Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
“I shall be glad to take you, sir,” said Drawlight to Mr Norrell. “I am as fond as any thing of Vinculus.”
“Take care if you do go, sir,” advised Mrs Littleworth. “Some of these men can put one in a dreadful fright. The Cruickshanks brought a magician – a very dirty fellow – to the house to shew their friends some tricks, but when he got there it seemed he did not know any – and so they would not pay him. In a great rage he swore that he would turn the baby into a coal scuttle; and then they were in great confusion because the baby was nowhere to be found – though no new coal scuttles had appeared, just the old familiar ones. They searched the house from top to bottom and Mrs Cruikshank was half-dead with anxiety and the physician was sent for – until the nursemaid appeared with the baby at the door and it came out that she had taken it to shew her mother in James-street.”
Despite such enticements as these, Mr Norrell declined Mr Drawlight’s kind offer to take him to see Vinculus in his yellow booth.
“And what is your opinion of the Raven King, Mr Norrell?” asked Mrs Littleworth eagerly.
“I have none. He is a person I never think of.”
“Indeed?” remarked Mr Lascelles. “You will excuse my saying so, Mr Norrell, but that is rather an extraordinary statement. I never met a magician yet who did not declare that the Black King was the greatest of them all – the magician par excellence! A man who could, had he so desired, have wrested Merlin from the tree, spun the old gentleman on his head and put him back in again.”2
Mr Norrell said nothing.
“But surely,” continued Mr Lascelles, “none of the other Aureates could rival his achievements? Kingdoms in all the worlds that ever were.3 Bands of human knights and fairy knights to carry out his bidding. Magic woods that walked about. To say nothing of his longevity – a three-hundred-year reign – and at the end of it we are told that he was still, in appearance at least, a young man.”
Mr Norrell said nothing.
“But perhaps you think that the histories lie? I have frequently heard it suggested that the Raven King never existed – that he was not one magician at all, but a long train of magicians, all looking much the same. Perhaps that is what you think?”
Mr Norrell looked as if he would prefer to remain silent, but the directness of Mr Lascelles’s question obliged him to give a reply. “No,” he said at last, “I am quite certain that he existed. But I cannot consider his influence upon English magic as any thing other than deplorable. His magic was of a particularly pernicious sort and nothing would please me more than that he should be forgot as completely as he deserves.”
“And what of your fairy-servants, sir?” said Mr Lascelles. “Are they visible only to yourself? Or may other people perceive them?”
Mr Norrell sniffed and said he had none.
“What none?” exclaimed a lady in a carnation-pink gown, much surprized.
“You are wise, Mr Norrell,” said Mr Lascelles. “Tubbs versus Starhouse must stand as a warning to all magicians.”4
“Mr Tubbs was no magician,” said Mr Norrell. “Nor did I ever hear that he claimed to be one. But had he been the greatest magician in Christendom, he would still have been wrong to wish for the company of fairies. A more poisonous race or one more inimical to England has never existed. There have been far too many magicians too idle or ignorant to pursue a proper course of study, who instead bent all their energies upon acquiring a fairy-servant – and when they had got such a servant they depended upon him to complete all their business for them. English history is full of such men and some, I am glad to say, were punished for it as they deserved. Look at Bloodworth.”5
Mr Norrell made many new acquaintances, but kindled no pure flame of friendship in the hearts of any. In general, London found him disappointing. He did no magic, cursed no one, foretold nothing. Once at Mrs Godesdone’s house he was heard to remark that he thought it might rain, but this, if a prophecy, was a disappointing one, for it did not rain – indeed no rain fell until the following Saturday. He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him. He rarely had a good word to say for any other magician, except once when he praised a magician of the last century, Francis Sutton-Grove.6
“But I thought, sir,” said Mr Lascelles, “that Sutton-Grove was unreadable. I have always heard that De Generibus Artium was entirely unreadable.”
