Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton

by Rowland Hughes

  By March 29th they had assumed a different and a more intolerable quality (I speak for myself, but I believe this was also the opinion of my poor harassed and affrighted household). It seemed now that they had become more human, if I may use the term. A murmur of urgent voices was heard (though the words themselves could not be distinguished), also a peculiar low moan or cry and a dismal groaning.

  At first when this was reported to me I attributed it to the nerves of my household being much sunk by the constant state of affright and terror in which they now lived, till one night I myself was roused from sleep by the sound of shrill, furious, despairing crying, as of a woman in horrible suffering. Only a few nights later, I was again disturbed by plaintive cries, accompanied by a sobbing sound. I need hardly add that neither on these nor any other occasions did the strictest scrutiny on my part reveal any appearance of human or brute being.

  On April 3rd (I remember the date on account of it being our little Fanny’s birthday) I was woke at dawn by a sound of gasping and groaning as though someone lay dying in my very room. This last alarm, so more than commonly horrible, induced me to have Mary Willmot to lie in a truckle bed in my room, for though I believed my resolution equal to all that might befall, I will not deny that the thought of her company was comfortable to me.

  Two nights passed in undisturbed quietness and when I retired to bed on the third night I rashly remarked to Mary Willmot that I believed the alarms were over and that we should at last enjoy repose. I slept very peacefully and soundly till the small hours of the morning, when I woke to hear someone stirring about the room. Believing it to be my woman I said, “What ails you Willmot? Lie still.” There was no reply from her, only a rustling of the bedcurtains, as though someone touched them. Suddenly I was sensible that this person, whoever it might be, was not Mary Willmot. With this knowledge, my courage for the first time in my life utterly deserted me, and I knew that I dared not open the bedcurtains and see who stood without.

  As I lay there in a kind of stupor these words, spoken in a low threatening tone, seemed to sing through my head, “I am the spirit of Barbara Skelton and bespeak your attention.” (But for the certainty of this I cannot vouch, for I was much disordered.) I heard a stifled groan, and then footsteps retiring to the door and the door softly opening.

  In that moment my faculties returned to me, and I leapt from my bed, to find my woman lying with her head under the bedclothes, almost deprived of sense and motion from fright, and the door not opened as I had supposed (since there had been no sound of it closing) but bolted as when we had gone to bed.

  When Mary Willmot had recovered herself sufficiently, she told me that as she lay there in her bed, she heard someone enter the room. Being thrown into the greatest possible terror by this alone (for she herself had bolted the door when we retired to rest) she durst not raise her head to see who had entered, but lay quite still and sweating extremely. Presently hearing no sound she ventured to open her eyes, but was so appalled by what she saw that she shut them immediately, for by the light of the rushlight she perceived on the wall and ceiling the shadow, very great and dark, of a woman, stooping towards my bed, and holding a cup or goblet in her hand. It was at this moment that I spoke to her, but terror had bereft her of speech.

  This night was the prelude it would seem to the third phase of the haunting, for I know not what better name to give it. For now, it appeared as though the evil thing that disturbed our peace had gathered strength and was striving to make itself not only audible but visible.

  On April 6th, in the evening, but in a sufficiently clear light, Robert Godwin having occasion to go to the print room, caught sight of the sweep of a woman’s dress round the passage corner. Hastening after it in amazement, for he had been alone a moment before, he was still more confounded to find that part of the passage silent and empty, though there was nowhere for a rat, far less a human being to hide itself.

  I will now relate to you the experience which befell me, and which I think you would find it hard to believe did you not know that my nerve is firm and my veracity beyond reproach.

  On the Sunday following I went up to my dressing-room after supper to fetch down my French brocade gown, it being my intention to use the embroidery on it as a pattern for my needlework (not having the heart to oblige one of the maids to venture through the house at that late hour). As I came up to the wardrobe, with a lighted candle in my hand, I saw a woman’s face reflected in the polished surface. Heaven be my witness, the face was not my own. ’Twas the face of a young woman and had the ghastly look of death, but the eyes were alive and fixed wide upon me, and I pray God that I never see the like of that gaze again. You will excuse me from giving you further particulars of this at present, for I care not to think of it.

  I uttered a cry and immediately the apparition faded. Turning round I found the room quiet and empty.

