The Angel of Highgate (36 page)

“Geoffrey!”

He pulled Aurelia into a crushing, desperate embrace. But now, suddenly loosed of the weight of a grown man, the balloon rocketed upward faster than ever. Above them towered a thunder cloud the size of a mountain. The base of the cloud concaved in a dome that could have swallowed St. Paul’s Cathedral and a dozen more. The balloon began to lash and writhe as it hit the swirling vortex of air being sucked up into the cloud. The light turned a sick, ominous green, and Thraxton realized with dread that they were about to be drawn into a thundercloud from which there could be no survival.

“We are going to die, are we not, Geoffrey?”

“I had a life, but never lived until I met you.”

Thraxton looked into Aurelia’s violet eyes, bright and unafraid. “It does not matter… because I am here with you, and I shall never let you go.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“And I shall never let go of you.”

They were ascending at tremendous speed, sucked into the cloud’s converging updrafts.

Their embrace tightened as the world turned opaque white, faded to gray and then black. For a time there was nothing but darkness and then a deafening concussion as the world exploded in a blinding white dance of luminous atoms.

The Cremorne Pleasure Gardens in Chelsea witnessed one of the most heinous crimes in London history on Wednesday night. As the evening balloon ascent began, one of the passengers, a tall man in a white top hat produced a knife, seized a young lady, and threatened to cut her throat.

When the balloon pilot, Charles Green Spencer of Battersea, attempted to apprehend the man, he was brutally murdered by having his throat slashed. His body was then thrown from the balloon in full sight of the horrified crowd. Fearing for their lives, screaming passengers leaped from the basket, whereupon the lightened balloon quickly ascended, bearing aloft the helpless woman along with a gentleman who observers say claimed to be the lady’s fiancé.

Witnesses on the ground reported seeing a tremendous struggle between the two men in the basket as the balloon drifted over Cremorne, narrowly avoiding being struck and destroyed by an aerial bombardment during the nightly fireworks display.

It is unclear what happened next in the balloon, which was seen to ascend to great altitude above the city of London in the midst of a violent thunderstorm. It appears that the madman was either struck by lightning or fell from the balloon’s basket. His badly burned body was found impaled on railings in front of a private residence in Kensington. The condition of the corpse indicated that the body fell from a great height. The madman in question has been preliminarily identified by the Metropolitan Police as one Doctor Silas Garrette, although this identity is now in question following the discovery of a gruesome murder committed at the said physician’s office in Hogarth Road. Here detectives discovered the grossly mutilated body of Augustus Skinner, a literary critic who wrote for
Blackwell’s Gazette
. Police now speculate that the true identity of the man is Doctor Jonas Hooke, an army surgeon who served with the 34th Regiment of Foot in Crimea. The police are not revealing the specifics of what they discovered in the doctor’s office, although one officer described it as “a scene of horror,” and as “the lair of a truly diabolical mind.”

The remains of the Cremorne balloon, the
Sylph
, crashed to earth in a farmer’s field some one hundred and twenty miles away. The survival of the young lady and her male companion is currently in doubt. It is believed they perished when the balloon entered a thundercloud, although no bodies have been reported discovered along the presumed flight path of the balloon.

H
ighgate Cemetery, London, 1869.

Algernon and Constance Hyde-Davies strolled along the paths of Highgate as their children, Nathaniel (aged ten) and Rebecca (aged eight), skipped through the leaf-strewn grass, hide-and-seeking behind the grave markers and stone angels, then springing out and shrieking as they surprised each other.

“Rebecca! Nathaniel!” Constance called out. “Mama wishes you to stay near!”

As they rounded the curving path, they noticed an elderly gentleman pushing a bath chair fitted with tight-shuttered curtains.

“Good lord!” Algernon said. “I believe I know this fellow.”

The pathway was narrow and eventually the two parties converged. Although a decade had passed, Algernon instantly recognized the man, much older and grayer, the once-rigid back now stooped by time.

“Mister Greenley.”

The man stopped upon hearing his name. His eyes flickered over Algernon’s face. Recognition was instant. He seemed a little suspicious of meeting his former superior, but the presence of Constance and the children visibly softened his demeanor.

“Mister Hyde-Davies, sir.”

The two shook hands.

“This is my wife, Constance, and my children, Nathaniel and Rebecca.”

“Say hello, children,” Constance said.

The girl clung to her mother’s skirts, suddenly bashful while Nathaniel bowed smartly from the waist and said, “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Do you have a monkey in the basket?” Rebecca asked, looking at the enclosed bath chair.

“Rebecca!” Constance snapped. “Where are your manners, young madam?”

The young girl looked hurt. “I am sorry, Mama.”

Greenley unfastened and drew aside the curtain. The children peered into the dark bath chair and even Algernon and Constance craned forward.

Inside they saw a slender girl of around the same age as Nathaniel. She was very beautiful, if extremely pale. A delicate tracery of veins showed faintly at each temple. She had her mother’s long auburn hair but the violet eyes were striking.

“I should like you to meet Hope Aurelia Thraxton, daughter of Lord Geoffrey Thraxton and Aurelia Thraxton,” Greenley said with deep pride in his voice.

