The Illumination of Ursula Flight

by Anna-Marie Crowhurst

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘My business with Lord Knox was completed more quickly than I had foreseen.’

  His face was pouchy and pale and I could see the shadow of his neck, smeared with road-grime. I sniffed at his sooty scent which was fire and leather and the tang of low taverns. He twisted his body towards me, and there was something like softness in his face.

  ‘What do you do here, pray?’ he said, looking around at the bed curtains. ‘’Tis dark downstairs for none of the lamps are lit... you are a little rosy about the face... and there – there is a rash on your chest. Are you took ill? I have been thinking that I should call for a physician, for you have not been yourself of late, and Mama writes that you may have been afflicted with a melancholy, and need a dosing.’

  ‘I am not ill again, thank Jesu,’ I began, a little astonished at the friendly tone in his voice, ‘or melancholic – just a little... spent. London is so diverting. So I am... resting.’ I trailed off for fear that I was babbling and making my deceit all too plain. I was uncomfortable at our sheer proximity too, for ever since I had given myself to Samuel, being near to my husband gave me disquiet. I had avoided his caresses as much as I could, feigning sleep when he knocked on the door of my chamber at night, and a cough when he sat by me in the parlour. Now there was a strange knot under my ribs that made it hard to breathe and I wished that he would leave me, and go downstairs.

  ‘I fear I have not shown you enough of the city as much as you would wish,’ he said, smoothing the coverlet.

  ‘I – I am finding much to love about London,’ I said carefully. ‘But it does not signify who shows me it – I have Arabelle to accompany me to the ’Change for fripperies – and we have been to dine, and to walk in the park with some other young ladies – and a great many other things. She has been very kind to me,’ I finished, watching his face for signs of incredulity – but there were none.

  My husband nodded. ‘I thought perhaps...’ he watched my face, ‘we might take a barge down the river – to Greenwich, perhaps, which is a mighty pretty place. Travelling by water is a thing most commonly done here, and you might like to try it for yourself, before we return to Turvey.’

  ‘Aye,’ I began, thinking of how Samuel and I had done the self-same thing but two weeks before, and kissed and whispered lovers’ things while the oars of the boatman swished against the water. Then I stopped, realizing what my husband had said.

  ‘Return to Turvey?’ I stammered. ‘But when – surely not soon?’

  ‘Rex is to remove the Court to Windsor, for his physician thinks the London air too full of dark miasmas. And so your husband shall not be needed here.’ This he said in a jovial sort of voice. ‘We will leave on Thursday, I think – or Friday if the weather is inclement.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘I did not think to leave so soon.’ My voice sounded shrill in my own head and my throat had begun to stop up. ‘Thursday is – a week hence – six days! I will have to say my goodbyes and pack, and...’ I swallowed. ‘There are many things to do. I think – could we not stay a little longer? A month, I think, would give me time to prepare myself.’ I realized that I had bunched the coverlet in my fist while I spoke.

  ‘A week is plenty of time to make ready,’ my husband said, standing up and brushing at his breeches. ‘And you can always write. I am sure Lady Vyne would forgive you that.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said, feeling for the book behind me. ‘I can always write.’

  XXVI

  VACATION

  In which I come to a decision

  I awoke on the morning of the 10th day of December, 1682 with the sensation that I was hovering on the lip of a precipice, and whether I would trip at the edge of it and fall down to my death or run and take flight and soar over the mountain tops, I did not know.

  Upon learning of my imminent departure, I had dashed off a note to Samuel, and sent it out with Jessamy, caring little even that I should be discovered, for I was so cast down in misery at the thought of being shut up again with the Dowager, away from the playhouse, and being without my love. His answer came but a short while later, as I lay with wet eyes upon my bed, having moaned into my bolster for the past hour or more.

  It read in a bold, black hand,

  MY OWN TRUE LOVE,

  We knew this time would come. You must now come into keeping with me, and let me look after you and love you as only I can.

  Be my Ursula Flight, always.

