Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton (12 page)

At last the point was reached where the bustle and solicitude of her attendants could do no more. Aunt Doll, Nurse and the bridesmaids agreed that the bride's appearance was perfectly handsome and genteel.

Time pressed. A creaking, a rumbling of wheels, jingling of bits, and the sound of horses' hooves from below the window announced that the coaches which were to carry the bridal party to church were gathering in the courtyard.

Aunt Doll said, ‘Come now, we must be going.' She pressed a valedictory kiss on her niece's forehead. Her faded eyes were moist. Old Nurse was sniffing loudly. The bridesmaids, suddenly concerned about their own looks, peeped in the mirror, straightened the chaplets of snowdrops and violets on their heads. Snatching up their sprigs of rosemary tied with silver lace,
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they waved their hands perfunctorily to the bride and hurried from the room, all but Ursula Worth and Arabella Crosbie, who as chief bridesmaids were to remain in attendance.

A little silence fell on the room and on the three girls. Barbara sat staring at herself in the mirror.

Then Arabella Crosbie said in low inquisitive tones, ‘What are you thinking about, Barbara? Are you happy? Are you glad to be marrying Sir Ralph?'

Barbara dropped her eyelids. She said guardedly, ‘Of course. We are the most convenient matches in England one to another. Had I matched to another family I might have found myself living in some deep dirty county like Lincolnshire or Devon, among people who knew nothing of me, and with no hope of going to London above once a year.'

‘Yes, but Sir Ralph?' Arabella persisted. Boldly, she pressed the point. ‘You love him, don't you?'

Barbara shot her a glance from beneath her lashes. She said demurely but with an air of worldly wisdom, ‘I have always resolved to marry where I might hope to live happy. I believe that Sir Ralph is a man I may live very comfortably with in time.'

This was showing off, and she knew it. The match had been arranged between the respective parents when Barbara was six years old. But she had never been one for girlish confidences, being of a naturally secretive nature. She was certainly not going to betray herself to these silly girls at this late hour.

Arabella, disappointed, said flatly, ‘Well I am sure I wish you all happiness in the enjoyment of each other.'

‘And so do I, dear Bab,' gushed plain, kindly Ursula Worth. Barbara made no acknowledgement of these good wishes. She continued to gaze at her pensive reflection.

She was not sure what she hoped or expected of marriage. Aunt Doll, Nurse, all the older women of the household seemed to regard her to some degree as the
victim of a sacred sacrifice to be decked out with jewels and flowers and tears. Her bridesmaids envied her her new importance, yet (she sensed with annoyance) hoped for some keener felicity, some younger more gallant lover themselves.

But this did not matter. Barbara was accustomed to consider everything from the point of view of her own pleasure and convenience. Marriage, as she regarded it, was a means of escape from the trammels of maidenhood – the only means open to a young woman of quality. For this she had been educated since childhood, in good manners, an elegant carriage and all the accomplishments, such as dancing, music, French and card playing, that would make her considerable and lovely in the eyes of some eligible man. She was making an exceptional match. Sir Ralph Skelton was her father's neighbour; their estates joined. He was wealthy, a man of weight and influence in the county. As Lady Skelton, mistress of Maryiot Cells and a town house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, she would live in style, even in some degree of magnificence. Who could say what delights and pleasures she would not experience? Marriage for other girls might mean tedious household cares and the rearing of a brood of infants. Her face – especially those eager nostrils – surely promised her some rarer and more delectable fate.

Thus she was musing vaguely, when there was a knock at the door. Her father's steward, staff in hand, announced in much the same tones that he would have used at a funeral:

‘Mistress Barbara, your honoured father bids me say that he awaits you below.'

Barbara Worth rose to her feet with a swish of skirts. She was a swift and vivid mover. ‘I am ready,' she said composedly.

She threw one last glance over her shoulder at the maiden face in the mirror and walked out of the room.

