The Eyre Affair, Page 32

  We muttered our apologies and stood up. The wedding guests were still waiting for some sort of decision. Nearly all of them knew about Landen and me and few, if any, thought Daisy a better match.

  “Will you?” asked Landen in my ear.

  “Will I what?” I asked, stifling a giggle.

  “Fool! Will you marry me?”

  “Hmm,” I replied, heart thumping like the artillery in the Crimea. “I’ll have to think about it!—”

  Landen raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Yes! Yes, yes! I will, I will, with all my heart!”

  “At last!” said Landen with a sigh. “The lengths I have to go to to get the woman I love! . . .”

  We kissed again but for longer this time; so long in fact that the vicar, still staring at his watch, had to tap Landen on the shoulder.

  “Thank you for the rehearsal,” said Landen, shaking the vicar vigorously by the hand. “We’ll be back in a month’s time for the real thing!”

  The vicar shrugged. This was fast becoming the most ludicrous wedding of his career.

  “Friends,” announced Landen to the remaining guests, “I would like to announce the engagement of myself to this lovely SpecOps agent named Thursday Next. As you know, she and I have had our differences in the past but they are now quite forgotten. There is a marquee at my house stuffed with food and drink and I understand Holroyd Wilson will be playing from six o’clock onward. It would be a crime to waste it all so I suggest we just change the reason!”

  There was an excited yell from the guests as they started to organize transport for themselves. Landen and I went in my car but we drove the long way round. We had plenty to talk about and the party . . . well, it could continue without us for a while.

  The celebrations didn’t finish until 4 A.M. I drank too much and took a cab back to the hotel. Landen was all for me staying the night, but I told him slightly coquettishly that he could wait until after the wedding. I vaguely remember getting back to my hotel room but nothing else; it was blackness until the phone rang at nine the following morning. I was half dressed, Pickwick was watching breakfast TV, and my head ached like it was fit to burst.

  It was Victor. He didn’t sound in a terribly good mood but politeness was one of his stronger points. He asked me how I was.

  I looked at the alarm clock as a hammer banged inside my head.

  “I’ve been better. How are things at work?”

  “Not brilliant,” replied Victor with a certain reserve in his voice. “The Goliath Corporation want to speak to you about Jack Schitt and the Brontë Federation are hopping mad over the damage to the book. Was it absolutely necessary to burn Thornfield to the ground?”

  “That was Hades—”

  “And Rochester? Blinded and with a shattered hand? I suppose that was Hades too?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “This is the mother of all balls-ups, Thursday. You’d better come in and explain yourself to these Brontë people. I’ve got their Special Executive Committee with me and they are not here to pin a medal on your chest.”

  There was a knock at the door. I told Victor I would be in directly and got unsteadily to my feet.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  “Room service!” replied a voice outside the door. “A Mr. Parke-Laine rang in some coffee for you!”

  “Hang on!” I said as I tried to shoo Pickwick back into the bathroom; the hotel had strict rules about pets. Unusually for him he seemed slightly aggressive; if he had possessed any wings he would probably have flapped them angrily.

  “This...is...no...time...to...be...a...pest!” I grunted as I pushed the recalcitrant bird into the bathroom and locked the door.

  I held my head for a moment as it thumped painfully, wrapped myself in a dressing gown and opened the door. Big mistake. There was a waiter there but he wasn’t alone. As soon as the door was fully open two other men in dark suits entered and pressed me against the wall with a gun to my head.

  “You’re going to need another two cups if you want to join me for coffee,” I groaned.

  “Very funny,” said the man dressed as the waiter.

  “Goliath?”

  “In one.”

  He pulled back the hammer on the revolver.

  “Gloves are off, Next. Schitt is an important man and we need to know where he is. National security and the Crimea depend upon it and one lousy officer’s life isn’t worth diddly shit when you look at the big picture.”