  You will, I believe, be surprised that I have not yet mentioned our dear children during this narrative of events. I need not assure you that my chief anxiety has been lest they should be frightened by any of these nasty doings, and my best support during these very trying weeks was that they were in no ways alarmed or disturbed (for which much merit must be taken by their nurse and nursemaid and the other servants for their prudent and discreet behaviour, but may also be accounted for by the fact that the disturbances occurred mostly in the other part of the house).

  You can imagine then my consternation, when little Charles ran up to me the other day crying that as he and Elizabeth played at some game on the nursery staircase they saw a white face looking down at them from above, and saw it “hop away”. (I give you his exact words which will no doubt sound as strange to you as they did to me.)

  I questioned him lightly, as though attaching no great importance to the matter. I asked him which of the servants was it. No, it was none of the servants, he said. It was a lady, “and oh Mama, we did not like her face and so we ran away.”

  The very next night little Fanny woke up shrieking and, Nurse running in to her, she screamed out in terror that someone had come to her bed to fetch her away, nor could she be quieted for over half an hour.

  I had taken the resolution, my love, not to acquaint you till your return from Dublin with all this uneasiness that we have endured during your absence and to have rubbed on till then, not wishing to bring you posting back while your business was still unconcluded, and perhaps not being willing either, through the obstinacy of my disposition, to admit myself worsted. But now that this thing whatever or whoever it may be, threatens our children’s peace of mind I dare no longer keep the matter in my breast.

  ’Twas unavoidable that rumours of these disturbances should spread among the workmen before they had been down here twenty-four hours, and not a day passes without a report being brought to me of some dire thing which they have heard or seen; one day they are nearly ridden down by an invisible rider and horse, another evening ’tis a woman hanging from a tree, but I will not trouble you with particulars of what I take for the most part to be idle tales, for though your great-great aunt richly deserved hanging, ’twas not, as you know, the manner of her death.

  Nevertheless all this has added greatly to my embarrassment and anxiety. Though you need not have the least uneasiness about my health (which remains good in spite of wakeful nights and some agitation to my nerves and spirits) I will confess that your presence and advice would be a vast comfort to me.

  I must bring this long letter to a close. Heaven send us after all these troubles an agreeable meeting.

  Your affectionate and ever loving friend and wife,

  Sophia Skelton.’

  But the next morning between husband and wife narrowly escaped being a tragic one. On receiving Lady Sophia’s letter, Sir Charles set out immediately from Dublin. The night before he arrived home a fire broke out in the west wing of Maryiot Cells, where the nurseries were situated. Thanks to the courage of their nurse the children escaped unharmed. The west wing was destroyed, bu
t prompt action on the part of the indoor servants and the estate labourers prevented the fire from spreading to the rest of the house.

  The cause of the fire was never discovered. Local gossip naturally attributed it to the same malevolent influence that had been disturbing the peace of the Great House for the past two months. That the unseen entity who apparently resented the prospect of Maryiot Cells being rebuilt should itself attempt to destroy the house seems to indicate that logic is as rare a quality in the spirit as in the material world.

  But of course it was the nursery wing. This ugly thought may have occurred to Lady Sophia. We know her to be a passionately devoted mother, and where her children were concerned she may have been influenced by superstitious fears to which she would have scorned to have yielded on her own account. Maternal solicitude was perhaps the chink in the armour of her singularly resolute personality. Or perhaps Sir Charles, who it may be suspected had never taken enthusiastically to the notion of having his ancestral home pulled down and reconstructed at vast expense, seized the opportunity to dissuade his wife from the scheme.

  Whatever the reason the fine new house, of which Lady Sophia had dreamed, remained stillborn – an architect’s plan. The rebuilding of the west wing, and some minor alterations to other parts of the house were the only changes that were made at this time to the structure of Maryiot Cells.

  Among the bundles of papers connected with these events is a curious little memorandum in Sir Charles’s handwriting.

  Dated, ‘August 9th 1782’, it reads:

  ‘This day the workmen who are engaged in altering the kitchen and domestic offices came upon a narrow staircase bricked up behind the wall in the passage outside the kitchen. They acquainted me at once with their discovery and, as during the recent unexplained disturbances at Maryiot Cells there was much talk among the domestics of the sound of footsteps and stumbling, dismal groans, sighing and inhuman furious cries proceeding from this part of the house, I determined at once to investigate, taking Lady Sophia and Godwin with me as witnesses.

