The Angel of Highgate

17 THE NIGHT GARDEN

Thraxton crouched on the rooftop smoking a cigar — his last. Three hours had passed and the sun was beginning to sink low over the church spires and rooftops of London. From his lofty perch, the entire city lay spread out before him. Steam ships churned up the Thames, black smoke pluming from their funnels. Meanwhile the chimneys atop thousands of rooftops fumed as people arrived home from work and lit their evening fires. Lamp lighters moved slowly up the streets, trailing behind them a glowing necklace of amber light. For ten minutes the wind picked up, swirling. Hot ash and cinders stung his eyes. And then the wind gusted and died as the day breathed out its last gasp and fell into a sudden slumber with the onset of twilight.

Through all the hours of Thraxton’s vigil, the black curtains of the third floor windows had not stirred. Now the ruddy glow of a coal fire throbbed in the front parlor windows. Thraxton could smell dinners cooking on stovetops — bacon frying, cabbages boiling — and his stomach growled. His knees were beginning to cramp. He stood up and tossed the butt of his cigar away, watching it meteor to the street below in a sputtering of sparks. The day had been remarkably balmy for England in mid-September, but as the enflamed lids of cloud closed upon the sun’s fiery eye, the temperature plummeted and a chill crept through his clothes.

Just five minutes, Thraxton told himself. Five more minutes and I shall quit this vigil.

He sat down again to wait. The five minutes dragged, the minute hand of his pocket watch slumping forward leadenly. Then, breaking his promise to himself, he waited another five minutes. Nothing. It was time to go. He stood up, legs throbbing as the blood rushed back in.

And then, on the rooftop opposite, a stairwell door opened and a diminutive figure stepped out. It was a woman, dressed in a black lace dress that reached to her feet. Her hands were hidden under black lace gloves, the face concealed behind a black veil set within a deeply cowled bonnet. Even so, the figure was clearly feminine and instantly recognizable as that which he had mistaken for a spirit in the gloom of Highgate Cemetery.

“My dark angel!”

At his shout, the figure spun around.

“You are real then. I had feared you were but a phantasm of my cracked skull. Will you not speak?”

The figure in black dithered, clearly torn between retreating to the stairwell or escaping to the nearby greenhouse.

“Please! To hear your voice is all I ask.”

The cowl turned toward him, but in its shadowed depths, Thraxton could not discern any human feature. Yet it was clear the figure was looking straight at him. He knew the hesitation might last only seconds. If the figure retreated behind the stairwell door, he might never see her again. He walked down the slippery slope of the tiles to the edge of the roof. Ten feet of empty air separated the two buildings. He glanced down. The alleyway between the two buildings formed a gloomy chasm: a spine-shattering plunge of maybe sixty feet to the cobbles below.

I can jump it, Thraxton thought.

When he looked up again the figure had turned and had one hand on the doorknob of the stairwell door. He must act quickly.

Thraxton backed up several paces, then took three running steps and leapt into space. He was an athletic man and the gap was one he could normally have jumped easily, but the roof slates were slick with moss and years of accumulated soot, and so his foot slipped as he drove off. Instantly, he knew he was not going to make the distance. Feet and arms windmilling, he barely made the edge of the adjacent roof, slamming down hard on the tiles, then slid off the steep pitch, and just managed to save himself by grabbing the rain guttering, which left him dangling, legs kicking sixty feet from the cobblestones below.

The female figure screamed, “Dear God, sir! You will fall to your death!”

“Ah,” Thraxton said. “Now she speaks!”

Arms trembling, Thraxton threw one leg up onto the tiles and strained to pull himself up. But under his weight, the rusted iron brackets holding the guttering began to bend. Now would not be an opportune moment to die, Geoffrey, he thought as he grappled for a handhold on the slippery tiles. His fingertips caught a tiny ridge, and as he heaved himself up onto the roof, the brackets snapped and a long section of guttering tore loose and fell, tumbling end over end and crashed down into the alleyway below.

Thraxton lay on his back, breathing hard. The cowled woman stood over him, a hand held to her unseen mouth. Not the most heroic entrance, Geoffrey, but at least you are alive. “My dark angel,” Thraxton said, tottering to his feet. Up close, she was very petite. He was a good head and shoulders taller than her. “Once again, I have crossed the abyss of death to reach you—”

“Shhh!” the woman said. She grabbed Thraxton’s hand, led him to the greenhouse door and pulled him inside. In one stride they stepped from the chill and smoke of London into tropical air perfumed by flowers. He watched as she moved unerringly through darkness he could barely see in, lighting candle lanterns. As their glow spread, he found himself inside a miniature of the Palm House at Kew. Large palms spread their fronds against the glass ceiling. Blooms of every hue drooped atop their stems. Around them, the air thrummed with flitting shapes: huge moths that swooped about their heads. A few landed on their shoulders, skittered here and there, antennae quivering, then fluttered away again.

“How remarkable!” Thraxton said.

“This is my Night Garden. My father made it for me.” She took his hand and led him deeper. “We must be very quiet. My father does not allow gentlemen callers. He would be vexed if he discovered you were here. But then I fear you already know something of my father’s anger.”

“Yes.” Thraxton placed a hand on his sore abdomen and grimaced. “Your father is a man of very few words but very hard fists.”

At the back of the greenhouse was a small sitting area with two chairs arranged face to face on either side of a wrought-iron table. Nearby was a day bed, the sheets rumpled, making it clear that someone slept there.

The woman indicated that Thraxton should sit and then dropped into the other chair. For once, the normally voluble Thraxton found himself at a loss for words. It was difficult to think of how to commence a conversation with an enigmatic stranger whose cowled face he could not see. She seemed to sense his unease and broke the silence. “I… am grateful to you, sir… for saving me from those ruffians. I feel I must repay you somehow.”

“To see your face is the only reward I would wish for.”

The cowl dipped demurely. “Perhaps I am ugly. Perhaps it would prove a scant reward.”

Thraxton leaned toward her in his chair. “No, I have seen your face, if only briefly. Since then it is the last thing I see before falling asleep. The first thing upon awakening. Might not I share that vision once again?”

A slight shake of the cowl indicated no.

Disappointed, Thraxton settled back in his seat. Patience, Geoffrey. This bird is easily startled.

“Might I at least know your name?”

“My name is Aurelia.”

The string of airy vowels struck his ear like music. He rose from his chair, bowed slightly and reached for her hand.

“Aurelia, I am Geoffrey.”

She hesitated, and then offered her hand. Thraxton took it lightly and kissed the black lace fingers of her glove. As his lips came away, he felt a slight tremor run through her. The cowl dipped again, bashfully, and he could tell that she was delighted to be treated so decorously. He released her hand and took his seat again.

“Tell me, Aurelia, have you always had the power to capture men’s hearts?”

At his words, she leapt to her feet in agitation and moved quickly to the glass, looking out over London.

Too much, Geoffrey, he thought. Slowly. Slowly.

By now, the sun was the orangey tip of a hot poker dipping in the Thames with an almost perceptible sizzle. Instantly, twilight surrendered to night as the smoky skies of London sponged up the last of the light. An unlit candle lantern sat atop the iron table between the two chairs and now Aurelia produced a box of matches and he heard the rasp of a match being struck. She lifted the glass of the candle lantern, lit the wick, and then carefully lowered the glass shade.

“The moths in my Night Garden are my butterflies. They pollinate the flowers but I must be careful with the lanterns. Moths are drawn to the flame but they are consumed by its slightest touch.”

“Are we any different?” Thraxton asked. “For we are drawn to the light of one another. And is love not a form of burning?”

Aurelia set the matches down atop the table and sank back into her seat. “People die. Love endures… immortal.”

“I mean love as a death of the self. For in love, both man and woman die and are born again into each other.” When he spoke of such things, Thraxton genuinely meant them, even though he had seldom in his life ever practiced such lofty ideals. Yet his words seemed to touch Aurelia, and for a moment she became very still.

“Please, sir, turn away.”

Although puzzled, Thraxton complied with her request. He fixed his gaze on one of the tightly furled blooms growing in the flower bed next to where they sat. From behind he heard the rustle of veil and hood being removed.

After a moment’s delay, she said, “You may look now.”

Thraxton turned back his gaze. Aurelia was just settling her long auburn hair upon her shoulders. Even in the warm yellow glow of the candle lanterns she was ethereally pale, but strikingly beautiful. His eyes moved raptly over her face, taking in the fine features: the high cheekbones, the full lips, the startling violet eyes. Her skin seemed as translucent as parchment; a blue vein pulsed in her temple as if her skin were a thin envelope straining to hold the life pulsing inside. But what might have been an imperfection in another woman merely added to her exotic appeal. Even Thraxton, who had gorged himself on beauty over the years, was astonished.

“You say nothing, sir. Am I that ugly?”

Thraxton cleared his throat. “Now I know why the moth throws himself willingly upon the flame.”

Her eyes darted away, suddenly shy again, but the smile betrayed her pleasure at the compliment. “Look!” she whispered and nodded at something.

With difficulty, Thraxton tore his eyes away to follow her gaze. Beyond the glass, a full moon rose dripping from the Thames, setting the river alight with silver fire. A quiver of movement pulled his attention lower, and Thraxton saw what Aurelia was really referring to.

In their flowerbeds, Thraxton recognized the white blooms of an exotic flower that he and Algernon had discovered at Highgate. Even as he watched, the flower was unfurling, opening. Thraxton had never witnessed such a phenomenon, and when he turned his astonished gaze back to Aurelia, he saw her eyes wide with delight.

“My father created them for my Night Garden. He wanted to name them after me, but I call them my Night Angels, for they bloom by moonstroke.”

