Nine Lives (Timeless Classics Collection) Read online

  Nine Lives

  Ursula Bloom

  Copyright © The Estate of Ursula Bloom 2021

  This edition first published 2021 by Wyndham Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published 1951

  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 © Everett Collection (Shutterstock)

  Cover design © Wyndham Media Ltd

  TIMELESS CLASSICS COLLECTION

  by Ursula Bloom

  Wonder Cruise

  Three Sisters

  Dinah’s Husband

  The Painted Lady

  The Hunter’s Moon

  Fruit on the Bough

  Three Sons

  Facade

  Forty is Beginning

  The Passionate Heart

  Nine Lives

  Spring in September

  Lovely Shadow

  The Golden Flame

  Many more titles coming soon

  www.ursulabloom.com

  Ursula Bloom: A Life in Words podcast

  Listen to the free, five-part podcast series based on the autobiographical writing of Ursula Bloom. The podcast covers Ursula’s life as a young woman on the Home Front in the Great War, and her rise to success and fame in the publishing world of the 1920s to 1940s.

  www.ursulabloom.com/ursula-bloom-a-life-in-words-podcast

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: THE UNBORN BABE

  CHAPTER TWO: THE CHILD

  CHAPTER THREE: THE ADOLESCENT

  CHAPTER FOUR: THE GIRL

  CHAPTER FIVE: THE WIFE

  CHAPTER SIX: THE WIDOW

  CHAPTER SEVEN: THE LIGHT OF LOVE

  CHAPTER EIGHT: THE SECOND WIFE

  CHAPTER NINE: THE LAST LIFE OF ALL

  Preview: Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom

  Preview: Youth at the Gate by Ursula Bloom

  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

  Timeless Classics Collection by Ursula Bloom

  A cat has nine lives, and a woman nine cats’ lives …

  Old Proverb

  Chapter One

  THE UNBORNE BABE

  The actual life of a child, and the foundation on which the whole pivot of its being revolves, begins at the moment of conception. It is for this reason that we have got to know something of those nine months ‒ and each month a life ‒ which preceded the birth of Lesley Saunders.

  At the hour of her birth the world was elated; at the hour of her conception it was singularly dull!

  Daniel Saunders and his wife had been married over a year, and they were prosperous as were so many middle-class families of that time. They believed that the middle-class was the backbone of England; it was an accommodating class, never aspiring to anything outside its position, but keeping to itself and therefore becoming enormously strong.

  Daniel was thirty-seven. He had not married until he was in the thirties, not because he was unable to keep a wife, but because he had never felt the urge. He was a big, boldly good-looking man, with keen blue eyes that were set perhaps a shade too closely together in his head. His heavy face was framed by thick dark hair, and he had been something of a philanderer, though naturally she had not known it, for she was unsophisticated.

  Daniel had inherited the drapery business from the father who had founded it when trade was not very brisk in Eresham, but it had proved itself to be a wonderful source of income. He was now well off, he could buy things (if he chose) which others could not buy, and his wife would undoubtedly be spoilt.

  Mary was in love with him, that is to say as much in love as she could feel proper, for she treated any new emotion with caution. She was the third daughter of a retired doctor who lived in a large house a mile from Eresham. The doctor had retired for the best possible reasons; too many of his patients had died, and gradually his practice dwindling into nothingness had left him. Perhaps old Dr. Clark had made too many wrong diagnoses, for he was a careless fellow, and had come to the conclusion that his own blunders were a considerable hindrance to his work.

  He had taken the large house called Holbeins, which had the reputation for being haunted, and was therefore reduced to a very nominal price. Here he received paying guests who were mentally unacceptable to most, and who, by reason of their malady, could not complain, or if they did, no one was fool enough to listen to their vehement protests.

  His two elder daughters married when they found how distressing was the atmosphere, and Mary had been left at home to face it with her mother, a complacent woman who had never been young, and who was far too placidly-minded to be upset by a few dangerous patients, Mary would have done anything to escape, and was aghast at her own prospects, for she was already twenty-eight which she felt to be a great age, and she also had the misfortune to be the plain one in a trio of sisters.

  She was terrified of her father’s patients, some of whom made obscene love to her, and also of the ones who tried to murder her, or flew into paroxysms of most terrifying rage, so that she would have married literally anyone who asked her, so desperate was she to make her escape. Curiously enough she loved Daniel. He never knew why he actually married her, seeing that he had never thought of a binding tie with the other loves, but Mary was a doctor’s daughter, and deep down within him the original youthful cleaving to a profession still haunted him.

  He had seen her in the shop, just as he had come down to solicit the aid of a certain Mr. West, who was actually serving her at the time. He noticed that she was plain in accordance with the standards, her small oval face was a cream rose, and in contrast her lips were full and red; she had hazel eyes, and soft brown hair framing them. She had that rare quality, charm, something delicate, elusive, yet quite irresistible and this Daniel recognized in her.