“Oh!” said Mr Norrell, “how it fares as an amusement for ladies and gentlemen I do not know, but I do not think that the serious student of magic can value Sutton-Grove too highly. In Sutton-Grove he will find the first attempt to define those areas of magic that the modern magician ought to study, all laid out in lists and tables. To be sure, Sutton-Grove’s system of classification is often erroneous – perhaps that is what you mean by ‘unreadable’? – nevertheless I know of no more pleasant sight in the world than a dozen or so of his lists; the student may run his eye over them and think ‘I know this,’ or, ‘I have this still to do,’ and there before him is work enough for four, perhaps five years.”
The tale of the statues in the Cathedral of York grew so stale in the retelling that people began to wonder if Mr Norrell had ever done anything else and Mr Drawlight was obliged to invent some new examples.
“But what can this magician do, Drawlight?” asked Mrs Godesdone one evening when Mr Norrell was not present.
“Oh, madam!” cried Drawlight. “What can he not do? Why! It was only a winter or so ago that in York – which as you may know, madam, is Mr Norrell’s native city – a great storm came out of the north and blew everybody’s washing into the mud and the snow – and so the aldermen, thinking to spare the ladies of the town the labour of washing everything again, applied to Mr Norrell – and he sent a troop of fairies to wash it all anew – and all the holes in people’s shirts and nightcaps and petticoats were mended and all the frayed edges were made whole and good again and everybody said that they had never seen such a dazzling whiteness in all their days!”
This particular story became very popular and raised Mr Norrell in everyone’s estimation for several weeks that summer, and consequently when Mr Norrell spoke, as he sometimes did, of modern magic, most of his audience supposed that this was the sort of thing he must mean.
But if the ladies and gentlemen whom Mr Norrell met in London’s drawing-rooms and dining-parlours were generally disappointed in him, then he was becoming equally dissatisfied with them. He complained constantly to Mr Drawlight of the frivolous questions that they put to him, and said that the cause of English magic had not been furthered one whit by the hours he had spent in their company.
One dull Wednesday morning at the end of September Mr Norrell and Mr Drawlight were seated together in the library in Hanover-square. Mr Drawlight was in the middle of a long tale of something that Mr F. had said in order to insult Lord S., and what Lady D. had thought about it all, when Mr Norrell suddenly said, “I would be grateful, Mr Drawlight, if you could advise me on the following important point: has any body informed the Duke of Portland of my arrival in London?”7
“Ah! sir,” cried Drawlight, “only you, with your modest nature, could suppose it possible. I assure you all the Ministers have heard of the extraordinary Mr Norrell by now.”
“But if that is the case,” said Mr Norrell, “then why has his Grace sent me no message? No, I begin to think that they must be entirely ignorant of my existence – and so, Mr Drawlight, I would be grateful if you could inform me of any connexions in Government that you may have to whom I could apply.”
“The Government, sir?” replied Mr Drawlight.
“I came here to be useful,” said Mr Norrell, plaintively. “I had hoped by now to play some distinguished part in the struggle against the French.”
“If you feel yourself neglected, sir, then I am heartily sorry for it!” cried Drawlight. “But there is no need, I do assure you. There are ladies and gentlemen all over Town who would be happy to see any little tricks or i
Mr Norrell said nothing.
“Well, sir,” said Mr Drawlight, with a smooth smile of his white teeth and a conciliatory look in his dark, liquid eyes, “we must not argue about it. I only wish I were able to oblige you but, as you see, it is entirely out of my power. The Government has its sphere. I have mine.”
In fact Mr Drawlight knew several gentlemen in various Government posts who might be very glad to meet Mr Drawlight’s friend and to listen to what that friend might have to say, in return for a promise from Mr Drawlight never to tell one or two curious things he knew about them. But the truth was that Mr Drawlight could see no advantage to himself in introducing Mr Norrell to any of these gentlemen; he preferred to keep Mr Norrell in the drawing-rooms and dining-parlours of London where he hoped, in time, to persuade him to perform those little tricks and what-not that Mr Drawlight’s acquaintance longed to see.
