Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton (26 page)

Old Lady Skelton warned her son that if he did not take his wife to London to consult a skilled physician he might lose her. Sir Ralph, stirred out of his usual complacency by his mother's anxiety and Barbara's pale and haggard air, agreed to spend the winter at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields
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the more readily as he had some business to attend to in the capital. It was generally acknowledged that there was nothing like a visit to London to restore the health of ailing ladies from the country. The stinks, the outbreaks of plague, the atrocious noise – the rattle of wooden wheels on cobbles, the shouts of street vendors, ‘Kitchen stuff ha' you maids!' ‘Buy a mousetrap – a mousetrap or a tormentor for your fleas,' milkmaids rattling their pails, apprentices shouting ‘What d'ye lack?', the bawling of hackney coachmen and of footmen clearing a way for their masters and, at night, the brawling of revellers – to be sure delicate females who had wilted in the fresh air and quiet of Devonshire or Herts positively thrived on all this. Lady Skelton was no exception. The day of her arrival in London she changed into her crimson velvet and was away in a coach to choose fans at the New Exchange and, by the time that the famous physician had been summoned to attend her, had so far recovered that he declared he could see very little wrong with her.

As the weeks went by and she heard nothing of Jerry Jackson her fears died away. That episode in her life was over; the future would no doubt bring its own excitements and pleasures; meanwhile the present was very agreeable.

So she thought as her gallant, having put on his own skates, knelt down on the ice and fastened a pair on to her feet. She was a novice at this pastime, made fashionable by the exiled Cavaliers when they returned from the Low Countries, but she had taken to it with her accustomed physical verve. She was in fact already more skilled at it than she allowed to appear.

The infatuated young man by her side was prepossessing, and it was nearly as pleasant to her as it was to him to have his arm round her waist, drawing her body close to his. He bent down so low as they glided off together that the curls of his golden periwig brushed her cheek and he murmured:

‘Do you know what you look like, Lady Skelton?'

His breath floated towards her in a little cloud.

She shook her head, smiling dreamily.

‘Like a beautiful, pure, white swan.'

The watchman, passing outside the great house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, called out in his flat, monotonous voice, ‘Past twelve of the clock and a mild, thawing morning.'

Lady Skelton, turning in her canopied and curtained bed, thought drowsily that it was a pity the Great Frost was over – it would be a long, long time before there would be anything like it again – she had enjoyed the skating, that strong young arm round her waist, the warm amorous voice murmuring compliments and endearments in her ear. But perhaps it was time for life to slip back into its accustomed grooves – one could not go skating for ever. She must visit
her mantua maker, and tomorrow she had promised to wait on Lady Weston at her country house at Highgate. She sank softly again into sleep.

Twelve slow solemn chimes announced midnight from the belfry of St Sepulchre's church.
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And as the last chime died away, there was the sound of a hand-bell tolling dolefully. The watchman paused below the walls of Newgate Prison, set his lantern down on the ground and clearing his throat, delivered the ‘Admonition to the Prisoners of Newgate on the Night before Execution', as laid down and provided for, by the annual sum of 26s 8d in the will of pious Robert Dowe, citizen of London and Merchant Taylor.
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‘You prisoners within,

Who for wickedness and sin,

After many mercies shown, are now appointed to die today, in the forenoon, give ear and understand that this morning the greatest bell of St Sepulchre shall toll for you in form and manner of a passing bell…'

The pickpocket, who was to die, looked at the Ordinary praying beside him with the blank gaze of a terrified child. He was in fact barely sixteen years of age. ‘…to the end that all godly people hearing that bell and knowing that it is for you going to your deaths may be stirred up heartily to pray…'

The footpad who was to die, drank off another tot of brandy and sank down again into a drunken stupor. ‘…there to give an account of all things done in this life and to suffer
eternal torments for your sins, unless upon your hearty and unfeigned repentance you find mercy…'

The highwayman, who was to die, was giving a supper party to seven ladies of the town. He was more than a little drunk and so were they. Their painted faces and patches and curls seemed to swim before him as he raised his glass and toasted them in turn.

‘Nan, Moll, Bets, Ursula, Jenny, Peggy, Fan. My pretty jades. I am heartily sorry to part with you, but no doubt I shall meet you all again in hell. Farewell then till our next merry meeting!'

Surely they had cleared the streets of slush by now? Lady Skelton lowered the window of her coach and, putting her head out, asked the footman impatiently what was causing the delay.

He said excitedly, ‘A great throng of people, my lady. It seems that there is a hanging this morning at Tyburn and the prisoners are just leaving the prison. That bell that your ladyship hears is the great bell of St Sepulchre tolling for the condemned men.'

Lady Skelton said petulantly, ‘Giles should have known better than to drive past Newgate. No doubt there is one of these execution processions most mornings.'

She held an orange stick with cloves up to her nose; she could smell the jostling mob from here; she did not want to catch the plague or jail fever.

The footman said with an eagerness that broke through his obsequious manner, ‘Would your ladyship care to
follow the procession? There must be a noted malefactor to be turned off, for the crowd is vaster than it would be for an ordinary hanging, and there are several coaches here belonging to the Quality.'

Lady Skelton laughed. ‘It would be cruel, would it not, to deprive you of the pleasure of seeing a hanging? As it is, it seems that I have no alternative, and that the only way to get out of the crowd is to follow it.' Her lashes dropped, giving a partly scornful, partly good-humoured look to her face.

