Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘Humph!’ replied Miss Havisham. ‘Don’t expect salvation from me every time you get yourself into a jam, my girl. Now, what’s all this about a baby ?’

The Cheshire cat, sensing trouble, vanished abruptly on the pretext of some ‘cataloguing’, and even Tweed mumbled something about checking Lorna Doone for grammasites and went too.

‘Well?’ asked Havisham again, peering at me intensely.

I didn’t feel quite as frightened of her as I once did, so I told her all about Landen and why I went into The Raven to begin with.

‘For love? Pah!’ she responded, dismissing Estella with a wave of her hand in case the young woman got any odd ideas. ‘And what, in your tragically limited experience, is that ?’

‘I think you know, ma’am. You were in love once, I believe?’

‘Stuff and nonsense, girl!’

‘Isn’t the pain you feel now the equal to the love you felt then ?’

‘You’re coming perilously close to contravening my rule two, girl!’

‘I’ll tell you what love is,’ I said ‘It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter!’

‘That was quite good,’ said Havisham, looking at me curiously. ‘Could I use that? Dickens won’t mind.’

‘Of course.’

‘I think,’ said Miss Havisham after five minutes of silent thought as I stood waiting, ‘that I shall categorise your complex marital question under widowed , which sits with me well enough. Upon reflection—and quite possibly against my better judgment—you may stay as my apprentice. That’s all. You are needed to help retrieve Cardenio . Go!’

So I left Miss Havisham in her darkened chamber with all the trappings of her wedding that never was. In the few days I had known her I had learned to like her a great deal, and hoped someday I might repay her kindness and fortitude.

Harris Tweed and the Cheshire cat took me back to the Library. We sat on a bench in front of the Boojumorial and Harris stared at me while the cat—who was nothing if not courteous—went and bought me a pasty from the snack bar just next to Mr Wemmick’s storeroom.

‘Where did she find you?’ snapped Harris. I was getting used to his aggressive mannerisms by now. If he thought as little of me as he made out, then I wouldn’t be here at all. The cat popped its head up between us and said:

‘Hot or cold pasty?’

‘Hot, please.’

‘Okay, then,’ he said, and vanished again.

I explained Havisham’s leap from the Goliath vault to the washing label; Tweed was clearly impressed. He had been apprenticed to Commander Bradshaw many years previously, and Bradshaw’s accuracy in book-jumping was as poor as Havisham’s was good—hence the commander’s interest in maps.

‘A washing label. Now that is impressive,’ mused Harris. ‘Not many PROs would even attempt to jump blind into less than a hundred words. Havisham took quite a risk with you, Miss Next. Cat, what do you think?’

‘I think,’ said the cat, handing me a steaming-hot pasty, ‘that you’ve forgotten the Moggilicious cat food you promised, hmm?’

‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘Next time.’

‘Okay,’ said the cat.

‘Right,’ said Harris, ‘to business. Tell me, who are the chief players in Cardenio ’s, discovery?’

‘Well,’ I began, ‘there’s Lord Volescamper, an hereditary peer—he said he found it in his library. Amiable chap—bit of a duffer. Then there’s Yorrick Kaine, a Whig politician who hopes to use the free distribution of the play to sway the Shakespeare vote in his favour at tomorrow’s election.’

‘I’ll see if I can find which book they’re from—if any at all,’ said the cat, and vanished.

‘Is that really likely?’ I asked. ‘Volescamper has been around since before the war, and Kaine has been on the political scene for at least five years.’

‘It means nothing, Miss Next. Mellors had a wife and family in Slough for two decades and Heathcliff worked in Hollywood for three years under the name of Buck Stallion—no one suspected a thing in either case.’

‘So tell me about Cardenio ,’ I said. ‘It is the Library’s copy, yes?’

‘Without a doubt. The disappearance a month ago was quite embarrassing—despite elaborate security arrangements someone managed to swipe it from under the cat’s whiskers. He’s very upset about it.’

‘Did you saying fig or whig ?’ enquired the cat, who had reappeared.

‘I said Whig ,’ I replied; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’

‘All right,’ said the cat; and this time he vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of his tail and ending with his grin.

‘He doesn’t seem terribly upset,’ I observed.

‘Looks can be deceptive—in the cat’s case, trebly so. The news of Cardenio ’s discovery in your world nearly gave the Bellman a fit. He was all for putting together one of his madcap and typically boojum-ridden expeditions. As soon as I found out that Kaine was going to make Cardenio public property, I knew we had to act and act fast.’

‘But listen,’ I said, my head spinning slightly with all this new intelligence, ‘why is it so important that Cardenio remains lost? It’s a brilliant play.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ replied Tweed, ‘but once a play or book is lost, it’s lost. There is always a reason. Besides, if the rest of the book world figures out there is something to gain by swiping library books, then we could be in one hell of a state.’

I mused over this for a moment.

‘Okay, so why am I here?’

‘Clearly, this is no place for an apprentice but you know the layout of Vole Towers as well as having met the key suspects—do you know where Cardenio is kept?’

‘In a combination-and-key safe within the library itself.

‘Good. But first we need to get in. Can you remember any of the other books in the library?’

I thought for a moment.

‘There was a rare first edition of Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.’

‘Come on,’ Tweed said abruptly. ‘We’re off.’

We took the elevator to Floor ‘W’ of the Library, found the copy we were looking for and were soon within the book, tiptoeing past a noisy party in the quad at Scone College. Tweed concentrated on the outward jump and a few moments later we were standing inside the locked library at Vole Towers.

‘Cat,’ said Harris, looking around at the untidy library, ‘you there?’ [ 21 21 ‘Loud and clear, whiskers pressed, fed and watered, boots on and laced, ready to—’ ]

‘A simple “yes” will do. Send the safe-crackers in by way of Decline and Fall . If they come across Captain Grimes, they are not to lend him money on any account . Anything on Volescamper or Kaine?’ [ 22 22 ‘Not yet—none of the names appears in the Register of Fictioneers. I’m just going through the reams of unpublished characters from the Well of Lost Plots—it might take some time.’ ]