Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
“Darkness, misery and solitude!” cried the gentleman in high glee. “That is what I have inflicted upon him and that is what he must suffer for the next hundred years! Oh! How cast down he is! I have won! I have won!” He clapped his hands and his eyes glittered.
In Strange’s room in the parish of Santa Maria Zobenigo three candles were burning: one upon the desk, one upon the top of the little painted cupboard and one in a wall-sconce by the door. An observer of the scene might have supposed them to be the only lights in all the world. From Strange’s window nothing could be seen but night and silence. Strange, unshaven, with red-rimmed eyes and wild hair, was doing magic.
Stephen stared at him with mingled pity and horror.
“And yet he is not so solitary as I would like,” remarked the gentleman, in a displeased tone. “There is someone with him.”
There was indeed. A small, dark man in expensive clothes was leaning against the little painted cupboard, watching Strange with an appearance of great interest and enjoyment. From time to time he would take out a little notebook and scribble in it.
“That is Lord Byron,” said Stephen.
“And who is he?”
“A very wicked gentleman, sir. A poet. He quarrelled with his wife and seduced his sister.”
“Really? Perhaps I will kill him.”
“Oh, do not do that, sir! True, his sins are very great, and he has been more or less driven out of England, but even so …”
“Oh! I do not care about his crimes against other people! I care about his crimes against me! He ought not to be here. Ah, Stephen, Stephen! Do not look so stricken. Why should you care what becomes of one wicked Englishman? I tell you what I will do: because of the great love I bear you, I will not kill him now. He may have another, oh!, another five years of life! But at the end of that he must die!”3
“Thank you, sir,” said Stephen, gratefully. “You are all generosity.”
Suddenly Strange raised his head and cried out, “I know you are there! You can hide from me if you wish, but it is too late! I know you are there!”
“Who are you talking to?” Byron asked him.
Strange frowned. “I am being watched. Spied upon!”
“Are you indeed? And do you know by whom?
“By a fairy and a butler!”
“A butler, eh?” said his lordship, laughing. “Well, one may say what one likes about imps and goblins, but butlers are the worst of them!”
“What?” said Strange.
The gentleman with the thistle-down hair was looking anxiously about the room. “Stephen! Can you see my little box anywhere?”
“Little box, sir?”
“Yes, yes! You know what I mean! The little box containing dear Lady Pole’s finger!”
“I do not see it, sir. But surely the little box does not matter any more? Now that you have defeated the magician?”
“Oh, there it is!” cried the gentleman. “See? You had put your hand down upon the table and accidentally hidden it from my view.”
Stephen moved his hand away. After a moment he said, “You do not pick it up, sir.”
To this remark the gentleman made no reply. Instead, he immediately returned to abusing the magician and glorying in his own victory.
“It is not his any more!” thought Stephen, with a thrill of excitement. “He may not take it! It belongs to the magician now! Perhaps the magician can use it somehow to free Lady Pole!” Stephen watched and waited to see what the magician would do. But at the end of half an hour he was forced to admit that the signs were scarcely hopeful. Strange strode about the room, muttering magic spells to himself and looking entirely deranged; Lord Byron questioned him about what he was doing and the answers that Strange gave were wild and incomprehensible (though quite to the taste of Lord Byron). And, as for the little box, Strange never once looked at it. For all that Stephen could tell, he had forgotten all about it.
58
Henry Woodhope pays a visit
December 1816
“You have done quite right in coming to me, Mr Woodhope. I have made a careful study of Mr Strange’s Venetian correspondence and, aside from the general horror of which you rightly speak, there is much in these letters which is hidden from the layman. I think I may say without vanity that, at this moment, I am the only man in England who is capable of understanding them.”
It was twilight, three days before Christmas. In the library at Hanover-square the candles and lamps had not yet been lit. It was that curious time of day when the sky is bright and full of colour, but all the streets are dim and shadowy. Upon the table there was a vase of flowers, but in the fading light it appeared to be a black vase of black flowers.
Mr Norrell sat by the window with Strange’s letters in his hands. Lascelles sat by the fire, regarding Henry Woodhope coolly.
“I confess to having been in a condition of some distress ever since I first received these letters,” said Henry Woodhope to Mr Norrell. “I have not known whom to turn to for help. To be truthful I have no interest in magic. I have not followed the fashionable quarrels about the subject. But everyone says that you are England’s greatest magician – and you were once Mr Strange’s tutor. I shall be very grateful to you, sir, for any advice you are able to give me.”
Mr Norrell nodded. “You must not blame Mr Strange,” he said. “The magical profession is a dangerous one. There is no other which so lays a man open to the perils of vanity. Politics and Law are harmless in comparison. You should understand, Mr Woodhope, that I tried very hard to keep him with me, to guide him. But his genius – which makes us all admire him – is the very thing which leads his reason astray. These letters shew that he has strayed much further than I could ever have supposed.”
“Strayed? Then you do not believe this queer tale of my sister being alive?”
“Not a word of it, sir, not a word of it. It is all his own unhappy imaginings.”
