Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton (27 page)

Barbara said slowly, ‘Thank you.'

‘Very pleased to oblige you, I'm sure, my lady!' said the man as he jumped off the step of the coach.

Barbara leant back in her seat. Her heart was beating so violently that she felt as if she were suffocating. What she had heard justified her sharpest fears. Jackson had been captured as a direct result of her action. What more natural than that he should seek to betray her in his turn? His confession had made no mention of his mysterious female accomplice. Was he waiting to make a dramatic revelation at the foot of the gallows? Horrible though it would be she must follow him to Tyburn Tree. Only when he hung there dead, her unexposed secret dead with him, could she hope for peace of mind.

She called up to the coachman, ‘Drive on and try to secure a good place.'

The order in no way surprised Giles. An interesting hanging ranked even higher than a visit to Bedlam or Bridewell among the Quality's favourite pastimes. But in spite of his anxiety to obey his mistress, on his own as well as on her account, they made slow progress. The pace of the procession was set not by the eagerness of the spectators, but by the slow rumbling of the carts which bore the chief actors in the gruesome pageant to their deaths.

Slowly the procession wended its way down Snow Hill, crawled at an even slower pace up the ‘heavy hill' of
Holborn
⁹
and, passing St Andrews church with its tall tower, stopped at the ‘Bowl' alehouse for the condemned men to have their last drink.

Her ladyship's coach was well to the fore, and she could see, over the heads of the shouting, cheering people, Jerry Jackson's tall, resplendent figure, as he stood up, a mug of ale in his hand, and toasted the mob. Some sally on his part provoked the uproarious mirth of the crowd and even louder cheers. A man standing near the coach explained to his neighbour, ‘He's saying that he'll come back and pay for it later. The good plucked ones always say that. Ah, the crowd likes a rogue that dies game.'

The three doomed men had emptied their last mugs of ale. The Sheriff's carriage, the soldiers and the carts moved on. The faces of the spectators crowding the windows and balconies of the houses might have been those of an audience at a playhouse or a bull-baiting, but in the eyes of many of the women were facile tears called forth by Jackson's good looks and stylish air.

Holborn Bars, the ultimate boundary of the City, was reached. A man standing there called out, ‘Friend Jackson, I wish you a good journey!' The crowd laughed at this, taking it to be a joke, but Jackson, a set smile on his lips, raised his hand in a little gesture of gratitude and farewell.

The procession bumped along the Tyburn Road. Straggling and mean houses gave way gradually to the country. And so Hyde Park, and the gallows were reached and the procession slowed down and stopped, for this was the end of the journey.

It was a mild morning. Though the ground underfoot was thick with half-melted slush there was a languor in
the air that spoke of spring. In the distance a haze lay over the soft heights of Notting Hill. But here in the execution ground there was a ghastly bustle and animation. The brick wall enclosing Hyde Park was edged with spectators. More privileged onlookers filled the stands opposite. Beggars swarmed in and out of the crowd. Children cried and tumbled about; dogs barked. Orange women and sellers of ale did a brisk trade. Broadside vendors, some of them women with babies in their arms, bawled out ‘Confessions of Captain Jerry Jackson,' or even ‘Last Dying Speech and Confessions of the notorious highwayman, Gentleman Jackson.'

A ballad singer howled:

‘ “Captain Jackson's Farewell”

Farewell good friends, let not your kind hearts sorrow,

My doom has come. I shall be dead tomorrow.

Fair ladies, dry your lovely eyes

Nor pain me with your tender-hearted sighs!'

There were no tears in the lovely eyes of Barbara Skelton as she sat in her coach, her gaze fixed in fascinated horror on the three-legged gallows on which in a short time her former lover would hang. All softer emotions were extinguished by panic fear for her own safety. Repugnant though it would be to her overstrained nerves she dared not leave this grisly spot till Jackson was dead. She did not wish for his death – indeed, she assured herself, conscious of unusual and unwelcome twinges of conscience, she would gladly and generously have forgiven him his perfidy and
have procured for him his release had it been possible – but, if he had to die, then the quicker and the more silently he died the better. A dreadful impatience possessed her. For his sake, as well as her own, she told herself, she wished him a speedy departure.

