by Ursula Bloom
Johnny was living on his friends, and though he knew that dear old Mary could do nothing, he wondered if Jasmine could look out something substantial for her poor uncle. After all, he had biffed that oaf Hubert for her, etc., etc., etc.
Mary sighed as she laid the letter away. The other epistle was from George, and he wrote eloquently of the budding snowdrops under the elm-tree. It made her homesick, that stupidly romantic letter of George’s. She knew that she ought to have been lying ill in the rectory there, and looking out upon the wide lawn with the tree and the white carpet of snowdrops lying beneath it.
The night was very long. It was fraught with pain. Jasmine … Johnny … George.
Peter came to her.
He did not leave her for very long now; he came with his arms outstretched, his eyes shining. He came and soothed the pain with stroking, supple fingers.
‘You must not be afraid,’ he whispered.
‘But Jasmine ‒ George ‒ poor old Johnny.’
‘They don’t matter any more … not any more.’
And then she cried. She cried like a child, till the pillow was sodden with tears and her hair stuck to it, and she was wretched and her poor hurt eyes swelled. She cried, because it was so dreadful lying here in pain, with nurses who were angry if you rang the bell too much. She almost forgot him. The golden door was so long in opening; she was so tenacious of life. She wanted to die, and she couldn’t; something made her go on living. This hideous, excruciating thing which lay within her and tortured her, and which she could not tear out and fling from her. The Thing that was part of her, sucking at her in agonised spasms.
Then she fell into that state which is neither death nor life, neither sleep nor wakefulness.
He was with her.
He was holding her hand …
They were walking in the fields again, the unmown fields set up for hay. There were seeded grasses about them and red ripe sorrel, buttercups tall and lacy-leafed, big daisies, little purply-blue vetches. There was the smell of crushed docks and herbage, and the sound of soft whispering trees, heart to heart. There was not any pain. They were sitting in the shade, just as she and Jasmine had been used to sit; only now there was the keen smell of dried bark, and of a ditch, sun-warmed; of caking mud, and nettles waist-high. There was the cows’-parsley like surf welling about them, and the sky a marvellous shade of blue, like the hedge-sparrows’ eggs which you find in tiny nests slung knee-high in the low hedge.
They lay side by side in the grass; it waved above them, swayed like the sea in the wind. It was lush grass, spangled with flowers, and little brown butterflies speckled with orange passed swiftly to and fro. They talked in a wordless, wonderful way, and only of happy things.
Those are the little things in life.
When the golden door is only just beyond, one does not remember the big events. They never really mattered. One only remembers the little happinesses: sitting in the garden and sewing; talking like this in the meadows ripe for the scythe; walking by the sea, with the salty wind smiting one’s face and the waves champing at the shingle.
He was telling her about the sea.
The ship which rose and fell, which screamed and groaned and shuddered, and, straining, dipped in and out of the hills and valleys of the water. Mary was not standing on the shore any longer. She was on her way to China with him; she was lying in his bunk, with his arms about her, her face touching his lips, and the scuttle alongside was splashed thickly with spray. Everything in the cabin was misty with it! She was lying there and listening to the pad of running feet on the deck above, the rattle of chains and the short, sharp orders, the cry of the boatswain’s pipe. And the rising and falling and the sighing and creaking going on and on … and on … She had never made the mistake of staying. She was travelling on into the East of unexplored wonder.
Long … long time …
She could not tell how long; she was only conscious that his arm held her gently and yet firmly, that the rising and the falling continued. Then other things precipitated themselves into the dream. ‘Hong Kong side’, with its out-jutting piers, with the gay little kimono-clad figures and the sampans plying their way. She was seeing it just as she had read about it. A street of tea-houses, with fluttering flags, and joss-houses where incense burned and faint tinkling music abounded. Coolies ran to and fro in blue cotton dresses, padding on swift feet, dragging their jaunty little rickshaws after them. The flame-of-the-forest, redly orange fire rippling in abundant blossom on the grey of the trees. Across the bay, Kowloon, glowering and brown, and those hills known as the nine dragons, sinister and grim.
Tinkling of music, radiant warmth, and Peter. Peter in a topee and a white uniform, but the same sweet promise in his mouth, the same deep darknesses in his eyes.
Then it faded again.
They were still together.
Yet not so near.
He was opening the golden door with one hand and beckoning with the other.
But she could not go through! Not yet! The pain held her back; she could not forget it all and go to him. Her feet were like lead, her throat burned dryly.
She had to ring the bell. It was no use; angry as they might be, she had to ring it. The nurse came, she came prepared to be angry, but when she saw how frightful the pain was, even the nurse could not be angry. She gave Mary a tabloid in a draught of water. And all the while Peter stood on the other side of the bed and smiled at her. He had never done it before; he had always gone away when other people came in. Afterwards, just before she sank into that deep sleep which the tabloid brought her, she whispered:
‘You’re still here?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve never stayed before.’
He said: ‘You’ve never seen me before, but I’ve been here all the same. It’s coming nearer. You’ll see me more and more.’
Then she slept.
