Summary: In Victorian London, an emigre count, Uther, and his landlady listen to an innocent girl's bloodcurdling story.
A/N: Final chapter and epilogue. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favourited, alerted and just read it, including Lucy B, Ceerat and Lara Smith.
A/N: And, hey, I've just had an email from FF saying they've added Percival to their list of characters. I asked in May! Well better late than never.
The Dark Place by frostygossamer
Part 5: The End
"Guinevere!", the visitor yelled, and he rushed up the stairs to her side.
He scooped up her limp body, and Hunith ushered him into Uther's parlour, where he laid her on a chaise-longue, and knelt beside her, holding her tiny hand to his lips. Uther burst into the parlour.
"Minheer!", he challenged.
Hunith checked him, "I believe, Count, that this is Mr. Pendragon."
Arthur rubbed Guinevere's little hand.
"I guess she must have told you about me", he said.
"Something", Hunith conceded, "But she didn't tell us you weren't English."
Arthur laughed. "American, ma'am", he replied, "New England Quaker by upbringing, though I've had little recourse to the Almighty of late. I guess I never talked much about home. I don't have too many good memories." He paused, "Maybe you thought I was my good friend Merlin Emrys?"
Uther choked. "Veramente!", he retorted, "After what we have heard from your petite companion tonight, Monsieur Pendragon, I think we were not eager to meet either of you face to face!"
He told Arthur that Guinevere's disturbing story had caused Hunith and himself great anxiety about, to be blunt, her sanity. Of course her story was incredible, to say the least, but, even so, she had given it the ring of truth. The poor girl was obviously profoundly distressed by her experiences, real or not.
Arthur was deeply concerned. He had no way of knowing exactly what Guinevere had experienced, but he offered to try to explain the truth of what had happened from his point of view, and thereby show that Guinevere was indeed the innocent witness of strange but horribly real events. He stood up and removed his wet waterproofs, then he sat at Guinevere's feet and began his tale.
('o')
It had started earlier that same evening. A tempest was gathering in a mustard-coloured sky, when, at dusk, he had got back from the city, to find Guinevere gone. She had left him a note saying that she had gone to the Seagull to see Merlin, so he ran to the Seagull where the barmaid gave him Merlin's parting message. He knew where to find him.
Beneath threatening clouds, he hurried to St. Geoffrey's, arriving under a towering storm. There he found Merlin holding Guinevere hostage. The distress on her pretty face was enough to make his blood boil, if it had not already been boiling. He laid into the Dutchman savagely, but the man was ever his match. They traded blows. Blood and sweat blinded him. His head reeled with pain and fury.
Then, in an instant, reality slipped away, and with it the church and everything he knew. He was alone with his enemy in the unblinking glare of a pitiless sun. Thousands of years had vanished like mist. They threw themselves at each other like gamecocks.
It seemed that he knew nothing but the brittle crunch of bone against bone, the strain of muscle against muscle. They seemed to struggle for hours but ultimately his rival was stronger, more relentless. He began to overpower him. He felt his strength ebb away. Then he hit the hard, dry ground with a bang and he was finished.
He had once seen a slave emancipated after lifelong servitude. That old man's joy could not match the wonderful liberation he felt at that moment. Like a songbird released from its cage, like a river flowing out into the ocean, like the day newly dawning, so he felt as that ancient penance was lifted from his shoulders. He was newborn. He was free.
Arthur picked himself up from the floor and looked around him. Miraculously the church was still standing and it was utterly silent, except for the faintest sound of muffled weeping. Merlin sat on the steps of the altar, his face in his hands, sobbing quietly. Arthur went over and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up.
"Thank God", he said, "Thank God. At last it's finished."
Then his face creased into a grin and his sobbing turned to laughter. He sprang to his feet.
"Thank God!", he shouted to the rafters and the echoes rang around the church. "Thank God! At last! It's finished!", he cried.
Arthur realised that they were alone. Where was Guinevere? He saw that the rain was pouring in through the open side-door of the chapel, ran to the door and stared out into the blinding rain. Behind him Merlin declared that he must come and celebrate with him.
"Let me buy you some beer, brother", he said jovially, slapping him on the back.
"She's gone", Arthur gasped.
He had to find Guinevere. He could not tell how long they had been absorbed in the fight, how long she had been gone, or what dreadful things she might have seen. She was probably terrified. He had to find her and explain, before he lost her forever.
Merlin caught his arm. "Here, take my hat and cloak", he insisted, pressing the bundle on him, "The weather is foul."
He said he hoped they would meet again. In better circumstances, they would have been friends.
"If there is ever anything at all I can do for you", he said, "I owe you so much."
He would be going home to his own sunny country on the very next available ship. He was already looking forward to seeing again his beautiful vineyard and the wife and family he had been blessed with but, until now, had been unable to enjoy. He wished Arthur a long and happy life, as he stepped out into the rain.
