A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (33 page)

I had disrupted
Jane Eyre
quite considerably; my cry of “Jane, Jane, Jane!” at her window had altered the book for good. It was against my training, against everything that I had sworn to uphold. I didn't see it as anything more than a simple act of contrition for what I felt was my responsibility over Rochester's wounds and the burning of Thornfield. I had acted out of compassion, not duty, and sometimes that is no bad thing.

THURSDAY NEXT
—private diaries

A
T FIVE
past three I screeched to a halt outside the Church of Our Blessed Lady of the Lobsters, much to the surprise of the photographer and the driver of a large Hispano-Suiza that was parked in readiness for the happy couple. I took a deep breath, paused to gather my thoughts and, shaking slightly, walked up the steps to the main doors. The organ music was playing loudly and my pace, which up to that point had been a run, suddenly slowed as my nerve abandoned me. What the hell was I playing at? Did I think I had any real chance of appearing from nowhere after a ten-year absence and then expecting the man I was once in love with just to drop everything and marry me?

“Oh yes,” said a woman to her companion as they walked past me, “Landen and Daisy are
so
much in love!”

My walk slowed to a snail's pace as I found myself hoping to be too late and have the burden of decision taken from me. The church was full, and I slid unnoticed into the back, just next to the lobster-shaped font. I could see Landen and Daisy at the front, attended to by a small bevy of pages and bridesmaids. There were many uniformed guests in the small church, friends of Landen's from the Crimea. I could see someone whom I took to be Daisy's mother sniveling into her handkerchief and her father looking impatiently at his watch. On Landen's side his mother was on her own.

“I require and charge you both,” the clergyman was saying, “that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it.”

He paused, and several guests shuffled. Mr. Mutlar, whose lack of chin had been amply compensated by increased girth in his neck, seemed ill at ease and looked about the church nervously. The clergyman turned to Landen and opened his mouth to speak, but as he did so there came a loud, clear voice from the back of the church:

“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment!”

One hundred and fifty heads turned to see who the speaker was. One of Landen's friends laughed out loud; he obviously thought it was a joke. The speaker's countenance did not, however, look as though any humor was intended. Daisy's father was having none of it. Landen was a good catch for his daughter and a small and tasteless joke was not going to delay her wedding.

“Proceed!” he said, his face like thunder.

The clergyman looked at the speaker, then at Daisy and Landen, and finally at Mr. Mutlar.

“I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted and evidence of its truth or falsehood,” he said with a pained expression; nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

Mr. Mutlar had turned an unhealthy shade of crimson and might have struck the speaker had he been close enough.

“What is this nonsense?” he shouted instead, setting the room buzzing.

“Not nonsense, sir,” replied the speaker in a clear voice. “Bigamy is hardly nonsense, I think, sir.”

I stared at Landen, who looked confused at the turn of events. Was he married already? I couldn't believe it. I looked back at the speaker and my heart missed a beat. It was Mr. Briggs, the solicitor I had last seen in the church at Thornfield! There was a rustle close by and I turned to find Mrs. Nakijima standing next to me. She smiled and raised a finger to her lips. I frowned, and the clergyman spoke again.

“What is the nature of this impediment? Perhaps it may be got over—explained away?”

“Hardly,” was the answer. “I have called it insuperable and I speak advisedly. It consists simply of a previous marriage.”

Landen and Daisy looked at one another sharply.

“Who the hell are you?”
asked Mr. Mutlar, who seemed to be the only person galvanized into action.

“My name is Briggs, a solicitor of Dash Street, London.”

“Well, Mr. Briggs, perhaps you would be good enough to explain the previous marriage of Mr. Parke-Laine so we may all know the extent of this man's cowardly action.”

Briggs looked at Mr. Mutlar and then at the couple at the altar.

“My information does not concern Mr. Parke-Laine; I am speaking of Miss Mutlar, or, to give her her married name, Mrs. Daisy Posh!”

There was a gasp from the congregation. Landen looked at Daisy, who threw her garland on the floor. One of the bridesmaids started to cry, and Mr. Mutlar strode forward and took Daisy's arm.

“Miss Mutlar married Mr. Murray Posh on October 20, 1981,” yelled Mr. Briggs above the uproar. “The service was held at Southwark. There was no divorce petition filed.”

It was enough for everyone. A clamor started up as the Mutlar family beat a hasty retreat. The vicar offered an unheard-of prayer to no one in particular as Landen took a much needed seat on the pew that the Mutlar family had just vacated. Someone yelled “gold digger!” from the back, and the Mutlar family quickened their pace at the abuse that followed, much of which shouldn't have been heard in church. One of the pages tried to kiss a bridesmaid in the confusion and was slapped for his trouble. I leaned against the cool stone of the church and wiped the tears from my eyes. I know it was wrong of me, but I was laughing. Briggs stepped through the arguing guests and joined us, tipping his hat respectfully.

“Good afternoon, Miss Next.”

“A
very
good afternoon, Mr. Briggs! What on earth are you doing here?”

“The Rochesters sent me.”

“But I only left the book three hours ago!”

Mrs. Nakijima interrupted.

“You left it barely twelve pages from the end. In that time over ten years have elapsed at Thornfield; time enough for
much
planning!”

“Thornfield?”

“Rebuilt, yes. My husband retired and he and I manage the house these days. None of us is mentioned in the book and Mrs. Rochester aims to keep it that way; much more pleasant than Osaka and certainly more rewarding than the tourist business.”

