Prologue

The delicate silver button transferred the chill of untouched metal onto his forefinger - a sensation Jet did not find altogether unpleasant. It reminded him that he was alive; a memory that, for the moment at least, was welcome - but only for the moment and that moment passed almost as instantly as it had come. He gazed at the liquid in the small glass tube, watched it as the plunger displaced it into the needle. He felt it flow into his veins followed by the warmth. That glorious warmth that moved quickly from the sticking point to his chest and stomach and then his head and limbs - from his fingertips to his toes. Now the pain, the memories were gone in the medicine's warm embrace. Jet's mouth twisted into a slack smile. He turned his head to his friend.

"See, I told you it was good stuff - and it's not addictive like laudanum." His friend grinned back, pushing the plunger down on his own syringe. "Ahhh..." he sighed as the drug coursed through his body.

"Heroin, you said?" Jet had trouble forming the words properly.

"Yeah, from Germany." Arthur replied. "My father's former business partner brought it over to try."

"Well it works." Jet slid down the backboard of the bed until his head rested on the pillow. Arthur let his head roll back against the crest of the arm chair and laughed at his friend. His head lolled from side to side against the chair back. Suddenly, he jerked forward and heaved. Jet slowly turned his head to face his compatriot with a slightly arched eyebrow.

"You oll korrect, mate?" he drolled with no great urgency. Arthur was doubled over, retching and clutching his stomach. Arthur turned up his face to his friend, it appeared drawn and pale, but a smile was stretched across it.

"I will be fine, mate, it will pass in a moment."

"Whatever you say, Artie." Jet turned his attention back to the moldings on the ceiling, he had never really noticed them before - not since his youth anyway - but now his eyes once again lovingly caressed those intricate twists and turns. He raised his hand toward them, tracing the curving lines with his finger. Arthur stopped retching and the two young men lapsed into silence.

It was some time later that Jet became aware of a breach of the soundless peace enveloping him. From his right he heard what he began to understand to be uproarious laughter. He slowly turned his head to see Arthur wrapped in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

Jet lazily propped himself up upon his elbow. "What's so funny?" he slurred. Arthur took a deep breath to collect himself and, for a moment, it seemed to work; but as he raised his head to speak he broke into another fit. "Oh come off it!" Jet exclaimed, hurling a pillow in Arthur's direction. Arthur raised his hand, pointing upward, the other he put on his chest as he finally slowed his breathing enough to speak.

"I can almost remember exactly their funny faces." he panted.

"What are you talking about?"

"That time you said you would be marrying soon." Arthur explained. "As I recall your father was as bold as that sergeant major - he was ready to disinherit you on the spot in front of the entire dinner party... He was correct, you know, she was only marrying you for your money."

"I suppose so." Jet allowed.

"I don't know what lapse in your judgement enticed you to put yourself in such a disgraceful position with such a course, common woman as that. Wasn't she one of those "suffragettes" as well?"

"Yes." He answered through clenched teeth.

"She was nothing to look at either, as I recall - but it's always the ugly birds that make the most noise - and a gawdawful racket she made! Cawing here about the Rights of Women, crowing there about saving those degenerates - like you and I mate - from our sins." Here his voice took on a higher pitch, "'Oh you may be poor on earth but in heaven you'll wear a crown of finest gold in jewels - have some soup.' Oh what was her name - it was something ugly, like a fat old cow."

"It was Bertha."

"Oh right - Bertie! As Thomas once said to Richard, mate: 'She's peevish, she's theivish, she's ugly, she's old, and a liar, and a fool, and a slut, and a scold.' You should thank the lot of us for delivering you from her deliverance."

Jet did not answer this indictment. His hands clenched the bedsheets on both sides of his form. He feared what he would say were he to lose his tongue. Would he mock his childhood friend, insult him, defend the woman? Would he scream as a madman - with no intelligible voice but volume? If he did not grip the bed would his hands then place their hard grasp around Arthur's throat? If he attempted to speak would his words fail him completely? Would he fall to the floor sobbing like a infant? Already he felt a sob come up, but he stifled it. His eyes he shut tightly to block the tears which stung them. Arthur seemed to interpret Jet's lack of response to mean he had nodded off. "Cheers mate." he saluted his friend with a raised glass of emerald liquid, drained it, and poured himself another. Sometime later Jet heard the sound of the glass as it shattered upon the floor. Without a witness to observe them, the tears which had scorched his eyelids finally found their path across his cheeks to soft pillow beneath. Almost soundlessly the tune, that song they had sung on the bridge before the infinite expanse of stars above and below them

"The young May moon is beaming, love..." the words were lost as his voice caught in stifled sobs. "... and the best of all ways to lengthen our days is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear."