Cassandra and Jenkins held each other for a long time, the Caretaker comforting his Librarian as best he could while she continued to cry softly. When the pair eventually broke apart, Jenkins laid his hand on her thigh as she mopped the fresh tears from her face. His expression became serious again, almost fearful.
"Cassandra, I want to tell you about the daguerreotype. If you feel up to it now, that is."
She sat up quickly and laid her hand on top of his. "Oh, no, Jenkins, you don't have to! You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, you were right! You have a right to your privacy, I don't have to know everything about you or your past."
"No, I want to tell you, Cassandra," he said, resolute, especially after hearing Cassandra's harrowing story. "This is something you should know, that you deserve to know. If we really are partners, I should be as honest and open with you as you were with me just now. I owe you the truth."
"All right," Cassandra said quietly, moving her hand to his arm and giving him a small smile of encouragement. He had just sat patiently listening to her ugly secret without judging her or running screaming from the room; how could she not do the same for him?
"Tell me." He took a deep breath before looking into her eyes and beginning his story.
"I know you've heard this before and that it sounds like an excuse, but—" He took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. "After being alone for so long, I've grown used to keeping things to myself, keeping secrets. You also know that I've been afraid in the past that if I share too much with you, someday you'll hear something that will…drive you away. I'm afraid this might be that thing." He looked down and clasped her hand in his.
"The girl in the picture-" Jenkins closed his eyes, and Cassandra thought she saw a tear fall into his lap.
"Her name was Jane. Jane Moran. She was my wife."
Cassandra jaw fell open in astonishment. "Your WHAT?!" she yelped.
Jenkins kept his eyes fixed on their joined hands and forced himself to continue, his ancient heart hammering hard against his breastbone.
"She lived in the East End of London. In those days, the East End was where the majority of the poor and newly arrived immigrants lived, crammed into the slums. I was there very late one night, running a rather unsavory errand for the Librarian at the time, Mr. Percival Chelsea. I came upon a man beating a woman in the middle of the street with his walking stick. Of course, I stepped in and ran the brute off. I escorted the woman back to her room, tended to her injuries as best I could. To make a long story short, we began talking. I liked her, she liked me, and I began to call on her whenever I could get away from the Library. Eventually, we fell in love."
Jenkins refused to look at Cassandra as he spoke, his voice low and steady as the long-suppressed memories bubbled to the surface.
"This was in 1849. She was an Irish girl. She came to London to escape the famine that was devastating Ireland at the time. She wasn't educated in the formal sense—the poor woman could barely read and write—but she was very intelligent. She read anything she could get her hands on, no matter how long it took her to get through it. I loaned her books of all kinds, and no matter the subject, she read every single word." Cassandra noticed a lightening of the old Caretaker's mood as he spoke of the Irish woman. The Librarian wondered, with a tiny twinge of jealousy, if he had the same look on his face and the same sound in his voice whenever he spoke of Cassandra to others.
"Oh, the conversations we had! And she was so...optimistic. She lived in abject poverty, oftentimes— before I met her and began helping her financially—she would go days without eating, but she was always happy. Always found the good in everyone, in every situation. I think that's what attracted me to her the most. Being around her made me feel optimistic. Made me feel genuinely happy, hopeful, for the first time in a very long time."
The immortal's voice drifted off as he became lost in his memories. The Librarian squeezed his arm softly, bringing him back to the present. "So you fell in love with her?"
"Yes," he said, nodding. "It was something of a whirlwind romance, but yes, we fell in love. Then we became lovers." He looked up, watching her reaction carefully, anxiously. "Then we became parents."
Cassandra's eyes widened and her mouth fell open again in shocked disbelief. "Parents?" she breathed, dazed. He nodded silently, dropping his gaze again.
"Jane told me one day when I called on her. The poor woman was terrified of how I would react; in those days it wasn't uncommon for men to abandon women they had impregnated outside of wedlock, you see. But I was overjoyed by the news—I never expected to have children, a family of my own. I proposed to her on the spot, and she accepted."
