The Illumination of Ursula Flight

by Anna-Marie Crowhurst

  I was seated in my usual place in the window when my mother came through the door with Tyringham behind her, he in a brown suit of velvet and a cassock coat, his courting clothes: I had seen them before. The colour in his cheeks made me think him in good spirits – he was not so sombre and stiff as before. I smiled at him. Perhaps today I would like him a little more. He took off his hat and, while Mother dithered by the Chinese cabinet, came forward to perch, hunch-backed, on the chaise next to me. His eyes roamed down the front of my dress. Looking downwards to avoid his burning gaze, I saw he had a bag in his hands, laced shut with a thong.

  ‘I have brought you something, Ursula.’ He gestured at the bag. ‘A gift.’

  How my spirits rose at this! I murmured he was too kind, and prayed fervently for emerald silk or a rope of pearls. But he made no move to open it and, while I shifted in my seat, merely mumbled questions about my health and sewing.

  ‘It looks a strange shape indeed,’ I said, at last. ‘That bag.’

  ‘It does, indeed,’ said he.

  My cheeks burned.

  He chuckled then and, with a flourish, unlaced it and brought out two thin, curved pieces of wood, with iron parts hewn onto them, and brown leather straps all over.

  He looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Why – why, thank you,’ I faltered, turning to my mother, who frowned and flapped her hands.

  ‘They are called skates,’ he said, setting them down by my feet. ‘For sliding on the ice.’ And then, when my fingers stretched out to touch the gleaming metal, ‘The blades are sharp.’

  My mother had called my father in to see what their would-be son had brought their first-born daughter.

  ‘I have heard of these,’ said my father. ‘They look dangerous, sir!’

  Tyringham made a bow. ‘I thought to take Ursula sliding on the lake.’ He turned his eyes towards mine. I looked at my mother.

  ‘You are too generous, my Lord,’ she said.

  I got up and curtseyed, still wondering at the discovery that my betrothed could be kind.

  ‘Truly, sir, I thank you,’ I said. ‘I have dreamed of ice-sliding for... why, ever since I heard about them doing it at Court. I shall run and tell Reginald – how green he will be!’

  We stepped out of doors. The snow rose up to my calves; the wind whipped my hair across my face. I wore my old woollen cloak, Mother’s mangy rabbit-fur muff (I hid the bad part) and I had taken one of Father’s hats and set it over my curls at an angle, as I had seen in a sketch. Tyringham eyed it.

  ‘’Tis the latest mode,’ I said, and then felt immediately silly, for his reaction showed that he disdained my nervous prattle.

  By the frozen lake, jagged trees pocked with crows were black against the pearl-grey sky. Bulrushes fringed the edges of the bank, their fronds bent double with frost.

  Tyringham bade me come to him and set the skates down, holding them upright for my feet. I laced them on, leaning on his shoulder – he had a sour smell; of wet leather and old wine. His face came up from his own skate-lacing splotched all over with the effort and I felt a burst of shyness in my stomach for our first time alone together. He, too, seemed lost for words. We talked in pleasantries, our words strangely stilted.

  ACT II, SCENE III

  A MAN and a MAID stand by a frozen lake. The MAN has strange eyes that fix on the MAID when she turns her head; she can feel them burning into her arms, her chest, her neck. The English countryside, mantled white with snow, rolls away into the distance around them.

  MAN: [Wobbling tentatively onto the ice] I will make a check to see that it is thick enough.

  MAID: I am not that heavy, my Lord! Though I did eat a famous lot of dumplings at dinner.

  The MAN clambers onto the ice. His feet slide out in all directions. He bends his body forward, then back, then forward again, and touches the ice.

  MAN: Con found it!

  The MAID hides her smile behind her muff.

  MAID: It looks mighty difficult, my Lord!

  MAN: It is a little strange. I must get my balance. I have seen it done, I must... right myself.

  The MAN is moving in a jerking motion across the surface of the lake. His skates make strange patterns. The MAID watches him.

  MAID: How is the ice? May I come onto it?

  MAN: There is a patch here we shall have to avoid but you may try it now – if you are not afraid.