  The staircase, which was narrow and steep, appeared not to have been used for many years judging by the dust and the rats’ droppings underfoot. We followed it up and found ourselves in a small chamber or garret which, as far as we could judge, must be situated directly above the Chintz room. The room was bare except for a wooden chest painted in the Dutch fashion. The chest was secured by a lock, but this was easily opened and we looked inside hoping to find there some object or document that would explain the recent disturbances.

  But there was nothing within except a silvered buckled riding belt (the silver being much tarnished) and a withered flower which in Lady Sophia’s estimation might once have been a white rose, but of this we could not be sure of, as she held it up, it fell into dust…’

  * ‘Brother Jack’ was Sir Charles’s younger brother, Captain John Skelton, R.N., later Sir John Skelton, K.C.B., Admiral of the Blue.

  * William Waite was coachman to Sir Charles’s father for forty years.

  * The butler.

  PART II

  THE STORY OF BARBARA SKELTON

  ‘Read but take heed that you such actions shun.

  For honesty is best when all is done.’

  The English Rogue, 16881

  1

  THE WEDDING

  ‘Take heed of inning at the fairest signs,

  The Swan hath black flesh under white feathers.’1

  February 1678

  HER FACE LOOKED back at her from the mirror. She gazed at it intently, almost greedily, as though in its eyes and contours she would read the secret of her future and her fate. It was the face of a girl of sixteen who would one day be a lovely woman. It was the face of a bride on her wedding morning. Most important of all it was the face of Barbara Worth, soon to become Barbara Skelton.

  It was such a young face, changing, unfinished, the mere sketch of the adult face into which it would gradually mature. But already, as she noticed tenderly, passing by its imperfections unheeded, it was a face that fascinated and arrested. The skin, pale and smooth as thick cream, was set off by the bronzen darkness of the hair; the heavy-lidded eyes under the fine eyebrows had a slumberous air, but, when the long lashes lifted, they gleamed with a cat’s-eye green; the nose was prettily shaped without distinction except that afforded to it by the nostrils. These were curious. Delicately cut away, they gave an eager and ardent look to the indolent face. ‘Winged nostrils’, a Court poet was later to describe them. All the emphasis of the face lay in the fine eyes and the interesting nostrils. The mouth expressed little but rosy youthfulness and incipient discontent.

  Aunt Dorothy Worth, Nurse, and the bridesmaids, cousin Ursula Worth, Arabella Crosbie, Bess Speke, Penelope Carew, and Anne and Moll Kirby, fluttered round her, excited, foolishly elated, each putting little finishing touches to her toilet that spoilt someone else’s finishing touches and so merely added to the delay: rearranging the chaplet of pearls on her hair, tweaking an errant ringlet on her forehead, twisting round their fingers the curl that hung down her long slender throat; patting the white satin, silver-embroidered gown and the lemon-coloured petticoat, smoothing out the fall of fine lace that cunningly concealed the girlish angularity of her elbows; and fidgeting with the bride’s favours of peach-coloured, silver and carnation ribbons, which must be attached firmly enough to her gown to remain in place during the marriage service and loosely enough for them to come away easily, without tearing the gown, when the guests scrambled for them after the wedding feast.2

  Their remarks were as excited and inconsequent as their gestures.

  ‘Sure, when the bridegroom sees all this bravery he will be right out of his senses for love,’ giggled Bess Speke.

  ‘I believe we would have done better to have dressed her hair in the French fashion. But I suppose it would be too late now to pull it down and start afresh?’ fretted Penelope Carew.

  ‘Provided Barbara makes an obedient wife and a proper housekeeper it will not matter how her hair is dressed on her wedding day.’ So Aunt Dorothy improved the solemn hour with a note of asperity.

  ‘Oh! to think that my pretty Precious is being taken from me,’ moaned Nurse.

  The young girl who was the centre of this attention accepted it as her due. This group of chattering women regarded her with intense if transitory interest because she was a bride, the only and virgin daughter of the house whom they were decking for the hymeneal rite, but Barbara Worth herself could not remember a day, or even an hour when her own personality and appearance had not seemed to her of paramount importance.

  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,3 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 Lincolnsh
ire 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.