The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“Did you? What exactly did she say?”

Acheron smiled at me and then nodded at Snood, who returned his greeting.

“Wait!” I interrupted. “How can you believe what he says? The man’s a liar!”

Acheron looked offended and Flanker turned to me with a steely gaze.

“We only have your word for that, Next.”

I could feel myself boil with inner rage at the unfairness of it all. I was just about to cry out and wake up when I felt a tap on my arm. It was a man dressed in a dark coat. He had heavy black hair that fell over his dour, strong features. I knew immediately who he was.

“Mr. Rochester?”

He nodded in return. But now we were no longer outside the warehouses in the East End; we were in a well-furnished hall, lit by the dim glow of oil lamps and the flickering light from a fire in the large hearth.

“Is your arm well, Miss Next?” he asked.

“Very well, thanks,” I said, moving my hand and wrist to demonstrate.

“I should not trouble yourself with them,” he added, indicating Flanker, Acheron and Snood, who had started to argue in the corner of the room near the bookcase. “They are merely in your dream and thus, being illusory, are of no consequence.”

“And what about you?”

Rochester smiled, a forced, gruff smile. He was leaning on the mantelpiece and looked into his glass, swirling his Madeira delicately.

“I was never real to begin with.”

He placed the glass on the marble mantel and flipped out a large silver hunter, popped it open, read the time and returned it to his waistcoat pocket in one smooth easy movement.

“Things are becoming more urgent, I can feel it. I trust I can count on your fortitude when the time comes?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t explain. I don’t know how I managed to get here or even how you managed to get to me. You remember when you were a little girl? When you chanced upon us both that chill winter’s evening?”

I thought about the incident at Haworth all those years ago when I entered the book of Jane Eyre and caused Rochester’s horse to slip.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Not to me. You remember?”

“I remember.”

“Your intervention improved the narrative.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Before, I simply bumped into my Jane and we spoke briefly. If you had read the book prior to your visit you would have noticed. When the horse slipped to avoid you it made the meeting more dramatic, wouldn’t you agree?”

“But hadn’t that happened already?”

Rochester smiled.

“Not at all. But you weren’t the first visitor we have had. And you won’t be the last, if I’m correct.”

“What do you mean?”

He picked up his drink again.