The Angel of Highgate

8 THE SEXTON OF HIGHGATE

Silver smoke swirled, curling into graceful arabesques that formed, shivered, and collapsed as they floated up and crashed against the rough wooden beams and cracked plaster ceiling of the tiny cottage. The monstrous elephant gun rested on two hooks above the fireplace. Now the owner of the firearm, the sexton of Highgate Cemetery, rammed a poker into the seething red coals, agitating them until the fire flared and a crackle of sparks swooped up the chimney flue. Satisfied, the sexton settled the iron poker in its stand and dropped heavily into a creaky, much-repaired cane chair. Algernon and Thraxton sat in the tiny parlor’s only other furniture: two battered and threadbare armchairs. All three men puffed at cigars Thraxton had produced from the humidor he kept tucked in his overcoat pocket.

“That’s quite a weapon,” Thraxton acknowledged, drawing on his cigar.

“I calls her Old Bessie,” the sexton said. “After me late wife. I keeps her handy in case the Resurrection Men come nosin’ around. The din of Old Bessie goin’ off is enough to shake your bowels loose. Loud as a bleedin’ cannon!”

The sexton functioned as both a caretaker responsible for the upkeep of the cemetery and as night watchman. Algernon and Thraxton had tarried too long at the cemetery, and so when it was discovered their cab driver had given up on his passengers and driven off, the sexton invited the pair to wait in his tiny cottage until a carriage might be summoned from Highgate Village.

“Yes, I can quite agree with that assertion,” Thraxton said. “And a damned good thing, too.”

All three men chuckled and puffed, but then Thraxton burst out: “Ah! But I am quite forgetting!” He reached for the walking stick next to his chair. “What is a cigar unless it’s accompanied by brandy?”

Thraxton possessed a large collection of walking sticks of which this was his favorite: the stick with the gold phoenix handle. He gave the phoenix a twist and it unscrewed in his hands. Then he tipped up the cane until out slid a slender glass tube filled with amber liquid — brandy. A cork stoppered one end of the tube, a narrow silver sipping cup screwed to the other. Thraxton yanked the cork from the tube while the sexton rummaged in the tiny room for a motley collection of drinking vessels: a battered pewter tankard, a dusty Toby jug and a filthy cracked tea cup. (Which, fortunately, the sexton kept for his own use.) Thraxton splashed a jigger of brandy into each and the men chinked drinking vessels and toasted the Queen’s and then each other’s health. Thraxton’s tankard had a dead, metallic taste to it, but the first sip of brandy washed it away and sent a glowing rush through him more warming than the fire.

For a moment, silence prevailed as the three men sipped their liquor and puffed like chimneys. Thraxton was far from recovered from his ordeal, and as lethargy overtook him, he slipped into a philosophic frame of mind. “What say you, sexton? You live among the dead.” Thraxton’s fascination was evident in his voice. “The other night I saw a spirit, a dark wraith gliding between the graves. Have you seen it, too?”

The sexton was an elderly gentleman with bushy gray sideburns whose volume compensated for the sparse wisp of gray hair frizzling his balding head. He was seventy, but spry for his age and now, at Thraxton’s question, mischief sparkled in his eye. “Oh, I seen things, gents. All manner of things. These pathways are walked during the nights, sometimes more than in the day.”

“Ghosts moaning and rattling chains?” Algernon quipped, not entirely able to conceal his condescension.

The sexton met his gaze with surprising resolve. “It’s not the dead I’m afraid of, sir, it’s the livin’. That’s why I carry Old Bess on me rounds. No, there’s nothing to fear from ghosts.”

“Why do they walk?” Thraxton asked. “Are they unhappy spirits banished to the earthly plane?”

The sexton removed the cigar from his lips and spat something into the fire that sizzled. “I reckon they walk ’cause they miss what they had when they was alive.”

Thraxton leaned forward slightly in his chair, hanging upon every word. “And what is that?”

“Love,” the sexton said calmly. “It’s the only thing we ever really have to call our own. And no one and nuffink can ever take it away from you, not even death.”

Surprise flashed across Thraxton’s face. He puffed at his cigar for several minutes, mulling over the sexton’s words before speaking again.

“What do you think happens when we die, Algy?” Thraxton asked. “Is there an afterlife? A soul that survives physical death?”

“As a scientist, I’m afraid I would need some form of empirical evidence.”

