The Angel of Highgate
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Authors: Vaughn Entwistle
Also Available from Titan Books
THE REVENANT OF THRAXTON HALL
THE DEAD ASSASSIN
The Angel of Highgate
Print edition ISBN: 9781783295340
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783295357
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: December 2015
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Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 2015 Vaughn Entwistle
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This book is dedicated to my wife Shelley,
my inamorata now and forever.
N
H
OPES OF THE
R
ESURRECTION TO
C
OME
O
ctober 4th 1859, almost seven a.m. on a Sunday morning. God was in His Heaven. Queen Victoria was on her throne. And Lord Geoffrey Thraxton was prowling the pathways of Highgate Cemetery. Ectoplasmic mists swirled about the brooding mass of stone mausoleums. A ghostly winged form—a carved angel perched atop a grave—crooked a beckoning finger from the gloom. Thraxton ignored the summons and strode on, the fog cupping his face in its cool hands.
Despite the early hour and the somber setting, Thraxton was impeccably dressed in black frock coat and tight, camel-color breeches, a bright yellow cravat knotted at his throat, a gray silk top hat perched at an insolent angle upon his head. In one kid-gloved hand he gripped a walking stick whose grip was formed by a golden phoenix bursting forth from tongues of flame. The other hand, gloveless, stroked the cashmere lining of his coat pocket. In his early thirties, and of above average height and muscular build, Thraxton had a face that could have been said to be both handsome and noble, were it not for a certain weakness in the mouth, a hint of dissolution in the corners of the intense blue eyes.
In the still air, the only sound was the crackle of leaves underfoot, the rattle of robins in the berry bushes, and as the hour struck, the slow, dolorous clang of bells from the nearby Church of St. Michael’s. To the south lay the city of London, an invisible but palpable presence in the fog, for the smoke coughed up from the sooty throats of its myriad chimneys left a bitter tang of sulfur on the tongue.
Highgate was arguably the most beautiful necropolis in the capital, with its mixture of Classical and Egyptian influenced tombs and mausoleums, including its most celebrated architectural flourish, the Circle of Lebanon, so named for the gnarled cedar that rooted at its center. It was a place for London’s fashionable living to perambulate, as well as a final resting place for London’s fashionable dead to await the Crack of Doom and the body’s resurrection.
At this hour, however, Thraxton had only the latter for company. On a path leading to the Egyptian Avenue, he paused to contemplate the rain-worn face of a stone angel, its eyes cast downward in an expression of profound loss. At that moment, the bells of St. Michael’s peeled a final stroke and fell mute, opening an abyss of silence wherein the world beyond the cemetery fell away, and the dead caught their breath. Then a sorrowful wail drifted from afar, faintly, as if all the stone angels of Highgate were weeping, but soon followed the rattle of carriage wheels, the jingle of horse brasses and the muffled thump of hooves on soft soil.
A rectangular shape loomed in the mist, gathering solidity until it materialized in the form of a hearse drawn by two coal-dark mares, their huge heads nodding with black plumes. Atop the hearse rode two funeral grooms in black frock coats with top hats draped in black crepe. Two more paced behind the hearse on foot, followed by four women in black mourning dresses, their faces darkly veiled. These women were the source of the weeping, which they interspersed with the occasional heart-cracking wail. At the rear of the procession strode two men dressed in daily attire but for the black crepe armbands that marked them as mourners.
The taller of the two was a handsome gentleman of about the same age as Thraxton with blonde curls spilling out from beneath his top hat. The fellow that walked beside him was a full foot shorter, barely into his twenties, and whose bowler hat and shabby jacket marked him as a domestic servant. Both men wore expressions shaped by the solemnity of the occasion, yet the servant’s face seemed to bear a look at once both serious and supercilious.
The hearse clattered around the bend of the narrow lane and Thraxton stepped aside to allow it to pass, doffing his top hat in respect. Such a lugubrious display was calculated to instill a profound sense of loss and mourning in all who witnessed it, yet the sight of the hearse had served only to tease a faint smile onto Thraxton’s lips.
The glass sides of the hearse flashed as it drew alongside and he caught a glimpse of the deceased—a young woman in a crystal coffin, her body swathed in a white lace death shroud of intricate delicacy.
As the solemn cortège trundled by, Thraxton’s presence went unacknowledged by the slightest glance from either the funeral grooms or the wailing women. But the blond gentleman looked up as he passed, and for the briefest of moments his calm hazel eyes met and held Thraxton’s.
The funeral procession carried on for another thirty feet and drew up next to a stone mausoleum. To gain a better vantage, Thraxton clambered up on the pedestal with the stone angel. Setting his hat momentarily atop the angel’s head, he stood with his arms wrapped around its waist, his cheek pressed up against the mossy stone as he watched the melancholy scene from a discreet distance.
The lamenting reached its climax as the four grooms lifted the coffin from the hearse. Assisted by the gentleman and the servant, they bore it into the tomb upon their shoulders, and the mourning women wept after them.
It was over quickly. The mourners re-emerged from the tomb, minus the coffin, the groomsmen led the horses around until they faced the direction they had just come from, and soon the cortège passed by heading in the other direction. The funereal wailing softened into the distance. The hearse grew transparent, lost substance, and dissolved into the seething grayness. Thraxton retrieved his top hat, stepped down from his angelic perch, and sauntered toward the mausoleum.
A fresh wreath hung upon the bronze door, above which a stonemason had carved a grinning skull nestled amongst winged cherubs. Thraxton studied the memento mori as he stole a single white flower from the wreath and threaded the bloom into his boutonnière. He cast a casual glance first left and then right. The funeral party was long gone. Apart from the slumbering dead of Highgate, no one was about. The latch lifted beneath his thumb and a gentle push creaked the tomb door open. Thraxton slipped inside and swung the door shut behind him.
Inside the tomb, a profusion of candles burned here and there, their waxy scent muddled with the fragrance of white lilies scattered atop the coffin’s crystal lid. He stepped closer. The flowers concealed the face of the deceased, so he swept them to the floor and peered in. What he saw made him catch his breath. The woman inside the coffin was beautiful and shockingly young, scarcely sixteen.
“My God,” he gasped, “how perfect a bloom to have fallen so soon.”
His fingers closed on the handle of the coffin lid. A gentle tug revealed that it was not fastened. The crystal lid was massive and awkward, but Thraxton heaved it off and set it down on the floor.
At last, he stood over the open coffin gazing down at the vision within. Despite the heavily applied white powder and red-rouged cheeks and lips, the woman seemed young, fresh and alive. The sight of that face, like a sleeping angel’s, sent a tremor through him. To disturb such beauty seemed sacrilege, but after a moment’s hesitation, he reached out and caressed the soft down of her cheek with his fingertips.
“The blush of youth still lingers on flesh grown cold.”
As he traced the full, rouged lips with his thumb, a muscle in his jaw trembled.
“Surely Death, your new husband, would not be jealous of a single kiss on this, your wedding day?”
Thraxton leaned in and softly kissed the corpse’s lips. They were full and pliant, and parted slightly as he drew his lips away.
“How sweet. Even in death. How sweet.”
The shroud was fastened at the front by a number of delicately tied bows. He caught and tugged the end of the topmost. The bow silkily unknotted and the shroud fell open, revealing an alabaster neck and chest. The remaining bows soon surrendered to his quick fingers and Thraxton drew the shroud open to reveal small, firm breasts with taut, high nipples, the soft dome of a belly, a patch of golden hair between the thighs. In the shifting candlelight, the flesh seemed marble that had flowed waxen and set in the shape of an Aphrodite.