He stopped as Aurelia’s smile collapsed and she pulled away.
“Nuh, no,” she stammered breathlessly. “I was wrong. This was wrong. It is impossible. You do not know me. I cannot do these things. I simply cannot!”
He reached for her but she tore from his grasp, ran up the steps, unlocked the front door and vanished inside without ever looking back. For some time Thraxton stood there, staring up at the door, dumbfounded. Finally, his shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and then he turned and walked away up the street.
23
A MIND AT WAR
From outside the tent came the concussive boom of artillery and the steely clash of armies colliding. Inside, the muddy tent floor was strewn with hundreds of dead, dying and grievously wounded soldiers packed so tight it was difficult to step between them. Doctor Jonas Hooke bent over a rickety operating table, the front of his gown sprayed with blood, sawing off limbs, probing pliers into gaping wounds, ripping loose jagged chunks of shrapnel, sewing slippery coils of intestine back into place. The smell was atrocious, the ground the tent was pitched on little more than churned-up muck weltered with gore and the filthy boots tracked from the latrine pits. Through it all, he floated at the center of a sickly sweet cloud of chloroform that numbed and blurred everything and reduced life to a ghastly dream glimpsed only in snatches of fitful sleep.
After each surgery, the body on the litter before him would be hauled off and a fresh one slapped down. Soon the faces merged in an anonymous blur of flesh tone. All he saw were wounds to suture and mangled limbs to amputate. He grew adept at holding the scalpel in either hand, so as cramp set in he would transfer it from one to the other. In truth he was more butcher than surgeon, and quickly learned the slaughterhouse tricks for removing a hand with a few quick scalpel cuts, a leg or an arm with the frenzied violining of a bone saw, a mangled hand with a dextrous whack of the cleaver. Orderlies dragged away arms and legs to be stacked in piles. Carts laden with torsos missing heads and limbs were dragged from the mud in carts pulled by whinnying horses, eyes rolling and crazed from the incessant gun and cannon fire.
The earth ceased to exist. He stood with one foot astride heaven and hell, severing the silky fibers that bound human souls to the earthly plane.
One day he was sewing up a soldier after pushing the man’s guts back into his body, when he looked up to see a strange and uncanny apparition—a tall, thin man in a black frock coat with a bone-white top hat. Unseen and ignored by the orderlies and doctors rushing back and forth, he stood among the dying wounded littering the tent floor.. His face was elaborately mustachioed with bushy sideburns. The man wore rose-tinted pince-nez and was staring directly at him. He seemed uncannily familiar and now he smiled and raised his hand, covering one eye with something square: a Tarot card, the Hanged Man.
Suddenly, all sound drained away, as if his ears had been stoppered with wax. For a moment stretched to breaking, he no longer heard the shouts of the doctors and nurses, the moans of the dying or the skull-numbing concussion of heavy artillery.
Then the sound returned in a rush. He heard a plooooooomph sound and looked up to see a bright star shining through the surgical tent’s canvas roof as an incendiary shell exploded directly overhead. Instantly, the canvas roof dissolved into flames and a cataract of fire swept through the canvas structure, burning alive wounded soldiers, nurses and surgical officers alike.
Somehow, miraculously, he survived. When they found him, standing stock-still, staring into the woods a half-mile from the scorched remains of the medical tent, his clothes were still smoldering and all his hair had been burned off, down to the eyelashes. The blast had temporarily deafened him and cut the cords connecting his words to his tongue, his mind to his limbs. When the doctors moved an arm or a leg, it froze in that position, like a broken marionette, although the glint of intelligence in his eyes showed a still-functioning mind entombed in a body.
“Catatonia, brought on by an attack of the nerves,” they wrote on his medical discharge papers. He was shipped back to England to convalesce in a sanatorium in the countryside, one entire wing of which was populated with cases like his: soldiers whose bodies were intact, but whose minds had been broken in Crimea.
Like many other patients, he was wheeled about the grounds in a bath chair, and on days of pleasant weather, parked facing a formal garden with a reflecting pond; beyond that, a pleasant stretch of lawn gently descended into an ancient wood bordering the property. Here he would lay slumped in the chair, limbs twisted, gazing blindly at the view before him.
Then one day a shape emerged from the woods, the figure of a man who strode up the sloping green lawn. As he approached, it was evident that the man was dressed in the high fashion of a gentleman with luxurious side-whiskers, a mop of curly brown hair. He wore rose-colored pince-nez spectacles perched upon the bridge of his nose. Atop his head was a white top hat, tilted ever so slightly to one side. It was the same figure he had glimpsed the moment before the incendiary shell exploded. The mustachioed man with the Tarot card. The hirsute figure reached the reflecting pond and strode straight across, his feet not leaving so much as a ripple in its mirror surface. The Tarot reader reached the bath chair and stood looking down at him.
