The Illumination of Ursula Flight

by Anna-Marie Crowhurst

  The air whistled as the rod came down and stung the soft skin of my leg backs.

  Thwick! Thwick! Thwick!

  Twelve times Mother got it right above the top of my stockings, where it hurt most and would leave a mark. Peterkin would not stop smiling.

  Afterwards I lay face down on my bed and beat my fists and cried with shame and anger until my voice was cracked and my eyes puffed up and spongy to the touch. I quietened down when no one came, not even Father, to ask me to sing with him in a harmony before supper. I knew then that they were serious. I was to marry Tyringham, if I must be flogged daily and dragged to the church by my hair.

  I sat up, then, to think. I should run away, to a place where no one knew me. Mary might help me if I asked it, for we had sworn with our crooked fingers over the lucky stone to be one another’s friend for all eternity, on pain of horrible, lingering death.

  But Mary could not give me the silver coins that I would need, nor stop the men that would surely be sent after me. I could saddle up Blue Boy, and make off in the middle of the night... but I did not know the way to Norwich, or to London, or to York. A lone girl on a hunter would be set upon by highwaymen and cutpurses before she could say ‘Cock Robin’. I could ask Mary to come with me. A young country wife and her lady’s maid. Perhaps we might somehow get word to Samuel to come and meet us. Then there might be a chance.

  When it was time for the household to retire, Mary was waiting in my chamber.

  ‘There, there, dearest,’ she said, and crooned a lullaby as she helped me out of my gown.

  ‘Oh Mary, I cannot marry him – I cannot!’ I said, throwing my arms about her and pressing her to me. ‘He is old and a filthy brute, no doubt. And I do not want to marry yet – unless it is a handsome boy of my age. I cannot leave you or your mother or Catherine. I have not finished my lessons. I was to learn Dutch in the spring. Oh, I cannot do it,’ I moaned. ‘You must help me, as my bosom friend, for if you do not I am undone.’

  I laid my plan before her. Over the next few days – it might take as long as a week, I had to check the almanac for the next full moon – I would take provisions from the kitchen and store them in the stable, with my cloak and boots, and her outdoor things. After a secret signal, given at dinner, we would both rise at midnight, meet at the stable, and make for the nearest coaching inn, on Blue Boy, I posing as a young widow (I would wear a vizard, or if I could not get one, a veil), she, my lady. From there we would get to London, where we would possibly find Samuel, but if not, surely, our fortune, and be happy all our days.

  Mary was very quiet at this. Presently she said she did not think it a very good plan, and besides, she said, she did not want to leave her mother, or her brothers and sisters, who would miss her. Eliza was sure to notice the missing provisions from the kitchen, she said; and the next full moon was three weeks hence; we would be found and brought back before we could get to a coaching inn – the nearest one was at Templeton, which was surely fifteen miles away, if it was one.

  How, she asked, would we pay for our board when we got there?

  I would take money from Father’s purse.

  How would we get to London, without a protector, two women on our own?

  I did not know.

  How would we live and feed and clothe ourselves when we got there?

  I did not know.

  How would we make our fortune?

  I did not know.

  ‘It is hopeless. I see now,’ I said.

  Back inside my chamber, I laid my heavy head down and she stroked my brow.

  ‘Hush now, my dear one,’ she said. ‘There is another fate for you. All will seem better when a new sun has risen in the sky.’

  XV

  BETROTHAL

  In which I meet the man who is to be my husband

  The morning of the day Lord Tyringham was to visit us, I crept out into the garden before any of the house was awake. The snow had stopped falling now, but the air was raw and stung my face. Grey strands of mist hung about the garden and made it look quite strange – I could not make out the maze. The plants about the gate were without their flowers; dew coated every darkened, drooping leaf.

  Down by the pond, the pave-stones were greenish and slimy with moss. I stepped slowly in my usual walk around it, all the while trying to unpick the tangles of troubles that swelled in my head: Lord Tyringham; the dinner; the strangeness of my life to come.

