The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [359]
I turned away and overheard Humpty say to Grundy, “Well, I thought that went pretty well, don’t you?”
I walked briskly up the front steps of Norland Park, where I was admitted by the same froglike footman I had seen on my first visit. I crossed the hall and entered the ballroom. Miss Havisham was at her desk with Akrid Snell, who was talking into the footnoterphone. Standing next to them was Bradshaw, who had not retired as promised, filling out a form with the Bellman, who appeared grave. The only other occupant of the room was Harris Tweed, who was reading a report. He looked up as I entered, said nothing and continued reading. Miss Havisham was studying some photographs as I approached.
“Damn and blast!” she said, looking at one before tossing it over her shoulder and staring at the next. “Pathetic!” she muttered, looking at another. “Derisive!”
“Perkins?” I asked, sitting down.
“Speed-camera pictures back from the labs,” she said, handing them over. “I thought I would have topped one hundred and sixty, but look, well—it’s pitiful, that’s what it is!”
I looked. The speed camera had caught the Higham Special but recorded only a top speed of 152.76 mph—but what was worse, it showed Mr. Toad traveling at over 180—and he had even raised his hat at the speed camera as he went past.
“I managed a hundred and seventy when I tried it on the M4,” she said sadly. “Trouble is, I need a longer stretch of road—or sand. Well, can’t be helped now. The car has been sold. I’ll have to go cap in hand to Sir Malcolm if I want to get a shot at beating Toad.”
“Norland Park to Perkins,” said Snell into the footnoterphone, “come in please. Over.”
I looked at Havisham.
“No answer for almost six hours,” she said. “Mathias isn’t answering, either—we got a Yahoo once but you might as well talk to Mrs. Bennett. What’s that?”
“It’s a list of demands from the nurseries outside.”
“Rabble,” replied Havisham, “all of them replaceable. How hard can it be, appearing in a series of rhyming couplets? If they don’t watch themselves, they’ll be replaced by scab Generics from the Well. It happened when the Amalgamated Union of Gateway Guardians struck in 1932. They never learn.”
“All they want is a holiday—”
“I shouldn’t concern yourself with nursery politics, Miss Next,” said Havisham so sharply I jumped.
“Good work on the ProCath attack,” announced Tweed, who had walked over. “I’ve had a word with Plum over at JurisTech; he’s going to extend the footnoterphone network to cover more of Wuthering Heights—we shouldn’t have a problem with mobilefootnoterphones dropping out again.”
“We’d better not,” replied Miss Havisham coldly. “Lose Heathcliff and the Council of Genres will have our colons for garters. Now, to work. We don’t know what to expect in the bestiary, so we have to be prepared.”
“Like Boy Scouts?”
“Can’t stand them, but that’s beside the point. Turn to page seven hundred eighty-nine in your TravelBook.”
I did as she bid. This was an area of the book where the pages contained gadgets in hollowed-out recesses deeper than the book was thick. One page contained a device similar to a flare gun that had Mk IV TextMarker written on its side. Another page had a glass panel covering a handle like a fire alarm. A note painted on the glass read, IN UNPRECEDENTED EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS. The page Havisham had indicated was neither of these; page 789 contained a brown homburg hat. Hanging from the brim was a large red toggle with In emergency pull down sharply written on it. There was also a chin strap, something I’ve never seen on a homburg before—or even a fedora or trilby, come to that.
Havisham took the hat from my hands and gave me a brief induction course: “This is the Martin-Bacon Mk VII Eject-O-Hat, for high-speed evacuation from a book. Takes you straight out in an emergency.”
“Where to?”
“A little-known novel entitled The Middle of Next Week. You can make your way out to the library at leisure. But be warned: the jump can be painful, even fatal—so it should only be used as a last resort. Remember to keep the chin strap tight