A young girl befriends an elderly woman during the First World War in this remarkable novel by one of Britain s best-loved authors Sibyl Jardine, the former best friend of Rebecca Landon s grandmother, has recently returned to the Priory, her home at the top of a hill. Rebecca is instantly drawn in by Sibyl s magnetic personality and blunt, shocking manner. Decades earlier, Sibyl had left her husband Charles for another man and, as a result, lost her daughter Ianthe. Now she is finally about to meet her three grandchildren, who will become an integral part of Rebecca s life as she journeys into adolescence. At the heart of this extraordinary novel is the enigma that is Sibyl Jardine: Is she a saint or a sinner? Is she a duplicitous lover or a woman who has been unjustly punished? Played out in a series of conversations between Rebecca, Sibyl Jardine, Jardine s granddaughter Maisie, and a Cockney maid named Tilly, "The Ballad and the Source "is a tale of perception and memory, passion and betrayal, and the fearsome power of a mother s love."