Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton

by Rowland Hughes

  Meanwhile the strange horseman kept the plunging horses from bolting, covering the coachman and guard with his pistol as though it were the most natural thing in the world that he and Barbara should work together in unison.

  Only when Barbara had robbed the last passenger did he forsake his passive role. With a cool deliberation that surprised Barbara, he shot the leading coach horse, shouted, ‘After me!’ and, dashing across the road, galloped away down the track where Barbara had been hiding. As she followed him the coachman, stung into courage by the wanton slaughter of his beast, fired at the retreating riders. But the shot fell short of Fleury’s flying hoofs. Soon Barbara and her unknown companion were deep among the trees.

  Barbara neither knew where she was going nor with whom she was going. But she resolved recklessly to see this adventure through to its end. The track widened up into a rough lane, and after cantering along this for a while the highwayman drew rein, wheeled his horse round and faced Barbara.

  She waited in wary but agreeable anticipation for the congratulations which she felt were her due. She had done a pretty piece of work. This man – whoever he was – could not fail to acknowledge that.

  He seized her by the throat and said, ‘Now, you son of a bitch, perhaps you’ll kindly tell me who gave you leave to trespass on Jerry Jackson’s preserves?’

  To reply was impossible – his hands held her neck in a cruel grip. But as she struggled, gasping horribly for breath, her hat fell off. Even by starlight the contour of her head and hair, the soft line of her brow and chin, proclaimed her masquerade.

  He dropped his hands abruptly. As she put her hands pitifully to her throat he ordered, ‘Unmask!’ She obeyed him. There could be no refusal in the face of his brute force. But already she intended to exploit her weakness to the utmost. Though her throat ached painfully from his throttle-hold, she was not displeased with the resonant masculine note of his voice.

  The crepe mask slipped off from her face and she turned her strange heavy-lidded eyes towards him. He stared with intense curiosity for a moment, then burst out laughing. ‘Be poxed to it! So now our wild ladies are turning bridle-cull!’ Barbara said in her low soft voice, ‘You seem surprised, sir, at my sex. I am surprised at your behaviour. Since when has dog taken to eating dog? The world has come to a sad pass when rogues must prey on each other.’

  The man chuckled. ‘You’re saucy, aren’t you? Never mind. I like it. I never could endure a melancholy fusty humour in a woman. Well, remember this the stretch of Watling Street between Fenny Stratford and Nether Weald is sacred to Captain Jerry Jackson at present, and those who poach there do so at their peril.’

  He spoke in a braggart tone, but Barbara knew that he was impressed to find by her voice that she was not a common adventuress but a woman of good condition.

  He added, sweeping of his hat in a flamboyantly gallant gesture, ‘But that is not meant for you, my pretty lamb. You may poach where you will.’

  Barbara acknowledged this with a slight inclination of her head. She said, ‘You were hiding there before me? You saw me come?’

  ‘Why, to be sure. I had a blow set me that the stage was late and would be passing Dolly’s Dell at midnight. You don’t suppose that Gentleman Jerry waits about these chill nights without some chance of profit. I took you, from your figure, to be a sprig of a university lad who was making his first purse on the highway.’

  ‘But when you saw me at work, you knew then that I had been out on the highway before?’ Barbara asked quickly, jealous for her professional reputation.

  Captain Jackson smiled. ‘Yes. You handled that coach very nicely. I saw that you weren’t altogether fresh to the Road. I thought myself in luck, I can tell you. Nothing to do but hold the horses while you collected the goldfinches for me.’

  He eyed her capacious pockets as he spoke. Barbara stiffened with mortification and apprehension, but she said casually,

  ‘Why did you kill that horse? I would rather kill a man than a horse any day.’

  ‘You won’t, my lady, when you have been as near wearing a Tyburn tippet4 as I have. Only a fool shoots to kill on the Road, except in a case of dire necessity. You may say, isn’t highway robbery a hanging matter anyhow? True, but you have a fairer chance of buying an acquittal if you are not a killer. As for horses,’ he slapped his horse’s neck genially, ‘no one is fonder of a prancer than I am, nor looks after his mounts better, but your first aim on the Road should be to elude pursuit, and for that reason you should always either tie up the traveller, or if there are too many for that – as there were tonight – shoot one of the horses.’