It seemed – and this was something to be thankful for – that Jerry Jackson was to be turned off first. The cart in which he stood was drawn up under the gallows. The Sheriff's bodyguard with some difficulty cleared a passage for the Sheriff himself. Only a little group of people – friends no doubt of the condemned highwayman – were allowed below the gallows. A woman, so disfigured with tears that it was hard to tell if she were young or middle-aged, plain or comely, seemed to be standing guard over his coffin. The hangman, who had been lounging by, smoking a pipe, pocketed his pipe and began to take an interest in the proceedings. A hush fell on the crowd as Jerry Jackson, drawing himself up, looked round on the people, preparatory to making his final confession or speech.

In spite of herself, a pang, not so much of remorse as of regret, shot through Barbara at the sight. How often he had stood before her looking just thus, waiting for her to admire some new coat or piece of finery, childish, braggart, swaggering, without force of character or unusual intellect, yet able to fire her senses and warm her heart to a semblance of love by his sheer animal magnetism. She told herself fiercely, to drive out the pity that once admitted to her heart might have brought with it compunction, even remorse, emotions that had no place in its arid soil, that his courage was mostly a pose. He would prefer to die thus,
supported by the applause of the mob, the sobs of foolish women, than in the peaceful obscurity of a sick-bed. They would say of him (and he knew it) that he had died with ‘undaunted courage', ‘the most perfect indifference', ‘very game'. Only she, Barbara Skelton, would know that he had not dared to take a man's life till she had led the way.

She saw then that he was looking straight at her and that he had recognised her. She sat perfectly still, as was her wont when danger threatened, her pale face framed in the open window of the coach. Only her eyes moved as, opening them wide, she fixed them imploringly on Jackson's face.

He smiled wryly, and bending down to the Ordinary held a whispered conversation with him. Barbara, in an agony of fear, saw the clergyman after some hesitation give Jackson writing materials. Jackson wrote for several minutes – the crowd fidgeted restlessly at the unexpected delay – and handed it to the Ordinary, who received it with several nods of the head.

Barbara could have screamed in the nervous anguish of her suspense. What unlucky impulse had urged her to follow Jackson to his death? What mighty mischief did he intend to launch against her in his last speech, or in that hurriedly scribbled confession? He was going to ruin her – the woman whom he had possessed and loved – as he stood on the very brink of eternity. Barbara was appalled by the malicious impiety of it.

But his dying speech was commendably short and to the point. ‘God bless all my friends and may my enemies be hanged as I am,' were the last recorded words of Captain Jerry Jackson.

The hangman's assistant bound his arms; the hangman adjusted the noose round his neck. A sigh, a gasp of admiration and excitement ran through the crowd as, descending from the cart, Jackson with the hangman's help climbed the ladder that rested against the gallows. He was not going to wait in the usual way for the horse and cart to move away from under him, leaving him struggling in the air in the agonies of slow strangulation, dependent on the compassion of his friends to jerk his legs and end his pain. No, he was going to throw himself off the ladder and make a quick finish of it. Yes – he was a good plucked one and no mistake…

Jerry Jackson looked down at the weeping woman who stood by his coffin. Then he looked at Barbara Skelton who sat in her black and yellow coach. He jumped.

Barbara shrieked and fell back with closed eyes against the seat. A deep groan, mingled with screams and hoarse cheers, ran through the crowd. For an awful moment Barbara's unwilling body echoed the death-pangs of the man who had loved it.

She opened her eyes and saw the footman looking in at her. ‘Are you all right, my lady? Ladies often come over queer at their first sight of a hanging.'

She quelled the faint insolence of his smirk with a look. He added meekly, ‘Giles says, my lady, that he will have to wait till the other prisoners are turned off before he can get the coach through the mob.' She nodded and leant back again, feeling very sick and faint. Again she heard a solitary voice speaking, again the shuddering groan of the crowd – a long interval – and then again. It took longer to dispose
of the other prisoners. They lacked Jackson's resolution. Barbara kept her eyes firmly shut. When at last she opened them, three bodies hung motionless from Tyburn Tree.

