The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

A Groundswell of Popular Feeling

Until Jane Eyre was kidnapped I don’t think anyone— least of all Hades—realized quite how popular she was. It was as if a living national embodiment of England’s literary heritage had been torn from the masses. It was the best piece of news we could have hoped for.

BOWDEN CABLE

—Journal of a Litera Tec

WITHIN TWENTY seconds of Jane’s kidnapping, the first worried member of the public had noticed strange goings-on around the area of page 107 of their deluxe hidebound edition of Jane Eyre. Within thirty minutes all the lines into the English Museum library were jammed. Within two hours every LiteraTec department was besieged by calls from worried Brontë readers. Within four hours the president of the Brontë Federation had seen the prime minister. By suppertime the prime minister’s personal secretary had called the head of SpecOps. By nine o’clock the head of SpecOps had batted it down the line to a miserable Braxton Hicks. By ten he had been called personally by the prime minister, who asked him what the hell he was going to do about it. He stammered down the line and said something wholly unhelpful. Meanwhile, the news was leaked to the press that Swindon was the center of the Jane Eyre investigation, and by midnight the SpecOps building was encircled by concerned readers, journalists and news network trucks.

Braxton was not in a good mood. He had started to chain-smoke and locked himself in his office for hours at a time. Not even putting practice managed to soothe his ruffled nerves, and shortly after the prime minister’s call he summoned Victor and me for a meeting on the roof, away from the prying eyes of the press, the Goliath representatives and especially from Jack Schitt.

“Sir?” said Victor as we approached Braxton, who was leaning against a smokestack that squeaked as it turned. Hicks was staring out at the lights of Swindon with a detachment that made me worried. The parapet was barely two yards away, and for an awful moment I thought perhaps he was going to end it all.

“Look at them,” he murmured.

We both relaxed as we realized that Braxton was on the roof so he could see the public that his department had pledged to help. There were thousands of them, encircling the station behind crowd barriers, silently holding candles and clutching their copies of Jane Eyre, now seriously disrupted, the narrative stopping abruptly halfway down page 107 after a mysterious “Agent in black” enters Rochester’s room following the fire.

Braxton waved his own copy of Jane Eyre at us.

“You’ve read it, of course?”

“There isn’t much to read,” Victor replied. “Eyre was written in the first person; as soon as the protagonist has gone, it’s anyone’s guess as to what happens next. My theory is that Rochester becomes even more broody, packs Adele off to boarding school, and shuts up the house.”

Braxton looked at him pointedly.

“That’s conjecture, Analogy.”

“It’s what we’re best at.”

Braxton sighed.

“They want me to bring her back and I don’t even know where she is! Before all this happened, did you have any idea how popular Jane Eyre was?”

We looked at the crowd below.

“To be truthful, no.”

Braxton’s reserve was all gone. He wiped his brow; his hand was visibly shaking.

“What am I going to do? This is off the record but Jack Schitt takes over in a week if this whole stinking matter hasn’t made any favorable headway.”

“Schitt isn’t interested in Jane,” I said, following Braxton’s gaze over the mass of Brontë fans. “All he wants is the Prose Portal.”

“Tell me about it, Next. I’ve got seven days to obscurity and historical and literary damnation. I know we’ve all had our differences in the past, but I want to give you the freedom to do what you need to do. And,” he added magnanimously, “this is irrespective of cost.” He checked himself and added: “But having said that, of course, don’t just spend money like water, okay?”

He looked at the lights of Swindon again.

“I’m as big a fan of the Brontës as the next man, Victor. What will you have me do?”

“Agree to his terms whatever they are; keep our movements completely and utterly secret from Goliath; and I need a manuscript.”

Braxton narrowed his eyes.

“What sort of manuscript?”

Victor handed him a scrap of paper. Braxton read it and raised his eyebrows.

“I’ll get it,” he said slowly, “even if I have to steal it myself!”