VII
Mary felt very ill next day, just as though she had been dragged through some tumultuous battle and been badly worsted; but the pain was better. It was only the exhaustion. That was horrible. She lay, hardly waking or sleeping, and all the while she felt the close proximity of Peter rather than
saw him. He was very near indeed.
In the afternoon Jasmine came. She drove up in the car and she brought with her a very large bunch of snowdrops, just as they would be at Pebbridge now. She came in with her hands full of them. ‘I thought you’d like these, Mummy. I thought they’d remind you of Pebbridge.’
Mary’s eyes brimmed. They reminded her of something beloved which she had lost. Jasmine came closer. ‘Mummy, you’re worse! Why didn’t they tell me? You look dreadfully ill.’
‘I had a bad night.’
‘Poor darling!’
They sat in silence. With an effort Mary broke that silence. She said: ‘Yesterday … Rupert ‒’
‘I know. He told you.’ She averted her face.
‘Aren’t you very glad?’ asked Mary tenderly, and she put out a thin hand. It seemed to have grown thinner since yesterday; there were new pits in it and the skin shone as it drew tight and glazed over the knuckles. It was more like a claw.
‘I hate it all,’ said Jasmine passionately. ‘It’s loathsome.’
‘What, the poor little baby?’
‘I didn’t want a baby.’
‘You’ll love him when he comes. Lots of women think they didn’t want one.’
‘I shan’t love it. You see, it’s Rupert’s child.’
She sat there staring starkly before her; in her own abject misery she did not see how her mother was suffering, how near was the golden door. It was Mary who spoke.
‘Of course. Whose child should it be?’
She remembered George accusing Peter of paternity and she smiled weakly. Life has difficulties. She knew that Peter was standing very near indeed watching them; he would help her.
Jasmine tossed her head; her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her mouth was anguished. ‘It’s Rupert,’ s
he said.
‘You aren’t happy?’
‘I hate him.’
Mary had not been prepared for the fierceness of the announcement; she stared wide-eyed.
‘I thought I loved him,’ the girl went on, and her hands clasped in her lap beat frenziedly against her knees. ‘He was so different after we married. He was a beast. I suppose he couldn’t help it. He was drunk. Couldn’t you see he drank, Mummy? You … you ought to have known.’
Mary felt a strangely slipping sensation. Yes, she ought to have known. She had liked him, but she had always felt the queer unexplainable something about him. She had been so anxious to get Jasmine married and out of her father’s clutches that she had been blind.
‘It’s all very well for you,’ said Jasmine, stung by self pity to wrath; ‘I have to live all my life with the beast. I have to have his children whether I like it or not. I hate him. I didn’t believe it was possible to hate anybody like it …’
And then she wept. She wept scalding tears which hurt her mother more than herself. The pain of the illness had been nothing to this horrible disillusion. Nothing to the terrible volcanic weeping of Jasmine, and the confessions which she blurted out. Rupert drunken, his delight in torturing his young wife … in forcing her to accept those marital caresses which she loathed … in urging her with his own strength.
Afterwards, hearing steps, the girl dried her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m a fool. It’s my condition, I suppose. You mustn’t worry about me. How are you? What does the doctor say?’
‘He says I shall be better soon.’ Even as she said it, Mary knew that the last desire to live had been severed.
‘That’s splendid.’
‘It won’t be very long, my dear.’
A nurse passing the door put her white-capped head round it. ‘Time’s up,’ she declared cheerfully. ‘Mrs. Carew had a bad night, so we mustn’t tire her,’ and she went on again.
Jasmine got up and drew on her gloves. She kissed her mother and crossed to the door. A sudden anguish throbbed through Mary. She called to her. ‘Darling, could you kiss me again? Only once again, my darling, only once again.’
‘Of course.’
The warm living face pressed down upon her chilly one. She felt the moist young lips. The gap between these two was fast widening.
‘You want me, Mummy?’ questioned Jasmine.
‘I always want you.’
‘I’ll come early in the morning. Have a good night, Mummy, then we’ll be able to talk.’
Mary said ‘Yes,’ and turned her face to the pillow. She could not see Jasmine go; she had loved her so well … the little hands … those darling, loving, little hands …
They left her for the night.
All was very quiet, all was serene. She could just see the black speck where the beetle lived up in the cornice. So Rupert drank! That was the end. Everything else had gone wrong, it only needed this. She felt that she ought to have foreseen it, and yet she had been so anxious for the girl’s future; she ought to have avoided this; but how? How?
She felt sick, oddly choky. The tears, of course, the tears which did not come properly. She turned her face against the soft silkiness of the shawl. In places it was splitting. She lay there very still, waiting for something, she did not know what.
The pain took her in its grip, it tore at her, savaged her, obsessed her. The nurse had given her a tabloid, and yet this happened; it meant that she was getting worse. She plucked feebly at the sheet, gritting her teeth, gulping, gasping, fighting it. Would it never end, that dreadful clutching paroxysm? She felt it relaxing. She felt her throat pounding from the effort, the agony of it all, the breath which would not come, the heart which would not beat.