There didn't seem much I could say.

“Mrs. Jane Rochester asked Mrs. Nakijima to bring me here to assist,” said Mr. Briggs simply. “She and Mr. Rochester were eager to help you as you helped them. They wish you all
happiness and health for the future and thank you for your timely intervention.”

I smiled.

“How are they?”

“Oh, they're fine, miss,” replied Briggs happily. “Their firstborn is now five; a fine healthy boy, the image of his father. Jane produced a beautiful daughter this spring gone past. They have named her Helen Thursday Rochester.”

I looked across at Landen, who was standing at the entrance to the church and trying to explain to his Aunt Ethel what was going on.

“I must speak to him.”

But I was talking to myself. Mrs. Nakijima and the solicitor had gone; melted back to Thornfield to report to Jane and Edward on a job well done.

As I approached, Landen sat on the church steps, took out his carnation and sniffed at it absently.

“Hello, Landen.”

Landen looked up and blinked.

“Ah,” he said, “Thursday. I might have known.”

“May I join you?”

“Be my guest.”

I sat down next to him on the warm limestone steps. He stared straight ahead.

“Was this your doing?” he asked at last.

“No, indeed,” I replied. “I confess I came here to interrupt the wedding but my nerve failed me.”

He looked at me.

“Why?”

“Why? Well, because . . . because I thought I'd make a better Mrs. Parke-Laine than Daisy, I suppose.”

“I know
that,
” exclaimed Landen, “and agree wholeheartedly. What I wanted to know is why your nerve failed you. After
all, you chase after master criminals, indulge in high-risk SpecOps work, will quite happily go against orders to rescue comrades under an intense artillery barrage, yet—”

“I get the point. I don't know. Maybe those sorts of yes-or-no life-and-death decisions are easier to make because they are so black and white. I can cope with them because it's easier. Human emotions, well . . . they're just a fathomless collection of grays and I don't do so well on the midtones.”

“Midtones is where I've lived for the past ten years, Thursday.”

“I know and I'm sorry. I had a lot of trouble reconciling what I felt for you and what I saw as your betrayal of Anton. It was an emotional tug-of-war and I was the little pocket handkerchief in the middle, tied to the rope, not moving.”

“I loved him too, Thursday. He was the closest thing to a brother that I ever had. But I couldn't hang onto my end of the rope forever.”

“I left something behind in the Crimea,” I murmured, “but I think I've found it again. Is there time to try and make it all work?”

“Bit eleventh-hour, isn't it?” he said with a grin.

“No,” I replied, “more like three seconds to midnight!”

He kissed me gently on the lips. It felt warm and satisfying, like coming home to a roaring log fire after a long walk in the rain. My eyes welled up and I sobbed quietly into his collar as he held me tightly.

“Excuse me,” said the vicar, who had been lurking close by. “I'm sorry to have to interrupt, but I have another wedding to perform at three-thirty.”

We muttered our apologies and stood up. The wedding guests were still waiting for some sort of decision. Nearly all of them knew about Landen and me and few, if any, thought Daisy a better match.

“Will you?” asked Landen in my ear.

“Will I what?” I asked, stifling a giggle.

“
Fool!
Will you marry me?”

“Hmm,” I replied, heart thumping like the artillery in the Crimea. “I'll have to think about it!—”

Landen raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yes! Yes,
yes!
I will, I will, with all my heart!”

“At last!” said Landen with a sigh. “The lengths I have to go to to get the woman I love! . . .”

We kissed again but for longer this time; so long in fact that the vicar, still staring at his watch, had to tap Landen on the shoulder.

“Thank you for the rehearsal,” said Landen, shaking the vicar vigorously by the hand. “We'll be back in a month's time for the real thing!”

The vicar shrugged. This was fast becoming the most ludicrous wedding of his career.

“Friends,” announced Landen to the remaining guests, “I would like to announce the engagement of myself to this lovely SpecOps agent named Thursday Next. As you know, she and I have had our differences in the past but they are now
quite
forgotten. There is a marquee at my house stuffed with food and drink and I understand Holroyd Wilson will be playing from six o'clock onward. It would be a crime to waste it all so I suggest we just change the reason!”

There was an excited yell from the guests as they started to organize transport for themselves. Landen and I went in my car but we drove the long way round. We had plenty to talk about and the party . . . well, it could continue without us for a while.

The celebrations didn't finish until 4
A
.
M
. I drank too much and took a cab back to the hotel. Landen was all for me staying the night, but I told him slightly coquettishly that he could wait
until after the wedding. I vaguely remember getting back to my hotel room but nothing else; it was blackness until the phone rang at nine the following morning. I was half dressed, Pickwick was watching breakfast TV, and my head ached like it was fit to burst.

It was Victor. He didn't sound in a terribly good mood but politeness was one of his stronger points. He asked me how I was.

I looked at the alarm clock as a hammer banged inside my head.

“I've been better. How are things at work?”

“Not brilliant,” replied Victor with a certain reserve in his voice. “The Goliath Corporation want to speak to you about Jack Schitt and the Brontë Federation are hopping mad over the damage to the book. Was it
absolutely
necessary to burn Thornfield to the ground?”

“That was Hades—”

“And Rochester? Blinded and with a shattered hand? I suppose that was Hades too?”

“Well, yes.”

“This is the mother of all balls-ups, Thursday. You'd better come in and explain yourself to these Brontë people. I've got their Special Executive Committee with me and they are not here to pin a medal on your chest.”