Mr Norrell began writing urgent letters to gentlemen in Government, which he shewed to Mr Drawlight before giving them to Childermass to deliver, but the gentlemen in Government did not reply. Mr Drawlight had warned Mr Norrell that they would not. Gentlemen in Government are generally kept pretty busy.
A week or so later Mr Drawlight was invited to a house in Soho-square to hear a famous Italian soprano, newly arrived from Rome. Naturally, Mr Norrell was invited too. But on arriving at the house Drawlight could not find the magician among the crowd. Lascelles was leaning upon the mantelpiece in conversation with some other gentlemen. Drawlight went up to him and inquired if he knew where Mr Norrell was.
“Oh!” said Mr Lascelles. “He is gone to pay a visit to Sir Walter Pole. Mr Norrell has important information which he wishes conveyed to the Duke of Portland immediately. And Sir Walter Pole is the man that Mr Norrell intends to honour with the message.”
“Portland?” cried another gentleman. “What? Are the Ministers got so desperate as that? Are they consulting magicians?”
“You have run away with a wrong idea,” smiled Mr Lascelles. “It is all Norrell’s own doing. He intends to offer his services to the Government. It seems he has a plan to defeat the French by magic. But I think it highly improbable that he will persuade the Ministers to listen to him. What with the French at their throats on the Continent, and everybody else at their throats in Parliament – I doubt if a more harassed set of gentlemen is to be found anywhere, or one with less attention to spare for a Yorkshire gentleman’s eccentricities.”
Like the hero of a fairy-tale Mr Norrell had discovered that the power to do what he wished had been his own all along. Even a magician must have relations, and it so happened that there was a distant connexion of Mr Norrell (on his mother’s side) who had once made himself highly disagreeable to Mr Norrell by writing him a letter. To prevent such a thing ever occurring again Mr Norrell had made this man a present of eight hundred pounds (which was what the man wanted), but I am sorry to say that this failed to suppress Mr Norrell’s mother’s relative, who was steeped in villainy, and he had written a second letter to Mr Norrell in which he heaped thanks and praise upon his benefactor and declared that, “… henceforth I shall consider myself and my friends as belonging to your interest and we hold ourselves ready to vote at the next election in accordance with your noble wishes, and if, in time to come, it should appear that any service of mine might be useful to you, your commands will only honour, and elevate in the opinion of the World, your humble and devoted servant, Wendell Markworthy.”
Thus far Mr Norrell had never found it necessary to elevate Mr Markworthy in the opinion of the world by honouring him with any commands, but it now appeared (it was Childermass that had found it out) that Mr Markworthy had used the money to secure for himself and his brother clerkships in the East India Company. They had gone to India and ten years later had returned very rich men. Having never received any instructions from Mr Norrell, his first patron, as to which way to vote, Mr Markworthy had followed the lead of Mr Bonnell, his superior at the East India Company, and had encouraged all his friends to do the same. He had made himself very useful to Mr Bonnell, who was in turn a great friend of the politician, Sir Walter Pole. In the busy worlds of trade and government this gentleman owes that one a favour, while he in his turn is owed a favour by someone else, and so on until a chain is formed of promises and obligations. In this case the chain extended all the way from Mr Norrell to Sir Walter Pole and Sir Walter Pole was now a Minister.
6
“Magic is not respectable, sir.”
October 1807
It was a difficult time to be a Minister.
The war went from bad to worse and the Government was universally detested. As each fresh catastrophe came to the public’s notice some small share of blame might attach itself to this or that person, but in general everyone united in blaming the Ministers, and they, poor things, had no one to blame but each other – which they did more and more frequently.
It was not that the Ministers were dull-witted – upon the contrary there were some brilliant men among them. Nor were they, upon the whole, bad men; several led quite blameless domestic lives and were remarkably fond of children, music, dogs, landscape painting. Yet so unpopular was the Government that, had it not been for the careful speeches of the Foreign Secretary, it would have been almost impossible to get any piece of business through the House of Commons.