The room was shadowy. On the washstand a night-light glimmered in its saucer. It cast a golden halo to the ceiling; it was like the halo which St. John had worn in the window opposite the pew at Pebbridge. A gold disc, and all the rest a shadowy darkness. She felt herself weakening, losing her hold on life, seeing things as one sees them from afar. How little it had all been, how futile. Poor petty worries, poor vague helplessness. All seemed so small now as to be indistinguishable. A dust-storm seemed to have blown itself up sirocco-wise, and blurred them into nothingness.
They didn’t matter.
They had never mattered really.
If only the pain would go, this eroding pain, that ate at her, sapped her vitality, sucked at her.
Thump, thump, thump of her heart … No, not of her heart.
They were marching past the window again, and it was the roll of their drum. She heard the familiar tune blaring forth its brassy sweetness in her ears. Hussarenritt … Hussarenritt … Thump, thump, thump, roll of a drum … men marching.
Spring again on the Rhine. Spring, and the vineyards green beyond, and the men coming down Wilhelm Strasse. How the bridles chattered as the horses tossed their proud heads! How the drum beat! She was pressing her face to the window; the sweat was cold, or was it the glass? It was very cold. Really, Frau Tietz should have a fire. They were coming nearer. Soon they would pass the window … proud, victorious music … Hussarenritt … it echoed in her ears.
Then it ceased abruptly.
They were sailors … sailors going to church … Thump, thump, thump of their feet. . . . They were wearing blue tops to their caps, so it wasn’t Spring after all. They marched in the funny way in which sailors do march. She watched them proudly. Yes, she preferred them. They were real, they were kinder. Feet moving as one …
Thump … thump … thump …
She panted as she watched them.
It was growing very dark. They must be going to Evensong, because the shadows were so deep, and for a moment a pang of fright stabbed her. It was so dark that the light on the washstand had gone out …
Then she saw him. He was standing quite close, holding the golden door wide, and his eyes were near and very tender. The threshold was under her feet, and beyond it lay all brilliance.
‘Quick, my darling, quick,’ he whispered. ‘Come to my arms.’
She got up; she could feel her feet slipping across. She could feel him, the splendid imminence of him, the power, the possession …
‘No time to be lost,’ he urged her. ‘Come.’
Thump, thump, thump of men marching. She stumbled forward, out of the torture-room of her Gethsemane, out into the perfect light of understanding which lay on the other side.
‘It is so beautiful,’ she gasped, and, shutting the door swiftly upon the darkness, he took her into his arms. They were young again, in splendid, vigorous youth. There was no pain.
‘What is it?’ she asked bewildered.
‘It is life,’ he told her.
Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom
Thirtysomething Ann Clements takes a Mediterranean cruise which opens her eyes to the wider world, and to herself.
London, 1934. Ann Clements is thirty-five and single, and believes nothing exciting will ever happen to her. Then, she wins a large sum of money in a sweepstake and suddenly can dare to dream of a more adventurous life. She buys a ticket for a Mediterranean cruise, against the wishes of her stern brother, the Rev. Cuthbert, who has other ideas about how she should spend her windfall.
Ann steps out of the shadows of her mundane life into the heat of the Mediterranean sun. Travelling to Gibraltar, Marseilles, Naples, Malta and Venice, Ann’s eyes are opened to people and experiences far removed from her sheltered existence. As Ann blossoms, discovering love and passion for the very first time, the biggest question is, can there be any going back?
An engaging and witty story about an unforgettable 1930s woman; Ann Clements will stay with you long after the last page.
‘Ursula Bloom writes in a delightful way, with a deep understanding of human nature and a quick eye for the humorous things in life. Wonder Cruise … is one of the most entertaining novels we have read for a long time.’ Cambridge Daily News
‘Vividly entrancing.’ Scotsman
‘… with every book she adds something to her reputation … related with all Miss Bloom’s liveliness and easy skill.’ Daily Telegraph
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Youth at the Gate by Ursula Bloom
The touching true account of a young woman’s life on the home front during the First World War.
Ursula Bloom (who also wrote as Lozania Prole) movingly describes how the Great War forever changed the lives of ordinary people in Britain. When Ursula says goodbye to both her suitor and brother as they go to war, patriotic excitement soon turns to worry and despair.
This memoir vividly brings to life the experiences of people struggling to live through World War I. Ursula Bloom’s honest and heartfelt story shows us the challenges of food rationing and the constant bombing by Zeppelins overhead. Rumours of German spies abound, and even Ursula and her mother find themselves under suspicion by their neighbours.
Ursula’s autobiography also looks at the realities of life in the early twentieth century, when operations were carried out on the kitchen table, a pregnant woman shouldn’t be seen in public, and an officer and a private couldn’t mix under the same roof.
Not only the realities of war force an innocent Ursula to grow up. She must face her mother’s serious illness, the demons of her husband-to-be, and the snobbery of his wealthy family. There are lighter moments too, such as the tale of the Bloom’s fictitious maid, Emily, who they have to invent rather than admit that they can’t afford a servant.