Her eyes flickered up to meet his and Thraxton could not stop himself from falling into the depths of the violet pools. But the hunger of his gaze made Aurelia look away. “You are staring, sir. It is impolite.”

“Forgive me, but I want to hold this moment in my mind forever.”

“Your words… they are like a poem.”

“Indeed, I have some pretensions in that direction.” God, destroy me now with a bolt of lightning and sweep away my ashes with her hair.

She searched for something on the floor beside her chair and offered it to him: a small, leather-bound volume. Thraxton opened the book to where a silk tassel split the pages. As his eyes scanned the first line, he recognized the poem.

“Browning?”

“‘Porphyria’s Lover,’” Aurelia said, suddenly a breathless young girl. “Do you know it?”

Thraxton could not hide the stab of jealousy at her gushing over another poet’s work.

“Yes. One of Browning’s less tedious efforts.”

The black silk dress rustled as she shifted excitedly in her seat. Her eyes flashed with an excitement that made him catch his breath. “I think it is wonderful!”

“A strange choice for one of your sex. A woman visits her lover and he strangles her with a rope of her own hair.”

“Oh, but it is sooooooooooo romantic!”

Thraxton laughed. Her girlish delight was infectious. At the same moment he tingled with an electric shock of surprise. He felt more than attraction to her beauty. More than lust for her body. He wanted to know her. To become part of her mysterious world.

“Why do you think he kills her?” she asked.

The question caught him off guard and he realized with chagrin that he had read the poem without ever really trying to analyze it, but sitting in this fantastical greenhouse, with this fantastical young lady, the reason seemed suddenly obvious. When he answered, he was surprised to find his voice quavering with emotion.

“I think… I think he kills her because at that moment he is certain with every atom of his being of his absolute love for her…” Thraxton’s voice trailed off to a whisper and she was leaning forward in her chair to catch his words. “…and her absolute love for him.” His voice broke on the last word and he had to swallow before he could continue. “By killing her, he seeks to freeze that moment — the happiest moment of his life — forever.”

A knot of silence tightened, drawing their faces closer together. He became aware of everything: the moths perched in her hair like living brooches. The imperceptible respiration of the flowers. The pulse of his heart and of hers, smaller, quicker. The moment ripened around them.

I must kiss her. I must kiss her now!

Had she been any other woman, he would have seized her, ravished her, but something held him back. The moment was fragile as spun glass. A breath could shatter it.

“Aurelia!” A man’s voice called from someplace far away, far below. “Aurelia, are you up there?”

Her eyes widened with fear. “My father! He must not find you!”

Moths scattered in a burst of wingbeats as she seized his hand and hurried him to the door. As they stepped out of the conservatory, the chill night air was like a slap of reproach.

“It seems I must leap again.”

“No! You must not!”

“Aurelia, are you up there?” Robert Greenley’s voice ascended before him up the throat of the stairwell. He was close — nearly at the top of the stairs. She pulled him behind a chimney stack that marked the common wall shared between the Greenley house and its neighbor.

“Stay here!” she said. “My father brings tea up to me at this hour. You must wait until he enters the conservatory, then go straight down the stairs. The front door is directly opposite. Clara, our maid is about. You must not let her see you or she’ll be sure to tell my father.”

With that, Aurelia rushed back inside the conservatory. The door had barely closed before the stairwell door barged open and Greenley backed through it, carrying a tray clattering with a pot of tea and two china cups. Thraxton ducked into the shadows of the chimney stack and listened until he heard the conservatory door bump shut. Without looking he slipped into the stairwell and was halfway down the staircase when he almost collided with a young and rather harried-looking young woman trudging up the stairs — Clara, the maid. For a moment the two stood gawping at each other. Clara, frightened to see a strange man coming down the stairs, dropped the basket of washing she was carrying and put her hands to her mouth.

Thraxton had been caught in flagrante before and quickly hit upon a course of action. His fingers dipped into the pockets of his waistcoat and he drew out a gold sovereign. Clara’s eyes saucered as he pressed the heavy coin into her hand. Putting a finger to his lips he whispered, “Shuussssssh,” gave her a conspiratorial wink, then pushed past and trotted down the stairs as if nothing were amiss.

Clara watched him go and then looked again at the gold coin in her hand. It winked golden in the light as she turned it over. A sovereign! As a maid-of-all-work in a less-than-illustrious household, she commanded an income of only seven pounds a year. To be a given a golden sovereign, a seventh of her yearly income, in one fell swoop was dizzying. Clara gaped at the coin in her hand and looked up the stairs her master had just climbed a moment before. Then she slipped the coin into the pocket of her pinny, hefted her basket of clean laundry, and plodded on up the stairs.

Thraxton let himself out of the front door of Greenley’s house, skipped down the steps he had been knocked down just a few hours earlier, and ran out into the street, oblivious to the shouts of the cab driver that nearly ran him over. He threw one last laughing look up at the rooftop, and then swaggered away up the street.