The Foreign Secretary was a quite peerless orator. No matter how low the Government stood in the estimation of everyone, when the Foreign Secretary stood up and spoke – ah! how different everything seemed then! How quickly was every bad thing discovered to be the fault of the previous administration (an evil set of men who wedded general stupidity to wickedness of purpose). As for the present Ministry, the Foreign Secretary said that not since the days of Antiquity had the world seen gentlemen so virtuous, so misunderstood and so horribly misrepresented by their enemies. They were all as wise as Solomon, as noble as Caesar and as courageous as Mark Antony; and no one in the world so much resembled Socrates in point of honesty as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But in spite of all these virtues and abilities none of the Ministers’ plans to defeat the French ever seemed to come to anything and even their cleverness was complained of. Country gentlemen who read in their newspapers the speeches of this or that Minister would mutter to themselves that he was certainly a clever fellow. But the country gentlemen were not made comfortable by this thought. The country gentlemen had a strong suspicion that cleverness was somehow unBritish. That sort of restless, unpredictable brilliance belonged most of all to Britain’s arch-enemy, the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte; the country gentlemen could not approve it.
Sir Walter Pole was forty-two and, I am sorry to say, quite as clever as any one else in the Cabinet. He had quarrelled with most of the great politicians of the age at one time or another and once, when they were both very drunk, had been struck over the head with a bottle of madeira by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Afterwards Sheridan remarked to the Duke of York, “Pole accepted my apologies in a handsome, gentleman-like fashion. Happily he is such a plain man that one scar more or less can make no significant difference.”
To my mind he was not so very plain. True, his features were all extremely bad; he had a great face half as long again as other faces, with a great nose (quite sharp at the end) stuck into it, two dark eyes like clever bits of coal and two little stubby eyebrows like very small fish swimming bravely in a great sea of face. Yet, taken together, all these ugly parts made a rather pleasing whole. If you had seen that face in repose (proud and not a little melancholy), you would have imagined that it must always look so, that no face in existence could be so ill-adapted to express feeling. But you could not have been more wrong.
Nothing was more characteristic of Sir Walter Pole than Surprize. His eyes grew large, his eyebrows rose half an inch upon his face and he leant suddenly backwards and altogether
Once, while making a speech to a mob in the City, Sir Walter had memorably likened England and her politicians to an orphaned young lady left in the care of a pack of lecherous, avaricious old men. These scoundrels, far from offering the young lady protection from the wicked world, stole her inheritance and plundered her house. And if Sir Walter’s audience stumbled on some of his vocabulary (the product of an excellent classical education) it did not much matter. All of them were capable of imagining the poor young lady standing on her bed in her petticoats while the leading Whig politicians of the day ransacked her closets and sold off all her bits of things to the rag man. And all the young gentlemen found themselves pleasantly shocked by the picture.
Sir Walter had a generous spirit and was often kind-hearted. He told someone once that he hoped his enemies all had reason to fear him and his friends reason to love him – and I think that upon the whole they did. His cheerful manner, his kindness and cleverness, the great station he now held in the world – these were even more to his credit as he maintained them in the face of problems that would almost certainly have brought down a lesser man. Sir Walter was distressed for money. I do not mean that he merely lacked for cash. Poverty is one thing, Sir Walter’s debts quite another. Miserable situation! – and all the more bitter since it was no fault of his: he had never been extravagant and he had certainly never been foolish, but he was the son of one imprudent man and the grandson of another. Sir Walter had been born in debt. Had he been a different sort of man, then all might have been well. Had he been at all inclined to the Navy then he might have made his fortune in prize money; had he loved farming he might have improved his lands and made his money with corn. Had he even been a Minister fifty years before he might have lent out Treasury-money at twenty per cent interest and pocketed the profit. But what can a modern politician do? – he is more likely to spend money than make it.