The Eyre Affair

‘My chief interest in all the work that I have conducted over the past forty or so years has been concerned with the elasticity of bodies. One tends to think only of substances such as rubber in this category but almost everything one can think of can be bent and stretched. I include, of course, space, time, distance and reality…”

Professor Myceoft Next

‘Crofty—!’

‘Polly—!’

They met at the shores of the lake, next to the swathe of daffodils that rocked gently in the warm breeze. The sun shone brightly, throwing a dappled light upon the grassy bank on which they found themselves. All about them the heavy scent of summer lay upon the land, bringing with it a feeling of calm and serenity that hushed the senses and relaxed the soul. A little way down the water’s edge an old man in a black cape was seated upon a stone, idly throwing pebbles into the crystal water. It might have been almost perfect, in fact, apart from the presence of Felix8, his face not yet healed, standing on the daffodils and keeping a careful eye on his charges. Worried about Mycroft’s commitment to his plan, Acheron had allowed him back into ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ to see his wife.

‘Have you been well, my love?’ asked Mycroft.

She pointed surreptitiously in the direction of the caped figure.

‘I’ve been fine, although Mr W over there seems to think that he’s God’s gift to women. He invited me to join him in a few unpublished works. A few flowery phrases and he thinks I’m his.’

‘The cad!’ exclaimed Mycroft, getting up. ‘I think I might just punch him on the nose!’

Polly pulled his sleeve and made him sit down. She was flushed and excited at the idea of her septuagenarian husband and Wordsworth getting into a fight over her—it would have been quite a boast at the Women’s Federation meeting.

‘Well, really—!’ said Mycroft. ‘These poets are terrible philanderers.’ He paused. ‘You said no, of course?’

‘Well, yes, naturally.’

She looked at Mycroft with her sweetest smile, but he had moved on.

‘Don’t leave “Daffodils” otherwise I won’t know where to find you.’

He held her hand and together they looked out across the lake. There was no opposite shore, and the pebbles that Wordsworth flicked into the water popped back out after a moment or two and landed back on the foreshore. Aside from that, the countryside was indistinguishable from reality.

‘I did something a bit silly,’ announced Mycroft quite suddenly, looking down and smoothing the soft grass with his palm.

‘How silly?’ asked Polly, mindful of the precariousness of the situation.

‘I burned the Chuzzlewit manuscript.’

‘You did what?’

‘I said—‘

‘I heard. Such an original manuscript is almost beyond value. Whatever made you do a thing like that?’

Mycroft sighed. It was not an action he had taken upon himself lightly.

‘Without the original manuscript,’ he explained, ‘major disruption of the work is impossible. I told you that maniac removed Mr. Quaverley and had him killed. I didn’t think he’d stop there. Who would be next? Mrs. Gamp? Mr. Pecksniff? Martin Chuzzlewit himself? I rather think I might have been doing the world a favour.’

‘And destroying the manuscript stops this, does it?’

‘Of course; no original manuscript, no mass disruption.’

She held his hand tightly as a shadow fell across them both. ‘Time’s up,’ said Felix8.

I had been right and wrong over my predictions regarding Acheron’s actions. As Mycroft told me later, Hades had been furious when he discovered that no one had taken him seriously, but Mycroft’s action in destroying Chuzzlewit simply made him laugh. For a man unused to being hoodwinked, he enjoyed the experience. Instead of tearing him limb from limb as Mycroft had suspected, he merely shook him by the hand.

‘Congratulations, Mr Next.’ He smiled. ‘Your act was brave and ingenious. Brave, ingenious but sadly self- defeating. I didn’t choose Chuzzlewit by chance, you know.’

‘No?’ retorted Mycroft.

‘No. I was made to study the book at O-level and really got to hate the smug little shit. All that moralising and endless harking on about the theme of selfishness. I find Chuzzlewit only marginally less tedious than Our Mutual Friend. Even if they had paid the ransom I would have killed him anyway and enjoyed the experience tremendously.’

He stopped talking, smiled at Mycroft and continued:

‘Your intervention has allowed Martin Chuzzlewit to continue his adventures. Todger’s boarding house will not be torched and they can continue their unamusing little lives unperturbed.’

‘I am glad of that,’ replied Mycroft.

‘Save your sentiments, Mr Next, I haven’t finished. In view of your actions I will have to find an alternative. A book which unlike Chuzzlewit has genuine literary merits.’

‘Not Great Expectations’?’

Acheron looked at him sadly.

‘We’re beyond Dickens now, Mr Next. I would have liked to have gone into Hamlet and throttled that insufferably gloomy Dane, or even skipped into Romeo and Juliet and snuffed out that little twerp Romeo.’ He sighed before continuing. ‘Sadly, none of the Bard’s original manuscripts survive.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps the Bennett family could do with some thinning…’

‘Pride and Prejudice!?’ yelled Mycroft. ‘You heartless monster!’

‘Flattery will not help you now, Mycroft. Pride and Prejudice without Elizabeth or Darcy would be a trifle lame, don’t you think? But perhaps not Austen. Why not Trollope? A well-placed nail-bomb in Barchester might be an amusing distraction. I’m sure the loss of Mr Crawley would cause a few feathers to fly. So you see, my dear Mycroft, saving Mr Chuzzlewit might have been a very foolish act indeed.’

He smiled again and spoke to Felix8.

‘My friend, why don’t you make some enquiries and find out the extent of original manuscripts and their whereabouts?’

Felix8 looked at Acheron coldly.

‘I’m not a clerk, sir. I think Mr Hobbes would be eminently more suitable for that task.’

Acheron frowned. Of all the Felixes only Felix3 had ever contradicted a direct order. The hapless Felix3 was liquidated following a very disappointing performance when he hesitated during a robbery. It had been Acheron’s own fault, of course; he had tried to endow Felix3 with slightly more personality at the expense of allowing him a pinch of morality. Ever since then he had given up on the Felixes as anything but loyal servants; Hobbes and Dr Mьller had to be his company these days.

‘Hobbes!’ shouted Hades at the top of his voice. The unemployed actor scuttled in from the direction of the kitchens holding a large wooden spoon.

‘Yes, sire?’

Acheron repeated the order to Hobbes, who bowed and withdrew.

‘Felix8!’

‘Sir?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble, lock Mycroft in his room. I dare say we will have no need of him for a couple of weeks. Give him no water for two days and no food for five. That should be punishment enough for disposing of