  Barbara listened with interest. This man could teach her something of Road lore. Meanwhile there was the delicate matter of the booty to be considered. She took a sudden resolution and said boldly:

  ‘Before we ride along any further together, Captain Jackson, would it not be well to settle up the matter of tonight’s gains? As I took most of the risk and did all the work I consider myself, not unnaturally, entitled to a share. But as you are a man and a strong man’ (she gave a sidelong glance at his tall, well set-up figure and powerful shoulders) ‘and I am but a weak woman my opinion scarcely counts. Unless your own generosity and chivalry plead to you on my behalf, there is nothing for me to do but to hand everything over to you with as good a grace as possible, resolving to avoid Captain Jackson’s stretch of road in future.’

  She ended lightly, but there was a threat behind her words, for she knew that already he desired her.

  He said quickly. ‘This is not a matter that can be settled in a moment – or with dry mouths! A drink or two would help us to come to some arrangement. I know of an inn near here whose hostess is a good friend of mine, and one of the best cooks in Buckinghamshire. I don’t know how it is with you, but my appetite is pretty sharp set by this cold night air. Will you do me the favour, Madam, of supping with me?’

  ‘Willingly,’ said young Lady Skelton, and putting their horses to the trot they rode together in a guarded but affable silence.

  They came to an inn, set back among the trees and near the sound of running water. Jackson avoided the main entrance, and riding round to the side knocked three times in a peculiar fashion on a door set in a wall. He murmured to Barbara, ‘Mask yourself, my dear. The hostess here can be trusted, but she is only a woman when all is said and done!’

  The door was opened cautiously by an ostler with a lantern in his hand. ‘Ah, it’s you Captain. Good night. Come in, sir.’

  In the cobbled courtyard Jackson dismounted, threw his reins to the ostler, stretched himself and said in the complacent but self-conscious tones of one who wishes to show that he is an honoured guest, ‘Can your mistress give me and my friend here a bite of something?’

  ‘Why surely, sir! I’ll go and tell her directly I’ve put the horses up, or maybe you’ll see her yourself, if you go through, for there is a party of gentlemen still drinking in there.’

  Captain Jackson motioned to Barbara to follow him and led the way through the obscurity of the back premises to the tap-room door, behind which could be heard a buzz of voices and rowdy laughter.

  Captain Jackson opened the door a crack and whistled. The hostess came out, a tankard of ale in her hand. She was a full-blown woman in her middle thirties, with a bright, high colour, thick black curly hair, too much chin, and brown eyes as hard as pebbles.

  She greeted Jackson effusively. ‘Ah, Captain, you’re welcome! And this gentleman too.’ She eyed Barbara speculatively, twisting a ringlet round her plump finger.

  ‘Who is in there?’

  ‘Just Will Lemon and his sparks, making themselves merry after their evening’s work.’

  ‘Well, this gentleman and I wish to be quiet and talk business. Can you give us a bite in the parlour? I have told my friend that you are the best cook in Buckinghamshire, so see you don’t disappoint me.’ He put his arm round her voluminous waist and tickled her ribs. She simpered, vowed that he was a pestilent wretch and bustl
ed off to prepare supper.

  This was brought into the little parlour without undue delay – stewed carps, a pigeon pie and a dish of neat’s tongues5 and cheese. Candles were placed on the table, a log of wood thrown on the dying embers of the fire. Captain Jackson and Lady Skelton were alone.

  He poured her out some wine and said, ‘This is very snug, but I should enjoy my food more if I had an uninterrupted view of your charming face.’

  Barbara raised her hands to her mask, then hesitated. ‘I have some curiosity to see your face, good sir.’

  Jerry Jackson laughed and pulled off his mask and hat. ‘At your service, Madam!’

  He was a man of about twenty-eight, fresh-complexioned, large-featured, with uneasy hazel eyes and a full mouth and chin. In middle age his face would coarsen, but at present he was, as Barbara noted with satisfaction, a handsome enough, likely-looking man. His teeth were noticeably white and even.