  MAID: No, I am not afraid. [She steps onto the ice] Oh! I almost fell... ah. Ha! I see now...

  The MAN tries to move closer to the MAID.

  His arms windmill about him.

  [Skating] I have wanted to try ice-sliding ever since I heard about it from Grisella – Grisella Shadforth, who is my bosom friend. She lives but two miles from here and she has lots of older brothers, and one of them is at Court, and brings back all the tattle. He has been to the Frost Fair...

  MAN: [With flailing arms] It is not becoming in a man to gossip. [Suddenly still] Ah. Take my hand now, and we shall skate together.

  The MAID stretches her arm out, but the MAN unsteadies her. She slips once, twice, thrice; scissors her feet, then topples backwards, landing flat-backed on the ice.

  MAID: Fiddlesticks and God’s teeth!

  MAN: Are you hurt?

  MAID: Not much, I think.

  MAN: You went down very hard. Lean on my arm. I have got your hat.

  MAID: I’ve cracked my head hard enough to coddle my brains!

  She brushes the frost from her skirts.

  Now I have a fancy to try one circle around the lake.

  MAN: I do not think that is wise.

  She pushes off. He watches her moving across the ice.

  MAN: Do not go too quickly, Ursula! You shall fall.

  She is moving swiftly now, the wind throws her hair back behind her.

  [Louder] Ursula!

  MAID: [Putting her hand to her ear] I cannot hear you! ’Tis like dancing – or flying! Watch, I am Pegasus on the way to Mount Olympus! I shall carry Bellerophon to slay the Chimera!

  The MAID is whipping across the lake now, in a steady rhythm, her arms stretched out. She flaps them up and down, like wings. She sticks out her tongue to feel the frigid air rushing across it. The snicker of the blade as it cuts across the ice.

  See how fast I gooooooo!

  MAN: Stop now, I say. It is enough...

  The MAN’s feet come out from under him and in one quick movement he falls heavily onto the ice.

  MAID: Oh!

  The MAN does not move. The MAID stands stock still, hesitating. In the trees, the crows begin to caw.

  Curtain

  XVII

  ACCEPTANCE

  In which I see my bosom friend and bare my soul

  Mother was ill again after trouble in childbed (it died). I was sent to stay with Grisella so that I did not make noise around the house, the little ones having gone, with Goodsoule, to my Aunt Phyllis. I had begun to feel the difference between our ages, for at seventeen, and two years my elder, Grisella had grown into a pretty young woman with a curving figure and coffee-coloured hair that she wore primped at the sides and in a long coil snaking onto her bosom, which she already powdered, along with her arms which were smooth and white and as rounded as any Court beauty. Being the youngest girl child, with two elder sisters and five elder brothers, who were all grown up and gone, Grisella was very spoiled, but nevertheless I loved her, for we had been playmates so long, and unlike Mary, she was of the gentry, and therefore my equal, and so could understand things that my Mary, however much she loved me, could not.

  ‘My dear Ursula, hearty congratulations to you!’ cried Lady Shadforth, no sooner had I crossed the threshold of Billingbear Park. ‘For I have had your happy news from Grisella, and we have talked of nothing else – for what else is there to talk of? No doubt it is an excellent match and Tyringham I believe to be quite prosperous.’ Here she came to me and patted my cheek. ‘I have had it from Lady Downshire that he is well known at Court, has a great hous
e at Wiltshire and is above five-and-thirty, though why that should matter, I know not. Shadforth is thirteen years my elder and we have been quite contented these one-and-twenty years – though he was impatient with me at first and given to admonishments, in time we got used to one another, and are now really quite amicable.’

  I was trying not to giggle, and she saw my face moving and took it, I think, as symptomatic of a soon-to-be-blushing bride.

  ‘But who cares if he is old, if he is rich, as I say to my girls. For then you may live in the country, and he in the town and you may form your own amusements, and do as you please.’

  ‘Or may it not be him in the country and me in the town, Lady Shadforth?’ I said, which provoked Grisella to sniggering behind her hand. ‘For of late I have set my heart upon the stage and I cannot rest until I am an actress as much admired as Mrs Barry or Mrs Gwynn.’

