The Eyre Affair tn-1

by Jasper Fforde

  ‘No one. No one save the old lady…’

  I took the horse from one of my riders and was at Thornfield in double-quick time. Neither of the guards at the doors had seen anything of Hades. I entered and found Edward in the morning room, toasting himself from a bottle of brandy. He raised his glass as I entered.

  ‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’ he asked.

  ‘She has.’

  ‘Damnation! Curse the circumstances that allowed me to be trapped into the wedding with that halfwit and curse my brother and father for entreating such a union!’

  He fell into a chair and stared at the floor.

  ‘Your work is done here?’ he asked me resignedly.

  ‘I think so, yes. I have only to find Hades and I can be off.’

  ‘Is he not at The Millcote?’

  ‘Not any longer.’

  ‘But you expect to capture him?’

  ‘I do; he seems weakened here.’

  ‘Then you had better tell me your password. Time may not be on our side when the moment comes. Forewarned is forearmed.’

  ‘True,’ I conceded. ‘To open the door, you have to say—‘

  But at that moment the front door slammed, a gust of wind disturbed some papers, and a familiar footfall rang out on the tiles in the hall. I froze and looked across at Rochester who was staring into his glass.

  ‘The code word—?’

  I heard a voice calling to Pilot. It had the deep bass resonance of the master of the house.

  ‘Blast!’ murmured Hades as he melted from his disguise as Rochester and leaped at the wall in a flash, bursting through the lath and plaster as though it were rice paper. By the time I had made my way to the hallway outside he had gone; vanished somewhere deep into the house. Rochester joined me as I listened intently up the stairs, but no sound reached us. Edward guessed what had happened and quickly mustered his estate workers. Within twenty minutes he had them guarding the outside of the house, under strict orders to fire upon anyone who tried to escape without giving a prearranged password. This done, we returned to the library and Rochester drew out a set of pistols and loaded each carefully. He looked uneasily at my Browning automatic as he placed two percussion caps atop the nipples of the pistols and replaced the hammers.

  ‘Bullets just make him mad,’ I told him.

  ‘You have a better idea?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Then you had better follow me. The sooner this menace is out of my book the better!’

  All except Grace Poole and the madwoman had been removed from the house, and Mrs Poole had been entreated not to open the door to anyone until the morning on any account, not even to Mr Rochester. Rochester and I started at the library and moved through to the dining room and then the afternoon reception room. After this we searched the morning reception room and then the ballroom. All were empty. We returned to the staircase where we had placed John and Mathew, who both swore no one had passed them. Night had descended by this time; the men who stood guard had been given torches and their meagre light flickered in the hall. The stairs and panelling of the house were of a dark wood which reflected light poorly; the belly of a whale would have been brighter. We reached the top of the stairs and looked left and right, but the house was dark and I cursed myself for not bringing a good flashlight. As if in answer to my thoughts a gust of wind blew out the candles and somewhere ahead a door banged. My heart missed a beat and Rochester muttered an oath as he stumbled into an oak chest. I quickly relit the candelabrum. In the warm glow we could see each other’s timorous faces, and Rochester, realising that my face was a reflection of his own, steeled himself to the task ahead and shouted:

  ‘Coward! Show yourself!’

  There was a loud concussion and a bright orange flash as Rochester fired off a shot in the direction of the staircase leading to the upper rooms.

  ‘There! There he goes, like a rabbit; I fancy I winged him too!’

  We hurried to the spot but there was no blood; merely the heavy lead ball embedded in the banister rail.

  ‘We have him!’ exclaimed Rochester. ‘There is no escape from up here except the roof and no way down without risking his neck on the guttering!’

  We climbed the stairs and found ourselves in the upper corridor. The windows were larger up here but even so the interior was still insufferably gloomy. We stopped abruptly. Halfway down the corridor, standing in the shadows and with his face lit by the light of a single candle, was Hades. Running and hiding were not his style at all. He was holding the lighted candle close to a rolled-up piece of paper that I knew could only be the Wordsworth poem in which my aunt was imprisoned.

  ‘The code word, if you will, Miss Next!’

  ‘Never!’

