibyl Jardine, returns to her property in the neighbourhood. The two families, once linked in the past, meet again, with the result that Rebecca becomes drawn into the strange complications of the old lady’s life - with her husband, her errant daughter and her grandchildren. Though the spellbound eyes of young Rebecca we enter into an intricate and scandalous family history and slowly the story of the passionate, stormy life of Mrs Jardine unfolds. Bewitching, hypnotic, sibylline - both sweet and savage, both saint and sinner - Sibyl Jardine is Rosamond Lehmann's most formidable literary creation.