The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [48]
He waved a hand in the direction of the flowers.
“The daffodils, you understand.”
Polly looked across at the bright yellow flowers, which rustled back at her in the warm breeze.
“I wish my memory was this good,” she murmured.
The figure in black smiled at her.
“The inward eye is all I have left,” he said wistfully, the smile leaving his stern features. “Everything that I once was is now here; my life is contained in my works. A life in volumes of words; it is poetic.”
He sighed deeply and added:
“But solitude isn’t always blissful, you know.”
He stared into the middle distance, the sun sparkling on the waters of the lake.
“How long since I died?” he asked abruptly.
“Over a hundred and fifty years.”
“Really? Tell me, how did the revolution in France turn out?”
“It’s a little early to tell.”
Wordsworth frowned as the sun went in.
“Hello,” he muttered, “I don’t remember writing that—”
Polly looked. A large and very dark rain cloud had blotted out the sun.
“What do you—?” she began, but when she looked around Wordsworth had gone. The sky grew darker and thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. A strong wind sprang up and the lake seemed to freeze over and lose all depth as the daffodils stopped moving and became a solid mass of yellow and green. She cried out in fear as the sky and the lake met; the daffodils, trees and clouds returning to their place in the poem, individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our own imagination can clothe them. She let out one last terrified scream as the darkness swept on and the poem closed on top of her.
12.
SpecOps-27: The Literary Detectives
. . . This morning Thursday Next joined the Litera Tec office in place of Crometty. I cannot help thinking that she is particularly unsuited to this area of work and I have my doubts as to whether she is as sane as she thinks she is. She has many demons, old and new, and I wonder whether Swindon is quite the right place to try and exorcise them . . .
From Bowden Cable’s diary
THE SWINDON SpecOps headquarters were shared with the local police; the typically brusque and no-nonsense Germanic design had been built during the Occupation as a law court. It was big too, which was just as well. The way into the building was protected by metal detectors, and once I had shown my ID I walked into the large entrance hall. Officers and civilians with identity tags walked briskly amid the loud hubbub of the station. I was jostled once or twice in the throng and made a few greetings to old faces before fighting my way to the front desk. When I got there, I found a man in a white baggy shirt and breeches remonstrating with the sergeant. The officer just stared at him. He’d heard it all before.
“Name?” asked the desk sergeant wearily.
“John Milton.”
“Which John Milton?”
John Milton sighed.
“Four hundred and ninety-six.”
The sergeant made a note in his book.
“How much did they take?”
“Two hundred in cash and all my credit cards.”
“Have you notified your bank?”
“Of course.”
“And you think your assailant was a Percy Shelley?”
“Yes,” replied the Milton. “He handed me this pamphlet on rejecting current religious dogma before he ran off.”
“Hello, Ross,” I said.
The sergeant looked at me, paused for a moment and then broke into a huge grin.
“Thursday! They told me you’d be coming back! Told me you made it all the way to SO-5 too.”
I returned his smile. Ross had been the desk sergeant when I had first joined the Swindon police.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Starting up a regional office? SO-9 or something? Add a touch of spice to tired old Swindon?”
“Not exactly. I’ve transferred into the Litera Tec office.”
A look of doubt crossed Ross’s face but he quickly hid it.
“Great!” he enthused, slightly uneasily. “Drink later?”
I agreed happily, and after getting directions to the Litera Tec office, left Ross arguing with Milton 496.
I took the winding stair to the upper floor and then followed directions to the far end of the building. The entire west