The Illumination of Ursula Flight

by Anna-Marie Crowhurst

  ‘That is not like you either!’ she cried. ‘For where are your books and your plays? And where are the ink stains on your hands?’ She grabbed my hand and turned it over. ‘White and fair and not a mark on them,’ she said.

  ‘I have not written anything for a while,’ I said, twisting my hands and looking down at them, for I did not want to look into her eyes. ‘Tyringham does not like to see me scribbling and I am confined to snatched moments, and when he is away at Court, as now. But my lute is coming on quite well. After supper, you shall hear it, and Sibeliah shall accompany me on the harpsichord...’ I trailed off. ‘It is lamentable, I know,’ I said, my voice beginning to wobble. ‘For I cannot—’ I could not finish the sentence.

  Grisella looked at me a long while, and then took up my arm again and patted it. ‘Well now, we cannot have this. But ’tis easily remedied. After we have taken our tea – if that lackadaisical slut ever brings it, no doubt she is ladling some of it into her pockets to sell at market – we shall go and act a script together. You must have something we can play at? For I cannot believe you have written nothing all these months.’

  ‘I have a few fragments,’ I said, knuckling my eyes. ‘But faith, they are not ready...’

  ‘It does not signify,’ she said, waving her hands. ‘For we shall act it out together, and be merry all the while. And you shall not weep.’

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  MAID/LORD – Lady Ursula Tyringham

  LADY – Lady Grisella Shadforth

  ACT II, SCENE II

  Morning. A lady’s chamber, in disarray. The drawers of the dressing table stand open. Fripperies spill out – green ribbons, ropes of pearls, white handkerchiefs, bits of lace. On the bed a hump of lilac and sky-blue and saffron yellow. The hump begins to move. A head and shoulders emerge. It is a MAID, dressed in her lady’s finery. She spins in a circle. The striped petticoat she is wearing flares out. She rights herself; pulls something from the pile – a fur – and drapes it around her neck. She backs away from the pile and takes three steps to the looking glass. She is singing.

  MAID: A brisk young man, dilly dilly/Met with a maid/And laid her down, dilly dilly/Under the shade/There they did play, dilly dilly/And kiss and court/All the fine day, dilly dilly/Making good sport!

  She holds out her arms. Dances a couple of steps.

  MAID: Lavender’s green, dilly dilly/Lavender’s blue/You must love me, dilly dilly/Because I love—

  LADY: [Crashing the door open and striding into the room] Beck! You did not come so I – oh!

  She slowly comes towards the girl. Stops. Looks at the bed. Looks back at the girl.

  LADY: Came to find you. What – what – are you doing?

  She stands in front of her maid. Slowly looks her up and down.

  LADY: My things! All my clothes – that is my... you are wearing my new petticoat! And that – that is the ermine pelisse my mother gave to me as an Advent gift. And my best silk chemise! This – is a – a scandal!

  MAID: My Lady—

  LADY: And you stand there so bold, looking me in the eye and you say ‘My Lady’. My Lady what? What excuse can you have now, Beck? I think you will have none, for there can be none.

  The MAID says nothing, but gazes ahead, clicking her tongue.

  Kick off my slippers – now! They do not even fit you – you will stretch them with your great feet. Take everything off immediately. I will have to have it all cleaned for the stench of you will be all over it.

  The MAID obeys, silently. She takes off the stole, drops it on the floor. Shakes her feet out of the slippers. She bends down and pushes herself out of the skirt, leaving it in a messy puddle.

  Pack up your box and make ready to leave this house. Brignall will give you your wages, with your fines deducted, and that is more than you deserve. You shall not have a reference, for you have been nothing but trouble to me, and I would not wish you on another, and so you must shift for yourself.

  MAID: My Lady.

  LADY: My Lady, what?

  MAID: We’ll see what the master says about it.

  LADY: The master? What he says does not signify for you are my maid and I am Lady here.

  The MAID smirks.

  LADY: You dare to meddle with me?

  She slaps the maid smartly around the face. The MAID takes the blow dog gedly; she is used to it. Her smirk grows wider.

