The Angel of Highgate (4 page)

“I apologize? You have caused me to spill my punch! It is you who should apologize.”

“Evidently you are a drunkard, as well as a shoddy poet!” Skinner shouted the last line at the top of his lungs.

Conversation stopped. The cellos groaned themselves into silence. All eyes in the room fastened upon Lord Thraxton and Augustus Skinner.

A wistful smile appeared on Thraxton’s lips. Algernon knew that smile. It meant Thraxton was about to do something very rash. Algernon took his friend by the arm and attempted to lead him away. “Geoffrey, perhaps we should—”

Thraxton pushed his friend’s hand away, quite violently, while never taking his gaze from Skinner’s face.

“Good God,” Thraxton said. “Just when I had begun to embrace Mister Darwin’s theories, here is proof positive that evolution works in both directions. How is it that someone found a suit to fit this monkey?”

“Geoffrey, please—” Algernon started to say.

“How dare you!”

“I’m sorry,” Thraxton said. “I should not insult a monkey so, for I have seen monkeys in the London Zoo and they appear to be creatures capable of at least some level of reasoning. No, what we have here is much further down the tree of life, something more akin to a slug or a leech.”

“You scoundrel!”

Resignedly, Algernon went over to the refreshment table and poured himself a glass of punch. Now Thraxton had started, there was no stopping him.

“Yes, a leech, for that’s what all critics are—leeches sucking on the body of art. And only after they’re fat and bloated with the blood of artists do they drop off and slither away.”

Skinner shook with fury. “You will take that back, sir. Take it back or I will see you in the law courts!”

“I take nothing back from you! You… you leech!”

“Then… then… then… I must demand satisfaction!”

Skinner tore off one of his white cotton gloves and slapped Thraxton smartly across the face. In truth, the slap was barely perceptible, but in the tense silence of the room, it resounded like a gunshot.

Something dangerous came into Thraxton’s face. His eyes shone lambent with anger. For a terrifying moment, it seemed likely that he would leap upon his antagonizer and box him senseless, but instead, a cruel smile formed on his lips. “Very well,” he said, mildly. “I accept your challenge. Wimbledon Common. Dawn tomorrow. I shall bring my dueling pistols. Be sure to bring your seconds.” Thraxton turned his back on Skinner and walked over to Algernon, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Do you know, Algy,” he said, good-naturedly, “I’ve just tossed off a full glass of punch and I’m still thirsty. Let’s see if there’s any of that wonderful champagne left.”

W
imbledon Common slumbered beneath shifting panes of mist burnished silver by the rising sun. In the near distance, the windmill loomed, a four-armed giant poised to stride over the land, smashing all within reach. The trees were stark, skeletal beings the wind had twisted into tortured shapes. A flight of pigeons whirred overhead like a premonition, circling once, twice, three times before vanishing. In the fog-muffled air, fragments of human speech carried indistinctly, mixed incongruously with the clatter of silverware on china and, stranger still, the spit and hiss of meat sizzling in a pan.

Lord Geoffrey Thraxton, draped in a heavy wool blanket, lounged at a small folding table while Harold, his servant, clattered pans. At another table, the blue flames of alcohol burners lapped at two silver warming trays. Harold finished sautéing a pair of kidneys, spooned them onto a plate alongside a brace of poached quail’s eggs, and set the steaming plateful down in front of his master.

“Ah, breakfast at last,” Thraxton exclaimed as he cut into the deviled kidneys. He stabbed a steaming hot forkful and slid it cautiously past his lips. Juices filled his mouth as he chewed. He swallowed, then dabbed his lips with a linen napkin. “Kidneys are first-rate this morning, Harold.”

“Thank you, milord.”

Thraxton looked around at Algernon. He had deliberately chosen to stand some distance away in order to keep the smell of frying meat from turning a stomach already queasy with the earliness of the hour and the deadly gravity of the occasion.

“Certain you won’t partake of some deviled kidneys, Algy?” Thraxton asked casually. “They really are quite sumptuous.”