  He wore his own hair, which was abundant and of a beautiful auburn colour. His dress was rich – a suit of green cloth with a flowered tabby vest and gold lace at the wrists. His hat was edged with ostrich feathers. As Barbara looked at him he glanced down at his lace cravat, flicking away an imaginary crumb, all the self-complacency of the fine male animal in his expression.

  He urged her, ‘Now for your share of the bargain.’ She slipped off her mask, sat with downcast eyelids and widened nostrils as he regarded her.

  He said enthusiastically, ‘Lovely! ‘Tis a damned shame to cover it with a mask.’

  ‘My face is tolerably good, I believe,’ Barbara said coolly, ‘but I fancy that you are more interested at present in the contents of my pockets.’

  He laughed this aside. ‘Not at all. I never talk business at meals.’ He filled up her tankard. ‘No, what interests me at the moment is to know whom I have the honour of talking to, and why a fine and noble lady like yourself has turned Road Collector.’

  Barbara looked at him from under her lashes. She said with a little smile, ‘As to my name, sir, you can not expect me to tell you that.’

  ‘Why not? I have told you mine.’

  ‘Your name is your own – presumably. Mine belongs to a very worthy gentleman.’

  ‘So you are married?’

  ‘Why yes. Married these five long years.’ She sighed faintly.

  Jerry Jackson gave a satisfied smile. ‘Your husband, madam, if you’ll forgive me saying so, should know his business better than to drive you to find your pleasure on the highway. For I take it that it is not lack of money that set you on this course?’

  ‘No. I do not rob for gain, though I confess that I should find little enjoyment in robbery if there was no gain attached to it.’

  Jackson laughed loudly. ‘Why so say we all! No, if I am to dance in a rope at Tyburn at the end I must have my pocket full of guineas meanwhile. So you won’t tell me your name?’

  ‘Does my name really concern or interest you? Does it make any difference to you what I am called?’ He shook his head. ‘I thought not. Priscilla – Dorothy – Barbara. Any of these names would suit me as well as another. You may call me Barbara if you like.’ This was risky, but her own name meant much to her, and seemed to her the only possible one.

  ‘Why that will do famously. The name suits you as well as if you had been christened with it. And so, Mistress Barbara, you do not go out on the Road to make money. What for, then? For it is a dangerous life and often a short one, as you must know very well.’

  ‘What for? To delude the tedium of my life, I suppose.’

  He leant across the table and took her hand in his. She noticed how hard and strong his hand was and how it had little fine reddish hairs across the back.

  He said in a low urgent voice, ‘For a beautiful woman there are better ways of deluding the tedium of life than trotting the highways. If you would admit me to your favour I could teach you a soft love lesson that you might find as agreeable to learn as I would to impart.’

  Barbara gave him a little wanton look. ‘You go very fast, Captain Jackson. You seem to take me for a common jilt. I am not a glove for everyone’s drawing on. I have never yet been false to my husband’s bed.’

  ‘Then it is high time you began. The fellow deserves all he gets, to let you wander about unattended on Watling Street for any rogue in a laced coat to pick up.’

  His impudence made Barbara laugh. She had already decided to give herself to him. This was better than gambling, better than highway robbery, to yield recklessly, impudently, in an impulse of sheer animal passion to this handsome scoundrel. But even in this headlong moment when her hungry senses clamoured to surrender, she was mindful of Barbara Skelton’s interests.

  She mocked him. ‘Sir, it is as hard to trust you as to deny you. What of the jewels and the money?’ She thrust her hands defiantly into her deep pockets as she spoke.

  He said hoarsely, ‘Keep them. Keep them all. So long as I get the delicious prize of your body, the devil may take all the rest.’

  She lay back unresisting as he took her in his arms and, tearing open her man’s coat, revealed her lovely woman’s body to his ravished gaze.

