The Angel of Highgate (23 page)

“Oh, why… thank you. But you are very lovely yourself.”

“I am sure I must seem quite plain. Your dress is so very pretty. You have such roses in your cheeks, and your gentleman, Mister Algernon, is so fine and handsome. Together you are like a painting on a box of chocolates.”

Everyone laughed, except for Aurelia, whose hurt look revealed she believed they were laughing at her. But then Constance took Aurelia’s hand and squeezed it and it was obvious by the liquid glitter of her eyes that Aurelia’s simple honesty had touched her. Relieved that she was not the source of their amusement, Aurelia’s face brightened, and the laughter resumed.

Dinner was consumed with gusto by all, but from the confusion over which silverware to use and the way Aurelia waxed on rapturously about every course, it was obvious she had never enjoyed fine dining before. When the last of the plates had been cleared away, the owner of the restaurant hovered close by and it was obvious that he wanted to send his people home and head for his own bed.

Algernon went outside to awaken the slumbering carriage drivers, while Thraxton settled the reckoning. The two women conversed as they waited for their coats.

“Thank you so much for the flower,” Constance said. “It is exquisite. But I must give you something in return.” And with that she pulled the Ankh necklace over her head and then placed it over Aurelia’s head.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Aurelia. “No, I couldn’t possibly.”

But when Aurelia tried to remove the necklace, Constance held her hands to prevent it.

“Please, accept this as a token of our new friendship. It has brought me luck, for I met Algernon because of it. I am sure it will bring you luck, too.”

Aurelia’s eyes filled with tears as the two women hugged each other.

It was raining when they left the restaurant. The dark mares pulling Thraxton’s blue brougham clopped along wet cobblestones gleaming under the gas lamps. Inside Thraxton talked animatedly. “I thought that went swimmingly. They were very taken with you.”

Aurelia had a hand to her face, covering her eyes.

“What, what is it?”

“Dizzy… please… take me home.”

“But I thought we would drive around Hyde Park. We can watch the sun come up—”

“I want to go home—now!”

“It’s just the champagne, my darling. It will pass. You just need some air—”

Aurelia dropped her hand and glared at Thraxton. “There is so much you do not know about me!”

Stung by the venom in her voice, Thraxton lost his words.

“I cannot watch the sunrise,” Aurelia said. “I cannot go rowing on the Serpentine. This is my world—the darkness. It is the only world I can ever know.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have… a malady. One which forbids me from that which all other humans enjoy. The sun, the daylight, is my enemy.”

Thraxton was finally beginning to grasp what she was saying. “So… the black curtains of your room… the paleness of your skin…”

“Yes. Light is a drop of slow poison oozing through my veins. The same malady killed my mother. In time, it will kill me, too.” Her voice softened. She gripped Thraxton’s hands. “I am like my flowers. During the day I remain tightly folded within myself. It is only at night that I may bloom. Geoffrey, you are a kind and good man. You have fine friends with fine manners and fine clothes. But you should forget me. I can never be a part of your world.”

“Yes you can. You must. I have money. A title. We can make a life together.”

She pulled her hands from his, shook her head and drew in a long, shuddering breath.

“There is a gulf between us more vast than you can know. I have lived most of my life alone in a darkened room. I never went to school. I have never strolled in a London park. Until tonight I’d never dined in a restaurant. The only friends I have are whores and beggars and the wretched poor. I know almost nothing of your world and can never know it. You and I may long for one another as day longs for night, but in the same way, we can never be together.”

A large tear streamed down her cheek.

“Never!”

Suddenly she snatched the door handle and flung herself out of the moving carriage. Thraxton reached out to grab her, but caught only a blast of cold night air. He yelled for Harold to stop, banging the ceiling with his walking stick. The carriage had barely slowed when his feet hit the wet cobblestones and he ran back to look for Aurelia.

But she had vanished into the night.

T
hraxton 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.

My Dearest Aurelia
,

If I have offended you through any word or deed, I do humbly beg your forgiveness. I know you are a delicate and rare creature, much like the flowers in your Night Garden. You have said that we are from two different worlds that can never meet. Any world that does not include you is one I do not wish to live in. You are my dark angel of the night, the very nourishment for my soul. I would renounce the world in order to be with you. I will wait every night for you at our special place at Highgate. If you do not appear after one week, I will have my final answer.

Yours forever, Geoffrey

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.