Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton

by Rowland Hughes

  I will acquaint you when I shall move to Beechlands Grove. I shall stay here as long as I can to see what Mr Wedgeworth and his minions are about.

  If you should bring me some muslin for the little girls’ caps and fine linen damask for tablecloths I will not say nay to it, but pray do not trouble yourself if you are too much occupied with business.

  Believe me, my dear Sir Charles, your faithful, affectionate and obedient wife,

  S. Skelton.’

  Her next letter strikes a less carefree note.

  March l0th.

  ‘You will be surprised, my dear Sir Charles, at receiving another letter written less than twenty-four hours after my last and, lest you should conclude that some illness of the children has occasioned it, I hasten to relieve your mind by assuring you that they are pure well (not excepting our sweet rogue Frederick, who is a little perverse and saucy by reason of toothing, but nothing to signify).

  I am also in tolerable good health though in extreme ill humour, Mr Wedgeworth having come to me today to inform me – if you please – that he cannot get any workmen from the neighbourhood to work on the house. Recollecting that he was always for bringing a number of hands down from London, I rehearsed to him again our reasons for employing men from these parts, viz not only greater economy, but also our wish to give employment to the neighbourhood. I added that when he had completed the task of demolishing the old house and building up the new he might bring down what London craftsmen he chose for its embellishment. I was sensible that I must leave such matters to him, but I hoped that Buckinghamshire was not such a county of ninnies that it could not produce sufficient good labourers − stone masons, carpenters and so on – for his purpose.

  When I was out of breath Mr W. said, “Indeed you quite mistake me. I by no means think myself capable of gainsaying any of your ladyship’s wishes. In this case it is the workmen themselves who make so bold. If you do not believe me pray ask your steward,” and with that he bounced out of the room. What ridiculous “canard”5 or, more likely, misunderstanding is behind this business, I cannot guess though I shall soon find out (it was too late when he came to me for me to see Hunter). In any case you may depend upon it that I will soon clear it up.

  Now, mon très cher, I must beg your forgiveness for venting my peevishness upon you. I fancy how you will laugh when you receive this letter and say, “There is Sophie flaming again!”

  Never mind, you are at liberty to laugh at me as much as you please as long as you think of and love,

  Your ever affectionate wife and partner, S.S.’

  But the matter was not to be cleared up as easily as Lady Sophia anticipated. Her next letter reads:

  March 13th.

  ‘My dear husband,

  I fear that I can by no means give you so good an account of affairs here as I would wish. I saw Hunter at the earliest opportunity after my conversation with Mr Wedgeworth and asked him to explain this nonsensical business about the workmen. Whereupon he assured me that it was indeed as Mr W. had said, that he could not for any money – nor he added for an even stronger consideration viz the esteem and respect that the people hereabouts have for the family and for us both – induce a soul to undertake the labour of pulling down this house.

  This news struck me dumb, as you may imagine. If I did not know Hunter to be a man of integrity and honest character I would not have believed him. Upon my questioning him as to the reason for this extraordinary state of affairs, he became as close as an oyster, shifted from foot to foot, and mumbled that the country people here were prone to take notions and to listen to foolish old tales. You may guess that I am not satisfied with such lame excuses and will make it my chief purpose and business to sift this matter to the bottom.

  Till then adieu, my dear love.

  Your affectionate and entirely devoted wife,

  Sophia Skelton.’

  The next few days brought Lady Sophia some explanation but little satisfaction.

  March 16th.

  ‘I have but this moment returned, my dear Sir Charles, from visiting William Waite at his cottage, whither I went in my chaise, with the idea that if anyone could explain to me the reason for the insolence, indolence – I know not what to call it – in short the extraordinary conduct of these workmen, it would be this venerable and good old man, who may truly be termed the Father of the parish.*

  He was as pleased to see me as ever, and not only I flatter myself for the sake of the pigeon pie that I brought with me. I acquainted him with my problem which he listened to with many head noddings and sage “Aye, aye, I had heard as much”, and then gave me an explanation that I am sure would divert you were it not proof of the pitiable fears and superstitions to which the lower class of people are so prone.

