MR SHEREWIN: And what does my pretty playmate do, staring into the candle-flames like a witch casting a spell? Dreaming up some witty thing to set down in her play?
MRS SHEREWIN: Oh! You made me jump, you bad man.
He moves to stand behind her; murmurs; wraps his arms around her waist. She leans back towards him. He tilts her head towards his and kisses her deeply. They slowly break away.
MRS SHEREWIN: I have missed you.
MR SHEREWIN: And I you.
Enter TARA, bearing a tray.
TARA: Good evening to ye, master.
She sets the dishes on the table. MR and MRS SHEREWIN seat themselves at it and sip at their wine.
MRS SHEREWIN: And how was your day today, dearling?
A pause. They both turn their eyes to Tara, who is lifting the lid on the steaming dishes, cutting bread. She completes her tasks and wipes her hands on her apron.
TARA: I’ll be taking my leave now, mistress and master.
BOTH: Goodnight!
Exit TARA.
MR SHEREWIN: Remember that we must be careful what we say in front of her, Urse.
MRS SHEREWIN: Aye, I know. I did not mention the Court, or anything that would give us away.
MR SHEREWIN: Nay, you did not.
MRS SHEREWIN: And I did not say anything to disabuse her notion of us as a newly married couple. Faith, Sam, that part is easy for me, for it has only been two weeks but I already feel so truly your wife that I forget it is not so in law.
MR SHEREWIN: You are truly my wife, in my brain and my belly and my heart.
MRS SHEREWIN: I know it.
Across the table, they join hands.
MR SHEREWIN: Now, let us eat, for I am famished! There is nothing like hunting in the rain to make an appetite.
MRS SHEREWIN: How I wish I could see you on a horse.
MR SHEREWIN: ’Tis not much, though the King seems to like it. Today, as we were riding at the gate, he said—
Sounds of violent knocking.
MRS SHEREWIN: ’Tis late – I wonder...
MR SHEREWIN: I will answer it, if you will fill our glasses again, sweet wife of my heart.
He gets up from the table.
MRS SHEREWIN: With a very merry will, husband.
She blows a kiss. He catches it, and puts it in his pocket. She laughs.
Exit MR SHEREWIN.
MRS SHEREWIN fills the glasses from a jug. Sips from her glass. Pokes at her food with her fork. At the sound of footsteps, she raises her head, gets on her feet.
Enter MR SHEREWIN, with a man behind him.
MR SHEREWIN: [Urgently] I could not stop him, for he forced the door.
He steps aside to reveal LORD TYRINGHAM.
MRS SHEREWIN: Oddsfish! Jesu save us... Hellfire!
TYRINGHAM: So! ’Tis as the Court gossips are saying after all – my wife is not a nun, but a brazen whore.
MR SHEREWIN: I will ask you again, sir, on your honour as a gentleman, to leave this house!
MRS SHEREWIN: What do you do, Oswold?
MR SHEREWIN: Right, that’s it, I’m fetching my sword.
TYRINGHAM: I am come to find you.
MR SHEREWIN: [Brandishing his blade] I command you to leave us! [Pause] You never said his name was Oswold.
TYRINGHAM: I have been searching for you these weeks, since I came home and found you fled, and all the servants bribed and silent. Did you think I would let you cover the house of Tyringham in shame, and drag us all into the mud along with you?
MRS SHEREWIN: I asked you kindly for a divorce, for ’tis a very simple thing as I understand it...
MR SHEREWIN: It really is not difficult...
MRS SHEREWIN: And then you may marry again, to some woman who can love you, as I cannot.
TYRINGHAM: Divorce! How you speak so idly of such abhorrence in the eyes of our Lord Jesu. I am certain that the mere mention of the word would kill Mama.
MRS SHEREWIN: [Aside] Would it were so!
TYRINGHAM: No doubt this young fop is the one who fed such poison into your mouth, for he is well known at Court for his scandals.
MR SHEREWIN: How dare you, sir, for ’tis my devilish good looks I am known for!
MRS SHEREWIN: Take your leave now, Oswold, and forget me. ’Tis better that we part, that must be plain to you, after these three years of bitterness.
