Summary: In Victorian London, an emigre count, Uther, and his landlady listen to an innocent girl's bloodcurdling story. Gothic, Victorian AU, Arwen

A/N: This is the first story I ever wrote down, and it's more than a decade old. I admit that it wasn't written as a fanfic but I've decided to barefacedly 'Merlin-ize' it and post it here. I genuinely think it benefits from the familiar 'faces' this brings to it. So here goes...

The Dark Place by frostygossamer

Part 1: The Innocent

It was a darkly dreadful, stormy night. Lightning cracked the black winter sky and rain battered the windows of Count Uther de Camelot's rooms, situated on the edge of a fashionable borough of our own dear Queen Victoria's capital.

Oblivious to all, the Count, a distinguished fellow with grey whiskers, elegantly attired in tawny velvet smoking jacket and ottoman cap, relaxed before a hearty fire. The firelight illuminated the warm sitting-room with a pleasing amber radiance, flickering on the crowded gilt furnishings rescued by his father from their palazzo in Venice just before the bailiffs arrived.

Uther was dozing in his armchair when he heard the sound of hurrying steps in the corridor outside and an agitated rap on his door. Too comfortable to move, he called out "Enter please, Madame Hunith." The door opened and his landlady, Mrs. Hunith, a tall, handsome widow, respectable in a bottle-green dress with a starched collar of fine white lace, entered the room.

Hunith led by the hand a young girl bedraggled by the rain, and barely visible under one of Hunith's best woollen blankets. The Count jumped up, bowed courteously to the ladies and lit a fine Venetian glass candelabrum with a spill from the fire. Then he drew two gilt chairs up to the hearth for his guests. They sat down.

It seemed that, in the middle of a rabbit stew, Hunith had heard the broken sound of weeping at her kitchen door, at the rear of the house. She had opened the door expecting to find some abandoned dog but had found instead this wet, woebegone thing on the step.

Indeed the girl was a sorry sight, in a sodden black coat and soggy navy-blue dress, no hat, no gloves and with the heel of one button-up boot broken. Between sobs, she had tried to relate an outlandish story which Hunith thought the Count should hear.

Uther asked his visitor her name, and she replied that she was christened Guinevere, although her mother called her Gwen. With Hunith's permission, Uther gave Gwen a drop of cognac, against the cold, and, returning to his armchair, asked her to begin her story.

Her dark ringlets were beginning to dry in the heat of the blaze. Uther realised that she was perhaps a little older than he had first thought; a young woman rather than a child. Tears again welled in her brown eyes as she sobbed that it was awful, too horrible to describe. She did not know where to start.

Uther leant forward and patted her shoulder encouragingly. Hunith suggested that she might start by telling how she came to London, as her accent was certainly not native to the city.

('o')

Gwen came from a northern town. She mentioned the name, but it meant nothing to Uther. His knowledge of English geography was limited to 'London' and 'elsewhere'. She was the second eldest of her widowed mother's seven children. They were a loving family, but very poor.

She described wistfully the giggles of barefoot brothers and sisters playing hop in the lane, the scarlet of geraniums on the windowsill, the delicious smell of leek and potato soup bubbling on the kitchen range.

One day they had a visit from a cousin of her mother's. It seemed she had found Gwen a position as a junior housemaid, in the fine townhouse in London where she had herself had been in service before her marriage. Taking tearful leave of her family Gwen had come down to the big city alone.

The townhouse was the London abode of His Lordship, who spent most of the year in the Scottish Highlands, shooting small birds and drinking the products of his own distillery. The moment Gwen saw the forbidding classical facade, she knew that she would never be happy in such a gloomy place.

The cold, black and white marble of the entrance was echoed in the chilly marble floor of the Servants' Hall. Heavy oak doors with burnished brass fittings, high ceilings, brilliant crystal chandeliers, crisp Irish linen, elegant bone china, sterling silver cutlery, were all things she has never seen before.

She found the monstrous butler and the sharp-nosed housekeeper intimidating. The work was hard and thankless, scrubbing floors, polishing brasses, lighting fires; rising early and going to bed late feeling tired, lonely and dejected.

Gwen's position was very lowly indeed and her home was a tiny garret, in the back of the house. This she shared with another girl, a Londoner called Morgana. The staff dubbed them 'Millie and Gillie'. Morgana was peevish but the nearest Gwen had to a friend. Gwen missed her family very much. Her only relief was the one afternoon off she was allowed every month.

It had happened on a Tuesday, eight weeks ago, when she had been in London almost eighteen months. It was her afternoon off, and she had been looking forward to it for ages, but when it came it brought with it a dense, unwholesome fog.

"A London Particulare", Uther interjected.

Hunith suppressed a smile at his pronunciation. It was little things of this sort that made him such amusing company.

Morgana had advised Gwen not to go out. A pea-souper was both unhealthy and dangerous. There were types out there who liked nothing better than a good, thick fog. It was the burglar and cut-throat's partner-in-crime.

If Gwen had not had an argument with her that very morning about the ownership of some stockings, then she might have paid heed to that advice. She went out and she never again returned to that house.

('o')

Gwen had intended only to walk for a few minutes, and return directly. The fog was thick and swirling. Soon she came to the first corner but, as she crossed the street, a hansomcab appeared from nowhere and barely missed her, twirling her around. She lost her bearings.

Remembering Morgana's words, she clutched her purse to her breast. Farther on she passed a female who, by her cheap but showy attire, was evidently a woman of the streets. Gwen debated whether she dare ask her for directions, but was put off by the approach of a 'gentleman'.

She found herself in a silent street. Her little shoes echoed on the cobbles. She tried to walk more softly. Someone might be listening. Suddenly raucous laughter from a gang of labourers rang out through the fog. Frightened she turned and ran back the way she had come, straight into a dark shape dressed in black. She looked up and saw his face.

Here Gwen was forced to stop for another sob and sip of cognac, unable to continue. Hunith put her arm around Gwen's shoulders and gave her a tiny squeeze.

"You're all right now, Sweetheart", she whispered, "It's all over."

Gwen gave a little wail. "All over", she sobbed, "All over."

As she seemed incapable of going on, Uther despatched Hunith, to the kitchen to make a pot of tea for them all, and to hang Gwen's rain-soaked coat by the range to dry.

"Oh, my rabbit stew", she declared, suddenly recollecting, and disappeared down the stairs in a flurry.

Gwen stared into the blazing fire for a while, in a silence hardly disturbed by the ticking of the Count's ormolu mantel clock. Then she began to speak again.

"I looked up and saw his face", she said.

He spoke. His voice was deep and dark, his diction perfect, not a London voice. Gwen noticed his blue eyes, piercing, penetrating, knowing.

He said, "You're lost, girl. Let me take you home", and grasped her wrist somewhat too firmly in his big strong hand.

He led her through the misty streets deeper into the fog. She was too weak to resist him. His stride was long and his tread purposeful; her small feet tripped over the cobbles. A black horse loomed out of the murk. He hailed the cabman, tossed him a coin and almost threw her inside.

She pressed herself against the door of the cab thinking to jump out and run, if she only could. Fog muffled the clang of the horse's hooves. She caught a glimpse of a knife in his pocket, but he still held her hand so tightly.

The hackney eventually drew to a stop outside a busy Chinese laundry; lights, clouds of steam, cheerful oriental voices, laughter, smiling faces. He lifted Gwen down from the cab. Then they plunged down a dark alley, past a hideaway where strange smoky vapours mixed with the dank night air - "An opium den", muttered Uther - and came to a place hidden behind what was itself hidden, a dark place.

TBC

A/N: Hope you're liking it so far. Updating soon.