He somehow knew the top-hatted gentleman had come for him. The bath chair crashed to its side as he lurched out of it. Without ever speaking, the gent in the white top hat turned and walked away and he followed, splashing clumsily through the reflecting pool as the figure he followed floated over it, descended the greensward, and plunged into the dense woods.
Although two entered the woods, only one emerged from the other side, for Doctor Jonas Hooke vanished and the creature named Silas Garrette assumed his place.
24
IDYLLS IN THE SUNSHINE
Although exhausted from his noctivagations, Thraxton found himself unable to sleep when he returned home. His mind teemed with images of Aurelia and a thousand conflicting emotions. After an hour spent wrestling with his pillows, he abandoned his bed, dressed, summoned a cab, and made his way to Hyde Park.
A warm easterly wind from the Continent had blown in overnight and swept away the fog that had suffocated London. Now it seemed that, after a week’s sequestration from the daylight, the entire citizenry of the metropolis had poured from their houses and into London’s parks to enjoy a late gift of autumn sunshine. It was a sunny and crisp, almost balmy day. Nannies pushed babies in perambulators. Young children skipped through piles of leaves or threw armfuls at each other, shrieking with gaiety. Couples of all ages strolled along the leaf-strewn paths, arm in arm.
Thraxton walked alone through their midst, head down, deep in thought, when suddenly he looked up at the sound of familiar laughter.
A couple stood in a shaft of sunlight at the edge of the Serpentine watching the row boats. Behind them the water sparkled. The woman was wearing a bright yellow dress that seemed to burn in the sun. The gentleman had removed his top hat and his fair hair shone. The young people were shadowed by an elderly couple who stood close by: obvious chaperones. It took a moment before Thraxton realized who the young couple was: his friend Algernon and Constance Pennethorne, no longer dressed in mourning black.
At about the same instant, the couple looked up and recognized Thraxton. For a moment all stood silent, forming a frozen tableaux, but then Thraxton dropped his gaze and strolled on as if he hadn’t seen them.
“Geoffrey!” his friend cried after him.
Thraxton stopped and turned. Algernon whispered something to Constance and then ran to join him.
“Oh, hello, Algy. I thought that might be you. I did not wish to intrude.”
“Geoffrey, I, I must explain…”
“Explain? What is there to explain?”
“I had meant to tell you, but events seem to have overtaken me. I know that you entertained some feelings for Constance, and as you are my best friend I had not wanted you to feel betrayed—”
“Algy, old fellow,” Thraxton
interrupted. “I am not a complete dullard. I could see from the beginning that Constance only had eyes for you. Which merely confirms my opinion that she is a woman of good sense as well as great beauty and breeding.”
“Then… we are still friends?”
Thraxton laughed and playfully punched Algernon’s shoulder. “Forever, you clot!”
Relief flooded across Algernon’s features. “Well, then. That’s splendid. Absolutely splendid!”
“When will you marry?”
“Marry? Geoffrey, it is a scant year since her husband died. She has only just taken off the mourning dress. What would people say?”
Thraxton looked back at Constance. She was watching the two of them with obvious trepidation. Her blonde hair was done in large ringlets. She carried a fetching parasol, which she balanced upon her shoulder.
“What do you care what the world will say?”
“Geoffrey, I am not you. I have to think of my position—of our position—in society!”
“Listen to me, Algy. Society cares nothing for you or your happiness. In these last few days I have seen things that have knocked the scales from my eyes. There are so many in this world who live in poverty and desperation. We are lucky to have so much. Why delay happiness for one day, one minute, one second? I say to hell with society and its worthless conventions. Marry her, Algy, as soon as possible and let society go hang!”
Algernon cast a look back at his intended. It was clear that Thraxton’s words had fired him with boldness. “I… do you really think? I… yes, damn it all, we shall! Let them all go to blazes, I will speak to Constance right now!”
Algernon started to walk away but then turned back.
“I am sorry, Geoffrey, was there something you wished to tell me?”
“I have met her, Algy.”
“Met who?”
“My inamorata. I am in love.”
Algernon smirked. “Another beauty with a slender waist and an ample bosom?”
Thraxton flinched at the stab of irritation. “No. No, this time it is different. She is beautiful, that is true, but it is more than that. We have a spiritual kinship. With her I feel what voyagers must feel when they first glimpse the shore of an undiscovered country that will forever be their home.”
