Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton (21 page)

When she had come to Maryiot Cells five years ago as a bride he had been little more than a child. She had seen him grow from a boy to a fine young man. And now she had killed him. He would never dance again round the Maypole, work at the harvest, stroll arm-in-arm in the dusk with his sweetheart, kneel down in his Sunday clothes in the church at Maiden Worthy, because he lay here in the muddy road a senseless lump of flesh and it was she who had robbed him of life.

Jackson stood beside her. He said in a low voice, ‘What have you done? Is he dead?'

Barbara did not hear him. She knew that she must make her choice now and for ever. If she admitted remorse into her heart she must renounce the dark, secret pleasure of her highway life, the night maraudings, the savage rapture of the attack, the hot embraces of her rogue lover. She must return for ever to the dragging tedium of life as Lady Skelton, wife of Sir Ralph Skelton of Maryiot Cells. God had no right to ask this of her, she thought with fury.

She said to Jerry Jackson, ‘How much money did we carry off tonight?'

He said, surprised, ‘Why, I can't say for certain till I count it, but I am sure it can't be far short of two hundred guineas.' Barbara rose to her feet. She said in even tones, ‘Two hundred guineas. ‘Tis a price worth killing a man for anytime!'

‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know.'
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T
HE NEIGHBOURHOOD WAS
greatly disturbed by the outrage which the Cotterells had suffered. Highway robbery was a commonplace – it was said that ‘in Bucks if you beat a bush it's odds you start a thief'. But this breaking into a peaceable homestead, this wanton murder of a promising and popular lad, was shocking beyond common experience.

Everyone joined with the bereaved parents in mourning the dead boy. Sir Ralph was sincerely moved to pity and indignation. The Cotterells had been tenants of the Skeltons for a hundred and forty years; they were bound to them by many ties of service and devotion. That such a crime should have been committed on his property, and within the bounds of his jurisdiction, hurt his dignity both as a landlord and a Justice of the Peace. He made the usually somnolent lives of the constable and the watch well-nigh unbearable with his demands for immediate and effective action. He declared, not once but ten times a day, that if the malefactors were caught he would see to it that their executed bodies were hung in chains on a spot conveniently near the scene of the crime.

As a token of his sympathy and esteem for the sorrowing parents, he even lent them a mourning bed, not
of course the best one, a massive and practically immovable affair which housed the corpses of the immediate family during their lying in state, but the second best bed which was used for lesser members of the family, and lent round the countryside for the obsequies of distant relations.

Furthermore, Sir Ralph paid a visit of condolence to the Cotterells the day before the funeral, and insisted on Barbara accompanying him. It was noticed how young Lady Skelton, very pale in her black gown and veil, shrank back as the weeping mother clung to her hands, as though the sight of the poor woman's grief was too much for her, also that she leant on Sir Ralph's arm on the threshold of the mourning chamber – signs of sensibility that were considered very much to her credit.

But once inside the room she had controlled herself, as befitted a lady of her quality and, standing by the sable draped bed, had gazed sadly and steadily on the fair boy who lay there in the strange, sculptural pallor of death. Only her nostrils had quivered a little, a sign of her inner agitation. And indeed, who would not have been moved at the sight of this youth struck down on the threshold of his hopeful manhood?

She had not knelt in prayer as the others had done, but had covered her eyes with her black-gloved fingers. Then she had laid a red rose near the dead boy's hand.

Barbara had killed her man, and this stark fact had subtly altered her relationship with Jerry Jackson. He regarded her
with a new respect, even, she suspected, with a touch of fear. No longer could he treat her with playful condescension. She had proved herself to be the more ruthless man of the two. He had reproached her at first, on the grounds of security, for her rash act, but she had refused to excuse herself. It had been essential for her, she explained to him, to stop their pursuer. She had done it. And that was all. If he was afraid to associate himself with her he was at liberty to break the connexion.

‘No fear of that,' he assured her hastily. ‘I love you to distraction, my lady of iniquity.'

And indeed her beauty now held an added and perverse fascination for him. As she lay in his arms, he gazed in a kind of wonderment at her face, the smooth white forehead, the somnolent, long-lashed green eyes, the eager nostrils and the cat-like elegance of her not very significant mouth and chin. Who would have supposed that this charming face masked the spirit of a woman who could kill a man at point-blank range? He no longer felt at his ease with her. He felt her to be unaccountable, sinister, but his passion for her was stronger than ever.

Yet the present situation could not last. His vanity – his dominant trait – could not tolerate that his prestige as a highwayman should be in any way inferior to that of his mistress. That her crime had placed him in this humiliating position was made abundantly clear by the advertisement published after the robbery in the
London Gazette.
It read as follows:

‘On June l0th 1683 at midnight was committed by two men a great robbery in the house of Mr Thomas Cotterell of Waterbrook Farm, three miles from Maiden
Worthy in the county of Buckinghamshire, to the value of two hundred guineas taken by force from the aforesaid Mr Cotterell. Likewise the said robbers afterwards murdered Edward Cotterell, the said Mr Cotterell's son, on the road by Stony Gap. Of the said robbers one was a long, lusty man about twenty-nine or thirty years of age, fresh coloured, his own hair, inclinable to red. He was wearing a cloth coloured riding coat with silver buttons, riding sprig-tailed sorrel mare. His companion is a lad of eighteen or nineteen, middle stature, slight form, thin favoured, with curled dark brown hair, in a green coat and buff belt with silver buckles. Whoever can discover the persons aforesaid to Sir Ralph Skelton Bart of Maryiot Cells, Maiden Worthy in the County of Buckinghamshire or to Mr Cotterell shall have their charges and £30 reward, with a further £20 to be paid on the conviction of one of the robbers for the murder of Edward Cotterell.'

There it was in print for everyone to read – and Barbara read it with a sarcastic little smile. The slayer of Ned Cotterell was worth £20 more than the companion who had stood by and merely watched the slaying. No one but Barbara might be aware of this mortification, but it was enough. From the night of the Cotterell robbery she began, with a feline sureness and lightness of touch, to taunt Jackson about his squeamishness.

He had been rough and brutal enough in all conscience when out of humour, but if he happened to be in a better mood, fancying himself as a gallant knight of the road, he was not impervious to such softer influences as the tears of a pretty woman. Barbara herself, totally lacking in sentiment,
watched him with irritation while, after robbing a coach, he bent down to give a kiss to a curly-headed child or, with a generous flourish, handed a fashionable lady back a guinea for her travelling expenses.

This was not Barbara Skelton's way. When she robbed she stripped her victims bare of valuables, leaving them neither their favourite trinket, nor a groat with which to bless themselves. She took snuff boxes from venerable old gentlemen, watches from dashing young noblemen, earrings from pretty girls, even lockets from cherub-faced children. All was grist that came to her mill. They could plead, curse, scream, sob – nothing moved her small cruel heart.

Jackson's wide experience, ability and daring entitled him to use his own methods. But now, with that murderous pistol shot, Barbara had placed herself in a more desperate and hence, by highwaymen's standards, a more eminent category.

For a man of Jackson's touchy vanity and lack of inner ease there could only be one solution. The next time that they met with a traveller who showed fight, Jackson fired not only to wound but to kill, and the man fell lifeless from his horse to the ground. And having once killed it seemed easy and convenient to kill again. Now, with several murders to his credit, Jackson could lord it again over his mistress as befitted his superb masculinity. Now they were bound together not only by the ties of passion and of robbery but of blood.

Barbara congratulated herself on the adroitness with which she had managed to keep her two lives apart. It was an
understood thing in the household that young Lady Skelton – who was a very light and uneasy sleeper – was never to be disturbed at night except in the case of the gravest emergency. Once she was behind the locked door of her bedchamber her privacy and repose must be considered sacred.

The distance from the little back door, which she used for her nocturnal exits, and the field where Fleury or her other horse grazed, was short and sheltered with trees and bushes. She had never been pryed upon, to her knowledge, and felt a growing confidence in her security.

