The Angel of Highgate (37 page)

“Here?”

“At Highgate?” Constance asked.

“Yes, I am the sexton now. Old Charlie passed on. He’s buried over there, next to his wife.”

“But… but why?” Algernon asked. “Why did you drop out of society?”

“I made two promises to Aurelia as she lay on her sick bed. She made me promise to help those less fortunate, so I sold the London home and used the proceeds to establish a mission for fallen women. The Thraxton family estate, the title and the family fortune has been placed in trust and will pass to Hope upon achieving her majority.”

Algernon spoke with a hitch in his voice. “So now you have nothing?”

But Thraxton smiled and shook his head slightly. “Now I have everything.”

The look in the eyes of Algernon and Constance seemed pitying, as if to say:
You have everything except Aurelia.

“No,” Thraxton corrected, in answer to the unspoken question. “My beloved is with me always. I am keeping my second promise, to watch over her as she sleeps.”

“You will be rejoined with her, Geoffrey,” Constance said, gripping his hand solicitously. “We of the spiritualist movement truly believe that.”

“But she has never left my side. We walk these paths together every night and lose ourselves in conversation.”

The look that Algernon threw Constance was freighted with concern. He was hinting to let the matter drop, believing that his friend was delusional. Thraxton caught the brief exchange but said nothing.

“Mummy!” a girlish voice cried. “Nathaniel’s being horrid!”

All three looked up to see the boy throwing handfuls of leaves at the young girl, who was vainly attempting to throw them back, giggling, her long blonde hair already entangled with leaves.

“Nathaniel!” Algernon said sternly. “Desist at once!”

The three turned their attention back to one another, but the moment had passed, as mere speech proved inadequate for emotions so profound. The sun had just slipped behind the cedar of Lebanon, and dark shadows crawled from the trees and bushes and sprawled lazily across the pathways. It was time for them to take their leave.

“Good to see you, old stick,” Algernon said, pumping his old acquaintance’s hand. “We are still friends, are we not?”

“Forever,” Thraxton said, a melancholy smile settling on his face.

Constance kissed his cheek. Algernon wrung his friend’s hand a final time, a hand now calloused with manual labor, and the family departed, leaving Thraxton standing knee deep in the golden splendor of a summer passed.

* * *

As per his usual routine, at exactly six-thirty p.m., sexton Thraxton clanged shut the iron gates of Highgate and padlocked them, then circuited the pathways to make sure none of the living had been locked inside with the dead. When he reached the place where he left the wheelbarrow parked, he sank wearily onto a nearby bench and set the Bullseye lantern on the pathway at his feet. He still had a backache’s worth of leaves to rake, but a cemetery has nothing but tomorrows.

It was almost fully dark now; in the sky, rags of gray cloud snagged upon the sickle of a crescent moon before the wind ripped them loose, causing the light to fade and flare… fade and flare. A hawk moth shot past, then returned, whirling around his head in spin-dizzy circles. It alighted on his knee and trembled there a moment, antennae twitching, wings pulsing open and closed, then flitted away into the dark. The beam of his lantern spilled across the path. Atop a nearby tomb an angel perched, its face lifted to heaven, one arm outstretched, a crooked finger beckoning. As Thraxton watched, the angel’s wings slowly unfurled, stretched full, then flapped. The stone angel rose from its pediment, drifted forward a few feet, then pointed a toe down and alighted gently on the pathway, its final wingbeats stirring the dead leaves in their piles. Thraxton stood up as the shadowy figure stepped into the light, illumining the form of a small angel with bright violet eyes and a mane of auburn hair.

“My inamorata.”

“I am forgetting the way back. Each time I must come from further away. Maybe you should let me go.”

“Never.”

“Then maybe it is I who should let you go, Geoffrey.”

“Please, let us not talk of these things. Not tonight.”

“Why not tonight?”

“Because tonight is our anniversary.”

“Anniversary?”

“The anniversary of the day you took my hand and led me through the streets of London. Through a world I barely knew existed.”

“We found the party, remember? The grand house where they were holding a ball?”

“And we danced in the street.”

“We sipped champagne and waltzed in the streets of London.”

“Perhaps we should waltz again.”

“But we have no music.”

“No, we do. Listen.”

Just then, wind stirred the treetops as the world snatched a breath. Somewhere, a wind chime clonged, its soft coppery tones resonating from afar.

Thraxton slipped a hand around the angel’s waist, the stone rendered suddenly soft and warm. They grasped each other’s hands and began to dance, sweeping along pathways ankle deep with crisp autumn leaves. An angel made flesh and a man resurrected. Their eyes locked, a smile on their faces.

In truth, Augustus Skinner had been right: Thraxton was never a particularly good poet, but in his devotion to Aurelia, he was writing a love poem with his entire life.

And though his feet never left the ground, his heart soared.

T
hanks, once again, to my agent Kimberley Cameron for continuing to make my dream a reality.

Also, I’d like to thank my Titan Books Dream Team: my astute editor Miranda Jewess and my Titan PR gal Cara Fielder. Also a big thanks to designer Julia Lloyd, who produced the best imaginable cover for
Angel
.

I would also like to thank my friends and loyal cadre of readers: Cindy Thompson, Debra Borchert, and Nancy Coy.

Finally, thanks to all those fans who wrote terrific reviews of my earlier books on GoodReads and on Book Blogs, or who have written to me personally to tell me how much they enjoy my writing. In a business of constant criticisms and rejections, you provide a salve to my soul.

V
aughn Entwistle grew up in northern England but spent many years living in the United States, earning a master’s degree in English from Oakland University. He is the author of the critically acclaimed novels in the Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle series,
The Revenant of Thraxton Hall
(to which
The Angel of Highgate
is a prequel) and
The Dead Assassin
. He lives in north Somerset with his wife and cats.

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