TYRINGHAM: I did not think it was that bad. Not bad enough for this.
MR SHEREWIN: You thought wrong; she told me it was terrible.
TYRINGHAM: I shall have to challenge you to a duel, sir, if you keep on with your prating, for I am trying to talk to my lawful wife.
MR SHEREWIN: I would like nothing better, if you will name your place, your weapon, and your second.
MRS SHEREWIN: Let us not talk of duels; you will be arrested or murdered both, and I would not have that, despite all.
TYRINGHAM: What does this popinjay know of duels? Though I warrant ’tis not the first he has been challenged to, for there is none more likely to get his head taken off than a known Court cuckold who sports at love and makes a habit of flirtation.
MR SHEREWIN: Slander! I shall have to kill you on the spot.
MRS SHEREWIN: Nay, Sam. For I would have Tyringham go in peace, if he will.
TYRINGHAM: I will not.
MR SHEREWIN: Then I will slit your nose presently.
MRS SHEREWIN: Do you not see that I am happy, here, such as I have never been before when I was shut up and useless in your house? Tyringham, take your leave, now, I beg you.
TYRINGHAM: I will not leave until I have fulfilled my purpose. You look amazed, wife, and so I shall lay it down before you, if only you can stop up the mouth of this whoreson waving a blade before my face.
MR SHEREWIN: On behalf of my mother, bugger your eyes!
TYRINGHAM: Though I am grievously pained at the wickedness of your actions, I do not believe that news of your adventures have travelled much beyond a few wicked whispers in the Court – no doubt originating with this fool, for ’tis known he cannot stop himself from boasting about his amours...
MR SHEREWIN: Ursula, you know this clod-pate lies!
TYRINGHAM: ... And so you shall come away with me now, and we shall go to Ghent, and when we return it shall seem that you did go off to a convent, to better cleanse your soul, and I gone to get you, and none shall be the wiser of your sin withal.
MRS SHEREWIN: I – I cannot take it in. You would have me come back to you as your wife, despite the fact you find me here, as I am?
TYRINGHAM: I am too generous. But I shall get my reward in heaven, I think. Come now, and get your things. We shall put up at Henry House for the night, and be gone for the Continent on the morrow.
Pause.
MRS SHEREWIN: Nay, Oswold, I will not. For in my eyes I have married another, and shall no longer submit to your commands.
TYRINGHAM: Oh, I am certain he will let me have you, for surely he is grown tired of this charade, and would not wish to tarry here any longer while his wife is growing fat with another babby at home.
MRS SHEREWIN: You have gone too far, sir. I know of Lady Hanbury, and her... condition – and she shall have a divorce too, when the time comes for ’t.
MR SHEREWIN falls to coughing.
TYRINGHAM: Hurry, wife, for ’tis getting dark. If you do not have a trunk, we can send on for your things.
MRS SHEREWIN: I am not coming, Tyringham. I love this man with a fervent passion such as I have never known before.
TYRINGHAM: I’m sure you will get over it.
MR SHEREWIN: She already has, many times, on that very bed.
With a roar, TYRINGHAM draws his sword and rushes MR SHEREWIN, who leaps out of the way, and laughs.
MRS SHEREWIN: Peace! Tyringham, I cannot speak plainer – I will not come with you, or be your wife. Leave my house now, and do not come back. Forget me as I forget you.
TYRINGHAM: Foolish jade! You will regret this more than you know. He will cast you off! Ask him about Lady Franc
es! And Mrs Elton. Ask him!
MR SHEREWIN: The past is the past, I always say.
TYRINGHAM: God damn you both.
He spits on the floor. Exit TYRINGHAM.
MRS SHEREWIN: I cannot believe… how did he find us? How I shake!
They embrace.
MRS SHEREWIN: There was no truth, I know, in any of the things he said?
MR SHEREWIN: About me? Nay, of course not. Pay them no mind.
MRS SHEREWIN: Of course not, my dearling.
MR SHEREWIN: My Ursula.
MRS SHEREWIN: My love.
