The Angel of Highgate

9 THE WIDOW’S WEEDS

Although Algernon had only enjoyed perhaps twenty minutes of sleep in the last forty-eight hours, it was a Monday morning and those who were not of the leisure class had jobs to go to. After a hastily eaten breakfast, he hailed a cab in order to catch the steamer for Kew Gardens where he held the position of head botanist. (A position he owed thanks in large part to Thraxton’s influence and patronage of the Royal Botanical Gardens.)

Lord Thraxton’s day, meanwhile, assumed its usual leisurely pace. After breakfast, he retired to his rooms and slept until early afternoon. Upon awakening, he called for his blue brougham to be brought around. An hour later the carriage deposited him, once again, at the London Cemetery at Highgate.

During his late breakfast, Thraxton had decided to revisit the cemetery during the hours of daylight while the events of the previous night were still fresh in his mind. Compared with last night’s miasmic fog, the day turned out to be dry and crisp under bright sunshine and brilliant blue skies, and the winding paths were strewn ankle-deep with the scarlet and gold of autumn’s glory. But after strolling for the better part of an hour, he found the cemetery so different in daylight that it conjured none of the associations he had been seeking. Weary, and still feeling the effects of his nocturnal misadventure, he abandoned his search, but determined to make some productive use of the visit by composing a new poem.

He had brought his book of blank pages and pen, and now he sought out the place in the cemetery where he usually wrote. The gravestone slab was elevated a foot and a half from the ground on stout stone legs, so as to form a kind of table or low bench. The epitaph showed that the grave belonged to one Emily Fitzsimmons, who had shuffled from this mortal coil at age sixty-three, much to the eternal grief of her adoring husband Walter and their two children Amelia and Francis. Thraxton sat upon the grave, facing toward the massive stone gateway flanked by a pair of faux obelisks that formed the entrance to the Egyptian Avenue. With the book resting upon his thighs, he took out his favorite pen and jotted the title of today’s poem at the top of the blank page: “The Highgate Spirit.”

Thraxton’s eyes danced along the whorls and curlicues of his handwriting set in blue ink upon a blank white page. He had his title, his theme. As a form of meditation, he gazed skyward, watching puffy white clouds tumbling and reforming while he awaited inspiration. After ten minutes he came to himself and realized that the muse was uncharacteristically silent that day. Clearly her throat was in need of a little lubrication.

Thraxton set down his pen and picked up his phoenix handle walking stick. Before leaving home he had refilled the glass tube with an aged and oakey brandy. He unscrewed the sipping cup, and yanked the cork loose with his teeth. Careful not to waste a drop, he filled the cup then quickly drained it and poured himself another. Despite the brilliant sunshine it was a chilly, brisk day and the brandy warmed his innards. He was reassembling the walking stick when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look.

In the shadows sprawled beneath a canopy of elm trees, a slender black shape glided silently through the distant gravestones.

He stood up and looked, but it had vanished.

Thraxton dropped the walking stick and took off running.

As he reached the path he glimpsed it again, fleetingly. It seemed to be moving in a direction slanting diagonally away from him. Thraxton abandoned the path and crashed through the underbrush. It was darker beneath the canopy of trees. Although the cemetery had only been open a few years, many of the graves here were already overgrown. Thraxton leaped over graves in his haste, eyes scanning ahead for another sight of the black wraith. He spotted it, barely fifty feet away, gliding away from him. He lost sight momentarily as he dodged around a stand of elm trees, but kept running. He leapt over another grave and almost crashed into a dark crouching form.

A woman in a veil and black mourning dress knelt at a handsome marble grave while she placed flowers upon it. She looked up with a startled expression, eyes wide, mouth open as Thraxton stood over her, panting and flushed.

It took a moment for them to recognize one another.

“Mrs. Pennethorne!” Thraxton blurted. He suddenly noticed the fresh flowers laid upon the grave and the name Charles Pennethorne engraved on the handsome marble headstone. In her widow’s black lace dress and black bonnet, Thraxton had mistaken Constance for the specter he had seen the evening before.

“I… I… please, forgive me,” Thraxton stammered. “I did not mean to intrude. I thought you… I mean, I most humbly beg your pardon.”

Mortified by his own bumbling stupidity, Thraxton bowed slightly and was about to take his leave when Constance rose and graciously offered her hand.