But Algernon was barely paying attention as he stared back at Constance with love in his eyes. It was obvious that his mind was already tumbling over the idea of immediately marrying her. “Yes, wonderful. Excuse me, but I really must get back.”
And with that he strode away. For a moment, resentment flared in Thraxton’s chest as he watched Algernon rejoin Constance. Although Thraxton could not hear from this distance, Algernon said something that made Constance put both hands to her face. Then she laughed, threw her arms around his shoulders and hugged him. Watching them, Thraxton felt jealous. But it only lasted a moment and then he was full of understanding for it was obvious that his friend was as besotted with Constance Pennethorne as he was with Aurelia, and he could not begrudge his oldest friend a chance at happiness.
Thraxton realized with a stab of shock that he was changing—that he had changed. He felt that his turn was coming shortly and that he and Aurelia would also enjoy many happy days strolling in the sunshine.
Unfortunately, as he was soon to find out, this idyllic vision was something that could never possibly happen.
25
DINNER AT MIDNIGHT
When her husband was still alive, Constance Pennethorne had frequently dined in the late evening, usually around eight o’clock, but she had never dined as late as midnight. Now she and Algernon were the only customers in a small but fashionable restaurant in London’s West End. The restaurant normally closed at eleven, but Thraxton had paid the owners generously to keep the kitchen open and supply a single waiter. Even so, the restaurant seemed empty and desolate as the waiter drew a chair out for Constance and then seated Algernon next to her.
“Who is this young woman of Lord Thraxton’s,” Constance asked, “that we must dine in the middle of the night?”
“It does seem odd, even for Geoffrey.”
“Does she sleep during the day only to emerge from her rooms after dark like one of the ‘gay’ ladies who frequent pleasure gardens such as the Cremorne?”
Algernon’s eyes widened with alarm at Constance’s uncharacteristically spiteful tone, but he paused until the waiter had placed the napkin on his knee and stepped away before responding.
“Knowing Geoffrey there will be a reason. Probably a strange one.”
They heard the clatter of an arriving coach and moments later Geoffrey and Aurelia entered the restaurant. They were met by the owner, who greeted Lord Thraxton solicitously and took their coats and wraps.
“So that’s the mystery woman,” Constance whispered. “She seems a rather pale and sickly creature. I imagined Lord Thraxton’s tastes would run to a more robust woman.”
“Please, dearest,” Algernon chided, “do not be uncharitable.”
As Thraxton and Aurelia reached the table, Algernon rose to greet them.
“Constance, Algy.” Thraxton bowed and kissed Constance’s hand, then shook his friend’s hand.
“I want you to meet Miss Aurelia Greenley. Aurelia, these are my friends, Mrs. Constance Pennethorne and Mister Algernon Hyde-Davies.”
At the mention of the name “Greenley,” Algernon’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. Thraxton’s mystery woman was wearing one of the mysterious blooms they had discovered at Highgate Cemetery. Suddenly all the dots connected: this was the daughter of his head gardener, the irascible Robert Greenley.
Aurelia, her head bowed, looked up at them and smiled shyly.
When they were all seated, Constance directed her gaze at the nervous Aurelia and began her interrogation.
“Tell me, Aurelia,” Constance purred. “Do you eat here often?”
“Oh… no.”
Just then the waiter arrived bearing a magnum of champagne, popped the cork, and soon champagne flutes hissed with foamy effervescence.
“London has so many wonderful restaurants,” Constance persisted. “Where then do you dine?”
“I… have never dined in a restaurant before.”
“Really? You must be very hungry, then.” Constance hid her smile by sipping her champagne.
Thraxton and Algernon squirmed in their chairs. For some reason Constance was enjoying being cruel.
“That is a very pretty necklace you have,” Aurelia said.
All eyes focused on the necklace dangling around Constance’s neck. Thraxton recognized it immediately: the gold Ankh he had snatched from Sir Hector Chelmsford at the British Museum and presented to her.
“Thank you,” Constance said, touching a hand to the Ankh. “It was given to me by Lord Thraxton. He is very impetuous when it comes to giving lavish gifts to ladies… but you must already know that.”
Thraxton’s face colored as Aurelia looked at him questioningly.
Aurelia wore no jewelry because she owned none, but Constance noticed the white bloom pinned to her dress. “That is a very lovely flower you are wearing.” Constance’s eyes danced across the bloom. “Although I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flower quite like it.”
Aurelia unpinned the flower (a Night Angel from her garden) and handed it across the table to Constance. “Please, Constance. I should like you to have it. You are so beautiful with your lovely hair and pretty dress, it would look much better on you than on me.”
The gesture, by its graciousness and generosity, took Constance by surprise.
“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 han
d 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.
The Angel of Highgate Page 16