  ‘Could I help?’ he asked impulsively.

  She turned to him, feeling outraged by the mission which she had been dispatched from Holbeins to fulfil. ‘The gala-tea? It is for those horrible patients of my father’s.’

  ‘You don’t like his patients.’

  ‘I detest them,’ and because at this moment she needed some outlet for her sense of frustration, she told him what had happened only yesterday. Young Mr. Wolbury had pursued her into the garden, she had hidden in the laurels but he had found her, and he had told her how he had cut a little girl’s throat in a pine wood, and had enjoyed doing it. Then he had intimated that he had the quite serious intention of cutting her own throat, for which purpose he had produced a nasty-looking pair of scissors, artfully extracted from her mother’s work-basket.

  Her father, arriving, had intervened ‒ he could always manage the patients ‒ but although he had tried to laugh the matter off as being something of a joke, Mary’s nerves were upset. Daniel said that he was just going into the restaurant next door for some coffee, and felt that perhaps a cup would steady her? She admitted that she only drank tea, and would dearly love some. Now s
he knew that she was in a reckless mood, at no other time would she have done such a thing, but today she had to console herself. She felt so wretched. Her people would be angry, and Eresham would talk, but none of that mattered. The little cream rose of a face flushed pink.

  Six months later they were married.

  Peculiarly enough Dr. and Mrs. Clark did not complain as Mary had anticipated. They had come to look upon Mary as ‘being on the shelf’ and had decided that because she wasn’t pretty just anything might happen. It was a quiet wedding, although in her heart she had longed for a white one, but her parents advised her against it.

  They went to Brighton for their honeymoon.

  At this time Mary was in love with Daniel in her own somewhat simple way. Like most of the Casanovas of this world, Daniel was incapable of anything but a physical emotion, and had few finer feelings. He was glad to have an amiable companion, he found her both sweet-tempered and placid, but dull. He was not the man for dullness. After a couple of months his roving eye wandered and he became attracted to a black-eyed maid she had engaged for the home, and was irritated that Mary should be aware of this.

  When he told Mary that the affair meant nothing to him it was probably true, though she could not be expected to grasp that. She took the trouble to heart, crying bitterly over it, and he resented the fact that she should become tear-sodden, and when he went to bed at night it was to lie beside a weeping creature who refused to forgive him. He detested the polite meekness, and the quietness of placidity which did not give sharp answers against the brusque clumsiness of himself. Maybe their roots had been planted in very different soils.

  Mary was unhappy.

  She had always believed that the first duty of a husband was to remain faithful, and even if man was the exalted sex, he could not be permitted to philander. They made it up, to quarrel anew so that the first few months of their marriage were a case of chafing against the pin-pricks, which left the hearts of the two combatants pockmarked like some ancient pin-cushion. When the daughter was conceived, it was not from any act that had been inspired by love, it was not passion, nor even extreme fondness. It was a duty fulfilled by the wife from a sense of obligation, and entered upon by the husband, because he felt that she might expect it of him.

  Just about this time Daniel’s attention wandered in the direction of a certain Arabella Finch, who lived in an alley in the commoner part of the town. She was provocative and most attractive in the stimulating way which had the smack of light of love. He had given her some lace, and some muslin which was having its own particular fashion this year, and that was how the affair began. He hoped that nobody knew how far it had gone, but the fact that it had already gone a long way was being discussed cheerfully enough in the pubs in Eresham.

  Almost immediately after she conceived, Mary felt both ill, dejected, and completely changed; during the second month, the horrid affair of Arabella Finch was brought to her notice by her best friend, a certain Miss Sprockett. Miss Sprockett was in the fifties, she went about life in a virulently well-meaning way, doing good works, but her great trouble was that she could not hold her tongue. She attended all the committee meetings held in the town, and if ever anybody required anything done, people always said, ‘Oh, Miss Sprockett’ll do it.’ She took all young brides under her wing, with the rather aggressively protective air of the ageing spinster, who vows that she would not have married if she could, ‘men being what they are’.

  Miss Sprockett was one of the first people to discover that Arabella Finch was in the family way, and she brought the news to Mary, because there was nothing that Miss Sprockett liked more than imparting a supply of bad news and watching its reaction on the recipient. She was small and spare, her mottled face had distressing hirsute tendencies, and although she believed that her manner was essentially jolly, it was most irritating. She pretended that she had no idea that Daniel and Arabella had been friendly, but revealed the tidings in an innocent manner, as though it were a piece of interesting information, and was exceedingly surprised that the audience could be shocked.

  She was full of the expected arrival. ‘In September, they say,’ she said. ‘They’ were a large factor in her maiden life.

  Probably Mary was feeling low with her own pregnancy, because in her heart she knew that it would be madness to confess anything to Miss Sprockett, who could be relied upon to babble it about the place ‒ in the strictest secrecy, of course ‒ but at this moment she could not stop herself, and she began to cry.