“Not at all,” she said, smiling to show she had recovered from her initial surprise. “Once again, Lord Thraxton, your entrance displays great dramatic flair.”

Thraxton felt himself blushing and thought, Congratulations, Geoffrey. You’ve made a complete arse of yourself.

She laughed at his obvious embarrassment. “No, it is good to see you again. I have not forgotten your generosity at the British Museum.”

Thraxton gently shook her hand and nodded politely at the grave. “Your beloved late husband, I take it?”

She nodded.

“Forgive me. I shall intrude upon your grief no further.”

He turned to leave, but she put a hand on his arm. “No, please. I was just about to leave. My friends are waiting at the gate. Perhaps you would be gallant enough to walk with me?”

And so the pair strolled together along the leaf-strewn paths. It was considerably warmer in the sunshine. Were it not for the bare trees and the dense carpet of fallen leaves, it could almost have been taken for a spring day.

“You are here to visit a loved one, Lord Thraxton?”

“No, I come here to write,” Thraxton replied. “I find the melancholy atmosphere of Highgate, all this sorrow and brooding loss turned to stone, conjures my poetic muse.”

Constance smiled. “Ah, you are a poet?”

“There are those who would argue the point, but yes, I title myself as such. It is so much more agreeable than admitting that I basically do nothing at all.”

Constance could not hold back a wry smile, which Thraxton took as a sign of encouragement. “Forgive my boldness, Mrs. Pennethorne, but I must confess that upon seeing you at your husband’s grave, I was struck by how your great natural beauty was rendered quite transcendent by a widow’s grief.”

“You are terrible flatterer, Lord Thraxton.”

“It would seem a sin to keep such pulchritude wrapped in a widow’s weeds forever. I believe there are seasons in all things — life and death. Perhaps when your season of grief has passed, you will be free to open your heart again to another love among the living?”

Constance stopped and looked up into his face. “I may, in time, love another. But I will never stop loving my husband. I do not believe that love ends at the tomb door.”

“Why, yes,” he hurried to add. “Of course. Remembrance for the dead is a noble thing.”

“Not merely remembrance,” she corrected. “My husband is still very much a part of my life. I spoke with him just last Wednesday.”

Thraxton smiled, and then quickly dropped the expression lest she think he was mocking her. Still, he did not know quite what to make of her statement, so he assumed an expression of serious attentiveness. “You are speaking poetically, I imagine?”

“Not at all.”

Thraxton’s expression betrayed his puzzlement. Constance resumed walking and he kept pace with her. She flashed him a wistful little smile and asked, “Do you believe in the survival of the soul after death?”

The words triggered a jolt of electricity through Thraxton.

“I very much want to.” For some reason Thraxton felt compelled to tell Constance about the dark wraith and his near brush with death, leaving out all details of how he and Algernon wound up at Highgate. Constance listened attentively throughout, her expression thoughtful but never revealing whether she thought he was deluded or not. By the time he finished his story they had reached the cemetery’s gated entrance. An elderly couple sat on one of the wooden benches, and now they arose as Thraxton and Constance approached. It occurred to him that he had seen them someplace before, and then he remembered the evening at the British Museum.

“Ah,” he said. “The inevitable Wakefields.”

“Yes, I do hope I haven’t kept them waiting too long.” She turned to Thraxton and offered her hand. It was obvious their tête-à-têtes had concluded. “It was so good to see you again, Lord Thraxton.”

Thraxton doffed his top hat and bowed as he kissed her hand.

“I came here seeking only silence and contemplation,” Thraxton said. “Who would have guessed I would find serene beauty as well.”

Constance blushed a little at the compliment. She turned and walked toward the waiting Wakefields. Thraxton watched as she shared a few words with the elderly couple that he could not catch from where he stood. Constance finished and walked back to speak with him.

“Lord Thraxton,” she said. “Do you know anything of the spiritualist movement?”

The question surprised him. “I… a little. What I read in the newspapers.”

“We are having a séance this Saturday evening. If you are free to attend, you may find it enlightening.”

She pressed a card into his hand that bore an address in Mayfair not far from his own home.

“Yes, thank you. I believe I am free.”

“Wonderful.”

Constance started to walk away again when she remembered something and turned back.

“Oh, and do be sure to bring your friend with you — Mister Hyde-Davies.”