  At the thought of seeing my soon-to-be-betrothed, and acting as I knew I must (I raged inwardly at the prospect of flirtation), my belly tipped up and down; I stopped a while and sucked in sharp little mouthfuls of cold, wet air. My throat was tight and sore, and my eyes still ached from many hot, frustrated tears: I had raged at my parents for the past seven days or more, as the prospect of my betrothal loomed closer, and became a vivid, corporeal thing.

  I gazed at the still surface of the pond and thought about my marriage. My teeth chattered; my skin was pricked with goose-flesh. I walked around and around, until the sun was full in the sky and Reginald was at the back door, calling me in.

  Though inwardly I boiled, I had resolved immediately I was recovered from the thrashing that I would not let my mother better me. Instead I would affect the appearance of reluctant obedience, until I had found another way out of my marriage. To this end, and because I had reached the age where I had a secret yearning to be thought pretty, even if it was by a husband I did not want, that morning I gave great care to my dress.

  My hair was curled in an extravagant style we had copied from a drawing in a book sent from France. I cleaned my mouth out most thoroughly and, because my face was pale and shadowed-looking, pinched my cheeks until they ached. Mother came in and out of the room at intervals, a tight look upon her face.

  ‘I hope you will look your best,’ she said. ‘I hope you will behave as you ought.’

  I said I would.

  While Mother stood and lectured me on what to say and do, Mary came in and laced me into my newest, finest gown, while she chattered and wept a little – gentle soul that she was, I saw she felt the pain of my punishment keenly. I made our secret sign that we should talk later in our meeting place and she wiped her face and went away, saying that my eyes were too shiny and I looked prone to fits and she would brew me a tisane, to which my mother grunted.

  My reflection in the glass was pleasing, and despite myself, I felt my spirits rising. The gown was quite the most grown-up thing I’d ever known, with a bodice that came down low in front. I pushed it off my shoulders and hoped Mother wouldn’t see (she did as soon as she came back into the room and it went straight back up again). Ignoring her chiding, I hummed a ditty, imagining myself at Court and dancing with handsome gentlemen as I stepped into my shoes, the consolation for the day – they were of green satin, with a little heel I found most satisfyingly elegant, and long laces made of ribbons.

  I was afraid of looking too young, and a country fool, so when everyone went away to primp themselves, I went up and down the corridor, swinging my skirts as I thought a lady might, and practising the way I said ‘How d’ye do,’ until my voice sounded odd to my own ears and the words themselves lost meaning.

  Time dragged; the hour drew near. Mother and I sat ourselves in the parlour with our sewing. I was arranged to best advantage on a chair in the window and in my lap had the jewel-box I was decorating, laboriously, with oak leaves. My mother, a little way off, almost out of sight (but not quite out of earshot), was picking at a screen.

  Muff came and lay down on the rug near my feet, and snuffled a little, laying her scruffy brown head onto her paws: I knew she had come to comfort me and I talked to her in a crooning voice until Mother sharply bade me shush. The clock on the mantel click-clacked the minutes, while we waited; Mother stiff and staring at the doorway, I tight chested, with shallow, hopeless breaths.

  At two o’ clock, he came, stooping into the room behind my father and bowing to my mother, both my parents pink-cheeked and gibbering witlessly like lun
atics.

  ‘Lo, such fog!’ I heard my father cry, and my mother add, in a too-bright voice that came out like a cry: ‘Why will it not lift?’

  Tyringham, I knew, was not handsome, but I hoped he might be kind. I looked over his face for signs of an even temper, or a twinkle in his eye that might foretell a romantic or lusty nature. His face, pouchy and pale, gave nothing away. He did not wear a periwig that day; his black hair a foamy thing over one side of his face, and on the other receding back into his head; his brow a white sloping curve beneath it. His moustache twitched when he spoke, and he had a skinny neck under his chin, which, too was small and indistinct.