“Ah!” Henry Woodhope sat silent for a moment as if he were deciding upon the relative degrees of disappointment and relief that he felt. He said, “And what of Mr Strange’s curious complaint that Time has stopt? Can you make any thing of this, sir?”
Lascelles said, “We understand from our correspondents in Italy that for some weeks Mr Strange has been surrounded by Perpetual Darkness. Whether he has done this deliberately or whether it is a spell gone wrong we do not know. There is also the possibility that he has offended some Great Power and that this is the result. What is certain is that some action upon Mr Strange’s part has caused a disturbance in the Natural Order of Things.”
“I see,” said Henry Woodhope.
Lascelles looked at him rather severely. “It is something which Mr Norrell has striven hard all his life to avoid.”
“Ah,” said Henry. He turned to Mr Norrell. “But what should I do, sir? Ought I to go to him as he begs me to?”
Mr Norrell sniffed. “The most important question is, I believe, how soon we may contrive to bring him back to England, where his friends may care for him and bring to a rapid end the delusions that beset him.”
“Perhaps if you were to write to him, sir?”
“Ah, no. I fear my little stock of influence with Mr Strange all ran out some years ago. It was the war in Spain that did the mischief. Before he went to the Peninsula he was very content to stay with me and learn all I could teach him, but afterwards …” Mr Norrell sighed. “No, we must rely upon you, Mr Woodhope. You must make him come home and, since I suspect that your going to Venice could only prolong his stay in that city and persuade him that one person at least gives credit to his imaginings, then I most strongly urge you not to go.”
“Well, sir, I must confess that it makes me very glad to hear you say so. I shall certainly do as you advise. If you could pass me my letters I shall trouble you no longer.”
“Mr Woodhope,” said Lascelles. “Do not be in such a hurry, I beg you! Our conversation is by no means concluded. Mr Norrell has answered all your questions candidly a
Henry Woodhope frowned and looked puzzled. “Mr Norrell has relieved me of a great deal of anxiety. If there is any way in which I can serve Mr Norrell, then, of course, I shall be very happy. But I do not quite understand …”
“Perhaps I do not make myself clear,” said Lascelles, “I mean of course that Mr Norrell requires your help so that he may help Mr Strange. Is there any thing else you can tell us of Mr Strange’s Italian tour? What was he like before he fell into this sad condition? Was he in good spirits?”
“No!” said Henry indignantly, as though he thought some insult was implied in the question. “My sister’s death weighed very heavily on him! At least at first it did. At first he seemed very unhappy. But when he reached Genoa everything changed.” He paused. “He writes no word of it now, but before his letters were full of praise for a young lady – one of the party he is travelling with. And I could not help suspecting that he was thinking of marrying again.”
“A second marriage!” exclaimed Lascelles, “And so soon after the death of your sister? Dear me! How very shocking! How very distressing for you.”
Henry nodded unhappily.
There was a little pause and then Lascelles said, “I hope he gave no sign of this fondness for the society of other ladies before? I mean when Mrs Strange was alive. It would have caused her great unhappiness.”
“No! No, of course not!” cried Henry.
“I beg your pardon if I have offended you. I certainly meant no disrespect to your sister – a most charming woman. But such things are not uncommon, you know. Particularly among men of a certain stamp of mind.” Lascelles reached over to the table where Strange’s letters to Henry Woodhope lay. He poked at them with one finger until he found the one he wanted. “In this letter,” he said, running his eye over it, “Mr Strange has written, ‘Jeremy has told me that you did not do what I asked. But it is no matter. Jeremy has done it and the outcome is exactly as I imagined.’” Lascelles put down the letter and smiled pleasantly at Mr Woodhope. “What did Mr Strange ask you to do that you did not do? Who is Jeremy and what was the outcome?”
“Mr Strange … Mr Strange asked me to exhume my sister’s coffin.” Henry looked down. “Well, of course, I would not. So Strange wrote to his servant, a man called Jeremy Johns. A very arrogant fellow!”
“And Johns exhumed the body?”
“Yes. He has a friend in Clun who is a gravedigger. They did it together. I can scarcely describe my feelings when I discovered what this person had done.”
“Yes, quite. But what did they discover?”
“What ought they to discover but my poor sister’s corpse? However they chose to say they did not. They chose to put about a ridiculous tale.”
“What did they say?”
“I do not repeat servants’ tittle-tattle.”
“Of course you do not. But Mr Norrell desires that you put aside this excellent principle for a moment and speak openly and candidly – as he has spoken to you.”
Henry bit his lip. “They said the coffin contained a log of black wood.”
“No body?” said Lascelles.
“No body,” said Henry.
Lascelles looked at Mr Norrell. Mr Norrell looked down at his hands in his lap.
“But what has my sister’s death to do with any thing?” asked Henry with a frown. He turned to Mr Norrell. “I understood from what you said before that there was nothing extraordinary about my sister’s death. I thought you said no magic had taken place?”
“Oh! Upon the contrary!” declared Lascelles. “Certainly there was some magic taking place. There can be no doubt about that! The question is whose was it?”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Henry.