  ‘Oh you girls!’ cried Lady Shadforth, with darting eyes. ‘You know you must not speak of such things to me.’

  ‘It is true, Mumsy,’ said Grisella. ‘Ursula and I have been practising at our recitals. We speak Shakespeare and Fletcher and strike poses like this – and like this.’

  Here she made some dramatic postures.

  ‘And we are quite good enough to be seen at Drury Lane,’ I added. ‘If only we could be got up in the fashions.’

  ‘In the fashions!’ screamed Lady Shadforth, feeling about for the staircase behind her, and stepping on the cat, which yowled and pelted up the stairs with its ears pressed backwards on its head.

  ‘What we really need, Mumsy, is for you to take us to the playhouse. Frederick could do it, if he could get away from the Temple for a moment.’

  ‘He will do no such thing,’ said Lady Shadforth, groping for her handkerchief. ‘He is a good boy and must not be distracted from the law.’

  ‘Why, Mumsy, he is at the playhouse every afternoon, I’ll warrant,’ said Grisella, whirling about and careening into me, which made me titter. Grisella’s silliness was always catching.

  ‘Of course he is not at the playhouse!’ scolded Lady Shadforth. ‘It is not the place for young men of the quality – nor young ladies either. Let us have no more talk about it. Or I will have to go to your father and tell him about it – and I know he will not be pleased.’

  We were quiet then, for Lord Shadforth’s short and blustery temper was well known to us. We had often been subject to his bellowings and chidings when we were romping about the house. I did not like to be shouted at, for I was not used to it at home.

  The afternoon was fine and cloudless so my friend and I spent it out of doors, first teasing the cat, by putting it in a baby’s bonnet, then making leaf garlands when it ran away and crowning ourselves with them, and then following the trail of the stream known as The Cut up to Peasey Hill, which was often our habit when there was nothing in particular to do. When the sun went in and the air became chill, and having left our mantles behind, we went and sat in the little barn of the neighbouring farm which was kept stacked with hay bales, and so was convenient for lounging.

  ‘Oh how will I bear it, Griss,’ I said. ‘I have put my plot to run away entirely aside, and must resign myself to my coming state of marriage... but how?’ I cast my limbs out in an attitude of despair. ‘Oh if you could have seen him at the sliding! He came round from his concussion most groggily and was very ill-tempered afterwards. I had to support him back to the house like he was my grandfather, for he would moan and carry on about the wrench in his neck and the soreness in his head...’ Here I imitated him.

  Grisella tittered. She had been so far unsympathetic to my anxieties about Tyringham, being certain of a marriage to a young and handsome duke, for her mother would have it no other way and scolded her father about it almost daily.

  I sighed. ‘He is not handsome and he is old. I’ll warrant we’ll spend all of our evenings from now until Domesday stock still in the parlour, he droning on about the war – there is always a war somewhere, it seems – you have not heard his voice, it rattles like a drum – and me docilely picking at a linnet until my fingers bleed.’

  Grisella laughed.

  ‘You must promise to come to me and visit with us and then we can make messes in the kitchen, and practise our dancing, and I might be able to bear it.’

  ‘I’d give all my gowns to get a husband and be safe away from this dreary place,’ said she, getting an elm twig out of her pocket, and chewing at it. ‘Mumsy is really quite unbearable since she got an ague, and then another, and then a third, and believes this latest one will not ever leave her. She is forever getting tinctures made up by the apothecary at Oakingham, which are horrid and do not work. Poor Aunt Tilda tried the potion made of bat droppings and nettles, and turned quite grey, and was sick in her lap. She had a cake in it at the time, and was most put out to lose it.’

  ‘That apothecary is quite famously bad; I believe he has no talent, and gets all his remedies from Lilly’s book, which you or I would do much better at following, for we at least can read. You must go to my Mrs Goodsoule for she is Wise and has given our family many remedies for things, when we are ill. Why, Mother was looking a great deal better when I left, for she has been drinking a posset daily, and Mrs Goodsoule chanting over her, when she may. Mother’s eyes were so much brighter for it, I almost asked if I mayn’t stay home after all.’