Her father was waiting for her at the foot of the great staircase. Relations, guests and members of the household, all wearing bride's favours, crowded the hall, and watched with curiosity and emotion the kiss that the grave man gave his only surviving child. He hung a thin gold chain, with a pendant in the shape of a fine ruby heart encircled with diamonds, round Barbara's neck. ‘Daughter, your mother, who is now doubtless a blessed saint in heaven, required me on her death-bed to give you this jewel on your wedding morning. Wear it, child, and strive to emulate her in fidelity, modesty and obedience.'

Barbara's face twitched. She looked like a child who is going to weep. Her mother had adored and indulged her, and Barbara had reciprocated her love with a passion and possessiveness that she had felt for no other living being except herself. Her mother's death from smallpox when her daughter was fourteen had left Barbara furiously if silently resentful. She had not forgiven God for this untimely removal.

She regarded the ruby with pride as it glowed on her breast. How red it looked, like a huge drop of blood on her creamy skin. She trusted that marriage would develop her bosom. She was tall for her age, small-waisted, and long-legged, but as yet too thin.

She only half listened to her father's admonition. He was saying in a low voice, ‘He is a gentleman and will soon be your husband. It will be your duty to study his wishes and your honour to conceal his faults.'

She thought with a spurt of rebellious contempt, ‘And my faults? Ah! I will conceal them myself!' But she nodded her head dutifully.

Nurse, now sobbing openly, wrapped her nursling in a white velvet cloak and hood edged with fur. Her father took her by the hand and led her to the door. The family coach had been refurbished for the occasion. It was black with silver standards and adornments. The coachman and footmen were in new green serge livery. The stolid coach-horses of the shire breed (capable of taking their turn at the plough when necessary) had new green reins, and red ribbons in their manes. The other coaches which were to take the rest of the wedding party were equally fine. And so Barbara Worth drove away from her home.

Inside the coach Barbara and her father jolted along together in a solemn and stuffy silence. Her father regarded her with a new, almost respectful interest. He had been greatly saddened and disappointed at the death of Barbara's two elder brothers, one in infancy, the other as a promising young student at Oxford University. A daughter, even a pretty one, was a poor substitute, to his mind, for two sons. Moreover Barbara's looks, so different from his wife's placid comeliness, gave him a feeling of slight unease. But now that she was to become the wife of a man of Sir Ralph Skelton's worth and consequence she seemed to him safer and more accountable, a daughter of whom any man might be proud. He remembered that she had always acted dutifully, whatever she might have looked, that she was motherless. He wished, with an odd fleeting feeling of compunction, that propriety and custom had enabled him to give her
some practical advice about his own sex to help her on her way. But of course the girl must learn by experience as every young wife before her had had to learn.

It was a fine morning for a wedding. The sky was full of light, and dove-coloured clouds. In the east the rising sun, hidden behind a smoke-grey cloud, poured down the benediction of its rays upon the waking earth. The horizon was the colour of a peach, the western sky a tender, elusive blue. Sunlight gleamed on the muddy puddles in the road, the pools in the fields, the bare branches of the trees; the shadows lay light as veils on the shining grass. Bird song and clumps of snowdrops proclaimed the spring.

As the coach passed through the gates of the park a crowd of villagers and tenants waved their hats and wished the young lady of the manor joy in her marriage. All the short way to Bishops Worthy church was lined with gaping, cheering country folk.

Their squire accepted the homage as a due and natural tribute to his God-ordained status in the county. Barbara inclined her head graciously to them through the new-fangled glass windows, lowered for the occasion.

A stylish equipage, consisting of a coach with a silver body and gilt standards, and six outriders, rumbled past them. The armorial bearings showed that it belonged to Lord Hogarth, Barbara's maternal uncle, down from London for the wedding, and in a hurry to reach the church before the bride.

