A Step Back in Time

Heavy with despair, my heart a cold stone in my breast, I paced the beautiful gardens at Warblington Manor. I followed the paved path around the tidy lawn and the flower beds rioting with color. There was a nippy autumn chill in the air even though it was only September, and I huddled into my warm cloak like a mouse into hibernation as I walked further and further into the outlying woods, deeper and deeper into the gloomy shade of leafy trees, away from the house—away from the blank shut windows and prying eyes that I suspected were there, but that I could not see.

King Henry had found me a husband. I knew not who he was or from where he came, but I knew that he was intended for me. All the while my heart yearned for Gregory, and I could not be true to another. It was my father who had spoken of this, who’d told my mother while I stood upstairs on our vast rectangular landing, my ear pressed to the great wooden door of his bedchamber. I wished I had heeded my mother’s advice, for she had always told me that good news never came from eavesdropping.

I was here now searching for Gregory. I needed to see him, to touch him, be reassured by him that, even though there must be another, that he would not forsake me. My gown swept the leaves that were already slowly falling from the trees and lay in crispy heaps upon the ground. The air smelled smoky and woody, as dense as logs and coals burning brightly in a grate. In the orchard apples and pears hung heavy and ripe from bowed branches, and their odor, rich as a jug of cider, followed me as I walked.

I could not see Gregory anywhere—he was in none of his usual places. He was not digging the borders, the muscles in his arms rippling as he worked, or on his knees weeding, nor cutting back the roses or scything the lawns. He was not even in the little stone shed where the gardening implements were kept. I dared not go to the little cottage where he lived with his father and his sister. I felt that to go there would not be right. To go there would be a last resort.

I carried on walking, hurrying along, my soft little slippers kicking through dirt and leaves and becoming scuffed at the toes, when I heard a panicked voice behind me. “Ursula, sweetheart, wait for me.”

My mother, Margaret Pole, was rushing after me, her dark cloak flowing behind like wings, the hood pulled up over her hair, tiny curls of which had escaped from the confines of her net and glistened wetly in the sunlight. She was out of breath, and placed a hand on my arm as we both stopped under the shade of overhanging trees.

She was much younger, her face clear and unlined, and her eyes shone very blue. “I need to speak with you,” she said. “Come, let us sit in the walled garden. We can enjoy the last of the sunshine there.”

Dust motes, like tiny fairies, danced in the patch of sunlight surrounding the stone bench as my mother and I sat in the walled garden, our beautiful gowns belling around us like flowers. Birds chirped and squawked in the drowsy air, and I found myself perspiring under my arms and in the crease between my breasts. The walled garden was indeed a sun trap.

“I will waste no time, but cut to the quick,” she whispered to me. “King Henry has found you a husband.”

I bowed my head, hoping to hide my face from my all-seeing mother, but she guessed straight away and, giggling like a girl, chided me, saying, “Ursula—you already know! Have you been eavesdropping again? Listening at doors will do you no good, you know.”

“I know, my mother, for the news can only be bad. Who is he?”

“He is Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford, son of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham. I think he will make a good match, my Ursula, so you need not fear.”

I had heard of him, heard of his name, but asked, “Is he much older than me, Mother?”

She shook her head. “No, only perhaps three summers older.”

“Does my father approve?”

“Yes, my Little Bear. Your father approves.”

I must have looked sad and pensive for, glancing around first of all, she whispered, so close that her breath tickled my ear, making me hunch my shoulders to my ears, “I know that you love another, but believe me Ursula that love can never be a true match. He is a fine, good-looking man, but he is too low born for you, not of your station. It would never be allowed, not only by the king, but your father too.”

I knew all this already, and was aware that Gregory and I were a dream too good to be true, but for the harsh reality to be put so bluntly and so finally made my heart beat with terror.

“I saw you with him,” she carried on whispering. “The day the king came unannounced. Do you remember?”