He fell silent, smiling gently as he allowed himself the happy memory for a moment. Suddenly his face darkened and he swallowed hard against the lump beginning to form in his throat. "Unfortunately, there were...complications."
"With the pregnancy?" Cassandra asked, dreading the answer. It had to be something awful, otherwise why would Jenkins have hidden the picture away? But his answer surprised her.
"No, not with the pregnancy. With the marriage. The Librarian forbade it."
"The Librarian...?" she repeated, confused. "But how could he forbid you to marry anyone?"
"You forget, my dear," he answered gently, sadly. "I've been there for so long now, I am essentially an artifact of the Library, albeit a living one. Just like any other artifact, I belong to the Library. I am at the disposal of the Librarian, to utilize or not as they see fit, even at the cost of my life."
The current Librarian stared at him, aghast.
"But you're not an object, you're not a piece of property, Jenkins!" Cassandra interrupted hotly. "You're a human being, immortal or not; no one owns you! No one can tell you what you can or can't do, who you can or can't marry! That's like...slavery!"
"Perhaps. But think about it for a moment, my dear—if I left the Library, where would I go? What would I do? I can't live in the outside world anymore, the Library is the only place I can live and have any semblance of peace or a normal life. It may not be the kind of freedom you think of when you hear the word, but it is a type of freedom for someone like me." He squeezed her hand as he paused, trying to reassure her.
"Most Librarians have been very kind to me, actually, treated me with the respect and courtesy due to any other person. Some have even called me a friend, I'm pleased to say." Jenkins sighed as he remembered all of the Librarians he had known in his long life.
"Unfortunately, there have been other Librarians who haven't been so kind. This Librarian, Mr. Chelsea, was one of those. To him, I was a piece of property. He prided himself on being the very paragon of Victorian rectitude." He shook his head ruefully. "I should've known that he would never suffer such a scandal as to allow 'his' Caretaker to marry, let alone marry a..." Jenkins caught himself, and glanced at Cassandra nervously.
She cocked her head slightly in curiosity. "A what, Jenkins?" she coaxed gently.
He ducked his head and swallowed, then raised it again, almost defiantly. "A prostitute."
Cassandra simply stared at Jenkins, unable to think of a single thing to say in response to such a thing. This story had more twists and turns than any soap opera.
"I know that even today people would look askance at such a match," he hurried on, unapologetic. "But Jane was forced into prostitution; it was either that or starve to death in a gutter, like a dog. She had no other means of supporting herself once she arrived in London. As I said, she was poor, uneducated. She had no special skills. She was alone. Her options were very limited in those days. Just being Irish and Catholic were huge black marks against her. But none of that mattered to me; I loved her." He lowered his gaze, and Cassandra was surprised to see shame on his worn face.
"So I defied the Librarian, and we were married in secret. The daguerreotype was made the same day as a memento. The flower was a symbol of the wish for a happy marriage back in those days. Jane preferred to call it a symbol for our child, a child I had given to her." He paused for a moment as he remembered that long-ago day. The tiny, simple ceremony that morning in the church, then the studio of the daguerreotypist. They had been so happy that day, so full of hope…
"As soon as I could make the arrangements, we were going to leave England. Go to America and start a new life together, like so many other immigrants have done." His voice drifted off into silence as he stared into the past and shook his head again, this time in condemnation.
"But I was a fool to think it would be that simple, to think it was even possible. Somehow—I never learned how—the Librarian learned of our marriage and our plans, and he was furious," he said quietly, his brown eyes taking on a haunted look. "He followed me to Jane's flat one night without my knowledge. He broke in on us, demanded that I return to the Library where I belonged, and that she go back to the streets where she belonged. We refused."
Cassandra felt the immortal begin to tremble, and suddenly a chill went up her spine.
"Jenkins, what happened?" she timidly asked.
The immortal's voice was flat and dead when he answered.
"He killed her."
Cassandra caught her breath. "No! The Librarian!? How could...?"
