The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [371]
Britain Voted Favorite Empire Tenth Year Running, said one. Foreigners Untrustworthy, Study Shows, said another. A third led with “Spiffing”—New Buzzword Sweeps Nation.
I posted the “smoother” check to Johnny’s father with a covering letter explaining that it was an old loan repaid. Almost immediately a postman appeared on a bicycle and removed the letter—the only one in the postbox, I noted—with the utmost of reverence, taking it into the post office where I could hear cries of wonderment. There weren’t many letters in Shadow, I assumed. I stood outside the shop for a moment, watching the townsfolk going about their business. Without warning one of the cart horses decided to drop a huge pile of dung in the middle of the road. In a trice a villager had run across with a bucket and shovel and removed the offending article almost as soon as it had happened. I watched for a while and then set off to find the local auctioneers.
“So let me get this straight,” said the auctioneer, a heavyset and humorless man with a monocle screwed into his eye, “you want to buy pigs at treble the going rate? Why?”
“Not anyone’s pigs,” I replied wearily, having spent the last half hour trying to explain what I wanted, “Johnny’s father’s pigs.”
“Quite out of the question,” muttered the auctioneer, getting to his feet and walking to the window. He did it a lot, I could tell—there was a worn patch right through the carpet to the floorboards beneath, but only from his chair to the window. There was another worn patch from the door to a side table—the use of which I was yet to understand. Considering his limitations, I guessed the auctioneer was no more than a C-9 Generic—it explained the difficulty of persuading him to alter anything.
“We do things to a set formula here,” added the auctioneer, “and we don’t very much like change.”
He walked back across the worn floorboards to his desk, turned to face me and wagged a reproachful finger.
“And believe me, if you try anything a bit rum at the auction, I can discount your bid.”
We stared at each other. This wasn’t working.
“Tea and cake?” asked the auctioneer, walking to the window again.
“Thank you.”
“Splendid!” He rubbed his hands together and returned to his desk. “They tell me there is nothing quite so refreshing as a cup of tea!”
He flipped the switch on the intercom. “Miss Pittman, would you bring in some tea, please?”
The door opened instantaneously to reveal his secretary holding a tray of tea things. She was in her late twenties, and pretty in an English rose sort of way; she wore a floral summer dress under a fawn cardigan.
Miss Pittman followed the smoothly worn-down floorboards and carpet from the door to the side table. She curtsied and laid the tea things next to an identical tray left from an earlier occasion. She threw the old tea tray out the window and I heard the soft tinkle of broken crockery; I had seen a large pile of broken tea things outside the window when I arrived.
His secretary paused, hands pressed tightly together. “Shall—shall I pour you a cup?” she asked, a flush rising to her cheeks.
“Thank you!” exclaimed Mr. Phillips, walking excitedly to the window and back again. “Milk and—”
“One sugar.” His secretary smiled shyly. “Yes, yes . . . I know.”
“But of course you do!” He smiled back.
Then, the next stage of this odd charade took place. The auctioneer and secretary moved to the place where their two worn paths were closest, the outer limits that their existence and limited story line allowed them. Miss Pittman held the cup by its rim, placed her toes right on the edge where the worn carpet began and shiny floorboard ended, stretching out as far as she could. Mr. Phillips did the same on his side of the divide. The tips of his fingers could just touch the opposite rim of the cup, but try as he might, he could not reach far enough to grasp it.
“Allow me,” I said, unable