“A wife?” said the butler, in his sickly, sticky voice. “Whatever would he want a wife for?”
Mr. Jelliby frowned. “Well… well, I don’t know, but I saw a—”
“Here we are. The green library. Tea will be served directly.”
They had stopped in front of a tall pointed door made from panes of green glass that were shaped like eels and seaweed and water serpents, all twisting and writhing around one another.
The butler tapped against it with one of his long yellow fingernails. “Mi Sathir?” he whined. “Kath eccis melar. Arthur Jelliby is arrived.” Then he turned and melted away into the dark.
The door opened silently. Mr. Jelliby felt sure the faery politician would poke his head out and greet him, but no one appeared. He poked his own head in. A very long room stretched away in front of him. It was a library, but it did not look very green. A few lamps had been lit, making the room almost welcoming compared to the rest of the house. Chairs and carpets and little tables filled the floor, and every inch of the walls was covered with … oh. The books were green. All of them. They were many different shades and sizes, and in the half-light they had looked like any other books, but now that Mr. Jelliby’s eyes had adjusted he could see that this was indeed a library of green books. He took a few steps, shaking his head slowly. He wondered whether in this strange house there was also a blue library for blue books, or a burgundy library for those of the burgundy persuasion.
At the far end of the room, silhouetted against the glow of a fire, three figures sat.
“Good evening, young Jelliby,” the faery politician called to him as he approached. It was a very quiet call, if such a thing were possible, spoken very coldly. Mr. Lickerish was obviously not about to make a lie of the fact that none of them were welcome here.
“Good evening, Lord Chancellor,” said Mr. Jelliby, and managed a halfhearted smile. “Mr. Lumbidule, Mr. Throgmorton. What a pleasure.” He bowed to the two men, and they nodded back. Apparently they were not going to make a lie of anything, either. After all, they were in opposing parties to Mr. Jelliby’s. He sat down hastily in one of the empty chairs.
A low table had been laid with edibles. The faery butler drifted in with a silver kettle, and then everything looked very respectable and English-like. It didn’t taste English, though. It didn’t even taste French. What had seemed to be proper liver-paste sandwiches tasted remarkably like cold autumn wind. The tea smelled of ladybeetles, and the lemon tart was bitter in a not-at-all lemony way. To make matters worse there were two sumptuous onyx perfume burners on either side of the little gathering, spewing a greenish smoke into the atmosphere. It was so sweet and cloying, and it made Mr. Jelliby think of splitting overripe fruit, of mold, and buzzing flies. Almost like the smell in the chamber of the Privy Council, after Mr. Lickerish’s fingers had twitched in his waistcoat pocket.
Mr. Jelliby laid his lemon tart aside. He stole a look at the other two gentlemen. They didn’t seem to be in any discomfort at all. They nipped at their ladybeetle tea, smiling and nodding as if to show their appreciation for everything in general. When one of them spoke, it was to say something so pointless that Mr. Jelliby could not remember it two seconds afterward. As for the faery, he sat perfectly still, arms folded, not eating, not drinking.
Mr. Jelliby took a small, gasping breath. The green fumes wriggled in his throat, making his lungs feel as if they were being stuffed with silk. A fog began to creep about the corners of his vision. The room felt suddenly unsteady. The floor swayed, bucked, like wooden waves in a wooden sea. Vaguely he heard Mr. Throgmorton asking after the weight of Mr. Lumbidule’s mechanical hunting boar. “It must be shot with a special sort of gun,” Mr. Lumbidule was saying. “… has real blood inside, real meat, and if you are tired of hunting it, it will lie down on its iron back and …”
Mr. Jelliby could take it no longer. Wiping his brow he said, “Forgive me, Mr. Lickerish, but I am feeling unwell. Is there a water closet nearby?” The two other men stopped their blathering long enough to smirk at him. Mr. Jelliby barely noticed. He was too busy trying not to vomit.
The faery’s mouth twitched. He regarded Mr. Jelliby sharply for a moment. Then he said, “Of course there is a water closet. Left of the door you’ll find a bellpull. Someone will come to escort you.”
“Oh …” Mr. Jelliby lurched out of his seat and stumbled away from the chairs. His head was spinning. On his way across the room he thought he might have knocked something over—he heard a clatter and felt something delicate grind to glassy shards under his feet—but he was too dizzy to stop.
He staggered out of the library, fumbling along the wall for the bellpull. His fingers brushed a tassel. His hand closed around a thick velvet cord and he tugged it with all his might. Somewhere deep in the house a bell tinkled.
He waited, listening for the sound of footsteps, a door opening, a voice. Nothing. The bell faded away. He heard the rain again, drumming on the roof.
He pulled a second time. Another tinkle. still nothing.
Fine. He would find the privy himself. Now that he was out of the green library, he was feeling better anyway. His head was beginning to clear, and his stomach had settled. A splash of cold water, perhaps, and he’d be well enough. He began wandering back the way he had come, down the winding staircase and into the passageway below, trying the doors as he passed them to see if there might be a privy behind one. His mind went back to the brightly lit corridor, the woman hurrying down it. He wondered who she was. She hadn’t been a servant. Not with those rich clothes. Nor had she looked like a faery.
Mr. Jelliby came to the end of the hallway and turned down another one. It was the same one he had been in not twenty minutes before, but now that he was alone it looked somehow darker and more forbidding. It led to a large dingy room, with furniture all covered in dust sheets. That room led to another hallway, which led into a room full of empty birdcages, and then a smoking room, none of which looked any-thing like the rooms he remembered passing through earlier. He realized he wasn’t looking for a privy anymore. He was looking for the gaslit corridor, wondering if the woman might still be there, wondering if he could find out who she was. He was just about to turn back and search in a different direction when one room opened into another and he found himself standing at the mouth of the brightly lit corridor.
He could have sworn it had been in a different place before. Hadn’t there been a pot of withered roses to the left of it? And a sideboard with a bone-white bowl? But here it was—the long, narrow corridor that looked so very like those in railway carriages. It was not as if it had moved.
The corridor was empty now. The doors on both sides were closed, no doubt locked by the goblin Mr. Jelliby had seen earlier. He stepped forward, listening. The distant patter of the rain was gone. There was no sound at all. Only a slight vibration, a hum more felt than heard. It was in the paneling, and the floor, and it tickled the inside of his forehead.
He walked all the way down the corridor, passing his hand over each door as he went. The wood of the last door was warm. A fire must be lit in the room beyond. He laid his ear against the door, listening. A heavy thud came from the other side, as if some large object had fallen to the floor. Was the lady there, then? was she the object that had fallen? Oh dear. Suppose she had tumbled from a chair while reaching for some-thing and was now lying broken on the floor. He turned the doorknob. It was locked. Gripping the knob with both hands, he began to shake it. Another sound came from behind the door, quick breaths and something like scratching. He began pounding. She certainly isn’t unconscious. But is she deaf? Or mute? Perhaps he should run and fetch a servant. But before he could rightly entertain this idea, there was a tremendous noise of splintering and breaking, and then the door lay in pieces at his feet. He was looking into a room that had a beautiful blazing fire and a desk carved with toads. It was empty. Far, far away he thought he heard a cry. So very far away he didn’t know if he had imagined it.
And then the faery butler was at the mouth of the corridor, his one green eye blazing, the machinery across the side