Algernon shook his head quickly. “Geoffrey, this is madness. Dueling is against the law. You could be charged with murder.”

“Surely not if he kills me? That hardly seems just.”

They both looked up at the sound of retching. Augustus Skinner leaned against a tree for support as he heaved again. Even from this distance, the sound of vomit splattering against a tree trunk was clearly discernible.

Thraxton knifed into one of the poached quail’s eggs and runny yellow yolk squirted under his blade. As he forked a morsel into his mouth, yolk dribbled down his chin. He dabbed it away with the napkin, then swirled a mouthful of claret to wash the film of grease from his tongue. “Is this from my cellar, Harold?”

“Yes, milord.”

“Let me see.”

Harold interrupted his efforts with the sauté pan to pull a bottle from a straw hamper and present it, label-first, for his master’s perusal. Thraxton snatched the bottle from him, yanked the cork and sniffed at the open neck. Finding the bouquet very much to his liking, he sloshed himself another glassful.

“This really is a wonderful claret!” He held up the bottle and waved it at Algernon. “Certain you won’t indulge?”

Algernon did not answer, for he was looking at something to his left. Thraxton followed his gaze to three men in long frock coats and top hats who approached silently through the mist. The men were Skinner’s seconds. Two of the men he recognized: Sir Alfred Beecham and his idiot son Nigel. Thraxton knew and detested both of them. The third man, a tall, thin, gangly-limbed individual, dressed in a white top hat, hung back so that his features were never clearly discernible in the haze. From the black Gladstone bag that dangled from one hand, Thraxton guessed that the man was a physician Beecham had brought with him.

Thraxton continued to graze on his breakfast until father and son stood before him.

“Are you ready to go forward with this action, sir?” Sir Beecham asked in a grave tone.

Thraxton looked up at the older man while he continued to chew. When he had swallowed his mouthful, he wiped his lips on the napkin and took another swig of claret before answering. “Yes.” He threw a look in Skinner’s direction. “Are you sure your man is? I expect to be shot at, not spewed upon.”

The seconds turned and looked at Skinner, who was wiping vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand. “I believe Mister Skinner is ready, sir.”

Thraxton tossed the napkin on the table and rose from his seat. “Very well, then. Let us get on. And just to be a good sport I insist your man have the first shot.”

Algernon’s face fell at the remark. “Not the first shot, Geoffrey. I implore you—!”

Thraxton clapped a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Be of good faith, Algy. Augustus Skinner has never hit his mark in print. I doubt he will do much better with a pistol.”

Sir Beecham scowled, turned on his heel and stalked off. Skinner, still leaning against a tree for support, looked up as his seconds approached.

“Augustus,” Sir Beecham said. “He has given you the first shot. All you must do is stand and face him, then discharge your pistol into the air. He will likewise be obliged to follow suit. You both will have shown courage… the honor of both men shall then be satisfied.”

But Augustus Skinner was quaking with a mixture of fear and anger. “Thraxton has no honor! He is an impudent cur!”

Sir Beecham grimaced and hardened his words. “Look, sir, Parliament outlawed dueling twenty years ago. If you kill Lord Thraxton, you will be tried and found guilty of murder. If you wound him grievously and do not kill him, he will likely drag you through the courts until you expend your last penny. Remember, no matter how black his character or soiled his reputation, he is a Peer of the Realm. As challenger, you will be seen as the aggressor. The course of action I suggest will resolve this dispute here and now, on the field of honor.”

Skinner did not look at Sir Beecham, but kept his gaze on Thraxton, who was warming up by doing some deep knee bends then springing upright.

“What say you, Augustus? Discharge your pistol into the air and an hour from now we will all be back in London, warming ourselves in front of the fire with a splendid yarn to tell over brandy and cigars.”

Augustus Skinner turned eyes on Sir Beecham that were bloodshot and pouchy from lack of sleep. His lips compressed tightly as though his mouth held a hot stone he wished to spit out. His only answer was a resolute shake of his head.

