The Angel of Highgate

26 THE UNANSWERED LETTER

Thraxton sat in the gloom of his brougham, watching the clatter and bustle of traffic moving along the darkening street: shire horses hauling wagons laden with large wooden barrels, costermongers pushing carts stacked with shiny apples, pickled herrings, wilting petunias, as well as the teeming clamor of hansom cabs and omnibuses carrying Londoners home after a day of labor.

Finally an overloaded omnibus slowed long enough for a single passenger to alight from its top deck. Although the figure was hidden beneath a black umbrella, Thraxton could tell by the way the man moved who it was: Robert Greenley. He watched as Greenley crossed the road, dodging traffic and then trudged wearily up the front steps of his house. Clara, the maid, must have been waiting by the door for now it cracked open, spilling warm light, and Greenley entered. Thraxton snipped the end from a fresh cigar and lit it. Half an hour later he finished puffing his third cigar and tossed the butt out the window of his carriage. By now, the downstairs windows had gone dark and gas light shone behind the curtains of the second-story windows Thraxton knew to be Greenley’s bedroom. After only ten minutes that, too, was extinguished. Fortunately for Thraxton, Robert Greenley was very much a creature of habit. He worked a twelve-hour day at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and usually arrived home around seven in the evening. After a light supper, he would retire to bed where he read his Bible for maybe ten minutes and then he would turn out the light.

The bedroom light extinguished, Thraxton waited another ten minutes and then stepped down from his carriage.

At the front door, he eschewed the use of the heavy brass knocker, and instead rapped with his gloved knuckles using his special knock: three slow knocks, and then two quick knocks. After a short delay, the door opened and Clara’s moon face appeared in the crack.

“I am sorry, sir, but she will not see you.”

“But it’s been nearly two weeks. Tell her I will come every day for a year if need be.”

“I can’t do nuffink, sir,” Clara said and began to shut the door.

“Wait!” Thraxton reached into his breast pocket and drew out an envelope. “Will you give her this letter… please?”

Clara hesitated, then cracked the door wider and reluctantly took the letter from his hand.

He pulled a coin from his pocket and placed it in her hand. Greed flashed in her eyes when she saw it was a half sovereign. She slipped the heavy coin into her pinny and quietly closed the door.

A single candle burned atop the dresser in Aurelia’s room. She sat on the low stool before it, encircled in its trembling halo of light. Thraxton’s letter sat in her lap, the envelope still damp from the rain. Her hands shook as she tore it open, unfolded the letter, and held the paper close to the flame. Her eyes skipped frantically over the elegant whorls and loops of Thraxton’s handwriting before she could calm herself enough to read what they said.

Aurelia looked up at her reflection in the mirror. Half of her face was hidden by the frame, but as she leaned forward the right side of her face appeared, marked with ugly blisters. The turmoil of her emotions, her fatal susceptibility to light, had triggered an attack of her illness. For days she lay in bed, wracked with abdominal pains, her flesh burning with an angry red rash that erupted across her skin.

She looked down at the letter and the words prismed and shattered. A swollen teardrop fell and plopped onto the letter, bleeding ink as it ran down the page.

For the first time in weeks Augustus Skinner had descended from his rooms. He sat cushioned on a pile of feather pillows stacked on his favorite armchair. He was wrapped in a richly embroidered dressing gown, a burgundy smoking cap atop his head. The only sound in the parlor was the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece and the sputter of coals burning in the grate. Skinner sat staring into the fire’s seething redness, shivering despite the warmth of the room. The sweaty pallor of his face and the dark circles beneath his eyes showed that, despite the regular visits of Doctor Garrette, his health had suffered a precipitous decline.

His eyes swiveled up to the clock as it chimed the quarter hour. He had promised himself he would not take another dose of laudanum until the hour struck, but the sweats had started and his stomach cramped from a monstrous, insatiable craving. He looked at the smoky bottle on the table next to him, then back at the clock. The hands had barely moved. He still had three quarters of an hour to go. He looked down at his lap to find his hands restlessly wringing.

Three quarters of an hour to go.

A knock at the door. “Come,” he shouted.

His servant, Bradwell, entered.

“The doctor, sir.”

Silas Garrette followed him in, clutching his black leather bag. Bradwell took his coat, but left when Garrette refused to surrender the top hat.

“I am in hell, sir,” Skinner said. “In hell.”

Silas Garrette stood looking down at the older man, who shuddered violently. Normally, Garrette would have been comforted by such obvious suffering, but on this day he was in a vile mood. The duel he had attended that morning had gone badly. When the fatal moment came, both men had raised their pistols and discharged them harmlessly into the air. No death. No wounds. To add insult to lack of injury, both duelists, once old friends who had become the bitterest of enemies, were reconciled by the ordeal and quit the field with their arms thrown about each others’ shoulders, jabbering cheerfully about a celebratory meal.

A detestable outcome.

On the carriage ride to Augustus Skinner’s home, Garrette had become increasingly desperate — his revenue source could literally curl up and die at any moment. He clearly needed to up the ante.

“No better?”

Skinner shook his head.

The doctor set his Gladstone bag on the table and opened it. He removed three bottles of laudanum and set them down in plain view. “You are still taking the laudanum?”

“Yes. Too much!”

“It will help with healing.”

“I suffer, sir. I suffer, and all because of the damned duel—”

“And Lord Thraxton, the man who shot you?”

“Yes, damn Thraxton. Damn him to bloody hell!”

Skinner bellowed the last few words, lurching up in the chair, which caused a jolt of agony to ripple across his face.

“It seems wholly unjust,” Garrette agreed. “While you are forced to lie up in your rooms, wracked by excruciating pain, Lord Thraxton parades around London society with his usual impudent bravado.”

“He boasts of this affair?”

Silas Garrette’s smirk insinuated it was so. “I understand it is a favorite topic of discussion at the best soirées.”

“Yes, I have no doubt of it. Well, let them wag their tongues until they wear them out. Lord Thraxton is a fool. A womanizer. A philanderer who lives for excess in drunkenness and carousing. He makes new enemies daily. I am a patient man. I can sit back in the shadows and watch. I have no doubt some day he will receive his come-uppance.”

“There is always the law.”

“Pshaw! I am not interested in pursuing this matter in the courts. I was the one who challenged Lord Thraxton. I was the one who had the advantage of the first shot! And even though dueling is against the law, it is still considered a matter of honor amongst gentlemen of our class. It is improbable a jury would find in my favor. No, I would be more of a laughing stock than I already am.”

“There are ways of striking back, besides the courts,” Silas Garrette said, peering over the top of his rose-colored pince-nez. “Other means not so… public.” For the first time Skinner noticed that the doctor’s beady brown eyes never blinked.

“What are you insinuating? Revenge? I shall have no part in anything illegal.”

“That is the very meat of my argument. You need have no part in this at all. I could be your proxy.”

Skinner’s eyes asked the question he was afraid to utter aloud.

“In my profession,” Garrette continued, “I have occasion to render my services — as an act of charity — to those of the lowest strata of society. There are many men amongst the underclass who can fall no farther and thus have nothing to lose. These men can be persuaded to undertake any action, no matter the potential consequence, for a sum of money.”

By now Skinner’s heart was pounding, his mouth dry.

Garrette smiled. “If some tragic misfortune were to befall Lord Thraxton, in the eyes of the law and of society you will be completely innocent. And yet… yet he will know exactly who exacted this heavy price.”

Skinner looked terrified. But then he deliberately leaned his weight back onto his right buttock, so that the pain flared like a lighthouse beam cutting through the laudanum fog swirling in his mind, sharpening and illumining everything. He was shut up in his rooms, probably crippled for life, suffering miserably all because of this impudent upstart. Revenge was a pool of sweet, cool water and he wanted to slake a burning thirst, to ladle it into himself until it dripped from his chin.

“And how much will your services cost me?” Skinner asked, already sensing that the hirsute Doctor Garrette was stretching wide the jaws of a sprung steel trap and goading him to step into it.

The beady eyes glittered. The upper lip foliage twitched into a smile. He had still not blinked. “Twenty guineas. A payment of half to secure my services. The remainder payable upon completion of the task.”

Silas Garrette’s words echoed in Skinner’s mind. He knew that this could end badly. He knew that a wise man would abandon this imbroglio to the past and move on with his life. But such arguments held little weight against suffering in the here and now.

“If I were interested. What exactly would I get for my twenty guineas?”

Behind the rose-tinted lenses, Silas Garrette’s lashless eyelids closed slowly, almost dreamily, and then opened again. He raised his head slightly and the rose-colored pince-nez caught the flare of naked gas light and glowed crimson.

“Every man, even the foulest, even the most brutish, has something he loves. Something he would protect. Something the loss of which would wound him to the quick. I will find that thing. And when I do, Lord Thraxton will suffer a wound so deep, so terrible… it will never heal.”

The night was dry and still, but cold. Thraxton stood in the flare of a bull-nose lantern, shifting from foot to foot, swinging his arms and stamping his feet in an attempt to stay warm. He spun around at the sound of leaves rustling, but saw nothing. He had waited a full week in Highgate Cemetery, but Aurelia had not shown. Tonight was the final night. If she did not appear, he would have his answer.

