Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
“I should like to do magic,” said the fox-haired, fox-faced gentleman at the other end of the table. “I should have a ball every night with fairy music and fairy fireworks and I would summon all the most beautiful women out of history to attend. Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, Maid Marian and Madame Pompadour. I should bring them all here to dance with you fellows. And when the French appeared on the horizon, I would just,” he waved his arm vaguely, “do something, you know, and they would all fall down dead.”
“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”
Lord Wellington nodded as if this was just as he would have expected. And then he said, “This road, Mr Strange, which you have been so good as to offer us, what sort of road would it be?”
“Oh! The details are the easiest thing in the world to arrange, my lord. What sort of road would you like?”
The officers and gentlemen around Lord Wellington’s dinner-table looked at each other; they had not given the matter any thought.
“A chalk road, perhaps?” said Strange, helpfully. “A chalk road is pretty.”
“Too dusty in the dry and a river of mud in the rain,” said Lord Wellington. “No, no. A chalk road will never do. A chalk road is scarcely better than no road at all.”
“What about a cobbled road?” suggested Colonel Murray.
“Cobbles will make the men’s boots wear out,” said Wellington.
“And besides the artillery will not like it,” said the fox-haired, fox-faced gentleman, “They will have a devil of a time dragging the guns along a cobbled road.”
Someone else suggested a gravel road. But that, thought Wellington, was liable to the same objection as a chalk road: it would become a river of mud in the rain – and the Portuguese did seem to think that it would rain again tomorrow.
“No,” said his lordship, “I believe, Mr Strange, that what would suit us best would be a road along the Roman pattern, with a nice ditch upon either side to drain off the water and good flat stones well fitted together on top.”
“Very well,” said Strange.
“We set off at daybreak,” said Wellington.
“Then, my lord, if someone would be good enough to shew me where the road ought to go, I shall see to it immediately.”
By morning the road was in place and Lord Wellington rode along it on Copenhagen – his favourite horse – and Strange rode beside him on Egyptian – who was his favourite horse. In his customary decisive manner Wellington pointed out those things which he particularly liked about the road and those things which he did not like; “… But really I have hardly any criticisms to make. It is an excellent road! Only make it a little wider tomorrow, if you please.”
Lord Wellington and Strange agreed that as a general rule the road should be in place a couple of hours before the first regiment stepped on to it and disappear an hour after the last soldier had passed along it. This was to prevent the French Army from gaining any benefit from the roads. The success of this plan depended on Wellington’s Staff providing Strange with accurate information as to when the Army was likely to begin and end marching. Obviously these calculations were not always correct. A week or so after the first appearance of the road Colonel Mackenzie of the 11th Foot came to see Lord Wellington in a great temper and complained that the magician had allowed the road to disappear before his regiment could reach it.
“By the time we got to Celorico, my lord, it was disappearing under our feet! An hour after that it had vanished entirely. Could not the magician summon up visions to find out what the different regiments are doing? I understand that this is something he can do very easily! Then he could make sure that the roads do not disappear until everyone has finished with them.”
Lord Wellington said sharply, “The magician has a great deal to do. Beresford needs roads.3 I need roads. I really cannot ask Mr Strange to be forever peering into mirrors and bowls of water to discover where every stray regiment has got to. You and your lads must keep up, Colonel Mackenzie. That is all.”
Shortly after this the British Headquarters received intelligence of something that had befallen a large part of the French Army as it was marching from Guarda to Sabugal. A patrol had been sent out to look at the road between the two towns, but some Portuguese had come along and told the patrol that this was one of the English magician’s roads and was certain to disappear in an hour or two taking everyone upon it to Hell – or possibly England. As soon as this rumour reached the ears of the soldiers they declined absolutely to walk along the road – which was in fact perfectly real and had existed for almost a thousand years. Instead the French followed some serpentine route over mountains and through rocky valleys that wore out their boots and tore their clothes and delayed them for several days.
Lord Wellington could not have been more delighted.
30
The book of Robert Findhelm
January–February 1812
A magician’s house is expected to have certain peculiarities, but the most peculiar feature of Mr Norrell’s house was, without a doubt, Childermass. In no other household in London was there any servant like him. One day he might be observed removing a dirty cup and wiping crumbs from a table like a common footman. The next day he would interrupt a room full of admirals, generals and noblemen to tell them in what particulars he considered them mistaken. Mr Norrell had once publicly reprimanded the Duke of Devonshire for speaking at the same time as Childermass.
On a misty day at the end of January 1812 Childermass entered the library at Hanover-square where Mr Norrell was working and briefly informed him that he was obliged to go away upon business and did not know when he would return. Then, having given the other servants various instructions about the work they were to do in his absence, he mounted his horse and rode away.
In the three weeks that followed Mr Norrell received four letters from him: one from Newark in Nottinghamshire, one from York in the East Riding of Yorkshire, one from Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire and one from Sheffield in the West Riding of Yorkshire. But the letters were only about business matters and threw no light upon his mysterious journey.
He returned one night in the second half of February. Lascelles and Drawlight had dined at Hanover-square and were in the drawing-room with Mr Norrell when Childermass entered. He came directly from the stables; his boots and breeches were splashed with mud and his coat was still damp with rain.
“Where in the world have you been?” demanded Mr Norrell.
“In Yorkshire,” said Childermass, “making inquiries about Vinculus.”
“Did you see Vinculus?” asked Drawlight, eagerly.
“No, I did not.”
“Do you know where he is?” asked Mr Norrell.
“No, I do not.”
“Have you found Vinculus’s book?” asked Lascelles.
“No, I have not.”
“Tut,” said Lascelles. He eyed Childermass disapprovingly. “If you take my advice, Mr Norrell, you will not permit Mr Childermass to waste any more time upon Vinculus. No one has heard or seen any thing of him for years. He is probably dead.”
Childermass sat down upon the sopha like a man who had a perfect right to do so and said, “The cards say he is not dead. The cards say he is still alive and still has the book.”
“The cards! The cards!” cried Mr Norrell. “I have told you a thousand times how I detest any mention of those objects! You will oblige me by removing them from my house and never speaking of them again!”
Childermass threw his master a cool look. “Do you wish to hear what I have learnt or not?” he asked.
Mr Norrell nodded sullenly.
“Good,” said Childermass. “In your interest, Mr Norrell, I have taken care to improve my acquaintance with all Vinculus’s wives. It has always seemed to me nigh on impossible that one of them did not
“Which one is Nan Purvis?” inquired Lascelles.
“The first. She told me something that happened twenty or thirty years ago when Vinculus and she were first married. They had been drinking at a gin-house. They had spent their money and exhausted their credit and it was time to return to their lodgings. They staggered along the street and in the gutter they saw a creature even worse for drink than themselves. An old man was lying there, dead drunk. The filthy water flowed around him and over his face, and it was only by chance that he did not drown. Something about this wretch caught Vinculus’s eye. It seemed that he recognized him. He went and peered at him. Then he laughed and gave the old man a vicious kick. Nan asked Vinculus who the old man was. Vinculus said his name was Clegg. She asked how he knew him. Vinculus replied angrily that he did not know Clegg. He said he had never known Clegg! What was more, he told her, he was determined never to know him! In short there was no one in the world whom he despised more than Clegg! When Nan complained that this was not a very full explanation, Vinculus grudgingly said that the man was his father. After this he refused to say any more.”
“But what has this to do with any thing?” interrupted Mr Norrell. “Why do you not ask these wives of Vinculus’s about the book?”
Childermass looked annoyed. “I did so, sir. Four years ago. You may remember I told you. None of them knew any thing about it.”
With an exasperated wave of his hand Mr Norrell indicated that Childermass was to continue.
“Some months later Nan was in a tavern, listening to an account of a hanging at York that someone was reading from a newspaper. Nan loved to hear of a good hanging and this report particularly impressed her because the name of the man who had been executed was Clegg. It stuck in her mind and that evening she told Vinculus. To her surprize, she found that he already knew all about it and that it was indeed his father. Vinculus was delighted Clegg had been hanged. He said Clegg richly deserved it. He said Clegg had been guilty of a terrible crime – the worst crime committed in England in the last hundred years.”
“What crime?” asked Lascelles.
“At first Nan could not bring it to mind,” said Childermass. “But with a little persistent questioning and the promise of more gin she remembered. He had stolen a book.”
“A book!” exclaimed Mr Norrell.
“Oh, Mr Norrell!” cried Drawlight. “It must be the same book. It must be Vinculus’s book!”
“Is it?” asked Mr Norrell.
“I believe so,” said Childermass.
“But did this woman know what the book was?” said Mr Norrell.
“No, that was the end of Nan’s information. So I rode north to York, where Clegg had been tried and executed, and I examined the records of the Quarter Sessions. The first thing I discovered was that Clegg was originally from Richmond in Yorkshire. Oh yes!” Here Childermass glanced meaningfully at Mr Norrell. “Vinculus is, by descent at least, a Yorkshireman.1 Clegg began life as a tightrope walker at the northern fairs, but as tightrope-walking is not a trade that combines well with drinking – and Clegg was a famous drinker – he was obliged to give it up. He returned to Richmond and hired himself out as a servant on a prosperous farm. He did well there and impressed the farmer with his cleverness, so that he began to be entrusted with more and more business. From time to time he would go drinking with bad companions and on these occasions he never stopped at one bottle or two. He drank until the spigots gave out and the cellars were emptied. He was mad-drunk for days and in that time he got up to all sorts of mischief – thieving, gambling, fighting, destruction of property – but he always made sure that these wild adventures took place far away from the farm and he always had some plausible excuse to explain his absence so that his master, the farmer, never suspected any thing was amiss, though the other servants knew all about it. The farmer’s name was Robert Findhelm. He was a quiet, kindly, respectable sort of man – the sort of man easily deceived by a rogue like Clegg. The farm had been in his family for generations, but once, long ago, it had been one of the granges of the Abbey of Easby …”
Mr Norrell drew in his breath sharply and fidgeted in his chair.
Lascelles looked inquiringly at him.
“Easby Abbey was one of the foundations of the Raven King,” explained Mr Norrell.
“As was Hurtfew,” added Childermass.
“Indeed!” said Lascelles in surprize.2 “I confess that after all you have said about him, I am surprized that you live in a house so closely connected to him.”
“You do not understand,” said Mr Norrell, irritably. “We are speaking of Yorkshire, of John Uskglass’s Kingdom of Northern England where he lived and ruled for three hundred years. There is scarcely a village, scarcely a field even, that does not have some close connexion with him.”
Childermass continued. “Findhelm’s family possessed something else that had once belonged to the Abbey – a treasure that had been given into their keeping by the last Abbot and which was handed down from father to son with the land.”
“A book of magic?” asked Norrell, eagerly.
“If what they told me in Yorkshire is true, it was more than a book of magic. It was The Book of Magic. A book written by the Raven King and set down in his own hand.”
There was a silence.
“Is this possible?” Lascelles asked Mr Norrell.
Mr Norrell did not answer. He was sitting deep in thought, wholly taken up with this new, and not altogether pleasant, idea.
At last he spoke, but it was more as if he were speaking his thoughts out loud, rather than answering Lascelles’s question. “A book belonging to Raven King or written by him is one of the great follies of English magic. Several people have imagined that they have found it or that they know where it is hidden. Some of them were clever men who might have written important works of scholarship but instead wasted their lives in pursuit of the King’s book. But that is not to say that such a book might not exist somewhere …”
“And if it did exist,” urged Lascelles, “and if it were found – what then?”
Mr Norrell shook his head and would not reply.
Childermass answered for him. “Then all of English magic would have to be reinterpreted in the light of what was found there.”
Lascelles raised an eyebrow. “Is this true?” he asked.
Mr Norrell hesitated and looked very much as if he would like to say that it was not.
“Do you believe that this was the King’s book?” Lascelles asked Childermass.
Childermass shrugged. “Findhelm certainly believed it. In Richmond I discovered two old people who had been servants in Findhelm’s house in their youth. They said that the King’s book was the pride of his existence. He was Guardian of The Book first, and all else – husband, parent, farmer – second.” Childermass paused. “The greatest glory and the greatest burden given to any man in this Age,” he mused. “Findhelm seems to have been a theoretical magician himself in a small way. He bought books about magic and paid a magician in Northallerton to teach him. But one thing struck me as very curious – both these old servants insisted that Findhelm never read the King’s book and had only the vaguest notion of what it contained.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr Norrell, softly.
Lascelles and Childermass looked at him.
“So he could not read it,” said Mr Norrell. “Well, that is very …” He fell silent, and began to chew on his fingernails.
“Perhaps it was in Latin,” suggested Lascelles.
“And why do you assume that Findhelm did not know Latin?” replied Childermass with some irritation. “Just because he was a farmer …”
“Oh! I meant no disrespect to farmers in
Childermass retorted that of course Findhelm would have recognized Latin. He was not a fool.
To which Lascelles coldly replied that he had never said he was.
The quarrel was becoming heated when they were both suddenly silenced by Mr Norrell saying slowly and thoughtfully, “When the Raven King first came into England, he could not read and write. Few people could in those days – even kings. And the Raven King had been brought up in a fairy house where there was no writing. He had never even seen writing before. His new human servants shewed it to him and explained its purpose. But he was a young man then, a very young man, perhaps no more than fourteen or fifteen years of age. He had already conquered kingdoms in two different worlds and he had all the magic a magician could desire. He was full of arrogance and pride. He had no wish to read other men’s thoughts. What were other men’s thoughts compared to his own? So he refused to learn to read and write Latin – which was what his servants wanted – and instead he invented a writing of his own to preserve his thoughts for later times. Presumably this writing mirrored the workings of his own mind more closely than Latin could have done. That was at the very beginning. But the longer he remained in England, the more he changed, becoming less silent, less solitary – less like a fairy and more like a man. Eventually he consented to learn to read and write as other men did. But he did not forget his own writing – the King’s Letters, as it is called – and he taught it to certain favoured magicians so that they might understand his magic more perfectly. Martin Pale mentions the King’s Letters and so does Belasis, but neither of them had ever seen so much as a single penstroke of it. If a piece of it has survived and in the King’s own hand, then certainly …” Mr Norrell fell silent again.