  ‘Tell me everything?’ begged Miss Sprockett, and most disastrously Mary did tell her everything.

  One would have thought that Mary would have confided in her mother, but at that time she and her mother were not seeing eye to eye. She had gone home one afternoon and one of the patients had frightened her; when she confessed this to her mother, Mrs. Clark’s placidity had been most annoying. Daniel had been angry and had written to his mother-in-law saying that whilst his wife was in her present condition, he thought it might be just as well if she put herself outside the range of the unbalanced activities of her father’s paying guests, with the result that a coldness had sprung up. Although Dr. and Mrs. Clark had put a good face on the wedding, they weren’t going to tolerate impertinence.

  Miss Sprockett was the only one in whom Mary could confide, and she sat there saying ‘Dear me! Dear me!’ but she listened to every word, gulping it down and vowing that she would never tell another soul, and thinking all the time how immensely interested people would be. Now she was quite sure that this was Daniel’s child, and she consoled Mary.

  The thought of leaving one’s husband occurred to neither of them. The girl had no money, and anyway marriage was for life, no matter how terrible a mistake had been made!

  Miss Sprockett told Mary that when the baby came, it would be an immense comfort to her, and Mary accepted this because she had been brought up to consider motherhood the ultimate blessing of all womankind. She dried her tears and said that was indeed so, and that she very much hoped that it would be a little boy.

  This probably was the first burden laid upon the shoulders of the unborn, for she had already become part of a schism between her parents, and in her mother’s eyes was to be the consolation for the sins of her father. Eresham spoke of her as ‘a poor little dear’, and already pitied her.

  Before very long Daniel Saunders found that the place was cold-shouldering him, and looking down its nose in the most unpleasant manner. He could not fathom it, having the conceit which believed that whatever he had done had been discreetly covered. Then the rector sent for him ‒ he was a sidesman ‒ acquainting Daniel with the fact that he would like to have a private word with him.

  The Reverend Arthur Watson was the pugilistic kind, an obvious member of the Church Militant here on earth. He did not care how unpleasant a duty might be, and prided himself that he never shirked it. Realising that something odd must be afoot, slightly suspicious but still unaware of what was happening, David went to see him at the Rectory.

  It was a large moribund house, flanked by laurels and smelling of incense, for the rector was a high churchman. He used it surreptitiously, and quite irregularly, but liked to have the smell about the place. Mr. Watson challenged Daniel outright with the accusation that he was the father of Arabella’s child-to be. Daniel had personal doubts on the subject, for he had realised that the young lady was flirtatious, and he hotly denied the accusation. What else could he do? To admit it ‒ and he was decidedly unaware of the truth ‒ would have meant social ostracism, and being an ambitious man he desired at all costs to avoid that.

  Mr. Watson did not know whether to believe Daniel or not, for it was an awkward quandary for any man to be in. He had intended to suspend Daniel from his work as sidesman, being spurred on by the old ladies of the parish who ‘thought he should’, but in the face of his vigorous denial of this detestable rumour, he could not do this. The people’s warden had declared that Daniel should not be permitted to continue unless t
he rumour could be cleared up but the people’s warden was a nasty little man always agitating for trouble and usually getting it.

  Mr. Watson solved the awkward situation by suggesting that he himself should have a talk with the girl, who it was reported had herself set the rumour afoot, and then he could see what she had to say. Obviously one could not have it continuing.

  ‘All right,’ Daniel agreed.

  He also had a ‘talk with the girl’, getting round to Arabella’s house in the back alley before Mr. Watson did, which was a remarkable feat but one that he accomplished. Arabella had been going to disclose the embarrassing truth to the rector, but by the time that Daniel had had his very private talk with her, and had conveyed to her how extremely bad all this might be for both of them, she faltered. He persuaded her to accept a largish sum of money, and to marry an old love of hers, a somewhat sawny young man called Ernest Holt, who was willing. When Daniel left her he had come to the conclusion that everything had been settled entirely to his own satisfaction, and on hearing approaching footsteps laughed to himself that Mr. Watson should be out to make his enquiry.

  Well, he’d find out nothing at all! Only that Arabella was going to marry Ernest, and that would tell him little.

  At the same time there was a certain apprehension as to who had really started all the trouble, for it had not been Arabella entirely. Somebody had tattled.

  He did not have to think for long, because his attention was now focussed on Miss Sprockett. He waited until Arabella had married Ernest Holt, setting all the town buzzing by the ears, for like most gossips they changed their stories to meet all occasions. They were now convinced that Ernest Holt was the man responsible, all of which Daniel found to be highly satisfactory. So he stayed on as a sidesman, and he laughed just a little to himself, but he hadn’t finished with Miss Sprockett yet, not he!

  One day she came into the shop to buy some mending wool and was sitting perched on a small chair inspecting the basket of skeins which the assistant was offering to her, when he saw her. Daniel came out of his office, he went along the centre aisle and he stopped her.