“Such as what? Place the body upon a scale and weigh it before and after death to determine the weight of the soul?”

Algernon chuckled. “That has been tried already, but yes, I would require some form of tangible proof.”

“Have you ever been in love, sir?” the sexton asked.

“Yes,” Algernon said, pride swelling in his voice. “Yes, I have.”

“Was it real?”

“Oh, it was real all right. Positively. No question.”

“Could you have measured it? Weighed it on a scale?”

“No… well… obviously… no,” Algernon stammered.

“I guess love don’t exist, then, eh?”

Algernon choked on his own words, obviously stymied.

Thraxton laughed. “He’s got you there, Algy.”

As Algernon wrestled for a scientifically reasoned comeback, Thraxton leaned from his chair, knocked the slug of ash from his cigar into the fire, then fell back in his seat.

“Very well then, Geoffrey,” Algernon said, “have you ever witnessed evidence of the supernatural?”

Thraxton thought for a moment, drawing deeply on his cigar and blowing a perfect smoke ring. All three watched it rise, dilating until it burst against the ceiling and dispersed. At first, he spoke slowly, haltingly, as if he were pulling the words from a dark, secret place where they had been long-hidden. “I was still a child when my mother died. For weeks, as I lay in my little bed at night, I would talk to her. And it would seem that I could hear her voice in my head, talking back to me.”

Algernon pursed his lips skeptically and countered, “Grief makes us imagine strange things, Geoffrey.”

“That’s what my father said. When I told him of hearing my mother’s voice, I was strapped. To make me stronger. To make me a man. After a number of these strappings, I no longer heard her voice. Although, even after all these years, I have never stopped listening for it.”

As he spoke of his mother, Thraxton’s lips quivered, as if from the pain of an old and deep wound being probed. Algernon noticed the change, as the cynical, often callous man he knew melted away. His face seemed suddenly young — the face of a child who had become lost in a forest and who never found his way home.

“I’ve known you all these years,” Algernon said. “Yet I have never heard you speak of your mother.”

For a moment Thraxton’s eyes betrayed his reluctance to go on such a journey, but he began to speak again, and once started, it was impossible to stop him. “My mother was an angel,” he said, then laughed scornfully at his own pronouncement. “I know every man thinks that. But for my mother it was true, for she never seemed a part of the real world. She was a sickly woman — frail and fragile. In most of my memories she is in her sick bed. She had never been strong. As a child she nearly died from rheumatic fever. It weakened her heart. Giving birth to me overstrained her already delicate disposition. Mother never fully recovered her strength. I suppose that means I am responsible for her death. At least, my father always felt that way, and never failed to remind me of it. Mostly, though, he simply ignored me, which, perhaps, was worse.”

The fire popped and shot a fiery ember that landed on the hearth rug, scorching yet another burn mark. Thraxton sipped his brandy and continued. “When I was not at my studies, I would be permitted to visit my mother in her rooms. She was a very beautiful lady. I remember combing the long auburn hair that reached almost to her waist. She had a pale complexion, translucent as alabaster; no doubt because she rarely went outside and so her skin never suffered the harsh rays of the sun…”

He paused and puffed at his cigar.

“We would play games or she would read to me. But my favorite thing was when she wound me in her arms and we lay together, my back pressed to her chest, her arms wrapped tight as she rocked me. I remember the warmth of her body, her breath on my neck. I remember feeling her heart beating close to mine, the resonance of her chest as she sang to me. I think I shall never know moments of happiness as great as those. Since then I have learned the terrible truth — all love leads to the cemetery. And the greater the love the deeper the loss. That is why I shall never love again.”

His eyes were focused on the images playing out in his head; he did not see the throbbing coals of the fire, the sexton lolling in the lopsided chair, or even the room before him.

“How old were you, sir,” the sexton asked, “when your mother passed?”

Thraxton’s eyes refocused as his mind journeyed back across many years. He looked at the sexton’s face, half-lit from one side, like a phase of the moon.

“I was nine years old when her heart finally failed. I remember the weeks before her death, when she was too ill to see me for more than a few minutes before I was shooed out of the room by the physician. One day, I found Mary, one of our domestics, sobbing outside my mother’s rooms. When she saw me, Mary pulled me to her and hugged me. My face was buried in her apron and she hugged me so tight I could hardly breathe. And I knew then — I knew…”

Thraxton’s voice broke on the last word. His eyes shone as he raised the pewter mug, gulped the last swallow of brandy, and set the tankard at his feet.

