The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“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.”

I thought for a moment.

“How about the authorship of the Shakespeare plays?”

He smiled. “Good point. I’ll see what I can do.”

He finished his drink.

“Well, congratulations again to the two of you; I must be off. Time waits for no man, as we say.”

He smiled, wished us every happiness for the future, and departed.

“Can you explain just what is going on?” asked Landen, thoroughly confused, not so much by the events themselves as by the order in which they were happening.

“Not really.”