  4

  FIRST KILL

  ‘Guilty thou art of murder and of theft.’1

  SO BEGAN A curious partnership between Barbara Lady Skelton and Captain Jerry Jackson – a partnership of business as well as pleasure. For though Captain Jackson was inclined at first to treat Barbara’s partiality for the highway with derision, taking it to be the whimsical fancy of a spoilt and idle woman, it was not long before he changed his tune, accepting her first as an able assistant and then as a valued partner in his nocturnal prowls.

  He was – to tell the truth – somewhat astonished at his good fortune in having secured at one stroke, and in one person, such a useful accomplice and so rare and delectable a bedfellow.

  The eagerness of ladies of fashion to pay visits of condolence to condemned highwaymen at Newgate was well known. But how many gentlemen thieves (for so he described himself) could boast of actually having a woman of quality as their doxy?

  Being of a naturally exuberant and talkative nature, Jerry Jackson disliked working on his own. He had had several partnerships with other highwaymen, all of which had been dissolved abruptly – either by a violent quarrel over booty or a woman, or by his partner meeting with some accident. On more than one occasion Jackson – most regretfully – had had to gallop off at high speed, leaving a wounded comrade to his fate, for the rather spasmodic displays of chivalry which had earned him, among his brothers of the blade, the soubriquet of ‘Gentleman Jerry’, and the reputation of being ‘a civil obliging robber’, were reserved for the fair sex, and did not extend to male friends in distress.

  Certainly the disadvantages of working with a partner outweighed the advantages. Chief among them was the danger of the trusty comrade turning informer and ‘making a discovery’. Now he was safe. As long as Barbara was content to lie, convulsed with passion, in his arms, he need fear no betrayal.

  But Barbara’s merits as a partner were not merely negative. Jackson had soon discovered with surprise and admiration what courage, briskness and mettle lodged in that slender and elegant frame. Her fault was that she was too impetuous. Anxious, in the way of women, to excel and to go one better than the man, she was all for attacking without prudence or delay. Jackson had to teach her the business side of highway robbery; how without cunning and caution no highwayman could hope to survive for more than a few months.

  He told her, ‘Damn my soul, Barbara, you don’t want to be like the country lad who, when the sheriff asked him why he was laughing to himself at Tyburn, said, “I came to town but last Monday, on Tuesday I had a whore, on Wednesday I lost my money at dice, on Thursday I made a purse on the highway, on Friday I was condemned for it, and now on Saturday I am to be hanged, so I think I have made a pretty week’s work on’t”.’

  Captain Jackson, Barbara found, prided himself on his duplicity as much as on his daring. He delighted
to tell how he had cozened wayfarers – making friends with a traveller at an inn, and riding along with him next morning till they reached a solitary spot where he relieved him of his saddlebag and thirty pounds in gold. Another time he had ‘protected’ a country squire against a feigned attack by his own gang, had been invited by the grateful gentleman to spend the night at his country house, and had decamped in the early hours of the morning with a haul of silver plate and jewellery.

  He acquainted her with many of the finer points of the profession: It was advisable to cut the traveller’s girths and bridle. By muddying his boots a highwayman could give the appearance of having ridden a long way, though actually he might be drinking a mug of ale within a few miles of the robbery. If the traveller was attended by servants they must be ordered to ride ahead after the robbery, to enable the highwayman to make his escape. It was worth remembering that travellers were under the impression that by travelling at night or on by-roads they would escape the attention of the ‘Road Collectors’. You could not always judge a victim’s potential yield by his or her outward appearance. A lady riding in a fine gilded coach might have nothing more than twenty shillings and a few paltry jewels about her, while a scrubby-looking grazier, returning from a fair, might ‘bleed’ to the tune of several hundred guineas.

  Then there were different methods of approach, to be suited to the different types of travellers. A courteous, ‘May I beg the favour of your purse,’ might have such an emollient effect on an agitated female that, in her relief at not being raped or murdered, she might give not only her purse but her concealed jewellery. On the other hand, it might be necessary to scare a more truculent male with a volley of oaths and a ‘Deliver or die!’

  Barbara must remember that the most simple-looking travellers were often full of subtle crafts. To make a traveller take off his boots – ‘shelling the peas’ as it was called – was routine work. There were dozens of other ways in which experienced travellers might attempt to defraud the gentlemen of the road.