“I was taken in to see her. She had been laid out in the bed. My father lifted me so that I might kiss her. I remember the feel of her lips. Stiff. Waxen. Cold.

“From that moment on, I was forgotten. It was as if I too died that day, for even the tiny amount of affection I occasionally received from my father was withdrawn. I became a ghost, a very small ghost that haunted the hallways of that vast house. My father remarried two years later and things became very much worse. For now I was a reminder. All the portraits of my mother were taken down, but every time my father or his new wife saw my face, they saw my mother’s face. I became a recrimination. The greatest crime one can commit against a child is to withhold love. How can one thrive, grow, without it?

“Then there was the day — four years after my mother’s death — when I was playing in the grounds of our house near the family mausoleum. The place was always kept locked, but on this particular day I saw that the door had been left open.

“I was a young boy and naturally curious. I entered and found lanterns burning. The crypt contained the coffins of our family, going back generations. I found my mother’s coffin. I remember reading her name on it. The coffin screws were silver doves. They had been removed and set upon the bier. Even as a young boy I knew what happened to bodies left exposed after death. I had seen dead animals in the woods of our estates. I wondered if she would look the same. I had no fear when I lifted the lid and finally looked inside.”

Thraxton tapped the ash from his cigar and drew deeply on it, then exhaled a lungful of silver smoke.

“Perhaps it was the coldness of the crypt, or the dry air within, but her body was in a perfect state of preservation. In truth, she looked little different than the day she died. She was still beautiful. Still young. Although her hair was longer, for it had continued to grow, as had her fingernails. I remember touching the back of her hand. The skin felt like cold, stiff leather. When I lifted her arm, it was light as a bird’s wing.

“She looked to be sleeping, not dead. I recalled all the happy hours I had spent in her arms. And so I climbed into the coffin, and lay with my back to her chest. I wrapped her arms around me, and pulled the coffin lid down upon us. It was dark, but the darkness did not frighten me, for I was once again in my mother’s arms, in a place where nothing could hurt me. The coffin smelled of the rose petals scattered inside. After some time I must have fallen asleep. I was awakened by a flash of light — the coffin lid being thrown open — and found myself looking up into the face of our groundskeeper, a rough, foul-tempered man. He was very angry, though not nearly as angry as my father proved to be. I received the strapping of a lifetime. At first I thought it was because of what I had done, but now, as an adult, I realize why he was so angry.

“My mother always wore an amulet around her neck. It contained a piece of amber with a small insect trapped inside. As a child I was always fascinated with it, and my mother let me look at it whenever I asked. The amulet had been a present from my father on the first anniversary of their wedding. My mother had been buried with the amulet. But a day after I received my strapping, my stepmother appeared at the dinner table wearing my mother’s amulet. My father had presented it to her as a gift on their third wedding anniversary.”

As he remembered it, Thraxton’s face contorted with hatred and disgust.

“My father had robbed my mother’s grave for a trinket to present to his… his whore! I ask you, what kind of monster does that?”

Thraxton looked away into the shadows, a muscle twitching in his lower jaw.

“From the way I stared at the amulet all through dinner it became very obvious to my father that I knew exactly where it came from. I’m sure it became apparent to him that I was becoming more than just an inconvenient reminder of my mother. Needless to say I was packed off to public school soon after. Which, of course, is where I first met you, old stick.”

For the first time since he had begun his reverie, Thraxton looked over at Algernon. But with the exertions of the night, coupled with the brandy and Thraxton’s droning, his friend had nodded off long ago. The Toby jug dangled loosely from his fingers, ready to spill. A small pile of ash from his cigar was burning a hole in the threadbare upholstery of the chair arm. Thraxton reached over, pulled the jug from Algernon’s fingers and set it on the floor, then gently retrieved the cigar and tossed it in the fire.

“That’s quite a story, milord.”

Thraxton looked up to find the sexton’s kind eyes fixed upon him. He was about to say something when he was interrupted by a faint but eerie screech. When Thraxton turned to look, an icy chill ran through him. At the window a pair of luminous yellow eyes peered in at them from the blackness.

The sexton got up, ambled to the window and opened it. In sprang an enormous black tomcat with huge golden eyes. “It’s only me moggy, Pluto,” the sexton said.

Pluto jumped down from the windowsill, swayed over to Thraxton and dropped something small and black at his feet.

A dead mouse.