Fruit on the Bough: A heartfelt family saga about a brother and sister Read online

  Fruit on the Bough

  Ursula Bloom

  Copyright © The Estate of Ursula Bloom 2018

  This edition first published 2019 by Wyndham Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published 1931

  www.wyndhambooks.com

  The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover images © PANGI / Taras Atamaniv (Shutterstock)

  Cover design © Wyndham Media Ltd

  Other titles by Ursula Bloom

  published by Wyndham Books

  Wonder Cruise

  Three Sisters

  Dinah’s Husband

  The Painted Lady

  Youth at the Gate (autobiography)

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  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  PART ONE - TWIT

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  PART ONE - JILL

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  INTERIM

  CHAPTER I

  PART TWO – JILL

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  PART TWO – TWIT

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  AFTERMATH

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  Preview: Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom

  Preview: Youth at the Gate by Ursula Bloom

  Preview: Promises by Catherine Gaskin

  Preview: Victoria Four-thirty by Cecil Roberts

  Preview: Wind on the Heath by Naomi Jacob

  Preview: The Print Petticoat by Lucilla Andrews

  Preview: A Shaft of Light by John Finch

  Never a bird within my sad heart sings

  But Heaven, a flaming star of thunder flings;

  O valiant wheel, O most courageous heaven,

  To leave me lonely with the broken wings.

  Omar Khayyam.

  TO

  THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE IN MY WORLD WHO REALLY MATTER

  GOWER ROBINSON and PIP DENHAM-COOKES

  INTRODUCTION

  REMINISCENCE

  I

  It has occurred to me that there should be an introduction to this book. For many years I have been the intimate friend of Twit and Jill. I have known their strengths and their weaknesses. It is those strengths and weaknesses that I have tried hard to record here.

  It is a strange task to write the faithful history of a brother and sister, made stranger when they were such a brother and sister as Twit and Jill. Heredity plays an important part, and because of this I think it only fair to let glow a lamp upon that family tree from which these two sprang.

  Their relations were all friends of mine, from old Great-Granny Grimshaw to Twit Grimshaw of to-day. I name old Great-Granny because, although she died at just about the time when Jill was learning her ABC from picture-blocks, she stands out as a splendid personality. She had so much more to do with the upbringing of George the younger than ever his own mother. She left a keen impression on those who were to follow after. Great-Granny married at sixteen and became the mother of a large and unruly family before she had cut her wisdom teeth.

  Great-Grandpa was a scholar; his existence was equally divided between reading and breeding. He concerned himself with little else.

  Great-Granny had stolen eternal youth from the Fates; she had also committed the indiscretion of being born sadly before her time. Even in her maturity, when Victoria the Good was making England too respectable for comfort, Great-Granny romped with adolescent daughters, and larked with a growing son. The family were high-spirited. They took life as a huge joke, all save Great-Grandpa, who never saw anything amusing in conditions. He was a grave man, a poor one too, but then he had a mind above trivialities like money. He accepted the annual mouth to feed as inevitable. He believed it to be the hand of God.

  The family grew up and married. It is with the marriage of George the elder that we concern ourselves. George the elder was an exceedingly beautiful young man. He had an auburn beard that was particularly silky, and an elegant figure that was particularly svelte. He had engaged himself primarily in one of those essentials of the Victorian period, an unhappy love affair. The object of his affections was his sister Mabel’s schoolfellow. The lovers quarrelled over some small unimportance which had distorted itself in their eyes. She went off to her people in the ‘vapours,’ and George the elder went off to London in the sulks. In London he made the acquaintance of an artful young woman, with Titian hair on a shapely head, and no brain inside it. She sang prettily, she played the piano tastefully, also she was clever enough to act an artless but attractive sympathy. The sympathy lured George most of all.

  At that time he had no idea that Emily had been the despair of her highly respectable family. She had had secret affairs with all the undesirable men in the neighbourhood, from old Jerry the coachman to a penniless but passionate apothecary. Her mamma declared in tears that she was convinced that one of these days Emily would elope with a scavenger. The family, seeing that George was attracted, did their best to bring about the union which would settle the affairs of the amorous Emily.

  Great-Granny Grimshaw had little notion of what was happening in London. Later, she received George’s letter stating that he had that morning married Miss Emily Nottingale, and she said with truthful premonition, ‘Of course the poor boy has been caught!’

  George’s sisters agreed. Somewhere a little school-friend wept her eyes red, realising that she was still hopelessly in love with George. The quarrel had made no difference. His marriage with someone else had made her plight all the harder. ‘I am sure that I shall go into a decline,’ she wailed.