  In short, my dear Sir Charles, these foolish folk will not work on this house because they believe it to be haunted. The spirit (I will not honour her with the name of lady!) who is so uncourteously interfering with my plans is, it would seem, your great great aunt of evil memory, Barbara Lady Skelton.

  What could give clearer evidence, my dear husband, of the enduring influence of bad deeds, for while the virtues of your many honourable and discreet ancestresses have been forgotten, the crimes of a profligate woman, who has mouldered in her tomb these ninety odd years, are still so well remembered in the neighbourhood that grown men (in this age of reason) dare not lift a pickaxe against the house that she inhabited for fear of displeasing her shade!

  Something of my feelings must have appeared in my face, for old William said, “I fancy my lady that you have not much notion of spirits?”

  “None whatsoever,” I assured him laughing. Upon which the old man said, “If I may make so bold as to ask, has your ladyship never been troubled with any disturbances since you and Sir Charles took up residence at the Great House?” I told him, “I will not deny that there has been idle talk among the maidservants, but for my part I have never heard nor seen anything during these last two years that could not have been caused by mortal agency. I know very well what the country people say about Maryiot Cells, but the notion of haunted houses is quite exploded except among those with weak and ignorant minds.”

  At which he shook his head doubtfully and said, “That may be, my lady, but she was an uncommonly wicked woman and came to a strange and violent end.”

  “She is dead and buried these ninety years and more,” I reminded him. “That is a long time.”

  “To you, my lady, in the pride of your youth, it may seem a long time, but to me, who will be eighty-seven come Michaelmas, it does not seem so long after all.”

  “Long or not,” I concluded the argument, “I would like to meet the woman alive or dead who could turn me from my purpose.”

  At this the good old man’s countenance changed excessively, and he seemed so affrighted and shocked that I had pity on him and refrained from teasing him any longer.

  I do not know, my dearest love, why I have treated you to all this nonsense, except to show you how these illiberal superstitions will gain a hold over the mind of even so sensible a man as William Waite where there is no superior education nor philosophy to combat them.

  It seems now that Mr Wedgeworth will have his way after all and that we shall be obliged to hire hands from London. Peu m’importe,6 provided that I get my new house in the end.

  The children are vastly well and making a great riot in this very room. Little Fanny begs me to come with her to feed her chicks, so I must bid my dear love adieu.

  Your obedient and ever loving wife,

  Sophia Skelton.’

  Sir Charles was detained in Dublin beyond his expectations by legal affairs. He had hoped to return home early in April; now he thought that he would be lucky if he had made an end of his business by the middle of May.

  It would seem (judging by Lady Sophia’s letters) that he was as eager to return to her as she could wish. She writes soothingly:

  ‘I am indeed sorry that you chafe at your situation, but I
assure you that your disappointment could not possibly exceed, though I will allow that it might equal, mine. We are both to blame for having forgotten that lawyers are persons naturally delighting in and thriving on delay who appear to ignore the fact that all things – including the time at their clients’ disposal – are subject to the sway of “sad mortality”.’

  Lady Sophia’s letters to her husband during the next six weeks are remarkable only for the even, humdrum tone in which she recounts everyday facts and events.

  ‘Little Frederick bids me tell Papa that he has a fine new tooth.’ ‘Your son Charles is writing you a letter with his own hand.’ ‘The girls are improving daily in beauty.’ ‘Lady Sefton carries me on Monday se’ennight7 to a drum8 at Cranborough Park.’ ‘I have bespoke a pretty chintz for my new bedroom, rose pink with pale stripes. You will laugh at me for looking so far ahead but I thought ’twas wise to secure it while I could.’ ‘The sowing goes on as well as the weather permits… Daniel is sick of the smallpox.’

