Eavesdropping Read Free

like a sentry at hispost—watching and listening for an entire afternoon and some part of the evening. In an adultery trial, held just two weeks later, Margaret testified to everything, from the precise nature of each sexual maneuver to the couple’s pre- and post-coital banter. From the transcript, we even learn the color of Mrs. Underhill’s underwear (“seawater green”).
    Margaret could not have known it then, but four centuries later millions of married women would spend entire afternoons watching intimate activity from the comfort of their homes. These spectators would be glued to a different aperture, watching serial installments of
Days of Our Lives
on NBC where Margaret was forced to content herself with a single episode from her home in Houndsditch.
    It is also possible that Margaret watched the hijinks next door because she felt a moral obligation to do so. Sixteen years before that fateful day in 1598, a highly placed official in the English Congregational church exhorted parishioners to “watch one another, and try out all wickedness,” and it was wicked to covet somebody’s spouse. What Margaret saw in the first few minutes was enough to make her pound on the wall, shout disapproval through the hole, or pay a visit to the local vicar—but there is no indication that she did any of these things.
    Margaret may also have wanted to protect her own marriage. If Mrs. Underhill exercised no restraint when it came to Michael Fludd, what kept her from flashing her seawater green knickers at Mr. Browne? How, if women like Mrs. Underhill showed so little respect for the bonds of matrimony, would the married women of Houndsditch keep their marital and economic lives together? The court transcripts say nothing of Margaret’s own marital relationship, of course. Did she pine for more tenderness; or crave more sexual satisfaction? It would be surprising if she failed to compare the sexual adventures next door to the activities in her own bedroom. Margaret could have marveled at the way Mrs. Underhill aggressively and repeatedly seduced Mr. Fludd, a fantasy that is now played out in romance novels.
    Even if Margaret was satisfied in her marriage, the sexual scenery that day in June may have awakened feelings that had grown dormant. “I love my husband,” a reader of true romance novels told an interviewer recently, “but it is a mellow, comfortable, long-married feeling. With each new romance I read,” she said, “it brings back the excitement, the sparkle, tears and joy of falling in love.” 2
    How did the tryst next door find its way to public trial? It’s anyone’s guess, but Margaret probably told someone what happened, perhaps her women friends. If so, word would have traveled quickly through Houndsditch. Out of sympathy, she may have told her cuckolded neighbor directly. What we do know is that Mr. Underhill immediately initiated an adultery suit—tantamount, in sixteenth-century England, to a divorce proceeding.
    How separate was the telling of the tale from the acts that were told? Did Margaret eavesdrop
so that
she could send word of her observations up the civic chain of command, perhaps in revenge for some previous transgressions by Mrs. Underhill, or to give John Underhill the ammunition he needed to end a marriage that had so obviously gone awry? If her motive was not to recite the tale, why did Margaret spend so much time observing the activities next door?
    She could have done so simply because the opportunity was “there.” In Elizabethan England domestic walls lulled occupants into thinking they were alone when, in fact, neighbors and strollers were only a structural defect away. Margaret may have found the hole in the wall too tempting to pass up. But this would only account for the first few seconds. What about the next five or six hours?
    One possibility is that Margaret enjoyed the view. Voyeurs, as we know, watch sexual activity purely for pleasure, and the pleasure can be very great