  A year later the family awaited that occurrence which they tactfully referred to as ‘the happy event.’ George the elder and Emily had been living in rooms. As times were hard and the rooms in Highgate uncommonly uncomfortable, Great-Granny suggested that Emily should come to her for the confinement. Joyfully George and Emily agreed.

  Great-Grandpa was induced to leave his books for a while and to get out the gig to meet Emily, who was coming all the way from London by train. In 1860 this was indeed a perilous undertaking. Great-Grandpa drove into the town and he brought Emily home in the gig. It was a snowy night, and she was much fright
ened by the adventurous journey and the imminence of the happy event. Emily was an odd creature. She wanted to snatch at the eternal youth which the fairies had given to Great-Granny. But, for all her artless airs, Emily merely conveyed the impression of a sophisticated gawk of twenty-odd years. She tried to acquire innocence by talking in baby language; she opened her blue eyes very round and wide, and she ran in little short steps. Great-Granny and her two elder daughters met Emily in the porch, and instantly they decided that it was even worse than they had supposed. They had imagined that George had been caught, but they had never concluded that Emily was mad. Now they were sure of it.

  Great-Granny took the tall candle and led Emily up to the best bedroom. It was all set out, with the wooden cradle waiting by the cinder fire. In that cradle Great-Granny had laid her annual babies with appalling regularity.

  ‘I hope it will be all right for you,’ said Great-Granny. She felt wickedly young. In truth she was not yet forty.

  Emily stopped short in all her crinolined glory, and she pointed a mittened finger at the cradle. ‘Oho,’ said Emily coquettishly, ‘does ’oo know where babies come from?’

  Little Great-Granny whisked round. ‘Well, you ought to know,’ she said, ‘seeing …’ Then she stopped short. Emily had clutched at the lintel of the door.

  ‘Oh, I’ve such a pain!’ she wailed, and her feathered bonnet slipped back from her Titian curls. ‘Such an alarming pain!’ Great-Granny looked at her knowingly. She took her arm and led her to the bed with its good maroon hangings, and the hot brick wrapped in flannel at the bottom.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ she said, trying hard not to laugh, ‘that you may find out where babies come from.’

  II

  I am sure that Great-Granny should have begun her career a hundred years later. Her sense of humour was twentieth century. She was no crinolined doll, subservient to her husband’s will. She was a live personality, and she did not crumple. I see her again in the Jill of to-day. Jill’s little tip-tilted chin, and her efforts not to laugh at some childish joke. I see much of Jill in little Great-Granny with the shaking of curls and the tinkle of laughter and the decision that Emily was mad.

  They despatched the boot-boy for the local doctor, and old Mrs. Higgins, who was the village Gamp. The boot-boy did not hurry. He was an ill-favoured youth and had been disturbed in the process of devouring a piquant supper of bread and onions. He felt that by delaying he might get some of his own back on the interrupters of his repast.

  The daughters of the house explored the linen cupboards for small garments. They had not expected the event to be so soon. They had also supposed that Emily would bring her own things, but they had not known Emily then. Later they understood. Emily, in her rather overdone innocence, had washed her hands of such expensive necessities as baby clothes. She was quite willing that her in-laws should provide anything and everything. She did not like the old village doctor, who had brought her husband into the world. She did not like the dark, old-fashioned bedroom. She very much disliked old Mrs. Higgins, who was entirely matter-of-fact over the whole affair. She was also furious to think that Great-Granny should have endured this torture fourteen times in all. With dawn, young George arrived into this world of woe. Later in the morning, his mother, having regained her girlishness, demanded of Mrs. Higgins if an angel had brought the little dear.

  Young George’s aunts had definitely decided that Emily was a lunatic. Great-Granny laughed herself into hysterics and brought Great-Grandpa out of his Greek tomes to inquire ponderously as to what was the matter.

  Young George from the first showed a shrewd dislike of his mother’s clumsy nursing, and a preference for the kind arms of little Great-Granny. She had been used to a baby at her breast from childhood, she understood their wants, and she was fond of them.

  None of the family realised that Emily was a designing woman and that the year’s matrimony had been disillusioning for George the elder. Rumour, ever uncharitable, went round that he was corresponding with his old love. Mabel Grimshaw was supposed to know about it, but, if she did know, she held her peace. Great-Granny was quite ignorant of an underlying romance. At this time the Grimshaws’ finances were in a perilous state. Great-Grandpa had earned nothing for some years, and he had had an expensive family. He was too clever to be worried with bills, and too dilatory to settle them, had he had the means, which he hadn’t. The accounts mounted up and the chance of dispersing them became more remote. Great-Granny was anxious to return Emily and young George to the husband in London. Emily showed no burning desire to return. She insisted that she was not yet strong. She explained that she became so easily fatigued. She played to them on the piano, and sang ‘Where the bee sucks’ very charmingly, but she never suggested helping in the house, either practically or financially.