  He placed the candle closer to the paper and smiled at me. ‘The code word, please!’

  But his smile became an expression of agony; he let out a wild cry and the candle and poem fell to the ground. He turned slowly to reveal the cause of his pain. There, on his back and clinging on with grim determination, was Mrs Rochester, the madwoman from Jamaica. She cackled maniacally and twisted a pair of scissors that she had buried between Hades’ shoulder blades. He cried out once again and fell to his knees as the flame from the lit candle set fire to the layers of wax polish that had built up on a bureau. The flames greedily enveloped the piece of furniture and Rochester pulled some curtains down in order to smother them. But Hades was up again, his strength renewed: the scissors had been withdrawn. He swiped at Rochester and caught him on the chin; Edward reeled and fell heavily to the floor. A manic glee seemed to overcome Acheron as he took a spirit lamp from the sideboard and hurled it to the end of the corridor; it burst into flames and ignited some wall hangings. He turned on the madwoman, who went for him in a blur of flailing limbs. She deftly whipped Mycroft’s battered instruction booklet from Hades’ pocket, gave a demonic and triumphant cry and then ran off.

  ‘Yield, Hades!’ I yelled, firing off two shots. Acheron staggered with the force of the slugs but recovered quickly and ran after Bertha and the book. I picked up the precious poem, and coughed in the thick smoke that had started to fill the corridor. The drapes were now well alight. I dragged Rochester to his feet. We ran after Hades, noticing as we did so that other fires had been started by Acheron in his pursuit of the instruction manual and the insane Creole. We caught up with them in a large back bedroom. It seemed as good a moment as any to open the portal; already the bed was ablaze and Hades and Bertha were playing a bizarre game of cat-and-mouse with her holding the booklet and brandishing the scissors at him, something he seemed to be genuinely fearful of.

  ‘Say the words!’ I said to Rochester.

  ‘And they are?’

  ‘Sweet madness!’

  Rochester yelled them. Nothing. He yelled them even louder. Still nothing. I had made a mistake. Jane Eyre was written in the first-person narrative. Whatever was being read by Bowden and Mycroft back home was what Jane was experiencing—anything that happened to us didn’t appear in the book and never would. I hadn’t thought of this.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Rochester.

  ‘I don’t know. Look out!!’

  Bertha made a wild lunge at us both and ran out of the door, swiftly followed by Hades, who was so intent on regaining the instruction manual that the two of us seemed of secondary importance. We followed them down the corridor, but the stairwell was now a wall of flame and the heat and smoke pushed us back. Coughing and with eyes streaming, Bertha escaped on to the roof with Hades, myself and Rochester not far behind. The cool air was welcome after the smoky interior of Thornfield. Bertha led us all down on to the lead roof of the ballroom. We could see that the fire had spread downstairs, the heavily polished furniture and floors giving the hungry flames plenty of nourishment; within a few minutes the large and tinder-dry house would be an inferno.

  The madwoman was dancing a languid dance in her nightclothes; a dim memory, perhaps, from the time when she was a lady, and a far cry from the sad
and pathetic existence she now endured. She growled like a caged animal and threatened Hades with the scissors as he cursed and entreated the return of the booklet, which she waved at him in a mocking fashion. Rochester and I watched, the shattering of windows and the crackle of the fire punctuating the silence of the night.

  Rochester, annoyed at having nothing to do and tiring of watching his wife and Hades dance the danse macabre, loosed off the second pistol and hit Hades in the small of the back. Hades turned, unhurt but enraged. He drew his own gun and fired several shots in return as Rochester and I leaped behind a chimney stack. Bertha took full advantage of the opportunity and plunged the scissors deep into Hades’ arm. He yelled in pain and terror and dropped his gun. Bertha danced happily around him, cackling wildly, as Hades fell to his knees.

  A groan made me turn. One of Acheron’s shots had passed straight through Rochester’s palm. He pulled out his handkerchief and I helped him wrap it around his shattered hand.