  SAMUEL.

  And I had answered, with tears on my face, that I would, oh I would!

  God forgive me, I wrote in my little book. But there is no other way.

  Though Samuel had consoled me by saying that at Court cuckolding a husband was as commonplace as catgut, I still fretted over the magnitude of what I was about to do, for I knew breaking my marriage would surely bring great shame on all that were tied to me by blood. I knew, too, that my life would never be the same, but precisely how, I did not know, for I had never heard of a wife who had left her husband; I had not thought it were possible, until now. When these thoughts gnawed at me, I told myself that I had little choice in the matter before me, for if I did not go to be with Samuel, I would surely die of unhappiness.

  Thoughts of a new life with Samuel were the thing that kept me afloat in the mire of my anxiety – a life in which I could read and write and visit the playhouse as much as I could wish and perhaps have a tutor besides, for I believed Samuel was rich enough, and he said he would have me continue my instruction in languages and history and the science of all things.

  Blessedly, my husband was out when a note came by messenger in which Samuel laid his plan for my escape before me. I turned it over and over in my mind, murmuring it to myself like a litany, in my closet, before putting it on the fire.

  Over the next few days, I laid plans to smuggle out the things that I would need – a bundle of my favourite clothes were to leave the house in the guise of being sent out for mending, and Jessamy – whom I had bribed with a crown not to ask what I was about – would carry the books and papers I could not do without in a sack to a nearby tavern. The Flight family jewels I sewed into the skirts of the gown I would wear for my escape, leaving behind the ugly Tyringham heirlooms that sat heavily around my neck and wrists. I did not intend to take much with me, for I was certain Samuel would shower me with finery – besides, as the servants were packing our trunks for our removal to Turvey, the lack of too many of my possessions would be sure to arouse suspicion.

  Waiting a propitious evening for my departure dragged agonizingly, for my husband, once so distant where I was concerned, had lately suffered a change of temperament. He seemed now curiously solicitous of my health and state of mind, and inclined to ask me how I did and what I was about, as well as hanging about the house in the evenings, watching me while I ate, sewed, or strummed my lute. Though inside I burned with exasperation, I had done all of these things as calmly as I could, concentrating my mind evermore steadfastly on the quitting of my dull old husband for good.

  ‘You’re too late,’ I thought, every time he spoke to me, or patted my arm, or smiled. ‘Far too late now, for I am no longer yours and belong to another.’

  Henry House, London

  The 14th day of December, 1682 A.D.

  TYRINGHAM,

  I must set this down. I cannot say it to you in person, for you will try to stop me and that I cannot have.

  Here it is:

  I have been so full of woe being married to you I have been wracked with it.

  I blamed myself at the first; I was a girl when you took me for your wife three years ago – what did I know of love? I thought our union was as it should be, and I would learn in time, to repress my instincts and desires, but, oh, how I have suffered for it!

  I have wept in my closet, while you slept. I have gritted my teeth while you have laboured in your lovemaking (’tis the wrong word for what has passed between us, for there was no love in it). And all the while I thought: we are learning to love each other. One day, I shall look into his f
ace and see that he delights in me and thinks me the best of women. One day, I shall be his true love.

  But then I caught you with that stinking jade, and I began to see that our union was not as I thought it. And though I made every effort to love your sister and mother as my own, they had hardened their hearts towards me and could not like me for myself, for in wanting to learn things and improve my knowledge of the world, I showed that I am not like them and never shall be.

  I have thought on all these things. And I am truly certain now that the day will never come when our hearts and souls cry out for one another. Therefore I can no longer be your wife.

  Oh, what is the point of writing more, for you shall not take any of it in – I do not think you have ever listened – truly heard a word that I have said. You do not know me. You never shall.

  Hear this, Tyringham: I release you from our contract and all duties and portions due unto me. I ask that you divorce me – I do believe that this would be the best thing for both of us. I pray that you will be happy with some other woman who is meant for you, for I am not.