The footman said fervently, ‘Oh, thank you, my lady,' and jumped up to his place on the box.

Barbara, in spite of her assumed air of indifference, was interested in the proceedings. She had never seen an execution. The sight might afford her some new sensation.

The crowd was growing thicker every moment as people poured out of doorways and alleys, and pushed their way through side-streets. Every window had its craning heads. There was a great deal of shouting, joking and raucous laughter. Lady Skelton's coachman, by taking advantage of a momentary gap in the crowd, and by dint of some loud whip-cracking and as much swearing as was consistent with the dignity of a coachman to a lady of rank, manoeuvred the coach into a position opposite the porch of St Sepulchre's church. Here the clergyman waited, attended by the parish clerk, with three nosegays of rosemary tied with white silken ribbons, the season being too early for the flowers which he was bound by custom to present to the doomed men.

The noisy voice of the crowd sank suddenly to a loud murmuring sound, then broke into cheering. ‘The
prisoners are coming, my lady,' the footman called down to his mistress. The mob, parting reluctantly, made way with ironic applause for the Sheriff's carriage and his bodyguard. This was followed by a cart in which two criminals were seated on their coffins, one a sullen ruffian of fifty, the other a sickly, scared youth. Barbara regarded them dispassionately. If this was all that was to be seen it was hardly worth the wait.

A second cart rumbled into view and the cheering swelled into a roar. Seated in the cart was the incongruous figure of a young man dressed in the height of fashion and as gaily as if for his wedding. His breeches were of black velvet, his yellow waistcoat of flowered tabby; his long-skirted green velvet coat was ornamented with big bunches of yellow ribbons, his cravat was of fine lace. A cascade of lace and ribbon fell over his wrists. His head was bare, his beautiful auburn hair hung in curls on his shoulders. He carried a black hat trimmed with feathers and yellow ribbons under one arm, in his hand a lace handkerchief which he waved in acknowledgement of the plaudits of the crowd. He held his head high, his demeanour was careless, even jaunty, his eyes defiant. Only the rope hanging round his neck showed that he was not some spark riding in a hangman's cart for a wager or a jest.

The footman appeared at the window. ‘Pardon, my lady, but you might care to know that that fellow is Captain Jerry Jackson, a notorious highwayman, to be hanged this morning for robbery and murder.'

Lady Skelton said, ‘Indeed! Is that his name?' Her voice came faint and breathless.

The footman, as he scrambled again on to the box, winked at the coachman and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Love at first sight! They're all the same. Town wenches or ladies of quality, they all dote on a likely-looking highwayman with a hempen cravat round his neck.'

Barbara sat very still inside the coach, her fingers clenched together in her muff. ‘To be hanged for highway robbery and murder.' So this was to be the end of Jerry Jackson.

Her thoughts were in confusion. An angry pity, a kind of shuddering physical horror at the thought of the violence that was to be done within the hour to her lover's body, struggled against her deep selfishness, the callousness which she had cultivated like a grace. Suddenly, crushing down every other feeling, came a terrifying apprehension for her own safety.

She leant out of the window, beckoned to a respectably dressed, elderly man standing near. ‘Good sir, that highwayman Jackson – has he lain long in Newgate? Can you tell me anything of his capture?'

He doffed his hat. ‘At your service, my lady. I believe that he was first apprehended in Buckinghamshire some time last summer. Isn't that so, Jake?'

He turned to his companion, who was eager to oblige this fine and lovely lady. ‘Yes, that is right, my lady. What actually happened, according to the official account of his life and confession which I had a glimpse of just now – not that you can believe the half of these confessions – the criminals are always said to be “truly penitent and moved to contrition” whereas the truth is that most of them glory in dying quite unconcerned – '

Lady Skelton broke in impatiently.

‘Yes, yes. But what did it say?'

The crowd was surging forward, following in the wake of the procession. Lady Skelton motioned to the man to mount on the step of her coach, and as it moved slowly forward he told her:

‘Well, it seems that he was betrayed by some doxy of his – saving your ladyship's presence – when he was in bed with another woman. He escaped out of the window of the inn where he was harboured and fled northwards, but they searched the countryside and found him drinking with some companions at the “Boot” inn at Olney. They all but caught him there, but he slipped through their fingers again. He and his friends headed south after that, and were seen by some gentlemen who were out hunting near Whaddon. They rode across the fields to Winslow and gave the alarm. When Jackson and his fellow rogues came to Winslow they found the people turned out with scythes and forks to bar their way. But they dashed furiously through them, and scattering them rode to Chesham, hotly pursued by a military patrol which had been called out and a great crowd of other horsemen, and there outside the town they turned to engage their pursuers, their horses being blown. The fight lasted for half an hour – you must allow that this rogue Jackson is a man of undaunted courage – till Jackson's companions were all wounded or slain, and his horse shot under him, and then he was taken prisoner. He has languished in Newgate ever since, endeavouring to escape his just punishment, by bribery and petitions, and indeed I believe he might have escaped, for
they say that his cell has been thronged with ladies of rank, but he was found guilty of murder on the highway as well as robbery, and that's a thing they daren't wink at. That is all I can tell you, my lady, but we may hear more when he makes his dying speech.'