  ‘Why, I believe you spend all your time with that family, drinking nasty potions and incanting things. And your accent has turned quite countrified you know; you have quite a burr coming along and sound just like Mary these days. Don’t scold me now, for I know it to be the truth. Egad, wouldn’t I laugh my head off if were me who had to sit in their dreary little cottage, with straw on the floor, no doubt, and a pig in the kitchen. I’m sure you come away quite reeking of it. Come now, do admit it isn’t quite nice, spending all that time with the servants. It’s quite strange, Ursula, really it is.’

  ‘Mrs Goodsoule is a kind woman and has been very good to me, though some haven’t,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘Oh yes, I daresay,’ said Grisella, yawning, which meant she was becoming bored. ‘You needn’t get cross. Only Mumsy wouldn’t let me go near any of the villagers in case it harmed my prospects, or somesuch, you know. We aren’t children any more, Ursula.’

  ‘No indeed.’

  ‘Does His Worshipful Tyringham know about your romps? I’ll fancy it would make his eyes boggle to learn of them.’ Here she began to pretend to passionately kiss the back of her hand. ‘Oh Samuel,’ she said, in a silly high voice. ‘Thank you for the love token, though I would have much preferred a sapphire necklace.’

  ‘I would not have preferred a necklace,’ I said crossly. ‘And you know very well Tyringham does not know anything, and if you dare to breathe a word, I’ll tell all of your bundling with Septimus Harrington round the back of the shepherd’s hut, and then you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Such petulance!’ She watched my face. ‘But I don’t suppose it matters much now you are betrothed. I must say it makes me quite green-eyed, Ursula, despite your husband’s decrepit age. Mumsy says you shall have so many fine dresses – made of lace and silk – think of that! And fine jewels, I’ll warrant, if you can wrench them off his mother. I’ve heard Polly say that the mothers are the worst part of it, hanging onto the family heirlooms for dear life, and their sons too, if they can. Have you yet had an audience with the elder Lady T?’

  ‘Nay, but Tyringham says she’s a godly sort of woman, who will take me on quite as a daughter. She lives in the east wing up at the house and has her own apartments and servants, so it will be quite all right. But,’ I added, seeing Grisella’s eyes widening with what looked like glee, ‘I believe we will dine together five evenings out of seven.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Grisella, digging at a hay bale with her stick. ‘After she has given the order for dinner and told you to wash your hands and behind your ears.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to meeting her,’ I said feebly. ‘And the other parts of
the family, though I believe it is not large.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be – that’s where you come in. But I am looking forward to meeting your trousseau, which I expect will be very fine indeed and much better than you’re used to. You must say now what you will have and then you will be ready for it when the time comes for him to ask about it.’

  ‘A great hat with peacock feathers!’ I cried.

  We talked of clothes and fripperies of love, and who we should like as our sweethearts, until the sun was dropping in the sky and we came in to supper with reddened cheeks and shining eyes.

  ‘Oh to be young again!’ cried Lady Shadforth.

  That night I could not sleep and when I finally drifted off, my dreams were all of running, and never being able to get back home.

  XVIII

  DINNER

  In which we dine en famille and I am perturbed

  I had been betrothed for a whole two months long, when Mother announced that Lord Tyringham would be joining us for dinner, to which Reginald let out a great ‘Wooooooo!’ and made me blush, and my father told him to get on with his conjugating, for he had not taken to languages as I had, and did it very ill indeed.

  I had a pair of new gowns, for we had had the dressmaker make up dresses for my courting, and I had new stockings and slippers too, and Mother bade Mary help me quickly put them on, and tidy my hair, for Tyringham had sent word he was arriving at noon.

  My sweetheart had a pinched look about his face when he came into the parlour and wished us all how we did: he was chilled from the ride, he said; the wind was bitter and had whipped about his neck. My mother and father murmured their platitudes, and I dropped my curtsey, to which he came and took my hand and kissed it at the wrist, leaving a small wet mark that I wiped on my skirts.