“Of course it is too deep for me!” said Lascelles. “It is a matter which only Mr Norrell can deal with.”
Henry looked in confusion from one to the other.
“Who is with Strange now?” asked Lascelles. “He has servants, I suppose?”
“No. No servants of his own. He is attended, I believe, by his landlord’s servants. His friends in Venice are an English family. They seem a very odd set of people, very much addicted to travelling, the females as much as the gentleman.”
“Name?”
“Greystone or Greyfield. I do not remember exactly.”
“And where are they from, these people called Greystone or Greyfield?”
“I do not know. I do not believe Strange ever told me. The gentleman was a ship’s doctor, I believe, and his wife – who is dead – was French.”
Lascelles nodded. The room was now so dim that Henry Woodhope could not see the faces of the other two men.
“You look pale and tired, Mr Woodhope,” remarked Mr Lascelles. “Perhaps the London air does not agree with you?”
“I do not sleep very well. Since these letters began to arrive I have dreamt of nothing but horrors.”
Lascelles nodded. “Sometimes a man may know things in his heart that he will not whisper in the open air, even to himself. You are very fond of Mr Strange, are you not?”
Henry Woodhope might perhaps be excused for looking a little puzzled at this since he had not the least idea what Lascelles was talking about, but all he said was, “Thank you for your advice, Mr Norrell. I will certainly do as you suggest and now, I wonder if I might take back my letters?”
“Ah! Well, as to that,” said Lascelles, “Mr Norrell wonders if he might borrow them for a time? He believes there is still much to learn from them.” Henry Woodhope looked as if he was about to protest, so Lascelles added in a somewhat reproachful tone, “He is only thinking of Mr Strange! It is all for the good of Mr Strange.”
So Henry Woodhope left the letters in the possession of Mr Norrell and Lascelles.
When he was gone Lascelles said, “Our next step must be to send someone to Venice.”
“Yes, indeed!” agreed Mr Norrell. “I should dearly love to know the truth of the matter.”
“Ah, yes, well.” Lascelles gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “Truth …”
Mr Norrell blinked his little eyes rapidly at Lascelles, but Lascelles did not explain what he meant. “I do not know who we can send,” continued Mr Norrell. “Italy is a very great distance. The journey takes almost two weeks, I understand. I could not spare Childermass for half so long.”
“Hmm,” said Lascelles, “I was not necessarily thinking of Childermass. Indeed there are several arguments against sending Childermass. You yourself have often suspected him of Strangite sympathies. It appears to me highly undesirable that the two of them should be alone together in a foreign country where they can plot against us. No, I know whom we can send.”
The next day Lascelles’s servants went out into various parts of London. Some of the places they visited were highly disreputable like the slums and rookeries of St Giles, Seven Dials and Saffron-hill; others were grand and patrician like Golden-square, St James’s and Mayfair. They gathered up a strange miscellany of persons: tailors, glove-makers, hat-makers, cobblers, money-lenders (a great many of these), bailiffs and sponging-house-keepers; and they brought them all back to Lascelles’s house in Bruton-street. When they were assembled in the kitchen (the master of the house having no intention of receiving such people in the drawing-room) Lascelles came down and paid each of them a sum of money on behalf of someone else. It was, he told them with a cold smile, an act of charity. After all if a man cannot be charitable at Christmas, when can he be?
Three days later, on St Stephen’s Day, the Duke of Wellington appeared suddenly in London. For the past year or so his Grace had been living in Paris, where he was in charge of the Allied Army of Occupation. Indeed it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that at present the Duke of Wellington ruled France. Now the question had arisen whether the Allied Army ought to remain in France or go to its various homes (which was what the French wanted). All that day the Duke was closeted with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, t
They had scarcely begun to eat when the conversation lapsed (a rare thing among so many politicians). The Ministers seemed to be waiting for someone to say something. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, cleared his throat a little nervously and said, “We do not think you will have heard, but it is reported from Italy that Strange has gone mad.”
The Duke paused for a moment with his spoon halfway to his mouth. He glanced round at them all and then continued eating his soup.
“You do not appear very much disturbed at the news,” said Lord Liverpool.
His Grace dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “No,” he said. “I am not.”
“Will you give us your reasons?” asked Sir Walter Pole.
“Mr Strange is eccentric,” said the Duke. “He might seem mad to the people around him. I dare say they are not used to magicians.”
The Ministers did not appear to find this quite as convincing an argument as Wellington intended they should. They offered him examples of Strange’s madness: his insistence that his wife was not dead, his curious belief that people had candles in their heads and the even odder circumstance that it was no longer possible to transport pineapples into Venice.
“The watermen who carry fruit from the mainland to the city say that the pineapples fly out of their boats as if they had been fired out of a cannon,” said Lord Sidmouth, a small, dried-up-looking person. “Of course they carry other sorts of fruit as well – apples and pears and so on. None of these occasion the least disturbance, but several people have been injured by the flying pineapples. Why the magician should have taken such a dislike to this particular fruit, no one knows.”