('o')
Arthur knew that Guinevere had no one else to turn to in London but Morgana and her fellow servants. He hailed a hackney-cab in the church lane, and asked for His Lordship's. On the way there, through the rain-drenched streets, he spotted Guinevere's hat stuck in a tree, and stopped the cab. As the hackney-cab retreated, he cast around for some clue as to where she might have gone. Then he heard the eerie creak of a garden gate swinging in the driving wind.
It was the end house of the row, and something was caught in a drain cover beside the gate. It was the heel of a woman's shoe. Arthur prised it free. It looked like Guinevere's. Putting it in his pocket, Arthur walked up the garden path.
As he approached the house the gas mantles in the kitchen were turned down and the room became dim. Peering into the window, he glimpsed the figure of a young man disappearing inside with a tray. The door closed behind him.
Cursing under his breath he vaulted over the side wall of the garden into the road and walked round to the front of the house. He spotted a light upstairs just as someone inside drew the curtains. He knocked on the door.
Arthur paused and at that moment Guinevere stirred, sighed and opened her brown eyes.
"Oh, Arthur, I thought...", she breathed, "My love, I thought you were dead."
She flung her arms around his neck, but then suddenly she recoiled from him, remembering her horror.
"What are you?", she asked, "A man or a monster?"
"A man", he replied, "A man who loves you!"
"I saw something in the church", she murmured, "something hideous, not a man, not even a beast. It was horrible." She began to panic. "Oh, dear God! It was black, so black, and devilish. Oh, dear God in heaven!"
Arthur grasped Guinevere by the shoulders, and stared into her face.
"Trust me", he said quietly. "It's gone, honey. The darkness is gone for good."
Guinevere saw the truth in his heaven-blue eyes. They embraced. It was going to be all right.
Arthur turned to Uther. "I came to think that the dark place in my soul was all I had. Without it there would be nothing. I was so very wrong."
Hunith felt the teapot. It was cold. She excused herself to make a fresh pot, pausing on the landing to fumble for her handkerchief, and wipe away a sentimental tear.
('o')
Arthur dried Guinevere's treacle-coloured eyes with his pocket handkerchief, and a tentative smile began to brighten her sweet face. Uther broke their reverie to enquire about the origin of Arthur's enduring quarrel with Merlin.
Arthur considered. "It was some sort of feud, I guess. Once, countless lives ago, we fought over the Dark Place and somehow that conflict remained unsettled."
"And what exactly was this 'Dark Place'", Uther persevered.
Arthur chuckled. "It was just a little patch of dappled sunlight, a bit of shelter from a baking sun on a scorching day, almost at the dawn of time, a tiny patch of weeds on a parched plain over which two primitive bugs, some kind of roach perhaps, once fought. Now I can appreciate just how ridiculous that sounds, but, until a few hours ago, it meant life and death to me."
"Beetles!", Uther repeated raising an eyebrow, "Les petits scarabees, mais bien sur!"
When Hunith came back with more tea, she asked Arthur and Guinevere what they intended to do next. Arthur said that he was thinking it might be a good idea to catch up with his friend Merlin at the Seagull. He might take them to South Africa with him. The man at least owed him a job at his vineyard. That was if Guinevere was willing to go. Guinevere said she was ready to go anywhere with him and would be all too glad to make a new start.
As they stood together by the open front door, they saw that the rain had stopped. Bright stars in the now cloudless sky twinkled in puddles of rainwater on the path. Arthur shook the Count's hand firmly and Guinevere kissed Hunith on the cheek. She said that she would write, both to her and to her own dear mother, before leaving England, and then often from her new home.
Uther and Hunith wished their visitors well. They watched them disappear down the road into the clear night, Guinevere's little dusky hand on Arthur's strong tanned arm. Then they went inside to address the rabbit stew.
('o')
A week later, Hunith was sitting in Count Uther's parlour exercising her needlecraft on his favourite brocade waistcoat, while the Count put the finishing touches to his story for the London Evening Post. The gas mantles were turned up, and the room was cosy. Uther put down his pen and turned to Hunith.
"And this is the envoi, the ... er ... epilogue, chere Madame Hunith", he said, "Con permisso I shall read it to you."
"Happily, It is not often that our lives are visited by such melodrama. Yet, as we sit comfortably by our firesides, we should remember that our world is a dark place, and there are stories in it that would curdle the blood of any ordinary man.
We should be mindful that, if our own circumstances are happy, we have cheated a fate that could so easily have brought us disaster. And we should thank Almighty God that, in the protection of our guardian angel, we survive to be contented and free in this noble country of ours."
Count Uther de Camelot smoothed his mustachios and winked at his lady companion. Hunith smiled. The Count was such a gentleman, she thought, so gallant.
The End
A/N: Hope you liked it. Perhaps I'll do another Gothic one eventually. I have an idea...