So when one sultry July day, Hogarth, the house steward, that glum-faced, trusty and pious man, asked for the favour of an interview with young Lady Skelton, she anticipated nothing more tiresome than the revelation of some household peccadillo, the seduction of one of the serving girls by a footman, or some other of the petty annoyances which the management of a large household entailed.

She received him in the summer parlour. Bowls of deep red roses glowed against the dark wainscoting and filled the room with their delicious perfume. The casement windows were wide open, but the day was overcast and close, and no breeze stirred the tapestry hangings on the walls. Lady Skelton sat in a carved, high-backed chair; the panel of white satin which she was embroidering with a picture of Susanna and the Elders
²
lay on the lap of her yellow satin gown. On the table beside her, with its covering of a Turkey carpet, lay scissors, stiletto, and an embroidered casket full of multi-coloured silks.

She said graciously, ‘Well, Hogarth?'

The man standing respectfully in front of her stared at her with a fixed and solemn gaze. He was middle-aged,
gaunt in his black suit, with greying hair and a long, ugly, reliable-looking face. His earnest scrutiny annoyed her. She said again with a touch of impatience, ‘Well, Hogarth?'

In answer he pulled from his pocket a little purse of crimson knotted silk, embroidered with silver and, holding it out to her, said, ‘This is your purse, isn't it, my lady?' He added heavily, ‘I know it to be, for I bought it for Sir Ralph, along with other trifles at the New Exchange for the Christmas junketings, and my master charged me to see that it went to your ladyship, being scented with jasmine, your ladyship's favourite perfume. So I know it to be yours.'

Lady Skelton said carelessly, ‘Well, what of it? The usual tale, I suppose, of pilfering on the part of one of the wenches?'

‘No. It was found in Thomas Cotterell's house.' She said, in her quiet low voice, ‘Ah, so it was there that I dropped it, the day that I went with Sir Ralph to comfort those poor people. I missed it, but to tell the truth I have not given it another thought. Thank you, Hogarth.' And she stretched out her hand for it.

But he did not give it to her. He said, ‘It was found in the bedchamber of Thomas Cotterell and his wife the night of the robbery.'

Lady Skelton shrank back in her chair as though he had lashed her with a whip. But instantly she recovered herself and said, a little breathlessly, ‘Indeed! And what do you make of that?'

Hogarth said, ‘My lady, I'll not torment you, for God knows, if you have a shred of conscience left you must be suffering torment enough. I know all. Yes, I have made a full discovery of your foul work on the highway, the damned
company you keep, all your scandalous, impious and wicked life. It was this little purse that first led me to the truth. Aye, by such trifles does the all-powerful God bring wicked deeds to light. I am Tom Cotterell's closest friend, as you may know. I was the first of their neighbours to visit the afflicted parents the morning after the robbery, and after I had prayed awhile with them, and the first violence of their grief had abated, they told me all that had happened that awful night. Then Mistress Cotterell showed me this little purse which she had found by the bedside after the robbers had left the room, saying, Was it not strange that desperate and bloody men should carry such a dainty trifle on them? I knew the purse at once and the sight of it was like the stab of a knife. But I said, no doubt it belonged to some trull that they went with, and took the purse into my charge. Now, they had told me that one of the robbers was a young lad, slightly made with dark curling hair, and this, and the finding of the purse, worked together most ghastfully in my mind, so that I was for several days in a great disquietness of spirit, thinking myself half crazy for my suspicions, and yet unable to banish them. And so, my lady, I began to observe your habits and your movements. Never, I believe, was a woman more subtle in crafts or secret in affairs than you are, but the Lord cannot be deceived, and first one thing and then another was revealed to me – your secret chamber and man's gear, your departures at night on horseback. I followed you to the “Leaping Stag” inn. I made discreet enquiries. I learnt that this was your meeting place with a notorious robber on the highway, known as Captain Jackson. The meanest scullion in the inn knew that
you were a woman and his paramour but, mercifully, none guessed at your name and station. I watched you as you rode off together on your evil errands, watched you return with your booty, marked your sly gliding into the small back door of this house, and knew beyond a shadow of doubt that the highway robber who has troubled the roads in this neighbourhood last autumn and again this spring and summer is none other than the wife of my good master.'