“Hello,” said the pale little girl. She smiled as her eager gaze swept over them. For both Constance and Algernon there was something uncanny about the young face.

“She is as beautiful as her mother,” Constance said, her voice tight as a harpsichord string.

At her words, Greenley dropped his eyes and looked at the ground. “Aye, that she is.”

“You and I shall be great friends,” the pale girl said to Rebecca in her floating, ethereal voice. She turned her eyes next to Nathaniel. “But you shall break all our hearts.”

“That’s enough, now, Hope!” Greenley interrupted. “These good people don’t want to hear any of your nonsense.” And with that Greenley quickly recurtained the bath chair. “Begging your pardon,” he muttered, “but we must be cutting along. She is very susceptible to the light.”

Robert Greenley steered his granddaughter’s bath chair around them, in a hurry to leave.

“One moment, sir,” Algernon said.

Mister Greenley stopped and stood still, without turning.

“Geoffrey… Lord Thraxton. Do you know of his whereabouts? Since Constance and I returned from the Galapagos, we have lost touch. He answers no letters. I understand his London home was sold some years ago.”

After a reluctant pause, Greenley admitted, “He sees Hope on the weekends. He is to be found here… somewhere.”

Algernon stiffened at the words. “You mean… you mean he’s here? At Highgate?”

“Never leaves. Haunts the place.”

Still brusque in his manner, Mister Greenley muttered a “Good day” and trundled his granddaughter away.

Algernon and Constance exchanged baffled looks.

“What does that mean?” Constance asked. “How can he live here? In the cemetery?”

Algernon shook his head in bewilderment.

“Why is that little girl so pale, Mama?” Rebecca asked. “Why does she ride in a bath chair? Can she not walk?”

“Shush, do not ask questions,” Constance chided. “Inquisitiveness is impolite in young ladies.”

They continued along the path, passing a gray-haired groundsman with a salt-and-pepper moustache raking leaves, a shabbily dressed fellow with a bowler hat and a stained jacket with the elbows nearly worn through. Algernon was tempted to ask him if he knew of a gentleman who visited the cemetery on a daily basis, but the question seemed ridiculous so he kept mum as they passed.

Around the bend they plunged into the deep gloom of the trees. Up ahead lay the Thraxton tomb. They found the tomb door unlocked and the latch lifted to Algernon’s touch.

“You must be quiet, children,” Constance hissed at her children. “This is a tomb. A place where the dead sleep. Be respectful.” The children dropped their heads, suitably cowed, and Constance nodded for Algernon to enter.

The tomb was surprisingly bright. A great many candles burned here and there. There were two biers. One bore the name Aurelia Greenley. A single white bloom lay upon the tomb—a Night Angel apparently just left there by Robert Greenley. Constance laid a bouquet of posies below it, and caressed the cold lead casket with her slender fingers. “She was so lovely.”

“Yes,” Algernon agreed, but his own words—
a bloom that cannot abide the touch of man—
ran through his head as soon as he said it.

The bier stood next to another, this one empty, that bore the name Lord Geoffrey Thraxton.

The Hyde-Davies family left the tomb after a short, meditative stay. Neither husband nor wife spoke as they walked arm in arm back along the curving paths toward the cemetery entrance and Swain’s Lane, although Constance did have to scold Nathaniel from time to time, who like any schoolboy, could not resist kicking leaves into the air from the piles raked into heaps alongside the paths.

They had to walk single-file to pass around the wheelbarrow parked in the path, which was laden with shovels, rakes, an adze and an object that immediately caught Algernon’s eye: a walking stick topped with a golden phoenix bursting from the flames.

“I say,” Algernon said, stopping. “I know that walking stick!”

The shabby groundsman was raking leaves a few feet away and Algernon shouted to gain his attention. “I say, you there, sir!” The man was raking with his back to them and showed no indication of having heard. Algernon kicked through the pile of leaves fencing him off from the verge and shouted louder.

“I say, excuse me!”

The groundsman stopped raking, looked around, and shuffled forward a bit, dragging the rake. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “Deaf in one ear. Can I help you?”

“This walking stick. Would you mind telling me where you—”

As the groundsman took a step closer both men recognized each other at the same moment.

The shabby groundsman was none other than Geoffrey, Lord Thraxton.

For several moments, neither spoke. The two old friends simply stood looking at each other. Ten years had passed. Algernon, promoted to head of Kew Gardens and married to a wealthy widow, had risen in the world and his expensive clothes showed it. By contrast, Thraxton’s clothes were stained, dirty and worn through with holes. For a moment, uncertain whether he had been recognized, Algernon thought about retreating, saving his old friend from an encounter that might cause him embarrassment. But it was too late: Thraxton had recognized him and knew, in turn, that he had also been recognized.

Thraxton took several more steps and eagerly reached out his hand. “My dear, dear, old friend.”

Algernon grasped Thraxton’s hand, reveling in the long lost feeling of flesh upon flesh. If both had not been Englishmen, they would likely have hugged. For his part Algernon could make no reply at first, for his throat was clenched tight, his eyes pooled to overflowing. Thraxton’s eyes sparkled, too.

“What happened to you, Geoffrey? Where did you go? We lost all contact after… after…” He could not bring himself to finish the sentence.

“I went nowhere. I remained here.”