The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [263]
I laughed.
“Sure you will, Joff.”
I rinsed some mugs and stared out of the window.
“What can I do for you, Joff?”
“I came round to pick up Miles’s things.”
I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him.
“Say that again.”
“I said I’d come—”
“I know what you said, but, but—how do you know Miles?”
Joffy laughed, saw I was serious, frowned at me and then remarked: “He said you didn’t recognize him that night at Vole Towers. Is everything okay?”
I shrugged. “Not really, Joff—but tell me: How do you know him?”
“We’re going out, Thurs—surely you can’t have forgotten?”
“You and Miles?”
“Sure! Why not?”
This was very good news indeed.
“Then his clothes are in my apartment because—”
“—we borrow it every now and then.”
I tried to grasp the facts.
“You borrow my apartment because it’s . . . secret—?”
“Right. You know how old-fashioned SpecOps are when it comes to their staff fraternizing with clerics.”
I laughed out loud and wiped away the tears that had sprung to my eyes.
“Sis?” said Joffy, getting up. “What’s the matter?”
I hugged him tightly.
“Nothing’s the matter, Joff. Everything’s wonderful!—I’m not carrying his baby!”
“Miles?” said Joff. “Wouldn’t know how. Wait a minute, sis—you’ve got a bun in the oven? Who’s the father?”
I smiled through my tears.
“It’s Landen’s,” I said with a renewed confidence. “By God it’s Landen’s!”
And I jumped up and down overwhelmed by the sheer joy of the fact, and Joffy, who had nothing better to do, joined me in jumping up and down until Mrs. Scroggins in the apartment below banged on the ceiling with a broom handle.
“Sister dearest,” said Joffy as soon as we had stopped, “who in St. Zvlkx’s name is Landen?”
“Landen Parke-Laine,” I gabbled happily. “The ChronoGuard eradicated him, but something other happened and I still have his child, so it’s all meant to come out right, don’t you see? And I have to get him back because if Aornis does get to me then he’ll never exist ever ever ever—and neither will the baby and I can’t stand that idea and I’ve been farting around for too long so I’m going to go into ‘The Raven’ no matter what— because if I don’t I’m going to go nuts!”
“I’m more than happy for you,” said Joffy slowly. “You’ve completely lost your tiny doofus-like mind, but I’m very happy for you, in spite of it.”
I ran into the living room, rummaged across my desk until I found Schitt-Hawse’s calling card and rang the number. He answered in less than two rings.
“Ah, Next,” he said with a triumphant air. “Changed your mind?”
“I’ll go into ‘The Raven’ for you, Schitt-Hawse. Double-cross me and I’ll maroon both you and your half brother in the worst Daphne Farquitt novel I can find. Believe me, I can do it—and will do it, if necessary.”
There was a pause.
“I’ll send a car to pick you up.”
The phone went dead and I placed the receiver back on the cradle. I took a deep breath, shooed Joffy out of the door once he had collected Miles’s stuff, then had a shower and got dressed. My mind was set. I would get Landen back, no matter what the risks. I was still lacking a coherent plan, but this didn’t bother me that much—I seldom did.
28.
“The Raven”
“The Raven” was undoubtedly Edgar Allan Poe’s finest and most famous poem, and was his own personal favorite, being the one he most liked to recite at poetry readings. Published in 1845, the poem drew heavily on Elizabeth Barrett’s “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” something he acknowledged in the original dedication but had conveniently forgotten when explaining how he wrote “The Raven” in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition”—the whole affair tending to make nonsense of Poe’s attacks on Longfellow as a plagiarist. A troubled genius, Poe also suffered the inverse cash/ fame law—the more famous he became, the less money he had. “The Gold Bug,” one of his most popular short stories, sold over 300,000 copies but netted him only $100. With “The Raven” he fared