  I have taken only my own jewels and clothes, so pray do not cry thief at me, for what I have now is far less than you got from my father when we married. ’Tis the last thing I shall ever take from you. This I solemnly swear.

  Do NOT try to seek me out – for you shall not find me, I am gone away to France and shall set up as a nun. By the time you read this I shall have one foot on the Continent, and thence I shall disappear into peace, and be happy at last as I cannot be with you. Do NOT seek me out – I pray that you will grant this one thing I ask, though you have denied me every other thing I wanted.

  From she that is no longer your,

  URSULA FLIGHT

  It was deep night when I stole out of the scullery door of Henry House, letting it close gently behind me, wrapping my cloak more tightly around me against the bitter air that seeped down my throat and made me catch my breath.

  I stepped into the knot garden and across it as quietly as I could, my hands out before me in the blackness, avoiding the gravel path that crunched underfoot. In no time at all, I was at the back wall. I felt light and strangely unburdened – I had only the clothes I stood up in, and my winter cloak atop the whole. I climbed onto the upturned box that I had positioned under cover of darkness the night before and, bending my body, jumped and caught at the wall, before heaving myself upwards and throwing first one leg, then the other over it. Sitting atop the wall, I craned my neck backwards to have a last look at the place where I had changed from a sad little wife to a man’s merry mistress, but I could only make out a long black shadow, for the moon was waning and the night was dark. The sharp turrets of Turvey Hall floated into my mind, a place I dearly hoped never to lay eyes on again. I smiled at this.

  I twisted my body, and, caring not that I snagged my thin gloves on the rough brick, slid down the other side of the wall as lightly as I could, landing with a squelch, and a half twist of my ankle, into the pitch-black pathway that ran between the dwellings there.

  I stood there, panting in the dark.

  ‘You took your time, Cassandra,’ came the sweetest voice I ever heard, and my Samuel was at my side, his woody smell mingling with the brick dust and mud and river-fog that was London. He took up my hand and pointed to the sky.

  ‘See, Urse,’ he said. ‘The stars have come out for us, and will light us home.’

  I found I could not speak.

  He kissed me, and took my arm in his, and held it close to his body, and that is how we stepped together; down, down the little pathway, and out into the street, to freedom.

  I

  JOY

  In which my new life brings me great happiness

  I was free of him. I was free. Oh, what it was to be free – I felt light with it, giddy with freedom, as if I were no longer attached to the earth and might float away at any moment. My body, too, felt like a live and glowing thing I did not recognise, for the first thing Samuel had done when he got me away to our new lodgings was press his hard man’s body to mine, and, pushing his tongue into my mouth and caressing my secret until I sighed, had me against the wall, with a vigour I had not afore experienced, and then he had me again bent over the bed, and then I sat astride him on the only chair, which was then the only other stick of furniture in the room, and was not very sound, for as I began to reach my zenith and rode him evermore violently, the chair began somehow to collapse, and we both fell pell mell onto the floor, and that was how we christened the place, amen.

  The lodgings Samuel had taken were quite comfortable, I thought, a set of rooms in a house outside the city wall, in the pretty village of Clerkenwell, which being an unfashionable part of the city, home to but a few watchmakers and merchants, was the perfect refuge from the Court gossips, and the ideal place for us to live as man and wife, without fear of discovery by my husband. Samuel had given out – once the bruits concerning my disappearance had begun to seep into all corners of the Great Hall and the Stone Gallery – that he was as shocked as any person to hear the news, and made certain to spend every night in his Court lodgings then, until the tongues had ceased to wag on my mysterious disappearance, and Tyringham removed again to Turvey. I shivered to hear this, thinking of how he must face the Dowager and her obloquy, and hugged to myself the thought that I would never again have to feel her dark eyes upon me and roaming hungrily over my belly.

  I had money from Samuel for the hiring of servants, and I engaged a sweet-looking, plump-armed girl called Tara who went about her work with a cheerful vigour that reminded me so much of Mary, and a woman for the rough work – a widow with a surly eye and a bristly chin who sniffed at my instructions, fastening her eyes on my wedding ring, which I had not left off, for Samuel said we should only have to replace it with a tin one.

