The hotel was located about two blocks from the cemetery. It was a very small, family-run affair, the hotel itself being a gutted and renovated 250 year-old tenement building. It was a popular place for high tea with locals, but was too far off the beaten path for most tourists. The tiny dining room looked like something straight out of an Agatha Christie mystery. It was intimate, cozy and old-fashioned, a small fire crackling cheerfully in the fireplace. Jenkins and Cassandra sat at a linen-clad table near one of the room's two windows, the small tabletop laden with food and tea.
Cassandra nibbled on a heaping plate of tiny cucumber, watercress and smoked salmon sandwiches with a large piece of chocolate cake for dessert, while Jenkins dug enthusiastically into a shepherd's pie, topped off by a fat scone spread with thick layers of Devonshire cream and apricot jam. Cassandra smiled to herself as she watched him eat; she'd never met anyone before who enjoyed their food so much as Jenkins.
As they ate. she asked Jenkins to tell her some stories about Jane, and he was happy to oblige. She suspected this was the first time since that awful night that he had spoken of Jane to another living person, judging by the way the older man's eyes sparkled as he spoke of his lost love. From the stories he told, Jane was loving and generous, a bit of a romantic, but she was also high-spirited and stubborn, and took no nonsense from anyone; Cassandra thought she would've liked Jane. The Librarian was glad to see Jenkins was so talkative tonight. Hopefully he would stay talkative when she brought up other, more difficult topics later.
After the dishes were cleared away and a fresh pot of tea delivered, Jenkins took a deep breath and regarded the young woman across the table from him. "I owe you an apology," he said contritely. "I've been avoiding you the last few days."
"So I noticed," responded the Librarian, a bit too sharply, as she took a sip of her tea. "Why?"
The immortal stared into his tea cup as he answered, his large hands clasped tightly in front of him on the table. "Because I knew that eventually you would want to be...'intimate', and I wasn't ready for that yet. I needed some time to think things through."
"What things?" she asked, watching his face carefully.
Jenkins lifted his head and looked directly at her, but he couldn't maintain eye contact. He dropped his eyes again. "After you told me about that man, Richard, and how he treated you, I began to think about my own behavior, and I've been worried that, perhaps, I'm guilty of...mistreating you, as well..."
"Jenkins, stop!" Cassandra interrupted him, hissing at him in exasperation. "Just...stop! You are nothing like Richard! I've told you that. You have never 'mistreated' me. If you had, I would've said something. I'm not the same woman now that I was then. If you had ever hurt me or done anything that I didn't like, I would've said so right then and there. I'm perfectly capable of speaking up for myself now, I don't need you to protect me from myself or from you or anyone else!"
The redhead took a large gulp of her tea as she fought to calm herself down. The Caretaker remained silent, his eyes still locked on his cooling tea.
"I'm sorry, Jenkins, I didn't mean to snap at you like that. It's just that..." she stopped herself and took another sip from her cup.
"It's just that...?" the Caretaker gently prompted. Cassandra took a deep breath and unloaded on him.
"I wish you would get out of your own head, sometimes. You spend so much time brooding over things, you get so wrapped up in all of the 'what ifs' and the 'shoulda/woulda/coulda' of things." She fidgeted with the napkin in her lap as she tried to keep the frustration out of her voice.
"And somehow you find a way to blame yourself for everything, whether you actually did something wrong or not. Like with Chelsea. You blame yourself for what HE chose to do. He chose to pull that trigger, not you. Don't let him off the hook by taking his blame, Jenkins. I've never met anyone with such a huge martyr complex before! You're simply not responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world!"
The immortal sat silently for several moments, considering what she had said. Finally, he raised his eyes to Cassandra and began to play nervously with his teaspoon as he began to speak.
"Did you know that even before I was conceived in my mother's womb, it was prophesied that I would be the one to find the Grail?" he asked, his voice hard and tinged with resentment.
"From the day I was born, every aspect of my upbringing was geared towards that one goal. As far back as I can remember, I was told that it was my purpose in this life to find the Grail. I was told constantly that the only way I could do that was by keeping myself pure, virtuous, perfect. And that's what I did. I strove every single day to keep myself pure, virtuous and perfect—in my body, in my speech, my actions, my thinking—in every way. I strove to deny myself everything that brings others pleasure in this life, because for me, they would be distractions and occasions for temptation. To do anything less was weakness, a failure on my part. Imperfection." Jenkins turned his head and looked out the window into the darkness.
"I was taught from the very beginning to search myself every single day and find where I had failed to attain that purity and perfection. I was taught to root it out, to repent and do severe penance for it. No flaw, no imperfection, NO mistake was to be tolerated. I was to be tolerant and forgiving of others, but I had to be merciless with myself." He turned his gaze back to the young woman across the table, his expression now sad and bewildered, and he sighed.
"And they were right. I WAS the only one in the entire world who was worthy enough—who was pure enough, virtuous enough, perfect enough—to find the Grail. I became 'The Pure Knight of Virtue', the greatest knight that ever was. But what does a pure knight of virtue do with the rest of his life after he's fulfilled his sole purpose?"
He drained his tea cup and poured more tea into it from the pot, stirred in a cube of sugar and some milk. Cassandra watched him quietly, letting him speak when he was comfortable. He stared into the cup, his voice faint as he continued.