  “I’ll take you to him,” I gasped, trying to give myself some breathing space. “It’s a little way out of town.”

  The Goliath agent relaxed his grip and told me to get dressed. A few minutes later we were walking out of the hotel. My head was still sore and a dull pain thumped in my temples, but at least I was thinking more clearly. There was a small crowd ahead of me, and I was delighted to see it was the Mutlar family preparing to return to London. Daisy was arguing with her father and Mrs. Mutlar was shaking her head wearily.

  “Gold digger!” I yelled.

  Daisy and her father stopped arguing and looked at me as the Goliath men tried to steer me past.

  “What did you say!?”

  “You heard. I can’t think who the bigger tart is, your daughter or your wife.”

  It had the desired effect. Mr. Mutlar turned an odd shade of crimson and threw a fist in my direction. I ducked and the blow struck one of the Goliath men fairly and squarely on the jaw. I bolted for the car park. A shot whistled over my shoulder; I jinked and stepped into the road as a big black military-style Ford motor car screeched to a halt.

  “Get in!” shouted the driver. I didn’t need to be asked twice. I jumped in and the Ford sped off as two bullet holes appeared in the rear windshield. The car screeched around the corner and was soon out of range.

  “Thanks,” I murmured. “Any later and I might have been worm food. Can you drop me at SpecOps HQ?”

  The driver didn’t say anything; there was a glass partition between me and him and all of a sudden I had that out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire feeling.

  “You can drop me anywhere,” I said. He didn’t answer. I tried the door handles but they were locked. I thumped on the glass but he ignored me; we drove past the SpecOps building and headed off to the old town. He was driving fast too. Twice he went through a red light and once he cut up a bus; I was thrown against the door as he flew around a corner, just missing a brewer’s dray.

  “Here, stop this car!” I shouted, banging again on the glass partition. The driver simply accelerated, clipping another car as he took a corner a little too fast.

  I pulled hard at the door handles and was about to use my heels against the window when the car abruptly screeched to a halt; I slid off the seat and collapsed in a heap in the footwell. The driver got out, opened the door for me and said:

  “There you go, missy, didn’t want you to be late. Colonel Phelps’s orders.”

  “Colonel Phelps?” I stammered. The driver smiled and saluted briskly as the penny dropped. Phelps had said he would send a car for me to appear at his talk, and he had.

  I looked out of the door. We had pulled up outside Swindon Town Hall, and a vast crowd of people were staring at me.

  “Hello, Thursday!” said a familiar voice.

  “Lydia?” I asked, caught off guard by the sudden change of events.

  And so it was. But she wasn’t the only TV news reporter; there were six or seven of them with their cameras trained on me as I sat sprawled inelegantly in the footwell. I struggled to get out of the car.

  “This is Lydia Startright of the Toad News Network,” said Lydia in her best reporter’s voice, “here with Thursday Next, the SpecOps agent responsible for saving Jane Eyre. First let me congratulate you, Miss Next, on your successful reconstruction of the novel!”

  “What do you mean?” I responded. “I loused it all up! I burned Thornfield to the ground and half-maimed poor Mr. Rochester!”

  Miss Startright laughed.


  “In a recent survey ninety-nine out of a hundred readers who expressed a preference said they were delighted with the new ending. Jane and Rochester married! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “But the Brontë Federation—?”

  “Charlotte didn’t leave the book to them, Miss Next,” said a man dressed in a linen suit who had a large blue Charlotte Brontë rosette stuck incongruously to his lapel.

  “The federation are a bunch of stuffed shirts. Allow me to introduce myself. Walter Branwell, chairman of the federation splinter group ‘Brontë for the People.’ ”

  He thrust out a hand for me to shake and grinned wildly as several people near by applauded. A battery of flashguns went off as a small girl handed me a bunch of flowers and another journalist asked me what sort of a person Rochester really was. The driver took my arm and guided me into the building.