I nodded, recalling that day in my mind. The day that the sun had glowed so hot and heavy in a clear blue sky. The day that my heart had felt light and free, and Gregory and I, embracing beneath the shade of leafy green trees, had heard the sound of the king’s fanfare as the royal coach, lurching across the drawbridge, had rattled onto the grounds of Warblington Manor. I’d thought that we hadn’t been seen, but we had.

“I will keep your secret, Ursula, my daughter, my love,” my mother told me, squeezing my hand hard, so hard it almost hurt. “Yes, your secret is safe with me till the day I die.”

My mother’s words echoed around and around in my head as I came back to my time, my small corner of the world, and found myself at work at Reynolds & Rhodes. Oh my God, I was in Max’s office—how weird—sitting on the floor surrounded by papers. Had I been in the middle of filing? I couldn’t remember a thing, and apart from a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach I felt fine. At least the room wasn’t spinning as it usually did, and thanked God that Max wasn’t there at the moment. I picked myself up from the floor and, leaving the papers just as they were, fled from the room and went straight to the ladies’ room.

Gazing into the mirror, I was amazed that I looked exactly the same as usual. My dark shoulder length hair was styled as it always was, my fringe cut straight above my eyebrows, and my face, apart from a few freckles across the nose, unblemished and serene. I heard my mother’s words again. “I will keep your secret till the day I die.” Little did she know how her death, so cruel and heartless, would haunt me in all the centuries to come.

Leaving the ladies’ room I went back to my desk. Normal office noise surrounded me; telephones ringing, faint voices from upstairs, and keys clacking from Sarah’s office next door. Had Sarah come back to work, or was Claire still here? I couldn’t remember if Claire had actually left or not.

I heard the front door screech open and heavy footsteps sound across the tiled entrance way. Was that Max coming in at last? Checking my Fitbit, I saw that it was barely nine o’clock in the morning, yet he usually arrived at work a lot earlier than that. Trying not to but looking anyway, I saw that my Fitbit showed a very discouraging number of steps. I really must try to improve.

A sudden vague memory came to me of taking a walk around Langstone Shore so that I could visit the ruin again. Had Max been there? Had we gone back together? Sitting down heavily on my chair I put my fingers to my temples, but they were shaking so badly I had to drop my head into my hands. All the events, past and present, seemed to be merging into one, and my memory was becoming so poor.

I kept awaking to the sound of a baby crying, and sometimes I felt cramps and sharp needle like pains in my stomach and my lower back as I had when giving birth to baby Henry. My mother, Margaret Pole, was constantly whispering in my ear her news at the moment that King Henry had found me a husband, and in my dreams the axe fell again and again onto her poor, unresisting neck.

If that had been Max coming in to work, I really must go and see him. It was time that we had a talk. Purposefully I went from the office and through the entrance way, and then, giving a couple of sharp raps with my knuckles on Max’s door and without waiting for an answering voice, I went in.

***

As I eased open the door the first thing I noticed was that the massive Salvador Dali painting wasn’t on the wall, and the large oval mirror which usually hung over the fireplace was now a smaller square one, in which I could see the reflection of a woman with an intricate updo and wearing a long gown, over which hung a heavy cloak. This woman looked vaguely familiar, and as I walked closer and closer still, I saw with a strange sense of recognition that even though it was me, Hannah Palmer, I was Ursula Pole again.

It was a bright day yet a fire burned in the grate, the orange and red tongues of flame jostling madly up the chimney. A slumbering black cat was curled tight as a ball on the hearth. I had said that I would never come here, to this cottage, to Gregory’s cottage. That it would be wrong and that it would be the last resort, but I had no choice. Fate had brought me here.

I felt as though I was split in two, and was part Hannah and part Ursula, for I knew that I had been here before on a snowy day just after my baby Henry had died, when I had met Isaac and Alice, Gregory’s father and sister. But I also knew that Ursula knew none of this yet. She knew nothing of Baby Henry. I had come into an earlier time in Ursula’s life, and all she knew now was that her heart was sore and she was afraid because King Henry had found her a husband, and she needed to tell Gregory her woeful tale.