There was such a press of coaches, riders, guests, servants and beggars round the lych gate of the little church that it was several minutes before the bridal procession could be
sorted out and set in motion. Musicians led the way with fiddles and flutes, followed by a bride-page carrying a bride cup of silver gilt in which was stuck a gilded sprig of rosemary. Now came the bride, young, immature yet seductive in her finery, two little bride-pages in satin suits and lace (nephews of Sir Ralph) leading her by the ribbons on her gown, thus symbolising the modest reluctance of the virgin to enter the married state. Behind came the bridesmaids walking two by two, each with their sprig of rosemary in their hand, their chaplet of snowdrops and violets on their heads. And behind again the principal kinsfolk and guests, in all the bravery of periwigs and curls, velvets, silks and satins, laces and ribbons, muffs and fans, cravats and buckles, velvet shoes and embroidered stockings, as brilliant in the rustic churchyard as a flock of exotic birds.

The bridegroom and his groomsmen were waiting at the church. As Barbara was led up to Sir Ralph Skelton she thought with a sudden physical shrinking, ‘This is my fate!'

She raised her strange green eyes and looked dispassionately at the man she was to wed. He was thirty-six, fresh enough looking even to the arrogant eyes of sixteen, well set up enough with an air that his friends would call dignified, his detractors consequential. His periwig of light brown hair suited his florid complexion. His eyes were blue and prominent, and he had sandy lashes. There was nothing distasteful about his appearance nor anything to stir the senses. He was richly dressed in a long-skirted coat of carnation velvet with a vest tunic of silver cloth and black velvet breeches. He wore knots of peach-coloured carnation and silver ribbon on his shoulders in
compliment to his bride, and red heels to his shoes. He drew himself up as he met his bride's gaze, smiled at her complacently and reassuringly.

Something wild and innocent in Barbara cried out in panic, ‘No, this can never be my fate! Escape before it is too late!' But she knew that it was too late, and with downcast eyes and a demure smile gave her bridegroom her hand.

The ring was on her finger. A gold ring with a posy of Sir Ralph's own choosing engraved inside, ‘God make me prolific, obedient and sedulous.'

Barbara Skelton twisted the unaccustomed ornament round her slender fourth finger while, with eyes fixed in apparent devotion on the clergyman, she mused on all that she would do now that she was a married woman and Lady Skelton.

Old Mr Belcher was in his element. Wedding sermons were his speciality. Many a newly joined couple had knelt before him to receive his advice and admonition, and if their unions had not always turned out satisfactory it was certainly not Mr Belcher's fault, for he made a point of stressing the perils and trials as well as the blessings of matrimony, urging young couples to honour one another and bear with one another's foibles, also to practise those innocent arts that increase and stimulate love. What these arts were Mr Belcher did not specify, leaving this to his hearers' imaginations.

The bride, being the weaker vessel, naturally came in for the larger slice of Mr Belcher's advice. Barbara, through her
day-dreams, heard herself being admonished to be good-tempered, obedient, and modest. She must eschew gossip and be a right housekeeper, preferring her home to all other places, and not decking herself up like Jezebel to attract the attention of strangers. She must not ask if her lord was wise or simple, but must honour and obey him in all things.

But Sir Ralph too came in for his smaller share of the homily. Husbands who were choleric and testy with their wives were justly to be censured, while Mr Belcher deplored the masculine habit of speaking slightingly of women's constancy, comparing them to clouds in the sky, motes in the sun, snuffs in the candle and the like.

Carried away by his own eloquence Mr Belcher soared into less prosaic regions. The husband and wife should illuminate each other's lives like two candles; like two flowers the sweet perfume of their godly lives should mingle; their voices should join in harmony like two well-tuned instruments. It really seemed as if there would be no end either to his similes or his sermon, but at last Sir Ralph and his bride emerged from the dim church into the pale February sunshine. The bell-ringers, inspired by a draught of ale and ten shillings distributed among them by order of the bride's father, rang out a lusty peal, the crowd cheered, and sweet rushes and snowdrops strewed the path down which Sir Ralph Skelton and his lady walked smilingly arm in arm.