  “Colonel Phelps is waiting for you, Miss Next,” murmured the man in an affable tone. The crowds parted as I was led into a large hall that was filled to capacity. I blinked stupidly and looked around. There was an excited buzz, and as I walked down the main aisle I could hear people whispering my name. There was an improvised press box in the old orchestra pit in which a sea of pressmen from all the major networks were seated. The meeting at Swindon had become the focus of the grassroots feeling about the war; what was said here would be highly significant. I made my way to the stage, where two tables had been set up. The two sides to the argument were clearly delineated. Colonel Phelps was sitting beneath a large English flag; his table was heavily festooned with bunting and several pot plants, flip-over pads and stacks of leaflets for ready distribution. With him were mostly uniformed members of the armed forces who had seen service on the peninsula. All of them were willing to speak vociferously about the importance of the Crimea. One of the soldiers was even carrying the new plasma rifle.

  At the other end of the stage was the “anti” table. This too was liberally populated by veterans, but none of them wore uniforms. I recognized the two students from the airship park and my brother Joffy, who smiled and mouthed “Wotcha, Doofus!” at me. The crowd hushed; they had heard I was going to attend and had been awaiting my arrival.

  The cameras followed me as I approached the steps to the stage and walked calmly up. Phelps rose to meet me, but I walked on and sat down at the “anti” table, taking the seat that one of the students had given up for me. Phelps was appalled; he went bright red, but checked himself when he saw that the cameras were watching his every move.

  Lydia Startright had followed me onto the stage. She was there to adjudicate the meeting; it was she and Colonel Phelps who had insisted on waiting for me. Startright was glad they had; Phelps was not.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” announced Lydia grandly, “the negotiating table is empty at Budapest and the offensive lies waiting to happen. As a million troops face each other across no-man’s-land, we ask the question: What price the Crimea?”

  Phelps got up to speak but I beat him to it.

  “I know it’s an old joke,” I began, “but a simple anagram of ‘Crimea’ is ‘A Crime.’” I paused. “That’s the way I see it and I would defy anyone to say that it isn’t. Even Colonel Phelps over there would agree with me that it’s high time the Crimea was put to bed permanently.”

  Colonel Phelps nodded.

  “Where the Colonel and I differ is my belief that Russia has the better claim to the territory.”

  It was a controversial remark; Phelps’s supporters were well primed, and it took ten minutes to restore order. Startright quieted them all down and finally managed to get me to finish my point.

  “There was a good chance for all this nonsense to end barely two months ago. England and Russia were around the table, discussing terms for a complete withdrawal of all English troops.”

  There was a hush. Phelps had leaned back in his chair and was watching me carefully.

  “But then along came the plasma rifle. Code name: Stonk.”

  I looked down for a moment.

  “This Stonk was the key, the secret to a new offensive and the possible restart of the war that has—thank God—been relatively free of actual fighting these past eight years. But there’s a problem. The offensive has been built on air; despite all that has been said and done, the plasma rifle is a phony—Stonk does not work!”

  There was an excited murmuring in the chamber. Phelps stared at me sullenly, eyebrow twitching. He whispered something to a brigadier who was sitting next to him.

  “The English troops are waiting for a new weapon that will not turn up. The Goliath Corporation have been playing the English government for a bunch of fools; despite a billion-pound investment, the plasma rifle is about as much use in the Crimea as a broom handle.”

  I sat down. The significance of this was not lost on anyone either there or watching the program live; the English minister for war was at that moment reaching for his phone. He wanted to speak to the Russians before they did anything rash—like attack.

  Back at the hall in Swindon, Colonel Phelps had stood up.

  “Large claims from someone who is tragically ill informed,” he intoned patronizingly. “We have all seen the destructive power of Stonk and its effectiveness is hardly the reason for this talk.”

  “Prove it,” I responded. “I see you have a plasma rifle with you. Lead us outside to the park and show us. You can try it on me, if you so wish.”