Curtain
III
CONTENTMENT
In which I go about my daily business
THESE ARE THE THINGS I DID WHEN I AWOKE ON THE MORNING OF 27TH JANUARY 1682/83
Blinked my eyes and yawned very loudly.
Stretched out, eyes still closed, feeling with my hands for Samuel, and then finding him gone, got She Would If She Could from under my pillow (concealed there through long force of habit) and lay abed awhile reading, and laughing aloud all the while, for Etherege is a witty fellow!
Reluctantly got out of bed, and put on a wrapper over my shift. Went into the little cupboard we have as a pantry, and got out a hunk of bread and a little pot of ale and dipped one in the other, and gnawed on a wedge of cheese.
Wrote for a while, at the table, with a rug around my knees, having to poke the fire a great many times, for ’twas a bitterly cold winter’s day, with ice inside the window-panes and a drift of snow up against the door.
Tara dressed me, and I uncurled my hair from its rags and gazed into the glass, thinking how pretty love had made me. (I know this is vanity, but ’tis true!)
After Tara had gone to market, I sat at the table again with my papers and quill before me, but the words would not come, and so I lounged on the chaise reading what I had written before, and making many additions and crossings out.
Fell to writing letters to my mother and Grisella and Mary – for now I was discovered I could tell them freely where I was and it would make no difference. To my mother, I set down my side of the tale, and the reasons that I had gone from my husband, begging her forgiveness for any worry I had caused her in my disappearance, and hoping that she would understand my actions as those of a truly miserable woman. To Grisella and Mary I wrote of Samuel, and how we had come together again, and fallen so deep in amour, smiling as I did so, for even to write of my sweetheart was to feel happy and light.
Wrapped myself in my sapphire-coloured cloak and sable hood and trudged into the snowy street. I then called for a messenger, and gave the boy a coin to carry my letters to where they might go.
Coming in and stamping my feet and brushing the snow off my skirts, I noticed for the first time a letter addressed to me in Samuel’s hand, propped on the mantelpiece, supported by a little cluster of bright red berries on their twigs, that I had bought from a flower-seller and placed there the day before.
In haste
My dearest Cassandra,
A message came from my wife at first light that she is took ill with the babby, and so I have gone to her, and mayhap will stay until the child is come.
I have left twenty pound for you in the usual place, and this should last you for some months, but I shall not be that long, God willing.
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Your,
Samuel
By the second week in February, I had written to Samuel seven times or more, but to my vexation, and though I stayed indoors for as long as I could so I should not miss the messenger, no reply from him came. At first I thought it must be the fault of the terrible weather – for the whole of England had been wracked by swirling snowstorms, and the snow lay a foot thick on the ground. In London the Thames had frozen over into a curving plane of grey ice three feet thick, and so the Frost Fair came again and I knew it was no doubt much worse in the country. But as the ice melted, the thought began to creep into my mind that my love had been took of an illness and died and no one had thought to tell me the news and I spent many long nights weeping and watching the dawn streak across the sky.
The twenty pound that I had looked on with glee as a great fortune, and spent recklessly, I realized only now was running through my hands like sand. Never before having had many dealings with money, for Samuel had paid all of our bills, and gave me only what I needed for fripperies, I was astonished at how expensive everything was. I had the weekly bill for sending out for dinner every day, a demand for the sewing of my new winter wardrobe from the dressmakers, and Tara’s wages besides (for to save my shame I did not tell her of my troubles, and instead talked merrily of my husband’s return), not to mention the nightsoilman, and the victualler, and the baker and the chits that had come from the quill-maker, and book-binder, and paper-seller, too.
By the time the end of February drew on, I was down to my last three pound, and growing desperate, for my letters to my mother had also gone unanswered, while Grisella’s replies were short and curt-sounding, regretting that she had no means to assist me. My messages to Lady Vyne had been returned unopened. I threw them on the fire, even as I wept.
On the chill afternoon when I had sent Tara out for my dinner, and she had returned with the news that no nearby tavern would feed me until I paid them all what I owed, and just a short while afterwards, a knock had come on the door from the dressmaker’s man, threatening bailiffs and to have me arrested (I got rid of him with a sovereign), I made my decision. I would use the last of my money to hire a coach to Hanbury Court at Langley, to see what Samuel was about, and if I could not find him, I would repair to my mother’s; she would surely take pity on me and save me from starvation. The coachman was all ready and Tara and I putting the finishing touches to my trunk when there came another rapping at the door.