There was no sign of Isaac or Alice as quietly I shut the door. The cat stood up, stretched lazily, and stared at me with bright green eyes before licking its glossy fur with a tiny pink tongue.

“Gregory?” I called, “Gregory, are you here?”

I heard brisk movement overhead and then footsteps clattering on the steep stone stairs, and Gregory appeared in the doorway, a huge smile on his handsome face. He wore his usual attire of black trousers and tight white shirt, and he must have been in the middle of washing, for as I pressed myself against him his skin smelt pleasantly damp and soapy.

“Ursula? What brings you here?” He pulled me down on the settee, taking hold of my small hands in his large ones.

“Are you alone?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Yes, for a while. My father and sister are at market for the day, and I am here because my work in the garden is finished for now. What is it, Ursula, Little Bear? Has bad news brought you here?”

“Yes. My mother has told me that the king has found me a husband.” Not being able to sit still for want of going mad, I stood up abruptly and began pacing up and down. The black cat watched me, its tiny head moving from side to side.

He jumped up too and took hold of me, putting his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to face him. “This was bound to happen at some point,” he said. “You are of age. Who is he?”

“Henry Stafford,” I told him, and then, almost sobbing, said, “I know not who he is or even what he looks like. How can I bear to kiss a man who isn’t you!”

Pulling me closer still, Gregory said with a frown, “Henry Stafford? I have seen him—a mincer of a man. Does he not favor men?”

“What do you mean?” I asked him, an innocent at but fifteen years old.

“A man who is a man but not a man,” Gregory replied. And when I looked at him so openly, so young and so trusting, all he could say was, “The world is a cruel place, Ursula.”

The two of us being alone together and entwined so closely was tantalizing, and as his gaze lingered on my mouth and mine on his, our passions rose and we kissed, our tongues entwining, dancing in each other’s mouths.

“Come to bed with me, Ursula, my love,” he crooned in my ear, and willingly, our hands clasped tightly together, I followed him up the steep stone steps and into his bedchamber, which was set in the thatched roof amongst the eaves. Nesting birds twittered and fluttered as, very slowly, he removed my gown and my underclothes until I was naked beneath him and he naked above me. The heat of his skin scorched mine like the warmth of the fire that burned in the grate downstairs.

Erotically he licked my neck and nibbled my earlobes, his tongue moving to my lips, where he pushed it hard and deep into my mouth until I moaned with delight. Gazing into each other’s eyes, I climbed on top of him, my breasts brushing his chest and the hardness of him against my belly. Clutching him tightly around the waist with my thighs, I took him deep inside me where I was open and ready and sweet as honey.

“I love you, Ursula,” he told me later, as we spooned, his chest pressed into my back and his nose into my neck, where he inhaled the scent of my hair which, released of its tight confines, rippled like a dark shadow across the pillow. “Whatever happens to us in this life, always remember that.”

I turned onto my back and, putting up a hand, stroked his face, feeling the stubble on his chin rasp against my palm. “I love you too,” I told him. “Oh Gregory, I love you too.”

I pulled myself up onto my elbows and, resting my head on my palm, gazed down the full length of his slim body—at his muscular chest, his manhood curled up now like the cat that slept on the hearth, at his long lithe legs. I played with the hairs on his chest, my fingers stroking and gently pulling, when I noticed a small white edged mark just above his left nipple.

“What is this, Gregory?” I asked him, frowning, tracing the outline of the shape with my finger.

Gazing down, he said, “Ah, the crescent moon. That, my dear Ursula, is a scar from when I had the small pox many years ago. I was lucky—I was a survivor.”

“Yes, it does indeed look like a crescent moon,” I said softly as I bent over him, my hair trailing on his face, and kissed the mark tenderly, my tongue licking it, tasting it. He pulled me closer to him and kissed my lips, and his manhood rose up to greet me. So full of lust and passion, we devoured each other again.