  The workmen had evidently arrived from London. Lady Sophia writes that she ‘must muster the brick carts’, also have the Church lane repaired ‘for it is so torn up by the brick carts that ’twill soon be impassable.’

  It is easy to imagine how startled Sir Charles must have been when he received the following letter from his wife dated

  May 6th.

  ‘My dear husband,

  The eight years that I have had the happiness and honour to be your wife have, I fondly believe, made you sufficiently acquainted with my disposition to know that falsehood is not one of my faults. More than once you have been pleased to tell me that I have a nice regard for truth and accuracy that you would expect to find in a man rather than in a woman. God forbid, my dearest husband, that I should ever fall short of your high opinion of me in this respect.

  I remind myself and you of these things not to gratify my vanity, but to encourage myself to commit to writing a relation of events so extraordinary and so inexplicable that I would not dare expect anyone to believe them, unless they had that absolute faith in my veracity that I hereby claim from you.

  The letters that you have received from me during the past six weeks have given you no hint that anything was amiss, and if I tell you now that hardly a night has passed during that time that I and my household have not been harassed by the most dire and horrid disturbances, you must not blame me, however fondly, for concealing these things from you. If it had been a case of ordinary domestic distresses how eagerly I would have confided them to my dearest partner and friend.

  But this uneasiness that I and my family have endured has been something more than commonly horrible, because so full of surprise and wonder, that I could not bring myself to write of it, even to my dear Sir Charles, till assured that my senses were not deceived.

  As you know, I have never been prone to superstitious fears, having in fact little interest in the unseen world beyond what our sacred religion teaches us is right and proper. Yet what we have experienced here at Maryiot Cells during the past six or seven weeks so passes the bounds of reason and credibility that, against all my previous beliefs, I am forced to attribute it to a supernatural cause.

  But I will endeavour, my dear Sir Charles, to give you a sober account of events.

  These disturbances commenced on the night of March 16th. I recollect the date for I had sate9 up late writing to you an account of my conversation with William Waite. It was eleven o’clock when I retired to bed, as the sound of the clock striking in the hall apprised me. The house was perfectly quiet. As I ascended the great stairs, a lighted candlestick in my hand, I felt something grasp at my dress. I turned sharply but perceived nothing but shadows. At the time I believed that I had caught my dress on a nail or that the cat had passed me on the stairs, but now I think otherwise.

  I was in my bedroom, undressed and preparing to get into bed, when I heard the sound of a door slapped to three times with great violence. I threw a wrapper over my shoulders, and ran along the passage and on to the landing to look down into the hall from where it seemed to me the noise had come, but there was absolute silence. Not satisfied with this, I descended into the hall and looked into all the principal rooms. All was snug and in place. I should mention that the night was still and windless. As you may conceive my first thought was housebreakers. Having reassured myself on this point I believed that one of the younger domestics had been up to some pranks, tho’ I was loath to suspect any misdemeanours of this kind, for as you know I account myself singularly fortunate in my family. I returned to my room, puzzled but in no way concerned, not being aware of what greater disturbances this first slight alarm was the forerunner.

  The following night I was in bed, but perfectly awake, when I heard three loud and violent knocks on the door of my room. In an instant I was out of bed and in the passage, but nothing was to be seen. I returned to my bed and fell asleep, to be woken an hour or two later by the sound of footsteps in the room overhead, and a heavy dragging noise as though someone pulled a large chest across the floor. I was in two minds whether to rise and investigate, but being drowsy (though perfectly in my senses) and the noise ceasing, I decided against leaving my bed and soon fell asleep again.

  It was not till the next morning that I asked myself, more positively and with some astonishment, who could have been stirring overhead for, as you know, I have moved to the Chintz room during your absence and though, judging from the external appearance of the house, there is rafter space and to spare above this room, there is certainly no apartment.