"I was never taught any other way to be. Any time I slip, make a mistake, I'm racked with guilt until I can make it right again. It's the only way I know, Cassandra. I know it frustrates you; it frustrates me, too."
He pointed to his heart as his pain-filled eyes met hers. "I listened to my heart once, I gave in to it. And I was happy, truly happy for those few months. There's a part of me that wants to live the rest of my life here. I know that that's the only way I'll ever be happy. But—" He moved his hand to point to his head, frustration and anger now mixing with the pain in his eyes.
"THIS tells me every day that that was a failure, and because of that failure on my part, three people died, needlessly." Tears began to glisten in the ancient knight's dark brown eyes.
"I look at you, Cassandra, and my heart tells me to seize this opportunity with both hands, to love you, to be happy with you for as long as I can. But my head tells me that if I do, if I'm weak and give in to my heart, only pain and disaster will come of it. And you'll be the one to pay the price for my failure." He blinked back his unshed tears as he regained control of his emotions.
"I love you so much, Cassandra, too much to let that happen. I can't let that happen."
Cassandra's heart suddenly turned to ice in her chest. "What are you saying, Jenkins?" she whispered, barely able to say the words. "Are you saying you want to...break up with me?"
Jenkins looked into her wide, pale eyes, his own filled again with pain and confusion, and he imperceptibly shook his head.
"I don't know," he whispered back helplessly. "I don't want to, Cassandra, but I don't you to get hurt, or worse..."
The Librarian stared at him in disbelief, stunned by what she was hearing. She tightly closed her eyes for a moment as she struggled to control her own emotions now. When she opened them again, she looked directly into his.
"You listen to me, Galahad Jenkins," she said, her voice low and brooking no argument as she carefully enunciated her words.
"You don't get to just make a decision like that all by yourself." Jenkins opened his mouth to protest, but she her hand up as she glared at him, her eyes blazing now. He obediently closed his mouth again and listened in silence.
"I'm half of this couple, I get to have a say in whether or not it gets broken up, whether you like it or not. Maybe you're ready to give up on yourself and just let yourself live out the rest of your life miserable and alone, but I'm NOT. You don't get to sit over there and decide for me which relationships are good for me and which ones aren't. THAT'S being like Rich!"
Jenkins dropped his eyes and squirmed uncomfortably at her words, particularly the last ones. Suddenly, out of patience with the whole situation, she waved her hands animatedly in front of her in a gesture of dismissal.
"You know what, just forget it. I love you, Jenkins," she said shortly as she slipped into her jacket and stood up from the table. "I don't know how else I can say it to convince you that I'm telling you the truth. I love you, and I was willing to take the risk of being with you. And if, by some weird twist of fate or whatever, I did end up paying the 'price' for loving you, then so be it. Because you know what else? I happen to think you're worth dying for."
She angrily adjusted her jacket and shoved her hands into the pockets. "But I'm done trying to make you believe me. So you go 'think' about it some more, you go talk yourself out of the best damn thing that's come into your life since 1849. I didn't let doctors cut into my brain for hours just to spend the rest of my life cooped up your head. I'm choosing now to go out now and LIVE my life. I don't give a rat's ass what YOU do anymore."
Before he could say a word, Cassandra turned on her heel and left the dining room without a glance backward. As he stared after her, Jenkins heard the front entrance of the hotel open and slam shut again as the redhead left him sitting in the hotel.
A few seconds later, a young waitress with black hair and pale skin hurried over and began to slowly clear away the tea things. "You'd best go after her," she said quietly in a thick Irish accent. Jenkins turned to her, blinking in confusion.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You'd best go after her. You can't be wantin' true love to slip through your fingers that easily after so long, now?" The Caretaker stared at her, confounded, and she chuckled softly. "I've been watchin' the two of you all evenin', 'tis plain as the nose on your face how much you want to be with her."
"Not that it's really any of your concern, madam, but it's somewhat more complicated than you think," he said snarkily, embarrassed that his dressing down by Cassandra had been overheard.
"Nonsense. T'ings are only as complicated as you make 'em. If two people love each other, they should be together, no matter what, simple as that. Any so-called 'complications' that come up, love'll take care of them, one way or the other. As the old sayin' goes, 'love conquers all'."
Jenkins whipped his head up to stare at the waitress. "What did you just say?"
The waitress smiled secretively. "You heard what I said well enough. Now, off with you! It's not a good part of town for a pretty young lady to be walkin' about on her own. You don't want her get mugged, do you now?"
Jenkins's face turned to chalk at her words, and he shot up clumsily from the table, nearly turning it over. He began to frantically dig into his pocket for money. "How much is the bill, Miss...?" he asked sharply.
The dark-haired Irishwoman smiled again as she reached out and gently held his hand. She looked directly into the old man's eyes; his blood turned to ice water as her serious black eyes seemed to look into his very soul.
"Forget the tea," she said urgently. "Go after your young woman and make things right with her again. You know what you have to do. Now...Shoo!" With that, the waitress swept up the dishes from the table and disappeared as she exited the dining room turned towards the kitchen.
Jenkins stood and stared after the woman, scarcely breathing.
A teacup clattered loudly at a nearby table as a patron set it back on its saucer, breaking the spell and bringing the immortal's attention back to the matter at hand. Jenkins shook his head, and rubbed his face with both hands, trying to rid himself of his confusion. The waitress was right, he had to go after Cassandra. Now.