  Presently he came over to me and bade me ‘Good day’ and at my mother’s encouragement – she trotted around him, I loathed to see it – sat himself down in the chair near mine. I saw now his eyes were washed-out blue, and bulbous, with dark lashes. He stretched his hand out to pat Muff on the head; the dog cringed and he laughed, and pulled at her ear; she got up and ran away. There was fine black hair lying flat across his knuckles, and sprouting at angles from his ears.

  I sat stiffly in my chair, wishing Mary could be there to see him and we could laugh at him together. She had said she would try to slip in with some excuse if she could, for she was as curious to lay eyes on him as I was, but the door remained steadfastly shut, and I could not think of a reason to ring for her.

  ‘Well now,’ said Tyringham, fastening his eyes upon me. ‘How do you do today? May I be permitted to address you as Ursula?’ He had a hopeful look on his face, though he did not smile.

  I glanced up at my mother, who was making her eyes wide.

  ‘I suppose you ought,’ I said. I tried to look at him but his nearness made me shy. I found myself gazing at the floor. My tongue felt strange in my mouth and there was a hot feeling creeping up the sides of my throat.

  ‘It gives me such joy,’ he said, ‘to contemplate our union and the joining of our families.’ Here he looked backwards at my parents, who were nodding and had simpering looks on their faces that I had not seen before.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said my father. ‘We are all most contented.’

  ‘’Tis a good match,’ said my mother, too loudly, misjudging the distance from the back of the room. ‘And I pray that you will be happy together. Though Ursula is young, she is a good, clever girl and is ready to be a true and obedient wife.’

  I felt something start to work its way about my stomach. The tea I had drunk earlier was swirling about and felt too high in my body.

  Tyringham was watching me again. ‘I think to tell you a little about myself and my family. For I must seem to you little more than a stranger.’

  ‘That would be very good of you, Tyringham,’ said my father.

  Tyringham nodded, and bent his body forward and leant towards me with his elbow on his knee. ‘Well then. My father, who is dead these fifteen years, was a silk merchant, and my mother a gentlewoman of a good Dorset family. My father bought us our country seat, Turvey Hall, in the county of Wiltshire.’

  ‘My sister Phyllis has been there,’ put in my mother. ‘For her husband grew up at Bath. She says it is a godly sort of place, with many farms.’

  ‘Oh it is a very pretty county,’ agreed Tyringham. ‘My mother lives there, at the Hall, still, as it is a great house of ten bedrooms and as many acres, and its own chapel. You shall have a fine chamber, Ursula. And your own garden too if you wish it – I know how women like flowers and such pretty ornaments as a garden may provide. My sister, alas, is delicate’ – here he cast his eyes down – ‘and cannot tend to a garden of her own. I have a house in London too, at Covent Garden, though you shall not have much need of going there.’

  ‘But faith, I would like to see London,’ I said quickly, swallowing down the tea. ‘For it has long been my ambition to visit the playhouse. I would greatly like to see a play. A real one, that is, with actors and actresses. For my brother and sister and friends may do their best, but they have not learnt the craft, and so it is not quite the same. But I have had it from Grisella that the playhouse is where all the ladies of quality go and is famously diverting withal.’

  ‘I did not think you would... be interested in such entertainments,’ he said, surprise on his face.

  ‘Oh aye, I would,’ I said.

  ‘All this with the playhouse!’ said my mother.

  ‘Ursula has a great many interests,’ said my father.

  ‘What else would you know?’ said Tyringham.

  ‘Will we go to Court often?’ I said, leaning forward despite myself.

  ‘I must go, for I must oft visit the King and tell him of the plans I have made for the navy. But there will not be much occasion for you to go. ’Tis a strange place to those not used to it – for country maids such as you are!’ He slapped his thigh a little back and forth as if this was some great jest. My mother made a tinkling sort of laugh.

  ‘Oh but I would wish it!’ I said passionately. ‘For I have a great mind to see the King and my Lady Castlemaine and Nelly and all his other mistresses! And the fashions – and the jewels too. I have been practising my dance steps with Mother for just an occasion such as that and so... I would like it,’ I finished lamely, for I could see his face had taken on a displeased look, and was pinched about the mouth.