Shuddering, she averted her gaze, and saw the Ordinary, who had attended the condemned men, standing at the door of her coach. He said in a pompous, flustered voice, ‘My lady, it was required of me by that unfortunate highwayman Jackson, shortly before his death, to give you this letter. “The lady in the black and yellow coach,” he said. I trust your ladyship will forgive me if I have made some error.' His staring eyes expressed his curiosity. Curiosity too was evident in the faces of Lady Skelton's servants and of the bystanders. She unfolded the note with studied composure and read:

‘Barbara! (for I have not the time at this late hour nor any longer the wish to know your other name). It makes me laugh to see the look on your face. You are afraid of me at last, aren't you, my bold little lady? It was a bad hour for me when I met you on Watling Street, but never fear! We had good sport together, and Jerry Jackson is not the man to whine now 'tis time to pay the reckoning. If it had not come through you it would have come some other way, for I was overripe for Tyburn Tree.

‘But maybe you feel you owe me some kindness? If so, give a share of our earnings to the woman who is standing by my coffin. Her name is Bess Bracey – she lives at Fountain Court in the parish of St Giles. She was my doxy before ever I knew you, and she has been with me continually in my imprisonment and will see to my burial. I have bequeathed her to my best friend, but should she be
left a hempen widow again I would not have her want. No woman had a greater kindness for a man than she has had for me, and she has spent all she has and sold all even to her skin for me.

‘Farewell then, lovely Barbara – till our next merry meeting.'

It was signed with a flourish, ‘Jerry Jackson'.

Lady Skelton said evenly, and in a clear tone that could be heard by the bystanders:

‘It seems that the unfortunate man was struck by my compassionate air and, having no friends of his own, he has asked me of my Christian charity to give that poor woman yonder – some relation of his I suppose – money for his burial.' She gave a purse full of gold to her footman. ‘Pray give this purse to that woman over there and tell her that I am heartily sorry for her.'

The footman pushed his way among the dispersing crowd. He was soon back, rather red in the face and the purse still in his hand.

‘My lady, the woman – and a common pert jade she is too, begging your ladyship's pardon – says that she doesn't want pity or charity from you or any other woman.'

Barbara's hand trembled as she took back the purse. But she said, shrugging her shoulders, ‘Poor creature. I suppose she is distracted with sorrow. Tell Giles to drive on to my lady Weston as fast as possible. We have wasted too much time already watching this tedious hanging.'

When the coach was clear of the mob and on its way to Highgate, Barbara unfolded Jerry Jackson's letter which she had held crushed in her hand, and read again with hatred,
anger and a curious bewildered jealousy the words:

‘No woman had a greater kindness for a man than she has had for me.'

‘And summer's date hath all too short a lease.'
¹

Summer 1684

‘K
ING'S WEATHER' THEY
called it, ignoring in their gushing loyalty all the occasions on which rain, wind and cold had marred a royal procession or party. But was it not fortunate for Sir Ralph and Lady Skelton that the neighbourhood should be basking in this spell of hot and brilliant weather just when their Majesties, accompanied by the Duchess of Portsmouth and other members of the Court, were to honour Maryiot Cells with their presence?

True, the Skeltons were not to have the privilege of having the King and Queen under their roof – that honour had been secured by even more important and influential neighbours – but His Majesty had graciously accepted an invitation to spend an afternoon at Maryiot Cells on his way from one great country house to another. The very brevity of this royal visit made it all the more important that everything should be as near perfection as possible – food, entertainment, weather.

Food was a comparatively simple if arduous matter. All the resources of Maryiot Cells were to be marshalled together – deer from the park; fish from the three fishponds, Abbot's Pool, Purgatory and Hell; peacocks, mutton, veal,
calves' heads, capons, chickens and pigeons from the estate – and reinforced by such outside supplies as lobsters and crayfish brought alive in wagons from the coast. The cellars of Maryiot Cells could stand comparison with those of any of the country nobility or gentry. What Lady Skelton's cook did not know about the making of sweetmeats and comfits was hardly worth knowing. The walled gardens of Maryiot Cells produced peaches, nectarines and plums fit not only for a King and Queen but even for a royal mistress. Mrs Samson the housekeeper and Jeffreys the steward could be relied upon to see that, however frenzied the scenes in the big subterranean kitchen, all ran smoothly in Hall and drawing-room, with that seemly order and lack of commotion without which the greatest degree of magnificence would fail to be impressive.