Sir Beecham’s shoulders slumped. He looked back at the coaches and the black hearse that had been ordered to transport the loser of the duel. He removed his top hat and waved at the driver to prepare the hearse.

One man would walk away from the duel. The other would be carried.

* * *

The pistols had been primed and loaded. The ground had been chosen. The distance had been measured off. Now Thraxton and Skinner faced each other across a scant twenty paces of open field. The pale white disk of the sun floated above the trees, a glaucous eye peering blindly through thickening fog.

The men’s seconds stood together, well clear of the line of fire. Despite the chill of the morning both duelists had removed their coats and stood in shirt sleeves so as to be less encumbered. Algernon held Thraxton’s coat draped across one arm, still warm from his body. He prayed that its owner would still be warm when it was slipped back upon his shoulders in just a few minutes. Thraxton and Skinner faced one another, their breath pluming in the air. It struck Algernon as odd to think that the breath of one of these men was about to be stopped forever. The birdsong, which had been clamorous since dawn, ceased abruptly. Even the scant breeze dropped. Ears strained for a sound and caught nothing as a preternatural silence fell over the proceedings.

“Are you gentlemen ready?” Sir Beecham’s voice resounded in the silence.

“Yes!” Thraxton called out, nodding assent.

“Mister Skinner. Are you ready, sir?”

Skinner threw a terrified look at his seconds. His shoulders heaved as he sucked in and let out several deep breaths before he gave a quick nod.

Beecham looked at Algernon, who let out a sigh and nodded his assent.

“Lord Thraxton,” Sir Beecham called out. “Prepare to receive Mister Skinner’s fire.”

It was an accepted practice in dueling for the party receiving fire to turn his body sideways, so as to present a smaller target. Thraxton, however, faced his opponent square on, the pistol held relaxed at his side.

“Damn you, Geoffrey,” Algernon muttered under his breath. “Don’t give him an easy target. Turn, man, turn!”

Thraxton remained as immovable as a statue.

“Old Skinner’s trembling like a leaf,” Harold whispered to Algernon. “Lord Thraxton’s steady as a rock.”

“Of course,” Algernon replied. “He’s in love with the idea of a romantic death.”

Skinner needed both trembling hands to draw back the firing pin. He raised the quivering pistol, fighting to steady his shaking hand.

As Thraxton watched the slow elevation of Skinner’s pistol, all senses seemed to expand beyond the constraints of his body. He heard the desolate cawing of a crow, the soughing of the breeze through the bare limbs of the birch trees. The white frost on the grass was beginning to melt, and beads of dew sparkled in the slanting rays of early sunlight. He felt the soft steady beating of his heart, the shifting weight of flesh and muscle on bone, the ponderous mass of the pistol in his hand. When he looked back at Skinner, the black bore of the pistol’s muzzle was centered on his face. Thraxton took a deep breath, felt the cold air stretch his lungs, and let it out.

He knew it would be his last.

“Death,” he whispered to himself. “Here I am, Death. Are you ready for me?”

The pistol muzzle tremored as Skinner’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was the tiniest of clicks as the mechanism released and the hammer sprung down on the pan. The flint sparked. The powder lit with a flash of orange and a
pffffftttt
sound. A fraction of a second later the pistol fired with the solid percussive bang of a thunderclap.

Thraxton saw the flash and felt a hot finger trace the side of his scalp. For a moment he stood, not moving, looking at the white cloud of smoke behind which his opponent had vanished. He put a hand to his forehead, expecting to find a gaping wound. Nothing. His fingers traced along the side of his head. The top of his ear burned and when he brought his hand away, there was blood on it. The slightest of nicks. The pistol ball had passed within a gnat’s wing of his skull, leaving only singed hair and a tiny cut on one ear.

Finally, the tendrils of smoke rose, curled, dissipated, and Skinner, who had not yet lowered his discharged pistol, reappeared. When he saw his opponent still standing, unscathed, Skinner’s face contorted in a mask of terror and despair. The pistol, now just a spent and useless weight, dragged his arm down. He seemed to deflate. His knees wobbled, threatening to buckle.