Jasper Fforde Thursday Next 1 The Eyre Affair v4.0

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I stood up.
Here, sir.
Rochestertook me by the arm and led me along the gallery and onto the landing
above the stairs. He stopped, placed the candle on a low table and clasped
both my hands in his.
I thank you, Miss Next, from the bottom of my heart! It has been a living
hell of torment; not knowing when or even if my beloved Jane would return!
He spoke with keen and very real passion; I wondered if Landen had ever loved
me as much asRochester loved Jane.
It was the least I could do, Mr. Rochester, I responded happily, after
your kind attention to my wounds that night outside the warehouse.
He dismissed my words with a wave of his hand.
You are returning straight away?
I looked down.
It s not quite as easy as that, sir. There is another interloper in this
book aside from me.
Rochesterstrode to the balustrade. He spoke without turning around.
It shim , isn t it?
You have met him? I asked, surprised.
He has several names. You have a plan?
I explained the use of a signal and made it clear that it would be safer for
me to remain at Thornfield until the book had run its course. Then I would
take Hades with me somehow.
The end of the book, murmuredRochester unhappily. How Ihate the ending.
The thought of my sweet Jane traveling toIndia with that poltroon St. John
Rivers makes my blood turn to ice. He bolstered himself. But I have at least
a few months of real happiness before that time. Come, you must be hungry. He
walked off down the corridor and beckoned me to follow, talking as he went.
I suggest we try and traphim when Jane has left after he shivered slightly
at the thought of it. the wedding. We will be quite alone as Jane takes the
narrative with her to Moor House and those fatuous cousins. I am not featured
again in the book, so we may do as we please, and I am best disposed to be of
assistance. However, as you have guessed, you must do nothing that might
disturb Jane; this novel is written in the first person. I can get away to
speak with you when I am, to all intents and purposes, out of the story. But
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you must promise me that you will stay out of Jane s way. I will speak to Mrs.
Fairfax and Adele privately; they will understand. The servants Mary and John
will do whatever I tell them.
We had arrived at a door andRochester knocked impatiently. There was a
groaning and a thump and presently a very disheveled character appeared at the
door.
Mrs. Fairfax, saidRochester , this is Miss Next. She will be staying with
us for a month or two. I want you to fetch her some food and have a bed made
ready; she has traveled far to be here and I think she needs sustenance and
rest. It would please me if you were not to discuss her presence with anyone,
and I would be grateful if you could engineer that Miss Next and Miss Eyre do
not meet. I hardly need to stress the importance of this to you.
Mrs. Fairfax looked me up and down, was particularly intrigued and shocked at
the same time by my ponytail and jeans, and then nodded and led me off toward
the dining room.
We will speak again tomorrow, Miss Next, saidRochester , a smile breaking
out on his troubled face. And I thank you once again.
He turned and left me to Mrs. Fairfax, who bustled downstairs. The
housekeeper told me to wait in the dining room while she brought me something
to eat. She returned shortly with some cold cuts of meat and some bread. I ate
hungrily as Pilot who I thought had been let in when Hades went out
sniffed at my trouser leg and wagged his tail excitedly.
He remembers you, remarked Mrs. Fairfax slowly, yet I have been working
here for many years and I do not recall having laid eyes upon you before.
I tickled Pilot s ear.
I threw a stick for him once. When he was out with his master.
I see, replied Mrs. Fairfax, suspiciously. And how do you know Mr.
Rochester?
I, ah, met the Rochesters inMadeira . I knew his brother.
I see.Very tragic. Her eyes narrowed. Then you know the Masons?
Not well.
She had been eyeing my jeans again.
Women wear breeches where you come from?
Often, Mrs. Fairfax.
And where is it that you come from?London ?
Farther than that.
Ah! said Mrs. Fairfax with a knowing smile. Osaka!
She bustled out, leaving me alone with Pilot, having made me promise that I
would not feed him from the table. She returned ten minutes later with a tray
of tea things, then left me for another half hour to make up a room. She led
me up to a second-story chamber with a fine view out of the front of the
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house. I had insisted that Pilot stay with me, and he slept against the locked
door, somehow sensing the possible danger that his new mistress might be in. I
slept fitfully and dreamed of Hades laughing at me.
As I slept, Victor and the others back at the Swindon Litera Tec office had
been celebrating the return of the narrative to the novel. Apart from a brief
mention of Mrs. Fairfax making noises on the night of the bedroom fire, it was
all pretty much as anyone remembered it. A member of the Bront� Federation had
been called in to examine the text as it wrote itself across the last two [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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