  I looked up again as Hades knocked the scissors from his arm; they flew through the air and landed close by. Powerful again and as angry as a lion, he leaped upon Bertha, held her tightly by the throat and retrieved the booklet. He then picked her up and held her high above his head, she all the while uttering a demented yell that managed to drown out the sound of the fire. For a moment they were silhouetted against the flames that even now licked up against the night sky, then Hades took two quick steps to the parapet and threw Bertha over, her yell only silenced by the dull thud as she hit the ground three storeys below. He stepped back from the parapet and turned to us with eyes blazing.

  ‘Sweet madness, eh?’ He laughed. ‘Jane is with her cousins; the narrative is with her. And I have the manual!’

  He waved it at me, deposited it in his pocket and picked up his gun.

  ‘Who’s first?’

  I fired but Hades clapped his open hand on the approaching bullet. He opened his fist; the slug was flattened into a small lead disc. He smiled and a shower of sparks flew up behind him. I fired again and he caught the slug once more. The slide on my automatic parked itself in the rearward position, empty and ready for the next clip. I had one but I didn’t think it would make much difference. The inevitable presented itself: I’d had a good run, survived him more than any other living person and done all that was humanly possible. But luck doesn’t always walk in your favour—mine had just run out.

  Hades smiled at me.

  ‘Timing is everything, Miss Next. I have the password, the manual, and the upper hand. The waiting game, as you can see, paid off.’

  He looked at me with a triumphant expression.

  ‘It may come as some consolation that I planned to bestow upon you the honour of being Felix9. I will remember you always as my greatest adversary; I salute you for it. And you were right—you never did negotiate.’

  I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about Tamworth, Snood and the rest of Hades’ victims. I looked across at Rochester, who was cradling his blood-soaked hand; the fight had gone out of him.

  ‘The Crimea will make us a fortune,’ went on Hades. ‘How much profit can we make on each plasma rifle? Five hundred pounds? A thousand? Ten thousand?’

  I thought of my brother in the Crimea. He had called for me to come back for him, but I never did. My APC was hit by an artillery shell as I returned. I had to be forcibly restrained from taking another vehicle and returning to the battlefield. I never saw him again. I had never forgiven myself for leaving him.

  Hades was still rambling, and I found myself almost wishing that he’d get on with it. Death, after all I had been through, suddenly seemed like a very comfortable option. At the height of any battle some say that there is a quietness where one can think calmly and easily, the trauma of the surroundings screened off by the heavy curtain of shock. I was about to die, and only one seemingly banal question came to mind: Why on earth did Bertha’s scissors have such a detrimental effect on Hades? I looked up at Acheron, who was mouthing words that I could not hear. I stood up and he fired. He was merely playing with me and the bullet flew wide—I didn’t even blink. The scissors were the key; they had been made of silver. I reached into my trouser pocket for the silver bullet that Spike had given me. Acheron, vain and arrogant, was wasting time with pompous self-congratulation. He would pay dearly for the error. I slipped the shiny slug into my automatic and released the slide. It chambered the round smoothly, I aimed, pulled the trigger and saw something pluck at his chest. For a moment nothing happened. Then Acheron stopped talking and put his hand to where the round had hit home. He brought his fingers up to his face and looked at them with shocked surprise; he was used to having blood on his hands—but never his own. He turned to me, started to say something but then staggered for a moment before pitching heavily forward on to his face and moving no more. Acheron Hades, third-most evil man on the planet, was finally dead, killed on the roof of Thornfield Hall and mourned by no one.

  There was little time to ponder Hades’ demise; the flames were growing higher. I took Mycroft’s manual and then pulled Rochester to his feet. We made our way to the parapet; the roof had grown hot and we could feel the beams beneath our feet starting to flex and buckle, causing the lead roof to ripple as though it were alive. We looked over but there was no way down. Rochester grasped my hand and ran along the roof to another window. He smashed it open and a blast of hot air made us duck.

  ‘Servants’ staircase!’ he coughed. ‘This way!’

  Rochester knew the way through the dark and smoky corridor by feel, and I followed him obediently, clutching his jacket tails to stop myself getting lost. We arrived at the top of the servants’ staircase; the fire didn’t seem to be as strong here and Rochester led me down the steps. We were halfway down when a fireball flared up in the kitchen and sent a mass of fire and hot gases through the corridor and up the staircase. I saw a huge red glow erupt in front of me as the stairway give way beneath us. After that, blackness.