  By now I was convinced that there was some irregularity among my household, and summoning Robert Godwin* I acquainted him with my surmise. To my surprise he told me that he had also been aware of unusual noises the previous night, to wit doors opening and shutting and a ponderous thud like (he said) a sack full of logs or coal thrown down with violence.

  But though he had been on the alert for the best part of the night, he had been unable to discover any cause for it. He was as reluctant as I was to fasten the blame upon any of the domestics (and indeed I believe that we have never had a steadier and more honest set of servants than at present) but suggested that they should be locked into their rooms the next night, which precaution, he said, they would readily submit to if they were as innocent as he believed.

  Accordingly that night all were secured in their rooms, not excluding the nurse and nursemaid, and my trusty Mary Willmot. Robert Godwin himself took up his position with firearms in the Hall, as being the most likely place to surprise the unknown intruder.

  Several hours passed quietly after I had retired to bed, and I flattered myself that our precautions had solved the mystery (though grieved at supposing that one of our servants had been guilty of such a senseless and unworthy prank), when I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the passage. By the lightness of the step and the sweeping noise of a skirt I knew that it was a woman. As the footsteps approached my door they stopped and I heard the handle of my door move gently, as though someone tried it, but the door itself was not opened. In a flash I had sprung from my bed and seizing the rushlight ran out into the passage, but there was nothing to be seen, though there had been no sound of footsteps in retreat, and ’tis certain that no human being could have escaped my view in so very short a time.

  I went downstairs to speak to Robert Godwin. He was in the Hall, leaning against the newel post of the staircase, and as I descended the stairs he looked up at me with a pale and sickly face. “Oh my lady, ’tis you,” he breathed in tones of heartfelt relief. Then, recovering his composure, he told me that as he sate there with his pistols and two lighted candles on the table beside him, he had become aware of a sudden feeling of silence and cold, and then that a woman was coming down the staircase towards him. He heard with the utmost distinctness the stirring of a silken dress and the tap of heels, but though the staircase was plainly visible by the candlelight, he could perceive no form nor shadow. So he sate, unable to move for astonishment and alarm,
till the footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs when, with a loud rustling as of skirts, they rushed past him.

  While we stood there looking at one another, I being unwilling to credit his extraordinary tale, and yet unable absolutely to disbelieve him, on account of the earnestness of his manner and my trust in his veracity, there came from behind us the noise of a door opening and slamming with a vehemence that shook the house and made us both start like shot hares.

  This roused me not to fear but to anger, and bidding Godwin examine the rooms to the right of the hall, I looked into the others (for we could not determine which door was the one to be clapped to) but all was silent, the windows fastened and nothing amiss.

  ’Twould be tedious and unnecessary, my dear husband, to give you exact particulars of the noises that disturbed the house during the following weeks. It is enough to say that though sometimes a night or two passed in tranquillity this was the limit of our respite. The noises which were of various kinds were heard by all the household (excepting Mrs Mudge, whose deafness has secured her a peace of mind which we all envy). There were footsteps, for the most part light and stealthy but occasionally followed by the plodding step of a man, rappings, loud thuds, as though someone beat urgently upon a door, a peculiar clatter or jingling like a horse’s bridle, snatches of harmony (this was heard by me and Elizabeth Wilson only), also on several occasions in the dead of night a crash would resound through the house in so violent a manner as to awaken the household.

  The men servants (of whose steadiness and resolution I cannot speak too highly) took it in turns to watch up, two at a time (for alone they would not stay) but never could catch sight of any thing or living creature to account for the disturbances.

  I was still unwilling to believe that a supernatural agency was responsible, and so caused all the outside locks of the house to be altered, also, though I was reluctant to bruit our troubles abroad, let it be known in the village that a reward of £60 would be paid for information leading to the discovery of the evilly disposed persons who were making divers kinds of noises at Maryiot Cells. These measures led to no result whatever and the noises continued unabated.