  Great-Granny wrote to George the elder, and he ‒ it must be admitted, reluctantly ‒ sent for his family.

  Emily departed. She was indignant at the inhospitality of her in-laws. Only when she had gone did they discover that she had left young George behind her.

  III

  Young George was the potential father of Twit and Jill. The family had already discovered the futility of an argument with Emily, so after mild protest they adopted the baby. He was brought up by Great-Granny, his aunts, and his scholarly grandpa, who, needless to say, did not do much about it.

  This is where George the elder and Emily fade out of the picture. Their careers were chequered. George the elder left Emily and eloped with his old love. With her he lived in complete and unlawful bliss for several years, to the confusion of the moralists, who had prophesied their speedy downfall. When she died, George returned to England, and finally to Emily. Ten years had intervened. During the ten years Emily had had a second child in some mysterious manner. When questioned about it she became artless, and insisted that a fairy must have brought it. George the elder was living in rooms, and he was exceedingly uncomfortable. He was also heart-sick and love-sick for the woman who had never been his legal wife. In ill-health he had become morbid. He wondered whether the death of his beloved might not have been brought about by his sacrifice of the conventions. Emily had lived in London boarding-houses and had grown thoroughly bored by it. She was perfectly willing to attempt connubial bliss again. She went for a walk with George the elder in Bushey Park, and there they talked of many things. Among the many things, they discussed the possibility of renewing the old tie. The result was that George returned to Emily’s boarding-house, and the family were acquainted with the fact that they were making a fresh start in life.

  ‘Oh, the poor boy!’ said Great-Granny, ‘she’s got him again!’

  By then she had formed a very good idea of Emily.

  Six months later Emily presented her husband with a full-time son, and believed that it must have been the fairies once more!

  IV

  There is no need to continue their career. George the elder died mercifully quickly. Emily lived on into the early part of the twentieth century, when she continued to sing ‘Where the bee sucks’ in the London boarding-houses, where she was looked upon as something of a joke. Happily the fairies had ceased their activities.

  Young George must be followed in closer detail. He was more the son of his mother than his father. The acute financial embarrassment of the Grimshaws shadowed his early years. There were days when dinner was elusive. Young George had been foisted on the family through the trickery of Emily, and although they had taken him in with commendable charity, they had not the wherewithal to provide for him. Schooling was out of the question. Great-Grandpa did his best. Being a scholar, he found dawdling through elementary knowledge singularly trying. Great-Granny taught young George his letters and his first sums. But Great-Granny was still young enough to relish holidays before lesson times. A whole generation of truants lay within her. Time had not silvered her hair, nor had it thickened her figure. Time had never destroyed her youthful and beautiful enthusiasm. All the vigorously youthful instincts
still demanded expression in her. She was in point of fact younger than her own daughters. She did her best by young George, but it was a difficult best.

  At this time there were four of her daughters in the house, and they spoilt and scolded the boy by turns. Young George was in the position of a child with five mothers. What one said the others contradicted. He never knew where he was.

  His grandpa died, and three of the aunts married, which eased the strain. The Grimshaws were, however, still far from rich. George was settling down into an odd character. He had much of his grandpa’s dilatory ignorance of money matters, but none of the scholarly instincts. His aunts had steeped themselves in the romances of the mid-Victorian era. They talked of their conquests and their beaux, and such conversations had fallen as fertile seed on a character unfortunately inherited from Emily. From a rather stupid little boy who wore a plaid sash and kid boots, George developed into a rawly amorous youth. He wooed the local farmers’ daughters, and with them he had no small success. He had inherited his mother’s Titian colouring along with her love of posing, and he grew rapidly into a sturdy young fellow of well-built proportions.

  When he was fifteen the worst possible interlude occurred. Great-Granny and her remaining daughter determined to eke out their income. They acquired a paying guest. Amy Richards was a girl from one of the best families, who had proved herself to be a handful at home. She had outraged the respectabilities of her family by a liaison with a choirmaster. She had not been solely content with the choirmaster. She had aggravated matters by a subsequent assignation with a ploughboy. Her people, being very properly scandalised, sent her to this country village, to be cared for by Great-Granny and Aunt Mabel. Had Amy Richards lived in post-war England her condition would have been recognised and treated by psycho-therapy, not glossed over by a community who considered it impure to admit impropriety. In those days sex was not discussed or considered. It was ignored, and in this latent state it smouldered dangerously.

  Amy appreciated young George, and she proceeded to initiate him into those mysteries in which she was so proficient. The seeds of knowledge fell upon fertile ground. Certain it is that the friendship of Amy Richards ruined young George for good and all.