  34. Nearly the end of their book

  ‘We waited for Thursday’s call, the code word, but it didn’t come. I read the narrative carefully, looking for some clue as to what had happened to her. I had suspected that Thursday might decide to stay if it was impossible to capture Hades. The denouement was drawing near; Jane would go to India and the book would end. Once that had happened we could switch the machine off. Thursday and Polly would be lost for ever.’

  From Bowden Cable’s Journal

  I opened my eyes, frowned, and looked around. I was in a small yet well-furnished room quite close to a half-open window. Across the lawn some tall poplars swayed in the breeze, but I didn’t recognise the view; this was not Thornfield. The door opened and Mary walked in.

  ‘Miss Next!’ she said kindly. ‘What a fright you gave us!’

  ‘Have I been unconscious long?’

  ‘Three days. A very bad concussion, Dr Carter said.’

  ‘Where—?’

  ‘You’re at Ferndean, Miss Next,’ replied Mary soothingly, ‘one of Mr Rochester’s other properties. You will be weak; I’ll bring some broth.’

  I grabbed her arm.

  ‘And Mr Rochester?’

  She paused and smiled at me, patted my hand and said she would fetch the broth.

  I lay back, thinking about the night Thornfield burned. Poor Bertha Rochester. Had she realised that she had saved our lives by her fortuitous choice of weapons? Perhaps, somewhere in her addled mind, she was in tune with the abomination that had been Hades. I would never know, but I thanked her anyway.

  Within a week I was able to get up and move about, although I still suffered badly from headaches and dizziness. I learned that after the servants’ staircase had collapsed I had been knocked unconscious. Rochester, in great pain himself, had wrapped me in a curtain and dashed with me from the burning house. He had been hit by a falling beam in the attempt and was blinded; the hand shattered by Acheron’s bullet had been amputated the morning following the fire. I met with him in the darkness of the d
ining room.

  ‘Are you in much pain, sir?’ I asked, looking at the bedraggled figure; he still had bandaged eyes.

  ‘Luckily, no,’ he lied, wincing as he moved.

  ‘Thank you; you have saved my life for a second time.’

  He gave a wan smile.

  ‘You returned my Jane to me. For those few months of happiness, I would suffer twice these wounds. But let us not speak of my wretched state. You are well?’

  ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but how will you return? I expect Jane is already in India by now with that gutless pantaloon Rivers; and with her goes the narrative. I don’t see your friends being able to rescue you.’

  ‘I will think of something,’ I said, patting him on the sleeve. ‘You never know what the future will bring.’

  It was the morning of the following day; my months in the book had passed in as much time as it takes to read them. The Welsh Politburo, alerted to the wrongdoings on their doorstep, had given Victor, Finisterre and a member of the Bronte Federation a safe conduct to the mouldering Penderyn Hotel, where they now stood with Bowden, Mycroft and an increasingly nervous Jack Schitt. The representative of the Bronte Federation was reading the words as they appeared on the yellowed manuscript in front of him. Aside from a few minor changes, the book was travelling the same course it always did; it had been word perfect for the past two hours. Jane was being proposed to by St John Rivers, who wanted her to go with him to India as his wife, and she was about to make up her mind.

  Mycroft drummed his fingers on the desk and glanced at the rows of flicking dials on his contraption; all he needed was somewhere to open the door. Trouble was, they were fast running out of pages.

  Then, the miraculous happened. The Bronte Federation expert, a small, usually unexcitable man named Plink, was suddenly ignited by shock.

  ‘Wait a minute; this is new! This didn’t happen!’

  ‘What?’ cried Victor, rapidly flicking to his own copy. Indeed, Mr Plink was correct. There, as the words etched themselves across the paper, was a new development in the narrative. After Jane promised St John Rivers that if it was God’s will that they should be married, then they would, there was a voice—a new voice, Rochester’s voice, calling to her across the ether. But from where? It was a question that was being asked simultaneously by nearly eighty million people worldwide, all following the new story unfolding in front of their eyes. ‘What does it mean?’ asked Victor.