  LADY: There! That hurt my hand.

  The MAID presses her hand to her cheek.

  LADY: Do not tarry here, else I’ll fetch the constable to see you off.

  MAID: If you say so, my Lady.

  LADY: Be gone from my sight!

  Exit MAID.

  ACT II, SCENE III

  The same chamber, later that day. The room is turned yellow with afternoon light. The clothes and fripperies have been tidied away. The LADY sits in a chair by the window with a book in her hand. She is scribbling in it furiously. She looks up as the door creaks open and stuffs the book hastily behind a cushion. The LORD comes into the room, and frowns when he sees her in the chair. She gets up quickly. Turns around to check the cushion is still in its place.

  LADY: Ah, husband!

  LORD: I came up to find my gloves. There’s a nip in the air – you wouldn’t think it from in here.

  LADY: Nay. [Pause] How does Sir Bernard do today?

  LORD: Oh, much the same, eyeing me mournfully, and seems rather low in spirits. Hanging his head and so on. But he took a good meal last night, and we hope he shall recover yet.

  LADY: How I pity that horse, for there is nothing worse than a belly ache – we women know that more than anyone.

  LORD: You are still troubled by the... pains then? I thought I had not noticed the signs of your cursing.

  LADY: I have been craving pineapple since Tuesday last, and that may be a sign.

  LORD: It may be a sign that you are craving pineapple.

  LADY: ’Tis true. But I can do nothing but hope. And pray, of course. Lots of praying.

  LORD: Hmm. Have you seen my gloves?

  LADY: Are they in your closet?

  He goes through a door. Sounds of rummaging.

  LADY: Husband, I am glad you are come, for there is a matter I would speak with you about.

  LORD: [Enters, holding the gloves] Inside one of my boots! Who would do such a thing?

  LADY: This vexing matter...

  LORD: I am very vexed – by the gloves in my boots.

  LADY: I have pondered long and hard on the subject...

  LORD: You do prattle, child. What shoes are you wearing today? Are they the ones I bought you?

  LADY: [Sliding her foot out from below her skirts] No, they are the rose-pink slippers.

  The LORD sighs.

  LADY: I thought about it, and I realized that I, a woman, should not attempt to tussle with my quandary for my brain was not made for it and it is too hard.

  LORD: You talk too much of brains. [Putting on the gloves] I believe you’re trying to get round me.

  LADY: Indeed not, husband. I only, as your loving wife, wish for your help and guidance in this difficulty.

  LORD: Well out with it, for I have business to attend to and cannot shilly-shally all day.

  LADY: ’Tis Beck.

  LORD: Not this again.

  LADY: This morning I found her in a compromising position.

  LORD: Is that so – indeed I... where were you? I mean, what position was it? Forgive me, a position! My, my, how dreadful.

  LADY: Here in this very chamber, I found her – and this you will not believe – dressed head-to-toe in my garments and wearing all of my jewels.

  LORD: Oh.

  LADY: And she was singing!

  LORD: I see.

  LADY: I told her that such abominable insolence could not be tolerated, and she must leave us at once.

  She watches his face. He is smoothing out each of his gloves in turn. He considers his hand. Wig gles his fingers.

  LORD: Nay, nay, we cannot do that.


  LADY: What, husband? Why?

  LORD: ’Twould not be wise.

  LADY: But she has been disobedient! She has worn my clothes – she with her stench and her... greasy bosom.

  LORD: Aye. I shall ask Mama to scold her roundly. And she shall be fined. One shilling. That should do it.

  LADY: But I have told her – I have given her notice. It will look... it will look... as if I am not mistress here.

  LORD: You are young, child. But you will learn that it does not do to speak to the servants when your passions are roused.

  LADY: I am sixteen now, and will be seventeen three months hence!

  LORD: Now, now, lambikin. Beck has committed a... misjudgement. But no harm is done, really. The clothes are not torn... the jewels are not tarnished – are they?

  LADY: Nay, but they shall all have to be washed, for they stink of her!

  LORD: We will have her clean them all, then, and that will be her punishment.

  LADY: But I do not like her, Tyringham. I do not want her here.