"Sometimes the responsibility of the office is too great. It's one of the Library's darker truths," he responded dully. "No matter how excellent a pick a Librarian may be in the beginning, sometimes they simply break under the strain, as happened with Edward Wilde. Mr. Chelsea broke; he became tyrannical and cruel. He demanded unquestioning obedience and loyalty, anything less was not tolerated. For an offense this great, the punishment had to be equally great. He knew he couldn't kill me, so he killed Jane and our child instead. He knew it would hurt me the most. More than anything else he could've done."
"Jenkins..." the horrified young woman breathed.
"Because I refused to do as he ordered," the immortal repeated emotionlessly, not even hearing Cassandra. "Chelsea pulled a revolver from his coat. He shot her."
His face paled at the memory, but his eyes were black with hatred and anger as he remembered what happened next. Cassandra was scarcely able to breathe, sensing that something even more terrible was yet to be told.
"What did you do, Jenkins?" she whispered, full of dread.
He drew a deep breath, then turned his eyes to hers, his voice distant and cool. "I snapped his neck."
Cassandra covered her mouth with her hands in shock. "Oh, God, Jenkins, no..."
"The Guardian had no idea that Chelsea planned to kill anyone. She was sympathetic afterwards when I confessed to her what I had done. She told me that had she known what he was planning, she would've stopped him. But as it was..." He barely shrugged his broad shoulders.
His voice was so low by now that he was barely audible. "I still have dreams about Jane. Sometimes I see her happy, laughing, making plans for us and our child, our new life in America. Sometimes I see her crying and begging Chelsea for pity, for our child's sake, just before he kills her. Sometimes I hear her begging me for help as she lies on the floor, bleeding to death, but of course I can't save her."
Cassandra numbly reached out and put both of her hands on his arm. "I'm sorry, Jenkins," Cassandra whispered, but he still didn't seem to hear her.
"I shouldn't have defied him," he said, bitterness and regret was now in his voice and in his eyes. "I wish now that I hadn't stood up to him. She would have lived. We would've found another way to be together. I wouldn't have killed."
The Librarian climbed onto her knees and knelt on the bed next to Jenkins. She pulled him close and slipped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. "I'm so sorry," she repeated in a whisper.
Jenkins, with a ragged sigh, hugged her back. The pair was quiet for a few minutes, each reflecting on the sad story.
"Do you understand now why I kept this to myself?" he spoke into her hair. "I didn't want you to see that your knight in shining armor is really nothing more than a murderer."
Cassandra pushed away from him and looked into his sorrow-filled eyes. "You are not a murderer," she said fiercely. "Chelsea's the murderer, he had it coming! And I already know that you're not perfect. I don't expect you to be. You were angry and hurting and in shock. You made a mistake, Jenkins, that's all!"
"A mistake!" he said, frustration in his voice. "I'm not talking about burning the breakfast toast, Cassandra! My mistakes cost people their lives!" He brushed her face with his hand. "What if I make a mistake that costs you your life?" he whispered shakily.
Cassandra took both of the immortal's hands in hers and looked him steadily in the eyes. "I don't blame you for what happened, Jenkins. Neither does Jane; if she loved you anywhere near as much as I do, I know she doesn't blame you." She wrapped her arms around the old Caretaker and held onto him tightly.
"Wait," Cassandra let go of him as a thought suddenly struck her. "What about your promise to Charlene? Weren't you like, cheating on her or something?" She immediately regretted the question at the look of pain and shame that twisted the knight's face, and her cheeks went dark pink with embarrassment. She clapped her hands over her mouth. "Jenkins, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have asked that! That's none of my business!"
"No, it's all right," he assured her resignedly. "It's a legitimate question. Strictly speaking, yes; I DID break my oath to Charlene, and I dutifully confessed everything to her and begged her for forgiveness. She was very gracious, of course; she told me that since she had never held me to that oath in the first place, I had done nothing wrong in her eyes. I still felt guilty, though."
Jenkins's voice became quiet and dull. "For a very long time afterward, I believed that what happened to Jane was a punishment—for breaking my oath to Charlene, for rebelling against the Librarian, for thinking I could just break from my place in life whenever I wanted. The Library's punishment for my faithlessness and disobedience. I know how that sounds," he quickly said, cutting off an objection from Cassandra. "But when one is grieving, one grasps at any explanation trying to make sense of it." He sighed tiredly as he took one of the woman's hands and squeezed it.