  ‘Well, we shall see,’ he said, nodding. ‘But what do you say, then? Have you heard enough? Will you have me?’

  I was startled at this direct sort of questioning and my mouth gaped open a little to hear it. My mother bustled over then.

  ‘Why yes, yes, let us have the betrothal words and then we shall know what we are about!’ she said, beckoning to my father. ‘I remember when I said them myself, and the gown I wore, and now my daughter is...’ She trailed off, for her voice had gone a little weak.

  ‘Aye,’ said my father, stepping forward. ‘I was a handsome fellow then and in a very good coat, though I could not fit into it now.’

  ‘Not handsome,’ coughed my mother, her face now in her kerchief.

  ‘There, there, dearheart,’ said my father, patting her back, to which she twitched but did not move away from his touch.

  Tyringham took up my hot hand then and held it in his moist one. I could do little but let him have it and sit there with my arm out, most stupidly.

  ‘I do here seriously swear, in the presence of God, before these two witnesses,’ he intoned loudly, ‘that I do contract matrimony with thee, Ursula Flight, and shall take you for my wife.’

  I stared.

  ‘Ursula?’ prompted my mother. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Aye. Then, I do contract matrimony with thee and I shall take you for my husband,’ I said quickly, and then my mother and my father were kissing me and Tyringham had got something out of his pocket and was holding it to me: a gold ring set with garnets and pearls. The first bit of real jewellery I had owned. I stared at it.

  ‘Then this is my token,’ he said, placing it on my palm, and I took it and tried to put it on my finger, but I was clumsy and it slipped from my hands and bounced on the floor carpet, and then rolled away under the chaise.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Oh dear.’

  I put my hand in my pocket and turned my carved little bear over and over, but for once, it could not comfort me.

  FAVOURITES & WISHES LIST TWELFTH NIGHT 1679/80 A.D.

  THIS PAPER TO BE BURNT WHEN ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED

  1. Sweet animals of all sorts. I would like pets of dogs & pigs especially (how nice the sows are at the Merrimans’ farm, when I step over the stile they come running and press their snouts into my shoes). I do not much like goats, which have gleaming eyes and try to eat my sleeves.

  2. Pale blue dresses with great sweeping skirts. (This looks well, I believe, in the dancing.) Fastened with yellow lover’s knots all over. Mother says bows are lavish and pale blue dresses are not to be had – I know they are.

  3. Street ballads. Mother will not hear them sung; Grisella knows all t
he words. We sang ‘Cuckolds All Awry’ this very morning to each other in the barn. Fie!

  4. Hair primped into little curls on the brow and glued fast to the cheeks at the side.

  5. Catherine. My sweet little sister.

  6. Corn-roses, bluebells, feverfew, hearts-ease. All tied up in a pretty pink ribbon and given to a sweetheart. NB: I do not have one and all flowers are dead and under snow.

  7. Plays. Above ALL things. I have not been to any, but if they are like the mummers’ show, I think I will like them. They involve, I know, the wearing of fine clothes and the eating of nuts and oranges (which I do very well). I must see one soon or I know I will DIE from the lack.

  8. Amethyst rings on every finger.

  9. Orange ribbons for my velvet shoes!

  10. People who do not try to touch your hand. Or speak to you, or whisper things into your ear at table. Even if you are to marry them.

  XVI

  SLIDING

  In which I am sociable with my sweetheart

  I had been nervous all the morning at the thought of seeing Lord Tyringham again, for I was still adjusting myself to the fact of our engagement, and I did not know what I would say to him. Mary and I had had many talks about the betrothal and how sweethearts were supposed to act, and she had pointed out that there might be kissing, as that was what Kitty and Jack Browning were about, and more besides, for they were permitted to bundle – and so he would go into her chamber, and talk there all through the night, and I hoped that would not be the thing in my case, for I did not know what I would speak of for such an amount of time – and as for the kissing, with this man, the prospect of it did not seem attractive, and so I fervently wished that it would not come about.