The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [253]
“I’ll bear that in mind, Vern, thanks.”
“And don’t worry about old Harris. His bark is a lot worse than his bite. He looks down on me because I’m from a racy potboiler, but listen—I can hold my own against him any day!”
He poured some tea for us both before continuing.
“He was trained during the days when cadets were cast into A Pilgrim’s Progress and told to make their own way out. He thinks all us young ’uns are soft as soap. Don’t you, Tweed?”
He turned to meet my detractor.
Harris Tweed stood by with an empty coffee cup.
“What are you blathering about, Deane?” he asked, scowling like thunder.
“I was telling Miss Next here that you think we’re all a bit soft.”
Harris took a step closer, glared at Deane and then fixed me with his dark brown eyes. He was about fifty, graying, and had the sort of face that looked as though the skin had been measured upon a skull three sizes smaller before fitment.
“Has Havisham mentioned the Well of Lost Plots to you?” he asked.
“The Cat mentioned it. Unpublished books, I think he said.”
“Not just unpublished. The Well of Lost Plots is where vague ideas ferment into sketchy plans. This is the Notion Nursery. The Word Womb. Go down there and you’ll see plot outlines coalescing on the shelves like so many primordial life forms. The spirits of roughly sketched characters flit about the corridors in search of plot and dialogue before they are woven into the story. If they get lucky, the book finds a publisher and rises into the Great Library above.”
“And if they’re unlucky?”
“They stay in the basement. But there’s more. Below the Well of Lost Plots is another basement. Subbasement twenty-seven. No one talks of it much. It’s where deleted characters, poor plot devices, half-baked ideas and corrupt Jurisfiction agents go to spend a painful eternity. Just remember that.”
I was stunned, so said nothing. Tweed glared at Deane, scowled at me, filled up his coffee cup and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Vernham turned to me and said: “Old wives’ tales. There’s no such thing as basement twenty-seven.”
“Sort of like using the Jabberwock to frighten children, yes?”
“Well, not really,” replied Deane thoughtfully, “because there is a Jabberwock. Frightfully nice fellow—good at fly-fishing and plays the bongos. I’ll introduce you sometime.”
I heard Miss Havisham calling my name.
“I’d better go,” I told him.
Vern looked at his watch.
“Of course. Goodness, is that the time? Well, hey-ho, see you about!”
Despite Vern’s assurances about Harris Tweed’s threats I still felt uneasy. Was jumping into a copy of Poe from my side enough of a misdemeanor to attract Tweed’s ire? And how much training would I need before I could even attempt to rescue Jack Schitt? I returned to Miss Havisham deep in thought about Jurisfiction and Landen and bookjumping. I noticed her desk was as far from the Red Queen’s as one could get and laid her tea in front of her.
“What do you know about subbasement twenty-seven?” I asked her.
“Old wives’ tales,” replied Havisham, concentrating on the report she was filing. “One of the other PROs trying to frighten you?”
“Sort of.”
I looked around while Miss Havisham busied herself. There seemed to be a lot of activity in the room; PROs melted in and out of the air around me with the Bellman moving around, reading instructions from his clipboard. My eyes alighted on a shiny horn that was connected to a polished wood-and-brass device on the desk by a flexible copper tube. It reminded me of a very old form of gramophone—something that Thomas Edison might have come up with.
Miss Havisham looked up, saw I was trying to read the instructions on the brass plaque and said: “It’s a footnoterphone. We use them to communicate. Book-to-book or external calls, their value is incalculable. Try it out if you wish.”
I took the horn and looked inside. There was a cork plug pushed into the end attached to a short chain. I looked