"But you don't still believe any of that now, right?" Cassandra knew him well enough to know that that absolutely was a possibility. Jenkins could be very generous and forgiving—to everyone but himself.
His dropped eyes at her question confirmed her suspicion. "Jenkins!" she chided gently.
He took a deep breath and looked up at her again. "I try not to think that way. But sometimes…it's very hard not to." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, then patted it gently as he spoke again.
"But I learned my lesson. I left the Library only when I had to, and when I did I avoided women as much as possible. I didn't want anyone else to suffer for my mistakes. Every great once in a while I weakened; immortals have physical desires as much as anyone else, I'm afraid. I'm ashamed to admit it, but those women I did use just for sex, by mutual agreement. They were one night stands only. I was too afraid to ever let myself fall in love or become attached to any other woman again. Until I met you, that is. And even then I almost drove you away." He shook his head at himself and looked at her with a sheepish expression.
"Sometimes, deep down inside, I'm still a little bit afraid that the Library will somehow…disapprove. Of us, I mean. That perhaps it doesn't want me to be with you. Perhaps it's my fate to be alone, and one day something will happen to you and…."
The Librarian grabbed his face with both of her hands and turned him to face her sky-blue eyes full of exasperation and indignation.
"Jenkins, stop it! That's all bullshit!" she spat, with almost as much fire in her voice as she had yesterday when she was angry with him. "What kinds of 'lessons' are those?! That's no way to live a life! Why would the Library want you to be unhappy? Even if it did, it's not up to the fucking Library, it's up to you; it's up to us! I love you, Jenkins, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I don't care if the Library approves or not!" Seeing the utterly shocked look on his face, Cassandra burst into laughter and kissed him softly. She felt him relax and take a deep breath as she rested her forehead against his.
"It's a good thing for you I'm stubborn and don't take 'no' for an answer, huh?" she said.
"I shudder to think where I would be right now if not for that stubborn streak, my dear," he replied quietly, heaving a small sigh. "Though I still think you deserve so much better."
"A much better what?" she quizzed him lightly.
"A much better man."
She gave his nose a quick, affectionate peck. "Why? I already have the best!"
That coaxed a soft chuckle from the knight. She was glad to hear him laugh again, and gave him another hug.
Jenkins returned her embrace and rested his head again lightly against hers for a moment. When he let her go, she caught him trying to stifle a yawn, and Cassandra saw how exhausted he looked. She took one of his hands.
"When was the last time you actually slept?" she asked.
Jenkins looked at her with glazed, brown eyes. He didn't want her to worry about him, not after everything she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, but he wasn't going to lie to her. "The night before last," he admitted finally.
She pulled his hand. "Come on, sweetheart, we can finish this later. You need some sleep. I'll join you; between that big breakfast and all of this angst, I'm feeling sleepy again myself."
She helped him to undress, then stripped off the pajama top that she was wearing, knowing that Jenkins liked to feel her naked body against his skin. They crawled into the bed and Cassandra snuggled against the Caretaker, his arms automatically wrapping themselves around her.
The tired man held her close, his face gently nuzzling her neck. The familiar position soothed him, and she could feel him relax against her. She nestled into a comfortable position, feeling safe and cherished as she lay snug in her lover's strong arms. The young redhead reached back and gently stroked his head. They lay quietly for several minutes, then Cassandra broke the silence.
"How long were you and Jane married?"
"Only a few days," he answered sadly.
"You never knew if the baby was a boy or a girl."
"No."
Cassandra leaned her head against his chest, lightly brushing the old Caretaker's battle-scarred arms. "For what it's worth, Jenkins, I think you were a good husband. I know you would've been a good father, too."
Jenkins took a deep breath and pulled her closer. "Thank you, my love," he whispered hoarsely.
Cassandra felt a large, hot tear fall onto her neck and slide down across her throat.