  The LORD fumbles with his gloves. He does not meet her eye.

  I am Lady Tyringham. I am your wife! I—

  LORD: Aye. You are my wife. Do not forget it.

  He turns on his heel, banging the door behind him.

  Exit LORD.

  A pause.

  LADY: God’s gizzards, did this really happen, Urse? But this is monstrous.

  LORD: Aye, ’tis the truth.

  LADY: I fear marriage is not the piece of currant cake I thought it.

  LORD: Nay, Grisella, ’tis not that at all.

  Curtain

  After our playing Grisella enjoyed herself immensely, rifling through my trunks and boxes and making suggestions such as ‘You ought to have pearls sewn at the top of these sleeve slashes.’ And ‘A brooch would look very well on this hat.’ ‘Frederick says all the London ladies go about in famous high pattens to wade through the filth they have on the streets there; you ought to get some made, for you could do with a few inches.’ I managed to distract her from this with a tour of the house, during which she said uncharacteristically little, but instead made a collection of polite noises like ‘Ohmm’ and ‘Ah’.

  I ended the tour where I had begun it, in the entrance hall. ‘And that... is Turvey.’

  ‘Oh Urse,’ she said, sweeping her eyes up from the marble statues to my face. ‘Isn’t it spooky! How do you walk around it at night?’

  ‘Why, I don’t come down here after lights out,’ I said, laughing at her rounded eyes. ‘And if there are spectres walking here, I haven’t heard them.’

  ‘Yet,’ she said. ‘Let’s go outside, out of the gloom.’

  The sun was high in the sky, and the weather fine for September, and it felt good to walk about with my arm tucked in Grisella’s, she chattering all the while. The walled garden (which had got rather wild) and the maze she liked better than Poseidon (‘Ostentatious – but not in the right way’) or the Dowager’s ornamental flower garden (‘’Tis plain colours are not her forte. She should apply to look around Hoyden Park, for Mumsy has been and even the kitchen garden looks the better for it’).

  That evening we assembled in the parlour. The fire belched out coal smoke in thick grey plumes, for we were experimenting with this new kind of fuel; though the Dowager predicted no good would come of it, my husband said it was what the King had at Whitehall. Grisella, coughing a little, settled herself on the settee beside me in an attitude of exhaustion and kicked her feet onto the little stool, all the better to show off the shoes her papa had got for her in Italy, which had buckles studded with seed-pearls and a high wooden heel.

  ‘God’s giddy gizzards,’ she sighed. ‘I am quite done up with all our larks today, Ursula.’

  ‘Why, we only walked around the house and gardens,’ I said, watching the Dowager.

  ‘Aye, but ’tis all the fresh air out here in the country. I swear I could drop dead in my chair as I sit.’ She yawned extravagantly behind her hand.

  ‘Bynfield is hardly the town,’ I began, but Grisella had already revived herself.

  ‘’Tis wonderful to be here, Countess,’ said Grisella when we were all settled in our places. ‘Turvey Hall is... just as Ursula described it to me.’

  The Dowager nodded graciously and had a thin sort of smile on her lips.

  ‘Do you not sew?’ said Sibeliah from behind her screen, a needle trailing scarlet thread in her hand. She had been eyeing my friend very closely indeed ever since she had laid eyes on her at supper and seemed to find her baffling, or entrancing – I could not quite make out which.

  Grisella laughed very gaily and shook out her curls, which she had re-primped before we came down to supper. She was wearing a buttercup-coloured gown I had not seen before, and she looked peachy and beautiful in the firelight.

  ‘Ho, no, none of that for me, though Mumsy will scold me about it almost every evening. I sometimes strum a lute, for I have lovely plump hands and arms,’ here she extended them for the company to view, ‘and it shows them to their best advantage – I have heard,’ she added, an earnest look on her face. ‘I would not say so myself.’ She folded her hands artfully in her lap and leaned back in her chair.

  ‘We are not idle in the evenings here,’ said the Dowager, picking up her sewing. ‘Ursula will fetch a lute for you if you wish it, and you shall accompany her on the harpsichord, which we are all keen for her to practise more.’