  I set about establishing our little nest with an energy that I had not had when setting up house with Tyringham, and wondered at the difference that love made. Though our rooms were somewhat threadbare and plain, there was beauty to me in every Spartan inch of it, from the rough woollen window curtains, to the tatty rush matting and the scrubbed oak table where we took our simple meals.

  In my first few days of freedom, I was much afraid to go out of doors, for fear I should be discovered – despite my ruse that I had gone to be shut up in a convent, I greatly suspected the shame I had brought down on the Tyringham name would be reason enough for my husband to comb the streets of the city to find me. I shut myself up therefore, and put the time I had to scribbling, for with Samuel’s encouragement, I had begun to feel that I might be a passable writer after all, and that it was quite as worthwhile a hobby as stitching Bible verses or strumming at a lute. Though I longed to write to my mother and Grisella to let them know that I was safe and well, and not as far away from them as they might suppose, Samuel had advised me that I should not, for fear they would give us away, and so I shut myself up with my books and my papers, and my love, to console me.

  Samuel came to me whenever he could, excepting those occasions when he could not excuse his presence from Court – for even in his advancing years, it still pleased the King to be in a whirl of balls and banquets and masques. Otherwise we lived as a true married couple, but in an accord such as I had never known in my old life. Samuel liked to talk – and to hear me talk – on diverse subjects, and so we conversed on every topic from the conquering of the Americas to the movement of the planets and the discoveries made by the fellows of the Royal Society which, being a courtier, Samuel was well-placed to hear. One evening, fortified by a bottle of Rhenish and a roast joint sent up from a tavern, we talked together until the sky was pale with sunrise, and laughed the both of us to see it. We went for walks around the village green too, when it did not rain, for we could talk then too, and be free in our ways with one another, for who would look twice at a young man and his sweetheart-wife, he with his hand about her waist, she laughing at some merry thing he has said, and the two of them looking as gay and deep in
love as it is possible to be?

  As to fucking, it was plentiful, for I had not yet grown tired of the sport that seemed so new to me. It was so different from what I had endured with my husband, and gave me so much pleasure, I liked to have it every night I could, and Samuel, being young and lusty, was mostly happy to oblige. I went about with a bright complexion and a lovelight in my eyes that made my sweetheart laugh and call me beautiful, and though I knew myself very wanton, I pushed all thoughts of sinning from my mind, for all else to me was a joy of the very truest kind.

  II

  DOMESTICITY

  In which I enjoy a pleasant evening at home

  ACT III, SCENE IV

  A cold winter’s day. A parlour. At one end, a table is half-laid for supper. TARA, a servant girl, bustles about, sweeping the floor with a besom; wiping plates with a cloth. Enter MRS SHEREWIN, a pretty young gentlewoman in a green gown. She has grey-blue eyes and dark golden hair formed into kiss curls across her forehead.

  MRS SHEREWIN: It looks very neat, Tara. I will light the candles if you would go down to the inn and fetch up our supper. [Tossing her a purse] Here is the money for it – take a penny for yourself.

  TARA: Aye, mistress. Thank ye, mistress. A leg o’ mutton and a dish of oysters and a sugared cheese, I will fetch it, mistress. I hope Mr Sherewin is hungry.

  MRS SHEREWIN: Oh, he always has a great appetite – ’tis a wonder he is so slim still, yet however much he swallows, his waist remains almost as tiny as mine, for I have remarked on it on many occasions, though his shoulders are broad and his legs very strong and good in the calf...

  TARA: I will get the vittles now, mistress.

  Exit TARA. MRS SHEREWIN lights a taper on the fire and goes about lighting all the sconces in the room, singing all the while. When the candelabra on the table is lit, she lingers a while, staring into the flames. Enter MR SHEREWIN, with a stealthy tread.