Again the sound of leaves rustling. It’s just the wind, he thought, but then realized that the night was still. From the darkness came a lilting laugh. Thraxton sprang to his feet and looked around. “Aurelia?”

Again the laughter, this time from the right. He moved cautiously toward the sound, feeling for curbstones with his feet, blinded by the glare thrown from his own lantern. More laughter, behind him now. He spun. A feminine silhouette beckoned from atop a grave, arms reaching up to the sky. A stone angel. But then Thraxton realized that this angel had no wings. He vaulted up onto the stone table and seized the angel by the waist, finding it warm and soft — Aurelia. She shrieked as he grabbed her and they both overbalanced and toppled, crashing into a pile of leaves. The fall was harder than he anticipated. Aurelia lay with her eyes closed, unmoving, and Thraxton feared she had been knocked unconscious.

“Aurelia!” He massaged her wrists, trying to revive her. “Aurelia, are you injured?”

But she was unresponsive. Thraxton stroked her face with his hand. Her eyes remained shut, but then she began to giggle.

“Dear God, you frightened me!”

Aurelia opened her eyes and flashed a devilish smile. Their faces were very close. Thraxton moved in and kissed her softly, tentatively. When she did not resist, the kiss deepened as his passion soared and she returned it with the same intensity.

An hour later they stood at the front steps of Aurelia’s house.

“I suppose I must bid you goodnight,” Thraxton said.

But Aurelia took him by the hand and led him up the steps. All the windows were dark. The household was asleep. She quietly turned her key in the lock and they crept inside.

In the perfumed warmth of the Night Garden, Aurelia moved between rows of flowers, lighting candle lanterns and carefully lowering their glass shields. Thraxton watched as she lit the last lantern, then he slipped his hands around her slim waist, spun her around and kissed her deeply. Together they sank onto the day bed. They kissed until they lost themselves, chewing drowsily on each other’s mouths. Thraxton’s fingers moved down the buttons of her dress from the neck down. As he unfastened each one, the skin of her chest showed stark white against the black lace. He began a series of light kisses from her navel up her chest, pausing at the hollow of her throat and then up her neck, nibbling at her chin before his lips returned to hers. Aurelia gasped with pleasure and hugged him closer, her lips grazing his ear as she whispered, “Yes… yes… oh, yes.”

As they made love in the narrow bed, a moth landed on Thraxton’s shoulder, skittered across his naked back, and onto the bare thigh Aurelia had cinched tight around his waist. The moon burst from a pall of black cloud, its white beam surging through the glass roof. At its touch, the Night Angels stirred atop their stalks, petals spreading wide, sobbing their perfume into the air until the moths spun in circles, drunk with their scent. As their lovemaking rushed to its climax, a moth flittered up to the candle lantern. Drawn by its light, the moth crawled beneath the open glass as if to kiss the flame, igniting instantly. It flared bright and tumbled away. When it hit the floor, nothing remained but embers.

Dawn was breaking over London as Thraxton strolled away from Robert Greenley’s house. He turned and looked back to see Aurelia, standing at the window of the Night Garden. He smiled and raised a hand and she waved back.

His mind racing with hopeful thoughts, Thraxton did not notice the black carriage parked across the street. Couched in the shadows within, Silas Garrette reclined upon the worn leather cushion, a blanket thrown over his lap, his white top hat on the seat beside him. He had been following Thraxton’s shiny blue brougham for days and his patience had been rewarded. He had promised Skinner he would wound Lord Thraxton. Now he had found the entry point for that wound — all he had to do was apply the point of the scalpel and draw the blade through the meat until every last tendon and sinew was severed.

When the omnibus reached Mister Greenley’s stop, a half dozen passengers arose from their seats, and he was forced to wait his turn to clomp down the curving metal stairs from the top deck. It was past seven p.m., long past dark, and the pavement milled with people making their way home. A river of black top hats trudged before him, until the river parted and flowed around either side of a solitary white top hat that blocked the flow. When he reached the spot, Mister Greenley almost collided with an elaborately whiskered gentleman in tinted pince-nez. From the black Gladstone bag gripped in one hand, Greenley guessed his profession. When their eyes met, the man touched the brim of the white top hat in greeting and spoke.

“Good day, sir.”

Greenley stopped, surprised to be addressed in the street by a complete stranger.

“What is your business, sir?”

“My name is Doctor Garrette. I am currently treating a patient, a man of letters.”

“And of what concern is that to me?”

“You and he share a mutual foe. I speak of Lord Thraxton.”

Greenley’s eyes flared at the name, but he said nothing.

Silas Garrette looked around at the people brushing past.

“Might we not continue this discussion in private? The matter touches upon a most delicate matter… concerning your daughter.”