  ‘I can play the first bit of Lully’s Miserere almost all of the way through without looking,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no one modish listens to Lully any more,’ said Grisella scornfully. ‘It’s too depressing. You have to wonder what goes on at Versailles, really you do. But that is those frog-eaters all over, in faith.’

  The Dowager was heard to cough.

  ‘I think it’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘It makes me weep.’

  ‘And why would you want to weep, indeed?’ said Grisella in a way that sounded exactly like her mother. ‘But I expect it’s hard to keep up with things out here in the country – why, the nearest village must be ten miles hence. But I knew it was so, and I have brought reams of sheet music with me, got by Frederick in London especially for you, Ursula, which includes...’ here she moved her lips about teasingly ‘... and Urse will know what I am about – one Master Henry Purcell, who I have heard has a very fine calf on him, and not a bad face – and there is an etching of him on the frontispiece.’ She winked at me. ‘You will like him, Sibeliah, for he has written much of it praising the Lord.’

  The Dowager opened her mouth and closed it again.

  ‘Why, I do enjoy a godly refrain,’ said Sibeliah, pausing in her embroidery.

  ‘Grisella, you are kind,’ I said, squeezing her arm.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Grisella, turning her head to me. ‘It is wrapped in my trunk, if we may send someone to fetch it.’

  ‘I will ring,’ said the Dowager, picking up the silver bell which she kept by her side. ‘But we do not oft send the servants running about for trifles.’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t a trifle, Countess Tyringham. ’Tis a necessity,’ said Grisella, and laughed.

  XII

  FRUSTRATION

  In which I consider my position, and am unhappy

  The mantel clock ticked on and on. I was lying on the couch in my chamber one October afternoon, my head on a silk cushion, my skirts thrown over the seat back. It had been raining, but the sun had come out and now the windows were dappled with minuscule raindrops, each one lit up and shimmering in the light. My linnet had stopped singing a week ago, and a musty smell floated around his cage. He no longer hopped onto my finger when I opened the little door, nor fluttered from perch to perch in a flurry of feathers. Neither did he flick his head into the little thimble of water I had placed there for him, and filled up every day, as Beck – who despite all my protestations had not been put out – could not be trusted to remember and I did not want him to go thirsty. I tipped my head back to look at him. He stood, silen
tly, on the floor of the cage.

  ‘Are you bored, my little one?’

  It was four hundred and fourteen days since my marriage: I had marked my almanac, crossing off each day as it passed: the pleasing slice of the pen as it struck through a sunset, a sunrise. Four hundred and fourteen days at Turvey Hall, with the dust and the wind and the slitted eyes of servants and the taste of strange food on my tongue, and the rustle of my stiff new clothes. Four hundred and thirteen nights, with my husband wheezing his sour breath into my face, the press of his limbs on mine, the wet kisses he laid on my forehead, the way he took my star-shaped body, while my mind floated far away, up to the bright night sky.

  I still did not feel like the lady of my own house. I could not do the things my mother had told me would be expected of a wife, and all my practising with her at ordering dinners from the kitchen, and keeping stock of the housework, and overseeing the servants, had come to naught, for the Dowager did it all, and shushed my every complaint. So I walked about the corridors of Turvey Hall in a frilled silk wrap, and supped my potage with a silver spoon embossed with my initials, and dreamed of another, more useful sort of life.

  I let my arm fall down from the pillow and trailed my fingers along the surface of the carpet, which was thick and red and brought from Persia. I looked up again at my linnet. Such a pretty cage he had: with slender bars stretching upwards in a dome shape surmounted by a little golden figure, a nightingale, its beak pointing proudly to the sky, clawed feet resting on a scroll which had my new name – not so new any more – picked out in cursive script: Tyringham. The cage, and the linnet, were a gift from my husband, who had had it sent all the way from Paris, where it was the fashion for ladies to keep songbirds, which were pretty pets, so much prettier than dogs. That’s what my husband said, as he whisked away the cloth that covered it on my first day at Turvey Hall, and said he hoped I would be amused and comforted, for he wished me to be happy and content.