  Phelps paused, and in that pause he lost the argument—and the war. He looked at the soldier carrying the weapon, who looked back at him nervously.

  Phelps and his people left the stage to barracking from the crowd. He had been hoping to give his carefully rehearsed hour-long lecture over the memory of the lost brethren and the value of comradeship; he never spoke in public again.

  Within four hours a ceasefire had been called for the first time in 131 years. Within four weeks the politicians were around the table in Budapest. Within four months every single English soldier was out of the peninsula. As for the Goliath Corporation, they were soon called to account over their deceit. They expressed wholly unconvincing ignorance of the whole affair and laid the blame entirely on Jack Schitt. I had hoped the Corporation would be chastized further, but at least it got Goliath off my back.

  36.

  Married

  Landen and I were married the same day as peace was declared in the Crimea. Landen told me it was to save on the fee for bell-ringers. I looked around nervously when the vicar got to the bit about “Speak now or forever hold their peace” but there was no one there. I met with the Brontë Federation and they soon got used to the idea of the new ending, especially when they realized that they were the only people who objected. I was sorry about Rochester’s wounds and the burning down of his house, but I was very glad that he and Jane, after over a hundred years of dissatisfaction, finally found the true peace and happiness that they both so richly deserved.

  THURSDAY NEXT

  —A Life in SpecOps

  THE RECEPTION turned out to be bigger than we thought and by ten o’clock it had spilled out into Landen’s garden. Boswell had got a little drunk so I popped him in a cab and sent him to the Finis. Paige Turner had been getting along well with the saxophonist—no one had seen either of them for at least an hour. Landen and I were enjoying a quiet moment to ourselves. I squeezed his hand, and asked:

  “Would you really have married Daisy if Briggs hadn’t intervened?”

  “I’ve got those answers you wanted, Sweetpea!”

  “Dad?”

  He was attired in the full dress uniform of a colonel in the ChronoGuard.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said and I made a few enquiries.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad, I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You remember, we spoke about two minutes ago?”

  “No.”

  He frowned and looked at us both in turn, then at his watch.

  “Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “I must be earl
y. Damn these chronographs!”

  He tapped the dial and left quickly without saying another word.

  “Your father?” asked Landen. “I thought you said he was on the run?”

  “He was. He is. He will be. You know.”

  “Sweetpea!” said my father again. “Surprised to see me?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Congratulations to the two of you!”

  I glanced around at the party still in full swing. Time was not standing still. It wouldn’t be long before the ChronoGuard tracked him down.

  “To hell with SO-12, Thursday!” said he, divining my thoughts and taking a glass from a passing waiter. “I wanted to meet my son-in-law.”

  He turned to Landen, grasped his hand and sized him up carefully.

  “How are you, my boy? Have you had a vasectomy?”

  “Well, no,” replied Landen, vaguely embarrassed.

  “How about a heavy tackle playing rugby?”

  “No.”

  “Kick from a horse in the nether regions?”

  “No.”

  “What about a cricket ball in the goolies?”

  “No!”

  “Good. Then we might get some grandchildren out of this fiasco. It’s high time little Thursday here was popping out some sprogs instead of dashing around like some wild mountain piglet—” He paused. “You’re both looking at me very oddly.”

  “You were here not a minute ago.”

  He frowned, raised an eyebrow and looked about furtively.

  “If it was me, and if I know me, I’d be hiding somewhere close by. Oh yes, look! Look there!”

  He pointed to a corner of the garden where a figure was hiding in the shadows behind the potting shed. He narrowed his eyes and thought through the most logical train of events.

  “Let’s see. I must have offered to do you a favor, done it and come back but a little out of time; not uncommon in my line of work.”

  “What favor would I have asked you to do?” I ventured, still confused but more than willing to play along.

  “I don’t know,” said my father. “A burning question that has been much discussed over the years but has, so far, remained unanswered.”