‘Lor’, do not answer it,’ I cried, ‘for ’tis certain to be a guard with a warrant for my removal to Newgate.’
But it was only a messenger, for a letter was slid under the door and, pushing Tara out of the way, I ran to pick it up, hoping against hope that my love had written to me at last. Turning it over, I saw my name – my old name – in a looping hand I did not recognize.
Hanbury Court
Langley
The last day of February, 1682/83 A.D.
Mrs Flight,
I am writing to tell you what my husband plainly cannot.
He has given you up and stays with me and my children. I had a boy, you see, and he is the apple of my husband’s eye, he having longed all this while for an heir, and he cannot bear to be parted from him. My husband now makes plans to withdraw from Court, and the King has given his blessing for it, for he well loves my husband, and understands better than any man, the need to be amongst your children. Did you know I only had daughters ‘til now? Two of them, both with my Sammy’s soft brown hair.
He has left each one of your letters unopened, and I found them where he had hidden them, in a foolish place, and so I read them, every one in turn, and burned them all on the fire, so that my daughters should not chance upon your sinful words to the man they know only as their ever loving father.
I do not wish to pain you, madame, for I know from my friends at Court that your situation is not easy, but it may aid you to know that you are one in a long line of women with whom my husband has dallied, before returning again to me. Such is the age we live in – and the nature of men. I think he liked you a little more, perhaps, than they, for he was quiet the first few days he came back to me, but he has recovered himself now, as he always does, and is husband to me again as he always was.
I pray you do not trouble my family again.
May the Lord God have mercy upon you,
Dorcas, Lady Hanbury.
Hiding the tremor in my hands, I bade Tara go and visit her mother for a holiday, and no sooner had I closed the door on her, I let out a great cry of anger, before setting out to smash everything breakable in the house I could lay my hands on, including the f
ine china tea-cups Samuel had got me as a house-warming gift, and the pretty blue jug on the mantel that had held his daily posies, which still had its flowers in, and water besides, which tipped onto the floor and splashed up the grate. I ground the blooms under my heel, feeling the mush of the petals on the floor.
I found the little carved wooden bear, and dashed it with all my might against the wall, then wrenched all the clothes he had given me from their chest: a grand picture hat with a cascade of ostrich plumes draped all over one side, a pearl-white pair of lacework gloves, a fine linen chemise trimmed with ribbons, and a pretty silk gown of soft burnt orange – for that colour was the fashion then, and Samuel had said I must have it. I set about tearing these as best I could, screaming like a banshee as I did it, and throwing the pieces about the room. The hat I could not rent with my teeth or hands, and so I crushed it and threw it on the floor, and stamped on it, and howled all the curses I knew while I did it. In my fury I slipped on it across the floor, and fell down, and then I wept: first, that I had hurt my knee in the falling, and then that I had been a fool, and then that I had lost my one true love, and should never see him, or hold him, or laugh with him again, and then that he had forsaken me when he had sworn to be my own sweetheart for evermore, and then that I would be lost and lonely all my days without him by my side.
I lay on the floor and sobbed my heart out until first the fire went out, and then the sun went down, and I laid awhile on the tatters of my ruined things, swollen-faced and wet about the neck with crying. I thought that now I did not have him, nor nothing to remember him by neither, and I wept again onto my broken hat. Knowing I had not the strength to kindle the fire or to call for vittles neither, I dragged myself to my bed, and finding my broken bear had landed there, her back legs now snapped clean off, bundled myself in the coverings in my misery, whereupon I sniffed at his side of the bed, which smelt of his woody Samuel smell, and I beat my fists into the pillow. I lay wide awake, with aching eyes, running over in my head everything that I must have done wrong and how I could undo it, and only when the cocks began to crow and the light in the room change from pitch-black to smoke-grey did I sleep.
The Illumination of Ursula Flight Page 26